"George North Castlemaine," repeated Mr. Castlemaine, as if wishing to familiarise himself with the name. "And you have been staying here with a view of tracing out Anthony's fate?" he added, quickly arriving at the conclusion, and feeling by rapid instinct that this young man was in good truth his nephew.
"Yes, I have, sir And I had begun to despair of doing it. Is he still living?"
"No, lie is dead. He died that fatal February night that you have heard of. You have heard talk of the shot: that shot killed him."
In spite of his effort for composure, George allowed a groan to escape his lips. The Master of Greylands echoed it.
"George, my nephew, it has been an unlucky year with the Castlemaines," he said in a wailing tone. "Death has claimed three of us; two of the deaths, at least, have been violent, and all of them have been that sudden death we pray against Sunday by Sunday in the Litany. My brother Peter; my nephew Anthony; and now my son!"
The suspicion, that had been looming in George's mind since the morning, rose to the surface: a suspicion of more curious things than one.
"I think I understand it," he said; "I see it all. In some such affray with the smugglers as occurred last night, Anthony met his death. A shot killed him; as it has now killed another? A smuggler's shot?"
"A smuggler's shot--true. But there was no affray."
"Tell me all, Uncle James," said the young man, his beseeching tone amounting to pain. "Let me share all--the trouble and doings of the past. It shall be hidden in my breast for ever."
"What is it that you suspect?"