"Don't know, mother. Sir Henry Smith was at church this morning, and another gentleman with him, a stranger."
"Ah! Well, I'm glad the family's come back to Carsham. I don't hold with people having a beautiful place like that, and leaving it to stand empty. It's a bad thing for the country, and for themselves too, careering in foreign lands and spending a lot of money as had better be spent at home. Dear me! who's this?"
Mrs. Randal heard the click of the gate, and looked up to see three gentlemen turning into the little yard.
"John," she said, "here's Mr. Sands—and Sir Henry himself, I do believe."
And the stranger. While his mother was welcoming Mr. Sands, and telling good-natured Sir Henry, with her kindest smile, that she remembered him as a little boy, John forgot his manners in gazing at the stranger. Why did he look so queer, and why did his eyes wander so anxiously round the low, shady old room?
"Mrs. Randal," said the Vicar in his gentle voice, when Sir Henry had said a few kind words, "we have come on rather a strange errand. And your son looks as if he almost guessed what it may be."
There was a moment's silence, while he and Sir Henry and Mrs. Randal all looked at John. She turned a little pale, and his colour deepened; he was half ashamed to be caught staring at the stranger. Colonel Maxwell seemed to notice nothing of all this. He was looking out of the door now; then he turned to Mrs. Randal and said in an absent, hurried way—"May I ask—where is the little girl who has been living with you?"
"She is in the garden, sir," answered Mrs. Randal, her voice trembling. "John, my dear, will you call Lily?"
"If the gentleman will please to excuse me," said John, "I would be glad to know first what he wants with Lily."
"It's all right, Randal," said Sir Henry Smith, rather impatiently. "We know how the child was found, and all that. It is a curious coincidence that my friend Colonel Maxwell had a little girl of the same age who disappeared just at that time. He saw the child in church to-day, and noticed a likeness. So be good enough to call her, will you. The sooner the truth is known, one way or the other, the better for everybody."