Gusty, shooting the grouse on the moors, had found his purse emptied of its last coin. He wrote to his father for more money: wrote and wrote; but none arrived: neither money nor letter. Being particularly in want of supplies, he borrowed a sovereign or two from his friends, and came off direct to see the reason why. Arrived within a few miles of home he heard very ugly rumours; stories that startled him. So he waited and came on by night, thinking it more prudent not to show himself.
“Tell me all about it, Johnny Ludlow, for the love of goodness!” he cried, his voice a little hoarse with agitation, his hand grasping my arm like a vice. “I have been taking a look at the place outside”—pointing up the road towards Parrifer Hall—“but it seems to be empty.”
It was empty, except for a man who had charge of the things until the sale could take place. Softening the narrative a little, and not calling everything by the name the public called it, I gave the facts to Gusty.
He drew a deep breath at the end, like a hundred sighs in one. Then I asked him how it was he had not heard these things—had not been written to.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I have been moving about Scotland: perhaps a letter of theirs may have miscarried; and I suppose my later letters did not reach them. The last letter I had was from Constance, giving me an account of some grand fête here that had taken place the previous day.”
“Yes. I was at it with Todhetley and the Whitneys. The—the crisis came three or four days after that.”
“Johnny, where’s my father?” he asked, after a pause, his voice sunk to a whisper.
“It is not known where he is.”
“Is it true that he is being—looked for?”