letter I sent yesterday was not signed in full--only my initials--but

I have sent letters signed in full, and she may have kept them. It's a confounded business altogether, and I wish I had never seen her."

"It's too late to wish that," replied Jack, significantly; and then he resumed grooming the horse, while with a moody brow and an uneasy heart Henderson returned to the house, feeling that he would be almost sure to be called to account for the letter he had written the day before to poor Elsie Wray.

And he was. The afternoon had not passed when a police-constable arrived at Stourton Grange and asked to see Mr. Henderson. With a sinking heart he went to this interview, and the policeman informed him that he was the bearer of a summons for him to be present at the inquiry to be held on the death of Elsie Wray during the following morning.

"And I've one for your groom, Jack Reid, Mr. Henderson," continued the policeman, with his eyes fixed searchingly on Henderson's changing face; "he delivered a letter it seems to Miss Wray on the day of her death."

"Yes," faltered Henderson; "but I did not go near."

"You must reserve your evidence until you are before the coroner, and you had better give it carefully," and with these warning words the policeman took his departure, leaving Henderson a prey to the most morbid dread.

And scarcely had the constable gone when Mrs. Henderson crept into the room with an almost colorless face.

"Tom," she said, in trembling accents, "what has that man been here for?"

"I've to attend the inquest on that girl found in Fern Dene to-morrow morning," answered Henderson, huskily, turning away his head.

"They say it's the girl from the Wayside Inn. Oh, Tom, did you go and meet her?" asked Mrs. Henderson, piteously.

"I never went near her; but, mother, a confounded thing has happened. I was ass enough to write to her to ask her to meet me; I wanted to buy her off, in fact. When I was almost a boy I got entangled with her, and she was always urging some claims or other that she thought she had against me, and I wanted to pay her a big sum and be done with it. Well, I asked her to meet me last night, but I did not go. I went out for a short time, as you remember, and then I turned back and came home. If you are questioned you must say I was home early, or never out. Do you understand? They will want to throw suspicion on me on account of the confounded letter I wrote. The girl must have gone, I suppose, and shot herself because I did not go, for her father's revolver was lying beside her."

Mrs. Henderson had turned absolutely white during this garbled narrative. From this hour she never doubted her son's guilt. She looked at him with terror-stricken eyes, but no word came from her trembling lips.

"You must say I was home early; only out a few minutes," repeated Henderson, doggedly, and almost with a gasp Mrs. Henderson whispered out a few words.

"You were--at home early," she said.

"That's it; you mayn't be asked, but that's your answer, and now I'll go out for a walk, for I've a disgusting headache still."

He turned and went out of the room as he spoke, and Mrs. Henderson leaned against the table for support.

"Oh! my unhappy boy," she murmured with her white lips; "my miserable boy!"

In a few minutes she saw him go down the avenue smoking, and then with feeble, trembling footsteps, as though suddenly aged, she proceeded to her son's bedroom. She locked the door, and then drew out her housewifely bunch of keys. With these, one after the other, she tried to unlock the drawer in Henderson's wardrobe, where she had seen him hide the coat he had worn the night before, and from which he had cut the stained sleeve. At last one of her keys opened the drawer, and with shaking fingers Mrs. Henderson drew out the coat she had seen him roll up and place there. With a sickening dread she now unrolled it. Half of one of the sleeves was gone as she knew, but a faint stain--a smudge, as it were, on the breast--quickly attracted her attention.

She shuddered as she looked at it; shuddered and turned faint, but with an heroic effort she conquered this failing of her bodily powers. She relocked the drawer, and wrapped her son's mutilated coat in some brown paper she found lying on the table. She carried this parcel to her own room, after carefully brushing out the grate in Henderson's; and wrapping the burnt fragments it contained in paper, she carried these away also.

When she reached her bedroom she concealed these two parcels, and then rang for her housemaid. She bade this maid make up and light the fire, for, as it was summer time, there were no coals in the room.

"I feel so chilly, Jane," she said; "I must have got cold, and will be all the better for a fire."

The fire was soon lit, and when it had burnt up and the servant was gone, Mrs. Henderson at once commenced to cut her son's coat to pieces, and burnt it gradually. She was afraid to make a smell of burning by doing it altogether. But every shred of it was at last consumed, and Mrs. Henderson watched it disappear with a miserable heart.

In the meanwhile Henderson had once more strolled toward the stables, and there, as he expected to find, was Jack Reid. The groom looked up and nodded when he saw his master approaching.

"I wanted a word wi' ye, sir," he said; "I've been hanging about, and all the country-side's up about the murder."

"I know nothing about it," said Henderson, doggedly, "but--you were right, Jack, about the letter; the policeman who served the summons about the inquest said something about you having taken one."

"I knew I was right; folks saw me gi' it to her, and there's a great talk over it. And the police ha' been examining where she was found all the day, and they say she must ha' shot herself, or been shot, on the high ridge above the Dene. There's blood there, and she must either ha' fallen into the Dene or been thrown, as the branches are broke all the way down from the top to where she was found."

Henderson's face grew literally ghastly as he listened to these words, and his groom watched him with a certain grim humor in his expression.

"I never went near," said Henderson, huskily.

"Ay, stick to that; ye never went near; ye only asked her to go; and one good job is that the old man's pistol was found beside her."

"She must have shot herself. My mother will tell them I was in the house all night; I never was out."

The groom made no answer to this, and after a few moments' silence Henderson turned sullenly away. There was something in the groom's manner that frightened him; a suppressed insolence and unbelief in the man's tone.

And later in the day, as he sat moodily smoking after dinner, he received a message by one of the maids that Jack Reid wished to speak to him. He rose and went to the hall door, where he found the groom.

"May I ha' a word wi' ye, sir, about one of the horses?" he said, with a significant look, and Henderson followed him out as he spoke.

"It's not about the horses, sir," he continued, as soon as they were a little distance from the house, "but I didn't want any o' the women folk to hear what I have got to say. But the missus mustn't say ye were never out last night. Ben Wood, the carter, saw ye out about half-past eight, and is ready to swear it. But I've sent for ye to say that ye'd best say ye were down at the stables then, and I'll back ye out. Say ye were on yer way to the stables when Ben met ye."

"Very well, Jack, you must swear this, or there'll be no end of trouble," answered Henderson.

"Ay, trouble enough, anyhow; for, master, I've another word for ye--ye're watched. The police ha' their eye on ye, and ye'll not go in or out of the house now unless they know."