“How long after this was it, that your father interrupted you?”

“He didn’t interrupt us at all,” returned Afy.  “I never saw my father until I saw him dead.”

“Were you not in the cottage all the time?”

“No; we went out for a stroll at the back.  Captain Thorn wished me good-bye there, and I stayed out.”

“Did you hear the gun go off?”

“I heard a shot as I was sitting on the stump of a tree, and was thinking; but I attached no importance to it, never supposing it was in the cottage.”

“What was it that Captain Thorn had to get from the cottage after he quitted you?  What had he left there?”

Now, this was a random shaft.  Lawyer Ball, a keen man, who had well weighed all points in the tale imparted to him by Richard, as well as other points, had colored them with his own deductions, and spoke accordingly.  Afy was taken in.

“He had left his hat there—­nothing else.  It was a warm evening, and he had gone out without it.”

“He told you, I believe, sufficient to convince you of the guilt of Richard Hare?” Another shaft thrown at random.

“I did not want convincing—­I knew it without.  Everybody else knew it.”

“To be sure,” equably returned Lawyer Ball.  “Did Captain Thorn see it done—­did he tell you that?”

“He had got his hat, and was away down the wood some little distance, when he heard voices in dispute in the cottage, and recognized one of them to be that of my father.  The shot followed close upon it, and he guessed some mischief had been done, though he did not suspect its extent.”

“Thorn told you this—­when?”

“The same night—­much later.”

“How came you to see him?”

Afy hesitated; but she was sternly told to answer the question.

“A boy came up to the cottage and called me out, and said a strange gentleman wanted to see me in the wood, and had given him sixpence to come for me.  I went, and found Captain Thorn.  He asked me what the commotion was about, and I told him Richard Hare had killed my father.  He said, that now I spoke of him, he could recognize Richard Hare’s as having been the other voice in the dispute.”

“What boy was that—­the one who came for you?”

“It was Mother Whiteman’s little son.”

“And Captain Thorn then gave you this version of the tragedy?”

“It was the right version,” resentfully spoke Afy.

“How do you know that?”

“Oh! because I’m sure it was.  Who else would kill him but Richard Hare?  It is a scandalous shame, your wanting to put it upon Thorn!”

“Look at the prisoner, Sir Francis Levison.  Is it he whom you knew as Thorn?”

“Yes; but that does not make him guilty of the murder.”

“Of course it does not,” complacently assented Lawyer Ball.  “How long did you remain with Captain Thorn in London—­upon that little visit, you know?”