"Mr. Oswald Cray!" repeated Neal, plunging into reflection. "On my honour, sir, I have not the least idea of what it is you mean. A visitor at night to my late master in his study? Stay, I do remember something of it. I--yes--I was outside, taking a mouthful of fresh air preparatory to retiring to rest, and I saw some one--a stranger I took him to be--come stealthily in at the gate, and he was afterwards shut in with my master. I'm sure sir, I beg your pardon, even at this distance of time, if I was mistaken. I feared he might be a suspicious character, and I think I did go to the window, anxious for my master's personal safety. I could not have supposed it was you, sir."
Was it possible to take Neal at a disadvantage? It did not seem so.
"And it was anxiety for your master's personal safety that caused you afterwards to recount this to Mr. Oswald Cray? Eh?"
"Does Mr. Oswald Cray say I recounted it to him, sir?" inquired Neal, probably not feeling sure of his ground just here.
"That's my business," said Captain Davenal, while Sara looked round at Neal. "You did recount it to him."
"All I can say, sir, is, that if I did, I must have had some good motive in it. I cannot charge my memory after this lapse of time. Were I in any anxiety touching my master, Mr. Oswald Cray was probably the gentleman I should carry it to, seeing he was a friend of the family. I have--I think--some faint remembrance that I did speak to Mr. Oswald Cray of that mysterious visitor," slowly added Neal, looking fixedly up in the air, as if he were tying to descry the sun through a fog. "It's very likely that I did, sir, not being at ease myself upon the point."
Captain Davenal was losing patience. It seemed impossible to bring anything home to Neal with any sort of satisfaction. At the close of the captain's interview with Oswald Cray, the latter had mentioned-- but not in any ill-feeling to Neal--that that functionary had spoken to him of the night interview at Dr. Davenal's; had said he was outside the window at the time. Oswald had not said more; he deemed it well not to do so; but Captain Davenal had become at once convinced that it was but one of Neal's prying tricks. He turned to Miss Davenal.
"Aunt Bettina, this is waste of time. In nearly the last interview I ever had with my father he told me he had doubts of Neal. He feared the man was carrying on a game of deceit. I know he has been doing it all along. Will you discharge him?"
"I can't understand it at all," returned Miss Bettina.
"I'll enlighten you one of these days, when you are not very deaf, and we can have a quiet half-hour together. Sara, what do you say?"