And then it flashed suddenly across his mind that it was near this spot that the smuggler must have stood at whom he himself had, on the previous evening, fired with what he had believed at the time to be good effect.
If this were so, and if this were the trail of the wounded man, he might be able, by following it up, to find at least one of the guilty fraternity, and bring him to justice.
Fired with this belief, which was like a ray of golden hope in the black despair which had been settling on him, he turned again, and following the track of the bloodstains, which were dry, although evidently recent, he went steadily on in the direction of Hurst, looking always on the ground, and not noticing at first whither the track was leading him.
It was with a start and a sudden chill that he presently recognized, on raising his head when the ground began to rise, that it was to the Parsonage that the marks led.
To the Parsonage—where he had stood talking to Joan Langney that afternoon! For a moment he felt sick, and faltered in his purpose. He did not want to bring shame, disgrace, upon that house of all others. Yet
