"The very same. There is but that one path, sir."
"And that was the last you saw of them?"
Ann Canham stopped to snuff the candle before she answered. "That was all, sir. I was hastening to get back to father, knowing he'd be wanting me, for I was late. Mr. Bowen kep' on telling me it was strange I heard nothing of the encounter, but I never did. I must ha' been out of the field long before Mr. Chattaway could get up to Master Rupert."
"Pity but you had waited and gone back," observed Mr. Peterby, musingly. "It might have prevented what occurred."
"Pity, perhaps, but I had, sir. It never entered my head that anything bad would come of their meeting. Since, after I came to know what did happen, I wondered I had not thought of it. But if I had, sir, I shouldn't have dared go back after Mr. Chattaway. It wouldn't have been my place."
Mr. Peterby sat looking at Ann, as she imagined. In point of fact he was so buried in thought as to see nothing. He rose from the settle. "And this is all you know about it! Well, it amounts to nothing beyond establishing the fact that all three—Rupert Trevlyn, Mr. Chattaway, and the boy—were on the spot at that time. Good night, Canham. I hope your rheumatism will get easier."
Ann Canham opened the door, and wished him good night. When he was fairly gone she slipped the bolt, and stood with her back against it, to recover her equanimity.
"Father, my heart was in my mouth all the time he was here," she repeated. "I be all of a twitter."
"More stupid you!" was the sympathising answer of old Canham.
The public ferment, I say, did not lessen, and the matter was at length carried before the magistrates; so far as that the advice of one of them was asked by Mr. Peterby. It happened that Mr. Chattaway had gone this very day to Barmester. He was standing at the entrance to the inn-yard where he generally put up, when his solicitor, Flood, approached, evidently in a state of excitement.