"I fear I do," sighed Ella.
"So far as people's recollection serves, Mrs. Toynbee mentioned simply that the bureau had been removed to your morning-room: Miss Winter's morning-room. Now, how should a common thief know which was Miss Winter's morning-room? It is only since the Squire died and your return that you have made it such."
"True," assented Ella.
"And altogether, taking one thing with another, I feel inclined to think it might have been no common thief who took them."
Ella lifted her eyes quickly. "Have you any suspicions?--of any one in particular?"
"No, my dear; no," he answered slowly; and, she thought, dubiously. "We can but wait. Perhaps Wade may ferret out more particulars."
But, on the same evening, when the Vicar was at home, safe within the four walls of his study, he dropped a word or two that nearly scared his daughter out of her senses. Somehow he had caught up a doubt in his own mind of Philip Cleeve.
"Oh, papa!" exclaimed Maria, in an accent of indignant horror.
"I don't say it was he, Maria; I should be very sorry to do that, or to breathe a syllable of this doubt to any one but you. Still, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that things with regard to Philip do look somewhat suspicious--and Dr. Downes has long thought the same."
"Papa, papa!" she repeated.