“I should think not. It’s cold to-day, isn’t it?”
“Frightful cold, sir.”
“And you could come through it with this improbable story! Use your sense another time, Lee. Here, Johnny, take Lee into the kitchen, and tell them to give him some cold beef and beer.”
I handed him over, with the order, to Molly; who went into one of her tantrums at it, for she was in the midst of pastry-making. The Squire was sitting with his head bent, looking as perplexed as an owl, when I got back to the room.
“Johnny—shut the door. Something has come into my mind. Do you recollect Thomas Rymer’s coming up one evening, and wanting to give me a five-pound note?”
“Quite well, sir.”
“Well; I—I am not so sure now that there’s nothing in this fresh tale.”
I sat down; and in a low voice told him all. Of the fit of sobbing in which I had found Rymer that same night in the Ravine; and that I had known all along it was the son who had done it.
“Bless my heart!” cried the Squire, softly, very much taken aback. “It’s that, perhaps, that has been making Rymer so ill.”
“He said it was slowly killing him, sir.”