“Your brother has probably got his eye on the house,” said Brendon, “and is considering how to approach you, Mr. Redmayne, without risking his own safety.”

“There’s only one he’ll trust, I reckon, and that’s me,” declared Bendigo.  “If he knew that Jenny means him no harm, he might trust her, too, but he may not believe that she’s good Christian enough to forgive him.  And anyway I guess he don’t know she’s with me.  I’m talking as though he was sane, but I doubt it.”

Mark, who had studied Mr. Redmayne’s large government survey map of the district, suggested an immediate search over the most likely regions in the neighbourhood.

“I think of you and Mrs. Pendean,” he explained.  “You don’t want hue and cry again and all the past brought up once more.  If we can get to him without calling in the police, then so much the better.  The man must be in extreme want.  His face, as I saw it, was harrowed and tormented.  He has probably reached a mental condition of tension and torture in which he will not be sorry to find himself among friendly and understanding fellow creatures.  There are two districts which especially suggest themselves to me to search in:  the shore, where there are many caves and crevices above sea level safe from observation; and the dense woods into which he plunged when I came suddenly upon him last night.  I examined them on my way out this morning.  They appear to be very extensive, but they are traversed by drives for sportsmen and you can look up and down these drives for many hundred yards.”

Mr. Redmayne summoned Doria who had now reached home again.

“Can the launch go to sea?” he asked.  Giuseppe considered that she might.  Bendigo then submitted a proposition.

“I’m asking that you’ll let this search go on quietly and privately for another twenty-four hours,” he said.  “Then, if we fail to round him up in a friendly way, so to say, you must, of course, turn the constabulary out and hunt him down.  To-day we can go over the places you name and I reckon you’ve hit the most likely burrows for the poor man.  I dare say, if we sat tight and did nothing at all, we might find him creeping here to me after dark pretty soon; but we’ll act as you advise and see if the shore or the woods show any sign.

“There’s us three who know who he is—­Jenny and me and you; and I’d propose that my niece goes down the coast in the motor boat with Giuseppe.  They can cruise away to the west, where there’s an easy landing here and there at little coves, and they may sight my brother poking about, or hid in some hole down that way.  There are caves with tunnels aft that give on the rough lands and coombs behind.  It’s a pretty lone region and he couldn’t hang on long there or find food for his belly.  They can try that for a few hours and we’ll go up aloft.  Or else I’ll take you in the boat and they can hunt round Black Woods—­whichever you like.”

Brendon considered.  He inclined to the belief that the hunted man might sooner trust the woods than the coast.  Moreover he knew himself an indifferent sailor and perceived that the motor boat could not promise a very even keel in the great swell that followed the storm.