"But
of course, those of us about here knew of how things stood long before
that. Lord Marketstoke went away, as I have said. It was known that he
had money of his own, that had come to him from his mother, who had died
years before all this. But it wasn't known where he went. Some said he'd
gone to the Colonies; some said to America. And at one time there was a
rumour that he'd taken another name and joined some foreign army, and
been killed in its service. Anyway, nobody ever heard a word of him--Mr.
Marcherson, who was steward at Ellingham Park for over forty years (he
died last year, a very old man) assured me that from the day on which
Lord Marketstoke left his father's house not one word of him, not a
breath, ever reached any of those he'd left behind him. There was
absolute silence--he couldn't have disappeared more completely if they'd
laid him in the family vault in Marketstoke church."
"And evident intention to disappear!" observed Mr. Pawle. "You'll mark
that, Viner--it's important. Well, ma'am," he added, turning again to
Mrs. Summers. "And--what happened next?"
"Well sir, there was nothing much happened," continued the landlady.
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