The next morning it was speedily echoed around that the amiable and
gentle young villager had been found dead outside his father's door,
which he had apparently been in the act of unlocking when he fell.
The circumstances were sufficiently exceptional to justify an
inquest, at which syncope from heart-disease was ascertained to be
beyond doubt the explanation of his death, and no more was said
about the matter then. But, after the funeral, it was rumoured that
some man who had been returning late from a distant horse-fair had
seen in the gloom of night a person, apparently a woman, dragging a
heavy body of some sort towards the cottage-gate, which, by the
light of after events, would seem to have been the corpse of the
young fellow. His clothes were thereupon examined more particularly
than at first, with the result that marks of friction were visible
upon them here and there, precisely resembling such as would be left
by dragging on the ground.
Our beautiful and ingenious Lady Caroline was now in great
consternation; and began to think that, after all, it might have
been better to honestly confess the truth. But having reached this
stage without discovery or suspicion, she determined to make another
effort towards concealment; and a bright idea struck her as a means
of securing it. I think I mentioned that, before she cast eyes on
the unfortunate steward's clerk, he had been the beloved of a
certain village damsel, the woodman's daughter, his neighbour, to
whom he had paid some attentions; and possibly he was beloved of her
still.
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