“Not since the letter informing us of my brother’s death.”
“Yes,” she said, “we corresponded. But--but there was really nothing--the letters were of a personal and private sort--they were--”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Hewitt answered, with his eyes fixed keenly on the veil which Miss Rewse still kept down. “Of course I understand that. Then there is nothing else you can tell me?”
“No, I fear not. I can only implore you to remember that no matter what you may see and hear, no matter what the evidence may be, I am sure, sure, _sure_ that poor Stanley could never do such a thing.” And Miss Rewse buried her face in her hands.
Hewitt kept his eyes on the lady, though he smiled slightly, and asked, “How long have you known Mr. Main?”
[Illustration: “‘HOW LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN MR. MAIN?’”]
“For some five or six years now. My poor brother knew him at school, though, of course, they were in different forms, Mr. Main being the elder.”
Little more was said. Hewitt condoled with Miss Rewse as well as he might, and she presently took her departure. Even as she descended the stairs a messenger came with a short note from Mr. Bowyer enclosing a telegram just received from Cullanin. The telegram ran thus:--
_Body exhumed. Death from shot-wound. No trace of small-pox. Nothing yet heard of Main. Have communicated with coroner.--O’Reilly._
Hewitt and Mr. Bowyer travelled towards Mayo together, Mr. Bowyer restless and loquacious on the subject of the business in hand, and Hewitt rather bored thereby. He resolutely declined to offer an opinion on any single detail of the case till he had examined the available evidence, and his occasional remarks on matters of general interest, the scenery and so forth, struck his companion, unused to business of the sort which had occasioned the journey, as strangely cold-blooded and indifferent. Telegrams had been sent ordering that no disarrangement of the contents of the cottage was to be allowed pending their arrival, and Hewitt well knew that nothing more was practicable till the site was reached. At Ballymaine, where the train was left at last, they stayed for the night, and left early the next morning for Cullanin, where a meeting with Dr. O’Reilly at the mortuary had been appointed. There the body lay stripped of its shroud, calm and gray, and beginning to grow ugly, with a scarcely noticeable breach in the flesh of the left breast.