They went out and proceeded unmolested to the house of Justice Hare. It was past nine, then. “I am so much obliged to you Mr. Carlyle,” whispered Richard, as they walked up the path.
“I wish I could help you more effectually, Richard, and clear up the mystery. Is Barbara on the watch? Yes; there’s the door slowly opening.”
Richard stole across the hall and into the parlor to his mother. Barbara approached and softly whispered to Mr. Carlyle, standing, just outside the portico; her voice trembled with the suspense of what the answer might be.
“Is it the same man—the same Thorn?”
“No. Richard says this man bears no resemblance to the real one.”
“Oh!” uttered Barbara, in her surprise and disappointment. “Not the same! And for the best part of poor Richard’s evening to have been taken up for nothing.”
“Not quite nothing,” said Mr. Carlyle. “The question is now set at rest.”
“Set at rest!” repeated Barbara. “It is left in more uncertainty than ever.”
“Set at rest so far as regards Captain Thorn. And whilst our suspicions were concentrated upon him, we thought not of looking to other quarters.”
When they entered the sitting-room Mrs. Hare was crying over Richard, and Richard was crying over her; but she seized the hand of Mr. Carlyle.