"It may perhaps be better, Sir," said Chandos, "to keep the door by my cottage locked. Then the men will not pass that way to their work. Here is my key; I can go round by the house. Sandes has also a key, which can be fetched from him, if you like."
"Do you know when Sandes left the garden?" asked Mr. Tracy quickly, as if a new thought had struck him.
"A little before myself," answered Chandos. "I met him and his boy in the walk going homeward."
"And are you certain this crime had not been committed before he went home?" was the next inquiry.
"Perfectly, Sir," said Chandos; "for I must have seen the body if it lay by the fish-pond, as you said just now. Sandes must have been out of the grounds, if he went straight forward, before I reached the basin."
"It is all very strange!" said Mr. Tracy; and, taking the key, he left the spot, followed close by Chandos, and some of the servants. No further conversation took place, however; and the young gentleman, with a feeling of deep gloom, returned to his cottage, leaving fate to direct the course of events which had commenced so terribly.
CHAPTER XXI.
It was half-past eleven when Mr. Tracy returned; and Emily and Rose had retired to rest. He had been called out of the room on business, and neither of the two girls had an idea that anything painful had occurred which might render their waiting his return either a duty or a consolation to their father. Emily's days were days of hard labour; of constant combat with feelings wearing and oppressive; and she first proposed to her sister to go to bed.
"I am weary, dear Rose," she said; "weary of the world, and of myself. Perhaps I may sleep, and that would be a blessing."
Rose hung upon her neck, and wept; but she answered not in words, for she dared not counsel, and she could not console.