Caryl Carne is a spy, in the pay of the French."
"I have long thought something, though not quite so bad as that,"
Miss Twemlow answered, calmly; "because he has behaved to us so very
strangely. My mother is his own father's sister, as you know, and yet he
has never dined with us more than once, and then he scarcely said a word
to any one. And he never yet has asked us to visit him at the castle;
though for that we can make all allowance, of course, because of its sad
condition. Then everybody thought he had taken to smuggling, and after
all his losses, no one blamed him, especially as all the Carnes had done
it, even when they were the owners of the land. But ever since poor
Mr. Cheeseman, our church-warden, tried to destroy himself with his own
rope, all the parish began to doubt about the smuggling, because it pays
so well and makes the people very cheerful. But from something he
had seen, my father felt quite certain that the true explanation was
smuggling."
"Indeed! Do you know at all what it was he saw, and when, and under what
circumstances?" Mr. Shargeloes put these questions with more urgency
than Miss Twemlow liked.
"Really I cannot tell you all those things; they are scarcely of general
interest. My dear father said little about it: all knowledge is denied
in this good world to women. But no doubt he would tell you, if you
asked him, when there were no ladies present."
"I will," said Mr.
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