A track of human feet was impressed on the white surface from the door to the steps that gave access to the vegetable garden.
Without exchanging a word, both followed the track, walking wide of it, one on each side. A footprint marked each step, and the track led, less distinctly, down the lower garden to the door in the wall at the bottom, through which it doubtless passed, as there were no signs of a scramble. The door was locked.
'Have you the key?' asked Philip.
'I have not. There is one on Mr. Pennycomequick's bunch, and my mother has a second.'
'It matters not,' said Philip. 'Outside is a path along which the mill people have gone this morning to their work, and have trampled out all the traces of our mysterious visitor. The prints are those of unshod feet. The shape of the impression tells me that.'
They returned to the house.
'This unpleasant incident convinces me of one thing,' said Philip. 'It will not do for me to live in this place alone. I can explain this mysterious affair in one or other way. Either one of the servants having a brother, cousin, or lover, whom she wished to favour with the pick of my uncle's clothes, that she knew were laid out for distribution, allowed him to come and choose for himself——'
'Or else——'
'Or else the gardener left the little door in the wall ajar. Some passing tramp, seeing it open, ventured in, and finding nothing worth taking in the garden, pursued his explorations to the house, where he was fortunate enough to find another door open, through which he effected his entrance and helped himself to what he first laid hands on. He would have taken more had he not been disturbed by you.'
'He was not disturbed by me.'