"Pray, Sir Reginald, be good enough to drop that high tragedy tone," said Victor, with supreme coolness. "It is all very well to be addressed by you as a fiend and an evil genius once in a way; but upon frequent repetition, that sort of thing becomes tiresome. You have not told me why you are wandering about the country instead of eating your dinner in a Christian-like manner at the rectory?"
"Do you not know the reason, Carrington?" asked the baronet, gazing fixedly at his companion.
"How should I know anything about it?"
"Because to-day's work has been your doing," answered Reginald, passionately; "because you are mixed up in the dark business of this day, as you were mixed up in that still darker treachery at Raynham Castle. I know now why you insisted upon my choosing the horse called 'Niagara' for my cousin Lionel; I know now why you were so interested in the appearance of that other horse, which had already caused the death of more than one rider; I know why you are here, and why Lionel Dale has disappeared in the course of the day."
"He has disappeared!" exclaimed Victor Carrington; "he is not dead?"
"I know nothing but that he has disappeared. We missed him in the midst of the hunt. We returned to the rectory in the evening, expecting to find him there."
"Did you expect that, Eversleigh?"
"Others did, at any rate."
"And did you not find him ?"
"No. We left the house, after a brief delay, to seek for him; I among the others. We were to ride by different roads; to make inquiries of every kind; to obtain information from every source. My brain was dazed. I let my horse take his own road."