In the breakfast-room at the Red Court Farm, seated at its well-laid morning-table, was Richard Thornycroft. Seated at it only: not eating: his plate was unsupplied, his coffee stood cold before him. He seemed to be in some unpleasant meditation, every line of his dark face speaking of perplexity.

To be broken in upon by the irruption of numerous visitors, evidently astonished him not a little. The attendants on Mr. Thornycroft had gathered on the way from the Half-moon beach, just as some balls gather in rolling, and six or seven friends followed in on the tail of the master of the Red Court Farm. Isaac, on the contrary, seemed to have fallen away from it, for he did not enter with the rest. Richard rose to welcome them, with scant courtesy.

"Where\'s Cyril?" began the justice. "Is he down yet?"

"I don\'t know," answered Richard, taking out his watch and glancing at it. "I have not seen him. It is early yet."

"And Cyril never is very early," added the justice, quickly assuming that his youngest son was in his bed still. "Have you heard the news, Richard?"

"Yes," was Richard\'s laconic answer.

"What do you think of it? How do you suppose it could have happened?"

"I don\'t think about it," returned Richard. "I conclude that if he did not shoot himself, he must have got into some quarrelling fray. He drank enough wine last evening to heat his brain, and we had proof that he was fond of meddling in what did not concern him. The extraordinary part of the business is, what brought him back on the plateau, after he had once started on his journey."

"I\'ll go up and arouse Cyril, and know where he left Hunter. Gentlemen, if you will sit down and take some breakfast, we shall be glad of your company. There\'s a capital round of beef. Hallo you girls!" called out the justice, striding away in the direction of the kitchen, "some of you come in here and attend. Sinnett, let some more ham and eggs be sent in."

Nothing loath, the gentlemen responded at once to the invitation: most of them had not breakfasted. The Rev. Mr. Southall made one. The round of beef was capital, as its master said; the game pies looked tempting, the cold ham, the hot rolls, the fresh eggs, the toasted bacon, all were excellent. Apparently, the Red Court Farm kept itself prepared for an impromptu public breakfast, just as well as it did for an impromptu dinner.

Mr. Thornycroft ascended the stairs, and presently his voice was heard on the landing, calling to Cyril. But it died away in the echoes of the large house, and there was no answer; unless the opening of the door of his wife\'s room by her maid could be called such.

"Did you want anything, sir?" she asked, looking out.

"Nothing particular. How is your lady this morning?"

"Much the same, sir, thank you."

The maid shut the door again, and Mr. Thornycroft went on to Cyril\'s chamber. He found it empty. It was so unusual for Cyril to be up and out early, that he felt a sort of surprise. That he had not gone far, however, was evident, as his watch and purse lay on the chest of drawers. The justice crossed the corridor and knocked at his daughter\'s room.

"Are you up, Mary Anne?"

"Yes," responded a faint and hurried voice within. "What do you want, papa?"

"I want you. Open the door."

But Miss Thornycroft did not obey. The justice, never remarkable for patience, when his behests were disregarded, laid hold of the handle and shook it with his strong hand.

"Open the door, I say, Mary Anne. What, girl! are you afraid of me?"

Miss Thornycroft slowly opened the door, and presented herself. She was in a handsome grey silk dress, but it looked tumbled, as if she had lain down in it, and her hair was rough and disarranged. It was the gown she had worn the previous evening, and it would almost seem as if she had done nothing to herself since going upstairs to bed. The signs caught her father\'s eye, and he spoke in astonishment.

"Why--what in the world, girl? You have never undressed yourself! Surely, you did not pay too much respect to the wine, as some of the men did!"

"You know better than that, sir. I was very tired, and threw myself on the bed when I came up: I suppose sleep overtook me. Do not allude to it, papa, downstairs. I will soon change my dress."

"Sleeping in your clothes does not seem to agree with you, Mary Anne: you look as white as if you had swallowed a doctor\'s shop. Do you know anything of Cyril?--that\'s what I wanted to ask you."

"No," she replied, "I have neither seen nor heard him."

Mr. Thornycroft came to the conclusion that Cyril had heard of the calamity, and gone out to see about it in his curiosity. He returned to the breakfast-room and said this. Sinnett, who was there, turned round and spoke.

"Mr. Cyril did not sleep at home last night, sir."

"Nonsense," responded the justice.

"He did not, sir," persisted Sinnett, in as positive a tone as she dared to use.

"Not sleep at home!" cried Mr. Thornycroft, ironically. "You must be mistaken, Sinnett. Cyril is not a night-bird," he continued, turning his fine and rather free blue eyes on the company: "he leaves late hours to his brothers."

"When Martha took up his hot water just now, and knocked, there was no reply," returned Sinnett, quietly. "So she went in, fearing he might be ill, and found the bed had not been slept in."

For Cyril, who had never willingly been guilty of loose conduct in his whole life, to sleep out from home secretly, was as remarkable a fact as the going regularly to bed at ten o\'clock would have been for his brothers. Mr. Thornycroft not only felt amazement, but showed it.

"I cannot understand this at all. Richard, do you know where he can be?"

"Not in the least. I was waiting for him to come down that I might question him where he parted with Hunter."

"When did you see him last?"

"When he was going off last night with Hunter. I have not seen him since. He will turn up by-and-by," continued Richard, carelessly. "If a fellow never has stopped out to make a night of it, that\'s no reason why he never may. Perhaps he came to an anchor at the Mermaid."

Clearly there was reason in this. Cyril Thornycroft might have remained out from some cause or other, though he never had before, and the gentlemen fell to their breakfast again. But for the strange and unhappy fact of Hunter\'s having come back to Coastdown, Mr. Thornycroft had concluded that Cyril must have walked with him to Jutpoint, and taken a bed there.

"Go up to Miss Thornycroft, Sinnett," said the justice. "She does not seem well. Perhaps she would like some tea."

Giving a look round the table first to see that nothing more was wanted (for the housekeeper liked to execute orders at her own time and will), she proceeded to Miss Thornycroft\'s room. The young lady then had her hair down and her dress off, apparently in the legitimate process of dressing.

"My goodness me, Miss Mary Anne, how white you look!" was the involuntary exclamation of the servant. "It is a dreadful thing, miss, but you must not take it too much to heart. It is worse for poor Mr. Hunter himself than it is for you."

Mary Anne Thornycroft, who had made a vain effort to hide her emotion and her ghastly face from the servant, opened her lips to speak, and closed them again, unable to utter a syllable.

"What a gaby the justice must have been to make such haste to tell her!" thought the woman. For it never occurred to Sinnett that Miss Thornycroft could have gained the information from any other source; or, rather, it may be more correct to say that she knew it could not have been gained from any other. Sinnett, standing in the hall underneath at the moment, had heard her master\'s knock for admission at his daughter\'s door, and the colloquy that ensued--not the words, only the sound of the voices.

"The whole village is up in arms," continued Sinnett. "It is an awful murder. Hyde--"

"Don\'t talk of it," came the interrupting wail; "I cannot bear it yet. Is he found?"

"Poor wretch, yes! with no look of a human face about him, they say," was Sinnett\'s answer.

"Shot down on to the Half-moon?" shuddered Miss Thornycroft, evidently speaking more to herself than to Sinnett.

"In the fur corner of it. I\'ll go and bring you a cup of tea, miss. You are shaking all over."

Mary Anne put out her hand to arrest her, but she was weak, feeble, suffering, and Sinnett went on, totally regardless. In the woman\'s opinion there was no panacea for ills, whether mental or bodily, like a cup of strong tea, and she hastened to bring one for her young lady. The shortest way of doing this was to get it from the breakfast-room, and in went Sinnett. She was not disposed to stand on too much ceremony at the best of times, especially when put out. Occupying her position for many years as mistress of the internal economy of the Red Court Farm, she felt her sway in it, and she was warmly condemning her master for having spoken. For Sinnett was one who liked on occasion to set those about her to rights. The large silver teapot was before the justice. Sinnett, a breakfast cup in her hand, went up and asked him to fill it.

"What a pity it is, sir, that you told Miss Thornycroft so soon; before she was well out of her bed!" began Sinnett in an undertone, as she stood waiting. "Time enough for her to have heard such a horrid thing, sir, when she had taken a bit of breakfast. There she is, shaking like a child, not able to dress herself."

"I did not tell her," returned. Mr. Thornycroft aloud. "What are you talking of?"

"Yes, you did, sir."

"I did not, I tell you."

"You must have told her, sir," persisted Sinnett. "The first thing she asked me was, whether the body was found on the Half-moon, and said it was shot down on to it. Nobody else has been to the room but yourself."

"Take up the tea to your mistress, and don\'t stand cavilling here," interposed Richard, in a tone of stern command.

Justice Thornycroft brooked not contradiction from a servant. Moreover, he began to think that his daughter must have got her information from Cyril. He rose from table and strode upstairs after Sinnett, following her into his daughter\'s room.

"Mary Anne"--in a sharp tone--"did you tell that woman I disclosed to you what had happened to Hunter?"

"No," was the reply.

"Did I tell you that anything had happened to him?"

"No, papa, you did not."

"Do you hear what Miss Thornycroft says?" continued the magistrate, turning to the servant. "I advise you not to presume to contradict me again. If the house were in less excitement, you should come in before them all, and beg my pardon."

A ghastly look of fear had started to the features of Miss Thornycroft. "I--I heard them talking of it outside," she murmured, looking at Sinnett.

"Outside!" exclaimed Sinnett.

"Underneath, in the herb-garden," faintly added Miss Thornycroft, whose very lips were white as ashes.

"Then you did not hear of it from Cyril, Mary Anne?"

"No, papa, I have not seen Cyril at all."

Justice Thornycroft strode downstairs again. Sinnett, who did not like to be rebuked--and, in truth, rarely gave occasion for it--looked rather sullen as she put down the cup and saucer.

"Nobody has been in the side garden since I got up," cried Sinnett.

"Oh, it was before that," too hastily affirmed Miss Thornycroft. "They were strange voices," she hurriedly added, as if afraid of more questions.

Sinnett shut the door on Miss Thornycroft, and went away ruminating. Something like fear had arisen to the woman\'s own face.

"What does it all mean?" she asked herself, unconsciously resting the small silver waiter on the window-seat, as she stood looking out. "She could not have heard anything outside in the herb-garden, for nobody has had the key of it this morning; and as to people having been up here talking of it before I was up, the poor man had not then been found."

That some dreadful mystery existed, something that would not bear the light of day, and in which Miss Thornycroft was in some way mixed up, Sinnett felt certain. And, woman-like, she spoke out her thoughts too freely: not in ill-nature; not to do harm to Miss Thornycroft or anyone else; but in the love of talking, in the wish to get her own curiosity satisfied. How had she learnt the news? Sinnett wondered again and again. What was it that had put her into this unnatural state of alarm and fear? Regret she might feel for Robert Hunter; horror at his dreadful fate--but whence arose the fear? Shrewd Sinnett finally descended, her brain in full work.

When the party in the breakfast-room had concluded their meal, which they did not spare, in spite of the sight their eyes had that morning looked on, they departed in a body, each one privately hoping he should be the first to alight on Mr. Cyril. In the present stage of the affair, Cyril Thornycroft was regarded as the one only person who could throw light upon it. It did not clearly appear where he could be. Richard\'s suggestion of the Mermaid was an exceedingly improbable on............