But Lucy did not return; and her cottage, from which the neighbors shrank as from a haunted place, remained as she had left it, and crumbled slowly down to four fern-covered walls, past which the little stream went murmuring on from pool to pool--the only voice, for many a year to come, which broke the silence of that lonely glen.
A few days afterwards, Sir Richard, on his way from Bideford to Stow, looked in at Clovelly Court, and mentioned, with a "by the by," news which made Will Cary leap from his seat almost to the ceiling.

What it was we know already.
"And there is no clue ?" asked old Cary; for his son was speechless.
"Only this; I hear that some fellow prowling about the cliffs that night saw a pinnace running for Lundy." Will rose, and went hastily out of the room.
In half an hour he and three or four armed servants were on board a trawling-skiff, and away to Lundy.

He did not return for three days, and then brought news: that an elderly man, seemingly a foreigner, had been lodging for some months past in a part of the ruined Moresco Castle, which was tenanted by one John Braund; that a few weeks since a younger man, a foreigner also, had joined him from on board a ship: the ship a Flushinger, or Easterling of some sort.

The ship came and went more than once; and the young man in her.

A few days since, a lady and her maid, a stout woman, came with him up to the castle, and talked with the elder man a long while in secret; abode there all night; and then all three sailed in the morning.