"Certainly not! Though, should I find Mrs. Berners here, as well as yourself, as I think now highly probable, I shall have a most painful duty to perform."
"Ah, sir! within the last terrible month, I have become all too much accustomed to the sight of friends with 'painful duties to perform,' as they delicately put it. But you will be spared the pain. Mrs. Berners is not here with me."
"Not here with you? Then where is she?"
"Excuse me, Mr. Benthwick," said Mr. Berners, gravely; "you certainly forget yourself; you cannot possibly expect me to tell you—even if I knew myself," he added, in an undertone.
"No, I cannot, indeed," admitted the sheriff. "Nor did I come here to look for Mrs. Berners, having had neither information nor suspicion that she was here; nevertheless, if I find her I shall be constrained to arrest her. Were it not for my duty, I could almost pray that I might not find her."
"I do not think you will," said Mr. Berners, grimly.
And meanwhile the officers and the militia-men, at a sign from the sheriff, had surrounded the chapel so that it would be impossible for any one who might be within its walls to escape from it.
"Now, Mr. Berners, as you assure me that your wife is not within this building, perhaps you may have no objection to enter it with me," said the sheriff.
"Not the least in the world," answered Lyon Berners, leading the way into the chapel, as the sheriff dismounted from his horse, threw the bridle to an attendant, and followed.
The interior was soon thoroughly searched, having nothing but its bare walls and vacant windows, with the exception of Sybil's forsaken bed near the altar, the smouldering fire in what had once been the middle aisle, and the little pile of brushwood in the corner.