"True--of course it is. Why should it not be true? Does the fact of my having been here corroborate this cock-and-bull story? You ought to know me better, Sophy, and you too, Phelps."
"I couldn't believe it--I didn't," cried the girl.
"Nor I. We both told him that he lied. But I must admit that things looked bad for you, as he put it. Why didn't you tell us you were at Heathton on that night? Why did you come? Was there any serious reason for such secrecy?"
"No reason whatsoever," replied the young man frankly, "save the trifling one that I did not want to bother Sophy with my suspicions. Yes, I came by the 8.30 train from Bournemouth, and I returned at half-past eleven. I had to go to another station to keep my secret, you know. Jarks saw me in the graveyard about ten, and as I wished to keep my visit quiet, for the reason I have told you, I gave him something to hold his tongue. It appears that he did not. I suppose Lestrange bribed him?"
"Well, no," said the Rector, "not exactly. Jarks, in his cups, told that scoundrel Gramp, and he told Lestrange."
"Oh! So there are two of them in league to make trouble. A proper pair of scoundrels!"
"But," said Sophy, more composedly, "you have not told us why you came."
"I came," said her lover, determined now to make a clean breast of it, "to look at the vault--to see that all was safe."
The Rector uttered an exclamation of astonishment.
"Did you expect, then, that there would be some foul play?"