Marston nodded.
"There is a kind of vault, is not there, in the demesne, a family burial-place?" inquired the visitor.
"Yes, sir," replied Marston, curtly.
"Well?" drawled Skelton.
"Well, sir, what then?" responded Marston.
"Why, as the wish of the parties is to have him buried—poor fellow!—as quietly as possible, I think he might just as well be laid there as anywhere else!"
"Had I desired it, Mr. Skelton, I should myself have made the offer," said Marston, abruptly.
"Then you don't wish it?" said Skelton.
"No, sir; certainly not—most peremptorily not," answered Marston, with more sharpness than, in his early days, he would have thought quite consistent with politeness.
"Perhaps," replied Skelton, for want of something better to say, and with a callous sort of levity; "perhaps you hold the idea—some people do—that murdered men can't rest in their graves until their murderers have expiated their guilt?"