"No more can I," says he, "and I took a pretty stiff dose of wine, too, for my nightcap. I ha'n't slept a wink all night."
"You've snored pretty continually, nevertheless," says I.
"As for that," says he, "I'm a man that must be doing something; and 'tis as easy to snore as to wear spots on your face; but one is no more a sign of sleep than t'other is of a distemper."
"Why couldn't you sleep, Matthew?" says I. "What's amiss?"
"Well," says he, "De Pino and the female ought to have come in yesterday morning at the latest."
"But you said you might have made a mistake as to the distance?"
"So I might," says he slyly; "but, to make quite sure, I took the pains to inquire last night of my friend at the inn, outside the town, and I found I had not."
"Then you believe they ought to have been here before now?" says I sharply.
"Yes, master," says he gravely. "They ought to have come in the night afore last, or yesterday morning at the latest. When it came noon yesterday I gave them up; yet I stayed there in the hope I was wrong. First saying to myself that, being warned of your escape by the factor, he had thought it well to make an ambush, and wait for you to come up; and then that he had stopped for some reason of his business; but these arguments wouldn't do—and, to cut a long story short, I made up my mind when I saw the gates closed last night, and no sign of De Pino along the road for half a mile—I made up my mind, I say, that he had taken another road."
"Taken another road!" says I, in a terrible amazement.