Volume 1 CHAPTER I. OVER THE CLIFF.
A hot, windless August day had settled down into a dull, brooding evening, presageful of a coming storm. It was nearly dark by the time Lionel Dering was ready to turn his face homeward. The tide was coming in with an ominous muffled roar; the wind, unfelt all day, was now blowing in fitful puffs from various points of the compass, so that the weathercock on the green, in front of the Silver Lion, was more undecided than usual, and did not know its own mind for two minutes at a time. The boatmen were busy with their tiny craft, making everything fast for the night; and the bathing men were dragging their machines high and dry beyond reach of the incoming tide. Many of the excursionists--those with families chiefly--were already making their way towards the railway station; but others there were who seemed bent on keeping up their merriment to the last moment. These latter could be seen through the wide-open windows of the Silver Lion, footing it merrily on the club-room floor, to the music of two wheezy fiddles. A few minutes later there comes a warning whistle from the engine. The music stops suddenly; the country-dance is left unfinished; pipes are laid aside; glasses are quickly emptied; and the lads and lasses, with many a shout and burst of laughter, rush helter-skelter across the green, to find their places in the train.

"We shall have a rough night, Ben," said Mr. Dering to a man who was coming up from the beach.

"Yes, sir, there's a storm brewin' fast," answered Ben, carrying a finger to his forehead. "If I was you, Mr. Dering," he added, "I wouldn't go over the cliffs to-night. It ain't safe after dark, and the storm'll break afore you get home." But Mr. Dering merely shook his head, laughed, bade Ben good-night, and kept on his way.

The old boatman's words proved true. The first flash of lightning came just as the last houses of Melcham were lost to view behind a curve of the road, and when Lionel had two miles of solitary walking still before him. The thunder and the rain, however, were still far out at sea.

By this time it was almost dark, but Mr. Dering pressed forward without hesitation or delay. The cliff road, dangerous as it would have been under such circumstances to any ordinary wayfarer, had for him no terrors. He knew every yard of it as well as he knew the walk under the apple-trees in his own garden. It was not the first time by any means that he had traversed it after nightfall. As for the lightning, it was rather an assistance than otherwise, serving every two or three minutes, as it did, to show him exactly where he was. It was a bad road enough, certainly. Unfenced in several places, with here and there a broad, yawning chasm in the direct path, where some huge bulk of the soft earthy cliff, undermined by fierce winter tides, had broken bodily away and had gone to feed the ever-hungry waves. But to Lionel every dangerous point was familiar, and he followed the little circuitous bends in the path, necessitated by the breaks in the frontage of the cliff, instinctively and without thought.

He had been thinking of Edith West--his ladye-love, whom he might not hope ever to see again. In his long solitary walks both by day and night she was almost always in his thoughts. Not but what Lionel, this evening, had an eye for the lightning, so beautifully terrible in its apparently purposeless vagaries. Fast following one another, came the blue, quivering flashes, lighting up, for one brief moment at a time, the barren skyward-climbing cliff, and the still more barren waste of sea.

"Like my life--like my life," murmured Lionel to himself, his eyes still bent on the wide tract of moorland, which had just been lighted up by a more vivid flash than common. "Barren and unprofitable. Without byre or homestead. Left unploughed, unfenced, uncared for. Of no apparent use, were it not that a few wild-flowers choose to grow there, and a few birds, equally wild, to build their nests there. But over it, as over more favoured spots, the free breeze of heaven blows day and night, and keeps it sweet; and the sea makes everlasting music at its feet."

These thoughts were still in Mr. Dering's mind when a sudden turn in the pathway brought him in view of the lighthouse, whose gleaming lantern, although full half a mile away, shone out through the coming storm like the cheery welcome of a friend.

The thunder was coming nearer, bringing the rain with it. The flashes were becoming more vividly painful. The sea's hoarse chorus was growing more loud, and triumphant. Lionel had paused for a moment to gather breath. A flash--and there, not fifty yards away, and coming towards him, was a man--a stranger! It was the work of an instant for the lightning to photograph the picture on his brain, but that one instant was enough for him to see and recognize the deadly peril in which the man was placed. He was marching unknowingly to his death. Not six yards in front of him yawned the most dangerous chasm in the whole face of the cliff.

In another moment Lionel had recovered his presence of mind. "Stop! stop for your life!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "Don't stir another step." It was too dark for him to see whether the man had heard and understood his warning cry. He must wait for the next flash to tell him that. The words had hardly left his lips when the thunder burst almost immediately overhead, as it seemed, and the first heavy drops of rain began to fall. Lionel, meantime, was making his way as quickly as he could round the back of the chasm. Two minutes more would bring him to the very spot where he had seen the stranger. But while he had still some dozen yards or more of the dangerous path to traverse, there came another blinding flash. It had come and gone in the twinkling of an eye, but that brief second of time was sufficient to show Lionel that the man was no longer there. An inarticulate cry of horror burst from his lips. With beating heart and straining nerves, he pressed forward till he stood on the very spot where he had seen the man; but he was standing there alone.

The storm was at its height. The forked flashes came thick and fast. One crack of thunder was followed by another, before the echoed mutterings of the last had time to die away. A wild hurricane of wind and rain was beating furiously over land and sea. Utterly regardless of the storm, Lionel lay down at full length on the short, wet turf, and shading his eves with his hands, peered down into the black gulf below. It was a dangerous thing to do, but in the excitement of the moment all sense of personal fear was forgotten. He waited for the flashes; but when they came they showed him nothing save the wild turmoil of the rising tide as it dashed itself in fury against the huge boulders with which the beach was thickly strewn. It would be high water in half-an-hour. Already the base of the cliff was washed by the inrushing waves. Lionel shouted with all his might, but the wind blew the sound back again, and the thunder drowned it. He stood up despairingly. What should he do to succour the poor wretch who lay there, dying or, perhaps, already dead, at the foot of the cliff? What could he do? Alone and unaided he could do nothing. He must seek the help of others. But where? The nearest point where he could hope to get assistance was the lighthouse, and that was nearly half-a-mile away. But long before the lighthouse could have been reached, and help brought back, the rising tide would have completely barred the passage along the foot of the cliffs, and would, in all probability, have washed the body out to sea. At the point where he was standing, the cliff had a sheer descent of a hundred feet to the beach. But suddenly Mr. Dering remembered, and it seemed to him like a flash of inspiration, that no great distance away there was a slight natural break in the cliff, known as "The Smugglers' Staircase." It was merely a narrow gully or seam in the face of the rock, not much wider than an ordinary chimney. If it had ever really been used by smugglers in years gone by as a natural staircase, by means of which access could be had to the beach, they must have been very active and reckless fellows indeed. But what had been made use of by one man might be made use of by another, Lionel thought, and, with some faint renewal of hope in his breast, he made his way along the cliff in the direction of the staircase. If he could only get down to the beach before the tide had risen much higher, and could succeed in finding the body, he might, perhaps, be able to obtain some foothold among the crannies of the cliff, where he would be beyond reach of the waves, and where he might wait till daybreak, and the ebbing of the tide, should give him a chance of seeking help elsewhere.

But here he was at the staircase--a place, of a truth, to try a man's nerve, even by broad daylight. Although Lionel had never ventured either up or down it, he was no stranger to its peculiar features. More than once, in his rambles along the cliffs, he had paused to examine it, and to wonder whether the jagged, misshapen ledges of protruding rock from which it was supposed to derive its likeness to a gigantic staircase, were the result of nature's handiwork or that of man.

Lionel had lost no time. From his first sight of the stranger till now was not more than five or six minutes. Pausing for a moment on the edge of the staircase, he flung his hat aside, buttoned his coat, and then, instinctively, turned up his cuffs. Then he went down on his hands and knees, and was just lowering one leg over the edge of the cliff; when his collar was roughly seized, and a hoarse voice growled in his ear: "In heaven's name, Mr. Dering, what are you about?"

For the moment, Lionel was startled. Next instant he recognized Bunce, the coastguardsman--a very worthy fellow, to whom he was well known. A few rapid words from Lionel explained everything. "All the same, Mr. Dering, you can't bring the dead back to life, do how you will," said Bunce, "and that man's as dead as last year's mackerel, you may depend on't. Let alone which, the tide's right up to the bottom of the cliff. No, no, Mr. Dering--axing your pardon--but one live man is worth twenty dead uns."

"Bunce, you are a fool!" said Lionel, wrathfully. "If I were not in a hurry, I would prove it to you. Take your hand off my collar, sir. I tell you I am going down here. If you choose to help me, go to the lighthouse and get Jasper to come back with you, and bring some ropes and a lantern or two, and whatever else you think might be useful. If you don't choose to help me, go about your business, and leave me to do mine."

"But you are going to certain death; you are indeed, Mr. Dering," pleaded the coastguardsman.

"Bunce," said Lionel, "you are an old woman. Goodbye." There was a flash, and Bunce caught a momentary glimpse of a stern white face, and two resolute eyes. When the next flash came, Lionel was not to be seen. He was on his perilous journey down the Smugglers' Staircase.

"A madman--a crazy madman," muttered Bunce. "If he gets safe to the bottom of the staircase, he'll go no farther. Not as I'm going to desert him. Not likely. Though he did call me a old woman."

Going down on one knee on the wet grass, he put both his hands to his mouth, and shouted with all his might: "I'm going to the lighthouse for help, Mr. Dering." He listened, but there came no answer. Presently, with a little quaking of the heart, he rose to his feet. "He needn't have called me a old woman," he muttered. With that he pulled his hat fiercely over his brow, and set off for the lighthouse at a rapid walk, which soon quickened into a run.

How Lionel got down to the bottom of the staircase he could never afterwards have told. He only knew that when about half way down his foot slipped. The next thing he remembered was finding himself among the rocks at the bottom, bruised, bleeding, and partially stunned. A larger wave than usual, which dashed completely over him, gave him a shock which helped to revive him. Not the least perilous part of his enterprise was still before him. Already the tide was two feet deep at the foot of the cliff. Fortunately, the wind had gone down, and the rain had in some measure abated; but had it not been for the lightning's friendly flashes, Lionel's task would have been a hopeless one. The road he had to take was thickly strewn with huge boulders, and gigantic masses of rock which had fallen--some of them centuries ago--from the cliffs overhead. Between and over these Lionel had to make his way to the point where the stranger had fallen. It was a work of time and peril, more especially now that the tide was coming in so dangerously fast, beating and eddying round the rocks and dashing over them in showers of stinging spray. Lionel saw clearly that, in any case, it would be quite impossible for him to return by the way he was going till ebb of tide. He must find some "coign of vantage" among the fallen rocks, or high up in the face of the cliff, beyond reach of the waves, and there wait patiently for further help. But first to find the stranger.

Manfully, gallantly, Lionel Dering set himself to the task before him. Foot by foot, yard by yard, he fought his way forward. The lightning showed him at once the dangers he had to contend against, and how best to avoid them. Over some of the rocks he had to clamber on all fours; round others he had to pick his way, waist-deep in water. Now and then, a larger wave than common would seize him, dash him like a log against the rocks, and then leave him, bruised and breathless, to gather up its forces for another attack. But Lionel never faltered or looked back. Onward he went, slowly but surely nearing the object of which he was in search. Nearly exhausted, all but worn out, at length he reached the heap of débris formed by the falling of the cliff--or rather that portion of it which the sea had spared. He was terribly anxious by this time. If the body of the stranger when it fell had been caught by any of the ledges or rough projecting angles of the débris, and had lodged there, there was just a faint possibility that the man might be still alive. But if, on the contrary, it had rolled down to the foot of the cliff, the waves would long ago have claimed it as their own.

The storm was passing away inland. The lightning was no longer either so frequent or so vivid. Lionel's difficulty was to find the exact point of the cliff from which the stranger had fallen. At the most he could only guess at it. Still, here was the mass of fallen cliff, and the body, unless washed away by the tide, could not be far off.

Having accomplished so much, he had neither long nor far to search. Putting out his hand in the dark to grasp a projecting ledge of rock, which the last flash of lightning had shown to him, his fingers touched a clammy ice-cold face. He drew back his arm with an involuntary shudder. Next moment his heart gave a great throb of relief, and he felt that, whether the man were alive or dead, his labour had not been entirely in vain.

The body was lying among a heap of jagged rocks, half in and half out of the water. Lionel's first idea was that the man was stone dead. But a more careful examination, which he made as soon as he had dragged the body beyond reach of the still-rising tide, convinced him that there were still some flickering signs of life--just the faintest possible pulsation of the heart. The forehead was marked by a thin streak of blood, which Lionel tried to stanch with his handkerchief. For the rest, he made out, by the momentary glimpses which the lightning afforded him, that the man was young, fair, slightly built, and, to all appearance, a gentleman. Feeling some hard substance, Lionel put his hand into the stranger's pocket, and drew from it a small travelling flask. It contained a little brandy, with which Lionel moistened the unconscious lips, but the stranger's teeth were so firmly set that he found it impossible to open them. What more could he do? he asked himself, and he was obliged to answer, Nothing. If Bunce had not deserted him, help would be forthcoming before long. Otherwise, he must wait there for daybreak and the ebbing of the tide.

But faithful, good-hearted Bunce had not deserted him. He had roused up Jasper, the lighthouse-keeper, out of his first snooze--Jasper's two mates being on duty--and had brought that individual, still half dazed, but responding manfully to the call, together with a quantity of stout rope, and a couple of ship's lanterns, not forgetting a blanket and a nip of cognac, and was back again on the cliffs only a few minutes after Lionel's search was at an end.

Never had human voice sounded so welcome to Lionel as did the coastguardsman's hoarse shouts that August night. They soon made each other out, and then the rest was comparatively easy. A rope was slung round the body of the still unconscious stranger, which was then hauled up by the two men with all possible care to the top of the cliff; a process which was repeated in the case of Lionel.

"I never thought to see you alive again, Mr. Dering," said Bunce, with tears in his eyes, as Lionel grasped him warmly by the hand. "Where do you wish to have the gentleman taken to?"

"To Gatehouse Farm, of course," said Lionel. "Jasper, you run into the village, and borrow a horse and cart, and some straw, and another blanket or two, and get back again as if your life depended on it."

And so about midnight the stranger, who had never recovered consciousness, was laid in Mr. Dering's own bed at Gatehouse Farm. They had found a card-case in his pocket, the cards in which were inscribed with the name of "Mr. Tom Bristow," but that was the only clue to his identity. Dr. Bell, the local practitioner, was quickly on the spot.

"A serious case, Mr. Dering--a very serious case," said the little man, two hours later, while pulling on his gloves and waiting for his cob to be brought round, "But we have an excellent constitution to fall back upon, and, with great care, we shall pull through. We have dislocated our left shoulder; we have broken three of our ribs; and we have got one of the ugliest cuts on the back of our head that it was ever our good fortune to have to deal with. But with care, sir, we shall pull through."

Somewhat comforted in mind by the doctor's assurance, Lionel went back upstairs, and having taken a parting glance at his guest, and satisfied himself that nothing more could be done for the present, he lay down on the sofa in the next room to catch an hour's hurried sleep.

He had no prevision of the future, that August morning: there was no voice to whisper in his ear that the man whose life he had just saved at the risk of his own would, before many months were over, repay the obligatby rescuing him, Lionel Dering, from a still more bitter strait, and be the means of restoring him both to liberty and life.
CHAPTER II. THE HERMIT OF GATEHOUSE FARM.
Lionel Dering at this time was twenty-eight years old. A tall, well-built, fair-complexioned man, but bronzed by much exposure to the sun and wind. His eyes were dark gray, very steady and penetrating. He had a habit of looking full into the faces of those with whom he talked, as though he were trying to penetrate the mask before him. It was a habit which some people did not like. He had never shaved in his life, and the strong, firm lines of his mouth, betokening immense power of will, and great tenacity of purpose, were all but hidden by the soft, flowing outlines of a thick beard and moustache, pale golden as to colour. His free, outdoor life, and the hard work to which he had accustomed himself of late years, had widened his chest and hardened his muscles, and had ripened him into a very tolerable specimen of those stalwart, fair-bearded islanders whose forms and figures are familiar wherever the English language is spoken. For three years past he had been living the life of a modern hermit at Gatehouse Farm. His reasons for choosing thus to isolate himself entirely from the world of his old friends and associations, to bury himself alive, as it were, while all the pleasures of life were still sweet to his lips, will not take long to explain.

Lionel Dering came of a good family on both his father's side and his mother's. Unfortunately, on his father's side there was little or no money, and his mother's side never forgave the marriage, which was one of those romantic run-away affairs of which people used to hear every week at a time when the blacksmith of Gretna Green was a legal forger of matrimonial fetters.

After nine years of married happiness, Godfrey Dering died, leaving his widow with two children, Lionel, aged eight, and Richard, aged six. Mrs. Dering found herself with an annuity of six hundred pounds a year, which her husband's care and prevision had secured to her. For the future, this would be the sole means of subsistence of herself and children. Her own family had repudiated her from the day of her marriage, and she was too proud to court them now. She sent her two boys away to a good school, and while still undecided where she would permanently fix her home, she went to live for a while with some of her husband's friends at Cheltenham--and at Cheltenham she stayed till the day of her death. The Langshaws, under whose roof she found a home during the first year of her bereavement, were worthy well-to-do farmers, distant relations of Godfrey; who seemed as if they could never do enough for pretty Mrs. Dering and her two fatherless boys. After a time she took lodgings in the town itself, where her money and her good looks, combined with her amiability and easy, cheerful disposition, soon attracted around her a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. She had several offers of marriage during the ten years of her widowhood, but she remained steadily faithful to the memory of her first love, and when she died her husband's name was the last word on her lips.

His mother died when Lionel Dering was eighteen years old, six months after his younger brother, Richard, had gone to India to carve out for himself that mythical fortune which every youthful enthusiast believes must one day infallibly be his.

Lionel had been brought up to no business or profession. While still a youth at school, a great part of his holidays had been spent at the Langshaw's farm, three miles out of Cheltenham, where he was always a welcome guest. Here he learned to ride, to drive, to shoot, and to take an interest in all those outdoor avocations which mark the due recurrence of the seasons on a large and well-managed farm. But when his school-days were really at an end, both Lionel and his mother were utterly at a loss to decide in which particular groove the young man's talents--genius Mrs. Dering called it--would be likely to meet with their amplest and most speedy recognition.

Truth to tell, the widowed mother trembled at the idea of parting from her favourite boy, of letting him go out unprotected into the great world, so full of wickedness and temptation, of which she herself knew so little, but about which she had heard such terrible tales. So week passed after week, and month after month, and Lionel Dering still stayed at home with his mother. An inquiry was made here and there, a letter written now and then, but all in a half-hearted sort of way, and Mrs. Dering never heard the postman's knock without trembling lest it should be the herald of a summons which would tear Lionel from her side for ever. When, at last, the dreadful summons did come, in the shape of the offer of an excellent situation in India, Mrs. Dering declared that it would break her heart if Lionel left her. She was a very delicate little woman, be it borne in mind, and Lionel, who loved her tenderly, fully believed every word she said--believed that her heart would really break if they were separated--as in all probability it would have done. "I won't leave you, mother--I won't go away to India," said Lionel, as he kissed away her tears.

"You might let me go, mother, instead of Li," said Richard, as he too kissed her. "If you love me, mother, let me go."

So Richard went to India in place of his brother, and Lionel still stayed at home. Six months later, Mrs. Dering, who had been a partial invalid for years, died quite suddenly, and Lionel found himself, after the payment of all expenses, with about fifty pounds in ready money, and no ascertainable means of earning his own living.

In this emergency, a certain Mr. Eitzenschlager, a German merchant, who had met Mrs. Dering in society some five or six years previously, and had fallen in love with her to no purpose, came to the rescue by offering Lionel a stool in his counting-house, at Liverpool. But to Lionel, with his outdoor tastes, the thought of any mode of life which involved confinement within doors was utterly distasteful. He preferred taking up his quarters for a time with his old friends the Langshaws, and there waiting till another opening should give him an opportunity of joining his brother in India.

When Dorothy St. George ran away from home to marry Godfrey Dering, she never afterwards saw her father, nor any member of her family, except her youngest brother, Lionel--the brother after whom her eldest boy was named. He was a soldier, and shortly after Dorothy's marriage he was ordered abroad, but he wrote occasionally to the sister whom as a boy he had loved so well, therein disobeying his father's express command, that no communication of any kind should henceforth be held with the disgraced daughter of the house. But many years passed before Lionel St. George had an opportunity of seeing his sister--not, in fact, till some time after their father's death: not till he had won his way up, step by step, to the rank of general, and had come back from India, a grizzled veteran, with a year's leave of absence in which to recruit his health, and pay brief visits to such of his relatives and friends as death had spared. His sister Dorothy was one of the first whom he made a point of seeing. For Lionel he contracted a great liking, chiefly, perhaps, because his nephew was named after him, and because in the tall, bronzed young man he saw, or fancied that he saw, many points of resemblance to what he himself had been in happy days long gone by. It was a pity, the general said to himself, that such a fine young fellow should be kept tied to his mother's apron string. So, after he got back to India, he brought his influence to bear, and an eligible opening for Lionel was quickly found. But, as we have already seen, Lionel did not avail himself of his uncle's offer. Richard went to India in his stead, and Lionel was by his mother's side when she died.

Left thus alone, it seemed to Lionel that he could not do better than join his brother, and he wrote his uncle to that effect.

But before he could possibly get an answer from India, something happened which changed the whole current of his life. Mr. Eitzenschlager, the German merchant, died, and left Lionel a legacy of twenty thousand pounds.

What a fund of quiet, unsuspected romance there must have been in the heart of the old Teuton! At fifty years of age he had fallen in love with pretty Mrs. Dering; but Mrs. Dering had nothing but esteem to give him in return. Once rejected, he never spoke of his feelings again, but went on loving in secret and in silence. Had Mrs. Dering outlived him, the twenty thousand pounds would have been left to her. As it was, the money was left to the son whom she had loved so well.

An unexpected legacy of twenty thousand pounds is enough to upset the calculations of most men. It upset Lionel's. The idea of going out to India was abandoned indefinitely. Now had come the time when he could carry out the cherished wish of his life. Time and money were both at his command, and he would travel--travel far and wide, studying "men and manners, climates, councils, governments." When he was tired of travel, he would buy a little estate somewhere, and settle down quietly for the remainder of his days as a gentleman farmer. Such were some of the daydreams of simple-minded Lionel--daydreams which the future would laugh to scorn.

Hitherto Lionel had escaped scathless and heart-whole from all the soft seductive wiles prepared by Love to ensnare the unwary. But his time had come at last, as it comes to all of us. He saw Edith West, and acknowledged himself a lost man. Nor could any one who knew Edith wonder at his infatuation. She was an orphan and an heiress. She lived with her uncle, Mr. Garside, who was also her guardian. Lionel saw her for the first time in a railway carriage, when she and Mrs. Garside were travelling from London to Cheltenham. There was a slight accident to the train, and Lionel was enabled to show the ladies some little attention. Three weeks after that chance meeting, Lionel proposed in form for the hand of Mr. Garside's niece.

Lionel's proposal was very favourably received, for Mr. Garside was prudence itself, and young men worth twenty thousand pounds are not to be met with every day. Very wisely, however, he stipulated that the lovers should wait a year before fastening themselves irrevocably together.

So Lionel, after spending two months in London, where he had an opportunity of seeing Edith every day, set out on his travels. In ten months from the date of his departure he was to come back and claim her for his wife. He left the Continent and the ordinary lines of tourist travel to be done by Edith and himself after marriage, and started direct for America. Cities and city life on the other side of the Atlantic did not detain him long. He panted for the wild, free life and noble sports of the prairies and mountain slopes of the Far West. He spent six happy months with his rifle and an Indian guide on the extreme borders of civilized life. Then he crossed the Rocky Mountains, and found himself, after a time, at San Francisco. There letters from home awaited. One of the first that he opened told him of the failure of the bank in which the whole of his legacy, except a few hundred pounds, had been deposited. Lionel Dering was a ruined man.

One morning, about three months later, Lionel was ushered into the private office of Mr. Garside, in Old Broad Street, City. The rich merchant shook hands with him, and was polite but freezing. Lionel went at once to the object of his visit. "You have heard of my loss, Mr. Garside?" he said.

"I have, and am very sorry for it," said the merchant.

"I have saved nothing from the wreck but a few hundred pounds. Under these circumstances, I come to you, as Miss West's guardian, to tell you that I give up at once, and unreservedly, all pretensions to that lady's hand. I absolve her freely and entirely from the promise she made me. Miss West is an heiress: I am a poor man: we have no longer anything in common."

"Very gentlemanly, Mr. Dering--very gentlemanly, indeed. But only what I should have expected from you."

Lionel cut him short somewhat impatiently. "You will greatly oblige me--for the last time--by giving this note to Miss West. I wish her to understand, direct from myself, the motives by which I have been actuated. This is hardly a place," looking round the office, "in which to talk of love, or even of affection; but, in simple justice to myself, I may say--and I think you will believe me--that the feelings with which I regarded Miss West when I first spoke to you twelve months ago, are utterly unchanged, and, so far as a fallible human being may speak with certainty, they will remain unchanged. I think I have nothing more to say."

But Lionel's note never reached Edith West. When Mr. Garside had finished recounting to his wife the details of his interview with "that strange young man," he gave her the note to give to Edith; but the giving of it was accompanied by a look which his wife was not slow to comprehend. The note was never alluded to again between husband and wife, but somehow it failed to reach the hands for which it was intended. Edith was simply told by her guardian that Mr. Dering, with a high-minded feeling which did him great credit, had broken off the engagement. "He is a poor man--a very poor man, my dear," said Mr. Garside, "and he has the good sense to know that you are not calculated for a poor man's wife."

"How does he know that--or you--or anybody?" flashed out Edith. "But Lionel Dering never made use of those words, uncle. They are an addition of your own."

Nevertheless, the one great bitter fact still remained, that her lover had given her up. "If he had only called to see me--or even written!" she said to herself. But days, weeks, months, passed away, and there came no further sign from Lionel. So Edith locked up her love, as some sacred thing, in the innermost casket of her heart, and the name that was sweeter to her than all other earthly names, never passed her lips after that day except in her prayers.

Lionel was not long in making up his mind as to his future course. He had still two or three hundred pounds in ready money, and one small plot of ground that he could truly call his own. The tiny estate in question was known as Gatehouse Farm, and consisted of nothing more than an old-fashioned, tumbledown house, terribly out of repair; an orchard of tolerable dimensions, and about twenty acres of poorish grass-land; the whole being situated in a remote corner of the north-east coast of England. This modest estate had been his father's sole patrimony, and for that father's sake Lionel had long ago resolved never to part from it. He had visited it once or twice when quite a boy, and from that time it had lived in his memory as a pleasant recollection. To this spot he made up his mind that he would retire for awhile. Here he would shut himself up from the world, and, like King Arthur, "heal him of his wounds." He confessed to himself that he was slightly hipped; a little at odds with Fortune. The ordinary objects and ambitions of his age, which, under other circumstances would probably have found him an eager partizan, had, for the present at least, lost their savour. He was not without friends--good friends, who would have been willing and able to help him on in any career he might have chosen to adopt, but just at that time all their propositions seemed equally distasteful to him. Ambition for the moment was dead within him. All he asked was to be allowed to drop quietly out of the circle of those who knew him, and cherish, or cure, in a solitude of his own seeking, those inward hurts for which Time is the sole physician.

As it happened, the tenant of Gatehouse Farm was lately dead; there was, consequently, nothing to stand in the way of its immediate occupation by Lionel. It was neither a very picturesque nor a very comfortable residence, but sufficiently the latter to satisfy its owner's simple wants. Its upper story consisted of four or five bedrooms. Downstairs was a large and commodious kitchen, together with a house-room, or, as we should call it, a parlour. This latter room was chosen by Lionel for his own particular den. It had white-washed walls, and two diamond-paned windows of dull thick glass, but the floor was made of splendid oaken Planks. The walls Lionel left as he found them, except that over the fireplace he hung a portrait of Edith, and his two favourite rifles; but on the floor he spread two or three skins of wild animals, trophies of his prowess in the chase. In a corner near the fireplace, handy to reach, were the twenty or thirty authors whom he had brought with him to be the companions of his solitude. In the opposite corner was the only article de luxe to be found in the house: a splendid cottage piano, of Erard's build.

The dead and gone builder of the house, whose initials, with the date 1685, were still conspicuous on a tablet over the front door, had never been troubled with that mania for the picturesque in nature and art about which we moderns are perpetually prating. In its own little way his house was intensely ugly, and he had persistently built it with its back to the only fine view that could be seen from its windows in any direction. Even after all these years, there was not another house within a mile of it. The only point of habitable life visible from it was the lighthouse. But it was this solitariness, this isolation from the world, which formed its great feature of attraction in the eyes of Lionel. One other attraction it had for him. You had only to cross a couple of small fields, and follow, for a hundred yards or more, a climbing footway that led across a patch of sandy common, and then, all at once, you saw spread out, far and wide before you, the ever-glorious sea.

To this place came Lionel Dering in less than a month after writing his last letter to Edith West, and here he had since stayed. Two farm labourers and one middle-aged woman constituted the whole of his household. What further labour he might require in his farming operations, he hired. He rose at five o'clock in summer and at six in winter. From the time he got up till two o'clock he worked as hard as any of his own men. The remainder of the day he claimed for his own private uses. He ploughed, he sowed, he reaped. At one time he planted potatoes, at another he dug them up; and nowhere within a score of miles were such fine standard-roses to be seen as at Gatehouse Farm. He found some land to let conveniently near his own small patch, and he hired it. At the end of his second year at the farm he calculated his profits at one hundred and eighty pounds, and was perfectly satisfied.

Lionel saw no company, and never went into society. He was well known to the lighthouse keepers and to most of the boatmen. With them he would talk freely enough. Their racy sayings, their homely, vigorous diction, their simple mode of life, pleased him. When talking with them he forgot, for a time, himself and his own thoughts, and the change did him good. Not that there was anything of the melancholy, lovesick swain about Lionel--any morbid brooding over his own disappointment, and troubles. No one ever saw him otherwise than cheerful. He was perfectly healthy both in mind and body. Nevertheless, his solitary mode of life, and his persistent isolation of himself from his friends and equals, all tended to throw him back upon his own thoughts, and to make him habitually self-introspective, to confirm him in a growing habit of mental analysis.

Whatever the state of the weather, Lionel hardly ever let a day pass without taking a long, solitary ramble into the country for eight or ten miles. Then he had his books, and his piano--which latter was, perhaps, the greatest consolation of his solitude--and the luxury of his own lonely musings as he sat and smoked, hour after hour, with unlighted lamp, and marked how the glowing cinders shaped themselves silently to the fashion of his thoughts.

Two years had by no means sufficed to tire Lionel Dering of his solitary life. In fact, he grew to like it better, to cling to it more emphatically, every day. It satisfied his present needs and ambitions, and that was all he asked. Calmly indifferent, he allowed himself to drift slowly onward towards a future in whose skies there seemed for him no bright bow of promise--nothing but the unbroken grayness of an autumn day that has neither wind, nor sunshine, nor any change.
CHAPTER III. THE FOUNDATION OF A FRIENDSHIP.
Notwithstanding Dr. Bell's hopeful hopeful prognostications, it seemed very doubtful whether Mr. Tom Bristow would ever leave Gatehouse Farm alive. "I did not think his hull was quite so badly damaged as it is," said the worthy doctor, who had formerly been in the navy, to Lionel. "And his figure-head has certainly been terribly knocked about, but he's an A 1 craft, and I can't help thinking that he'll weather the storm."

And weather the storm he did--thanks to good nursing and a good constitution. When he once took a turn for the better, his progress towards recovery was rapid. But September had come and gone, and the frosts of early winter lay white on meadow and fold, before the doctor's gray pony ceased calling at Gatehouse Farm on its daily rounds. Long before this time, however, a feeling of more than ordinary friendship had grown up between Lionel Dering and Tom Bristow. The points of dissimilarity in the characters of the two men were very marked, but it may be that they liked each other none the less on that account. In any case, this dissimilarity of disposition lent a piquancy to their friendship which it would not otherwise have possessed.

But who and what was this Mr. Tom Bristow?

The account which he gave of himself to Lionel, one afternoon, when far advanced towards recovery, was somewhat vague and meagre; but it more than satisfied the master of Gatehouse Farm, who was one of the least inquisitive of mortals; and, for the present, it will have to satisfy the reader also.

They were sitting on a rustic bench just outside the farm porch, basking in the genial September sunshine. Lionel had his meerschaum between his lips, and was fondling the head of his favourite dog, Osric. Tom Bristow, who never smoked, was busy with a piece of boxwood and a pocket-knife. Little by little he was fashioning the wood into a capital but slightly caricatured likeness of worthy doctor Bell--a likeness which the jovial medico would be the first to recognize and laugh at when finished. Tom was a slim-built, aquiline-nosed, fair-complexioned, young fellow; rather under than over the ordinary height; and looking younger than he really was--he was six-and-twenty years old--by reason of his perfectly smooth and close-shaven face, which cherished not the slightest growth of whiskers, beard, or moustache. Tom's first action on coming to his senses after his accident was to put his hand to his chin, just then bristling with a stubble of several days' growth; and his first words to the startled nurse were, "My dear madam, I shall feel greatly obliged by your sending for a barber." His eyes were blue, full of vivacity, and keenly observant of all that went on around him. He had a very good-natured smile, which showed off to advantage a very white and even set of teeth. His hands and feet were small, and he was rather inclined to be proud of them. His dress, while studiously plain in appearance, was made of the best materials, and owed its origin to one of the most famous of London tailors.

"Dering," said Tom suddenly--they had been sitting for full five minutes without a word--"it is five weeks to-day since you saved my life."

"What a memory you have!"

"Seeing that one's life is not saved every day, I may be excused for remembering the fact, unimportant though it may seem to others. It is five weeks to-day since I was brought to Gatehouse Farm, and during all that time you have never asked me a question about myself or my antecedents. You don't even know whether you have been entertaining a soldier, a sailor, a tinker, a tailor, a what's-his-name, or a thief."

"I didn't wait to ask myself any question of that kind when I went down the cliff in search of you, and I don't see why I need trouble myself now."

"As a matter of simple justice both to you and himself, the mysterious stranger will now throw off his mystery, and appear in the commonplace garb of real life."

"I wouldn't bother if I were you," said Lionel. "Your object just now is to get thoroughly well. Never mind anything else."

"There's no time like the time present. I'm ashamed of myself for not having spoken to you before."

"If that's the matter with you, I know you must have your say. Proceed, worthy young man, with your narrative, and get it over as quickly as possible."

"I was born at a little town in the midland counties," began Tom. "My father was chief medical practitioner in the place, and attended all the swells of the neighbourhood. His intention from the first was to bring me up to the law; so, as soon as I was old enough, he had me articled to old Hoskyns, his bosom friend, and the chief solicitor in the little town. I didn't like the law--in fact, I hated it; but there seemed no better prospect for me at that time, so I submitted to my fate without a murmur. My father died when I was seventeen, leaving me a fortune of six thousand pounds. I stayed quietly on with Hoskyns till I was twenty-one. The day I was of age, the old gentleman called me into his private room, congratulated me on having attained my majority, and asked me in what way I intended to invest my six thousand pounds. 'I am not going to invest it: I am going to speculate with it,' was my answer. The old lawyer looked at me as if I were a madman. 'Going to speculate in what?' he asked faintly. 'Going to speculate on the Stock Exchange,' was my reply. Well, the old gentleman raved and stormed, and talked to me as though I were a son of his own, even hinting at a possible partnership in time to come. But my mind had long been made up, and nothing he had to say could move me. It seemed to me that in my six thousand pounds I had the foundation of a fortune which might in time grow into something colossal. It is true that the course I had laid down for myself was not without its risks. It was quite possible that instead of building up a large fortune, I should lose the little one I had already. Well, should that black day ever come, it would be time enough then to think of going back to Hoskyns, and of settling down for life as the clerk of a provincial lawyer.

"My father's death left me without any relations, except some far-away cousins whom I had never seen. There was nothing to keep me in my native town, so I set out for London, with many prophecies of coming ruin ringing in my ears. I hired a couple of cheap rooms in a quiet city court, and set up in business as a speculator, and to that business I have stuck ever since."

"Which is as much as to say that you have been successful in it," said Lionel.

"I have been successful in it. Not perhaps quite so successful as my sanguine youthful hopes led me to believe I should be; but still sufficiently so to satisfy myself that in choosing such a career I did not choose altogether unwisely."

"But how is it possible," said Lionel, "that you, a raw country lad of one and twenty, could go and settle down in the great world of London; and, without experience of your own, or any friendly hand to guide you, could venture to play at a game which exercises some of the keenest intellects of the age--and not only venture to play at it, but rise from it a winner?"

"The simplest answer to that question would be, that I did do it. But really, after all, the matter is not a very difficult one. I have always been guided by three or four very simple rules, and so long as I stick to them, I don't think I can go very far amiss. I never invest all my money in one or even two speculations, however promising they may seem. I never run great risks for the sake or problematical great profits. Let my profits be small but sure, and I am quite content. Lastly, I put my money, as far as possible, into concerns that I can examine personally for myself, even though I should have to make a journey of three hundred miles to do it. See the affair with your own eyes, judge it for yourself, and then leave it for your common sense to decide whether you shall put your money into it or no. In all such professions, natural aptitude--the gift that we possess almost unconsciously to ourselves--is the grand secret of success."

"Success in your case means that you are, on the high road to being a millionaire?"

"Now you are laughing at me."

"Not at all. I am only judging you by your own standard."

"And is the standard such a very poor one?"

"Not a poor one at all, as the world goes. I should like very much to be a millionaire."

"To say that I am not richer to-day than I was the day I was twenty-one would not be true," said Tom, with a demure smile. "I am years and years, half a lifetime at the very least, from being a millionaire--if; indeed, I ever live to be one. But I no longer live in two cheap rooms in the city, and dine at an eating-house for fifteen pence. I have very nice chambers just out of Piccadilly, where you must look me up when you are next in town. I belong to a club where I have an opportunity of meeting good people--by 'good people' I mean people who may some day be useful to me in my struggle through life. Finally, I ride my hack in the Park two or three afternoons a week during the season, and am on bowing terms with a duchess."

"I can no longer doubt that you are a rising man," said Lionel, with a laugh.

"My head is full of schemes of one kind or another," said Tom, a little wearily. "Or rather it was full of them before I met with that confounded accident. In one or the other of those schemes the duchess will play her part like any other pawn that may be on my chess-board at the time. There is no keener speculator in the whole City of London than her Grace of Leamington."

"What a martyrdom it must seem to you to be shut up here, in this dull old house, so far away from the exciting life you have learned to love so well!"

"A martyrdom, Dering? It is anything but that. Had I been well in health, I can't tell what my feelings might have been. I should probably have considered it a waste of time to have spent a month, either here or anywhere else, in absolute idleness. But being ill, and having just been dragged back, by main force as it were, from Death's very door, I cannot tell you how grateful, how soothing to me is the quietude of this old spot. If, now and then, when I feel better and stronger, there come moments when I long to glance over the money article of 'The Times,' or to write a long, impatient letter to my broker in London, there are days and nights when such things have no longer the faintest interest for me--times when bare life itself seems a burden almost too heavy for endurance, and all my ambitious schemes and speculations nothing more than a tissue of huge mistakes."

"Your old interest in everyday matters will gradually come back to you as you grow better," said Lionel, "and with it will come the desire to be up and doing."

"I suppose you are right," said Tom. "It would never do for a little illness to change the plans and settled aims of a lifetime."

"No chance of your settling down here at Gatehouse Farm as Hermit Number Two?"

Tom shook his head and laughed. "Do you know, Dering," he said, "that you are one of the greatest riddles, one of the most incomprehensible fellows, it was ever my fortune to meet with! But, pardon me," he added hastily. "Of all men in the world, you are the one to whom I ought least to say such words."

"Nothing of the kind," said Lionel, with a smile. "I like your frankness. I am aware that many people look upon me as a sort of harmless lunatic, though what there is so incomprehensible about me I am at a loss to imagine."

"You will forgive me for saying so," said Tom, "but to me it seems such an utter pity to see a man of your education and abilities wasting the best years of his life in a place like this, with no society but that of fishermen and boors: to see a man, young and strong in health, so utterly indifferent to all the ordinary claims of civilized life--to all the aims and ambitions by which the generality of his fellow men are actuated, to the bright career which he might carve out for himself, if he would but take the trouble to do so."

"Ah, that is just it, mon ami: if I would but take the trouble to do so! But is the game really worth the candle? To me, I confess that it is not."

Tom shrugged his shoulders.

"I know that you can afford to pity me--that you look upon me as a sort of good-natured imbecile."

"No--no!" in energetic protest from Tom.

"But what have you to pity me for?" asked Lionel, without heeding the interruption. "I have enough to eat and drink, I have a roof to cover me, and a bed to sleep on. In these important matters I should be no better off if I had ten thousand a-year. As for the society of boors and fishermen, believe me, there is more strength of character, more humour, more pathos, more patient endurance of the ills of this life, and a firmer trust in Providence, among these simple folk than I ever found among those whom you would term my equals in the social scale. Then your ambitions and aims, dignify them with what fine names you will, what are they, nine times out of ten, but the mere vulgar desire to grow rich as quickly as possible! So long as I can earn my bread by the sweat of my brow, and owe no man a penny, I am perfectly satisfied."

"Argue as you will, Dering, this is neither the place nor the position for a man like you."

"So long as the place and position suit me, and I them, we shall remain in perfect accord, and no longer," said Lionel. "I never said that it was my intention to live a hermit all my life; but at present I am perfectly satisfied."

Again and again, before Tom Bristow's enforced stay at Gatehouse Farm came to an end, was the same subject broached between him and Lionel, but always with the same result. As Lionel often said to himself, he was utterly without ambition. He was like a man whose active career in the world was at an end; who knowing that life could have no more prizes in store for him, had settled down quietly in his old age, content to let the race go by, and wait uncomplainingly for the end. It is probable, nay, almost certain, that had his uneventful life at Gatehouse Farm been destined to last much longer, old desires and feelings would gradually have awakened within him; that in time he would have found his way again into that busy world on which he had turned his back in a transient fit of disgust, and there have fought the fight before him like the good and true man he really was at heart.

As days went on, Tom Bristow's strength gradually came back to him, and with it came a restlessness, and a desire to be up and doing that was inherent in his disposition. Long before he was allowed down stairs, he had discovered that the old case clock in the kitchen had a trick of indicating the hours peculiar to itself, sometimes omitting to strike them at all, and sometimes going as high as a hundred and fifty; besides which, its qualities as a timekeeper were not to be depended on. To Tom's orderly and accurate mind the old clock was a great annoyance, so the very first day he came down stairs he took the works entirely to pieces. Then, little by little, as his strength would allow him, he cleaned them, put them together again, regulated them, and finally turned the old clock into so accurate a timekeeper that Mrs. Bevis, Lionel's housekeeper, was quite disturbed in her mind for several days, because she had no longer any mental calculations to go through before she could be really sure as to the hour. Then, after he had got still stronger, Tom went systematically through all the locks in the house, repairing and putting into thorough working order all that required it. Then he mended the kitchen window, and put up a couple of shelves for Mrs. Bevis in the dairy--all done as neatly as any workman could have done them. In little jobs of this sort Tom took great delight now that he had so many leisure hours on his hands.

But presently there began to arrive at Gatehouse Farm an intermittent stream of letters, newspapers, pamphlets, and blue books, the like of which had never been known within the memory of the oldest man in the village. Lionel himself stared sometimes when he saw them, but they all had a business interest for Tom, who now began to spend a great portion of his time in receiving and answering letters. Such books as there happened to be in Lionel's small library that had any interest for him--and they were very few indeed--he exhausted during the early days of his illness. How a sensible man could possibly prefer Browning to the money article of "The Times," or an essay by Elia to the account of a great railway meeting, was matter of intense wonderment to Tom. Poets, novelists, essayists, should be left to women, and to men whose fortunes were already made: but for men with a career still before them; for pushing, striving men of the world, such reading was a sheer waste of valuable time.

But let Tom Bristow be as worldly-minded as he might be, Lionel Dering could not help liking him, and it was with sincere regret he saw the day drawing near when he and his new-found friend must part. With all Tom's shrewdness and keen love of money-getting, there was a rare unselfishness about him; and it was probably this fine trait of character, so seldom found in a man of his calibre, that drew Lionel so closely to him. As for Tom, he had never met with anyone before whose character interested him so profoundly as did that of Dering. Out of that interest grew a liking almost brotherly in its warmth for the strange young hermit of Gatehouse Farm. When the day came for these two men to part, they felt as if they had known each other for years. At the last moment they shook hands without a word. Tears stood in Tom's eyes. Lionel would not trust himself to speak for fear of breaking down. One long last grip, then the horses sprang forward, and Torn was gone. Lionel turned slowly indoors, feeling more lonely and sad at heart than he had done since the day his darling Edith was lost to him for ever.
CHAPTER IV. GOLDEN TIDINGS.
Days and weeks passed over before the feeling of loneliness caused by Tom's departure from Gatehouse Farm quite wore itself away--before Lionel got thoroughly back into his old contented frame of mind, and felt again in the daily routine of his quiet homely life that simple satisfaction which had been his before the night of the storm. But as the lengthening days of autumn deepened slowly onward towards Christmas, the restlessness and gloom that had shrouded his life of late began to vanish little by little, so that, by-and-by, as Mrs. Bevis joyfully told her husband, "Master was beginning to get quite like his old self again."

The farm preparations for winter were all made. Lionel, looking forward to a long period of leisure, had decided to begin the study of Italian. He had been into Melcham to buy the necessary books, and got back home just as candles were being lighted. On the table he found two letters which had arrived by the afternoon post. One of the two was deeply bordered with black; the other he recognized at once as being from Tom Bristow. He opened Tom's letter first.

In a few hurried lines Tom told Lionel how he had been laid up again from a severe cold which had settled on his chest, and how the doctors had ordered that he should start at once for Algeria with a view of wintering there. He wrote rather dolefully, as one whose business concerns would be altogether disarranged by this imperious mandate, which, nevertheless, he dare not disobey. "I hope to come back next spring with the swallows, thoroughly rejuvenated," he wrote; "when I will not fail to look you up at dear old Gatehouse Farm."

Lionel took up the second letter with some curiosity. But when he saw that it bore the Duxley post-mark, he guessed in a moment the tidings it was about to tell him. Nor was he mistaken. It told him of the death of his uncle, Arthur St. George, of Park Newton, near Duxley, Midlandshire--and contained an invitation to the funeral, and to the subsequent reading of the dead man's last will and testament.

"This letter is written by my uncle's lawyer," said Lionel to himself. "Why couldn't my cousin Kester write to me?"

It was hardly to be expected that Lionel could either feel or express much sorrow for the death of an uncle whom he had never seen; whom he only knew by reputation as a man thoroughly selfish and hard hearted; who had persistently slighted and ignored his, Lionel's, mother, from the day she ran away from home till the day of her death--and who had been heard to declare, again and again, that neither his sister nor any child of hers should ever touch a penny of his money. Knowing all this, Lionel was surprised to have received even the acknowledgment of an invitation to his uncle's funeral. His cousin Kester was the heir, and would inherit everything. For him, Lionel, to attend as a mourner at the solemn ceremony was to make a hypocrite of himself by assuming a regret which he could not feel.

This Arthur St. George who had just died was Dorothy Dering's eldest brother. He had lived and died a bachelor. The second brother, Geoffry, had died many years before, leaving one son, Kester, who was adopted by Arthur, and always looked upon as his uncle's heir. Of the youngest brother, Lionel, we already know something. He, too, was a bachelor. He it was who, when over from India on leave of absence, had called upon Mrs. Dering, and had subsequently got that appointment for Lionel which his mother was not willing that he should accept.

While in England, General St. George, who did not believe in family feuds, contrived to bring his two nephews, Lionel and Kester, together. The result was, to a certain extent, a failure. The two young men had never met each other before; and when, after a week's intercourse, they bade each other goodbye, it is greatly to be doubted whether either of them cared about seeing the other again. Kester, who could make himself very agreeable when he chose to do so, was, as his uncle's heir, inclined to look down upon Lionel, and to treat him with a certain superciliousness which the latter could not readily brook. There was no open rupture between them, but from that time to the present they had never met again.

Before Lionel had quite made up his mind whether he would attend the funeral or not, there came a second note from Mr. Perrins, more imperative than the first one:--"Your cousin, Mr. Kester St. George, is away on the Continent. I am doubtful whether my notification of your uncle's death will reach him in time to allow of his being at the funeral. You and he are the late Mr. St. George's sole relatives, except General St. George, who is in India. If neither you nor your cousin attend the funeral, your uncle will be followed to the grave by no one of his own blood. But that apart, it is highly desirable that, as a near relative of the deceased gentleman, you should be present at the reading of the will, which is fixed to take place in the blue drawing-room at four o'clock on the afternoon of the day of interment."

After this there was nothing left for Lionel but to go.

It was not without a strange commingling of various feelings that Lionel Dering found himself under the roof of a house which had been the home of his ancestors for two hundred years. A stately and venerable old pile, truly. He had often heard his mother talk about it, but till this day he had never seen it. It was something to feel proud of, that he was the scion of a family which could call a place like Park Newton its home.

He was received by Mr. Perrins with a cordiality that was at once grave and respectful. Kester St. George had not arrived; neither had there been any message from him. They waited till the last possible moment, but he did not come. Thus it happened that Lionel found himself in the novel position of chief mourner at the funeral of a man whom he had never even seen. He was glad when the ceremony was over.

Then came the reading of the will. "I wish to goodness my cousin would come, even at this the last moment," said Lionel to the lawyer as they walked together towards the blue drawing-room.

"I don't really know that it matters greatly," replied Mr. Perrins with a significant smile. "I dare say we shall get on very well without Mr. Kester St. George."

Ten minutes later Lionel understood the meaning of the lawyer's strange remark. Ten minutes later he found himself the owner of Park Newton, and the possessor of an income of eleven thousand pounds a year.

It was even so. Everything, with the exception of a few trifling legacies to old servants, that Arthur St. George possessed in the world he had bequeathed without reservation to his nephew, Lionel Dering. The name of Kester St. George was not even mentioned in the will.

"The Park Newton estates have never been entailed," said Mr. Perrins in parenthesis, as he folded up the will. "It was quite competent to the testator to have left the whole of his property to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, had he chosen to do so."

For the moment Lionel was overwhelmed. But when Mr. Perrins had congratulated him, and the doctor had congratulated him, and the butler and the housekeeper, old servants of the family, had followed suit, he began to feel as if his good fortune were really a fact.

"Now I can marry Edith," was his first thought.

"It seems more like a dream than anything else," said Lionel to Mr. Perrins a little later on, as the latter stood sipping a glass of dry sherry with the air of a connoisseur.

"I should very much like to dream a similar dream," answered the lawyer.

"But about my cousin Kester St. George,--he was adopted by my uncle after his father's death, and was brought up at Park Newton, and it was understood by everybody that he was to be my uncle's heir?"

"It is entirely Mr. Kester St. George's own fault that he does not stand in your position to-day."

"I fail to understand you."

"For years your uncle's will was made in his favour. Everything was left to him as absolutely as it is now left to you. But about nine months ago your uncle and your cousin had a terrible quarrel. As to how it arose, or what was the cause of it, I know nothing. I can only surmise that your cousin had done something which your uncle felt that he could not forgive. But be that as it may, Mr. Kester St. George was turned out of Park Newton at ten o'clock one night, and forbidden ever to set foot across the threshold again--nor has he ever done so. Next day your uncle sent for me, and in my presence he tore up the old will which had been in existence for years, and substituted in its place the one which I had the honour of reading this afternoon."

That same night saw Lionel Dering in London. He felt that he could neither go back to Gatehouse Farm, nor make any arrangements respecting his new position, till after he had seen Edith West--till after he had seen her and told her that his love was still unchanged, and that there no longer existed any reason why she should not become his wife.

It was past ten o'clock before he got into London. His mind was too much excited either to allow of his going to bed or of his sitting quietly in the hotel. So he lighted a cigar, and set out for a quiet ramble through the streets. After a time he found himself on Westminster Bridge. He stood awhile watching the river as it flowed along so dark and mysterious--watching it, but with thoughts that were far away. Suddenly he became conscious of a dull, confused noise, like the far-away murmur of a great crowd. Swiftly the murmur grew, growing and swelling with every moment, till it swelled into a mighty roar from a thousand throats. Then, all at once, there was a flashing of lights, and the trampling of innumerable feet, and three fire-engines went thundering past with yells, and shouts, and hoarse, inarticulate cries from a huge mob that followed hard and fast behind. Lionel stood back to let this crowd of desperadoes pass,--when all at once, among them, but not of them--borne helplessly along by the press from which he was struggling in vain to free himself, he saw his cousin, Kester St. George. There was a lamp close overhead, and their eyes met for a moment in recognition across a seething mass of the crowd. It was but for a moment, and then Kester was carried away; but in that moment there flashed into his eyes a look of such deadly, fiend-like hate as thrilled Lionel from head to foot. It was a look that once seen could never be forgotten. It chilled Lionel's heart, and, for a time, even blotted out from his thoughts the sweet image of Edith West. He walked back to his hotel, gloomy, ill at ease, and oppressed with strange presentiments of some vague, far-off evil. Even after he fell asleep that look on his cousin's face oppressed him and would not be forgotten. He dreamt that Kester was pursuing him from room to room through the old house at Park Newton. As Kester came in at one door, with that terrible look in his eyes, he, Lionel, passed swiftly out at the opposite door, but on each door-handle, as he touched it, he left behind a stain of blood. The oppression of his dream grew at length too great to be any longer borne, and he awoke shivering with dread, and thankful to find that the blessed daylight was at hand.
CHAPTER V. EDITH WEST.
The London clocks were just striking midday as a gentleman drove up to the door of No. 6, Roehampton Terrace, Bayswater. It was Lionel Dering. He had reached London two days previously, but he would not venture to call on Edith West without first writing to her aunt and obtaining the requisite sanction. Mr. Garside had been dead nearly a year, but Edith and her aunt still continued to live together. In his note to Mrs. Garside, Lionel simply said that by a sudden change of fortune he was again in a position to pay his addresses to Miss West, and he solicited her permission to allow him to do so. Mrs. Garside was only too happy to bid him welcome to Roehampton Terrace. Indeed, it is by no means improbable that she would have welcomed him had he gone to her on the same errand without a shilling in the world. She had discovered long ago that Edith was too faithful to the memory of her first love for there to be much hope that a second one would ever find a place in her heart. As Mrs. Garside had said to herself a score of times since her husband's death, "It would be far better for Edith to marry Mr. Dering without a penny than for her never to marry at all. Edith's fortune, if managed with economy, would suffice to keep them in tolerable comfort--not in London, perhaps, but in some quiet country place, or in some cheap corner of the Continent; and Edith is one of those girls who can make themselves happy anywhere."

Under these circumstances, it is hardly to be wondered at that Mrs. Garside was very glad to see Lionel Dering under her roof again, more especially as he did not come to her in the disagreeable guise of a poor man. Tears came into her eyes as she held out her hand to him--genuine tears, for Mrs. Garside was one of those women who can weep on the slightest provocation. "It will be like new life to our darling Edith to have news of you once more," she said.

"Then she has not quite forgotten me?" said Lionel, eagerly.

"Forgotten you, Mr. Dering! How little you know of our sex if you think it possible for us so soon to forget those to whom our young affections have once been given."

"Is she--is Edith here in the house?" asked Lionel.

"She was in her own room only five minutes ago. I can understand your impatience, Mr. Dering, and will not keep you from her. I have refrained from saying a word to her about either your note or your visit. You shall yourself be the bearer of your own good tidings."

Three minutes later Lionel found himself in the presence of Edith. Mrs. Garside opened the door and ushered him in. The room was a very pleasant one, furnished with books, pictures, and curiosities of various kinds. At the farther end it opened into a small conservatory, which looked one dazzling mass of bloom as you entered the room. And there, sweetest flower of all, sat Edith, her face and figure clearly defined against a background of delicate ferns.

"Edith, dear, I have brought a long-lost friend to see you," said Mrs. Garside, as she and Lionel entered.

Edith dropped her book, and started up in surprise. Lionel was half hidden behind Mrs. Garside, and for the moment Edith mistook him for a stranger. But he had not advanced three paces before she saw who he was, and in a moment she was as one transformed. Her mouth dimpled into smiles, tears came nestling into her eyes--tears of happiness--her heart beat fast, her cheeks flushed to the tint of the wild rose when its petals first open to the sun, and with a little inarticulate cry of joy she sprang forward to greet her lover. She sprang forward, and then she halted suddenly, while a look of sadness clouded her face for a moment. With a sigh that ended in a half sob she held out her hand. Lionel grasped it in both his.

"How long you have been away!" she said, as her eyes met his. Mrs. Garside slipped discreetly out of the room, and shut the door softly behind her.

Lionel lifted Edith's hand to his lips and kissed it. Then he looked at her with the same eager, anxious gaze that she had bent on him--he looked and was satisfied. His heart told him that he was still loved as fondly as ever he had been. Edith, too, after that first hungry look, veiled her eyes modestly, but there was a wild whirl of happiness at her heart. Lionel drew her face up to his, and kissed her twice very tenderly. Then he led her to the sofa, and sat down beside her.

"Yes; I have been a very long time away," he said at last. "But I am come to-day, Edith, to ask you to keep me by your side through life--never more to let me wander from you."

Edith, in the first shock of her surprise, was too happy to speak. But her fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on his hand, and her face, resting on his shoulder, where he had placed it, nestled still closer; her silent answer was more eloquent than any words.

"Edith, I left you--my letter told you why," went on Lionel. "But all through the long dreary time when I was separated from you, my love for you never faltered, never wavered for one single moment. If I had never seen you again in this world, my heart's last breath would still have been yours. Yesterday I was poor--to-day I am rich. Once more I can ask you, as I asked you three years ago, to be my wife. Do not tell me that I am asking for more than you can give."

Edith's faith in Lionel was so full and complete, her love for him so deep-rooted, that she never paused--as many young ladies would have done--before giving him back the affection which had all along been his, to demand from him the reason for his apparent desertion of her three years before. In that first flush of new-born happiness it was enough to know that her lover had come back to her: the why and the wherefore of his leaving could be explained afterwards.

"You know, Lionel, that my love is yours always--that it has been yours for a long long time," said Edith, in accents that trembled a little in spite of herself. "But I never received any letter from you after that last one dated from some far-away town in America."

"No letter!" exclaimed Lionel. "Not one explaining my reasons for releasing you from your engagement?"

"Never a single line, Lionel."

"But I gave the letter into your uncle's hands," returned Lionel. "He promised faithfully that he would give it you."

"He did not give it me," answered Edith.

"Perhaps he kept it back because he thought it better that I should not see it."

"He had no right to do anything of the kind," said Lionel, sternly. "The letter was sacredly entrusted to him, and ought as sacredly to have been delivered to you.

"Lionel, my uncle is no longer with us," said Edith, gently. "You and I are together again. That redeems all. Let us never say another word about the letter."

"What a villain, what a mean wretch, you must have thought me," cried Lionel impulsively, "to break off my engagement without assigning you any reason! Without even a single word of explanation!"

"I thought you nothing of the kind," said Edith, with decision. "I knew you too well not to feel sure that you must have good and sufficient reasons for acting as you did. Although you did not tell me what those reasons were--whatever may have been my disappointment at your silence--my faith in you never wavered."

"But when weeks and months passed away, and you never heard from me----"

"I felt then that all was over between us; felt it in a despairing, hopeless kind of way. But I cherished no resentment against you--none."

"But surely your uncle and aunt had some explanation to offer?"

"They told me that, through the failure of a bank, you had lost the whole of your fortune, and that, consequently, you had resigned all pretensions to my hand."

"And you?"

"I thought that you might have called to see me; or, at least, have written to me. I could not understand why, if you still continued to care for me, you should choose to give me up simply because you had lost your fortune."

"You could not understand it?"

"Indeed I could not. And I fail to understand it now. If you were poor, I was rich. What greater happiness could I have than to endow you with my plenty? When I gave you my love, it meant that I gave you everything I could call mine."

"You look at the question from a woman's point of view, Edith: I, from a man's."

"If I had lost my fortune as you lost yours, would you have given me up?" asked Edith.

"Certainly not."

"Nor I you. With me, to love and to be loved is everything. In comparison with that all else is as nothing."

"Edith, I could not come to you penniless, and ask you to become my wife. When I found myself a poor man, I had no profession to fly to; I was acquainted with no business. I was a great hulking good-for-nothing, able to plough and reap, and earn a bare crust by the sweat of my brow, and that was all. How was it possible for me to become a dependent on you for my daily bread?"

"You would not have been a dependent, Lionel. My money would have been yours, just as my love was yours."

"Still a woman's view, my dearest," said Lionel. "The noblest and the best, I at once admit. Only, the world would never have believed that I had not married you for your fortune."

"You and I together, Lionel, could have afforded to set the world's opinion at defiance."

Lionel ended the argument with a kiss.

A fair, sweet English face was that which nestled so lovingly on Lionel's shoulder. Edith West had large liquid dark brown eyes. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were nearly black, but the thick wavy masses of her hair had no shade deeper than that of chestnuts in autumn. The tints of the wild rose dwelt in her cheeks. About her there was a freshness, a sweetness, and a delicate grace, like that of a breezy morning in spring, when flowers are growing, and birds are singing, and all nature seems glad at heart.

"You are in mourning, Lionel," said Edith, suddenly.

"Yes; I have just lost my uncle, Mr. St. George, of Park Newton."

"I never remember to have heard you speak of him."

"Probably not. I never even saw him, never had any communication with him whatever. Nevertheless, it is to him that I owe my fortune."

"It has come to you unexpectedly?"

"Entirely so. Three days ago I should have laughed at the idea of being my uncle's heir: now they tell me that I am worth eleven thousand a year."

"It sounds like a fairy tale," cried Edith. "What a strange man your uncle must have been!"

"When the will was read," returned Lionel, "my first thought was of you. I said to myself, 'Has Edith forgotten me? Has she given me up? Am I too late?' I trembled to think what the answer might be. Now I tremble no longer."

"It is sweet, Lionel, to have you here, and to know that you are my own again," replied Edith. "But how much sweeter it would have been if you had come to me when you were poor, and had trusted everything to my love!"

A week passed away, each day of which saw Lionel Dering a visitor in Roehampton Terrace. Edith and he were much together. It was the happiest time they had ever known. All the freshness of their recent meeting was still upon them; besides which, their long separation had taught them to value each other more, perhaps, than they would have done, had everything gone smoothly with them from the first. The weather, for an English winter, was brilliant, and they rode out every morning into the country. Of an evening, Edith, Lionel, and Mrs. Garside had the drawing-room all to themselves; and although an "exposition of sleep" generally came over the elder lady after dinner, the young people never seemed to miss her society, nor were they ever heard to complain that the time hung heavily on their hands.

They were very happy. They had so much to tell each other about the past--so many golden daydreams to weave of what they would do in the future! Edith could never hear enough about Lionel's life at Gatehouse Farm, and about his adventure with Tom Bristow; while Lionel found himself evincing a quite novel interest in the well-being of sundry ragged-schools, homes for destitute children, and other philanthropic schemes of whose very existence he had been in utter ignorance only a few days before.

But everything must come to an end, and after a time there came a summons from Mr. Perrins. Lionel was wanted down at Park Newton. The old lawyer could go on no longer without him. So Edith and he were compelled to bid each other farewell for a week or two. Meanwhile, the post was to be the daily medium for the interchange of their vows and messages.
CHAPTER VI. FIRST DAYS AT PARK NEWTON.
The dining-room at Park Newton. A cosy little table, with covers set for two people, was drawn up near the fire. The evening was cold and frosty. The wax-candles were lighted, the logs on the hearth burned cheerily. A large Indian screen shut in this end of the room from the wilderness of gloom and desolation beyond; for the dining-room at Park Newton would accommodate fifty or sixty guests with ease. The clock on the mantelpiece pointed to ten minutes past seven. Lionel Dering was growing impatient.

"Perrins is generally punctuality itself," he said. "What can have detained him? I hope he is not ill."

He was on the point of ringing the bell, and sending the servant with a message to the lawyer's room, when Mr. Perrins came in. With many apologies for being late, he sat down to table; but Lionel saw at once that he was bursting with some important news. As soon as the first course was served, and the servant had left the room, Perrins began.

"I have some very startling information for you, Mr. Dering," he said. "My late arrival at table is owing to a certain discovery which I made about an hour ago."

"I hope you are not going to tell me that my eleven thousand a year is all moonshine," said Lionel, as he helped the lawyer to some clear soup.

"No, no, Mr. Dering. The news I have to tell you is not quite so bad as that, and yet it is bad enough in all conscience. While going through some of your uncle's papers this afternoon--you know what a quantity of them there are, and in what disorder he kept them--while engaged upon this necessary duty, I discovered--what think you, sir? what think you?"

"Another will, I suppose," said Lionel, slowly.

"Not another will, but a codicil, sir; codicil to the will with whose provisions we are already acquainted; in the handwriting of the testator himself, witnessed in due form, and dated only three months ago!"

"And what may be the contents of this important document?" asked Lionel, as he crumbled his bread with apparent indifference.

"The contents are these: Should you, Lionel Dering, die unmarried, or without lawful issue, the whole of the property bequeathed you by your uncle's will reverts to your cousin, Mr. Kester St. George, or to his children, should you be the longer liver of the two."

"Is that all?" said Lionel, with a sigh of relief.

"All, sir! Quite enough, too, I should say, if I were in your place."

"Nobody can touch the property as long as, I live."

"Certainly not."

"Then a fig for the rest! Shall I send you a sole or some stewed eels?"

"It is quite a relief, to me to find how coolly you take my news; though it is true your uncle could not well have made the contingency of your cousin's inheriting a more remote one."

"Tell me," said Lionel, "have you either seen or heard anything of Kester since my uncle's death?"

"I have heard from him, but not seen him. He wrote to me a few days after your uncle's funeral, asking me to send him an abstract of the contents of the will. He gave an address in Paris, and I answered his letter by return of post."

"An address in Paris!" exclaimed Lionel. "That is very strange. I never felt more positive of anything than that my cousin Kester passed me on Westminster Bridge on the very night of my uncle's funeral."

"A coincidence, my dear sir, nothing more," said the lawyer, cheerfully. "Such things happen every day in London. It would almost seem as if every man had his double--a sort of unknown twin-brother--somewhere in the world."

Lionel pursued the subject no farther, but he was none the less convinced in his own mind that it was Kester, and no one but him, that he had seen. Could he ever forget the look of undying hatred that shone out of his cousin's eyes?

"You have not yet advised Kester of the contents of the codicil?" he said at last.

"I have not had time to do so. I purpose writing to him this evening: unless you wish me to defer doing so until you have satisfied yourself as to the authenticity of the document."

"My dear sir, if you are satisfied that the document is genuine, that is enough for me. Write to my cousin, by all means, and as soon as possible. By-the-by, you may as well give me his address. I shall probably drop him a line myself."

"I may as well tell you," said Mr. Perrins, as he gave the address, "that the balance of six thousand and odd pounds, which I found to your uncle's credit in his bank passbook at the time of his decease, represents, with the exception of a few shares in one or two public companies, the accumulated savings of Mr. St. George's lifetime."

"What! out of an income of eleven thousand a year?"

"Even so. When your uncle died, everybody who had known him, and who knew his simple, inexpensive mode of life, said: 'He must have saved a hundred thousand pounds at the very least.' But the reverse of that has proved to be the fact. In going through Mr. St. George's papers, I found numerous receipts for very large donations made by him to different charities. He seems to have received his rents with one hand and to have given them away with the other. In fact, your uncle was one of those unknown philanthropists of whom the world hears nothing, but whose wealth, like a bounteous stream, diffuses countless blessings among the sick and poor."

"And yet," said Lionel to himself, "this was the man who refused to forgive his own sister because he fancied that she had married beneath her!"

Mr. Perrins went off to bed at an early hour, after indulging in a due modicum of choice old port; but Lionel sat up till far into the small hours, with no companion but his favourite meerschaum.

His musings were very pleasant ones. How could they be otherwise? Not till to-day had he seemed to realize to the full all that was implied by his sudden change of fortune. In London he was nobody, or next to nobody; one rich man among ten thousand. Here, at Park Newton, he was lord and master of everything. This gray old mansion, with its wide sweep of park, and its noble trees which might be counted by hundreds, were all his, with many a fair and fruitful farm that now lay sleeping under the midnight moon. To the gracious shelter of that stately old roof he would in a little while bring his bride. There would their lives gradually wear themselves away in a round of daily duties, edged with a quiet happiness that never tires. In one or other of those rooms their last breath would ebb away; in the long gallery upstairs two more portraits would be added to the line of dead and gone ancestors. And then would come the day when a new master, his son, would reign at Park Newton, who would, in his turn, bring home a fair young bride, and would dream, perchance in that very room, in the dim years to come, dreams the like of those which the brain of Lionel Dering was shadowing forth to-night among the smoke-wreaths that floated slowly upward from his pipe.

But before that time should come there was, he hoped and thought, a long and happy future in store for himself and Edith. As he passed with his candle through the dim picture-gallery on his way to bed, each one of the old portraits seemed to greet him with a grim smile of welcome. With a queer, half-joyous, half-superstitious feeling at his heart, he turned at the gallery door. "Bon soir, messieurs," he said, with a bow to the silent crowd that seemed watching him so intently, "I hope--after a time--to form one of your pleasant society."

Lionel was up betimes next morning, and took a stroll round the house and shrubberies before breakfast. Park Newton dated from the era of William and Mary, and had little to boast of in the way of architectural magnificence. It was built of brick, with a profusion of stone copings, and mullions, and twisted chimneys. But its walls were now gray and venerable with age, powdered with lichens and delicate fairy mosses, and clasped about here and there with clinging tendrils of ivy. Everything about it was old and homelike. It had an air of stately comfort which seemed to carry back the mind instinctively to the days of periwigs and ruffles, of clouded canes and buckled shoes; before we English had become the gadabout race we are now; when a country gentleman's house was his home the year round, and country roads were altogether impassable in bad weather.

Lionel had not been many hours at Park Newton before he began to have visitors. The county families and neighbouring gentry who had known the late Mr. St. George either called or left their cards. Lionel was young and unmarried, and would be a decided acquisition to the limited circle of Midlandshire bachelors: that is to say, of eligible bachelors. Of ineligible bachelors there were always enough and to spare. But the advent of such a possible prize--of a bird with such splendid plumage as the new owner of Park Newton--was enough to send a pleasurable thrill through all the dovecotes within a circuit of twenty miles. Of the existence of a certain young lady, Edith West by name, nothing, of course, was known or suspected.

One of the first to call at Park Newton, and introduce himself to Lionel, was the Reverend John Wharton, the vicar of Duxley. Mr. Wharton was an octogenarian, but hale and hearty; as far as appearances went, he seemed likely to last for another twenty years.

"My having known your uncle, the late Mr. St. George, must be my apology for intruding upon you so soon," he said, as he shook Lionel warmly by the hand. "And not your uncle only, but your grandfather also. And now I should like to know you."

"You are very kind," said Lionel. "And I appreciate the honour you have done me."

"There was another member of the family, too, whom I recollect very well," said the vicar, as they sat together in the library. "I refer to your mother."

"Did you know my mother?" asked Lionel, eagerly.

"I did indeed. I remember her first as a sweet slip of a girl, playing and romping about the house and grounds. Then I missed her for three or four years while she was away at school. Then she came back, a sedate young lady, but very, very pretty. How fond your grandfather was of her! But he never forgave her for running away and marrying your father--never, that is, until he lay dying."

"Do you mean to say, sir, that my grandfather ever did forgive my mother?"

"Certainly he forgave her, but not till he lay on his deathbed. I was in the room at the time and heard his words. Taking your uncle's hand in his, your grandfather said--and his words came very slowly and feebly:--'Arthur, life and its duties look very different, as I lie here, from what they did when I was in health. It lies on my conscience that I never forgave poor Dorothy. It's too late to send for her now, but send her my blessing after I'm gone, and say that I loved her to the last.' He shut his eyes, and was silent for a little while. Then he spoke again. 'Arthur,' he said to your uncle, 'is it your intention ever to marry?' 'I shall never marry, father,' was the answer. 'Then who's to have Park Newton, after your time?' 'It will not go out of the family, you may depend upon that, father,' said your uncle. 'Some time or other it will have to go to one of the two boys,' resumed your grandfather; 'either to Dorothy's boy, or to Geoffry's son, Kester. Now I don't want to tie you down in any way, Arthur, but I confess I should like Dorothy's lad to have Park Newton. He could change his name to St. George, you know. Young Kester might have a life allowance out of the estate of two or three thousand a year, and there would still be enough left to keep up the old place in proper style. I feel that I have acted wrongly to Dorothy. There is some reparation due to her. If I thought that her boy would one day have the estate, I think I should die happier.' 'Father, it shall be as you wish,' said Arthur St. George, solemnly."

"A promise that was made only to be broken," said Lionel, bitterly. "I have heard my mother say that the first intimation she had of my grandfather's death was derived from the columns of a newspaper. Further than that, my uncle Arthur never wrote a single line to my mother; never would even see her; never hold any communication with her, direct or indirect, to the last day of her life."

"You shock me," said the old clergyman. "Can that indeed be true?"

"I tell you, sir," said Lionel, "that this is the first time I ever heard of any such wish having been expressed by my grandfather. Two months ago I had no more expectation than you had of ever coming into the Park Newton property. My cousin Kester was always looked upon as the heir."

"He was, greatly to my surprise, knowing what I knew. Your uncle adopted him and brought him up as his own son."

"And, had it not been for some mysterious quarrel that took place between my uncle and my cousin, Kester St. George would undoubtedly at this moment have been the owner of Park Newton."

"What you say seems only too probable," said the vicar. "And yet I always looked upon Mr. St. George as one of the most conscientious of men, as he was, undoubtedly, one of the most charitable."

"A pity that in this case his charity did not begin nearer home," said Lionel. "That must have been a terrible quarrel," he added presently, "which could induce my uncle to alter the determination of a lifetime, and leave the property away from my cousin."

"True," said the vicar. "I have often wondered of what nature it could be. But Mr. St. George never spoke of it to any one. He was a very close man in many ways."

There was much food for thought in what Mr. Wharton had just told Lionel. "My grandfather intended me to have Park Newton, and I've got it," he said to himself, after the vicar had gone. "But it was also his wish that Kester should have two or three thousand a year out of the estate. I'll write to Perrins to know how it can be done."

Mr. Perrins had gone back to London a few hours previously. Lionel wrote to him by that night's post. Next morning but one he had the following answer: "By the terms, of your uncle's will and codicil you have no power to make any such allowance out of the estate as the one suggested by you. You can, of course, make any allowance you may please, and to anybody, privately, and as a gift out of your own pocket; but it is not competent for you to burden the estate with any charge of such a nature."

Would his cousin accept three thousand a year from him as a gift? It was a delicate proposition to put to a man circumstanced as was Kester St. George.

Lionel had not been many days at Park Newton when he was called upon by Mr. Cope, the banker, with whom came Mr. Culpepper of Pincote.

Mr. Cope was the senior partner in the firm of Sugden and Co., the well-known, bankers of Duxley. The late Mr. St. George had had an account with the firm for twenty years, which account Mr. Cope was desirous of still retaining on his books, with nothing but a simple alteration of the customer's name.

Squire Culpepper was a friend of Mr. Cope, and had been an intimate friend of Mr. St. George; consequently, it was only natural that he and the banker should drive over to Park Newton together. Lionel gave them a hearty welcome. The banker was successful in the particular object of his visit, and was further gratified by Lionel's acceptance of an invitation to dine with him, en famille, the following day.

"Pincote ought by rights to have been your first place of call," said Mr. Culpepper to Lionel as he was bidding him goodbye. "But Cope here has stolen a march on me, as usual. However, I'll forgive him if you'll come and see us at Pincote before this day week."

Lionel laughed and promised.

Mr. Cope was a heavily-built, resolute-looking man of middle age, with a brusque business manner, which had become so confirmed in him by habit that he could not throw it off in private life. He had neither the education nor the manners of a well-bred gentleman, but he inspired respect by the shrewdness of his intellect, and a certain innate force of character which made itself felt by all with whom he came in contact. His father had originally been office-boy to the firm of Sugden and Co., but, in the course of thirty years, had gradually worked his way up to the honourable post of managing clerk. Ultimately, three or four years before his death, he had been elevated to a junior partnership. Already young Horatio Cope, although merely filling the position of an ordinary clerk in the bank, had displayed such natural aptitude as a financier that, when his father died, the vacant post was at once given him, and the firm had never had reason to regret the choice thus made. As time went on, the two oldest members of the Sugden family died within a few months of each other. Two or three years later the youngest of the three brothers was accidentally drowned. Of the original firm there then were left but two young men, of three or four and twenty, cousins, who knew little or nothing about the business, who were rich enough to live without it, and who preferred a life of ease and pleasure to the cares and toils which must devolve on those who would successfully steer a large financial concern through the troubled waters of speculation. In this crisis all that could be done was to fall back on Horatio Cope. He was master of the situation, and he knew it. The result was that he was offered a partnership in the firm on equal terms with the two cousins. They were to supply the capital necessary for the conduct of the business, but the entire management was to devolve on him. All this had happened several years ago; and in Duxley and its neighbourhood few men were better known, or more generally esteemed, than Mr. Cope.

He was a very proud man, this heavy, awkward-looking, middle-aged banker. His secret ambition was to obtain a footing among the county families of Duxley and its neighbourhood, and to be treated by them, if not exactly as an equal, yet with as near an approach to that blissful state of things as might be. But, somehow, notwithstanding all his efforts, the old plebeian taint seemed still to cling to him. The people among whom it was his highest ambition to live and move simply tolerated him, and that was all. He was rich, and, to a certain extent, was still a rising man. He could be made use of in many ways. So he was invited to their state-dinners, and sometimes to their more private balls and parties; but, for all that, he felt that he did not belong to them--that he never could belong to them--that he stood outside a magic circle which to him must be for ever impassable. It was only by slow degrees, and after a long time, that these disagreeable truths were brought fully home to the banker's mind. But when he did realize them, he bethought himself that he had a son.

Mr. Cope's stanchest friend and best ally was, undoubtedly, Squire Culpepper, of Pincote. It had been the banker's good fortune, some thirty odd years ago, to be in a position to do an essential service to Titus Culpepper, at that time an impecunious young man, without a profession, and with no prospects in particular; and the squire, when he afterwards came into his property, was not the man to forget it. At Pincote the banker was ever a welcome guest; and if any one had asked the squire to point out the man whom he believed to be his best friend, that man would undoubtedly have been Horatio Cope.

It was a great step in Mr. Cope's favour to be so taken in hand by a man like Mr. Culpepper, who, although only moderately rich, and a commoner, was the representative of one of the most ancient and respected families in the county, and could, in fact, show a pedigree older by two centuries and a half than that of the great Duke of Midlandshire himself. Squire Culpepper had only one child, a daughter; and it seemed to Mr. Cope that it would be an excellent thing if a match could be brought about between his son and the young lady in question. By marrying Miss Culpepper, his son would at once secure a position in society such as he himself could never hope to attain; and if, in addition, the young man could be smuggled into parliament, and could succeed in making one tolerably good speech there, why, then he thought that the great ambition of his life would be as near fulfilment as it was ever likely to be in his time. By what occult means Mr. Cope succeeded in inducing the squire to so far overcome the prejudices of caste as to agree to the marriage of his daughter with the grandson of a man who had lighted the fires and swept out the offices of Sugden's bank, was best known to himself. But certain it is that he did succeed; and the match was arranged, and the pecuniary conditions agreed upon, before either of the two persons most interested so much as knew a word about it.

Squire Culpepper, at this time, was from fifty-five to sixty years old. He was a short, wiry, keen-faced man, with restless, fidgety ways, and a firm belief in his own shrewdness and knowledge of the world. Except when dressed for dinner, his ordinary attire was a homely suit of shepherd's plaid, with thick shoes and gaiters. His head-gear was a white hat, with a black band, generally much the worse for wear. The squire's shabby hats were known to everybody. His tongue was sharp, and his temper hasty, but he was as sweet and sound at heart as one of his own Ribstone pippins.

Mr. Cope had a fine, handsome modern-built house just outside Duxley. When Lionel arrived, he found his host in the drawing-room waiting to receive him. The squire had not yet come. When he did arrive, he was half-an-hour past his time. He apologized, on the ground that he had been to a sale of cattle some twenty miles off, and had not been able to get back earlier. It was obvious to Lionel, and doubtless to Mr. Cope also, that the squire had been drinking--not inordinately, by any means, but just enough to make him more merry and talkative than usual. After dinner, some splendid old port was put on the table; and it seemed to Lionel that the banker, while drinking nothing but an innocuous claret himself, kept pressing the decanter of port on the squire's attention oftener than was at all necessary, and seemingly of set purpose. The squire, nothing loath, smacked his lips, and drank glass after glass with evident gusto. As a consequence, he became more merry and communicative than ever. Had Lionel known at the time what a very rare occurrence it was for the squire to allow himself to become, even in the slightest degree, the worse for wine, he might have asked himself whether the banker's object was not to obtain from him, while in that talkative mood, certain information which it would have been hopeless to expect him to divulge at any other time. But Lionel, knowing nothing of this, was entirely in the dark as to what Mr. Cope's object could possibly be.

"Did you buy any stock at Cottingly, to-day?" asked the banker.

"Not a single hoof," answered the squire. "The prices were ruination. I'll keep my money in my pocket, and wait for better times."

"You know Cottingly, don't you?" he asked presently of the banker.

"Pretty well," answered Mr. Cope.

"Do you know Drake and Harding, the architects?"

"I've heard of the firm--nothing more. But if you want an architect, there's a clever young fellow here in Duxley."

"I know him. His name's Beakon. He's quite a fool."

"Quite a fool, is he?" said the banker, equably. "So be it."

"I've proved it, sir--proved it. No, Drake and Harding are the men for my money. Everything's settled. They'll bring the plans over to Pincote on Wednesday afternoon. If you have nothing better to do, you may as well drive over and help me to decide on the most suitable one."

"The plans! What plans?" said Mr. Cope, in astonishment. "You forget that I'm altogether in the dark."

"Why, what plans could I mean but the plans for my new house?" cried the squire, as he refilled his glass. "I thought I had told you all about it weeks ago."

"This is the first time you have ever hinted at such a thing. But you don't mean to say that you are going to pull down Pincote!"

"I mean to say nothing of the kind," said the squire, peevishly. "But, for all that, I may be allowed to build myself a new house if I choose to do so, I suppose?"

"Certainly--certainly," said the banker, with a look of deprecation.

"I know what you think."

"I beg your pardon."

"I say, sir, that I know what you think," repeated the squire, with half-sober vehemence. "You think that because I've reduced my balance during the last six months from nine thousand pounds to somewhere about three thousand, and because I've sold all my stocks and securities, that I've been making ducks and drakes of my money, and don't know what I'm about. But you never made a greater mistake in your life, Horatio Cope."

"You do me a great injustice, my dear squire. No such thought ever entered my mind."

"Don't tell me. I know what you bankers are."

Mr. Cope shrugged his shoulders and looked, at Lionel with the air of an injured man.

"You don't believe in any speculation unless you've a finger in the pie yourself," continued the squire. "But other people have got their heads screwed on right as well as you. Why, man, I tell you that in less than six months from this time, I shall be worth an extra hundred thousand pounds at the very least."

"I'm truly delighted to hear it," said the banker, heartily. "No man will congratulate you with more sincerity than I shall."

"And you ought to be delighted to hear it, seeing that my daughter and your son will soon be man and wife. But, mind you, I don't mean to turn miser with it. I intend to build, and plant, and dig. You know Knockley Holt, that bit of scrubby ground just outside the park?"

"I know it well."

"That's the spot where I intend to build my new house. The young folk can have Pincote. I don't intend to pull the old place down. After I'm gone, of course the new place will be theirs as well. And, if I live, I mean to make it a place worth having."

The squire refilled his glass. Mr. Cope, deep in thought, was absently drumming with his fingers on the table.

"Pincote is a very old place, is it not?" asked Lionel.

"It was built three hundred and fifteen years ago, and it's still as weather-proof as ever it was. But because one's great grandfather six times removed, chose to build a house, is that any reason why I shouldn't build another? At all events, I mean to try what I can do."

"The speculation you have hit upon must be something remarkable," said the banker, holding up a glass of wine before the lamp.

"It is. Something very remarkable," said Mr. Culpepper with a chuckle. "You would like to know the ins and outs of it, wouldn't you, now?"

"I should, indeed. It's too bad of you to keep such a good thing all to yourself."

"Ha! ha!" laughed the squire, in high glee. "I thought you would say that. You'll know all in good time, I dare say. But at present--it's a secret. That's what it is--a secret."

"Must have found a silver mine on his estate," said Mr. Cope, with a sly look at Lionel.

"Or a coal mine, which would be pretty much the same thing," returned Lionel.

The squire laughed loud and long. "Ah you're a sharp lot, you bankers," he cried. "But you don't know everything." And then he winked at Lionel.

Lionel was not sorry when the evening came to an end, and he found himself on his way back to Park Newton. "My first introduction to Midlandshire society is not very promising," he said to himself. "I hope to find it a little more entertaining by-and-by."

The squire, after being safely helped into his dog-cart, was driven home by his groom.

Mr. Cope, after his guests were gone, stood for a full quarter of an hour with his back to the drawing-room fire, ruminating over the events of the evening. Judging by the settled frown on his face, his meditations were anything but pleasant ones. "My worst fears are confirmed," he said to himself. "Culpepper has been induced to speculate on his own account. His balance at the bank yesterday was only two thousand and odd pounds,--and every security disposed of! Some swindler has got hold of him, and the result will be that he will lose every penny that he has invested. Build himself a new mansion, indeed! Unless he's very careful, the Court of Bankruptcy will soon be the only mansion he can claim the right to enter."

At this moment his son, Edward, entered the room.

"Have you been to Pincote to-day?" said the banker.

"I have just returned from there," answered the young man.

"If I were you, Edward," said Mr. Cope, looking steadily at his son, "I wouldn't allow my feelings to become too closely entangled with Miss Culpepper. You're only on probation, you know, and I wouldn't--in short, I wouldn't push matters so far as to leave myself without a door of escape, in case anything should happen to--to--in short, you understand perfectly what I mean."

"You mean to say, sir----" stammered the young man.

"I mean to say nothing more than I've said already," interrupted the banker. "My meaning is perfectly simple. If you cannot understand it, you are more stupid than I take you to be. Good-night." At the door he turned. "Remember this," he added. "When you enter an enemy's country, never burn your boats behind you. Bad policy." And with a final nod, the banker was gone.

"Now, what on earth does he mean with his 'enemy's country,' and his 'burning boats'?" said Edward Cope, with a comical look of despair. "I wish some people would learn to talk plain English."
CHAPTER VII. KESTER ST. GEORGE.
Although Lionel Dering had obtained Kester St. George's address in Paris from Mr. Perrins, he had not yet written to him. He put off writing from day to day, hardly knowing, in fact, in what terms to couch his letter. He could not forget the look he had seen in his cousin's eyes during their momentary recognition of each other on Westminster Bridge. Were they to be as friends or as enemies to each other in time to come? was the question Lionel asked himself times without number. At last he decided not to write at all, but to wait till Kester should return to England, and then see him in person.

After a fortnight at Park Newton, Lionel ran up to town. As a matter of course, his first visit was to Edith. His second was to Mr. Perrins. From the latter he ascertained that a copy of the codicil had been duly sent to Kester at Paris, but had not yet been acknowledged. Lionel's next visit was to the Dodo Club, in Pall Mall, of which club he had ascertained that his cousin was a member. "Yes, Mr. St. George was in town--had been in town for some days," said the hall porter, in answer to his inquiry. "Most likely he would look in at the club in the course of the afternoon or evening." On the spur of the moment, Lionel sat down and wrote the following note, which he left at the Dodo for his cousin: "Dear Kester, I am in town and should much like to see you. drop me a line saying when and where I can have the pleasure of calling."

A few hours afterwards he had the following answer: "Old fellow--Come and breakfast with me to-morrow. Eleven sharp. Shall be delighted to see you."

The address given was 28, Great Carrington Street, West, at the door of which house Lionel's cab deposited him as the clock was striking eleven next morning.

Kester St. George's chambers were luxuriously fitted up. They seemed an appropriate home for a man of wealth and fashion. Kester, attired in a flowery dressing-robe, with a smoking-cap on his head, was lounging in slippered ease before a well-furnished breakfast table. While there was no one to see him, he looked careworn and gloomy. He held an open letter in one hand, the reading of which seemed to have been anything but a source of satisfaction to him.

"Won't wait more than another week, won't he!" he muttered. "Not to be put off with any more of my fine promises, eh? If I were cleared out to-morrow, I couldn't raise more than a bare two fifty--just an eighth of the two thousand Grimble says he must have out of me before seven days are over: and he means it this time. If I could only raise five hundred, that might satisfy him till I get a turn of luck. I wonder--as I've often wondered--whether Dering knows of that little secret down at Park Newton. How fortunate that he's coming here this morning! I'll pump him. If he knows nothing of it--why then, we shall see what we shall see. What with the diamonds and one thing or another, it ought to be good for five or six hundred at the very least. That must be Dering's knock."

"Dear boy! so pleased to see you! so glad to find you have not forgotten me!" were Kester's first words, accompanied by a hearty shake of the hand. All traces of gloom, and depression had vanished from his face. He looked as if he had not a care in the world.

"I am not likely to forget you, Kester," said Lionel. "I should have hunted you up weeks back, but I heard that you were in Paris."

"So I was in Paris--only got here three days ago. What will you take, tea or coffee? I've something fresh here in potted meats that I can strongly recommend."

Kester St. George at this time was thirty-three years old. He was a tall, well-built man, with something almost military in his bearing and carriage. He had bold, well-cut, aquiline features, a clear, pale olive complexion, and black, restless eyes. Black, too, jet black, were his thick eyebrows and his heavy, drooping moustache: but already his hair had faded to an iron-gray. He had one of those rare voices--low, soft, and persuasive, but perfectly clear, which are far more dangerous to a woman's peace of mind than mere good looks can ever hope to be. It was a voice whose charm few men could resist. Yet it was so uniformly dulcet, it was pitched so perpetually in a minor key that some people came at last to think that through all its sweetness, through all that pleasant flow or words which Kester St. George could command at will, they could detect a tone of insincerity--the ring, as it were, of counterfeit metal trying to pass itself off as good, honest gold. But, then, some people are very fanciful--ridiculously so: and the majority of those who knew Kester St. George were satisfied to vote him a capital talker, and very pleasant company, and neither wished nor cared to know anything more.

"It must be eight or nine years, Li, since you and I met last," said Kester, as he helped his cousin to some coffee.

"Yes, about that time," said Lionel.

"You are so altered that I should hardly have known you again."

"I suppose so," answered Lionel. "But I should have known you anywhere."

"How?"

"By your eyes."

"Ah!" A pause, while Kester leisurely chipped an egg.

"Have you had any news lately from Uncle Lionel?"

"I have not had a letter from India for over six months."

"What a fine old boy he is! Do you know, Li, I was quite jealous of the way he took to you; making such a pet of you, and all that? He must be getting old now."

"I believe he is either fifty-nine or sixty."

"Quite time he left the service, and settled down at home for the remainder of his days. He must have made a pot of money out there, eh?"

"I don't think Uncle Lionel is one of the money-making kind."

"He must have some scrapings somewhere. I only hope he won't forget his graceless nephew Kester, when he comes to make his will. By-the-by, you have a brother out there, haven't you?"

"Yes. The only brother I have."

"Doing well?"

"Very well."

"Ah, here comes Pierre with a couple of Digby chicks. Famous relish. Try one. And how do you like Park Newton, Li?"

"I get to like it better as I become more familiar with it. It grows upon one day by day."

"Sweet old spot! For years and years I never dreamed that any one other than myself would be its master after my uncle's death."

"We all thought the same," said Lionel. "You will give me credit for sincerity when I say that no one could have been more surprised than I was by the contents of Uncle Arthur's will."

"I know it; I know it. From the day I quarrelled with my uncle, I felt that my chance was gone for ever. It was only right that you should be made the heir, vice Kester in disgrace. If there had been no such person as you in existence, the property would have been left either to your brother or to Uncle Lionel. If they had both been dead, Park Newton would have gone to some hospital or asylum. In no case would a single shilling have ever come to me." Kester spoke with exceeding bitterness, and Lionel could not wonder at it. But his gloom did not last more than a minute or two. He shook it off lightly. "Che sarà, sarà," he said, with a shrug and a laugh. Then he rose, and got his cigar-case. "Let us have a smoke," he said. "After all, life in Bohemia is very jolly. It is pleasant to live by one's wits at the expense of other people who have none. Fools fortunately abound in this world; while they are plentiful, men of brains need never starve." This was said with a sort of defiant cynicism that it pained Lionel to hear.

"Kester," he said, "something was told me the other day that I never heard of before; something that affects you."

"Something that affects me! What was it?" His tone was abrupt and full of suspicion.

"Mr. Wharton, the vicar of Duxley, told me that when my grandfather lay dying, he expressed a wish that if Uncle Arthur should die without children, the estate should come to me; but that an allowance of three thousand a year should be paid out of it to you as long as you lived."

"I have heard my uncle say many a time that my grandfather was in his dotage for months before he died," said Kester, contemptuously.

"Whether he was in his dotage or no, there is no doubt that such a wish was expressed by him. Strangely enough, his wish has come true as regards myself: why should it not come true in your case also?"

"Lionel Dering, what is it that you mean?"

"Simply this: Three thousand a year out of the Park Newton property belongs morally to you, and----"

"And you want to settle that sum on me?"

"I do."

"You propose, in all seriousness, to give me, Kester St. George, three thousand a year out of your income of eleven thousand?"

"In all seriousness, that is what I propose to do."

Kester's face flushed deeply. He got up, walked across the room, and stood looking out of the window for two or three minutes.

"No! a thousand times no!" he exclaimed at last with startling abruptness. "I cannot accept your offer."

"Is not the sum large enough?" asked Lionel.

"Not one penny piece, Lionel Dering, will I ever accept at your hands!"

"But why not? What is your objection?"

"Do not ask me. I would not tell you if I could. Let it suffice that my objection is insuperable and--let us never talk about this again." He rang the bell violently. "Pierre, cognac and seltzer. Do you do anything in the racing line?" asked Kester in his lightest tone as Pierre left the room.

"Nothing. I'm as fond of a horse as any man, but I'm profoundly ignorant of racing, and I never bet."

"That's a pity, because I could have put you up to one or two good things for the spring meetings. Fine institution--betting," added Kester, as he lighted another cigar. "It is one of the pleasantest of our vices, when judiciously pursued. When we win, it is a source of double gratification: we not only put money into our own pockets, but we take it out of the pockets of other people."

"And when you lose?" said Lionel.

"To bear one's losses like a man of the world and a gentleman is to prove that the teachings of philosophy have not been in vain."

"May I venture to hope that, as yet, you have had no occasion to seek consolation in the teachings of philosophy?"

"I won four thousand over the last St. Leger."

"For the present, then, the Stoics are at a discount.--Kester," said Lionel, abruptly breaking off the subject, "you won't object to come and see me at Park Newton?"

Kester was leaning back in his easy chair, watching the smoke-wreaths as they curled idly upwards from his cigar. His thick black eyebrows came together in a deep, meditative frown as he heard Lionel's question. For a minute or two he did not answer.

"Frankly, no. I'll come and see you," he said at last. "Why shouldn't I? It will pain me at first to go back to the old place as guest, where once I thought that I should be master. But, thank Heaven, I'm not one of the most impressionable of men, and the feeling will soon wear off. Yes, Lionel, I'll come and see you."

Lionel was pleased that he had succeeded so far. "Perhaps, after a time," he thought, "I may be able to persuade him to accept the three thousand a year."

"You will keep up the old place in proper style, I suppose?" said Kester presently.

"I shall live very quietly--at least for some time to come," said Lionel.

"Which means, I suppose, that you will see very little company, and not rest satisfied unless you can save two-thirds of your income. That you will breakfast and dine in that ugly little parlour which overlooks the fishpond, and snore by night inside the huge four-poster in the Griffin-room."

Lionel laughed his careless, good-hearted laugh. "To one count of your indictment I can plead guilty," he said. "I certainly have both breakfasted and dined in the parlour overlooking the fishpond. But, on the other hand, I have certainly never slept in the Griffin, which has been locked up ever since Uncle Arthur's death."

"Ah!" sighed Kester, and it sounded so like a sigh of relief or thankfulness that Lionel could not help noticing it. "No wonder you don't care to sleep in the Griffin," he added, after a brief pause. "With its oak-panelled walls, and its plumed bedstead that always put me in mind of a hearse, it used to give me a fit of horrors whenever I went into it; and yet my uncle would never sleep anywhere else."

It should be mentioned that the bedrooms at Park Newton were each of them individualized with a name--generally that of some bird, fish, or animal. Among others, there were the Dolphin, the Pelican, and the Griffin. Such had been the whim of one of the former owners of the place, and none of his successors had seen fit to alter the arrangement.

After a little more desultory conversation, Lionel rose to go. As he stood with his elbow resting on the chimney-piece, his eye was attracted by a brace of duelling pistols which hung on the wall close by. They were old-fashioned, clumsy-looking weapons, but deadly enough, no doubt, in efficient hands.

"With permission," said Lionel, as he took one down to examine. Kester took down the other. The one Lionel had taken was unloaded; the one in Kester's hands loaded--a fact of which Kester was quite aware. The day was dull, and Lionel took his pistol to the window, that he might examine it more closely. Kester stood by the chimney-piece on the other side of the room. As he stood thus, a terrible temptation took possession of him. "What if you were to kill him where he stands!" something seemed to whisper in his ear: and for a moment his whole being shrank back aghast. But for a moment only.

"I could shoot him dead on the spot, put the discharged pistol into his hand the moment after he had fallen, and no one could say that he had not shot himself. Park Newton would then be mine, and I should be revenged."

These thoughts flashed like lightning through Kester's brain. The room and everything in it seemed to recede and fade into nothingness--everything except that silent black-clothed figure by the window. Kester's heart beat strangely. His breath came in hot gasps. There were blood-red motes in his eyes--blood-red motes falling everywhere. Mechanically, and without any conscious volition on his part, his right arm went up to a line with his shoulder. The barrel was pointed straight at Lionel's head.

He paused and trembled. In another moment, for good or for ill, would have come the climax. Suddenly, and without warning, Pierre, the velvet-footed, flung open the door. "A telegram for you, sir," he said. "The messenger is waiting."

The pistol fell from Kester's nervous grasp Lionel looked up and was saved.
CHAPTER VIII. A MIDNIGHT INTRUDER.
Lionel Dering found himself back at Park Newton three days earlier than he had intended. Mrs. Garside's sister in Paris having been suddenly taken ill, Mrs. Garside was telegraphed for to go over. She begged of Edith to accompany her. Lionel ran down with them as far as Dover, saw them safely on board the steamer, and then bade them goodbye.

There being no longer any attraction for him in London, he decided to go straight through to Park Newton, as several matters there claimed his attention, and he went accordingly. He reached home about seven o'clock in the evening, much to the consternation of Mrs. Benson, his housekeeper, who had not expected him till the end of the week, and who was in the midst of a high festival of scrubbing and scouring. Among other places, Lionel's bedroom was in a topsy-turvy condition, and altogether unfit for occupation; so that Mrs. Benson, with many apologies, was compelled to ask him whether he would object to sleep in another room for that night only. Lionel, who was the most good-natured of men with his servants, made no objection to the change.

After his simple dinner was over, Lionel spent an hour among his letters and papers, and then took a cigar and his travelling cap with the intention of having a quiet smoke in the shrubbery. The night was clear and cold. There was no moon, but the stars were shining brightly. The footways were dry and pleasant to walk on, and Lionel lingered outside for nearly an hour, winding in and out among the maze of walks, and the thick clumps of evergreens, wherever his vagrant footsteps led him. His thoughts were with Edith. He was thinking of the time, so soon to come, when they should pace those pleasant walks together; when that dim old pile, which looked so majestic in the starlight, should call her mistress. There would be their home through all the happy years to come. His heart was full of solemn joy and gratitude: unbidden tears stood in his eyes: he felt that Heaven had been very kind to him. Then and there he registered a promise that the sick, the aged, and the poverty-stricken on his estate--and he knew already that they were many in number--should be made the special care of Edith and himself.

He was slowly retracing his steps when, as he turned the corner of a thick clump of holly only a few yards from the house, to his utter surprise he nearly stumbled over a man, who started up, from under his very feet as it seemed, and plunged at once into the depths of the shrubbery on the other side. For the moment Lionel was too much startled to think of pursuit, and a second thought convinced him that it would be useless to attempt any. The trees were thickly planted just there, and that part of the grounds was quite strange to him; besides, would it be worth his while to follow the intruder? The man, whoever he might be, had evidently been hiding, and had certainly no business there; but, in all probability, he was merely some young fellow from the village who had been sweethearting with one of the servants at the Hall, and had stayed beyond his time.

Nevertheless, when Lionel reached the house, he decided that, for once, he would look after the fastenings of the windows and doors himself. When he had satisfied himself that everything was secure, he took his candle and went off to his bed in the Dolphin. He was very tired and soon fell asleep. But Lionel had a trick--begotten of the time when he lay camping out in the wilds of North America, and had to sleep with his loaded rifle resting on his arm, and in constant dread of a surprise by hostile Indians--of waking up at the slightest noise at all out of the common way: waking up in a moment, completely, fully, and with all his wits about him. The old instinct did not desert him on the present occasion. He had been asleep for a couple of hours or so, when he was recalled in a moment from the land of dreams to life the most vivid and conscious, by the overturning of some heavy piece of furniture in the room immediately over that in which he was sleeping. He sat up in bed and listened with all his senses on the alert. But all was again as silent as the grave.

After two or three minutes he lay back in bed, still listening, but not so keenly as before; and trying to make out, from his knowledge of the house, which particular room it was from whence the noise proceeded that he had just heard.

All at once it struck him--and the thought sent a chill through his heart--that the room in question was none other than the Griffin--none other, in fact, than the room in which his Uncle Arthur had died. The more he thought of it, the more certain he felt that he was right. It was the Griffin without doubt But what could any living being be doing in that room of all others, and at that hour of the night? The room had been left untouched since his uncle's death, and, as far as he, Lionel, was concerned, was likely to be so left for some time to come.

It was always kept locked, too, although the key was not taken away but left outside the door; and all the servants, from Mrs. Benson downwards, had a superstitious dread of entering it. How, then, account for the noise he had heard, which certainly came from that room and from no other? With such thoughts in his mind, to sleep again, for some time to come, was out of the question. A quarter of an hour, or it might be twenty minutes, passed thus, and the silence was still unbroken. Then there came a sound, and Lionel started involuntarily as he heard it. It was the faint sound of footsteps--the noise made by some one moving slowly and cautiously across the floor of the room above. It was so faint, so muffled, so subdued, that at any other time than the middle of the night, and to any ears less keen than those now listening with all their might, it would have been altogether inaudible. If, for a moment, he had shivered at the recollection that it was in that very room his uncle had breathed his last--if, for a moment, some vague ghostly fancies had flitted across his mind, it was for a moment only. Involuntarily, and without any consciousness on his part, his mind seemed, in some strange way, to connect the dim half-seen figure that had melted before his eyes into the shrubbery, with the mysterious footsteps overhead.

It was the work of a very short time for Lionel to slip out of bed, light his candle, and partially dress himself. He had no weapon of any kind in his room, but, man against man, he was not afraid of any one; and that there was more than one person upstairs seemed highly improbable. He opened his room door as noiselessly as possible, and stole out into the corridor. He had to traverse one long passage, ascend a flight of stairs, and there, at the end of another passage, was the door of the room he was in quest of.

It was the state bedroom of the house, this room called the Griffin. None of the rooms near it were occupied: the servants all slept in the opposite wing. Had Lionel slept in his own room that night, the unknown intruder would have had one whole wing of Park Newton entirely to himself--a fact that was probably well-known and calculated upon. Along the chilly corridor and up the oaken staircase, lighted candle in hand, stole Lionel step by step, slowly and without noise. At the top of the staircase he paused and listened. Two or three minutes passed in silence the most profound. Had not his senses deceived him? he asked himself. Was it, indeed, the sound of mortal footsteps that he had heard? or nothing more than some of the vague, unaccountable noises, born of night and the darkness--moans, whispers, the creaking of doors, the rustling of ghostly garments--such as may be heard during the mute hours of sleep in any old house in which several generations of people have lived and died?

Some such thoughts as these were wandering through his mind--he was still listening intently--when the candle he was carrying dropped down into the socket, flared up suddenly for a moment, and then went out. Stooping to place the candlestick on the ground, and turning his head as he did so, what was his surprise to see a thin, faint streak of light shining from under the door at the end of the corridor! The sight of this braced his nerves like a tonic. A few swift strides brought him to the other end of the passage. It was the work of a moment to turn the key and fling wide open the door.

The late Mr. St. George's bedroom was a large but gloomy apartment, panelled with black oak, and having in one corner a huge funereal-looking bedstead, plumed and carved, and with a quantity of faded gilding about it, that matched well with the faded colours of the painted ceiling overhead. When Lionel flung open the door, an exclamation of surprise burst involuntarily from his lips. The cloaked figure of a man, with his back towards Lionel, and holding a dark lantern in one hand, was standing in front of a small cupboard or recess in the panelling--a hiding place evidently; but what he was doing there Lionel had not time to see. A moment later and the lantern was shut, and he and the stranger were alone in the dark.

As Lionel sprang forward to seize him, the stranger turned to fly. As he did so, there was a noise of money falling to the floor. Lionel seized him by the cloak, but that came away in his hands. Then he grasped him again, this time by the shoulder, and held him firmly. With a growl like that of a wild beast suddenly trapped, the stranger turned on Lionel, and before the latter could guess what he was about, or could defend himself in any way, he jerked his right arm free, and swinging it round with all his strength, brought the butt-end of the pistol, which it held, crashing down on Lionel's head. Twice in quick succession was the terrible blow repeated, and then Lionel fell heavily to the ground and remembered nothing more.
CHAPTER IX. MR. PERCY OSMOND.
"We shall not be able to leave Paris for five or six weeks." So wrote Edith West to Lionel Dering at Park Newton.

Mrs. Garside's sister--her sister by marriage only--was dead. The house, plate, and furniture were to be sold, and Mrs. Garside had much to do. Edith, as a matter of course, must stay with her aunt. Lionel, if he wanted to see his promised wife, must go to Paris: and to Paris he decided that he would go.

The same post which brought him this letter brought him one from India, written by his uncle, General St. George. The old soldier's letter ran as under:

"My Dear Nephew,

"Allow me to congratulate you on your good fortune, the news of which followed close upon the intimation of my poor brother's death. I can safely say that there is no one in whose hands I would sooner see the family estates than yours. I contracted a very warm affection for you during my last visit to England, and that feeling has not diminished with time. But you must change your name, my dear boy. I know that you are a St. George at heart, and you must be one in name also. However, that is one of the things that we can discuss fully when I see you again. Please Heaven, that will be before either you or I are many months older.

"Yes, my dear nephew, it is even so. The old horse is nearly worn out at last. People begin to whisper that he is no longer equal to his work; and although the sound of the trumpet and the clash of arms have still their old charm for his ears, the day must shortly come when he will hear them for the last time. In brief, Lionel, putting aside what other people may think, I feel myself that I am getting creaky and out of repair, and a great longing has come over me to spend the few remaining days that may be left me somewhere near the dear old homestead where I first drew breath.

"I will write you full particulars in a week or two. Your brother Richard is in good health, and is prospering. I had a letter from him only a few days ago. As things have turned out, it is perhaps quite as well that he came out to India instead of you.

"Your affectionate uncle,

"Lionel St. George."

"He shall live with us at Park Newton," said Lionel to himself as he folded up the letter. "It will be like finding a second father to have dear old Uncle Lionel come and share our home."

A few days later Lionel received a note from Tom Bristow. It was addressed to Gatehouse Farm, and had been sent from thence to Park Newton, Tom not having heard of Lionel's change of fortune. It was dated from Egypt, and was written with Tom's usual brevity. "Health much improved. Hope to be back in England in about three months from now. Shall take early opportunity of looking you up. The dear old days at the farm are not forgotten." That was nearly all.

"He will be here in time for the wedding," said Lionel, as he read the note. "I should like Tom Bristow to be my best man on that important occasion."

Nearly a fortnight passed away before Lionel Dering was able to leave the house. The wound on his head was a very severe one, and for the first two days and nights he lay in bed, to all outward seeming more dead than alive. As soon as he was in a condition to do so he sent for the Duxley superintendent of police, and told him confidentially all that he knew of the affair. Lionel was strongly averse to all unnecessary publicity, and was especially desirous that no mention of the case should be made in the local newspapers. Had he been asked to state his reasons for wishing to keep the matter so private, he would perhaps have found it difficult to do so. Nevertheless, the feeling to act thus was strong upon him.

It was proved, on investigation, that the intruder, whoever he might be, had obtained, access to the house through one of the library windows. One of the panes had been cut out with a diamond, and the window then unfastened. Next came the discovery of a secret passage from the library to the late Mr. St. George's bedroom. Those among the servants who had been at Park Newton under the old regime denied all knowledge of the existence of any such passage, and their statements might well be true.

The passage in question was one of a kind by no means uncommon in houses built a couple of centuries ago. It was simply a very narrow staircase, built in the thickness of the wall, and leading from the ground floor to the floor above. The entrance to it was behind a sliding panel in the bedroom; but both exit and entrance were so carefully hidden that a person might pass his whole life at Park Newton without ever suspecting the existence of such a place. One of Lionel's first acts, after a thorough exploration of the passage had been made, was to send for the bricklayers and have both entrance and exit walled up.

But the little closet or cupboard in the bedroom had still to be considered. It was nothing more than a small square opening in the wall; and, like the staircase, it was hidden behind the panelling, and secured still further by means of a secret spring. It was evident that the late Mr. St. George had known the secret of the cupboard, and had used the place as a safe depository for money and other valuables. It was equally certain that this latter fact must have been well known to Lionel's assailant; and there could be no doubt that the object of the midnight raid had been to rifle the cupboard of its contents. Some testimony as to the quality of those contents had been unavoidably left behind in the hurry of flight. Three or four small diamonds, and a couple of sovereigns of recent coinage, were found scattered on the floor: but as to the further value of the property stolen there were no means of judging.

Lionel had no reason for suspecting any of the people immediately about him, nor did such a thought ever find a lodging in his mind. The more he considered the matter, the more certain he felt that the man of whom he had caught a glimpse in the shrubbery was really the thief. But even granting such to be the case, the mystery was no nearer solution than before. Whoever the man might be, he had got clear away without leaving the slightest clue behind him by which he might be traced.

Lionel's first visit, when he was able to get out of doors again, was to a little cottage on the outskirts of Duxley, where lived an old man, Joseph Nixon by name, who had been body-servant to the late Mr. St. George, and to his father before him. Nixon was now living on a pension granted him by the family; and it seemed to Lionel that he would be more likely than any one else to have a knowledge of the hidden staircase, and the cupboard in the bedroom wall. He found the old man infirm in body but clear in mind. Yes, he said, in answer to Lionel's inquiries, he knew all about the staircase in the wall, and the little closet behind the panelling in his old master's bedroom. Mr. St. George, who was somewhat peculiar in his ways, was in the habit of keeping a considerable amount of ready money in the house, and used the cupboard as a secure place of deposit, known to himself and Nixon alone.

"But was there nothing besides money ever kept there?" asked Lionel.

"Yes, sir; there was a diamond necklace, and some other things as well," answered Nixon.

"It was rather a strange place in which to keep a diamond necklace, was it not?"

"Well, sir, this is how it was. When Mr. Arthur St. George was a young man, he was engaged to be married to a handsome young lady. The wedding day was fixed, and everything ready, when he made her a present of a diamond necklace. She wore it once only--at a grand ball to which he took her. Next day she was taken ill; a week later she was dead. Her friends sent back the necklace, and my master seemed as if he could never bear to part from it after that time. Many and many a time I've known him to sleep with it under his pillow."

Here was a page of romance out of his uncle's life that was quite fresh to Lionel.

"He was one o' the old-fashioned sort of lovers, was Mr. St. George," added Nixon. "He didn't know what it was to change."

"And are you certain that my uncle and yourself were the only two people who knew of the existence of the staircase and the cupboard? Try to remember. Think carefully before you answer."

"It's not in my knowledge," answered the old man, slowly, "that anybody knew about either of them places but my master and myself. Unless, maybe----"

"Yes--unless what?"

"Unless Mr. Kester St. George happened to know about them."

"And do you really think that my cousin Kester does know that there are two such places in existence?" asked Lionel after a pause.

"Now I come to think of it, sir, he does know about the cupboard. Going suddenly into the bedroom one day, without knowing that he was there, I found him standing by the cupboard, with the door open, and the diamond necklace in his hand. It was not my place to say anything, and it seemed no more than likely, at that time, that some day the necklace would be his own property. But, as regards the staircase, sir, I don't know as Mr. Kester was ever told about that."

There was nothing more to be learned, so Lionel took a kindly leave of the old man, who seemed as if he could not sufficiently express his delight at not having been forgotten by "the new master."

Lionel neither could nor would believe that Kester had had any hand in the midnight robbery. Nevertheless, he sent word next day to the chief constable of Duxley not to proceed any further with his investigation of the affair. In his letters to Edith he had been careful not to mention the matter in any way. It would only have frightened her, and could have done no possible good.

As soon as he was thoroughly recovered he set out for Paris. He had not seen Edith for several weeks, and longer separation was unendurable.

One morning there came a letter to Edith, in which Lionel stated that he should be in Paris twelve hours after the receipt of it. What a day of joyful expectation was that! Edith could neither read, nor work, nor even sit quietly and do nothing. All she could do was to wander absently from room to room, touching a few notes on the piano now and again, or gaze dreamily out of the windows, or feed the noisy troop of sparrows that assembled daily on the window-sill for their accustomed bounty. She sent out for a Railway Guide that she might be enabled to follow Lionel step by step on his journey. "Now he is at Dover," she said to herself. A little while later, "Now the steamer is nearly at Calais." Later still, "Now he has left Calais. Half his journey is over. In six more hours he will be here."

"Come and have some tea, child," said Mrs. Garside. "I declare you look quite worn and anxious. Mr. Dering will think I've been working you to death."

Mrs. Garside was very glad on her own account that Lionel was coming The forms and processes of French law in connection with the property left her by her sister troubled her exceedingly. She knew that she could count on Lionel's good-natured assistance in extricating her from sundry perplexities into which she had fallen.

How slowly the hours went by; as hours, when they are watched, always seem to do! Mrs. Garside began to prophesy. "Perhaps the train will be delayed," she said. "Perhaps he will think it too late to call. Perhaps we shall not see him till midday to-morrow." To all which Edith could only respond with a doleful "Perhaps."

"But for all that," said Mrs. Garside, "we will have dinner ready for him to the minute. Men are never good-tempered when they are hungry. Always bear that little fact in mind, Edith, when you get married."

So a choice little repast was prepared, and Edith went out and bought some flowers with which to decorate the table; then the candles were lighted; and after that they could only sit and wait.

By-and-by a cab came rattling into the courtyard. Then there came the sound of welcome footsteps on the stairs, and next moment Lionel was with them.

What two happy hours were those before the time came for them to bid each other good-night! But, then, what a little suffices to make us happy when we are in love! Kind-hearted Mrs. Garside was happy in the happiness of Edith, and in the freshness and change which Lionel's welcome arrival brought with it. Edith and Lionel asked nothing more for the time being than to be able to see each other, and speak to each other, and to spell out that silent language of the eyes which has often a meaning far more deep and heartfelt than any words can convey.

In Paris that year the spring seemed to come earlier than usual. Already the Bois was beginning to clothe itself in a mantle of tenderest green. The daylight hours were warm and bright; hardly a cloud was to be seen in the sky. All the gay world of Paris was on the qui vive. It was a splendid moving panorama, framed with flowers and softest buds just bursting into leaf. To the fancies of Edith and Lionel it almost seemed as if all this glamour and brightness had been devised by some kind fairy godmother for their especial behoof, simply because they were under love's sweet witchery, and that it would all vanish like a dream the moment they two should have quitted the scene. They spent hours in the Louvre looking at the pictures. They spent more hours on the pleasant Boulevards, jostled by troops of pleasure-seekers. But it is more than probable that, as sightseers, they saw very little indeed. They moved like dreamers in the midst of a crowd, like denizens of a more etherealized world, who breathed, as of right, a finer atmosphere, and in whose veins flowed the only true elixir of life. It was a season of happiness, pure and unalloyed. They saw nothing--not even in their dreams had they any prevision--of the huge black cloud whose edge already touched the horizon, whose sable folds would soon shut out the sunshine and the flowers, but whose thunders would smite in vain the strong pure rock of their mutual love.

By the end of a fortnight, thanks to the assistance given by Lionel, Mrs. Garside's legal difficulties were at an end. After a few last lingering days in Lutetia the Beautiful, they went back to London together. Lionel saw the two ladies safely housed in Roehampton Terrace, and then bade them farewell for a little while. The marriage was to take place in June, and there was much to be done before that time.

Having some purchases to make, Lionel stopped in London for a few hours, after leaving Edith, before continuing his journey home. He had kept telling himself, as he came along in the train, that he must not fail to call on Kester before going back to Park Newton. He wanted his cousin to fix a date for his promised visit. But when London was reached and his business done, he still felt unaccountably reluctant to pay the call. He shrank from making any inquiry of himself as to the origin of this strange reluctance, but its existence he could not dispute. Was it possible that some half-formed and unacknowledged doubt was at work in his mind as to whether the man who had so brutally struck him down was any other than Kester St. George? If so, it was a doubt that never clothed itself with words even to himself. But, be that as it may, four o'clock was reached; his train started at five, and Great Carrington Street was still as far away as ever.

His irresolution was brought to a sudden end at last. He was gazing absently into Colnaghi's window, when a hand was laid lightly on his shoulder, and his cousin's musical voice fell on his ear.

"What! in town again, old fellow? You might have let one know that you were coming."

All Lionel's half-shaped doubts vanished in a moment under the influence of his cousin's genial smile and hearty grasp of the hand. As he stood there his conscience pricked him that he should have wronged Kester for a moment even in thought.

"I have only just got back from Paris," he said. "I am glad to have met you, because I want you to fix a date for your promised visit to Park Newton."

Kester was not alone. His arm was linked in that of another man. "Before fixing anything," he said, "I must introduce to you my particular friend, Mr. Percy Osmond.--Osmond, my cousin, Li Dering, of whom you have frequently heard me speak."

The two men bowed.

"Is it possible," asked Lionel, "that you are a brother of the Mr. Kenneth Osmond whom I met when in America?"

"Kenneth Osmond and I are certainly brothers," answered the other.

"Then I am very pleased to make your acquaintance. Your brother and I travelled together for six months through some of the wildest parts of North America. I never met with a man in my life whom I esteemed more or liked better."

"Look here," said Kester. "We can't stand jawing in the street for ever. My club's not three minutes away. Let us go there and wet the talk with a bottle of fiz."

Mr. Percy Osmond was about eight-and-twenty years old. He was of medium height and slender build, and of a somewhat effeminate appearance. He had good features, and had rather fine black eyes, of which he was particularly proud. But there was a shiftiness about them, a restlessly suspicious look, as though the man at one time had been haunted by some terrible fear, and had never been able to forget it.

His face was closely shaven, except for a thin, silky, black moustache, which he wore with long waxed ends. He was foppishly dressed in the latest fashion, and displayed a profusion of jewellery. But there was something about him so arrogant and self-opinionated, something so coldly contemptuous of other men's feelings and opinions whenever they chanced to clash with his own, that Lionel had not been ten minutes in his company before he said to himself that Mr. Percy Osmond was very different from Mr. Percy Osmond's brother, and could never be included by him among the few men he numbered as his friends.

"So you want to pin me down to a date, do you?" said Kester as they sat down in the smoking-room at the club.

"I should certainly like, to fix you, now that I am here," answered Lionel.

"How would this day fortnight suit you?"

"No time could suit me better. And if Mr. Osmond will honour me by coming down to Park Newton at the same time, I need hardly say how pleased I shall be to see him there."

"Very kind of you, I'm sure," said Osmond. "Glad to run down to your place, especially as St. George is going. Am thinking of buying a quiet little country roost myself. Town life is awfully wearing, you know."

Kester laughed aloud. "Osmond would commit suicide before he had been in the country a month," he said. "He is one of those unhappy mortals who cannot live away from bricks and mortar. The shady side of Pall Mall is dearer to him than all the county lanes and hayfields in the world."

"You do me an injustice--really," said Osmond. "Some of my tastes are quite idyllic. No one, for instance, could be fonder of clotted cream than I am. I never shoot, myself--haven't muscle enough for it, you know--yet I have a weakness for grouse pie that almost verges on the sublime."

"Or the ridiculous," interposed Kester.

"By-the-by, I hope you are not without a billiard-table at your place," said Osmond, with that affected little cough which was peculiar to him.

"We have a table on which you shall play all day long if you choose," said Lionel.

"Then I'll come. Country air and billiards charming combination! Yes, you may expect to see me at the same time that you see St George."

He made a memorandum of the date in his tablets; and after a little further talk, he shook hands with Lionel and went, leaving the two cousins together.

Kester looked after him with a sneer. "There goes another gilded fool," he said.

"I thought you introduced him to me as your particular friend," said Lionel.

"I called him my particular friend because he is rich. I can't afford to call any poor man my friend."

"My reason for inviting him to Park Newton was partly because I thought it would please you to have him there at the same time as yourself, and partly out of compliment to his brother, whom I respect and like exceedingly."

"Don't mistake me. I am glad you have asked him down to the old place. As I said before, he is rich, and some day or other he may be useful to me. All the same, he's an awful screw, and thinks as much of one sovereign as I do of five."

"How long have you known him?" asked Lionel.

"For a dozen years at the least. When he was twenty-one he came in for a fortune of twelve thousand pounds. This he contrived to get through very comfortably in the course of a couple of seasons. Then came the climax. For two years longer he managed to pick up a precarious crust among the different friends and acquaintances whom he had made during his more prosperous days. Then, when everybody had become thoroughly tired of him, he crossed the Atlantic. For the next four years he was lost sight of utterly. When heard of again, he had sunk to the position of marker in a billiard-saloon at New Orleans. After that, he was heard of in several places, but always in dreadfully low water. Then came the story of a murder in which he was said to be somehow mixed up, but nobody on this side seemed ever to get at the truth about it; and the next thing we heard about him was something altogether different. An old maiden aunt had died and had left the scapegrace eighty thousand pounds. Such as you saw him to-day, he turned up in London three months ago. Bitter experience has taught him the value of money. Still he has his weaknesses. What those weaknesses are it is my business just now to find out."
CHAPTER X. MASTER AND MAN.
"Shall I shut the window, sir? The evening is rather cold."

It was Pierre Janvard, the body-servant of Mr. Kester St. George, who spoke. The place was a room at Park Newton, for Kester had come there on his promised visit. The same suite of rooms had been allotted to him that had been his during his uncle's lifetime--the same furniture was still in them: everything seemed unchanged. "Do you hear the bells, sir?" continued Pierre. "The village ringers are having their Wednesday evening practice. They always used to practise on Wednesday evenings, sir, if you remember. It seems only like yesterday since you left Park Newton."

To all this Mr. St. George vouchsafed no reply. He was dressing for dinner, a process to which he always attached much importance, and was just at that moment engaged with the knot of his white tie. He was evidently in anything but an amiable mood--a fact of which Pierre was perfectly aware, but did not seem to mind in the least.

"Do you remember, sir, talking to me one evening when you were dressing for dinner, just as it might be now, of what you would do, sir, and what alterations you would make, when Park Newton was all your own? You would build a new wing, and a new entrance-ball, and cut a fresh carriage-drive through the park. And then the stables were to be rebuilt, and the gardens altered and improved, and----"

"Pierre, you are a fool," said Mr. St. George, with emphasis.

The ghost of a smile flickered across the valet's staid features, but he did not answer.

Mr. St. George looked at his watch. It still wanted half an hour to dinner-time. He felt in no humour for seeing either Osmond or his cousin till they should all meet at table. He would stroll as far as the little summerhouse on the Knoll, and look once more on a scene that he remembered so well. He put on a light overcoat and a soft hat, and, going leisurely downstairs, he went slowly through the picture-gallery and the conservatory, and let himself out by a side door into the grounds at the back of the house. Every step that he took was haunted for him with memories of the past. His heart was full of bitterness and resentment that Fate, as he called it, should have played with him at such a terrible game of cross purposes, and have ended by winning everything from him. "If I had never been brought up to look upon it as sure to be one day my own," he said, "I could have borne to see it another man's without regret. Pierre is right: I did dream and plan and say to myself that I would do this thing and that thing when the time came for me to be master here. And now I, Kester St. George, am nothing better than a pauper and a blackleg, and am here on sufferance--an invited guest under the very roof that ought in justice to be mine!"

He took the winding path through the plantation that led to the summit of the Knoll. The summerhouse was unlocked as usual. He went in and sat down. The scene before him and around him was very pleasant to look upon, lighted up, as it was just then, by the fading splendours of an April sunset. The Hall itself, clasped tenderly round with shrubberies of softest green, lay close at his feet. Far and wide on either side stretched the Park, with its clumps of noble old trees that had seen generation after generation of the St. Georges come and go like creatures of a day, and still flourished unchanged. Away in the distance could be seen Highworth and other prosperous farms, all part and parcel of the Park Newton estate.

"All this belongs of right to me," muttered Kester to himself, as his eyes took in the whole pleasant picture; "and it would have been mine but for----"

He did not finish the sentence even to himself, but the gloom on his face deepened, and for a few moments the unhappy man sat with drooping head, seeing nothing but some terrible picture which his own words had conjured up.

He roused himself from his reverie with a sigh. The sun was nearly lost to view. Eastward the glooms of evening were beginning to enfold the landscape in their dusky wings. Blue curls of smoke wound slowly upward from the twisted chimneys of the Hall. A few belated rooks came flying over the Knoll on their way to their nests in the wood. The picture was redolent of homelike beauty and repose. "Only one life stands between me and all this," he muttered, as his eyes drank in the scene greedily. "Only one life. If Lionel Dering were to die to-night, I should be master to-morrow of all that I see before me."

He rose and left the summerhouse. He could hear the clanging of the dinner-bell. It was time to go.

"Only one life. And what is the value of any one particular life among the thousands that are born and die every day? Who would miss him--who would regret him? No one. He is an isolated link in the great chain of humanity. He might die to-night, or to-morrow, or next day. Stranger things than that have happened before now."

He pulled his hat over his brows and went slowly down the pathway, and was presently lost to view among the gloomy depths of the plantation.

Left alone, Pierre Janvard settled himself comfortably in an easy chair to enjoy the perusal of one of Mr. St. George's yellow-backed French novels. He was a thin, staid-looking man of fifty, decidedly more English than French in appearance. He was partially bald, and was closely shaven, except for two small whiskers of the kind known as "mutton chop." What hair he had was thickly sprinkled with gray, and was carefully trained and attended to. He had a good forehead, a rather large aquiline nose, and thin, firmly-cut lips. In his suit of well-brushed black, and his spotless white tie, he looked the model of a respectable and thoroughly trustworthy servant. He looked more than that. Had he been set down at a public dinner among a miscellaneous assemblage of guests, a stranger would probably have picked him out as a banker or a rich merchant, or might even have asked, and have been pardoned for asking, whether he were not some celebrated lawyer, or member of the Lower House. He spoke English with a French accent as a matter of course, but he could express himself as readily in one language as the other. He had a particularly quiet, noiseless way of going about his duties that many people might have liked, but which would have been intolerable to others. You never seemed to know that he was near you till you found him at your elbow.

Such as he was--this smug, respectable-looking valet--his antecedents were somewhat peculiar. His grandfather had been one of the sub-executioners of Paris during the terrible days of the Great Revolution. Later on, his father had for many years held the post of public executioner in one of the large towns in the south of France. Pierre himself had been intended for the same profession, and had, when a youth, assisted his father On more than one occasion in the performance of his ghastly duties. But the death of Janvard père brought a change of prospects. The widow was persuaded to come over to England and invest the family savings in the purchase of a small blanchisserie at the West End of London; and from that date Pierre's connection with his native country was a broken one.

Kester St. George's tastes were all luxurious ones. One of the first things he did after he came of age was to look out for a valet. Pierre Janvard was recommended to him by a friend, and he engaged him at once. The Frenchman had served him faithfully and well, had travelled with him, and had lived with him at Park Newton up to the date of Kester's quarrel with his uncle. But when the whole of Kester's income was swept away at one blow, and he was thrown on the world without a sovereign that he could call his own, then Janvard and he of necessity parted. Their coming together again was quite a matter of accident. It so happened that, a few days after Kester had won heavily on a certain race, he encountered Janvard in the street. The Frenchman touched his hat, and Kester stopped and spoke to him. The result was that Janvard, who was out of a situation at that time, was re-engaged by St. George, whose old, luxurious tastes cropped up the moment he found himself in abundant funds. Those funds could not last for ever, and a season of impecuniosity had again set in; but the bond between master and man had not again been broken.

Janvard stayed on with Mr. St. George. He was thoroughly trustworthy, or so Kester believed; and he probably knew more of his master's secrets--more of certain shady transactions that were never intended to bear the light of day--than any other man living.

Janvard had one relation in England--a sister--with whom he was on terms of close and affectionate intercourse. Both he and his sister were unmarried, and they both intended to remain so. Madame Janvard--she was called madame out of compliment to her age, which was nearer fifty than forty--kept a small boarding-house for her countrymen in a narrow street no great distance from Leicester Square. She had saved money, had madame. So had her brother. And the secret ambition of the two was to unite their fortunes, and start together as proprietors of a first-class hotel.

Pierre's holidays and leisure time, when he was in town, were always spent with his sister, in whose house one little cockloft of a room was set specially apart for him, and was full of his property. Here he kept a few boxes of choice cigars for his own private smoking, and a varied assortment of French novels and plays, together with sundry articles of bric-à-brac which he had picked up during his travels. But, in addition to these articles, the room contained several remarkable mementoes of the Great Revolution, which had come down to Pierre from his grandfather. In one corner hung the veritable pair of shoes worn by Charlotte Corday on the day that she stabbed Marat. In a little glass box on the chimney-piece was a lock of hair shorn from the head of Marie Antoinette after execution. Near it was a handkerchief that had belonged to the Princess de Lamballe. On a bracket opposite the window stood a life-size bust of Marat himself, the hideous head crowned with the bonnet rouge, and inscribed below, Le Génie de la Révolution. Near at hand was a working model of the guillotine, made by the redoubtable hands of old Martin Janvard, and close by it a model of one of the tumbrils in which the condemned were conveyed to the Place de la Grève. In this room Pierre and his sister had many pleasant little banquets all to themselves, and many a long chat on matters past, present, and to come. Not having her to talk to to-night, he was going to write to her, which was the next best thing he could do. So when he had yawned through a couple of chapters of the novel, he took pen and paper, and sat down at Mr. St. George's table, being perfectly aware that he was safe from interruption for another hour at the least. Judging by what Pierre Janvard wrote, there would seem, this evening, to have been a strange similarity in the trains of thought at work in the minds of master and man.

"We are once again back in the old place, chère Margot," wrote the Frenchman. "Was it only yesterday, or is it more than a year ago, since we were in these rooms last? Everything seems as it used to be, except that the old master's voice is heard no longer. He lies cold and quiet in the churchyard. Nothing else seems changed, and yet how changed is all! For a new master now reigns at Park Newton, and that master is not Monsieur Kester St. George. Of course we have known of this all along, but not till we came here did we seem to realize all that it means. One man, and one man only, stands between my master and all this vast property. That man, as you know already, is his own cousin. He is not married, but he may be before long. If he were only to catch a fever and die--if he were only to commit suicide--if he were only to fall into the river and be drowned--ah, my faith! what luck would then be ours!

"And yet, somehow, little one, I feel as if I should hardly like to change places with this Monsieur Dering. I don't know why I feel so, but there the feeling is, and I tell you of it. Life is so strangely uncertain, you know; and it seems to me more uncertain still when you stand so terribly in the light of another man. Perhaps you will say that I am superstitious. So be it. But can any man say where superstition begins and where it ends, even in his own mind? I can't. All I know is this: that if I were Monsieur Dering, the last man in the world whom I would ask to cross my threshold would be Monsieur Kester St. George."

A fortnight had come and gone since the arrival of Kester St. George and Percy Osmond at Park Newton. Another week would bring their visit to an end, and Lionel Dering was fain to confess to himself that he should not be sorry when that time had arrived. This was more particularly the case as regards Osmond, of whose company he had grown heartily tired. There was, indeed, about Osmond little or nothing that could have any attraction for a man like Lionel Dering. The points of difference between them were too great for any hope to exist that they could ever be bridged over. Friendship between two such men was an impossibility.

With Kester St. George the case was somewhat different. Lionel would gladly have clasped his cousin's hand in friendship, but he had begun to find out that beneath all Kester's geniality, and easy laughing way of dealing with everything that came before him, there existed a nature cold, hard, and cynical, against which the white wings of Friendship or of Love might beat in vain for ever. He was always pleasant, always smiling, always good-tempered: yet it seemed impossible to get near him, or to feel sure that you knew him better at the end of a year than on the first day you met him. Then, too, Lionel was not without an uneasy sense that not only the servants at the hall, but his own social equals in the neighbourhood, looked upon him in some measure as an interloper, and seemed to think that he must, in some inscrutable way, have defrauded his cousin out of his birthright. No wonder Lionel felt that it would be a relief when the visit should have come to an end.

He took an opportunity one day, when Kester seemed in a more confidential mood than usual, of again hinting at the pleasure it would give him if his cousin would only accept that three thousand a-year out of the estate which it had been his grandfather's manifest wish should be Kester's share of the property. But Kester froze the moment the subject was broached, and Lionel saw plainly how utterly useless any further persistence in it would be.

Both Squire Culpepper and Mr. Cope had called at Park Newton as soon as they heard that Kester St. George was down there on a visit, and a day or two later Lionel invited those gentlemen, together with several other old friends of his cousin, to a dinner at the hall, in honour of the occasion. Three or four return dinners had been given by different people, and now the day was come when they were all to go and dine with the squire at Pincote--Lionel, Kester, and Mr. Percy Osmond.

The afternoon was cold and gloomy, with frequent showers of rain. Luncheon was just over, and Kester St. George, who had been out riding all the morning, was sitting alone before a cozy fire in his dressing-room, keeping the unwelcome company of his own thoughts. In his hands was a cheque, which Osmond, who had just left him, had given him, in settlement of a long-standing debt at cards.

"The greedy hound!" he muttered to himself. "It was like drawing blood from a stone to get even this paltry strip of paper from him. And yet if this were made out for eight thousand pounds instead of for eight only, it would be honoured. Ay, if it were for six times eight thousand pounds, and there would then be a little fortune left. One thing's very certain. I must raise a couple of thousand somewhere before I'm many hours older, or else I shall have to make a bolt of it--have to put salt water between myself and the hounds that are for ever baying at my heels. If Nantucket had only pulled off the Chester Cup, I should have landed three thousand at the very least. Just like my luck that she should fall lame twelve hours before the race. I must have two thousand," he went on as he rose and began to pace the room, "or else submit to be outlawed. Osmond could lend it to me and never feel the loss of it. Shall I ask him? As well try to move a rock. He knows that I'm poor already. If he knew that I was a pauper he'd cut me dead. No great loss as things go; still, I can't afford to lose him. Shall I ask Dering to help me out of my difficulties? No, never! never! Let ruin--outlawry--suicide itself come, rather than that!"

He sat down again, still twisting and turning the cheque absently between his fingers. "Only a miserable eight pounds! It's like offering a quarter of a biscuit to a man who is dying of starvation. Mr. Percy Osmond doesn't seem to have paid much attention to the art of calligraphy when he was young. Upon my word I never saw a signature that it would be easier to imitate. All that a clever fellow wants is a blank cheque on the same bank. With that, what wonders might be wrought! I've heard Osmond say that he always sleeps with his keys under his pillow. Once obtain possession of them, the rest would be easy. But how to get them? Suppose he gets drunk to-night at Pincote, as he is nearly sure to do--why then----"

His pale face flushed, and a strange light came into his eyes. He mused for a minute or two, then he got up and rang the bell. Pierre answered it.

"Ascertain at what hour the next train starts for London."

In a couple of minutes Pierre came back. "The train for London passes Duxley station at four thirty-six," he said.

"Good. You will just have time to catch it," said Mr. St. George. "You will reach London in two hours and a quarter after you leave Duxley. Take a cab. Find out Boucher. Tell him to telegraph me first thing to-morrow morning, so that the message will reach me here not later than eight o'clock. His telegram must be to this effect: You are wanted in town immediately on most important business. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"An hour in London will be enough for you. You will be able to catch the eight o'clock down train, and ought to be back in this room by eleven at the latest. In fact, I shall expect to find you here when I return from Pincote."

"Yes, sir."

"And don't say a word to any one about your journey."

Pierre bowed and left the room.

"Invaluable fellow, that," said Kester aloud.

The excitement that had stirred his blood so strangely a few minutes before was still upon him. He was like a man who had screwed himself up to some desperate resolve which he was determined to go through with at every cost.

He began slowly and deliberately to dress himself for dinner.

"There's an old saying, 'Nothing risk, nothing have,'" he muttered to himself. "The risk, in this case, seems to be nothing very desperate. If I fail, I shall be no worse off than I am now. If I succeed----" His face blanched as suddenly as if he had seen a ghost.

"I forgot that!" he whispered. "Dering sleeps in the next room to Osmond. What if he should be awake? Even when he does sleep, I've heard him say that the noise of a strange footstep is enough to rouse him. That is a difficulty I never thought of--the biggest difficulty of all."

He was still pondering over this difficulty, whatever it might be, when Osmond burst suddenly into the room.

"Not ready yet?" he said. "What a dilatory fellow you are! We shall have Dering in a devil of a temper if you don't make haste. I'll wait for you, if you don't mind my having a whiff meanwhile."
CHAPTER XI. IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT.

"Say, Dering, it ain't twelve o'clock yet. You'll give me half an hour in the billiard-room before going to roost?"

Percy Osmond was the speaker. He was getting out of the brougham which had brought the three gentlemen back from Pincote, where they had been dining. His voice was thick, and his gait unsteady. It was evident that he had been indulging too freely in Squire Culpepper's old port.

"You've surely had enough billiards for one night," said Lionel, good-humouredly. "I should have thought that the thrashing you gave young Cope would have satisfied you till to-morrow morning."

"I want to thrash you as I thrashed him."

"You shall thrash me as much as you like in the morning."

"This is what they call country hospitality!" said Osmond, turning to Kester. "Condemned to go to bed at eleven-thirty, like so many virtuous peasants in an opera. No more brandy, no more cigars, no more billiards. Nothing but everlasting bed. How very good we are in the country!"

Kester laughed. "I told you that you would soon grow tired of the rural districts," he said.

"The rural districts themselves are all very nice and proper. I've nothing to say against them," said Mr. Osmond, as he sat down deliberately on the stairs, for they were all in the house by this time. "It's the people who live in them that I complain of. To send your guests to bed at eleven-thirty against their will, and to decline a simple game of billiards with one of them because you're afraid to acknowledge that he's the better player of the two--can this be your old English hospitality?"

"My dear Osmond, I will play you a game of billiards with pleasure, if your mind is so set on it," said Lionel. "I had no idea that you were so entêté in the matter. Come along. I dare say the lamps are still alight."

"Spoken like a nobleman," said Osmond, with tipsy gravity. "I accept your apology. Just order up some brandy and seltzer, there's a good fellow. St. George, you'll come and mark for us?"

"With pleasure," said Kester. "I'll join you in two minutes." He left them at the top of the stairs, they going towards the billiard-room. He was anxious to know whether Pierre had got back from London.

Yes, there sat Pierre in the dressing-room, quiet, watchful, and alert as ever. "Everything gone off all right?" said Mr. St. George.

"Everything has gone off quite right, sir," said Pierre.

"There will be no hitch as regards the telegram to-morrow morning, eh?"

"None whatever, sir."

"You need not sit up for me."

"Very well, sir."

"And yet--on second thoughts--you had perhaps better do so."

"Yes, sir."

Kester took off his dress-coat, put on an old shooting-jacket and a smoking-cap, and then went off to the billiard-room.

"Monsieur St. George means mischief to-night," said Pierre, smiling to himself, and rubbing his hands slowly. "It is not very often I see that light in his eye. When I do see it, I know it means no good to somebody."

Kester found the two men chalking their cues. A servant was mixing a tumbler of brandy-and-seltzer for Osmond.

"I'll play you one game, a hundred up," said Osmond, as soon as the servant had left the room; "and I'll back my own play for ten pounds."

"You know that I never bet," said Lionel.

"I wouldn't give the snuff of a candle for a fellow who hasn't the pluck to back his own play, or his own opinion," said Osmond, with a sneer.

"I don't mind taking you," said Kester, quickly.

"Done!" said Osmond.

Lionel could not repress a movement of annoyance.

Both he and Osmond were good billiard-players, but he was the better of the two.

This however was a point which Osmond, who was proud of his ability with the cue, would never concede. With Lionel billiard-playing was an easy, natural gift; with Osmond it was the result of intense study and application.

With the former it seemed the easiest thing in the world to play well--with the latter one of the most difficult. They had played much together during Osmond's visit to Park Newton, but Osmond could never lose with equanimity. He became disagreeable and quarrelsome the moment the game began to go against him, and, rather than have a scene under his own roof, Lionel would often play carelessly and allow his opponent to win game after game. Such had been his intention in the present case till Kester foolishly accepted Osmond's bet. After that, to have lost the game would have been to lose Kester's money also; and, foolish as was the bet, Lionel did not feel disposed to let Osmond benefit by it. Besides, to win Osmond's money was to touch him in his only vulnerable point, and it seemed to Lionel that he fully deserved to be made to smart.

The game began and went on with varying success. Osmond had drank far too much wine to play well, and Lionel, in a mood of utter indifference, missed stroke after stroke in a way that made Kester groan inwardly with vexation. Lionel, in truth, was disgusted with himself and disgusted with his opponent. "I'd far sooner follow the plough all my life on Gatehouse Farm, than be condemned to associate very much with men like this one," he said to himself. "And yet the world calls him a gentleman."

"Call the game, St. George," cried Osmond, in his most insolent tone.

"Seventy-five--fifty-two, and your royal highness to play," said Kester.

"None of your sneers," said Osmond. "Seventy-five--fifty-two, eh?--Well, put me on three more--and three more--very carefully. A miss, by Jove! Ought to have had that middle pocket."

"Fifty-two--eighty-one," called St. George. "How does your ten pounds look now, eh?" asked Osmond, with a chuckle.

"Not very rosy, I must confess," said Kester, with a shrug of his shoulders, and an appealing glance at his cousin.

"I hope you are prepared to pay up if you lose," said Osmond, insolently.

Kester started to his feet, but Lionel laid a hand on his shoulder.

"The game is not lost yet, Mr. Osmond," he said, coldly, but courteously.

"I guess it's in a dying state as far as you're concerned," said Osmond, coughing his little effeminate cough.

Lionel played and made a brilliant break of thirty.

"Eighty-one--eighty-two," called Kester, and there was a triumphant ring in his voice as he did so.

Osmond, white with the rage he could not hide, said nothing. He laid down his cigar, chalked his cue carefully, played, and missed.

"Just like my luck!" he cried, with an oath. "Dering, you might give a fellow something decent to smoke," he added, as he flung his cigar into the grate.

"The cigars are good ones. I smoke them myself," said Lionel, quietly.

"Anyhow, they are not fit to offer to a gentleman,"

"I did not offer them to a gentleman. You helped yourself."

"Of course I did," he answered, not comprehending the irony of Lionel's remark. "And deuced bad smokes they are."

Lionel played and ran his score up to ninety-eight.

"Two more will make you game," said Kester.

"Two more would not have made him game if he hadn't played with my ball instead of his own," said Osmond, his lips livid with rage.

"I have not played with your ball instead of my own, Mr. Osmond."

"I repeat that you have. After the second cannon in your last break, you played with the wrong ball. You cannoned again, and then resumed play with your own ball."

"You are mistaken--indeed you are," said Lionel, earnestly.

"Oh, of course!" sneered Osmond. "It's not to be expected that you would say anything else."

"Did you see the stroke, Kester?" appealed Lionel.

"Certainly I did. You played with your own ball and not with Mr. Osmond's."

"Of course, Kester is bound to back up all we say! Our bankrupt relation can't afford to do otherwise. He has ten pounds on the game, and----"

"By Heaven, Osmond!" burst out Mr. St. George. Lionel again laid his hand on his cousin's shoulder.

"Mr. Osmond is my guest," he said, impressively. "In a moment of temper he has made use of certain expressions which he will be the first to regret to-morrow. Let us look upon the game as a drawn one, and, if need be, discuss it fully over breakfast in the morning."

"You have an uncommonly nice way of slipping out of a difficulty, Dering, I must confess. But it won't wash with me. The moment I find a man's not acting on the square, I brand him before the world as a cheat and a blackleg."

"Your language is very strong, Mr. Osmond."

"Not stronger than the case demands."

"I assure you again, on my word of honour, that you are mistaken in saying that I played with the wrong ball."

"And I assure you, on my word of honour, that I am not mistaken."

"Even granting for a moment that, in mistake, I did play the wrong ball, you cannot suppose that I would knowingly attempt to cheat you for the sake of a paltry ten pounds."

"But I can and do suppose it," said Osmond, vehemently. "The fact of your being a rich man has nothing to do with it. I have known a marquis cheat at cards for the sake of half a sovereign. Why shouldn't you try to cheat me out of ten pounds?"

"Your experience of the world, Mr. Osmond, seems to have been a very unfortunate one," said Lionel, coldly.

"Perhaps it has, and perhaps it hasn't," said Osmond, savagely. "Anyhow it has taught me to be on the look-out for rogues."

"Osmond, are you mad, or drunk, or both?" cried Kester.

"A little of both," said Lionel, sternly. "If he were not under my roof, I would horsewhip him till he went down on his knees and proclaimed himself the liar and bully he really is."

Osmond was in the act of lifting a glass of brandy-and-seltzer to his lips as Lionel spoke. He waited, without drinking, till Lionel had done. "You called me a liar, did you?" he said. "Then, take that!" and as he spoke, he flung the remaining contents of the glass into Lionel's face, and sent the glass itself crashing to the other side of the room.

Another instant and Dering's terrible fingers were closed round Osmond's throat. This last insult was more than he could bear. His self-control was flung to the winds. Osmond's nerveless frame quivered and shook helplessly in the strong man's grasp. He was as powerless to help himself as any child would have been. His eyes were starting from his head, and his face beginning to turn livid, when Kester started forward.

"Don't choke him, Li," he said. "Don't kill the beggar quite."

"You mean, contemptible hound!" said Dering, as he loosened his grasp and flung Osmond away: who staggered and fell to the ground, gasping for breath, and hardly knowing for the moment what had befallen him.

With a few wild gasps and a tug or two at his cravat, he seemed to partially recover himself. Raising himself on his left elbow, he put his right hand deep down inside his waistcoat, and from some secret pocket there he drew out what looked like a toy pistol, but which was a deadly weapon enough in competent hands. Before either Kester or Lionel knew what he was about, he had taken pointblank aim at the latter, and fired. But drink had made his hand unsteady, and the bullet intended for Lionel's brain passed harmlessly through his hair, and lodged in the panelling behind.

Kester sprang at him, wrenched the pistol from his hand, and flung it to the other end of the room. As he did so, the thought passed through his mind: "If that bullet had only been aimed two inches lower, what a difference it would have made to me!" "Osmond, are you going to turn assassin?" he said. "You must come with me." He helped him up from the ground, took his right arm firmly within his, and led him towards the door.

"That is the way we serve those who insult us out in the West," said Osmond. "Only: for once, I missed my aim. But I'll fight it out with him to-morrow, anyhow he likes."

"To-morrow we will settle our little differences as gentlemen of honour should settle such things," said Kester, soothingly. And with these words he led him from the room.

Lionel sank back on a chair, sick, weary, and disgusted; and so sat without moving till Kester came back, some ten minutes later.

"What have you done with Osmond?" he said.

"I have given him in charge of my man, who won't leave him till he has seen him safely in bed. He would insist on having more brandy. In ten minutes he will be sleeping the sleep of the drunken."

Lionel rose with a look of pain, and pressed one hand to the side of his head.

"Got one of your bad head aches?" asked Kester.

"Yes: about the worst that I ever remember to have had."

"Is their no cure for them?"

"None but patience."

"But, surely, they may be alleviated?"

"I have tried remedies without end, but to no purpose."

"Will you let me make you up a mixture from a prescription of my own? I have all the materials at hand. If I make it up, will you promise to take it? I don't say that it will cure your headache, but I do believe that it will give you relief."

There was a strangely anxious, almost haggard look on his face as he spoke thus, and yet his eyes were never once bent on Lionel. He had picked up one of the cues, and seemed to be busily examining it. When he had done speaking, he waited for his cousin's answer with parted lips, in a sort of breathless hush.

Lionel laughed a rather dismal laugh.

"Well, if you have any faith in your mixture, I don't mind trying it," he said. "It can't make the pain worse, and there is just a faint chance that it may ease it a bit--or that I may fancy that it does, which is pretty much the same thing."

The cue dropped from Kester's fingers and rattled on the floor. "What was that?" he said, suddenly, looking round with a shiver. "I could have sworn that somebody touched me on the shoulder."

"There is no one here but ourselves," said Lionel, languidly. The pain was almost more than he could bear up against.

Kester recovered his equanimity after an impatient "Pish" at his folly, and the two men went slowly out of the billiard-room together. Outside the door Kester whispered in his cousin's ear, "I will go and fetch the mixture, and be back again in two minutes." Lionel nodded, and Kester was gone.

"Why need he have whispered to me?" asked Lionel of himself. "There was no one to overhear him. There's something queer about him to-night. A little touch of the blues, perhaps; and yet he never seems to drink very hard."

Lionel went off to his rooms--a bedroom and sitting-room en suite, next to the rooms occupied by Osmond. He took off his coat and tie, and unbuttoned his waistcoat, and then sat down with his feet on the fender, waiting for Kester.

Lionel Dering had been troubled with occasional headaches of a very distressing kind ever since he could remember any thing, and he had quite made up his mind that he must be so troubled till the end of the chapter. He had no faith in his cousin's proposed remedy, but he would take it simply to oblige Kester.

Kester was not long away. He entered the room presently, carrying a small silver tankard in his hand.

"I can't tell you bow sorry I feel for this night's work," said Lionel.

"What have you done that you should feel sorry for?" asked Kester, as he put down the tankard on the table.

"I ought to have left the billiard-room instead of flying at poor little Osmond in the brutal way I did. He was half drunk to-night, and didn't know what he was about. He would have apologised in the morning, and then everything would have come right."

"Considering the provocation you received I think that you acted throughout with the greatest forbearance. Osmond, to say the least of it, is not worthy of any serious consideration."

"But you will see him in the morning, won't you, and act as peacemaker between us, if it be possible to do so?"

"Certainly, if you wish it."

"I do wish it. The brawl was an utterly disreputable piece of business. I ought not to have let my temper overmaster me. I ought, under no circumstances, to have forgotten that Percy Osmond was my guest."

"Well, never mind all that now. We can discuss the affair fully in the morning. See, I have brought you the mixture I spoke of for your head. I think you will find that it will do you good."

He held out the tankard as he spoke. His pale face looked paler than ever to-night--his black moustache blacker than ever; but his restless eyes seemed to fix themselves anywhere rather than on his cousin's face. Lionel took the tankard from Kester's hand, and drank off the contents at a draught. Then he wiped his lips with his pocket handkerchief, and having no coat on, he stuffed the handkerchief carelessly under his braces for the time being.

"And now I'll leave you to sweet slumber and happy dreams," said Kester, as he took back the empty tankard. "Your head will be better by morning, I do not doubt. Good night."

"Good night," responded Lionel, languidly, from his chair by the fire.

Kester went softly out, and closed the door lightly behind him.

Ten minutes passed away, and then Lionel awoke with a start to find that he had unconsciously fallen into a doze over the fire. The pain in his head certainly seemed a little better already. But when he rose to his feet, he found that he could hardly stand. His limbs seemed too weak to support him, and he was overcome with a dull heavy drowsiness such as he had never felt before. The room and everything in it began to rock slowly up and down like the cabin of a ship at sea. There were only two candles on the table, but Lionel seemed to see a dozen. Sleep--sleep of the deepest--seemed to be numbing both his heart and his brain. Consciousness was fast leaving him. He staggered rather than walked to the couch on the opposite side of the room. He reached it. He had just sense enough left to fling himself on it, and then he remembered nothing more.

He remembered nothing more till he awoke next morning. It was broad daylight when he opened his eyes. He had to gather his wits together and to think for a minute or two before he could call to mind how and why it was that he found himself lying there, on his dressing-room couch, instead of in his bed as usual. Then all the events of the evening flashed across his mind in a moment: the quarrel in the billiard-room; the pistol-shot; the pain in his head; the draught given him by his cousin, and the strange effect it had upon him. "It must have been a very powerful narcotic," said Lionel to himself. "But, at all events, it has cured my headache."

By turning his head he could see the timepiece on the bureau. It was nine o'clock, an hour and a half past his usual time for rising. But, late as it was, he felt a strange disinclination for getting up. He felt as if he could lie there all day without moving. His mind was perfectly clear; the pain had left his head; but his limbs seemed heavy, useless, inert. He would stay there for just ten minutes longer, he said to himself, and then he would positively get up. Kester would be waiting breakfast for him, and he was anxious to know how Osmond was this morning, and what recollection he retained of the fracas overnight.

But Osmond was up already. He could hear him moving about the next room. So far all was well. But what would be the result of their quarrel? Osmond must leave Park Newton, and at once. No other course was---- Now that he listened more particularly, he could hear the footsteps of more than one person in the next room--of more than two--of several. And there were footsteps in the corridor, passing to and fro as if in a hurry. There was a whispering, too, as if close outside his door; then the hurried muttering of many voices in Osmond's room; then the clash of two doors far away in the opposite wing of the house.

What could it all mean? Was Osmond ill? Or was he simply having his luggage packed, with the view of leaving for London by the forenoon train? Lionel sprang to his feet without another moment's delay. The sudden change of position made him dizzy. He pressed his fingers over both his eyes for a moment or two while he recovered himself. Again there was a noise of whispering in the corridor outside. Lionel made a step or two forward towards the door, and then came to a dead stop--horror-stricken by something which he now saw for the first time. The pocket-handkerchief which he had stuffed carelessly under his braces overnight had fallen to the ground when he sprang from the couch. As he stooped to pick it up, he saw that it was stained with blood. But whose blood? It could not be his own--there was nothing the matter with him. But if not his, whose?

Now that he looked at himself more closely, there were crimson streaks on the front of his shirt where the handkerchief had rested against it--and on his wristbands there were other streaks of the same ominous colour.

He had picked up the handkerchief, and was gazing at it in a sort of maze of dread and perplexity, when there came a sudden imperative knocking at his dressing-room door. Next moment the door was opened, and, lifting up his bewildered eyes, Lionel saw clustered in the doorway the frightened faces of five or six of his own servants.

"What is the matter?" he asked, and his voice sounded strangely unfamiliar both to himself and others.

"Oh, if you please, sir--Mr. Osmond--the gentleman in the next room!" gasped Pearce the butler.

"What is the matter with Mr. Osmond?"

"He has been murdered in the dead of night!"

Lionel caught at the edge of a table for support. His brain reeled--all the pulses of his being seemed to stand still in awful dread.

"Murdered! Percy Osmond murdered!" He breathed the words rather than spoke them aloud. Then for the first time he saw that all those frightened eyes clustered in the doorway were fixed, not on him, but on the terrible token which he was still holding in his hand. He dropped it with a shudders and strode forward towards the door. They all shrank back as though he were stricken with the plague.

"Great Heaven! they cannot suspect that I have done the deed!" he whispered to himself. "We must see to this at once," he said aloud.

No one spoke. There was a dead, ominous silence. The crimson stains on his shirt were visible, and every eye was now fixed on them. Lionel paused for a moment at the threshold to gather nerve.

As he stood thus, Pierre Janvard came quickly out of Osmond's room, carrying some small article between the thumb and finger of his right hand. His face was paler than usual, and his half-closed eyes had a sort of feline expression in them which was not pleasant to look upon.

"If you please, sir, is this your property?" he said, addressing himself to Lionel, and displaying a small jet stud set in filigree gold.

Lionel's fingers went up instinctively to his shirt front in search of the missing stud.

"Yes, that is my property," he said. "Where did you find it?"

"I found it just now, sir, clutched in the hand of Mr. Percy Osmond, who lies murdered in the next room."
CHAPTER XII. TOM BRISTOW'S RETURN.
"What can be sweeter or more charming than an English May-day? I declare I've seen nothing in the East at all comparable to it."

The speaker was Tom Bristow; the person addressed was a casual compagnon de voyage, whose acquaintance he had made during the Channel passage; and the scene was a first-class compartment in the mail train from Dover to London.

"You wouldn't be so ready to praise an English May-day if you had been here last week, as I was," was the reply. "No sunshine--not a gleam; but, in place of it, a confounded east wind that was almost keen enough to shave you. Every second fellow you met spoke to you through his nose; and when you did happen to get near a fire, you were frozen through on one side before you were half warmed through on the other."

"Well, it's pleasant enough now, in all conscience," said Tom, with a smile of easy content.

Tom Bristow, who was very thorough in most of his undertakings, had remained abroad--extending his travels into Palestine and Egypt--till his health was completely reestablished. But, as he said to himself, he had now had enough of sands and sunsets; of dirty Algerines and still dirtier Arabs; of camel-riding and mule-riding; of beggars and bucksheesh; and he was now coming back, with renewed zest, to the prosaic duties of everyday existence, as exemplified, in his case, in the rise and fall of public securities and the refined gambling of the London Stock Exchange.

By the time he had been a week in London he had made himself thoroughly master of the situation again, and almost felt as if he had never been away. "I have been so long used to an idle life," he said to himself, about a fortnight after his return, "that very little work seems to knock me up. Why not take the five o'clock train this afternoon, and run down as far as Gatehouse Farm, and spend a couple of days with old Li Dering? Where in the wide world is there any air equal to that which blows across the sandhills of the old farm?"

Between nine and ten o'clock on Sunday morning Tom Bristow knocked at the well-remembered door. After sleeping at the Station Hotel, he had walked leisurely across the fields, his heart beating high with the expectation of shortly being able to grasp his friend by the hand. Everything seemed as if he had left the farm but yesterday, except that then it was autumn and now it was spring. Mrs. Bevis answered his knock. She started at the sight of him, and could not repress an exclamation of surprise. "Yes, here I am once more," said Tom, with his pleasant smile. "Don't tell me that Mr. Dering is not at home."

Mrs. Bevis's answer was a sudden burst of tears.

"What has happened, Mrs. Bevis?" cried Tom, in alarm. "Not--not--?" His looks finished the question.

"Oh, Mr. Bristow, haven't you heard, sir?" cried Mrs. Bevis through her sobs.

"I've heard nothing--not a word. I have only just returned from abroad."

"Mr. Dering, sir, is lying in Duxley gaol, waiting to take his trial at the next assizes."

"His trial!" echoed Tom in amazed perplexity. "Trial for what?"

"For wilful murder, sir!"

"Can this be true?" cried Tom, as he sank back, with blanched face and staring eyes, on the old oaken seat in the porch.

"Only too true, sir--only too true!" moaned Mrs. Bevis. "But I'll never believe that he did it--never!" she added emphatically. "A kinder heart, a truer gentleman, never drew breath."

"I'll say amen to that," replied Tom, earnestly. "But Lionel Dering committed for wilful murder! It seems an utter impossibility."

"Why, all England's been ringing with the story," added Mrs. Bevis.

"And yet I've never heard of it. But, as I said before, I've only just got back from the East, where I was two months without seeing a newspaper.

"I couldn't bear to tell you about it, sir. My heart seems almost broken as it is. But I've got the newspapers here with all the account in. Perhaps you would like to read them for yourself, sir."

"I should indeed, Mrs. Bevis. But did I understand you aright when you said that Mr. Dering was in Duxley gaol?"

"That's the place, sir."

"Duxley in Midlandshire?"

"The very same, sir."

"But what was Mr. Dering doing so far away from home?"

"Law, sir I'd forgotten that you were a stranger to the news. Master's a rich man now, sir. His uncle died last autumn, and left him a great estate close by Duxley. He's been living there ever since."

"You astonish me, Mrs. Bevis. But what is the name of the estate?"

"Park Newton. But may I ask whether you know Duxley, sir?"

"I know Duxley very well indeed. I was born and brought up there."

"To think of that, now!"

"Then the name of Mr. Dering's uncle must have been Mr. Arthur St. George?"

"That's the name, sir. I recollect it quite well, because it put me in mind of St. George and the Dragon. But I'll fetch you the newspapers."

She brought the papers presently, and left Tom to himself while he read them. The case was as Mrs. Bevis had stated it. Lionel Dering stood committed to take his trial at the next assizes for the wilful murder of Percy Osmond.

Mrs. Bevis, coming back after a quarter of an hour, found Mr. Bristow buried deep in thought, with the newspapers lying unheeded by his side.

"You don't believe that he did it, do you, sir?" she asked, with tearful earnestness.

"I would stake my existence on Mr. Dering's innocence!" said Tom, emphatically.

"God bless you, sir, for those words!" cried Mrs. Bevis. "There must surely be some way to help him--some way of proving that he did not do this dreadful thing?"

"Whatever friendship or money can do shall be done for him. That you may rely upon."

"Mr. Dering saved your life, sir. You will try and save his, won't you?"

"I will--so help me Heaven!" answered Tom, fervently.

"It is strange," mused Tom, as he walked sadly back to the station, "that in all our long conversations together Dering should never have mentioned that he had an uncle living within three miles of Duxley, and I should never have spoken of the town by name as the place where I was born and reared. And then to think that Tobias Hoskyns, my old governor, should be the man of all men into whose hands Dering has entrusted his case! But the whole affair is a tissue of surprises from beginning to end."

Next morning, at nine o'clock, Mr. Tom Bristow, after a preliminary knock, walked into the private office of Mr. Tobias Hoskyns, of Duxley, attorney-at-law.

Mr. Hoskyns was a frail-looking, spare-built man of some fifty-five or sixty years. He was rather short-sighted, and wore gold-rimmed spectacles. He had gray hair, and gray whiskers that ended abruptly half-way down his cheeks, as though too timid to venture farther. He was dressed with a certain old-fashioned precision, that took little or no heed of the variations of fashion, but went on quietly repeating itself from one year's end to another. He was very fond of snuff, which he imbibed, not after the reckless and defiant manner affected by some lovers of the powdered weed, but in a deferential, half-apologetic kind of way, as though he were ashamed of the practice, and begged you would make a point of forgetting his weakness as speedily as possible. He carried an old-fashioned silver snuff-box in his waistcoat pocket, and in another pocket a yellow silk handkerchief of immense size, bordered with black. In short, Mr. Hoskyns was a clearly individualized figure, and one might safely say that, by sight at least, he was known to every man, woman, and child in Duxley.

He was very pleased indeed to see his quondam clerk. "Then you do still manage to keep your head above water, eh?" he said, as he shook Tom warmly by the hand.

"Yes. The waters of speculation have not quite swallowed me up," said Tom, demurely.

"Ah, you know the old proverb, 'a rolling stone,' et cetera. You should have stuck to your stool in the outer office, as I advised you to do. You might, perhaps, have been junior partner by this time, and--this in your ear--the business gets more lucrative every year; it does really. Ah, Tom, Tom, you made a great mistake when you left Duxley! Thought you were going to set the Thames on fire, I know you did."

"Experience, sir, is said to make fools wise. Let us hope that I shall have gathered a little of the commodity by-and-by."

"Well, you must come and dine with me this evening. Can't stay now. I'm due at the gaol in fifteen minutes."

"That's the very place to which I want to go with you."

"Eh? Bless my heart, what do you want to go there for?"

"To see the same man that you are going to visit--to see my dear friend, Lionel Dering."

"Why, good gracious, you don't mean to say----" and Mr. Hoskyns took off his spectacles, and stared at Tom in blank amazement.

Then Tom had to explain, in the fewest possible words, how it happened that he and Lionel Dering were such excellent friends. Five minutes later they were on their way to the gaol.

As they passed through the lawyer's outer office, Tom glanced round. With one exception, the faces of all there were strangers to him. The exception was not a very inviting person to look at, but Tom went up and shook hands with him. He was a tall, big-boned, loosely-built man of five and forty, dressed in very rusty black--an awkward, shambling sort of fellow, unshaven and uncombed, with grubby hands and bleared eyes, and with a wild shaggy mop of hair which had once been jet black, but was now thickly sprinkled with gray. The man's features were wanting neither in power nor intellect, but they were marred by an air of habitual dissipation--of sottishness, even--which he made no effort to conceal.

"Jabez Creede is still with you, I see," said Tom, as he and the lawyer walked down the street.

"Yes, I still keep him on," answered Hoskyns, "though, if I have threatened once to turn him away, I have a hundred times. With his dirty, drunken ways, the man, as a man, is unbearable to me; but, as a clerk, I don't know what I should do without him. For engrossing, or copying, he is useless, his hand is far too shaky. But in one other respect he is invaluable to me: his memory is like a prodigious storehouse, in which he can lay his hand on any particular article at a moment's notice. He knows how useful he is to me, and he presumes on that knowledge to do things that I would submit to from no other clerk in my employ."

There was no difficulty in passing Tom into the gaol. In the case of a prisoner of such distinction as Mr. Dering, some of the more stringent of the prison regulations were to a certain extent relaxed. Besides which, Mr. Hoskyns and the governor were bosom friends, playing whist together two or three evenings a week the winter through, and wrangling over the odd trick, as only old companions can wrangle; so that the lawyer's word soon placed Tom inside the magic gates, and after he had been introduced to Mr. Dux, the aforesaid governor, he might be said to be duly possessed of the Open Sesame of the grim old building.

"This is kind of you, Bristow, very kind!" exclaimed Lionel, as he strode forward to greet his friend. "When we parted last we little thought that our next meeting would be in these halls of dazzling light." He laughed a dismal laugh, and pressed Tom down into his own chair.

For a moment or two Tom could not trust himself to speak. "There's a silver lining to every cloud, you know, old boy," he stammered out at last. "You must bear up like a brick. Please Heaven, we'll soon have you out of this hole, and everything will come right in the long run, never fear." He felt that it was not at all what he had intended to say, but, somehow, his usual ready flow of words seemed dried up for a little while.

Lionel Dering had been nearly a month in prison. Confinement to a man of his active outdoor habits was especially irksome, and Tom was not surprised to find him looking pale and more careworn than he had ever seen him look before. He was extraordinarily cheerful, however; and when Tom told him that it was his intention to stay at Duxley till the trial was over, he brightened up still more, and at once proposed that they two should have a game at chess, there and then, as in the old pleasant days at Gatehouse Farm.

"Dux is very good to me," he explained. "He comes to see me for an hour most evenings. He and I have had several games together. The turnkey will fetch his board and men in five minutes."

Mr. Hoskyns was somewhat scandalized. "I cannot get my client," he explained to Tom, "to evince that interest in his trial, and the arrangements for his defence, that the importance of the occasion demands. It really almost seems as if Mr. Dering looked upon the whole business as referring, not to himself, but to some stranger in whose affairs he took only the faintest possible interest."

"My dear Hoskyns," said Lionel, "you pumped me dry long ago of every morsel of information that I could give you respecting this wretched business. You can get nothing more out of me, and may as well leave me in peace. Employ whom you will to defend me, if defence I need. That is your business, not mine."

So Tom and Lionel had their game of chess, and a long talk together afterwards, and when Tom at last left the prison, it was with a promise to be there again at an early hour next morning.

Lionel Dering's first care after his arrest was to write to Edith West, in order that she might learn the news direct from himself, and not through a newspaper or any other source.

"My darling Edith," he wrote, "a terrible misfortune has befallen me. A gentleman, Mr. Percy Osmond by name, one of my guests at Park Newton, has been foully murdered, and I am accused of the crime. That my innocence will be made clear to the world at my trial, I do not doubt. Till that day comes I must submit, with what patience I may, to be kept closely under lock and key in this grim building from which I write. You see that I write quite calmly, and without any fear whatever as to the result. My greatest trouble in the matter is my enforced deprivation of your dear society for a little while. I will write you fuller particulars to-morrow. I am afraid that it will be necessary to fix the date of our marriage a month later than the time agreed upon, but certainly not more than a month. That of itself is very annoying. I beg that you will not fret or worry yourself on my account. This is but a little trial which will soon be over, and which, years hence, will shape itself into a seasonable story to be told round the Christmas fire."

Lionel saw from the moment of his arrest that the evidence against him was far too strong to allow him to hope for any other issue than a commitment for trial at the assizes. And he was right. The magistrates before whom he was taken could not do otherwise than commit him for wilful murder. The jet stud found in the dead man's hand, the saturated handkerchief, the streaks of blood on his shirt--damning proofs all, which Lionel Dering could neither explain nor extenuate--left them no other alternative.

And that, to the public at large, seemed the strangest feature of the case: Mr. Dering either could not or would not offer any explanation. If it seemed strange to the outside world that no explanation was forthcoming, how much stranger did it seem to Lionel himself, that he was utterly unable to offer any How and by what means had those terrible evidences of guilt come there? Day and night, night and day, during his first week in prison, he kept on asking himself the same question, only to acknowledge himself utterly baffled, and as far from any satisfactory answer the last time he asked it as he was the first. All that he could say was, that he knew absolutely nothing; that his mind was an utter blank from the moment he flung himself, half stupefied, on his dressing-room sofa till the moment he woke next morning and found his handkerchief saturated with blood. Heartsick and brain-weary, he at length gave up all effort to solve a problem which, as far as he was concerned, seemed incapable of any solution; and set himself to face the inevitable with what patience and resignation he could summon to his aid. He could only trust and hope that on the day of the trial, something would turn up, some proof be forthcoming, which would exculpate him utterly, and prove once more the fallibility of even the strongest chain of circumstantial evidence. If not--but the alternative was not a pleasant one to contemplate.

As already stated, Lionel's first act after his arrest was to write a note to Edith West. Twelve hours later, Mrs. Garside and Miss West stepped out of the train at Duxley station. The newspapers had told them that Mr. Dering's case was in the hands of a certain Mr. Hoskyns, and the first person they accosted after leaving the station, directed them to that gentleman's office. Fortunately, Mr. Hoskyns was at home. They told him who they were, and that their object in coming to Duxley was to see and be near Mr. Dering.

"I shall see Mr. Dering this evening," said the lawyer. "I will tell him that you are in Duxley, and should he prove willing to see you--which I do not doubt that he will--you can accompany me to the prison at ten o'clock to-morrow morning."

Lionel was overjoyed to learn that Edith was so near him, and could not find in his heart to blame her for coming, however injudicious such a step might have seemed to many people. But even he, as yet, had conceived but a very vague idea of the infinite capabilities of a character such as hers.

On the morrow they met, and it was a meeting that made even Hoskyns, case-hardened though he was, remember for a moment that, many, many years ago, he himself had been young.

The moment the door was opened Edith sprang to Lionel's arms, utterly indifferent to the fact that Mrs. Garside and the lawyer were looking on from the background. "My life! my love! my husband!" she murmured, between her tears. "At last, at last!--my own, never to be lost to me again. And this is your home--this miserable cell! It shall be my home too. If they will not let me stay with you, my heart, at least, will be with you day and night--always."

"Now I feel that you love me," was all that Lionel could say for the moment.

"I cling to you because you are in trouble," said Edith. "My place is by your side. I have a right to be here, and nothing shall keep me away. To-morrow, or next day at the latest, Lionel, you must make me your wife."

"What, marry you here, Edith! In this place, and while I am a prisoner charged with wilful murder!"

"Yes; in this place, and while you are a prisoner charged with wilful murder."

"My darling child, what are you thinking of?" in mild protest from Mrs. Garside.

"Aunt, I know perfectly well what I am thinking of. I have been Lionel's promised wife for some time. I am now going to be his wife in reality. I am only a weak woman, I know; I cannot really help him; I can only love him and watch over him, and do my best to lighten the dark hours of his life in prison."

"But suppose the worst comes to the worst," said Lionel, very gravely, "and such a result is by no means improbable."

Edith shuddered. "You only supply me with one argument the more," she answered. "The deeper your trouble--the greater your peril--the closer must I cling to you. It is hard to see you here--hard to know of what you are accused--but you will break my heart altogether, Lionel, if you drive me from your side."

Gently and gravely, Lionel argued with her, but to no purpose. It is possible that his arguments were not very powerful ones; that they were not very logically enforced. Who could have resisted her loving, passionate plea? Not Lionel, whose heart, despite his outward show of resistance, went out half-way to meet hers, as Edith's own instinct too surely told her.

Three days later they were married in the prison chapel. Mr. Hoskyns made a special journey to London and brought back the licence. One stipulation was made by Lionel--that the marriage should be kept a profound secret, and a profound secret it was kept. The witnesses were Mrs. Garside, Hoskyns, Mr. Dux, and the chief warder. Beyond these four, and the chaplain, the knowledge did not extend. Even the turnkeys, whose duty it was to attend to Lionel, had no suspicion of what had taken place.

Three weeks had come and gone since the marriage of Lionel and Edith when Tom Bristow first set foot inside the gaol.
CHAPTER XIII. A DINNER AT PINCOTE.
Lionel Dering was blessed with one of those equable dispositions which predispose their owner to look always at the sunny side of everything; and even now, in prison, and with such a terrible accusation hanging over him, no one ever saw him downhearted or in any way distressed. There was about him a serenity, a quiet cheerfulness, which nothing seemed able to disturb; and when in the company of others he was usually as gay and animated as if the four walls of his cell had been those of his own study at Park Newton. The ordeal was, in any case, a very trying one; but it would have been infinitely more so but for the sweet offices of love and friendship which he owed in one case to his wife, and in the other to his friend. Either Edith or Tom saw him every day. But when all his visitors had gone, and night and silence had settled down on the grim old prison--silence so profound that but for the recurring voice of a distant clock, as it counted the hours slowly and solemnly, he could have fancied himself the last man left alive in the world--then it was that he felt his situation the most. He had been so used to an active, outdoor life, that he could not now tire himself sufficiently to sleep well.

It was these hours of darkness, when the rest of the world was abed, and the long, long hours of daylight in the early summer mornings before it was yet awake, which tried him more than anything else. At such times, when he was tired of reading--and he had never before read so much in so short a space of time--he could do nothing but lie back on his pallet, with his arms curled under his head, and think. The mornings were balmy, soft, and bright. Through the cell-casement, which he could open at will, he could hear the merry twittering of innumerable sparrows. He could see the slow shadows sliding, inch by inch, down the gray stone walls of the prison yard, as the sun rose higher in the sky. Now and then the sweet west wind brought him faint wafts of fragrance from the hay-slopes just outside the prison gates. Sometimes he could hear the barking of a dog on some far far-off farm, or the dull lowing of cattle; sounds which reminded him that the great world, with its life, and hopes, and fears, lay close around him, though he himself might have no part therein. At such moments he often felt that he would give half of all he was possessed of for an hour's freedom outside those tomb-like walls--for one hour's blessed freedom, with Edith by his side, to wander at their own sweet will through lane and coppice and by river's brim, with the free air of heaven blowing around them, and nothing to bound their eyes but the dim horizon, lying like a purple ring on woods and meadows far away.

Little wonder that during these long, solitary hours a sense of depression, of melancholy even, would now and then take possession of him for a little while; that his mind was oppressed with vague forebodings of what that future, which was now drawing near with sure but unhasting footsteps, might possibly have in store for him. He had just won for himself the sweetest prize which this world had in its power to offer him, and his very soul shrank within him when he thought that he had won it only, perhaps, to lose it for ever in a few short weeks. Bitter, very bitter--despairing almost--grew his thoughts at such times; but he struggled bravely against them, and never let them master him for long. When the clock struck six, and the tramp of heavy feet was heard along the corridors, and the jingling of huge keys--when the warders were changed, and the little wicket in his cell door was opened and a cheerful voice said, "Good-morning, sir. Hope you have slept well," Lionel's cheery response would ring out, clear and full, "Good-morning, Jeavons. I've had an excellent night, thank you." And Jeavons would go back to his mates and say, "Mr. Dering's just wonderful. Always the same. Never out o' sorts."

Later on would come Hoskyns, and Edith, and Tom. It was impossible for Edith to visit the prison alone, and the lawyer would often make a pretence of having business with his client when he had none in reality, rather than withstand the piteous, pleading look which would spring to Edith's eyes the moment he told her that there would be no occasion for him to visit the gaol that day. While he lives Hoskyns will never forget those pretty pictures of the lover-husband and his bride, as they sat together, hand in hand, in the grim old cell, comforting each other, strengthening each other, and drawing pictures of the happy future in store for them; deceiving each other with a make-believe gaiety; and hiding, with desperate earnestness, the terrible dread which lay lurking, like a foul witch in a cavern, low down in the heart of each--that, for them, the coming months might bring, not sunshine, flowers, and the joys of mutual love, but life-long separation and the unspeakable darkness that broods beneath the awful wings of Death.

On these occasions, Hoskyns never neglected to provide himself with a newspaper, and, buried behind the huge broadsheet of "The Times," with spectacles poised on nose, he would go calmly on with his reading, leaving Lionel and Edith almost as much to themselves as though he had not been there. The sterling qualities of the old lawyer, and the thorough sincerity of his character, gradually forced themselves on the notice of Lionel and his wife, both of whom came, after a time, to regard him almost in the light of a second father, and to treat him with an affectionate familiarity which he was not slow to appreciate.

As Tom Bristow was turning the corner of Duxley High Street, one afternoon about three days after his arrival from London, he was met, face to face, by Squire Culpepper. The squire stopped and stared at Tom, but failed for the moment to recognize him.

"Good-morning, sir," said Tom, heartily. "Glad to see you looking so well."

"Why--eh?--surely I must know that face," said the squire. "It's young Tom Bristow, if I'm not mistaken."

"You are not mistaken, sir," answered Tom.

"Then I'm very glad to see you, Tom--very," said the squire, as he shook Tom warmly by the hand. "Your father was a man whom I liked and respected immensely. I can never forget his kindness and attention to my poor dear wife during her last illness--never. He did all that man could do to preserve her to me--but it was not to be. For your father's sake, Tom, you will always find Titus Culpepper stand your friend."

"It is very kind of you to say so, sir."

"Not at all--not at all. So you're back again at the old place, eh? Going to stop with us this time, I hope. You ought never to have left us, young sir, but have settled down quietly in your father's shoes. Vagabondizing's a bad thing for any young man."

"I quite agree with you, sir," said Tom, in a tone of assumed simplicity.

"Glad you've come round to my way of thinking at last. Knew you would. Well, if I can do anything for you in the way of helping you to get a decent living, you may command me fully. Think over what I've said, and come and dine with me at Pincote to-morrow at seven sharp."

"It would be worth something," said Tom to himself as he went on his way, "to know what the squire's opinion about me really is; to have a glimpse at the portrait of me in all its details which he has evolved from his own inner consciousness. Strange that in a little town like this, where everybody knows everybody else's business better than he knows his own, if a man venture to step out of the beaten track prescribed for him by custom and tradition, and is bold enough to strike out a path for himself, he is at once set down as being, of necessity, either a lunatic or a scapegrace--unless, indeed, his lunacy chance to win for him either a fortune or a name. And then how changed the tone!"

Next evening Tom found himself at Pincote. The squire introduced him in brief terms to his daughter, and then left the room for a few minutes, for which Tom did not thank him. "What can I say to Miss Culpepper that will be likely to interest her?" he asked himself. "Does she go in for private theatricals, or for ritualism and pet parsons? Does she believe in soup kitchens and visiting the poor, or would she rather talk about the new prima donna, and the last new poem?"

Miss Culpepper had sat down again at the piano, and was striking a few chords now and then, in an absent-minded way. She was by no means a pretty girl in the ordinary acceptation of the term. Her face was a good one, without being strikingly handsome. She had something of her father's shrewd, keen look, but with an underlying expression of goodness and kindliness, difficult to define, but unmistakably there. She had large blue-gray eyes and magnificent teeth. Her complexion, lily-clear during the winter months, was already freckled by the warm May sunshine, and would be more so before the summer was over. Finally, her hair was red--not auburn, but an unmistakable red.

But Tom Bristow had rather a weakness for red hair--not perhaps for the deep, dull, fiery red which we sometimes see. He accepted it, as the old Venetians accepted it--as one of the rarest types of beauty, as something far superior to your commonplace browns and blacks. And then he did not object to freckles--in moderation. He looked upon them as one of the signs of a sound country-bred constitution. As Jane Culpepper sat there by the piano, in the sunny May eventide, in her white dress, trimmed with pale green velvet, with her red hair coiled in great hands round her little head--with her frank smile, and her clear honest-looking eyes, she filled up in Tom's mind his ideal picture of a healthy, pure-minded English country girl, and it struck him that he could have made a very pleasant water-colour sketch of herself and her surroundings.

Jane spared him the trouble of finding a topic that would be likely to interest her by being the first to speak. "Do you find Duxley much changed since you were here last?" She asked.

"Very little changed indeed. These small country towns never do change, or only by such imperceptible degrees that one never notices the difference. But may I ask, Miss Culpepper, how you know that I am not a stranger to Duxley?"

"Oh, I have often heard papa speak of you, and wonder what had become of you."

"And heard him blame me, I doubt not, for running away from the friends of my youth, and the town of my birth."

"I cannot say that you are altogether wrong," answered Jane with a smile. "Papa is a little impulsive at times, as I dare say you know, and judges every one from his own peculiar standpoint."

"Which means, in my case, I suppose, that because I was born in Duxley, I ought to have earned my bread there, died there, and been buried there."

"Something of the kind, doubtless. Old-fashioned prejudices you would call them, Mr. Bristow."

"I dare say I should. But they are worthy of respect for all that."

"Is not that somewhat of a paradox?"

"Hardly so, I think. Men like Mr. Culpepper, with their conservatism, and their traditions of a past--which, it should not be forgotten, was not a past, but a present, when they were young people, and is, consequently, not so very antiquated--with their faith in old institutions, old modes of thought, old friendships, and--and old wine, are simply invaluable in this shifty, restless, out-of-breath era in which we live. They are like the roots of grass and tangle which bind together the sandhills on a windy shore. They conserve for us the essence of an experience which dates from years before we were born; which will sweeten our lives, if we know how to use it: as yonder pot-pourri of faded rose-leaves sweetens this room, and whispers to us that, in summers long ago, flowers as sweet bloomed and faded, as those which blossom for us to-day and will fade and leave us to-morrow."

"When you are as old as papa, Mr. Bristow," said Jane, with a laugh, "I believe you will be just as conservative and full of prejudices as he is."

"I hope so, I'm sure," said Tom, earnestly. "Only, my prejudices will differ in some degree from his--as his would doubtless differ in degree from those of his father--because I happen to have been born some thirty years later in the world's history."

At this moment the servant ushered in Mr. Cope the banker, and Mr. Edward Cope the banker's son. Jane rose, and introduced Tom to them as "Mr. Bristow, a friend of papa's." The banker's son stared at Tom for a moment, nodded his bull head, and then drawing a chair up to the piano, proceeded to take possession of Jane with an air of proprietorship which brought the colour for a moment into that young lady's face.

The banker himself was more affable, in the pompous way that was habitual with him. He never remembered to have heard the name of Bristow before, but being a friend of the squire, the young man was probably worth cultivating, and, in any case, there was nothing lost by a little politeness. So Mr. Cope cleared his throat, and planting himself like a colossus before the vacant grate, entered with becoming seriousness upon the state of the weather and the prospects of the crops. When the squire came in, five minutes later, Tom and the banker were chatting together, as if they had known each other for years.

They all went in to dinner. Over the soup, said the squire to Mr. Cope: "You were telling me, the other day, that one of your fellows at the bank died a week or two ago?"

"Yes: young Musgrave. Clever young man. Great loss to the firm."

"Well, if you have not filled up the place it might, perhaps, suit our young friend here," indicating Tom, "if you like to take him on my recommendation. I don't know whether Jenny introduced him properly, but he's the son of Dr. Bristow, who attended my wife in her last illness. I respected his father, and I like the lad, and would gladly do something for him."

The banker was scandalized. It might almost be said that he was horrified. To think that he had been invited to meet, and, worse than that, had talked on terms of perfect equality with, a young man who was in want of an ordinary clerkship--who would, doubtless, be glad of a stool in the back office of his bank! It was monstrous--it was disgusting! But it was just the sort of inconsiderate conduct that might be expected from a man like Culpepper. His manner towards Tom froze in a moment.

"What say you? Can you do anything for him?" urged the squire.

"Why--ah--really, you know--should be most happy to oblige you, or to serve Mr.--Mr.----"

"Bristow," said the squire.

"Bristow--thank you--but you see--ah--young Musgrave's berth was filled up a week ago, and I'm sorry that I've nothing else just now at all likely to suit the requirements of your--ah--protégé. I'll take another spoonful of clear soup, if you please."

Tom's face was a study all this time. "I'm in for it now," he said to himself. "The banker will never speak to me again."

"Ah, well," said the squire, "I'll see McKenna, the electioneering agent, to-morrow. I dare say he'll know of something that will suit our young friend."

"Pardon me, Mr. Culpepper," said Tom quietly, "but I'm afraid there's a slight mistake somewhere. I am not aware that I ever expressed myself as being in want of a situation, either in Mr. Cope's bank, or elsewhere. My business, such as it is, lies in London. I have only come down to Duxley to see a few old friends."

"Why, bless my heart," said the squire, "I thought you told me yesterday that you were in want of something to do!"

"A misunderstanding, I assure you, sir. Many thanks to you all the same."

"And what the deuce is your business, if I may make bold to ask?" said the squire, testily.

Tom hesitated for a moment. "I believe, sir, I might describe myself as an individual who lives by his wits--such as they are," he said at last.

"And can you manage to make money by your wits?" asked the squire, with ill-concealed contempt.

"A little, sir," answered Tom. "Enough to find me in food and clothes. Enough to satisfy my few and simple needs."

The squire gave a grunt of discontent, and turned towards the banker, who, ignoring any further notice of Tom, at once broached the interminable subject of local politics--a subject that had a fascination for the squire which he was never able to resist. Tom revenged himself by turning his attention to the opposite end of the table, where sat Miss Culpepper, with her faithful squire, Mr. Edward Cope, in close proximity to her. "They are engaged, I suppose," said Tom to himself, "or else she wouldn't let him sit so near her, and glare at her so with those pig's eyes of his. But I'll never believe that she can care for a fellow like that. She's just the kind of girl," he went on mentally, "that, if I were a marrying man, I should like to win for myself--and, by Jove! he's just the sort of fellow that I should glory in cutting out. Has he a word of any kind to say for himself, I wonder? At present his whole soul seems given up to the pleasures of the table."

Certainly, Mr. Edward Cope was no Adonis; but he might have been accepted as a very tolerable representation of Bacchus clothed in modern evening dress. For a young man, he was abnormally stout. Already, at three-and-twenty, he had no waist worth speaking of. What he would be ten years hence was a mystery. His dress was usually a compromise between that of a horse trainer and a gentleman. He turned his toes in when he walked, and he had a fat, vacuous face, which, in his case, was a fair index to the vacuous mind within. He was a crack whip, and a tolerable shot--pigeon shooting was his favourite pastime--but much farther than that his intellect did not carry him.

He did venture on a remark at last. "I gave Beauty a new set of shoes this morning," he said. "She didn't at all like having them put on, and kicked out furiously. Ferris did not half like the job, I can tell you; especially after she sent him sprawling into a corner of his own smithy. I never laughed so much in my life before."

"I can't see what there was to laugh at, Edward. I hope the poor man was not much hurt."

"Oh, we got some brandy into him, and he came round all right in about ten minutes. I'm going to try Beauty to-morrow in the new dog-cart. You might let me call for you about eleven."

"You may call for me, if you like, but only on one condition: that you drive me over to see how poor Ferris is getting on.

"All right. I'll call. But you women do make such a jolly fuss about nothing."

"What a beautiful sunset, is it not, Mr. Bristow?" said Jane, turning to Tom.

"Beautiful, indeed--for England; but in no wise comparable, in point of sheer splendour, to the sunsets of the East."

"From which, I presume, we may infer that you are not unacquainted with the East."

"Three months since I was living in the desert as the guest of an Arab scheik."

Jane brightened up in a moment. Here was a chance at last of hearing about something that would interest her. Question and answer followed each other in quick succession, and in less than five minutes the conversation had drifted away into regions far beyond the reach of Edward le Gros, who sat glowering at them in a sulky silence, which remained unbroken till the cloth was drawn, and Miss Culpepper left the gentlemen to themselves.

"Draw up, boys--draw up closer," said the squire. "Jenkins, bring in two bottles of the blue seal."

Edward drew his chair up closer to the squire, who was totally unaware that everything among his guests was not on the pleasantest possible footing. Both the banker and his son had evidently determined to ignore Tom utterly, but Tom accepted his fate with unbroken serenity.

After a little time, the conversation turned on the probability of a new line of railway being made before long to connect Duxley with a certain manufacturing town about forty miles away. Mr. Culpepper was strongly opposed to the scheme, but Mr. Cope was rather inclined to view it with favour.

"One thing is quite clear," said the banker. "Sir Harry Fulke will do his best to get the bill smuggled through Parliament. The proposed line would just cut through the edge of his estate, and the money he would get for the land would be very useful to him just now--as I happen to know."

"Pardon me," interrupted Tom, "but if Sir Harry Fulke's word is worth anything at all, he is as strongly opposed as Mr. Culpepper himself to the line in question."

"And pray, sir," asked the banker, with considerable hauteur, "may I be allowed to ask how you happen to know Sir Harry's opinion on this important point?"

"Because I had it from Sir Harry's own lips," answered Tom, simply. "We were talking together on this very subject, only a few evenings ago, at Lord Tynedale's."

Mr. Cope stared at Tom as though he could hardly believe the evidence of his own senses.

"Ah, well," said the squire, with a chuckle, "if Sir Harry's opposed to the line, we may make our minds easy that we shall hear very little more about it."

"I'm not so sure on that point," answered Tom. "I know for a fact that Bloggs and Hayling, the great engineers, are very much interested in getting the scheme pushed forward, and they are generally credited with knowing pretty well what they are about."

"As you seem, sir, to be on such intimate terms with Lord Tynedale," said the banker, with a sneer, "you can, perhaps, tell us the real ins and outs of that strange gambling transaction with which his lordship's youngest son was so recently mixed up."

"I cannot tell you the real facts of the case," answered Tom. "I presume that they are known only to the parties most concerned. But this I can tell you, that I and Mr. Cecil Drake, the young gentleman in question, lived together for three months in Algeria on the most intimate terms; and from my knowledge of him, I feel perfectly sure that his share of the transaction you allude to was that of a strictly honourable man."

The banker blew his nose violently. This Mr. Bristow was a very strange young man, he said to himself. There was evidently a mistake somewhere. Probably the squire had blundered as usual. In the meantime, it might be just as well to be decently civil to him.

When the evening came to an end, and the banker was putting on his overcoat in the hall, he whispered in the squire's ear: "I suppose you know that your balance is seventy pounds overdrawn?"

The squire's face for a moment turned quite ghastly, and he clutched at a chair for support. He recovered himself with a laugh. "I knew it was very low, but I didn't know it was overdrawn," he whispered back. "But I know what I'm about, never fear. Just mark my words: before you are two months older, you'll have a bigger balance to the credit of Titus Culpepper than you've ever had yet. Oh yes, I know perfectly well what I'm about."

"I'm very glad to hear it, I'm sure," said the banker with a dubious cough. "I think we shall have some rain before morning. Good-night, Mr. Bristow. Very pleased to have made your acquaintance. Hope we shall meet again."

The banker took counsel with himself as he was being driven home by his son. "I think it will be advisable to send Edward to New York for a couple of months," he thought. "In case the worst comes to the worst, the affair can then be broken off without scandal. The squire's playing some underhand game which will bring him to grief if he's not very, very careful. Meanwhile, all I can do is to wait and watch."

Strange to say, Tom Bristow's dreams that night were of Jane Culpepper. "I wonder whether she dreamed about me," he murmured to himself next morning as he was stropping his razor. "Not likely. And I was no better than a fool to dream about her."
CHAPTER XIV. AT ALDER COTTAGE.
Tom Bristow seldom let a day pass over without seeing Lionel Dering. Sometimes he accompanied Mr. Hoskyns to the prison, sometimes he went alone. The lawyer and he held many long consultations together as to the probable result of the trial. They could not conceal from themselves that there was grave cause for apprehension. The weight of circumstantial evidence that would be brought to bear against Lionel was almost overwhelming; while, on the other hand, not a single tittle of evidence was forthcoming which tended to implicate any other person. Notwithstanding all this, Tom was as morally convinced of his friend's innocence as he was of his own existence. Mr. Hoskyns, in his way, was equally positive. He felt sure that Lionel had not knowingly committed the crime, but he thought it possible that he might have done it in a fit of mental aberration, without retaining the least recollection of it afterwards. In the annals of criminal jurisprudence such cases are by no means unknown. And this was the supposition on which the eminent counsel whom he had retained for the trial seemed inclined to base his argument for the defence. Hoskyns had engaged a detective from Scotland Yard, and had left no stone unturned in his efforts to lift at least some portion of the dreadful weight of evidence from off his client's shoulders, but up to the present time all such efforts had been utterly in vain. That there might possibly be some foul conspiracy on foot to get rid of Lionel was an idea that for a little while found a lodging in the lawyer's mind. But in all the wide world, as far as he knew, there was only one person who would be benefited by the death of Lionel Dering. That person was Kester St. George, and of evidence implicating him in the murder there was absolutely none. It was currently reported that he was lying seriously ill in London, which accounted for his not having been seen in Duxley since the day of the inquest.

The shock of his friend Osmond's dreadful death, taken in conjunction with the terrible accusation against his cousin, and the fact that he himself had been called upon to give evidence at the inquest, was considered by the gossips of the little town amply sufficient to account for Mr. St. George's illness. It was to be hoped that his health would be restored before the day appointed for his cousin's trial, he being one of the chief witnesses who would be called on that important occasion.

Tom Bristow was obliged to confess himself beaten, as Mr. Hoskyns had been beaten before him. There was a mystery about the case which he was totally unable to fathom. His conviction of his friend's innocence never wavered for a single moment, and yet when he asked himself: How came the jet stud into Osmond's hand? How came the stains on Dering's shirt? he felt himself utterly unable to suggest any answer that would satisfy his own reason, or that would be likely to satisfy the reason of a judge and jury. It was very easy to say that Dering must be the victim of some foul conspiracy, but unless some proof, however faint, could be advanced of the existence of some such plot, his assertion would go for nothing, or merely be set down as the unwarranted utterance of a too partial friend.

Tom had not been half an hour in Lionel's company before he knew all about his friend's marriage, and next day he called on Edith with a note of introduction from her husband. Edith had beard so much, at different times, about Bristow, that she welcomed him with unfeigned gladness, and he, on his side, was deeply impressed with the sweet earnestness and womanly tenderness of her disposition. He was not long in perceiving that Edith altogether failed to realize the full measure of her husband's danger. She talked as if his acquittal were a matter that admitted of no dispute; and on one occasion, Tom found her busy sketching out the plan of a Continental tour for Lionel and herself on which they were to start the day after the trial should be over. It made Tom's heart ache to see how sanguine she was; but, as yet, the necessity for undeceiving her had not arisen.

Mrs. Garside and Edith were living in quiet lodgings in a quiet part of the town. They had brought one servant with them--Martha Vince by name, from whom they had few or no secrets. Martha had been Edith's nurse, and had lived with her ever since, and hoped to stay with her till she died. To the world at large she seemed nothing more than a shrewd, hard-working, money-saving woman; but Edith knew well the faithful and affectionate heart that beat behind the plain exterior of Martha Vince.

The life led by the two ladies was necessarily a very lonely one, and they had no wish that it should be otherwise. They never went out, except to the prison, or to take a walk for health's sake through the quiet fields at the back of the town. They were always closely veiled when they went abroad, and to the people of Duxley their features were absolutely unknown. Mr. Hoskyns and Tom were their only visitors--their only friends in those dark hours of adversity.

"I am going to make a very singular request to-day," said Tom one afternoon, when he called to see the ladies as usual. "It is to ask you to give up these very comfortable rooms and transfer yourselves and baggage to Alder Cottage, a pleasant little furnished house, not more than half a mile from here, which just now happens to be to let."

"But my dear Mr. Bristow--" began Mrs. Garside.

"One moment, my dear Mrs. Garside," interrupted Tom. "I have another request to make: that you will not at present ask me my reasons for counselling this removal. You shall have them in a week or ten days without asking. Can you trust me till then?"

"Implicitly," answered Edith, with fervour. "When may we go and view our new home?"

"Now--to-morrow--any time. Only take the cottage, and don't be more than a week before you are installed there."

They were installed there in less than a week, despite Mrs. Garside's mild protestations that she couldn't, for the life of her, understand why that strange Mr. Bristow should want them to give up their comfortable apartments for a dull old house that looked for all the world as if it were haunted, and was built in such an out-of-the way place that to live there was really very little better than being buried alive. But Edith's faith in Tom was not to be shaken. She felt sure that he would not have asked them to take up their quarters in Alder Cottage without having good reasons for proposing such a removal. What those reasons were she was naturally somewhat anxious to know, but she hid her impatience from Tom, and waited with smiling resignation till it should please him to tell her the secret which she felt sure was lying perdu in his brain. That there was a secret she could not doubt, because Tom had stipulated that she should not even hint to Lionel that the change of residence had been instigated by him.

Tom was not at all like his usual self about this time. He was restless and uneasy, and seemed to have lost all relish for the ordinary avocations of his everyday life. There were days when he seemed as if he would give anything to get away from the company of his own thoughts, when he would hunt up some acquaintances of former years, whom he would invite to his rooms, and keep there with pressing hospitality till far into the small hours of morning. At other times he would lie on the sofa for hours together, brooding in darkness and solitude; and his landlady, going in about midnight with a light, would find him lying there, broad awake, with a look in his eyes which told her that his thoughts were far away.

Strange to say, the person whom Tom Bristow most frequently invited to his rooms was Jabez Creede, Mr. Hoskyns' dissipated clerk. As already stated, Tom had known Creede when he himself was a youth in the same office, but the two men were so dissimilar in every respect that that of itself did not seem sufficient to account for the intimacy which now existed between them--an intimacy which was evidently of Tom's own seeking.

Creede, whose life seemed to be one chronic round of debt and dissipation, would have been friendly with anybody who would have used him as Tom used him--who would have played cribbage with him so badly that he, Creede, always rose from the table a winner; and who would have treated him to unlimited supplies of tobacco, and innumerable glasses of Irish whiskey, hot and strong.

Tom would never allow Creede to leave his rooms till he was intoxicated, not that the latter ever seemed particularly anxious to go before that happy consummation was arrived at. But Tom was so abstemious a mortal himself that the fact of his encouraging Creede to drink to excess was somewhat singular. "What a beast the fellow is!" he muttered, as he watched Creede go staggering down the street after one of their evenings together. "But he will answer my purpose better than any one else I could have chosen."

During the three weeks preceding Lionel's trial, Tom went to London about half-a-dozen times. He used to go up in the morning and come back in the evening. One morning he called at Alder Cottage on his way to the railway station. "I'm going up to town to-day," he said, "and while there I mean to buy and send you a certain article of furniture."

"Very thoughtful on your part, Mr. Bristow," said Edith with a smile. "But would you mind telling me what the article in question is?"

"It is a mahogany wardrobe, and it has been made to fit into the recess in your dressing-room."

"But I am not in want of a wardrobe, whether made of mahogany or any other wood," said Edith, with a puzzled look.

"That doesn't matter in the least. I shall buy it and send it all the same. The fact is I ordered it when I was in London a fortnight ago. I got Martha Vince to give me the measurement of the recess in which I want it to be fixed."

Edith was mystified, but she had such implicit faith in Tom that she never demurred at anything he either said or did.

Two days later the wardrobe arrived. Tom in person had superintended its removal from the truck to the van at the railway station, and he was at Alder Cottage to receive it. The porters, by Tom's instructions, carried it as far as the landing upstairs, and there left it.

"It now remains to be unpacked," said Tom, "and then Martha and I, with Mrs. Dering's permission, will try to fix it in the corner it is intended to occupy."

"But why not have kept the railway men to unpack and fix it?" asked Mrs. Garside.

"Because there is a little secret connected with this wardrobe," answered Tom, "of which we four alone must possess the key."

"I like secrets," said Mrs. Garside. "It is so delightful to know something that nobody else knows."

So the wardrobe was unpacked, and proved to be a very handsome and substantial piece of furniture indeed. It tested their united strength to move it into the position it was to occupy, but when once there they found that it fitted the recess exactly.

"Now for the secret!" said Mrs. Garside, as she sat down panting on a chair.

"Suppose we adjourn downstairs," said Tom. "I have much to say to you."

His tone was very grave. The colour faded out of Edith's cheeks as he spoke. Her sensitive heart took alarm in a moment.

As soon as Mrs. Garside, Edith, and Tom had entered the parlour, Martha Vince discreetly shut the door upon them, and went back to her work in the kitchen.

"First of all," began Tom, "I must ask whether your servant, Martha Vince, has your entire confidence."

"My full and entire confidence," answered Edith, without a minute's hesitation. "There is no more faithful creature breathing."

"My own idea of her exactly," said Tom.

"Such being the case, it would be as well that she should hear what I have to say to you."

So the bell was rung, and Martha was summoned to join the consultation in the parlour.

"Some of my proceedings must have appeared very strange to you, Mrs. Dering," said Tom, addressing himself to Edith. "If, at times, I have seemed over-intrusive, I must claim your forgiveness on the score of my thorough disinterestedness. In all that I have done, I have been actuated by one motive only: that motive was the welfare of my dear friend, Lionel Dering."

"I believe you, from my heart," said Edith, earnestly. "But indeed, no such apology was needed--no apology at all."

Mrs. Garside coughed a dubious little cough. Really, that strange Mr. Bristow was more strange than usual this afternoon.

"In all the affairs of this life," went on Tom, "it is best never to expect too much: it is good to be prepared to face the worst."

"Ah!" said Edith, with a quivering, long-drawn sigh, "now I begin to understand you."

"The day fixed for Dering's trial is at hand: the weight of evidence against him is terribly strong: no human being can say what the result may be." He spoke very slowly and very gravely, and the faces of his listeners blanched as they heard him.

"And I--heaven help me!" faltered Edith, "was foolish enough to think that, because he is innocent, he could not fail to be acquitted!"

"Of his innocence we are all perfectly satisfied. But the jury will also have to be satisfied of it. And therein lies the difficulty. Unless some strong evidence in his favour be forthcoming at the trial, it is just possible--mind, I only say just possible--that--that--in short, that it may go somewhat hard with him."

"My darling child, this is indeed a dreadful revelation!" sobbed Mrs. Garside.

But Edith neither sobbed nor spoke. She sat perfectly still, with white, drawn face, and with staring, horror-full eyes, that, gazing through the wide-open window, far away into the peaceful evening sky, seemed to see there some terrible vision of doom, unseen of all the others.

"Oh dear! dear!" cried Mrs. Garside, "what a pity it is that you would insist on getting married!"

The words roused Edith from her waking trance. "I thank heaven doubly now that I was enabled to become the wife of Lionel Dering! If--if I must indeed lose him, he will still be mine beyond the grave. Our parting will not be for long. We shall----" She could say no more. She rose hastily, and went to the window, and stood there till her composure had in some measure come back to her.

"You have something more to tell me, Mr. Bristow," she said, as she went back to her chair after a little while.

"How sorry I am to have distressed you so much!" said Tom, with real feeling.

"Do not speak of that now, please. You have told me the truth, and I am grateful to you for it. I have been living too long in a fool's paradise."

"But you must not give way to despair. Dering's case is by no means a hopeless one, and I should not have said what I have said to you this afternoon, had I not been compelled to do so by another and a most important reason."

Edith looked at him rather wearily, as if anything that he might now say could have only the faintest possible interest for her.

"As I said before," resumed Tom, "it is always wise to prepare for the worst, although that worst may possibly never come. And this was the object I had in view, firstly, when I induced you to leave your lodgings in Duxley and come to live in this lonely little house; and, secondly, when I had that piece of furniture made for you which we have just unpacked upstairs."

Edith's attention was keen enough now. "You speak in parables!" she said with pitiful eagerness.

"In one moment I will enlighten you," said Tom. He leaned forward and spoke slowly and impressively, so that every word might be heard by his three auditors. "If I find that the result of the trial is likely to be adverse to Lionel Daring, it is my fixed intention to assist him to escape from prison, and to hide him from pursuit in this very house!"

Mrs. Garside and Martha sat staring at Tom when he had done speaking as though they believed him to be mad. Edith's heart gave a great sob in which hope, and joy, and fear were commingled.

"The first thing was to get you out of lodgings," resumed Tom. "While you were there, it would have been impossible for you to hide anybody. Fortunately, this house was to let. It is secluded, and not overlooked from the windows of any other house, and consequently admirably adapted for the purpose I have in view. But in the house itself it was necessary to find some special hiding-place--some nook that would be safe from the prying eyes of the most acute and experienced police officer. Many were the hours I spent in cogitating over one scheme after another. The result was that I could think of no safer place in which to hide an escaped prisoner than my mahogany wardrobe."

"Hide him in a wardrobe!" exclaimed Mrs. Garside, in dismay. "Why, that would be one of the first places a police officer would look into."

"Precisely so," said Tom. "He might look into it a dozen times if he liked, and still he should not see all that it held. But we will go upstairs again, and the mystery shall be elucidated."

So they went upstairs again to Edith's dressing-room, and Tom flung wide open the doors of the wardrobe. The ladies had seen similar articles of furniture scores of times before, and this one seemed in nowise different from any other. There was a shelf near the top; and below the shelf were the usual pegs on which to hang articles of clothing: and that was all. Disappointment was plainly visible on every face.

Tom smiled, and gave one of the brass pegs a downward pull. As he did so, they could hear the click of a little bolt as it shot back into its socket. Then the back of the wardrobe, from the shelf downwards, yielding to Tom's hand, opened slowly outwards on hidden hinges, disclosing, as it did so, a space sufficiently large for a man to stand upright in between itself--when shut--and the real back.

In order to illustrate thoroughly the use to which it was intended to put it, Tom stepped into the recess, and pulling the false back towards him, shut himself in. Seeing the wardrobe thus, no one would ever have suspected that anything was hidden in it. By pulling a ring, the person inside could open the door of his temporary prison, so that any one could step in and out at will, and almost as easily as if were simply going out of one room into another. Tom then explained the mechanism of the wardrobe, so that there could be no possible mistake should the necessity for using it ever arise. The recess in which the wardrobe stood was a very deep one, and this it was which had first given him the idea of utilizing it in the way described.

"This is the place in which I intend to hide Lionel Dering," said Tom, as he shut the wardrobe doors, "should his innocence not be proved at his trial, and should I succeed in effecting his escape from Duxley gaol."

"But about his escape," said Mrs. Garside. "May I ask----" and then she stopped.

"Don't ask me anything at present, my dear madam," said Tom. "My scheme is hardly clear to my own mind as yet." Then, turning to Edith, he added, "But for all that, I hope that a day or two more will see it thoroughly perfected. Time enough then to trouble you with whatever other details it may be necessary for you to know."

"Some people say that the grand old days when Friendship was something more than an empty name are dead and gone for ever. I will never believe them when they tell me so in time to come."

So spoke Edith to Tom as they stood together for a moment at the door ere the latter took his leave.

"Dering saved my life," answered Tom, simply. "But for his brave heart, and his strong arm, the hand you now clasp in yours, and the body to which it belongs, would be mouldering at the bottom of the sea, or else have been buried by strangers in some nameless grave. Can such a service be readily forgotten?"

As Tom was walking through the town towards his lodgings he overtook Hoskyns. They walked down the street together, talking about the trial, which was fixed for the following Monday. Mr. Baldry, the wine and spirit merchant, was standing at the door of his counting-house as they approached. Judging from the appearance of Mr. Baldry's face, most people would have concluded that he was rather too fond of his own stock in trade, and most people would have been right in their supposition. Hoskyns stopped to speak to him, and proffered his snuff-box as usual. Tom nodded to him.

"You can send me another dozen of that claret--the same as the last," said Hoskyns. "That is if you, have any of it left in stock."

"I'll make an effort to find enough for an old friend," said Baldry, facetiously. "By-the-by," he added, "since how long a time is it that you have taken to rambling by moonlight along lonely country roads after ten o'clock at night?"

"I have not the remotest idea, Baldry, what you are talking about," said Hoskyns, little stiffly.

"Oh, come now, among old friends that won't do, you know. Whether you're in love or not is best known to yourself: But it certainly did strike me as something out of the common way to see you walking all alone, between ten and eleven last night, under the lime trees on the Thornfield road."

"You speak in riddles," said Hoskyns. "I have not set foot on the Thornfield road for months."

Baldry stared at the lawyer, then rubbed his eyes, and then stared again. "Draw it mild, old friend," he said quietly. "Don't think for one moment that I want to pry into your private affairs, but I certainly thought there was no harm in my mentioning where I met you last night, especially as you seemed to make no secret of it yourself."

"I tell you again that I don't understand what you are driving at," said Hoskyns, testily. "I tell you again that I have not set foot on the Thornfield road for months."

"Look here," said Baldry, and an angry flush overspread his face, making it redder than before, "do you mean to stand there and tell me in cold blood that you didn't stop me on the Thornfield road last night, as I was driving home between ten and eleven? That you didn't shout out to me, 'Hullo, Baldry, is that you, old boy?' That I didn't stop the mare for five minutes, while we talked about the weather and such like? That you didn't offer me your box, and that I didn't take out of it a pinch of that identical snuff which nobody but you in all Duxley makes use of? Do you mean to stand there and tell me all that?"

"Baldry," said Hoskyns, "for you to make such a statement as that is to prove that last night you must have been either crazy or drunk. Last night I never left the house after eight o'clock: as my servant could certify on oath. And as for the Thornfield road, I tell you once more that I have not set foot on it since last Christmas."

"Ned," shouted Baldry to some one inside, "come you here a minute."

The summons was responded to by a yellow-haired youth of sixteen.

"At what hour did I reach home last night?" asked Baldry.

"The clock had just struck eleven as you drove into the yard," answered Ned.

"Did I tell you, or did I not, that I had stopped and spoken to some one a few minutes previously?"

"You said that you had just parted from Lawyer Hoskyns. That you had had five minutes' talk with him, and a pinch out of his box," answered the lad without a moment's hesitation.

"There! what did I tell you?" said Baldry, triumphantly.

"Baldry, I give you my word of honour," said Hoskyns, "that I was not out of the house after eight o'clock, and that I never met you yesterday at all--indeed, I've not seen you to speak to you for nearly a week."

"Evidently a case of mistaken identity," said Tom.

"Mistaken identity be hanged!" said the irate wine merchant. "How about the snuff-box? Could I be mistaken in that? Not likely. No--no. I respect old friends, but I'll take the evidence of my own senses in preference to any man's word, however long I've known him." And with these words, Baldry retired into the recesses of his counting-house, and shut the door behind him with a bang.

Hoskyns and Tom resumed their walk down the street.

"An extraordinary circumstance, very," said the lawyer. "I am quite at a loss how to explain it."

"Baldry was always noted as being fond of his own spirits, wasn't he?" asked Tom.

"He was indeed, poor man: and I am afraid the habit clings to him still. He must have been in liquor last evening. That is the only way in which I can account for his hallucination."

END OF VOL. I.
Volume 2 CHAPTER I. THE EVE OF THE TRIAL.
Within a week of Tom Bristow's first visit to Pincote, and his introduction to the Copes, father and son, Mr. Cope, junior, found himself, much to his disgust, fairly on his way to New York. He would gladly have rebelled against the parental dictum in this matter, if he had dared to do so; but he knew of old how worse than useless it would be for him to offer the slightest opposition to his father's wishes.

"You will go and say goodbye to Miss Culpepper as a matter of course," said Mr. Cope to him. "But don't grow too sentimental over the parting. Do it in an easy, smiling way, as if you were merely going out of town for a few days. Don't make any promises--don't talk about the future--and, above all, don't say a word about marriage. Of course, you will have to write to her occasionally while you are away. Just a few lines, you know, to say how you are, and all that. No mawkish silly love-nonsense, but a sensible, manly letter; and be wisely reticent as to the date of your return. Very sorry, but you don't know how much longer your business may detain you--you know the sort of thing I mean."

When the idea had first entered Mr. Cope's mind that it would be an excellent thing if he could only succeed in getting his son engaged to Squire Culpepper's only child, it had not been without an ulterior eye to the fortune which that young lady would one day call her own that he had been induced to press forward the scheme to a successful issue. By marrying Miss Culpepper, his son would be enabled to take up a position in county society such as he could never hope to attain either by his own merits, which were of the most moderate kind, or from his father's money bags alone. But dearly as Mr. Cope loved position, he loved money still better; and it was no part of his programme that his son should marry a pauper, even though that pauper could trace back her pedigree to the Conqueror. And yet, if the squire went on speculating as madly as he was evidently doing now, it seemed only too probable that pauperism, or something very much like it, would be the result, as far as Miss Culpepper was concerned. Instead of having a fortune of at least twenty thousand pounds, as she ought to have, would she come in for as many pence when the old man died? Mr. Cope groaned in spirit as he asked himself the question, and he became more determined than ever to carry out his policy of waiting and watching, before allowing the engagement of the young people to reach a point that would render a subsequent rupture impossible without open scandal--and scandal was a bugbear of which the banker stood in extreme dread.

Fortunately, perhaps, for Mr. Cope's view, the feelings of neither of the people chiefly concerned were very deeply interested. Edward had obeyed his father in this as in everything else. He had known Jane from a child, and he liked her because she was clever and good-tempered. But she by no means realized his ideal of feminine beauty. She was too slender, too slightly formed to meet with his approval. "There's not enough of her," was the way he put it to himself. Miss Moggs, the confectioner's daughter, with her ample proportions and beaming smile, was far more to his taste. Equally to his taste was the pastry dispensed by Miss Moggs's plump fingers, of which he used to devour enormous quantities, seated on a three-legged stool in front of the counter, while chatting in a free and easy way about his horses and dogs, and the number of pigeons he had slaughtered of late. And then it was so much easier to talk to Miss Moggs than it was to talk to Jane. Miss Moggs looked up to him as to a young magnifico, and listened to his oracular utterances with becoming reverence and attention; but Jane, somehow, didn't seem to appreciate him as he wished to be appreciated, and he never felt, quite sure that she was not laughing at him in her sleeve.

"So you are going to leave us by the eight o'clock train to-morrow, are you?" asked Jane, when he went to Pincote to say a few last words of farewell. He had sat down by her side on the sofa, and had taken her unresisting hand in his; a somewhat thin, cold little hand, that returned his pressure very faintly. How different, as he could not help saying to himself, from the warm, plump fingers of Matilda Moggs.

"Yes, I'm going by the morning train. Perhaps I shall never come back. Perhaps I shall be drowned," he said, somewhat dolorously.

"Not you, Edward, dear. You will live to plague us all for many a year to come. I wish I could do your business, and go instead of you."

"You don't mean to say that you would like to cross the Atlantic, Jane?"

"I mean to say that there are few things in the world would please me better. What a fresh and glorious experience it must be to one who has never been far from home!"

"But think of the sea-sickness."

"Think of being out of sight of commonplace land for days and days together. Think how delightful it must be to be rocked on the great Atlantic rollers, and what a new and pleasant sensation it must be to know that there is only a plank between yourself and the fishes, and yet not to feel the least bit afraid."

Edward shuddered. "When you wake up in the middle of the night, and hear the wind blowing hard, you will think of me, won't you?" he said.

"Of course I shall. And I shall wish I were by your side to enjoy it. To be out in a gale on the Atlantic--that must indeed be glorious!"

Edward's fat cheeks became a shade paler, "Don't talk in that way, Jane," he said. "One never can tell what may happen. I shall write to you, of course, and all that; and you won't forget me while I'm away, will you?"

"No, I shall not forget you, Edward; of that you may be quite sure."

Then he drew her towards him, and kissed her; and then, after a few more words, he went away.

It was just the sort of parting that his father would have approved of, he said to himself, as he drove down the avenue. No tears, no sentimental nonsense, no fuss of any kind. Privately he felt somewhat aggrieved that she had not taken the parting more to heart. "There wasn't even a single tear in her eye," he said to himself. "She doesn't half know how to appreciate a fellow."

He would perhaps have altered his opinion in some measure could he have seen Jane half an hour later. She had locked herself in her bedroom, and was crying bitterly. Why she was crying thus she would have found it difficult to explain: in fact, she hardly knew herself. It is possible that her tears were not altogether tears of bitterness--that some other feeling than sorrow for her temporary separation from Edward Cope was stirring the fountains of her heart. She kept on upbraiding herself for her coldness and want of feeling, and trying to persuade herself that she was deeply sorry, rather than secretly--very secretly--glad to be relieved of the tedium of his presence for several weeks to come. She knew how wrong it was of her--it was almost wicked, she thought--to feel thus: but, underlying all her tears, was a gleam of precious sunshine, of which she was dimly conscious, although she would not acknowledge its presence even to herself.

After a time her tears ceased to flow. She got up and bathed her eyes. While thus occupied her maid knocked at the door.

Mr. Bristow was downstairs. He had brought some photographs for Miss Culpepper to look at.

"Tell Mr. Bristow how sorry I am that I cannot see him to-day," said Jane. "But my head aches so badly that I cannot possibly go down." Then when the girl was gone, "I won't see him to-day," she added to herself. "When Edward and I are married he will come and see us sometimes, perhaps. Edward will always be glad to see him."

Hearing the front-door clash, she ran to the window and pulled aside a corner of the blind. In a minute or two she saw Tom walking leisurely down the avenue. Presently he paused, and turned, and began to scan the house as if he knew that Jane were watching him. It was quite impossible that he should see her, but for all that she shrank back, with a blush and a shy little smile. But she did not loose her hold of the blind; and presently she peeped again, and never moved her eyes till Tom was lost to view.

Then she went downstairs into the drawing-room, and found there the photographs which Tom had left for her inspection. There, too, lying close by, was a glove which he had dropped and had omitted to pick up again. "I will give it to him next time he comes," she said softly to herself. Strange to relate, her next action was to press the glove to her lips, after which she hid it away in the bosom of her dress. But young ladies' memories are proverbially treacherous, and Jane's was no exception to the rule. Tom Bristow's glove never found its way back into his possession.

Jane Culpepper had drifted into her engagement with Edward Cope almost without knowing how such a state of affairs had been brought about. When her father first mentioned the matter to her, and told her that Edward was fond of her, she laughed at the idea of Edward being fond of anything but his horses and his gun. When, later on, the young banker, in obedience to parental instructions, blundered through a sort of declaration of love, she laughed again, but neither repulsed nor encouraged him. She was quite heart-whole and fancy-free; but certainly Mr. Cope, junior, bore only the faintest resemblance to the vague hero of her girlish dreams--who would come riding one day out of the enchanted Kingdom of Love, and, falling on his knees before her, implore her to share his heart and fortune for evermore. To speak the truth, there was no romance of any kind about Edward. He was hopelessly prosaic: he was irredeemably commonplace; but they had known each other from childhood, and she had a kindly regard for him, arising from that very fact. So, pending the arrival of Prince Charming, she did not altogether repulse him, but went on treating his suit as a piece of pleasant absurdity which could never work itself out to a serious issue either for herself or him. She took the alarm a little when some whispers reached her that she would be asked, before long, to fix a day for the wedding; but, latterly, even those whispers had died away. Nobody seemed in a hurry to press the affair forward to its legitimate conclusion: even Edward himself showed no impatience on the point. So long as he could come and go at Pincote as he liked, and hover about Jane, and squeeze her hand occasionally, and drive her out once or twice a week behind his high-stepping bays, he seemed to want nothing more. They were just the same to each other as they had been when they were children, Jane said to herself--and why should they not remain so?

But, of late, a slight change had come o'er the spirit of Miss Culpepper's dream. New hopes, and thoughts, and fears, to which she had hitherto been a stranger, began to nestle and flutter round her heart, like love-birds building in spring. The thought of becoming the wife of Edward Cope was fast becoming--nay, had already become, utterly distasteful to her. She began to realize the fact that it is impossible to keep on playing with fire without getting burnt. She had allowed herself to drift into an engagement with a man for whom she really cared nothing, thinking, probably, at the time that for her no Prince Charming would ever come riding out of the woods; and that, if it would please her father, she might as well marry Edward Cope as any one else. But behold! all at once Prince Charming had come, and although, as yet, he had not gone down on his knees and offered his hand and heart for evermore, she felt that she could never love but him alone. She felt, too, with a sort of dumb despair, that she had already given herself away beyond recall--or, at least, had led the world to think that she had so given herself away; and that she could not, with any show of maidenly honour, reclaim a gift which she had let slip from her so lightly and easily that she hardly knew herself when it was gone.

The eve of Lionel Dering's trial came at last. The Duxley assizes had opened on the previous Thursday. All the minor cases had been got through by Saturday night, and one of the two judges had already gone forward to the next town. The Park Newton murder case had been left purposely till Monday, and by those who were supposed to know best, it was considered not unlikely that trial, verdict, and sentence would all be got through in the course of one sitting.

The celebrated Mr. Tressil, who had been specially engaged for the defence, found it impossible to get down to Duxley before the five o'clock train on Sunday afternoon. He was met on the platform by Mr. Hoskyns and Mr. Bristow. His junior in the case, Mr. Little, was to meet him by appointment at his rooms later on. Tom was introduced to Mr. Tressil by Hoskyns as a particular friend of Mr. Dering's, and the three gentlemen at once drove to the prison. Mr. Tressil had gone carefully through his brief as he came down in the train. The information conveyed therein was so ample and complete that it was more as a matter of form than to serve any real purpose that he went to see his client. The interview was a very brief one. The few questions Mr. Tressil had to ask were readily answered, but it was quite evident that there was no fresh point to be elicited. Then Mr. Tressil went away, accompanied by Mr. Hoskyns; and Tom was left alone with his friend.

Edith had taken leave of her husband an hour before. They would see each other no more till after the trial was over. What the result of the trial might possibly be they neither of them dared so much as whisper. Each of them put on a make-believe gaiety and cheerfulness of manner, hoping thereby to deceive the other--as if such a thing were possible.

"In two days' time you will be back again at Park Newton," Edith had said, "and will find yourself saddled with a wife, whom, while a prisoner, you were compelled to marry against your will. Surely, in so extreme a case, the Divorce Court would take pity on you, and grant you some relief."

"An excellent suggestion," said Lionel, with a laugh. "I must have some talk with Hoskyns about it. Meanwhile, suppose you get your trunks packed, and prepare for an early start on our wedding tour. Oh! to get outside these four walls again--to have 'the sky above my head, and the grass beneath my feet'--what happiness--what ecstasy--that will be! A week from this time, Edith, we shall be at Chamounix. Think of that, sweet one! In place of this grim cell--the Alps and Freedom! Ah me! what a world of meaning there is in those few words!"

The clock struck four. It was time to go. Only by a supreme effort could Edith keep back her tears--but she did keep them back.

"Goodbye--my husband!" she whispered, as she kissed him on the lips--the eyes--the forehead. "May He who knows all our sorrows, and can lighten all our burdens, grant you strength for the morrow!"

Lionel's lips formed the words, "Goodbye," but no sound came from them. One last clasp of the hand--one last yearning, heartfelt look straight into each other's eyes, and then Edith was gone. Lionel fell back on his seat with a groan as the door shut behind her; and there, with bowed head and clasped fingers, he sat without moving till the coming of Mr. Tressil and the others warned him that he was no longer alone.

As soon as Mr. Tressil and Hoskyns were gone, Lionel lighted up his biggest meerschaum, and Tom was persuaded, for once, into trying a very mild cigarette. Neither of them spoke much--in fact, neither of them seemed to have much to say. They were Englishmen, and to-day they did not belie the taciturnity of their race. They made a few disjointed remarks about the weather, and they both agreed that there was every prospect of an excellent harvest. Lionel inquired after the Culpeppers, and was sorry to hear that the squire was confined to his room with gout. After that, there seemed to be nothing more to say, but they understood each other so well that there was no need of words to interpret between them. Simply to have Tom sitting there, was to Lionel a comfort and a consolation such as nothing else, except the presence of his wife, could have afforded him; and for Tom to have gone to his lodgings without spending that last hour with his friend, would have been a sheer impossibility.

"I shall see you to-morrow?" asked Lionel, as Tom rose to go.

"Certainly you will."

"Good-night, old fellow."

"Good-night, Dering. Take my advice, and don't sit up reading or anything to-night, but get off to bed as early as you can."

Lionel nodded and smiled, and so they parted.

Tom had called at Alder Cottage earlier in the day, and had seen Edith and Mrs. Garside, and had given them their final instructions. He had one other person still to see--Mr. Sprague, the chemist, and him he went in search of as soon as he had bidden Lionel good-night.

Mr. Sprague himself came in answer to Tom's ring at the bell, and ushered his visitor into a stuffy little parlour behind the shop, where he had been lounging on the sofa in his shirt-sleeves, reading Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy." And a very melancholy, careworn-looking man was this chemist whom Tom had come to see. He looked as if the perpetual battle for daily bread, which had been going on with him from year's end to year's end ever since he was old enough to handle a pestle, was at last beginning to daunt him. He had a cowed, wobegone expression as he passed his fingers wearily through his thin grizzled locks: although he did his best to put on an air of cheerfulness at the tardy prospect of a customer.

Tom and the chemist were old acquaintances. Sprague's shop was one of the institutions of Duxley, and had been known to Tom from his early boyhood. Once or twice during his present visit to the town he had called there and made a few purchases, and chatted over old times, and old friends long dead and gone, with the melancholy chemist.

"You still stick to the old place, Mr. Sprague," said Tom, as he sat down on the ancient sofa.

"Yes, Mr. Bristow--yes. I don't know that I could do better. My father kept the shop before me, and everybody in Duxley knows it."

"I suppose you will be retiring on your fortune before long?"

The chemist laughed a hollow laugh. "With thirteen youthful and voracious mouths to feed, it looks like making a fortune, don't it, sir?"

"A baker's dozen of youngsters! Fie, Mr. Sprague, fie!"

"Talking about the baker, sir, I give you my word of honour that he and the butcher take nearly every farthing of profit I get out of my business. It has come to this: that I can no longer make ends meet, as I used to do years ago. For the first time in my life, sir, I am behindhand with my rent, and goodness only knows when and how I shall get it made up." Mr. Sprague's voice was very pitiable as he finished.

"But, surely, some of your children are old enough to help themselves," said Tom.

"The eldest are all girls," answered poor Mr. Sprague, "and they have to stay at home and help their mother with the little ones. My eldest boy, Alex, is only nine years old."

"Just the age to get him off your hands--just the age to get him into the Downham Foundation School."

"Oh, sir, what a relief that would be, both to his poor mother and me! The same thought has struck me, sir, many a time, but I have no influence--none whatever."

"But it is possible that I may have a little," said Tom, kindly.

"Oh, Mr. Bristow!" gasped the chemist, and then could say no more.

"Supposing--merely supposing, you know," said Tom, "that I were to get your eldest boy into the Downham Foundation School, and were, in addition, to put a hundred-pound note into your hands with which to pay off your arrears of rent, you would be willing to do a trifling service for me in return?"

"I should be the most ungrateful wretch in the world were I to refuse to do so," replied the chemist, earnestly.

"Then listen," said Tom. "You are summoned to serve as one of the jury in the great murder case to-morrow."

Mr. Sprague nodded.

"You will serve, as a matter of course," continued Tom. "I shall be in the court, and in such a position that you can see me without difficulty. As soon as the clock strikes three, you will look at me, and you will keep on looking at me every two or three minutes, waiting for a signal from me. Perhaps it will not be requisite for me to give the signal at all--in that case I shall not need your services; but whether they are needed or no, your remuneration will in every respect be the same."

"And what is the signal, Mr. Bristow, for which I am to look out?"

"The scratching, with my little finger--thus--of the left-hand side of my nose."

"And what am I to do when I see the signal?"

"You are to pretend that you are taken suddenly ill, and you are to keep up that pretence long enough to render it impossible for the trial to be finished on Monday--long enough, in fact, to make its postponement to Tuesday morning an inevitable necessity."

"I understand, sir. You want the trial to extend into the second day; instead of being finished, as it might be, on the first?"

"That is exactly what I want. Can you counterfeit a sudden attack of illness, so as to give it an air of reality?"

"I ought to be able to do so, sir. I see plenty of the symptoms every day of my life."

"They will send for a doctor to examine you, you know."

"I suppose so, sir. But my plan will be this: not merely to pretend to be ill, but to be ill in reality. To swallow something, in fact--say a pill concocted by myself--which will really make me very sick and ill for two or three hours, without doing me any permanent injury."

"Not a bad idea by any means. But you understand that you are to take no action whatever in the matter until you see my signal."

"I understand that clearly."

After a little more conversation, Tom went, carrying with him in his waistcoat pocket a tiny phial, filled with some dark-coloured fluid which the chemist had mixed expressly for him.

On the point of leaving, Tom produced three or four rustling pieces of paper. "Here are thirty pounds on account, Mr. Sprague," said he. "I think we understand one another, eh?"

The chemist's fingers closed like a vice on the notes. His heart gave a great sigh of relief. "I am your humble servant to command, Mr. Bristow," he returned. "You have saved my credit and my good name, and you may depend upon me in every way."

As Tom was walking soberly towards his lodging, he passed the open door of the Royal Hotel. Under the portico stood a man smoking a cigar. Their eyes met for an instant in the lamplight, but they were strangers to each other, and Tom passed on his way. Next moment he started, and turned to look again. He had heard a voice say: "Mr. St. George, your dinner is served."

He had come at last, then, this cousin, who had not been seen in Duxley since the day of the inquest--on whose evidence to-morrow so much would depend.

"Is that the man, I wonder," said Tom to himself, "in whose breast lies hidden the black secret of the murder? If not in his--then in whose?"
CHAPTER II. THE TRIAL
"How say you, prisoner at the bar: Guilty or Not Guilty?"

"Not Guilty."

There was a moment's pause. A slight murmur passed like a ripple through the dense crowd. Each individual item, male and female, tried to wriggle itself into a more comfortable position, knowing that it was fixed in that particular spot for some hours to come. The crier of the court called silence where silence was already, and next moment Mr. Purcell, the counsel for the prosecution, rose to his feet. He glanced up at the prisoner for one brief moment, bowed slightly to the judge, hitched his gown well forward, fixed one foot firmly on a spindle of the nearest chair, and turned over the first page of his brief.

Mr. Purcell possessed in an eminent degree the faculty of clear and lucid exposition. His manner was passionless, his style frigid. He aimed at nothing more than giving a cold, unvarnished statement of the facts. But then the way in which he marshalled his facts--going, step by step, through the evidence as taken before the magistrates, bringing out with fatal clearness point after point against the prisoner, gradually wrapping him round, as it were, in an inextricable network of evidence from which it seemed impossible for any human agency to free him--was, to such of his hearers as could appreciate his efforts, an intellectual treat of a very rare order indeed: Even Lionel had to ask himself, in a sort of maze: "Am I guilty, or am I not?" when Mr. Purcell came to the end of his exposition, and took breath for a moment while the first witness for the prosecution was being sworn by the clerk of the court.

That first witness was Kester St. George.

Mr. St. George looked very pale--his recent illness might account for that--but he showed not the slightest trace of nervousness as he stepped into the witness-box. It was noticed by several people that he kept his eyes fixed straight before him, and never once turned them on the prisoner in the dock.

The evidence elicited from Mr. St. George was--epitomized--to the following effect:--Was own cousin to the prisoner at the bar, but had not seen him since they were boys together till prisoner called on him in London a few weeks before the murder. Met prisoner in the street shortly afterwards. Introduced him to Mr. Osmond, the murdered man, who happened to be in his (witness's) company at the time. Prisoner, on the spot, invited both witness and Osmond to visit him at Park Newton. The invitation was accepted. Witness and Osmond went down to Park Newton, and up to the night of the murder everything passed off in the most amicable and friendly spirit. On that evening they all three dined by invitation with Mr. Culpepper, of Pincote. They got back to Park Newton about eleven o'clock. Osmond then proposed to finish up the evening with a game at billiards. Prisoner objected for a time, but ultimately yielded the point, and they all went into the billiard-room. The game was to be a hundred up, and everything went on satisfactorily till Osmond accused prisoner of having played with the wrong ball. This prisoner denied. An altercation followed. After some words on both sides, Osmond threw part of a glass of seltzer-and-brandy into prisoner's face. Prisoner sprang at Osmond and seized him by the throat. Osmond drew a small revolver and fired at prisoner, but fortunately missed him. Witness then interposed, dragged Osmond from the room, and put him into the hands of his (witness's) valet, with instructions not to leave him till he was safely in bed. Then went back to prisoner, whom he found still in the billiard-room, but depressed in spirits, and complaining of one of those violent head aches that were constitutional with him. Witness himself being subject to similar headaches, recommended to prisoner's notice a certain mixture from which he had himself derived much benefit. Prisoner agreed to take a dose of the mixture. Witness went to his own bedroom to obtain it, and then took it to the prisoner, whom he found partially undressed, preparing for bed. Prisoner took the mixture. Then he and witness bade each other good-night, and separated. Next morning, at eight o'clock, witness's valet brought a telegram to his bedroom summoning him to London on important business. He dressed immediately, and left Park Newton at once--an hour and a half before the discovery of the murder.

Cross-examined by Mr. Tressil:

The only one of the three who was at all the worse for wine on their return from Pincote was Mr. Osmond. Had several times seen him in a similar condition. On such occasions he was very talkative, and rather inclined to be quarrelsome. Osmond was in error in saying that prisoner played with the wrong ball. Witness, in his position as marker, was watching the game very carefully, and was certain that no such mistake was made. Osmond was grossly insulting; and prisoner, all through the quarrel, acted with the greatest forbearance. It was not till after Osmond had thrown the brandy-and-seltzer in his face that prisoner laid hands on him at all. The instant after, Osmond drew his revolver and fired. The bullet just missed prisoner's head and lodged in the wall behind him. After Osmond left the room no animosity or ill-feeling was evinced by prisoner towards him. On the contrary, prisoner expressed his deep regret that such a fracas should have taken place under his roof. Had not the slightest fear that there would be any renewal of the quarrel afterwards, or would not have left for London next morning. Certainly thought that an ample apology was due from Osmond, and never doubted that such an apology would be forthcoming when he had slept off the effects of the wine. Was never more surprised or shocked in his life than when he heard of the murder, and that his cousin was accused of the crime. It seemed to him too horrible for belief. Could not conceive of any possible motive that the prisoner could have for committing such a crime.

"Would you not almost as soon expect to have been the author of such a crime yourself?" asked Mr. Tressil.

Mr. St. George turned a shade paler than he was before, and for the first time he seemed to hesitate a little before answering the question. "Yes," he said at last, "I should almost as soon expect such a thing. In fact, I cannot, even now, believe that my cousin, Lionel Dering, is the murderer of Percy Osmond."

Mr. Tressil sat down, and Mr. Little rose to his feet.

"On the night of the quarrel prisoner complained to you of having a very violent headache?"

"He did."

"And you proffered to administer to him a dose of a certain narcotic which you had found to be efficacious in such cases yourself?"

"I did."

"How many drops of the narcotic did you administer to the prisoner?"

"Fifteen, in water."

"You saw him drink it?"

"I did."

"You yourself are troubled with violent headaches at times?"

"I am."

"At such times you administer to yourself a dose of the same narcotic that you administered to the prisoner?"

"I do."

"And you derive great benefit from it?"

"Invariably."

"How many drops of the narcotic do you take yourself on such occasions?"

"Fifteen, in water."

"Is that your invariable dose?"

"It is."

"Speaking for yourself, what is the effect it has upon you on such occasions?"

"It induces languor and drowsiness, and seems to deaden the pain. Its chief object is to insure a good night's rest--nothing more."

"How many years have you been in the habit of taking this narcotic?"

"At intervals, for a dozen years."

"You have therefore become habituated to the use of it?"

"To a certain extent, yes."

"But if you, after twelve years' practice, are in the habit of taking only fifteen drops, does it not strike you that that quantity was somewhat of an overdose for a man who had never taken anything of the kind before?"

"It did not strike me as being so at the time. The prisoner is a strong and healthy man, and his headache was a very violent one."

"But, in any case, the general effect would be to induce a sense of extreme drowsiness, which, in a little while, would result in a dull, heavy sleep--a sleep so heavy and so dull that the sense of violent pain would be deadened, and even lost for the time being?"

"Those are precisely the effects which might be expected."

"How soon, after a dose has been taken, does the feeling of drowsiness come on?"

"In about a quarter of an hour."

"Suppose now, that after you had taken a dose of the narcotic, you wished, for some particular reason, to keep broad awake; suppose that you had some important business to transact--say, if you like, that you had a murder to commit--how would that be?"

"I should find it utterly impossible to keep awake. The feeling of drowsiness induced is so intense that your whole and sole desire is to sleep: you feel as if you wanted to sleep for a month without waking."

Mr. Little, having scored a point, sat down, and Mr. St. George left the witness-box. As he was stepping down into the body of the court his eyes met the eyes of Lionel Dering for the first time that day. It was but for a moment, and then Kester's head was turned deliberately away. But in that moment Lionel saw, or fancied that he saw, the self-same expression flash from his cousin's eyes that he had seen in them that night, now many months ago, when they recognized each other across the crowd on Westminster Bridge--a look of cold, deadly, unquenchable hate, that nothing but death could cancel, with which, to-day, was mingled a look of scornful triumph that seemed to say, "My turn has come at last." For one brief instant Lionel seemed to see his cousin's soul stand unveiled and naked before him.

As before, it was a look that chilled his heart and troubled him strangely. Kester had given his evidence in a perfectly fair and straightforward manner, without betraying the slightest animus against his cousin: indeed, he had distinctly stated more than once that he could not and would not believe that Lionel was guilty of the terrible crime for which he was arraigned, and the little sympathetic thrill which he threw into his soft musical voice at such times could hardly pass unnoticed by any one. But how reconcile such tokens of goodwill and cousinly affection with the fact that he had never once spoken a word to Lionel since they parted in the latter's bedroom on the night of the murder? Even at the inquest, and during the few days that elapsed after the murder before Lionel was committed for trial, his cousin had never come near him, or made any effort whatever to see him. Afterwards there had been vague news of his serious illness in London; but, even then, he might surely have written, or have dictated half a dozen lines, had it been only to say that he was too ill to come in person. But during all those weary days of waiting in prison there had come no word, no message, no token to tell Lionel that there was any such person as Kester St. George in existence.

And now, to-day, what did that look mean? To a man of Lionel's frank and unsuspicious disposition it seemed difficult, nay next to impossible, to believe that he must count his cousin, not as a friend, but as an enemy; and yet the conviction was beginning to dawn slowly upon him that such was indeed the case. But with the dawning of that conviction there was growing up in his mind a dim, vague suspicion, shapeless as yet, but hideous in its shapelessness, to which neither name nor speech had yet been given, but which began to haunt him day and night like some weird nightmare which it was impossible to shake off.

The next witness that was called was Martin Rooke.

Was in prisoner's employ as under-footman at Park Newton. Had been appointed specially to wait on Mr. Osmond, that gentleman having brought no servant with him. One of his duties was to call Mr. Osmond about nine o'clock every morning. Remembered the morning of the ninth of May very well: in fact, should never forget it as long as he lived. Went as usual about nine o'clock--it might be a few minutes before or a few minutes after the hour--to call Mr. Osmond. Found the door unlocked, as usual, and went in after knocking once. Did not notice any signs of disturbance in the room. Went up to the bed with the intention of calling Mr. Osmond. Saw at once what had happened. Mr. Osmond was lying on his back across the bed. After the first shock of the surprise was over, rushed downstairs and summoned assistance. All the servants who were about at once went upstairs with him into the room. Mr. Pearce, the butler, sent off post-haste for the nearest doctor. Then the rest of the servants, except witness, and Janvard, Mr. St. George's valet, went in a body to rouse Mr. Dering, who was sleeping in the room next to that of Mr. Osmond. One of Mr. Osmond's hands was open, the other was shut as if it were clasping something. Janvard took hold of the shut hand, and tried to open the fingers, when something fell from them to the floor. Janvard picked up the fallen article, when witness saw that it was a shirt-stud made of jet, set in filigree gold. "This stud is Mr. Dering's property," said Janvard. "I saw it in his shirt last night." Then witness and Janvard looked about the room and under the bed, to see whether they could find a weapon of any kind, but could not. Then they left Mr. Osmond's room together, and went along the corridor to Mr. Dering's room. The door was wide open, and Pearce and the other servants were clustered round it. Witness peeped over the shoulders of the others, and saw prisoner standing in the middle of the room, looking like a man half dazed. There were red stains on his shirt-front, and there was a red-stained pocket-handkerchief lying at his feet. Janvard then showed prisoner the stud, and asked him whether it was his property. Prisoner said that it was, and asked him where he had found it. Janvard answered that he had found it in the hand of the murdered man. Prisoner sat down in the nearest chair, and witness thought he was going to faint. Then Pearce ordered everybody away, and went into the room and shut the door. Witness went back to Mr. Osmond's room, locked the door, and kept the key till the doctor came--with whom came also the superintendent of police.

The cross-examination of this witness elicited nothing of any importance in favour of the prisoner.

The next witness was Pierre Janvard.

Witness deposed that on the night of the eighth of May he was sitting up for his master, Mr. St. George, who, after his return from Pincote, where he had been dining, had joined prisoner and Mr. Osmond in the billiard-room. About midnight the bell rang, and on answering it he found Mr. Osmond seated on the bottom stair of the flight that led to the bedrooms, and his master standing near him. Mr. St. George motioned to witness to get Mr. Osmond upstairs, and whispered to him that he was not to leave him till he had seen him safely in bed. Mr. St. George then went back to the billiard-room, and witness, after a little persuasion, managed to get Mr. Osmond as far as his own room. Mr. Osmond was half drunk, and was evidently much excited. He kept shaking his head, and talking to himself under his breath, but witness could not make out what he said. Had seen Mr. Osmond the worse for wine several times before. It was the duty of Rooke, the previous witness, to attend to him at such times; but Rooke was in bed, and he (witness) did not care to disturb him. After a little while Mr. Osmond was induced to get into bed. Witness lingered in the room for a few minutes till he seemed fast asleep, then left him, and neither knew nor heard anything more about him till Rooke rushed into the servants' hall, about nine o'clock next morning, with the news of the murder.

The rest of the evidence given by Janvard was little more than a recapitulation of that already given by Rooke. The evidence of the latter was confirmed with regard to the finding of the jet stud, and its recognition by the prisoner as his property. The stud itself was produced in court, and handed up to the jury for inspection.

The next witness was James Mackerith, M.D.

Dr. Mackerith began by stating that between nine and ten o'clock on the morning of May ninth, a servant from Park Newton rode up to his house, and told him he was wanted, without a moment's delay, to look to a gentleman who had been murdered during the night. Witness got out his gig and started at once, and, meeting the superintendent of police on the way, that gentleman joined him on hearing his errand. Witness then went on to describe the finding and appearance of the body. Mr. Osmond had been stabbed through the heart with a knife or dagger. Death, which must have been almost instantaneous, had taken place at least five or six hours before the arrival of witness. There were no traces of any struggle. In all probability Mr. Osmond had been murdered in his sleep, or at the moment when he first opened his eyes, and before he had time to raise any alarm.

This witness was severely cross-examined by Mr. Tressil as to the possibility or otherwise of deceased having committed suicide, but nothing could shake him in his positive conviction that, in the present case, such a theory was utterly untenable. After the cross-examination of Dr. Mackerith was brought to an end the court adjourned for luncheon.

It was now two o'clock, and although there were three or four minor witnesses still to be examined, the general impression seemed to be that, if the jury were not long in making up their minds, the whole unhappy business would be brought to an end by six o'clock at the latest.

The prisoner, who, by the judge's instructions, had quite early in the day been accommodated with a chair, had listened with quiet attention to the progress of the case, but had not otherwise seemed to take more interest in it than any ordinary spectator might have done. He had a thorough comprehension from the first that the trial must go dead against him, but he never abated by one jot the quiet, resolute calmness of his manner. He was the same to-day as he had been on the first day of his imprisonment; only, to-day, he was the focus of a thousand inquisitive eyes; but he seemed as utterly unconscious of the fact as though he were sitting in the silence and solitude of his cell.

Hour by hour, as the trial went on, Tom sent brief notes by a messenger to Edith. In these notes all that he could say was that such and such a witness was under examination, and that everything was going on as favourably as could be expected. He knew how miserably ineffective such messages would be to allay the dreadful anxiety of her to whom they were addressed; but, as he asked himself, what more could he write? He took advantage of the few minutes allowed for luncheon to run up in person to Alder Cottage. Edith, that day, looked to him a dozen years older than he had ever seen her look before. Very pale and worn, but very calm also. But there was something in her eyes--the wild, yearning, terrified look of some poor hunted creature, as it were, who sees that for it there is no possible door of escape--which revealed to Tom something of the terrible struggle going on within. It was but scant comfort that he could give her, but even for that she was grateful.

Tom found that he had still five minutes to spare when he got back to the court, so he hunted up Jabez Creede, whom he found haunting the purlieus of a neighbouring tavern, but apparently lacking either the money or the courage to venture inside. Tom supplied him with both, and, after two steaming glasses of rum and water, Jabez, with a sort of moist gratitude in his voice, declared that he felt better--"Very much better indeed, thank you, Mr. Bristow, sir."

Tom; before going up to Alder Cottage, had contrived to have a brief note passed to Mr. Sprague. "I hope you are prepared, as I expect that I shall require your services."

On the reassembling of the court, Pearce, the butler at Park Newton, was the first witness called. He deposed to no material facts with which the reader is not already acquainted.

Next came Mr. Drayton, the Duxley superintendent of police, who told the story of his arrest of the prisoner, and how he had searched the house and grounds of Park Newton, but could find no trace of the weapon by which the deed had been done.

Next came a Mr. Whitstone, uncle to the murdered man, to whom, as the nearest relative in England, had been handed over the effects of the deceased. Mr. Whitstone deposed that, after a careful examination of the said effects, he had come to the conclusion that nothing had been stolen. So far as he could judge, no article of value was missing; and consequently, whatever other motive might have been at the bottom of the crime, it could not have been done for the sake of robbery.

With the examination of one or two minor witnesses the case for the prosecution came to an end.

There were no witnesses to call for the defence, and Mr. Tressil at once arose to address the court.

Tom Bristow was sitting close behind three or four junior counsel, and in full view of the jury. Whispered one of these fledglings to another, so that Tom could not help overhearing him: "That jet stud will hang him."

Answered the other: "Bet you a new hat old Tressil won't be on his legs more than thirty minutes."

"If the jury agree--and I don't see how they can disagree--the whole thing will be over by five thirty."

"Hope so, I'm sure. Meet you at eight for a game of pool?"

"I'm your man."

It was now twenty minutes to four o'clock. Mr. Tressil began his speech for the defence. He had only got through the three or four opening sentences when one of the jury fell forward in the box, and, on being lifted up by two of his colleagues, it was found that he had been suddenly seized with illness. The juryman in question was Mr. Sprague, the chemist. He was carried at once into the open air. A buzz of curiosity and excitement ran round the court. Mr. Tressil sat down. The judge yawned politely behind his hand, and the junior barristers passed a snuff-box surreptitiously from one to another. In the course of three or four minutes Dr. Mackerith, who had followed Mr. Sprague into the side room, came back into court. Addressing the judge, said he: "My lord, I regret to inform you that Mr. Sprague, the juryman, is very ill indeed, and that there seems little or no probability that he will be able to resume his duties for at least three or four hours to come."

His lordship looked very much discomposed, and blew his nose violently. "I never, in the whole course of my experience, recollect such a circumstance before," he remarked. "It is very annoying, and very unfortunate. It leaves me without any option in the matter. The court must stand adjourned till ten o'clock to-morrow morning."
CHAPTER III. A BOTTLE OF BURGUNDY

"There goes ten of 'em. Old Hoskyns can never want me at this time of night. At all events, if he don't come soon he won't find me here. If a man can't call the time his own after ten o'clock at night, he's no better than a slave."

The speaker was Jabez Creede, and he was sitting, with a short black pipe in his mouth, over a handful of fire--although the evening was a summer one--in the meanly furnished room which he called his home. In one hand he held a crumpled scrap of paper, the writing on which he now proceeded to read over again for the twentieth time.

"Please not to be out of the way this evening, as I may possibly want you on important business.--T. Hoskyns."

"Ugh!" growled Creede in disgust, as he flung the paper into the fire. "One might work one's heartstrings out for old Hoskyns, and there would never be an extra half quid for a poor devil on pay-day. I wish Mr. Bristow would take to the business. He's one of the right sort, he is. I wish----"

Here he was interrupted by a knock at the door. Presently his landlady entered. "Mr. Hoskyns is waiting below," said the woman. "He wants you to put on your hat and coat, and go with him."

Creede growled, put down his pipe, rose, yawned, stretched himself, inducted himself into a shabby grease-stained brown overcoat, pulled his battered hat over his gloomy brows, and stumbled downstairs. He had been drinking heavily during the day--indeed, the days when he did not drink heavily were few and far between--and both his gait and his tongue were in some measure affected by his potations.

Mr. Hoskyns was standing at the door, carrying in one hand the old blue bag with which Creede had been familiar for years.

"Make haste, man alive," said the lawyer, impatiently. "I want you to go with me to the prison. Some most important evidence in our favour has just turned up, and I must see Mr. Dering at once. Here, catch hold of this."

"It's precious heavy," grumbled Creede, as he took the bag.

"I dare say it is," answered Hoskyns, dryly.

"A good many clever brains have been at work on the contents of that bag. It's weighty with wisdom and common sense--two commodities, Jabez Creede, with which you have never been overburdened."

Not a word more passed between them till they reached the prison. The distance they had to walk was not great, and Mr. Hoskyns seemed anxious to get over the ground as quickly as possible, turning his face neither to right hand nor left, but going straight on till they halted at the gates. The great prison looked as black, silent, and deserted as some City of the Dead. Hoskyns gave a tug at the bell-pull, and was just refreshing himself with a pinch of his favourite mixture, when a little wicket in the door was opened, and through the bars two keen eyes peered out into the semi-darkness.

"Ha, Warde, is that you?" he said, nodding cheerfully to the pair of eyes. "Rather late to look in upon you, eh? But it's a matter of life and death--nothing less--that has brought us. Some most important evidence in our favour has turned up at the last moment, and it is imperative that I should see my client without a moment's delay."

"It's long past the hour for visitors, Mr. Hoskyns, as you know; and it would be as much as my place is worth to----"

"Where's the governor? where's my friend, Mr. Dux?" interrupted Hoskyns, impatiently. "Fetch him. He'll put the matter right in a moment."

"Mr. Dux, sir, is somewhere in the town, and has not yet got home. But I'll fetch Mr. Jackson, sir; perhaps he may be able to do something for you."

Jackson, the chief night-warder, was quickly on the spot, and the case explained to him in a few words.

"It's against the regulations, of course, Mr. Hoskyns," said Jackson; "but considering the emergency of the case, and in the absence of Mr. Dux, I will take upon myself the responsibility of allowing you to see Mr. Dering."

"Thank you very much, Jackson--very much indeed," said the lawyer, with a flourish of his huge yellow silk pocket-handkerchief. "I give you my word of honour that it's nothing less than a case of life and death."

The little low-browed side-door had been opened by this time, and Mr. Hoskyns went in, followed by Jabez Creede carrying the bag of papers. Creede had accompanied his employer to the gaol several times before, and his face was well known to the warders.

"I can only ask that, under the circumstances, you will make your visit as short a one as possible; and I hope, with all my heart, that you will be able to extricate Mr. Dering from his difficulty."

"Jackson, you may take my word for it," said Hoskyns, seriously, "that, before to-morrow night at this time, Mr. Dering will be a free man."

"I am heartily glad to hear it, sir, and I wish you a very good-night."

"Great heaven! Hoskyns, what has brought you here at this uncanny hour?" exclaimed Lionel, starting up from his pallet, on which he had thrown himself without undressing, as the lawyer and Creede were ushered into his cell and the door locked behind them.

"I have got great tidings for you, Mr. Dering. Splendid tidings!" said Hoskyns, as he took the bag from Creede. "But sit down, sir, and don't excite yourself, because I shall require your very best care and attention during the next few minutes." Speaking thus, he took off his broad-brimmed hat and deposited it tenderly on Lionel's bed; then he drew a chair up to the little deal table, motioned Lionel to take the opposite chair, and Creede to take the third and only remaining one. The latter gentleman, either from innate modesty, or because he was afraid that his breath might smell too strongly of rum, took care to plant himself a yard or two away from the table.

"Yes, sir, some splendid news--something that will astonish the world to-morrow," continued the lawyer, as he dived into his bag, and fished therefrom a carefully folded sheet of foolscap. "Read that, Mr. Dering--read that carefully through," he said, as he handed the paper in question to Lionel. "But, above all things, control your feelings."

Lionel took the paper, opened it, and read. Mr. Hoskyns, leaning forward with his elbows on the table, took a pinch of snuff slowly and artistically, staring across, meanwhile, very hard at Lionel.

The paper ran as under:--


"Be careful not to betray me by word or look. I am here to effect your escape. Follow my lead in everything, and show no surprise at anything that I may say or do.

"T. B."

Despite all his efforts to the contrary, Lionel could not keep his face from changing colour during the reading of these words.

"Very extraordinary, is it not," said the lawyer, as he took back the paper, "that this evidence should not have been forthcoming till the very last moment?"

"Very extraordinary, indeed," said Lionel, gravely.

He could hardly believe the evidence of his senses. The voice, the features, the hair, the whiskers, the dress, the snuff-box, and the pocket-handkerchief, were all part and parcel of the genuine Hoskyns; but when he looked intently through the gold-rimmed spectacles, he saw there the eyes--not to be mistaken for the eyes of any other man--of his faithful friend, Tom Bristow.

"I have shown the paper to Tressil," said Tom, still keeping up his assumed character, for it is hardly necessary to observe that Creede was not in the secret, "and he is quite agreed with me as to its vital importance. In fact it is at his request that I have come here to-night. There will be two or three telegrams to send off, and at least a couple of witnesses to hunt up, and all before the court opens in the morning. But before going into these details, I mean to drink your health--yes, sir, to drink your very good health, and to the happy acquittal which is sure to be yours in a few hours from the present time."

"I am much obliged to you, my dear Hoskyns," said Lionel, "but I'm afraid that my means of hospitality at present are limited to a copious supply of cold water."

"I've provided for that contingency, my dear sir, by bringing with me a bottle of prime old Burgundy from my own cellar," and he produced from his bag a tempting-looking black bottle with the cork already half-drawn. "And now for a wineglass."

"I've nothing better to offer you than a tea-cup."

"Under the circumstances we will make shift with the tea-cup."

It was handed to him by Lionel. "The tea-cup turns out to be a coffee-cup," said Tom. With that, he went down on one knee, drew the cork, half filled the cup with wine, and then offered it to Lionel.

"Not till you and Creede have both drunk to my health and acquittal," said the latter.

Tom took back the cup, gave utterance to an appropriate sentence or two, and tossed off the wine. Then going down again on one knee, he proceeded to refill the cup. The table was between him and Creede, and the latter, who had not failed to prick up his ears at the mention of something to drink, could not see clearly how Tom was engaged. He could hear the wine gurgle from the bottle into the cup, and that as enough for him. He did not see Tom's nimble fingers extract a tiny phial from his waistcoat pocket, and pour the contents into the wine.

"Creede grumbled because my bag was so heavy," said Tom, with a chuckle. "He wouldn't have said a word had he known what was inside it. Here, man, drink this off to Mr. Dering's very good health, and tell me whether you ever tasted anything better in your life."

He handed the cup to Creede, who rose somewhat unsteadily from his chair to take it. "I drink to your very good health, Mr. Dering," he said, in a loutish sort of way, "and may you have a good deliverance." And carrying the cup to his mouth with a shaking hand, he drank off the contents at a draught.

Both Tom and Lionel were watching him keenly. He crossed the cell and put the cup down on the window-ledge, making a wry face as he did so. Then he sat down again on his chair.

"I am afraid, Creede, that you have vitiated your palate by accustoming it to inferior drinks," said Tom, "and that you don't know a good wine when you taste it."

"I'd sooner have one quartern of real old Jamaica than a gallon of that rubbish," growled Creede, with ill-disguised contempt.

"Now for business," said Tom. "There's not a minute to lose." And with that he fished a formidable-looking heap of documents from the depths of his bag. "Of course, the first thing to do," he went on, "is to get hold of our two new witnesses, Robinson and Davis. I think I can lay hands on them without much difficulty." And with that he went off into a long rigmarole respecting the supposed steps which it would be needful to take in the new state of affairs, but keeping a careful watch on Creede, meanwhile, out of the corners of his eyes.

Presently Creede's eyes began to glaze a little. Then they closed. Then they opened and closed again. Then his head sank forward on his breast, and his arms fell limply by his sides. Both the men were watching him intently. Suddenly Tom sprang from his seat and was just in time to catch the inanimate body in his arms, as it was sliding from the chair to the floor.

Tom held up a warning finger to Lionel, who had also started from his chair. For full two minutes he rested on one knee without moving, supporting Creede in his arms. "He is fast now, I think," he said at last. "Help me to lift him on to the bed."

When the unconscious law-clerk had been laid on Lionel's bed, said Tom: "Now help me off with his coat, waistcoat, necktie, collar, and boots." It was a work of some little difficulty to accomplish all this, but it was done at last. Then, by Tom's instructions, Creede was stretched on the bed with his face to the wall, in the natural position of a sleeping man, and the bedclothes pulled over him.

Up to the present time Lionel had not asked a single question, but he could contain himself no longer. "In heaven's name, Bristow, what do all these strange proceedings mean?"

"They mean, Lionel Dering," said Tom, turning on him gravely, almost sternly, "that I am here to-night for the purpose of effecting your escape."

"Of effecting my escape!"

"What other purpose do you think would have brought me here in this disguise?"

"But--but----" stammered Lionel, and then he broke down utterly.

"Every minute is precious," said Tom. "There is no time to argue the case. Put yourself into my hands, and it will go hard but you will be a free man in an hour's time. Refuse my aid, and in less than three weeks from now 'you will be lying, a strangled corpse, in a murderer's grave."

Lionel shuddered and stared at Tom, but spoke not a single word.

"The trial is going against you, and to-morrow morning will see you condemned to death. Are you prepared to die by the hangman's hand for a crime of which you know nothing? Are you prepared to leave your young wife to the tender mercies of a world which will not fail to remember that her husband was a murderer? Live, man, live, if it be only for vengeance--if it be only to track out and hunt down the real murderer--if it be only to wipe the foul stain of blood from the name you bear--from the name which was borne by your father before you!"

"But why to-night?--why try to escape to-night?" pleaded Lionel. "The verdict has not yet been given. Who says that there is no chance of my acquittal?"

"I say it. Hoskyns says it. Tressil thinks it. You will be condemned to death to-morrow morning. After that, all chance of escape will be gone for ever. From that moment you will never be left alone till that most awful moment of all when you stand on the drop, pinioned, sightless, waiting for the bolt to fall. Dering, it must be to-night or never!"

"Bristow, I am in your hands--do with me as you will!" cried Lionel with emotion; and suiting the action to the word, he rose from the edge of the bed, and placed both his Lands in those of his friend.

"That's all I ask, old boy," said Tom warmly. "Now sit down here, and obey my instructions, and don't bother me with any questions."

Lionel did as he was told, and sat down close under the gas light.

"There's no help for it," said Tom. "Both beard and moustache must be sacrificed."

"So be it," said Lionel philosophically. "They will grow again if need be."

Next moment a pair of glittering scissors were playing round Lionel's mouth and chin, and in two minutes the entire mass of yellow beard and moustache was swept clean away. This, of itself, was almost enough to disguise Lionel beyond ordinary recognition. The chin and upper lip were left stubbly on purpose. Creede's face was nearly always stubbly--he rarely shaved more than once a week--and Lionel was now going to personate Creede. But Creede was very dark complexioned, while Lionel was just the opposite; so Tom's next operation was to produce from his wonderful bag a small bottle of some kind of liquid, with which he proceeded to stain the hands, face, and neck of his friend. Next came a wig, which he had had specially made in London, and which was a very clever copy of the head of hair it was intended to simulate. It proved to be an excellent fit. With the fixing, by means of gum, of a scrap of ragged black hair under Lionel's chin--which was Creede's notion of a beard--the first part of Lionel's disguise was completed.

"Take off your coat, waistcoat, and cravat, and induct yourself into Mr. Creede's duplicates of those articles. You shudder at the thought. I do not wonder at it; but, for the time being, you must put all your finer feelings into your pocket. But first," added Tom, diving again into his bag, "pull on this pair of old black trousers over your own, after which you can go on with the remainder of your dressing while I finish with Silenus here."

Once more the bag came into requisition, and from it Tom brought forth a light-coloured wig, with which was combined a beard and moustache precisely the same in colour and appearance as those of which Lionel had been so recently despoiled. With these he proceeded to decorate the head and face of the unconscious Creede. It was necessary to do this, because the bed was exactly opposite the cell door, and once or twice in the course of the night the warder on duty was instructed to open the little wicket, and see that everything was right with his prisoner. As Lionel lay in bed he was in full view of the warder, and it thus became requisite to "make up" Creede into some semblance of the real prisoner, it not being at all unlikely that the warder might come round and take his usual look within a few minutes of the departure of Tom and Lionel.

When the wig, beard, and moustache had been duly arranged, and the bedclothes pulled close up round Creede's neck, Tom stepped back as far as the door in order to study the general effect. It was highly satisfactory. When the gas was turned down to the minimum point at which it was allowed to burn during the night, no one, without close examination, could have told that the man lying on the bed was other than Lionel Dering.

Satisfied so far, Tom next turned to Lionel, who by this time had duly inducted himself into Creede's garments. Here, also, the general effect was satisfactory. One reason why Tom's choice had fallen on Creede was because he and Lionel were both about the same height and build.

Tom gave a few final artistic touches to the tout ensemble--arranging the frayed old black necktie, and the limp, dirty collar, after Creede's own slovenly fashion--and finishing by putting into Lionel's reluctant hands the law-clerk's greasy and much-worn hat.

"Years ago," said Tom, "when I amused myself with private theatricals, I little thought that my talent for 'making up' would ever be brought into such valuable requisition. You would almost deceive Hoskyns himself if you were to walk into his office, especially by gaslight."

"And you would quite deceive him," said Lionel. "He would take you for his 'double,' and think his time was nearly come."

"There is one thing still to do," said Tom. "Creede's walk is rather a peculiar one. Now watch me, and try whether you can imitate it."

In about three minutes Lionel was tolerably perfect. "You know what kind of a voice Creede has," said Tom. "Should you be accosted by any of the warders as we go out, you must do your best to imitate it. And now I think we are ready for a start."

He crossed over to the bed, to take another look at the unconscious Creede. He felt his pulse carefully, and then lifted up one of his eyelids and examined the pupil underneath.

"Let us hope that you have not given him an overdose of the narcotic," said Lionel.

"No fear of that," answered Tom. "Remember that my father was a doctor, and that I have some knowledge of drugs. I have made this man my study for weeks. If my calculations are correct, he will sleep for about three hours, not longer--and won't there be a hullabaloo when he awakes!"

"But assuming that we get safely out of the prison--what then? Where am I to go? How am I to get rid of this cursed disguise?" said Lionel.

"You are to go home to the wife of your bosom. Everything has been thought of--everything provided for your safety. And now for the attempt. Don't forget that you are Jabez Creede. Take the bag and follow me at a respectful distance. Pull your hat over your brows and turn up the collar of your overcoat, and, above all things, don't seem to be in a hurry."

Tom gave a final glance round the cell to see that everything was in order, turned the gas partially down, and then tapped at the door. A warder came in answer to the summons, and unlocked the door. Tom and Lionel stepped out into the corridor. The warder gave a glance into the cell, and saw, as he thought, his prisoner lying on his pallet with his face turned to the wall, as he had seen him lying many a time before.

"Tired out, poor fellow," whispered Tom in the warder's ear as the latter proceeded to relock the door. "But I've brought him good news, and I warrant he'll sleep as sound as a top to-night.'

"Anyhow he'll know his fate by this time to-morrow," said the warder.

They followed the man along the corridor and through two or three passages, till they reached the outer courtyard. Here they were joined by two other warders. Tom, all this time, had been talking volubly, and making ample use of his big pocket-handkerchief--doing his best, in fact, to keep his companion from being overmuch noticed. But now had come the most dangerous moment of all. They were all crowded together close to the outer gate, waiting for it to be unfastened--the three warders, Tom, and Lionel--under the light of a flaring gas-lamp. The slightest hesitation--the least want of presence of mind--might have been fatal to everything.

Happily, Tom was equal to the occasion. While waiting for the bolts to be withdrawn, his thumb and finger slid into his waistcoat pocket, and the quick ears of the warders caught the pleasant chink of gold.

"Mr. Dering," said Tom, "would insist on my presenting you gentlemen with ten sovereigns to divide amongst you, as a slight token of his appreciation of your unvarying kindness. Here's the money; and I hope you won't forget to drink Mr. Dering's health before you are many hours older."

He pressed the gold into the hands of the nearest warder. The men's thoughts at once became occupied with the consideration of a fair and equal division of the gift. A moment later the door stood wide open. Tom, followed by Lionel, passed slowly out.

"We hope you will convey our thanks to Mr. Dering," said the head warder, "and we are greatly obliged to you, sir. We are not allowed to receive presents of any kind, but in this case----"

"Which is an exceptional one," said Toni, "you won't refuse."

"If we were sure," said the warder in a low voice, "that it would never come to the governor's ears----"

"You may take my word that it never will. You can trust me, of course; and, in business matters, Creede here is as silent as the grave."

"In that case----"

"You will act like men of sense and keep the money. Good-night."

"Good-night, sir, and many thanks to you. Good-night both."

Thank Heaven! at last the terrible door was shut behind them.

Ten minutes later a black shadow crept silently up to the door of Alder Cottage.

Front and back the little house was all in darkness; but the door was ajar, and close behind it knelt--she had stood there till she could stand no longer--Edith, listening--listening with beating heart and straining nerves--with every sense on the alert. The black shadow touched the door. The door yielded to the touch. Another black shadow started up from the ground. Husband and wife met heart to heart. Lionel Dering was saved.
CHAPTER IV. MR. DRAYTON'S SUSPICIONS
The escape of Lionel Dering from Duxley Gaol created an extraordinary sensation throughout the country. Government at once offered a reward of two hundred pounds, which, a week later, was increased to four hundred. The telegraph was set to work in every direction, and at every sea-port in England and on the Continent sharp eyes were made sharper still by the possibility of winning so magnificent a prize. But day passed after day till a fortnight had come and gone, and still there was not the slightest clue to the whereabouts of the missing man; nor the smallest scrap of comfort for the disconsolate soul of Mr. Drayton, the superintendent of the Duxley police.

However positive Jabez Creede, his landlady, and the various prison warders might be that Mr. Hoskyns, and no one but he, was the man who had assisted Lionel Dering to escape, it was easily proved that they were one and all in the wrong. On the evening of the escape Mr. Hoskyns had dined with Mr. Tressil and three or four other members of the bar, and had not parted from them till after midnight. This fact the gentlemen in question all came forward and swore to, and Mr. Hoskyns was at once exculpated from any share in the extraordinary escape of his client. With Jabez Creede it fared somewhat more hardly. Every one at first was inclined to regard him in the light of an accomplice, and it was not till after he had spent upwards of a week in prison, and had been examined and remanded about a dozen times, that he was able to prove how really innocent he was of any complicity in the heinous crime of which he was accused.

But who, then, was the consummate actor who had so cleverly outwitted, not only drink-soddened Jabez Creede, but the keen-eyed warders of the prison, who, for weeks past, had been in the habit of seeing the real Hoskyns almost daily, and who, one would have thought, were about the last men in the world to be so easily deceived? Government supplemented its second reward for the capture of the escaped prisoner by offering a hundred and fifty pounds for the capture of the man who had helped him to escape. But Government, to all appearance, might as well have never offered to unloosen its purse-strings.

From the moment Lionel Dering and the arch-impostor who aided and abetted him in his nefarious scheme set foot outside the walls of Duxley Gaol, they seemed to have vanished into thinnest air Like creatures of a dream, they had melted utterly away; and not all the ten thousand practised eyes that were on the look-out for them here, there, and everywhere, could succeed in finding the faintest clue to their hiding-place.

Of the two, as far as his private feelings went, Mr. Drayton would much rather have captured the sham lawyer than the escaped prisoner. He had no ill feeling towards Mr. Dering. Under similar circumstances, who would not have attempted to escape? But towards the sham Hoskyns, who had deceived everybody with such apparent ease, he certainly felt a degree of animus which had kept him in a chronic state of ill-temper both at home and abroad ever since the discovery of the escape, and which would have caused it to fare but ill with the miscreant in question, could Mr. Drayton's heavy hand but once have been laid upon his shoulder.

The celebrated Mr. Whiffins, of Scotland Yard, had, in the first instance, been sent down to investigate the case, and had, so to speak, taken the conduct of it into his own hands. But Mr. Drayton did not believe in Mr. Whiffins--did not believe in his talents as a detective, and secretly resented his interference. But, by-and-by, Mr. Whiffins went back to London not much wiser than he had left it, and Mr. Drayton was left to pursue his investigations in peace.

Many and profound were the cogitations of the worthy superintendent of police, indulged in the privacy of his own circle, before the following deductions worked themselves out to a logical issue in his mind:--The man who personated Mr. Hoskyns so successfully must evidently have been thoroughly acquainted with the speech, dress, gait, manner, and every minute peculiarity in the appearance and habits of that gentleman, down even to his yellow pocket-handkerchief and his silver snuff box. He must also have had some knowledge of Jabez Creede, and of the position he held with regard to his employer. He must also have known Mr. Dering, and Mr. Dering must have known him: the supposition, in fact, being that the two men were bosom friends--for who but a staunch friend would have run the risk of failure in attempting so remarkable an escape? Then, the man, Whoever he might be, must also have had some acquaintance with the gaol and with the gaol officials. Had he not mentioned two or three of the warders by name? Then, he must be a man about the same size and build as Mr. Hoskyns, with a thin, clear-cut face, something like that of the old lawyer. Having worked out his problem so far, Mr. Drayton's next care was to look carefully round, and endeavour to "spot" the man in whom the various requirements of the case were most evidently combined.

The result of the cautious inquiries instituted by Mr. Drayton was, that suspicion pointed in one direction, and in one only.

There was only one person to be found to whom the whole of the deductions worked out in the superintendent's mind would clearly apply. That person was Mr. Tom Bristow.

Mr. Bristow was a friend of the prisoner, and had visited him almost daily in gaol. He was well acquainted both with Mr. Hoskyns and Jabez Creede; and, taking the difference of age into account, he was not unlike the old lawyer in personal appearance.

"I think I've nailed you, my fine fellow!" said Mr. Drayton triumphantly to himself one evening, as he shook the ashes out of his pipe and brought his cogitations to an end for the time being.

But it is one thing to suspect a man, and another to have sufficient evidence against him to warrant his arrest. The evidence against Mr. Bristow, such as it was, was entirely presumptive, and even Sir Harry Cripps, the senior magistrate, anxious as he was that the culprit should be brought to light, had yet some doubts as to the advisability of issuing a warrant for the arrest of Tom. Now, as it happened, Sir Harry and Mr. Culpepper were old and intimate friends, and when, in the course of conversation, Mr. Drayton chanced to mention that Mr. Bristow had more than once been up to Pincote to dinner, Sir Harry caught at the idea, and decided to take no further steps in the matter till after he had consulted with his old friend. So he at once dropped the squire a note, in which he asked him to look in at the Town Hall on a matter of private business when next in Duxley.

Next morning brought the Squire, and the case was at once laid before him. He laughed loud and long at the idea of "young Bristow," whom he knew so well, having had anything to do with so nefarious a transaction. He did not scruple to express in voluble terms his gratification at poor Dering's escape--thereby shocking Sir Harry's susceptibilities as a magistrate not a little--but that Bristow was the disguised conspirator who had assisted him to escape was a thought which found no resting-place in the squire's mind. "He's too simple--too straightforward ever to think of such a thing--letting alone the carrying of it out," said Mr. Culpepper. "You don't know Bristow as well as I do, or you would never connect such an idea with his name."

"Suppose we send for him," said Sir Harry, "and put a few questions to him quietly in this room?"

"With all my heart," said the squire; "and have your pains for your reward."

So a messenger was sent round to Tom's lodgings with Mr. Culpepper's compliments, and would Mr. Bristow be good enough to step up to the magistrate's private room at the Town Hall for a few minutes?

Tom, who happened to be at home, went back with the messenger without a moment's hesitation; but it would, perhaps, be too much to say that his heart did not misgive him a little as he walked smilingly into the lion's den. Mr. Culpepper shook hands with him, and pointed to a chair next his own. Sir Harry nodded and said, "How do you do, Mr. Bristow?" but looked anxious and flurried. Drayton coughed behind his hand, and quietly changed his position so as to get between Tom and the door. "There's no knowing what may happen," said the superintendent to himself. "He may grow desperate as soon as he finds it's all up with him."

"We have sent for you, Bristow," said the squire, "that we may have a little talk with you about Mr. Dering's extraordinary escape."

"It was indeed an extraordinary escape, sir," said Tom; "but I am not aware that I am in a position to furnish you with any special information respecting it. The 'Duxley Gazette' seems to me----"

"No--no, that isn't what we mean," interrupted the squire. "To be plain with you, Bristow, a report has got abroad--no matter bow it originated--that you were somehow mixed up in that very queer piece of business."

"In other words, people think that because I was Mr. Dering's friend, it must be I who assisted him to escape?"

"That's just about it," said the squire. "You couldn't have put it in plainer language."

"Well, gentlemen, I will tell you candidly that believing firmly, as I do, in Mr. Dering's innocence, I would gladly have assisted him to escape had it lain in my power to do so. But I think I shall be able to prove to your entire satisfaction that, unless it is possible for a man to be in two places at once, I was in a direction quite the opposite of that of Duxley gaol at the exact time that the escape was being carried into effect."

"There! what did I tell you?" said the squire triumphantly. "I knew the lad was innocent."

"Mr. Bristow has yet to enlighten us as to his proceedings on the night in question," said Sir Harry, stiffly.

"In the first place," said Tom, "if you will kindly send for Mrs. Potts, my landlady, who is, I believe, a most trustworthy woman, you will find on inquiry of her that, on the night of the escape, the clock had just struck eleven as I reached home. Mrs. Potts, will remember the circumstance, because, a minute or two after going indoors, I heard her fastening up the house as usual, and I called over the banisters to ask her the time, my watch having stopped for want of winding up. On hearing my question, Mrs. Potts held up her candle to the face of the old case-clock in the entrance-hall, and called out that it was just five minutes past eleven. Now, if I was in my own lodgings at five minutes past eleven, I could not have had anything to do with the escape of Mr. Dering, who, it was proved in evidence by the warders, did not set foot outside the gates till a quarter of an hour past that time."

"Of course not. The thing's as clear as daylight," said the squire, heartily.

"Perhaps, Sir Harry, you will kindly send for Mrs. Potts," said Tom. "I should like you to hear the corroboration of my story from her lips, while I am here."

"Drayton, send one of your men with my compliments to Mrs. Potts, and----"

"Beg pardon, Sir Harry," said Drayton, with some confusion, "but I found out two or three days ago, in consequence of certain private inquiries made by me, that what Mr. Bristow says about Mrs. Potts and the clock is quite true. According to that clock, Mr. Bristow, on the night of the escape, was at home at eleven to the minute."

"What on earth do you mean, Drayton?" said Sir Harry, growing very red in the face. "If you knew all this before, why let me send for Mr. Bristow? If what you say is true, there is no case whatever against this gentleman, and I can only apologize to him for having brought him here at all."

Drayton turned very white, but he was a man not easily put down. "Such things have been known," he said, "as clock fingers being put either backward or forward so as to suit people's own convenience."

"Drayton, you are a bigger fool than I took you to be," said Sir Harry, irately, "and I never had a very high opinion of your brains."

Drayton, metaphorically speaking, sank into his boots.

"As it happens," said Tom, "I am in a position to offer you a still stronger confirmation of the impossibility of my having had anything to do with effecting the escape of Mr. Dering."

"We shall be very happy, Mr. Bristow, to listen to anything you have to say," said Sir Harry, politely.

"Then I must ask you, Sir Harry, to kindly answer me one or two questions," said Tom.

"As many as you like, Mr. Bristow."

"Were not you yourself in Duxley till rather a late hour on the night of the escape?"

"I was. I did not leave the White Bear till nearly ten o'clock."

"Precisely so. You and your son together in your dog-cart. When you reached Deadman's Hollow--you know the place I mean; that deep cutting in the road about two miles out of Duxley, where the trees, planted thick on both sides, nearly meet overhead?"

"I know the place you mean," said Sir Harry.

"When you reached that spot, you did not see a man sitting on a broken bit of wall in the gloomiest part of the road?"

"I certainly did not."

"He had been taking a constitutional by starlight. The night was close and oppressive, and he had sat down, hat in hand, to gather breath before climbing the opposite hill.

"I certainly did not see the person to whom you allude."

"But he saw you, Sir Harry. He saw you come to a dead stop within a dozen yards of where he was sitting. One of the traces had suddenly given way. You got down to ascertain what was the matter, and as you did so, you made use of a rather strong expression. Would you like me, Sir Harry, to repeat the exact words made use of by you on the occasion in question?"

"Not at all, Mr. Bristow, not at all. Not requisite, I assure you," said Sir Harry, hastily.

"You alighted from the dog-cart," resumed Tom. "Your son got down after you, and you gave him one of the side-lamps to hold while you did your best to mend the broken trace. As you got into the trap again, the church clock at Leyland chimed the quarter. 'We shall be very late home, father,' said your son. 'Mamma will have given us up long ago.' What you answered I did not hear, but next moment you were driving away again as hard as you could, as if to make up for lost time, And now, gentlemen, I hope you will agree with me that it was a sheer impossibility for the man who was a witness of this incident to have been at that very moment in Duxley gaol assisting a prisoner to escape."

"Mr. Bristow, not another word," cried Sir Harry. "I regret exceedingly that you were ever called upon for any such explanation. Mr. Culpepper and I are going to have luncheon in five minutes. Will you do me the favour of joining us?"

"This will be something to tell Jane when I get home," said the squire with a chuckle. "I believe you are a prime favourite with my Jenny," he added, turning to Tom.

So Tom lunched at the White Bear with Sir Harry and the squire, and parted from them afterwards on the best of terms.

But Mr. Drayton, although staggered by Tom's statement, was by no means convinced in his own mind of the latter's innocence. "Artful--very," was his muttered comment as he left the room. "But hang me if I don't think he's been bamboozling Sir Harry all the way through."

And Mr. Drayton was not far wrong in his supposition.

Tom had put the clock at his lodgings half-an-hour back, and had purposely called his landlady's particular attention to the time of his arrival at home, knowing well how such evidence would tell in his favour should worthy Mrs. Potts ever be called upon to give it.

As for the incident of the broken trace, Tom had obtained his knowledge of that quite by accident. As he was taking a country ramble the day after the escape, a sudden thunder-shower drove him for shelter into a little roadside public-house. He sat down and called for some refreshment. While waiting for the rain to abate, his attention was attracted by the conversation of two labouring men who were sitting on the opposite side of the partition against which he was seated. One of the two men was recounting some incident to his companion, with all that particularity as to time and place, and the actual words overheard, which, not unfrequently, makes the narrations of uneducated persons so thoroughly vivid and life-like. The man, it appeared, was on his way home, and had stopped to rest awhile in the dark part of the road, when Sir Harry's dog-cart drove up. Then came the sudden halt and the after-incidents, exactly as told by Tom at second-hand from the man.

"I'd have gone and lent him a hand," added the man, "if it had been anybody but Sir Harry Cripps. But he gave me three months once because a hare was found in my pocket, which had got there quite accidental, so that if he had broke his neck it wouldn't have broke my heart."

It was the story thus told which Tom had boldly seized upon and appropriated as an experience of his own when before Sir Harry; with what result has been already seen.

It had been a serious question with Tom whether, after the escape of Lionel, he should continue to call at Alder Cottage as he had been in the habit of doing previously, or whether he should absent himself entirely till the first ardour of the hue-and-cry was over, and his friend had been safely smuggled away to some more distant hiding-place. After mature consideration, Tom decided that it would be better in every way that he should keep up his visits as usual--as if, in fact, the escape of Lionel Dering were a matter of no moment either to the inmates of Alder Cottage or to himself. To break off his visits might merely serve to breed suspicion where none existed already; besides which it was absolutely necessary that he should see Lionel occasionally, in order that the means might be concocted and agreed upon for his further escape.

So Tom came and went as usual, and in no wise altered the mode of his daily life. But, after a time, he became conscious that not only he himself, but the inmates of Alder Cottage, had been placed under police surveillance.

Wherever he went his footsteps were dogged--not offensively, but cautiously, respectfully, and at a distance. The cottage, too, was, so to speak, surrounded with spies.

This gave Tom some anxiety. It seemed to show that the suspicions of Messrs. Whiffins and Drayton were beginning to concentrate themselves nearer home. And to a certain extent he was right. After slow and painful cogitation, and not till more than three weeks after the escape, Mr. Drayton arrived at the conclusion that it was just possible that Mr. Dering might never have attempted to go abroad at all, or even to get as far as London, but might be snugly hidden somewhere close at hand. And if so--where?

The result of this question was the watching by day and night of Alder Cottage, and of the comings and goings of its inmates.

A week passed away and Mr. Drayton began to despair. His men had absolutely nothing to report, except that the ladies went out occasionally for a short walk; that Martha Vince, the servant, went out every morning to make the needful domestic purchases; and that Mr. Bristow called every other day and was the only visitor at the cottage.

Mr. Drayton was seriously considering as to the advisability of withdrawing his men, when one of them brought him a piece of information which startled him considerably. This man, Tidey by name, had been on watch in a clump of trees a short distance from the cottage, when, so he averred, he saw a corner of one of the blinds drawn on one side, and a man's face peer out along the road, as if expecting some one. Tidey was positive that it was a man's face. He was equally certain it was not the face of Mr. Bristow, which was well known to him by sight. That it could not be Mr. Bristow was proved in another way, by another man, who had seen that gentleman leave the cottage only two hours previously.

Mr. Drayton decided to strike while the iron was hot. He went at once to Colonel Chumley, one of the magistrates--he would not go to Sir Harry Cripps again, who, indeed, happened not to be sitting that day--and haying deposed to his belief that Lionel Dering was at that moment hiding at Alder Cottage, he at once obtained the requisite warrant, authorizing him to search the premises in question.

Half an hour later, followed by four picked men in plain clothes, Mr. Drayton set out for the cottage.
CHAPTER V. HIDE AND SEEK
When Lionel Dering found himself safe inside Alder Cottage, with his wife's arms around his neck, the door locked behind him, and no sounds of pursuit in the distance, he broke down utterly, and, big, strong man though he was, he cried like a child.

For days afterwards he asked nothing more than to lie on the sofa in his wife's dressing-room, holding her hand in his, letting his eyes rest on her face, and feeling her soothing presence over and around him like rain on a desert land.

The bow that bad been bent so long was now unstrung; the terrible ordeal was at an end. The rebound was so immense, the change so sudden and wonderful, from the imminent prospect of a disgraceful and horrible death to comparative safety and the loving shelter of his wife's arms, that mind and body were alike shaken for a little while: and, for the first forty-eight hours after his escape, Lionel Dering was like a man just beginning to recover from some lingering and painful illness, and had to be waited upon and tended as though he were a veritable invalid.

But joy rarely kills; and basking in the warmth and sunlight of his wife's love, Lionel breathed an atmosphere of happiness beyond what words could tell, which, like ozone to a sick man, gave him back by degrees his health both of mind and body, and endowed him with strength and vigour to fight the stern battle still before him.

Every precaution against a surprise was taken by the inmates of Alder Cottage. All the lower windows had been fitted with screws, so as to render it impossible for them to be opened from the outside, and strong chains had been fixed to all the doors, so that they could be partially opened, and yet no one be able to gain admission without leave. Night and day the chains were kept fastened, and were only let down for a moment at a time to allow of the egress or ingress of the inmates, or of their sole visitor, Tom Bristow. The blinds were kept lowered as much as possible; and at nightfall, when the lamps were lighted, shutters and thick curtains effectually precluded any spying from the outside.

The wardrobe brought by Tom from London, as already stated, was fixed in a recess in Edith's dressing-room, and it was this room which Lionel chiefly occupied. Here Tom used to come and see him, and many were the long talks they had together over Lionel's future plans and prospects.

The first step was to get Lionel safely out of England. By the end of the first week after his escape, he began to chafe under the restraints imposed upon him by the necessities of the case. He became possessed by a longing, almost irresistible in its force, to go out of doors--to breathe the free air of heaven beyond the close walls of the cottage, if only for one short hour; and only by the earnest entreaties of his wife and Tom was he persuaded to keep within.

Mr. Drayton's spies had not been set to watch the cottage four-and-twenty hours before Tom knew of it, and it only made him all the more anxious to get Lionel away. But the question of whither he should go was beset with many difficulties. Many plans had been discussed by the two friends, but nothing had been decided upon when Mr. Drayton and his merry men set out for Alder Cottage, one windy afternoon, armed with the search-warrant issued by Colonel Chumley.

The superintendent's imperative summons at the front door echoed through the little house, blanching the cheeks of the two ladies, and causing Martha Vince to drop the plate she was carrying as though it were red hot. Edith sprang to the window and peered out between the venetians. "They are come--the police!" she said with a gasp. "Don't let them in, Martha, till I tell you that I'm ready."

Then she flew upstairs. Lionel had been dozing over a novel on the sofa; but the summons had aroused him, and Edith found him standing against the door, waiting to hear her news. "What is it?" he asked.

"Oh, darling--the police!" And then her arms went round him as if in their white shelter he could find a protection from every danger.

"Let them come," said Lionel, as he stooped and kissed the upturned yearning face on his shoulder. "It is better so. When once they have searched and found nothing, we shall be left in peace--our suspense will be at an end. Let them come."

"But if----?" The terror in her eyes said the rest.

"Fear nothing, dearest. I have no fear myself. They will not find me. Be you but calm and resolute, and all will go well."

Again the superintendent's imperative summons sounded through the house.

Husband and wife kissed each other hurriedly; then Lionel disappeared into his hiding-place, and Edith, having made sure that no traces of his presence were visible in the room, glided downstairs, and motioned with her hand for Martha Vince to open the door.

Martha undid the bolts and chains, and flung open the door. Mr. Drayton entered brusquely, followed by two of his men. The remaining two were instructed to wait outside and see that no one quitted the premises without leave.

"Do you always keep your visitors waiting as long as you have kept me?" asked Mr. Drayton roughly, as he advanced into the passage.

Edith came forward out of the parlour, her embroidery in her hands "Before answering your question, sir," she said, "you will perhaps allow me to ask what your business here may be, or by what right you walk into my house without first obtaining permission to do so?"

"By the right, ma'am, which the law has placed in my hands." He spoke with more, politeness this time, raising his hat as he did so. This was no servant whom he could bully and frighten at will, but a lady, as any one could see at the first glance, and one beneath whose calmly cold and slightly contemptuous scrutiny his own eyes fell abashed and self-confused.

"I fail to apprehend your meaning, sir."

"I am the unfortunate bearer of a warrant authorizing me to search the premises known as Alder Cottage."

"A warrant to search my house! Do you suspect us of being smugglers?--or what?"

"It is considered by those in authority that there is just a faint possibility that Mr. Lionel Dering, who lately escaped from prison, may be hidden somewhere about the place."

Edith's little musical burst of laughter was delicious. "Do you hear that, aunty?" she called out to Mrs. Garside, who was sitting at work in the parlour. "They positively suspect poor you and me of being two conspirators, and of having Mr. Dering hidden somewhere about us--in your work-basket, aunty, or up the chimney, or under the sofa. Is it not a charming idea?"

"My dear, I always told you that you were too much of a madcap," responded Mrs. Garside as she quietly proceeded to re-thread her needle. "You must remember that, although this is supposed to be a free country, you are not allowed to laugh at the police."

"But I do so enjoy being thought a conspirator. I wish we had poor Mr. Dering under our roof, don't you, aunty? I would give very much to know what has become of him." Then, turning to Martha, she added, "Martha, you will please conduct these gentlemen all over the house, from garret to cellar--there must be no room held sacred from them--not even our bedrooms. And be careful that you treat them with respect."

"With the deepest respect," chimed in Mrs. Garside, "or you may find yourself a prisoner before you are aware of it."

"And now, sir," said Edith, turning to Drayton, to whom this style of treatment was altogether new and puzzling, "you will perhaps oblige me by beginning your perquisition with this room," indicating the little parlour; "after which my servant will accompany you over the rest of the house."

"No perquisites allowed in the police, ma'am," said Drayton, with the air of a man whose moral sense was shocked by the bare mention of the word.

"You misunderstand me," said Edith, with a smile. "What I meant was, that I wish you to search this room first of all, as I should not like my aunt to be disturbed more than is absolutely necessary."

"Don't trouble about me, my dear," said Mrs. Garside. "This good gentleman's visit is quite a godsend. We see so little company, and get so very mopey sometimes, that the incident of this afternoon comes quite as a pleasant change, and will serve us to talk about for many a day to come."

So Mr. Drayton, coughing deferentially behind his hand, did just take a cursory glance round the little chintz-furnished room. "Not such a fool as to expect to find him there," he said to himself as he bowed himself out again.

Then Edith made him a haughty little curtsey, and politely shut him out, as though she had done with him for ever and a day.

"I don't like that man's look," whispered Mrs. Garside as soon as the door was closed.

"Nor I," answered Edith. "I know by his eyes that he is brimful of suspicion; and yet I cannot believe that he is acting on any positive information." Her assumption of indifference had vanished utterly. She was the loving, anxious, heart-wrung wife again.

She sank on her knees and rested her head for a moment on Mrs. Garside's knee. The killing anxiety of the last few weeks was beginning to tell upon her in despite of herself. But next moment she was on her feet again, and, gliding across the floor, she crouched down and glued her ear to the keyhole.

"They are in the breakfast-room," she whispered. And then in a little while: "Now they are in the kitchen." A few minutes later came the ominous words: "And now they are going upstairs!"

Pale and terror-stricken the two ladies waited, every minute seeming an hour, while the heavy footsteps overhead went tramping with slow, methodical precision from room to room. So long as they kept out of the fatal dressing-room it did not matter, but that was the very place, or so it seemed to Edith, where they lingered longest of all. "Will they never come out of that room?" she kept on asking herself with agonized earnestness. And then her very heart would seem to stand still with the intensity of her listening. The slow seconds measured themselves accurately by the clock on the chimney-piece, but still no sound reached her to indicate that any discovery had been made; and at length, with intense relief and thankfulness, she heard the heavy footsteps come tramping downstairs.

The footsteps passed slowly into the dining-room, and then Edith could hear the low muttering of two or three voices, as though the superintendent and his men were deep in consultation.

"Surely the worst is over," said Mrs. Garside. "A few minutes more, and they will be gone."

But suddenly Edith started to her feet with an exclamation. "There were three men: went upstairs," she cried, "but only two of them have come down! Why has not the third man come down with the others?"

"Are you quite sure that you are not mistaken?" asked Mrs. Garside, anxiously.

"Quite sure, aunt--only too sure. I cannot bear to be shut up here any longer. Better to know the worst at once. I will go and see for myself."

And before Mrs. Garside had time to interpose, Edith had opened the door almost without a sound, had passed out of the room, and was gliding noiselessly upstairs, so as not to be heard by the men in the dining-room.

Edith was right. Three men had gone upstairs and only two had come down. The laggard was Mr. Drayton's second in command--Sergeant Tilley.

Mr. Tilley was a tall, lanky, weak-kneed man, with watery eyes, and a slow, hesitating way of speaking, rather uncommon among gentlemen of his profession. He had been on duty for the last twelve hours, and, feeling thoroughly worn out, had sat down to rest for a moment on a corner of the sofa in Edith's dressing-room, and there he was left by Mr. Drayton and the other constable when they followed Martha Vince downstairs. He sat down to rest for a minute, and his thoughts flew home to Mrs. Tilley and the five little Tilleys, who had to be fed, clothed, and lodged--after a fashion--out of his scanty wage. "Ah!" he sighed to himself, "if I could but spot this Mr. Dering, and get the reward, what a happy man I should be! But there's no such luck. Bill and Kitty will have to go without their shoes for another week or two; and as for the old woman's new gown, why----"

Sergeant Tilley never finished his sentence. Deceived by the silence in the room, believing all danger to be at an end, and cramped in every limb from standing so long in one position without moving, Lionel Dering touched the spring, pushed open the false back of the wardrobe, and prepared to emerge from his hiding-place. The first object that met his startled gaze was the terror-stricken face of Sergeant Tilley, who, seated on the extreme edge of the sofa, was gazing at him as though he were some unsubstantial ghost come to revisit the pale glimpses of the moon.

Lionel changed colour, and his heart sank within him. To go back was useless--impossible. Instead of retreating, he advanced a step or two into the room, and then stood still.

The sergeant rose to his feet. His presence of mind was coming back to him. Visions of four hundred golden sovereigns floated before his dazzled eyes. He too advanced a step or two. "You are my prisoner," he said, and he stretched forth his hand as if to arrest Lionel. But that very instant his hand was seized, and Edith was before him--her white, pleading face, tearful and agonized, uplifted to his, her white and slender fingers clasped tightly round his bony wrist.

"No--no--no!" she cried, in low, hurried accents. "You must not--you shall not arrest him! You are a man, a husband, a Christian! He is my husband, and he is innocent. I swear before Heaven that he is innocent! Arrest him, and his blood will lie at your door, and be a curse upon you and yours for ever."

"I--I must do my duty, ma'am," stammered Tilley. "This gentleman is my prisoner, and he must come along with me."

"Four hundred pounds are offered for his capture," said Edith. "No one but you knows that he is here. Keep that knowledge to yourself--lock it up as a secret in your own breast, and six hundred pounds shall be put into your hands this very night."

"Six hundred pounds!" murmured Tilley. He was staggered by the amount.

"Yes, two hundred pounds more than the reward shall be yours, and your hands will be free from the stain of innocent blood. Look at him--look at that man," she cried, "and tell me, is that the face of a murderer?"

Lionel came a step or two nearer. "My wife has but spoken the truth," he said. "As there is a Heaven above us, I am as innocent of the murder of Mr. Osmond as you are!"

"You are a good man--you are a kind-hearted man," pleaded Edith. "I can see it in your face--I can read it in your eyes. You have a wife and children. Think what you can buy for them--think with what comforts you can surround them, out of six hundred pounds. But stain your hands with that vile blood-money, and you will be a marked man among your fellow-men to the last hour of your miserable life!"

"Tilley, Tilley, where are you? Why don't you come down?" called Mr. Drayton from below.

"Coming, sir--coming," cried Tilley.

For a moment he hesitated. But Edith was still before him. His rough hands were still clasped by her delicate fingers. Her lovely face--pallid, despairful--was gazing up at him with tearful and beseeching eyes. Sergeant Tilley was but a man, and a softhearted one. Here was a beautiful woman begging and praying of him to accept six hundred pounds. "I never could stand out against a woman's tears," he said to himself; and being no more than mortal, he succumbed.

"Have the money ready by nine o'clock to-night," he said in a hoarse whisper. "I'll come for it myself, and give three taps at the kitchen-door. One of you can just open the door a few inches, and put the money out, and I'll take it--and you needn't see me and I needn't see you."

Edith pressed the sergeant's rough hand to her lips, in a passion of gratitude, and then fell back in a dead faint. With a warning finger held up to Lionel, Mr. Tilley quitted the room, and joined the superintendent downstairs. Five minutes later Martha Vince shut the door behind the three men. Mr. Drayton was quite satisfied that Lionel Dering was hidden nowhere about Alder Cottage. "But for the life of me," he said to his companions as they walked down the garden, "I can't understand why the doors and windows are fastened up with so many chains, and bolts, and screws, unless they've got something hidden somewhere that they are precious sweet on, and want to keep all to themselves."

"Ah," responded Tilley with a knowing shake of the head, "women are but timorous creatures when they live by themselves, and Alder Cottage is a lonely place at the best of times."

At five minutes past nine that same evening three low, distinct raps sounded on the back door of Alder Cottage. The door was opened a little way, and a hand, holding a bag full of gold and notes, was thrust out into the darkness. Another hand in the darkness took the bag. There was a sound of retreating footsteps; the door was shut and bolted, and all was dark and silent as before.

All these things were duly told to Tom Bristow when he next visited Alder Cottage. Lionel was disposed to think that, now the search had proved unsuccessful, all danger, at least for a little while to come, was at an end. But Tom was by no means so satisfied on that point, and what had just happened only made him all the more anxious to get his friend away to some safer and more distant hiding-place. After many conversations and much discussion pro and con., a plan was at length agreed upon which Tom, with characteristic energy, at once began to put into execution. A few days were necessary for the preparation of certain details. But, before those few days were over, quite a new and unexpected turn was given to the course of events at Alder Cottage.
CHAPTER VI. FLOWN
The man whom Tom Bristow had employed for the construction of the wardrobe which had proved of such essential service to Lionel Dering, was a cabinet-maker named Paul Wigley, who kept a small shop in the neighbourhood of Seven Dials, London. It was the very obscurity of this man, and the pettiness of his business, which had tempted Tom to employ him. It was not probable that a man in his position would ask any impertinent questions as to the purpose for which such a strange piece of workmanship was intended, so long as he was paid ready-money for his job. And so far Tom was right. Wigley made the wardrobe according to instructions, and treated the whole affair as though he were in the habit of making articles of furniture with false backs to them every day in the week. But Tom's first mistake lay in thinking that such a man would be less likely than a more reputable and well-to-do tradesman to connect in his own mind, as two links in a possible chain, the escape of a prisoner from Duxley gaol with the fact of having sent to that very town a wardrobe so constructed that a man might be hidden away in it with ease. Tom's second mistake lay in letting him know the destination of the wardrobe. "I ought to have had it sent to the railway-station addressed simply to my order," he said to himself, "and afterwards, when it was entirely out of Wrigley's hands, have re-addressed it myself to Alder Cottage."

Tom was quite aware that on this point he had committed an error of judgment; but he never apprehended that the slightest danger could spring therefrom.

Mr. Wigley, after working very hard for six days, generally devoted a portion of the seventh to posting himself up in the news of the week. After a hearty dinner, it was his delight on a Sunday afternoon to sit at ease and enjoy his newspaper and his pipe. He had taken great interest in the escape of Lionel Dering, as detailed in his favourite journal; and week after week he carefully culled whatever scraps of news he could find, that bore the remotest reference to that strange occurrence. One day he came across the following lines, which he read to his wife.

"We understand that up to the present time the police have obtained no clue to the whereabouts of Mr. Dering, the prisoner whose clever escape from Duxley gaol was duly chronicled in our columns a few weeks ago. It was thought at one time that the right track had been hit upon, but, when promptly followed up, it ended in nothing--or rather, in the capture and detention of an innocent person for several hours. So long a time has now elapsed since the escape, that the chances of the prisoner being recaptured would seem to be very problematical indeed."

"I hope, with all my heart, that he'll get safe away," said Mrs. Wigley. "What a strange thing it was, Paul, that that queer wardrobe which you made for a gentleman a month or two since should be for somebody in Duxley--the very town where this Mr. Dering broke out of prison. What a capital hiding-place that would make for him, Paul, dear! All the police in England would never think of looking for him there."

"You talk like a fool, Maria," growled Mr. Wigley between the puffs at his pipe.

But however foolishly Mrs. Wigley might talk, the idea originated by her was one which took such persistent hold on her husband's mind that, three days later, he found himself at Duxley, and telling the tale of the wardrobe in the office of the superintendent of police. Very fortunately indeed it happened that on this particular afternoon Mr. Drayton was away on business at a neighbouring town, and that Sergeant Tilley was acting as deputy in his stead. Tilley listened to the man's story with dismay. He had pocketed the six hundred pounds; and now he felt almost as much interested in Mr. Dering's getting safely away as Tom Bristow himself. What was to be done? His first thought was to pooh-pooh Wigley and his story, and to persuade the little cabinet-maker to return to town by the first up train. But Wigley was not a man to let himself be snuffed out in that way, and he quietly intimated that he would await the return of Mr. Drayton himself. Then Tilley's manner changed, and, while professing to agree with him in everything, he persuaded Wigley to take his leave for a couple of hours, by which time, he told him, Mr. Drayton would have returned and would be at liberty to see him.

No sooner was Wigley gone than, leaving the office in charge of a subordinate, Tilley hastened by back streets and unfrequented ways to Alder Cottage. He asked for Edith and told her his story in a few hurried words. His counsel was that, at every risk, Mr. Dering must be got away from the cottage before seven o'clock that evening, as there was no doubt that shortly after that hour Mr. Drayton might be expected to pay a second domiciliary visit. He, Tilley, would take care that the policeman on duty on that particular beat should be withdrawn for a couple of hours on one pretext or another, so that there might be no fear of any interruption from him. Then, after a last word of warning, he went.

As it fell out, Tom Bristow was at the cottage at the very time of Tilley's visit. A council of war was immediately held. That Lionel must leave the cottage, and at once, was the one imperative necessity. Had it been mid-winter, instead of summer, he could easily have stolen away through the darkness, but at seven o'clock on an August evening everything is almost as clearly visible as at mid-day.

However, go Lionel must; and the only question was--whither should he go? Where should he hide himself for a few hours?--or till the plan of action already decided upon by the two friends could be safely carried into effect?

In this extremity, Tom's thoughts seemed to revert naturally to Jane Culpepper; in which direction, indeed, they had travelled very often of late. Why not appeal to her? Why not ask her to shelter Lionel for a night or two at Pincote? He knew, without asking, that Miss Culpepper would be ready and glad to befriend Lionel at every risk.

A few minutes past seven o'clock, Tom Bristow walked leisurely out through the front door of Alder Cottage. A minute or two later Lionel Dering, dressed like a carpenter, with a paper cap on his head and a basket of tools slung over his left shoulder, walked leisurely out through the back door, and keeping Tom well in view, followed him at a distance of thirty or forty yards. Avoiding as much as possible the main thoroughfares of the little town, Tom dived through one back street after another, till after several twistings and turnings, he reached a lonely lane leading into some fields, through which ran a footpath in the direction of Pincote. Step for step, Lionel followed, smoking a short black pipe, and having the gait and manner of a man who is pretty well worn out with a long day's work. Through the fields they went thus in single file, without decreasing the distance between each other or speaking a word, till at length the path brought them to the outskirts of a tiny wood at one corner of the Pincote estate. There was not a soul to be seen, and the two men, overleaping the hedge, were soon buried among the tangled undergrowth of the plantation. Here they held a hurried consultation. It would not do for Lionel to venture any nearer to Pincote till after dark, and Tom had yet to contrive some means of seeing Miss Culpepper alone, and of explaining to her the position of Lionel and himself. The Squire, when at home, generally dined between six and seven, and the best time for seeing Jane would be while her father was taking his post-prandial nap before he joined her in the drawing-room. So, leaving the wood, Tom went slowly toward Pincote, wishing that the shades of evening would deepen twice as fast as they were doing just then; while Lionel, left alone, clambered up into the green recesses of a sturdy chestnut, and there, safely hidden from any chance passers by, awaited, with what patience was possible to him, the signal which would announce to him the return of his friend.

Once again Mr. Drayton's imperative summons echoed through Alder Cottage, but this time he was expected, and had not to wait so long for admission. As before, Martha Vince admitted him, and, as before, Edith came out of the little parlour at the first sound of his voice.

"Is the lady within whom I saw when I was here before?" asked the superintendent of Martha.

"Yes, I am here, as you see, Mr. Drayton," answered Edith. "To what circumstance do I owe the honour of a second visit from you?"

"Sorry to have to confess it, ma'am, but there was one part of the house which we seem to have quite overlooked when we were here last. You won't, perhaps, object to our having a look at it now?"

"My objections, I am afraid, would be of little value. I have no option but to submit."

"I must do my duty, you know, ma'am. Very disagreeable it is to do at times, I assure you."

"Doubtless, very. Martha, show these gentlemen whatever part of the house they may wish to see." With these words Edith went back into the parlour, but this time she did not shut the door.

Mr. Drayton was followed into the house by Wigley, the cabinet-maker; and the rear was brought up by a constable in plain clothes.

"Upstairs, if you please," said the superintendent to Martha. "I am quite satisfied with the downstairs part of the house."

So upstairs they all tramped, and without pausing, Drayton led the way into Edith's dressing-room. Wigley's first mention of the wardrobe had brought to his recollection the fact of there being such a piece of furniture as the one described in one of the upstairs rooms.

Now that the moment for making the grand discovery was at hand, it would have been difficult to say whether the excitement of Drayton or of Wigley was the more intense. The latter was lured on by the prospect of the glittering reward that would become his, if, through his instrumentality, the escaped prisoner should be recaptured. Drayton was led on by a purely professional ardour. To succeed where the great Whiffins from Scotland Yard had failed, even though that success were won by a fluke, and by no brilliant stroke of his own genius, was in itself something to be proud of--something that would bring his name prominently before the notice of his superiors.

"This is the article that I've been speaking to you about," said Wigley, striking the polished surface of the wardrobe with his open palm.

"Open it, Mr. Wigley, if you please," said the superintendent. "This is a very curious piece of furniture, indeed, and I should like to examine it thoroughly."

So Wigley proceeded to open it slowly and lovingly, as a man having a deep admiration for the work of his own hands. First the outer doors were flung wide open, revealing a few empty garments drooping drearily from the pegs. But when Mr. Wigley, with a solemn finger, touched the secret spring, and the false back swung slowly open on its secret hinges, the three men pressed forward with beating pulses and staring eyes, feeling sure that in another moment the great prize would be in their grasp.

Drayton's fingers closed instinctively on the handcuffs in his pocket, while Martha Vince looked on from the background with a cynical smile.

The false back swung slowly open, and revealed the hiding-place behind. But it was empty.

"Flown!" said Wigley, with a deep sigh, all his golden visions vanishing like the shadow of a dream.

"Sold I most infernally sold!" exclaimed. Drayton, his face a picture of blank discomfiture. "It's no good waiting here any longer," he added, as he turned on his heel. "He's got clear away, never fear."

Downstairs the three men tramped, without another word, and, marching out, banged the front door behind them with a force that made every window in the little cottage rattle in its frame.

"Gone at last, thank Heaven!" exclaimed Edith, as the echo of the retreating footsteps died away. "If only I had tidings that my darling is safe, then I almost think that I should be quite happy." Unbidden tears were in her eyes as she stood for a moment with clasped hands and upturned face, while from her heart a silent prayer of thankfulness winged its way on high.

Tom Bristow lingered about the grounds and shrubberies at Pincote till the dusky evening was deepening into night, and the lamps in the drawing-room were alight. Then, with cautious footsteps, he stole nearer the house, and at last found himself ensconced behind a clump of holly, and close to one of the three French windows which opened from the drawing-room on to the lawn. The venetians were down, but between the interstices he could obtain a clear view of the room and its inmates. The inmates were only two in number--Miss Culpepper and another young lady whom Tom had never seen before. The Squire, if at home, had not left the dining-room. How pretty Jane looked as she sat there in the lamplight, in her soft flowing dress of white and mauve, plying her needle swiftly--for Jane's fingers were rarely unemployed--while her companion read to her aloud! Her every look, her every gesture, went direct to Tom's heart. He was caught in the toils at last--this cold, self-willed, unimaginative man of the world--and he began to find that, even for such as he, such bonds are not easily broken.

"This is either love or something very much like it," he muttered to himself. "I find that I am just as great an ass as my fellow-men. What is it in this that fascinates me so strangely? She is not particularly clever, or handsome, or witty, or accomplished. I have been in the society of women who could outshine her in every way: and yet, for me, she is the one woman whom the world holds--the one woman whom I ever felt that I could love. It is easy to talk about dying for a woman, and not very difficult to do so, I dare say. The grand test of love, as it seems to me, is to live with a woman and to love her at the end of twenty years as well as you loved her on your wedding-day. Now, of all the women I have ever met, yonder fairy is the only one with whom I should care to try the experiment. Her I fancy I could love as well at the end of a hundred years as of twenty: and yet of what the charm consists that draws me to her--whence it comes, and how she exercises it--I know no more than the man in the moon."

But Tom's love-reveries did not absorb him to the extent of making him oblivious of the particular object which had brought him to Pincote. It was requisite that he should see Jane alone, and nothing could be done so long as Jane's companion was in the room with her. Besides which, the squire might come in at any moment, and then his last chance would be gone. Should the worst come to the worst, he was prepared to go up to the front door, knock like any ordinary visitor, and ask to see Miss Culpepper openly and boldly. But it was only as a last resource that he would adopt a measure which, should it come to the squire's ears, could only lead to inquiry; and inquiry on the squire's part was what Tom was particularly wishful to avoid. Not that the old man would not have been as stanch as steel in such a case, and would have done anything and everything to assist Lionel. But, unfortunately, he had a garrulous tongue, which could not always be trusted to keep a secret--which often betrayed secrets without knowing that it had done so; and in a matter so grave as the one in which he was now engaged, Tom was careful to avoid the slightest unnecessary risk. It would be far better for every one that the squire should rest in happy ignorance, till the future should bring its own proper time for revealing everything.

Whenever any particular question pressed itself strongly on Tom's mind for solution, he had a habit of looking at it, not from one or two points of view only, but from several; and if nineteen ways out of a difficulty proved, from one cause or another, to be unavailable, he generally found the twentieth to be the very mode of egress for which he had been seeking. So it was in the present case. After considerable cudgelling of his brains, he hit on a simple expedient which seemed to him to be worth trying, but which might or might not prove successful in the result.

On the occasion of Tom's first visit to Pincote, among other pieces played by Jane in the drawing-room after dinner, was a plaintive little waltz, entitled "Venez à Moi," which took his fancy more than anything he had heard for a long time. Later on in the evening he had asked Jane to play it again, and for days afterwards the air clung to his memory, and seemed in some strange way to mix itself up in his musings whenever he thought of Jane. As if Jane had some faint divination that such was the case, the next time Tom was at Pincote she played the waltz again--this time without being asked; and so also on the third and last time he spent an evening with her. It was on this third occasion, as the final bars of the waltz were dying away in slow-breathed sweetness, that the eyes of Tom and Jane met across the piano--met for a moment only; but that one moment sufficed to reveal a secret which, as yet, they had hardly ventured to whisper to themselves. From that day forth, never so long as they lived, could that simple French melody be forgotten by either of them.

Tom thought of Blondin, and determined to try the effect of "Venez à Moi" in attracting Jane's attention. Only, as he happened to live in this unromantic nineteenth century, and to be possessed neither of a harp nor of skill to play one, there was nothing left for him but to whistle it.

Retiring from the window a dozen yards or more, but still keeping well within the shelter of the shrubbery, Tom accordingly began to "flute the darkness with his low sweet note." In other words, he began to whistle "Venez à Moi." At the end of five minutes, which to him seemed more like an hour, the venetians were lifted, and some one could be seen peering into the darkness. A few quick strides carried Tom to the window.

Although startled when the first notes of the familiar air fell on her ear, Jane was not long in divining who it was that was there. Inventing an errand for her companion which took that young lady out of the room for a few minutes, she hurried to the window and looked out. A tap from Tom, and the window was opened. Although surprised to see him, and at being so summoned, she frankly offered her hand.

"When you shall have heard my errand, Miss Culpepper, you will, I am sure, pardon the liberty I have taken," said Tom.

Her thoughts reverted in an instant to her father, but he was snoring peacefully in the dining-room. "I hope, Mr. Bristow, that you are the bearer of no ill news," she said with simple earnestness.

"My news is either good or bad, as people may choose to take it," answered Tom. "Miss Culpepper--my friend, Lionel Dering, is hiding within a mile of this house."

"Oh, Mr. Bristow!" His words took her breath away. She turned giddy, and had to clutch at the window to keep herself from falling.

"The place where he has been hiding since his escape from prison is safe no longer," resumed Tom. "Another hiding-place must be found for him, and at once. In this great strait, I have ventured here to ask your assistance."

"And have made me your debtor for ever by so doing," said Jane, with fervour. "My help is yours in any way and in every way that you can make it useful."

"What I am here to ask you to do is, to give my friend food and shelter for three days and nights, by which time a plan, now in preparation, for getting him away to some more distant place, will be ready to be put into operation."

"I will have my own rooms got ready for Mr. Dering without a moment's delay," said Jane.

"Pardon me," said Tom, "but the very kindness of your offer would defeat the object we have most in view. Dering's safety depends on the absolute secrecy which must enshroud this night's transactions. What you have just suggested could not be carried out without exciting the suspicions of one or more of your servants. From suspicion to inquiry is only one step, and from inquiry to discovery is often only another."

"You are right, Mr. Bristow. But you are not without a plan of your own, I am sure."

"What I would venture to suggest is this," said. Tom: "that Dering be locked up in one or another of the disused and empty rooms of which I know there are several at Pincote. No domestic must have access to the room while he is there, nor even glean the faintest suspicion that the room is occupied at all. The secret of the hiding-place must be your secret and mine absolutely. If I am asking too much, or more than you can see your way to carry out without imperilling the safety of my friend, you will tell me so frankly, I am sure, and will aid me in devising some other and more feasible mode of escape."

"You are not asking too much, Mr. Bristow. In such a case you cannot ask too much. Your plan is better than mine. This old house is big enough to hide half-a-dozen people away in. There is a suite of four rooms in the left wing, which rooms have never been used since mamma's death, and which are never entered by the servants except for cleaning purposes, and then only by my instructions. Those rooms I place unreservedly at Mr. Dering's disposal. There he will be perfectly safe for as long a time as he may choose to stay. I will wait on him myself. No one else shall go near him."

"I felt sure that my appeal to you would not be in vain."

"It will make me happier than I can tell you, if I may be allowed to assist, in however humble a degree, in helping Mr. Dering to escape. We all liked him so much, and we were all so thoroughly convinced of his innocence, that when the news was brought next morning of how he had got out of gaol overnight, I could not help crying, I felt so glad; and I never saw papa so pleased and excited before. Since then, it has always been my task at luncheon to run carefully through the morning papers and see whether there was any news of Mr. Dering. From our hearts we wished him God speed wherever he might be; and as day passed after day, and there came no news of his recapture, we cheered each other with the hope that he had got safely away to some far-distant land. And yet all this time, from what you say, he must have been hiding close at hand."

"Yes, very close at hand--within half a mile of the prison from which he escaped."

"And it was you who helped him to escape!" said Jane. "I know now that it could have been no one but you." She laid her fingers lightly on his arm as she said these words, and looked up full into his eyes. They both stood in the soft glow of the lamplight close to the open window. In Jane's eyes and face at this moment there was an expression--an indefinable something, tender and yet pathetic--that thrilled Tom as he had never been thrilled before, and told him, in language which could not be mistaken, that he was loved.

"Lionel Dering and I are friends. He saved my life. What could I do less than try to save his?"

"I wish that I had been born a man," said Jane, inconsequently, with a little sigh.

"In order that you might have gone about the world assisting prisoners to escape?"

"No--in order that I might try to win for myself such a friend as you are to Mr. Dering, or as Mr. Dering is to you."

"But your mission is a sweeter one than that of friendship: you were sent into the world to love."

"That is what men always say of women. But to me, friendship always seems so much purer and nobler than love. Love--as I have read and heard--is so selfish and exacting, and----"

"Jane, dear, where are you?"

Jane gave a start, and Tom sank back into the shade. "Coming, dear, in one moment," cried. Jane. Then she whispered hurriedly to Tom: "Be here at half-past eleven to-night with Mr. Dering." She gave him her fingers for a moment and was gone.

For four days and four nights Lionel Dering lay in hiding at Pincote. Jane waited upon him herself, and so carefully was the secret kept that no one under that roof--inmate, guest, or servant--had the slightest suspicion of anything out of the ordinary course.

Meanwhile, Tom Bristow had paid a flying visit down into the wilds of Cumberland, among which, as incumbent of a tiny parish buried among the hills, was settled an old chum of Lionel--George Granton by name. To him, at Lionel's request, Tom told everything, and then asked him whether he would take Dering as a guest under his roof for two or three months to come. In the warmest manner possible Granton agreed to do this, and Tom and he became fast friends on the spot.

Two days later Lionel bade farewell to Pincote and its youthful mistress, and set out on his journey to the north. Tom and he started together one evening near midnight, and walked across country to a little roadside station some fifteen miles away, on a line different from that which ran though Duxley. Here they were in time to catch the early parliamentary train, and here the two friends bade each other goodbye for a little while. Lionel travelled under the name of the Rev. Horace Brown, and that was the name on the one small portmanteau which formed his solitary article of luggage. He had injured his health by over-study, and he was going down into Cumberland to recruit. He was closely shaven, his complexion was dark, and his hair jet black. Being somewhat weak-sighted, he wore a pair of large blue spectacles. His hat, far from new, and rather broad in the brim, was set well back on his head, giving him a simple countrified expression. He wore a white cravat, and a collar that was rather limp, and a long clerical coat that reached below his knees; while his black kid gloves were baggy and too long in the fingers. In one hand he carried an alpaca umbrella badly rolled up, and in the other--the weather being moist and muddy--a pair of huge goloshes, of which he seemed to take especial care. Such, in outward semblance, was the Rev. Horace Brown.

At Crewe Station he had to alight, wait a quarter of an hour, and then change into another train. As he was slowly pacing the platform, whom should he see coming towards him but Kester St. George, who, on his side, was waiting for the express to London. The two men passed each other once, and then again, for Lionel was daring in the matter; but not the slightest look of recognition flashed into Kester's eyes as they rested for a moment on the face of the Rev. Horace Brown. A few minutes later their different trains came up, and each went his separate way.

Kester St. George's way was London-wards. He drove straight to his chambers; and, after dressing, strolled out westward, and presently found himself at his club. There were a number of men there whom he had not seen for some time, who came up to him in ones and twos and shook hands with him, and said, "How are you, old fellow? Glad to see you back;" or, "Ah, here you are, dear boy. Quite missed you for ever so long," and then passed on. Kester's monosyllabic answers were anything but propitiatory, and by-and-by he was left to eat his dinner in sulky solitude. Truth to say, he was fagged and worn, and was, in addition, seriously uneasy with regard to the state of his health. For the last two months he had been telling himself day after day that he would consult his physician, but he had not yet found courage to do so. It was an ordeal from which he shrank as a young girl might shrink at the sight of blood. So long as he had not consulted his doctor, and did not know the worst, he flattered himself that there could not be anything very serious the matter with him. "Once get into those vampires' hands," he said, "and they will often keep a fellow lingering on for years." So he went on from day to day, and put off doing what he felt in his secret heart he ought to have done previously. "I believe it's neither more nor less than indigestion," he would mutter to himself. "I believe that half the ills that flesh is heir to, spring from nothing but indigestion."

He was sitting moodily over his claret, and the club-room was almost deserted, when who should come stepping daintily in but Bolus, the well-known fashionable doctor.

The evening was rather chilly, and Dr. Bolus walked up to the fire and began to air his palms, before sitting down to the evening paper. Glancing round, after a minute or two, he saw Kester sitting alone no great distance away. "Evening, St. George. Revenons toujours, eh?" he said with a nod and a smile.

St. George rose languidly and crossed towards the fireplace. "Why not tell Bolus?" he said to himself. "Capital opportunity for getting his opinion unprofessionally as between one friend and another. If anybody can put me on my pins again, Bolus can."

Between Kester St. George and the fashionable doctor there were not many points in common. Their orbits of motion were diametrically opposed to each other, and, as a rule, were far apart. One bond of sympathy there was, however, between them: they were both splendid whist-players. At the club table they had sat in opposition, or as partners, many a time and oft, and each respected the other's prowess, while thinking his own style of play incomparably superior.

"Not seen you here for some time," said the doctor, as Kester held out his hand.

"No, I only got back the other day from Baden and Homburg. Went for three months, but came back at the end of six weeks. One gets weary of the perpetual glitter and frivolity of those places: at least, I do. Besides which, I was a little hipped--a little bit out of sorts, I suppose--and so I seemed naturally to gravitate towards home again."

"Out of sorts, eh?" said Bolus, fixing him with his keen professional look. "What's amiss with you? Been punting too much, or backed the St. Leger favourite too heavily?" and he took St. George's wrist between his thumb and finger.

"Neither one nor the other," said Kester, with a little hollow laugh. "I seem to be getting out of repair generally. Some little cog or wheel inside won't act properly, I suppose, and so the whole machine is getting out of gear."

"So long as we keep the mainspring right there's not much to be afraid of," said Bolus with his expansive professional smile, which was as stereotyped and fictitious as professional smiles, whether of ballet-girls or doctors, always are.

"Your pulse is certainly not what it ought to be," went on Bolus, in his airy, graceful way, as though he were imparting a piece of information of the pleasantest kind; "but then how seldom one's pulse is what it ought to be. Do you ever experience any little irregularity in the action of the heart?"

"Yes, frequently. Sometimes it seems to stop beating for a second or two."

"Yes yes--just so," said Bolus, soothingly.

"And you find yourself getting out of breath more quickly than you used to do, especially when you walk a little faster than ordinary, or have to climb a number of stairs?"

"Yes, a little thing nowadays puts me out of puff."

"Precisely so. We are none of us so young as we were twenty years ago. And you sometimes feel as if you wanted an extra pillow under your head at night?"

"How the deuce do you know that?" said Kester, with a puzzled look.

Bolus laughed his little dry laugh, and began to air his palms again.

"And you have a troublesome little cough, and now and then your head aches without your being able to assign a cause why it should do so; and frequently in the night you start up in your sleep from some feeling of agitation or alarm--causeless, of course, but very real just for the moment?"

"By Jove, doctor, you read me like a book!"

"Did you think of going down to Doncaster this year?" asked Bolus, as he wheeled suddenly round on Kester.

"I certainly did think of doing so. I've not missed a St. Leger for many years."

"Then I wouldn't go if I were you."

St. George stared at him with a soft of sullen surprise. "And why would you not go if you were me?" he asked, sharply.

"Simply because what you want is not excitement, but rest. And in your case, St. George, I would live as quiet a life as possible for some time to come. Down in the country, you know--farming and that sort of thing."

"I know nothing of farming, and I hate the country, except during the shooting season."

"Ah, by-the-by, that's another thing you must give up--tramping after the partridges--for this one season at least. As I said before, what you want is quietude. Half a guinea on the odd trick is the only form of excitement on which you may venture for some time to come. And harkye--a word in your ear: not quite so many club cigars, my dear friend."

Two other men, known both to Bolus and St. George, came up at this moment, and the tête-à-tête was at an end.

It was late that night when St. George, got home. He let himself in with his latch-key. Groping his way into the sitting-room, he struck a match, and turned on the gas. He was in the act of blowing out the watch when suddenly a hand was laid on his shoulder, and a voice whispered in his ear: "Come." Simply that one word, and nothing more. Kester shivered from head to foot, and glanced involuntarily round. He knew that he should see no one--that there was no one to be seen: but all the same he could not help looking. Twice before he had felt the same ghostly hand laid on his shoulder: twice before he had heard the same ghostly whisper in his ear. Was it a summons from the other world, or what was it? There was a looking-glass on the chimney-piece, and, as he staggered forward a step or two, his eyes, glancing into it, saw there the reflection of a white and haggard face strangely unlike his own--the brow moist with sweat, the eyes filled with a furtive horror. Mr. St. George sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands.
CHAPTER VII. GENERAL ST. GEORGE
General St. George's departure from India had been accelerated by a slight attack of fever, which so far prostrated him that he was unable to write, or communicate in any way to his friends in England the fact that he was starting for home two months before the date previously fixed on by himself. As a consequence, the letters and newspapers addressed to him, which contained the account of his nephew Lionel Dering's arrest and commitment for wilful murder, crossed him on the voyage, and he landed at Marseilles in happy ignorance of the whole affair.

His health had benefited greatly by the voyage, and he determined to strengthen it still further by lingering for a few weeks in the South of France before venturing to encounter the more variable and trying climate of his own country. It was while thus enjoying himself that the letters and papers sent back from India reached him. It was a terrible shock to the old soldier to read the news told therein. In his secret heart he had come to look upon Lionel with all the affection and yearning which he might have bestowed on a son.

Without the loss of a moment he started for Paris, en route for London.

But by the time he reached Paris he was so ill again that the doctor whom he called in ordered him at once to bed, and utterly forbade him even to think of venturing any farther on his journey for at least a fortnight to come. In this dilemma he telegraphed to Mr. Perrins, the family lawyer. That gentleman was by the old soldier's bedside in less than twenty-four hours afterwards.

Mr. Perrins brought with him the startling news of Lionel's escape from prison; but beyond the bare facts of the affair as detailed in the newspapers he knew nothing. With those bare facts the General was obliged to content himself for some time to come. He watched the newspapers from day to day with feverish anxiety, dreading each morning to find in them the news of Lionel's recapture. But when a month had passed away, and the subject had begun to die out of people's minds in the rush of newer interests, he took heart of grace and wrote to Perrins again, begging of him to go down to Duxley, and there ascertain, by cautious inquiries and the free use of his purse, whether it were not possible to obtain some clue, however faint, to Lionel's whereabouts.

Mr. Hoskyns was the first person on whom Mr. Perrins called when he found himself at Duxley; but that gentleman professed to know very little more than was known to the public at large. Nor, in fact, did he. The annoyance he had felt at the time at having been so cleverly impersonated, and the trouble he had been put to to prove his non-complicity in the escapade, had soon been forgotten. He had learned to like and esteem Lionel as much as it was possible for him to like and esteem any one, and he was genuinely glad that he had escaped from prison. But it was no part of his business to pry into the details of the affair, nor did he ever attempt to do so; neither did Lionel nor Tom see any adequate motive for laying on his shoulders the burden of a secret which he could in nowise help to lighten for them.

Thus it fell out that he had nothing to tell Perrins. But he did the wisest thing that could be done under the circumstances: he took him straight to Tom Bristow, introduced him to that gentleman, and then left the two together.

This first interview between Mr. Perrins and Tom took place during the time that Lionel was lying perdu at Pincote. Not till he had fully satisfied himself as to the lawyer's identity, and had consulted with Lionel, would Tom say a word either one way or another. So Mr. Perrins stayed all night in Duxley, and saw Tom the following morning; but, even then, the information which he took back with him for the behoof of General St. George was of the scantiest. Still, as far as it went, it was eminently satisfactory. Lionel was well and safe. He sent his love and regards to his uncle, and begged of him to wait a little while longer and then everything should be told him.

The General had not long to wait. Within a fortnight of the time that Mr. Perrins had communicated to him the result of his mission, Mr. Tom Bristow was ushered into the sitting-room of his hotel in Paris. Tom was the bearer of a letter of introduction from Lionel, which spoke of him and his services in such terms that the old soldier's heart warmed to him in a moment. Then Tom told him everything: the story of the murder; the imprisonment; the marriage; the trial and the escape; and finished by telling him how Lionel, under the name of the Rev. Horace Brown, was at that moment hidden safely away among the Cumberland hills.

The old soldier listened to the narrative in open-mouthed wonder. To him it was like a story out of the "Arabian Nights"--a veritable chapter of romance.

He thanked Tom Bristow over and over again, in his warm-hearted, impulsive way, for the services he had rendered his dear boy.

"But we have now to consider the future," said Tom, when he had brought his narrative up to date.

"Ay; just so. But what about the future?" asked General St. George, with a puzzled look.

"Simply this," answered Tom. "As matters stand at present, Dering's life is one of perpetual dread and uncertainty. He never feels sure from day to day that before nightfall his hiding-place may not be discovered, or his disguise penetrated, and he himself taken into custody as an escaped murderer. Such a life, in time, would become utterly unbearable--would, in fact, be enough to drive a man insane, or to give himself up to the police in utter despair."

"I see it all. Poor boy! poor boy!"

"It would, therefore, seem that in order to escape so wretched a fate, only one course is left open to Dering: and that is, to put the width of the ocean between himself and his pursuers. The width of half a world if possible."

"I should go with him wherever he went," said the General, with a tear in the corner of his eye. "I could not bear to let him go again."

"In some remote nook of the New World, where the nearest city is a hundred miles away, with his wife on one hand and you on the other, to love and care for him, Lionel Dering, like a storm-tossed ship that has reached a happy haven at last, might live out the remainder of his days in quiet happiness; without any haunting dread that his past life would ever become known, or that he would ever be touched on the shoulder by any other hand than that of a friend."

"Yes--yes; living out in the bush, or something of that kind is what you mean," said the old soldier, excitedly. "I've camped out in the jungle many a time, and know what it is. It's not such a bad sort of life when you get used to it. Why not get Li to sail next week? I'm an old campaigner, and could have my rattletraps ready in a few hours."

"But to go away thus," resumed Tom, "with the red stain of murder clinging to his name; with the foul conspiracy to destroy him still unravelled; with his wrongs unavenged; is what Lionel Dering will never consent to do. And I confess that, were I in his place, my feelings in the matter would be very similar to his. He has set before himself one great object in life, and he will never rest till he has accomplished it. And that is--to track out and bring to punishment the real murderer of Percy Osmond."

"But--but what can he do?" faltered the General. "It seems to me that his predicament is such that he is quite powerless to help himself, or to take any action whatever in his own interests."

"At the first glance it would naturally seem so," said Tom. "But some of the difficulties which surround his case, as it stands at present, may, perhaps, be got over by a little ingenuity. I am going to put before you a certain scheme which may, or may not, meet with your approbation. Should you not approve of it, it will have to be at once abandoned, as it will be impossible to carry it out without your active help and co-operation."

"My dear Mr. Bristow, you have told me enough this morning to induce me to promise beforehand that any scheme you may put before me, which has for its basis the welfare of Lionel, will meet with my heartiest support. No man could have proved himself a better friend to my dear boy than you have done. Your wishes are my law."

After satisfying himself that there were no eavesdroppers about, Tom proceeded to lay before General St. George the details of a scheme which he had been elaborating in his brain for several days, and which, in outline, had been already agreed to by Lionel.

When Tom ceased speaking, the old soldier mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. He was hot and nervous with excitement. "Your scheme is certainly a most extraordinary one," he said; "but I have faith in your ability to carry it out. I need hardly say that you may depend upon my doing my best in every way to second your designs."

Tom stayed and dined with the General, and went back to London by the night mail.

One result of the interview was that the General decided on not returning to England for some time to come. Lionel and his wife were to join him in a little while at some place on the Continent, not yet fixed upon. Meantime he would rest quietly in Paris, and there await further instructions from Tom.

The General had obtained Kester St. George's address from Mr. Perrins, and about a week after Tom's visit he wrote to his nephew, telling him where he was, and asking him to go over and see him in Paris. The invitation was one which Kester obeyed with alacrity. He had always held firmly to the belief that his uncle was a comparatively rich man. Now that Lionel was out of the way, and with so terrible an accusation still banging over him, what more natural or likely than that he should replace Lionel in his uncle's affections; and have his own name substituted in place of that of his cousin in his uncle's will?

Kester flung black care to the winds as he climbed the staircase that led to his uncle's apartments in Paris. He put on his most winning smile, his most genial manner, as another man might pull on a pair of easy-fitting gloves. A servant opened the door: and there was his uncle seated in an invalid chair at the far end of the room.

Kester sprang forward. "My dear uncle----" he began; and then he stopped. There was something in the eyes of the old soldier that chilled his enthusiasm in a moment.

The General extended two lean, frigid fingers, and motioned to him to sit down. "Pray be seated," he said. "I am not well, and I hate scenes." Kester sat down without a word.

General St. George, after deliberately rubbing his spectacles with his handkerchief, placed them across his nose, and proceeded to take a steady survey of his nephew.

Kester fidgeted a little under the ordeal, but smiled and tried to appear pleased.

"You don't look so young as when I saw you last," said his uncle.

"Eight years make a difference in the appearance of most men," said Kester; "and London life is very wearing."

"No doubt it is," said the veteran, drily. "But that any absolute necessity exists for you to live in London is more than I was aware of before."

"No absolute necessity, perhaps, does exist. Yet I confess that, except by way of a brief change now and again, life to me anywhere else would soon become unendurable."

"You look prematurely old, sir--prematurely old," said the General, severely. His spectacles were across his nose again by this time, and he was again looking Kester steadily in the face. And now he spoke in a voice that was low, stern, and impressive. "You look as if you had a burden on your mind: you look as if you had some secret care that was eating away your very life. Kester St. George, you are an unhappy man!"

Kester's colour came and went. A shiver ran through him from head to foot. He pressed one hand for a moment across his eyes. Then he laughed, a forced, hollow laugh.

"Really, sir, you are rather hard on me," he said. "After not seeing you for eight years, this is scarcely the greeting I anticipated from you. You have called me an unhappy man. Granting that I am one, am I any exception to the ordinary run of my fellow mortals? Show me the man who is really happy--who has no skeleton locked up in the secret closet of his heart!"

"Kester St. George, what have you done with your cousin, Lionel Dering?"

Kester started to his feet, his eyes staring, his hands trembling. A spasm that was gone almost before it had come, contorted his face for a moment strangely.

"Before heaven, General St. George, I don't know what you are driving at!" he cried, in tones that were husky from excitement. "I am not my cousin's keeper, that you should ask me what I have done with him."

"Then it was not you who assisted him to escape from prison?"

"I! No--certainly not."

"And yet I said it could be no one but you," said the General, half sadly. "And you don't know what has become of him? You cannot tell me where to find him now?"

"I have no more knowledge of my cousin's whereabouts than you have, sir."

"How I have been mistaken! When I read the account of Lionel's extraordinary escape, I said to myself, 'This is Kester's doing. Kester knew that his cousin was innocent, and it is he who has helped him to escape.'"

"You honoured me in your thoughts far more highly than I deserved. I stated all along my belief in my cousin's innocence, but I had certainly no hand in planning his escape."

"But, at all events, you saw him frequently while he was in prison? You were there as his friend, helper, and adviser? How did he bear his imprisonment? Did he speak of me?"

Again Kester's colour came and went. "I never saw my cousin while he was in prison," he said, in a low voice. "I was suffering severely from illness during the whole time. I was confined to my own rooms, and forbidden to stir out of doors on any account."

"You were well enough, sir, to find your way to your club within a week of the date of your cousin's trial. You were not too ill to play whist with Colonel Lexington, and win fifty guineas from that gentleman by betting on the odd trick. You were not afraid of walking home afterwards through the cold streets with a cigar in your mouth." All this had been told General St. George by Colonel Lexington himself--an old military friend, who had called upon him two or three days previously.

Kester St. George glared at his uncle as if he would gladly have annihilated him. But the old soldier gave him back look for look, and the younger man's eyes quickly fell. With a muttered curse, he pushed aside his chair, and strode to the window. Then he turned.

"General St. George, I will be frank with you," he said. "There was never any love lost between Lionel Dering and myself. However deeply shocked I might be that such a foul crime should be laid to his charge, however strong might be my belief in his innocence, I could not--no, I could not--go near him when he lay in prison. He wanted no help or advice from me. He would not have thanked me for proffering them. I would not play the hypocrite's part, and I did not go near him."

"Your candour is really refreshing," answered the General. "Since you have no tidings to give me of my nephew, I am sorry to have brought you so far from home. If you will accept this little cheque in payment of your expenses, I shall esteem it a favour."

Kester came a step or two nearer and held out his hands appealingly. "Uncle--are we to part in this way?" he said, not without a ring of pathos in his voice.

"And why should we not part in this way, Mr. St. George?"

"I know, sir, that I was never a favourite, with you," answered Kester, bitterly. "I know that I can never hope to stand as high in your regards as my cousin Lionel stood; but I did not know till this moment that I should ever be insulted by an offer such as the one you have just made me. I did not know till now that I should be dismissed like the veriest stranger that ever crossed your threshold!"

Not a muscle of General St. George's face stirred in answer to this appeal: the hard, cold light in his eyes never wavered for a moment. He distrusted his nephew thoroughly, and he dealt with him as he would have dealt with a wily Asiatic.

"If you feel that my offer of a cheque is an insult," he said, "I retract the insult by replacing the cheque in my pocket. As regards treating you like a stranger, I have no intention of doing that, although I might just remind you that you and I are, in fact, very little more than strangers to each other. Still, I do not forget that you are my nephew. I asked you to come and see me, in the expectation that you would be able to give me some tidings of Lionel Dering, just as I should have sent for Lionel Dering in the expectation that he would have been able to give me some tidings of you, had your position and his been reversed. You have not been able to give me the news I wanted, why then need I detain you here? Are you anxious to become a hanger-on to a querulous invalid? No, Kester St. George, that is not the kind of life that would suit you--or me either. Stay in Paris or go back to London, as may please you best. When I want you again, I will send for you. Meanwhile you may rest fully assured that I shall not forget you."

"I suppose it must be as you wish, sir," said Kester, humbly. "May I ask whether it is your intention to make any very long stay in Paris?"

"If my strength increases as it has done during the last few days, I shall not stay here more than another fortnight at the most."

"When we get you back again in England, sir, I trust there will be no objection to my calling on you rather oftener than I shall be able to do while you stay abroad."

"My doctor tells me that I must not think of crossing the Channel before next summer. I shall winter either in the south of France or in Italy. Probably in the latter, if I can find a place to suit me. I shall not be alone. Richard Dering, Lionel's brother, is ordered to Europe for his health, and will join me through the winter. He has been with me in India, and understands my crotchety ways and queer temper."

Not without a bitter pang did Kester St. George hear this announcement. Hardly was one brother disposed of when another sprang up in his place. But he hid his disappointment under an admirable assumption of mingled affection and respect.

"At least, sir, there can be no objection to my having your address," he said, "when you are finally settled for the winter."

"None whatever--none whatever," answered the General.

"And should my vagrant footsteps lead me anywhere into your neighbourhood--although I don't think it at all likely that they will do so--and should I chance to drop in upon you about luncheon-time, I presume I should not be looked upon as an intruder?"

"Certainly not as an intruder. In fact, it was my intention to send for you before long, and ask you to stay with me. But not while my health is so bad. At present I am too nervous and out of sorts for company of any kind." This was said with more kindness of tone than the General had yet used in speaking to his nephew, but at the same time it was a plain intimation that their interview was at an end. Kester rose at once, and took his leave.

"That fellow's an arrant scamp, although he is my nephew," muttered the General to himself, as the door closed behind Kester. "He's no real St. George. There's a drop of sinister blood somewhere in his veins that has proved foul enough to poison the whole. Of course, I knew when I sent for him that he had nothing to tell me about Lionel, but I wanted to see him and talk with him. I wanted to ascertain whether the impression that I formed of him when I was in England several years ago would be borne out by the impression I should form of him now. It has been borne out most fully. The Kester St. George of to-day, with his scheming brain and shallow heart, is precisely the Kester St. George of ten years ago, only with more experience and knowledge of the world's hard ways. Could we but wring the truth out of that crafty heart of his, I wonder whether one would find there the secret of a certain terrible crime? But I have no right to accuse him even in thought; and Heaven, in its own good time, will surely bring the truth to light."
CHAPTER VIII. CUPID AT PINCOTE
With the departure of Lionel Dering from Pincote in disguise, and the subsequent removal of Edith and Mrs. Garside to London, it would naturally have been thought that Mr. Tom Bristow's business in Duxley was at an end, that he would have bidden the quiet little country town a long farewell, and have hastened back gladly to the busier haunts of men. But such was not the case. He still kept on his lodgings in Duxley. Although he had given notice to leave them three or four times, when the day came for him to go he had always renewed his tenancy for another short term; and he still lingered on in a vague, purposeless sort of way, altogether unusual in one who rather prided himself on his decisive and business-like mode of conducting the affairs of his everyday life.

Truth to tell, he could not make up his mind to sever the thread of connection which bound him to Miss Culpepper; which, frail though it might be, still continued to hold together; and would, in all probability, so hold as long as he chose to remain at Duxley, but which must inevitably be broken for ever the moment he and his portmanteau bade a final farewell to the pleasant little town. And yet, what folly, what wild infatuation, it was! as he said to himself a score of times a day. There was not the remotest prospect of his being able to win Jane Culpepper for his wife--at least, not during the lifetime of her father. He had read his own heart and feelings by this time, and he knew that he loved her. He knew that he, the cool, calculating man of business, the shrewd speculator, who had never been overmuch inclined to believe in the romance of love; who had often declared that if he ever were to marry it would be for money and money only; he who had walked unscathed under the flashing fire of a thousand feminine eyes, had succumbed at last, like the most weak-minded of mortals, to the charms of a country-bred squire's daughter, who was neither very beautiful, very wise, very witty, nor, as he believed, very rich.

Yes, he certainly loved her. He owned that to himself now. He knew, too, that he couldn't help himself, and that, however foolish his passion might be, he could not bear to break himself away from it entirely, as he ought to have done, and put two hundred miles of distance between himself and her. He preferred to still linger on in love's pleasant paradise. Not with his own hands would he consent to shut the golden gates that would bar him for ever from that sunny precinct.

That Miss Culpepper was engaged to young Cope he knew quite well. But Tom Bristow was not a man to set much store by such an engagement. He felt, instinctively as it were, that Jane had drifted into her present position almost unconsciously and without being sure of her own feelings in the matter. That Edward Cope was quite unworthy of being her husband he had no manner of doubt: who, indeed, was worthy of holding that position? Not much less doubt had he as to the real state of Jane's feelings toward the banker's son; and holding, as he did, that all is fair in love and war, he would have seen Mr. Edward Cope jilted, and he himself installed in his place, without the slightest feeling of compunction.

"He's an unmitigated cad," said Tom to himself. "He's altogether incapable of appreciating a girl like Jane." This, reversing the point of view, was exactly Edward Cope's own opinion. In his belief it was he who was the unappreciated one.

But a far more serious impediment than any offered by Jane's engagement to young Cope lay before Tom, like a rock ahead from which there was no escape. He knew quite well that unless some special miracle should be worked in his behalf, it was altogether hopeless to expect that the Squire would ever consent to a marriage between himself and Jane; and that any special miracle would be so worked he had very little faith indeed. He knew how full of prejudices the Squire was; and, notwithstanding his bonhomie and rough frankness of manner, how securely wrapped round he was with the trammels of caste. He knew, too, that had the Squire not owed his life in years gone by to Mr. Cope's bravery, from which act had sprung their warm friendship of many years, not even to the son of a rich banker would Titus Culpepper, the proud commoner, who could trace back his family for ten hundred years, have ever consented to give his daughter. While as for himself, he, Tom Bristow, however rich he might one day perhaps become, would never be anything more in Mr. Culpepper's eyes than the son of a poor country doctor, and, consequently, to a man of old family, a mere nobody--a person who by no stretch of imagination could ever be looked upon in the light of a family connection.

And yet, being in possession of all this bitter knowledge, Tom Bristow made no really determined effort to break away, and to try the cure which is said to be often wrought by time and absence even in cases as desperate as his. Metaphorically speaking, he hugged the shackles that bound him, and gloried in the loss of his freedom: a very sad condition, indeed, for any reasonable being to fall into.

It was curious what a number of opportunities Tom and Jane seemed to find for seeing each other, and how often they found themselves together, quite fortuitously as it were, and without any apparent volition of their own in the matter. Sometimes Tom would be mooning about the High Street in the middle of the forenoon at the very time that the Pincote pony-carriage drew up against one or another of the shops, and then what more natural than that Jane and he should have three minutes' conversation together on the pavement? Sometimes Jane would walk into Merton's library at the very moment that Tom was critically choosing a novel which, when borrowed, he would carefully omit to read. How quickly half an hour--nay an hour--would pass at such times, and that in conversation of the most commonplace kind!

Sometimes Jane, wandering absently with a book in her hands, through the Pincote woods and meadows, would find herself, after a time, on the banks of the carefully preserved stream--river it could hardly be called--which wandered at its own sweet will through Squire Culpepper's demesne. There, strange to relate, she would find Mr. Bristow whipping the stream; very inartistically it must be admitted; but trying his best to make believe that he was a very skilful angler indeed.

What wings the sunny minutes put themselves on at such times! How quickly the yellow afternoons faded and waned, and Jane would look round at last, quite startled to find that twilight had come already. Then Tom would accompany her part of the way back towards the house, his fishing-basket empty indeed, but his heart overbrimming with the happiness of perfect love.

Once every now and again the Squire, meeting Tom casually in the street, would ask him to dinner at Pincote. Memorable occasions those, never to be forgotten either by Tom or Jane, when, with the drawing-room all to themselves, while the Squire snoozed for an hour in his easy-chair in the dining-room, they could sit and talk, or pretend to play chess, or make believe to be deeply interested in some portfolio of engravings, or to be altogether immersed in a selection from the last new opera, turning over the leaves and strumming a few bars experimentally here and there; while, in reality, rapt up in and caring for nothing and nobody but themselves.

Yet never once was a single word of love whispered between them, whatever mutual tales their eyes might tell. Jane still held herself as engaged to Edward Cope; but she had made up her mind that as soon as that young gentleman should return from America she would see him, and tell him that she had discovered her error--that she no longer cared for him as a woman ought to care for the man she is about to marry; and she would appeal to his generosity to relieve her from an engagement that had now become utterly distasteful to her. His letters from abroad were so infrequent, so brief, and so utterly unlover-like, that she did not anticipate much difficulty in obtaining her request. But, as she was well aware, there was a certain amount of mule-like obstinacy in the character of Edward Cope, and it was quite possible that when he found she no longer cared for him, he might cling to her all the more firmly. What if he should refuse to release her? The contemplation or such a possibility was not a pleasant one. What she should do in such a case she could not even imagine. But it would be time enough to think of that when the necessity for thinking of it should have arisen.

But even if released from her engagement to Edward Cope, Jane knew that she would still be as far as ever from the haven of her secret hopes, and that without running entirely counter to her father's wishes and prejudices, the haven in question could never be reached by her. But although it might never be possible for her to marry the man whom she secretly loved, she was fully determined in her own mind never to marry any one else, however strongly the world might consider her to be bound by the fetters of her odious engagement. Edward Cope, although he might refuse to release her from her promise, should never force her into becoming his wife.

The fact of having been appealed to by Tom. Bristow to find a shelter for his friend, when that friend was in dire trouble, seemed to draw him closer to Jane than anything else. From that hour her feelings towards him took a warmer tinge than they had ever assumed before. There was something almost heroic in her eyes in the friendship between Lionel and Tom, and that she should have been called upon to assist, in however humble a way, in the escape of the former was to her a proof of confidence such as she could never possibly forget. She never met Tom without inquiring for the last news as to the movements of Lionel and his wife; and Tom, on his side, took care to keep her duly posted up in everything that concerned them. A week or so after the departure of Lionel for Cumberland, Jane had been taken by Tom to Alder Cottage and introduced to Edith. How warmly the latter thanked her for what she had done need not be told here. In that hour of their meeting was laid the foundation of one of those friendships, rare between two women, which death alone has power to sever.

However deeply Mr. Tom Bristow might be in love, however infatuated he might be on one particular point, he in nowise neglected his ordinary business avocations, nor did he by any means spend the whole of his time in Duxley and its neighbourhood. He was frequently in London; nor was either Liverpool or Manchester unacquainted with his face, for Tom's speculative proclivities expended themselves in many and various channels. The project to bring Duxley, by means of a branch railway from one of the great trunk lines, into closer connection with some of the chief centres of industry in that part of the country, was one which had always engaged his warmest sympathies. But the project, after having been safely incubated, and launched in glowing terms before the public, had been quietly allowed to collapse, its promoters having taken alarm at certain formidable engineering difficulties which had not presented themselves during the preliminary survey of the route.

This put Tom Bristow on his mettle. He had been familiar from boyhood with the country for twenty miles round Duxley, and he felt sure that a much more favourable route than the one just abandoned might readily be found if properly looked for. Taking a practical surveyor with him, and the ordnance map of the district, Tom went carefully over the ground in person, trudging mile after mile on foot, in all sorts of weather, seeing his way after a time, little by little, to the elaboration of a project much bolder in idea and wider in scope than any which had ever entered the thoughts of the original projectors.

A month later Tom found himself closeted with the heads of a certain well-known financial firm, who were celebrated for their far-seeing views and their boldness in floating large schemes of public importance. With this firm was also mixed up another well-known firm of eminent engineers and contractors: but how and in what way they were mixed up, and where one firm began and the other ended, was more than any outside person could ever ascertain, and was popularly supposed to be a mythical point even with the parties chiefly concerned. But be that as it may, Tom Bristow's scheme met with a very favourable reception both from a financial and an engineering point of view. While still kept a profound secret from the public at large, its details were laid before some five or six well-known members of the House, whose opinions carried much weight in such matters and were a tolerably safe criterion as to whether any particular bill would be likely to pass unslaughtered through the terrible ordeal of Committee. So favourable were the opinions thus asked for, that Mr. Bristow went at once to a certain metropolitan land agent, and instructed him to buy up and hold over for him certain fields and plots of land, which happened to be for sale just then at different points exactly on or contiguous to the proposed line of railway. Such property would rise immensely in value from the moment the prospectus of the line was made public, and by the time the first sod was turned Tom calculated that he ought to be in a position to clear cent. per cent. by his bold speculation.
CHAPTER IX. AT THE VILLA PAMPHILI
The month of October had half run its course, the Continental Meccas were nearly deserted, the pilgrims were returning in shoals day by day, and the London club-houses were no longer the temples of desolation that they had been for the last two months.

In the smoke-room of his club, in the easiest of easy-chairs, sat Kester St. George, cigar in mouth, his hat tilted over his eyes, musing bitterly over the hopes, follies, and prospects of his broken life. And his life was, in truth, a broken one. With what fair prospects had he started from port, and now, at thirty-three years of age, to what a bankrupt ending he had come! One way or another he had contrived until now to surmount his difficulties, or, at least, to tide them over for the time being; but, at last, the net seemed to be finally closing around him. Of ready money he had next to none. His credit was at an end. Tailor, bootmaker, and glover had alike shut their doors in his face. A three months' bill for two hundred and fifty pounds would fall due in about a week's time, and he had absolutely no assets with which to meet it; nor was there the remotest possibility of his being able to obtain a renewal of it. He had made sure of winning heavily on certain races, but the horses he had backed had invariably come to grief; and it was only by making a desperate effort that he had been able to meet his engagements and save his credit on the turf. When he should have pawned or sold his watch and the few rings and trinkets that still remained to him, and should have spent the few pounds realized thereby, beggary, the most complete and absolute, would stare him in the face. But two courses were left open for him: flight and outlawry, or an appeal to the generosity of his uncle, General St. George. Bitter alternatives both. Besides which it was by no means certain that his uncle would respond to any such appeal, and he shrank unaccountably, he could hardly have told himself why, from the task of asking relief of the stern old soldier. He questioned himself again and again whether suicide would not be far preferable to the pauper's life, which was all that he now saw before him--whether it would not be better, by one bold stroke, to cut at once and for ever through the tangled web of difficulties that bound him. Over his dead body the men to whom he owed money might wrangle as much as they chose: a comfortable nook in the family vault would doubtless be found for him, and beyond that he would need nothing more. Unspeakably bitter to-night were the musings of Kester St. George.

"A bullet through the brain, or a dose of prussic acid--which shall it be?" he asked himself. "It matters little which. They are both speedy, and both sure. Then the voice will whisper in my ear in vain: then I shall no longer feel the hand laid on my shoulder: then the black shadow that broods over my life will be swallowed up for ever in the blacker shadows of death!"

Suddenly a waiter glided up to him, salver in hand. On the salver lay a telegram. "If you please, sir," said the man, in his most deferential voice. Mr. St. George started, looked up, and took the telegram mechanically.

For full two minutes he held it between his thumb and finger without opening it. "Why need I trouble myself with what it contains?" he muttered. "One more stroke of ill-fortune can matter nothing, and I'm past all hope of any good fortune. To a man who is being stoned to death one stone the more is not worth complaining about. Perhaps it's to tell me that Aurora has fallen lame or dead. Serve the jade right! I backed her for two thousand at Doncaster, and lost. Perhaps it's only one of Dimmock's 'straight tips,' imploring me to invest a 'little spare cash' on some mysterious favourite that is sure to be scratched before the race comes off. Never again, O Mentor, shall thy fingers touch gold of mine! All the spare cash I have will be needed to pay for my winding-sheet."

With a sneer, he flicked open the envelope that held the telegram, opened the paper, and read the one line that was written therein.

"Lionel Dering is dead. Come here at once!"

The telegram dropped from his fingers--the cigar fell from his lips. A strange, death-like pallor overspread his face. He pressed both his hands to his left side, and sank back in his chair like a man suddenly stricken by some invisible foe.

The waiter, who had been hovering near, was by his side in a moment. "Are you ill, sir?" he said. "What can I get you? Would you like a glass of water?"

Mr. St. George did not answer in words, but his eyes said Yes. With a deep gasp, that was half a sob, he seemed to recover himself. His hands dropped from his breast, and the colour began to come slowly back into his face. He drank the water, thanked the man, and was left alone to realize the intelligence he had just received.

Lionel Dering dead! Impossible! Such news could only be the lying invention of some juggling fiend whose object it was to give him, for one brief moment, a glimpse of Paradise, and then cast him headlong into still deeper caverns of despair than any in which his soul had ever lost itself before.

Lionel Dering dead! What did not such news mean to him--if only--if only it were true! It was like a reprieve at the last moment to some poor wretch condemned to die. The news is whispered in his ear, the cords are unloosened, he stares round like a man suddenly roused from some hideous nightmare, and cannot, for a little time, believe that the blissful words he has just heard are really true. So it was with St. George. His brain was in a maze--his mind in a whirl. Again and again he repeated to himself, "It cannot be true!"

Then he did what, under ordinary circumstances, he would have done at first--he picked up the telegram in order to ascertain whence it came, and by whom it had been sent; two points which he had altogether overlooked up to now, his eyes having been first caught by the one significant line of message. The telegram trembled in his fingers like an aspen leaf, as he turned it to the light, and read these words--"From General St. George, Villa Pamphili, near Como, Italy, to Kester St. George, 34, Great Carrington Street, London, England." And then once more his eyes took in the brief, pregnant message, "Lionel Dering is dead. Come here at once."

It was all true, then--all blissfully true--and not a wild hallucination of his own disordered mind! Still he seemed as though he could not possibly realize it. He glanced round. No one was regarding him. He pressed the telegram to his lips twice, passionately. Then he folded it up carefully and accurately, and put it away in the breast-pocket of his frock-coat. Then, pulling his hat over his brow, and burying his hands deep in his pockets, he lounged slowly out of the club, greeting no one, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left; and so, going slowly through the streets with eyes fixed straight before him, he at length reached his rooms in Great Carrington Street.

Twenty minutes sufficed for the packing of his portmanteau. Kester St. George was his own valet now. He had been obliged to dispense with the services of Pierre Janvard months ago, having no longer the means of keeping him. When his portmanteau was locked and strapped, he scribbled on a piece of paper, "Shall not be back for a week," affixed the paper outside his door, took a last glance round, pulled-to the door, carried his luggage downstairs, hailed the first empty hansom that passed him, and was driven to the terminus at London Bridge. But before reaching the station, he stopped the cab at a tavern kept by a sporting publican to whom he was well known. From this man he obtained a loan of thirty pounds on his watch and chain and diamond pin. After drinking one small cup of black coffee and cognac, he paced the flags of the station till the train was ready, smoking one strong cigar after another, and seeing and heeding nothing of the busy scene around him.

And so, still like a man in a dream, he started on his journey. He changed mechanically from railway to steamer, and from steamer to railway; he dozed, he smoked, he drank coffee and cognac; he waited for a train here and a conveyance there, but otherwise he did not break the continuity of his journey; and, at last, he found himself by the shore at Como, inquiring his way to the Villa Pamphili.

He was still like a man in a dream. That sense of unreality with which he had started on his journey still clung to him. Not even when he saw the white walls of the villa glimmering in the moonlight, not even when he stood for a moment with his uncle's hand clasped in his, could he quite believe in the actuality of what he saw around him. But he was thoroughly worn out by this time, and by common consent all conversation was deferred till the morrow. Ten hours of unbroken sleep made Kester St. George feel like another man.

Rapidly as Kester had performed his journey, there were two individuals who had reached the scene before him. They were Mr. Drayton, the Duxley superintendent of police, and Mr. Whiffins, the detective officer from Scotland Yard. General St. George, acting under the advice of Tom Bristow, had telegraphed to the police authorities the fact of Lionel's death at the same time that he had communicated with Kester. But there had been some delay in the transmission of the message to the latter; as a consequence of which the two officers had reached the villa some five or six hours before Kester's arrival. The object of their journey was purely for the purpose of identification. They were there to satisfy themselves and their superiors that Lionel Dering, and no one but he, was really dead. Of the presence of Tom Bristow in the villa neither they nor Kester had any knowledge whatever, nor was he once seen by any of the three while they were there.

As Kester was dressing in the morning, his eye was caught by the figure of a man who was lounging slowly through the winding garden paths, plucking a flower here and there as he went. He gave a great start of surprise and his face blanched for a moment when his eyes first rested on the man. At that instant Hewitt, General St. George's valet, came in with Kester's hot water for shaving. "Who is that?" said Mr. St. George sharply, as he pointed to the figure in the garden.

"That gentleman, sir, is Mr. Richard Dering, a younger brother of the late Mr. Lionel," answered Hewitt.

"And how long has he been here?"

"He arrived here from India eight days ago."

"In time to see his brother alive?"

"Oh, yes, sir. It is only five days since Mr. Lionel died."

"Was Mr. Richard with his brother when he died?"

"I believe so, sir. But not being there myself, I cannot say for certain. Mr. Richard has come from India for the benefit of his health. We had been expecting him nearly two months before he came."

"I suppose this fellow will step into his brother's shoes and inherit the few thousands my uncle will have to leave when he dies," muttered Kester to himself when Hewitt had left the room. "But what does that matter to me now--to me, the owner of Park Newton and eleven thousand a year?"

It was with a sense of dignity and importance such as he had never experienced before, that Kester St. George walked downstairs that morning to his uncle's breakfast-room. He felt himself to be a very different individual, both in his own estimation and in that of the world, from the despairing, impecunious wretch who, but a few short hours before, was sitting in the smoke-room of his club, deliberating as to the easiest mode of bidding farewell to a world in whose economy there no longer seemed to be a place for him.

As he walked downstairs he could not help thinking that if his cousin's death had not happened till a month later he himself would, almost certainly, have been dead before that time--in which case both life and eleven thousand a year would have been lost to him for the sake of one month more of patient waiting. What a surprise it would have been if in "that other place" his shade had suddenly encountered the shade of Lionel Dering! He dismissed the thought with an impatient shrug, but he could not help shivering, and for a moment or two an ice-cold air seemed to blow round him, that lifted his hair with its invisible fingers and touched his heart as with a death-cold hand.

Kester St. George and his uncle breakfasted tête-à-tête that morning. The meal was rather a late one. Messrs. Drayton and Whiffins had been up for hours, and were out exploring the beauties of the neighbourhood. "And as for Richard," explained the General to Kester, "he's one of the strangest fellows in existence. He takes his meals anyhow and at any time, and one never knows where to look for him, whether indoors or out. Still, I like the boy--yes, I can't help liking him. By-the-by, I think he told me the other day that he had met you once or twice many years ago?"

"I never remember meeting Richard Dering but once," answered Kester. "As you say, sir, that was many years ago."

"Well, if you remember what he was like then, you won't find him much altered now. But here he comes to speak for himself."

As the General spoke, Richard Dering lounged slowly into the room through the open French window. He halted for a moment just inside the room, and the eyes of the two cousins met across the table, each one curious to see what the other was like.

Kester could not repress a start of surprise when Richard's eyes met his. For the moment it seemed to him that in very truth they could be the eyes of none other than his dead cousin. They were the same in colour--dark gray--and the same in expression. But when he came to look more closely, he thought he saw in them something different; a something hard to define, but palpably there. Eyes, they were, cold, serious, stern, and vengeful almost; with nothing in them of that frank happy light which used to shine out of the eyes of Lionel Dering. And yet, with all this, Kester could not but feel that the similarity was startling. And then the voice, too! It might have been Lionel's very self who spoke. It thrilled through Kester as though it were a voice speaking from the tomb.

Beyond the eyes and the voice, the points of dissimilarity between Richard and his dead brother were marked enough. Lionel had been fair-complexioned, with light flaxen beard and moustache, and wavy hair. Richard's complexion, naturally very swarthy, had been still further browned by exposure to an Indian sun. He had short, straight, jet-black hair, parted carefully down the middle. He wore no beard or whiskers, but cultivated a thick drooping moustache of the darkest shade of brown. Running in a line from his left eyebrow down his cheek was the cicatrice or scar of an old wound, the result of an accident in boyhood.

Kester had a distinct recollection of this scar. It had struck him on the only previous occasion of his seeing Richard, as being a great disfigurement to an otherwise comely face. When you caught Richard's profile, you said at once how like he was to his brother: in fact, both brothers had the St. George features--clear, bold, distinctly marked. Which, perhaps, was one reason why the General took to them more than he ever did to Kester, whose features were of a different type.

The two men eyed each other for a moment or two in silence. They might have been two gladiators about to engage in a deadly struggle, each of whom was measuring the other's strength. "This man is my enemy," was the thought that flashed through Kester's brain; and for the moment his heart sank within him. The dark, stern, resolute-looking man before him would be a very different sort of person to cope with, from good-tempered, easy-going Lionel.

"Kester, this is my nephew, Richard, from India," said the General. "Dick, this is your cousin, Kester St. George. You have met before, so I need not say another word."

Kester rose from his chair, advanced a step or two, and held out his hand. "Yes, we have met before," he said, "but that was many years ago; so many that I should hardly have recognized you had I seen you in the street. Allow me to welcome you back from India. I hope you won't think of wandering so far away from home again."

Kester spoke with that assumption of warm-hearted impulsiveness which he knew so well how to put on. Five men out of six would have been thoroughly deceived by it.

"I have not forgotten you," said Richard, in reply. "Yours is a face that I could never forget. I shall not go back to India for some time to come--not till I have accomplished the task which has brought me here. You may take my word for that!"

He spoke with a cold deliberation that made his words seem very impressive. Cold, too, and pulseless was the hand that he laid for a moment on Kester's outstretched palm. But when he said, "You may take my word for that," he gave his cousin's hand a sudden sharp grip, and then dropped it. Kester shuddered and sat down.

"Won't you come and have some breakfast with us?" asked General St. George.

"I breakfasted two hours ago, and have no appetite," answered Richard. "Should you want me, you will find me under the big yew tree in the garden. I have put a volume of Dante in my pocket, and I am going to see whether I have quite forgotten my Italian."

"Fine fellow that; very fine," said the General admiringly, as Richard shut the door behind him. "So earnest about everything--so determined to go through with any matter that he sets his heart upon."

"What can the particular task be which he has set himself to accomplish before going back to India?" asked Kester of himself. "I would give something to know. And yet, what can it matter to me? When once I get away from here I hope never to set eyes on him again. I shall travel for a couple of years; and by the time I get back home he will have returned to India. No; nothing can matter to me, now that Lionel Dering is dead, and that Park Newton is at last my own!"

Lionel's name had hardly been mentioned between uncle and nephew on the previous night. There had been a mutual avoidance of all unpleasant topics during the hour that intervened between Kester's arrival and his retirement for the night. But the object of his visit to the Villa Pamphili was one, the discussion of which this morning could not much longer be postponed; and he thought it best to plunge at once into the subject himself, rather than leave it for his uncle to introduce.

"How long was my cousin with you at this place before he died?" asked Kester.

"It will be a month to-morrow since he came here," answered the General. "I never got from him how he found me out--indeed, he was not in a fit state to be troubled with questions of any kind. It did not take long to discover that his days in this world were very few in number. The first few days after he came he brightened up, and seemed to be stronger and better. But there soon came a morning when he did not get up as usual--and he never got up again. He sank slowly but surely, and five days ago he died. His end was as peaceful as that of any little child."

The General paused for a moment: Kester sat listening like a man turned to stone. Once he essayed to speak, but the sound died away in his throat. Petrified and dumb sat he.

"It is all for the best, perhaps, that he has left us," resumed the old man. "I try to console myself by thinking so. To live for ever the life of a hunted criminal; to go through the world with the brand of a murderer on his brow; to have every hope and feeling, and all that makes life sweet and dear to ordinary mortals, crushed out of him by the weight of a terrible accusation from which it seemed impossible that he could ever free himself, was more than he could bear. His heart broke, and he died."

Petrified and dumb still sat Kester St. George.

"The circumstances of the case were so peculiar," resumed the General, "that when I saw my poor boy was really gone, I hardly knew what steps would be the most proper to take. For me merely to have made an affidavit that on a certain day, and under my roof, Lionel Dering died, might not have seemed sufficient proof in point of law that such were really the facts. I had your interests to think of in the matter. Satisfactory proof of your cousin's death must be forthcoming before Park Newton could become your property, or one penny of its revenue find its way into your pockets. The question, as it seemed to me, resolved itself into one of simple identification. I communicated with you, but at the same time I communicated with the police authorities in London. As you are already aware, Mr. Drayton and another officer reached here yesterday, a few hours before you. Pearce, the old butler from Park Newton, is also here, and will swear, if requisite, to the identity of the dead man with my poor nephew. In Pearce's charge, the body will, in the course of a few days, be conveyed to Park Newton for interment in the family vault. Lionel died five days ago, and it became requisite to have the remains enclosed in a shell; but, in order that there should be no dispute as to identification, a glass plate has been let into the lid of the shell, so that the features underneath can be plainly seen. For the present, the remains have found a temporary resting-place in the little Church of San Michele, in the village close by. Thither, in an hour's time, I am going with Mr. Drayton and his friend. If you would like to see your poor cousin's face for the last time, you can go with us."

The General had nothing more to say, and began to chip an egg. Kester came back to life at last. A ray of sunlight coming suddenly through an interstice of the venetians, smote him across the eyes. He turned impatiently in his chair. The pallor of his face deepened. He wiped his forehead and the corners of his mouth with his handkerchief. It was a little while before he spoke. "Yes, I will go with you," he said at last in a voice that was scarcely more than a whisper.

An hour later General St. George, accompanied by his nephew, and followed by Mr. Drayton and Sergeant Whiffins, set out for the Church of San Michele. As they walked through the grounds of the villa, they passed the yew-tree under which sat Richard Dering in a basket chair, deep in his Italian studies.

The General halted for a moment. "I suppose you don't care to go with us, Richard?" he said.

"No, thank you, uncle," answered Richard. "I have been there once this morning already, and I shall go again, alone, before the day is over."

The General passed on. Richard bowed to Mr. Drayton and Sergeant Whiffins, who eyed him curiously, and then went on with his reading.

The Church of San Michele proved to be a building of fine architectural proportions, dating from the end of the fifteenth century. Underneath it were row after row of spacious vaults: in one corner of which, on a slab of dark-blue slate, partly covered with a velvet pall, and with two tall wax tapers burning at its head, they found the object of their search.

General St. George went forward and stationed himself at the head of the coffin. Mr. Drayton took up a position on one side of it, and Mr. Whiffins on the other. But Kester lingered in the background among the shadows of the crypt. It seemed as if his feet refused to drag him any nearer.

Drayton and Whiffins had seen death often, and in various forms. They were men not easily impressed; but there was something in the circumstances and surroundings of the present case that appealed to them with more than ordinary force. There, before them, lay the lifeless body of the man who had escaped so strangely from their clutches; on whose head a price had been set; who had broken his heart in a vain struggle against the destiny which had crushed him down; and who had now escaped from them again, and this time for ever. Did the red right hand of a murderer lie in that coffin, or was it really as guiltless of the stain of blood as the dead man himself had asseverated; and as those who knew him best had been ready to swear? Could those white lips but have spoken now, could they have given utterance to but one word from beyond the confines of the grave, surely the truth would have been proclaimed. But not till the great day of all would their awful silence ever be broken.

Drayton and Whiffins, drawing nearer to the coffin, gazed down through the glass plate at the immovable features underneath. Kester, leaning against one of the cold stone pillars, shuddered, but drew no nearer. Beyond the faint circle of light which radiated from the tapers, all was obscurity and gloom the most profound. Far away among the black recesses of those far-reaching aisles, among those endless rows of time-stained pillars, he heard, or seemed to hear, faint chill whisperings as from lips long dead, and the all but inaudible rustle of ghostly garments sweeping slowly across the floor.

"This is really our man, I suppose?" whispered the Scotland Yard officer to Mr. Drayton.

"Yes, that's him, sure enough," answered Drayton, in the same tone. "He was close-shaved when he got out of prison, but his moustache and beard have had time to grow again since then. Yes, that's him, sure enough. I could swear to him anywhere."

There was nothing more to do or see, and they moved slowly away.

"Will you not take one look?" said General St. George to Kester.

"Yes, one look," whispered Kester; and with that he dragged himself close up to the coffin, and stood gazing down for a moment at the marble face below.

His own cheeks had faded to the colour of those of the dead man. In the yellow candlelight his features looked cadaverous and shrunken, but his two burning eyes glowed with a strange light, eager yet terrified. He wanted to see--he would not have gone away satisfied unless he had seen--the face which lay there in all its awful beauty; and yet his whole soul sank within him at the sight. Fascinated--spellbound he stood.

"Yes, that is Lionel Dering," he whispered to himself. "Park Newton is mine at last, and eleven thousand a-year. Why did he ever cross my path?"

General St. George threw a corner of the pall over the coffin, and the two men turned to go, leaving the candles still burning. The sacristan with his keys was waiting for them at the top of the stone staircase which led to the church above. General St. George went up the stairs first, slowly and painfully: Kester followed a step or two behind. As his foot rested on the lowest stair of the vault he felt once again the Hand laid for a moment heavily on his shoulder--he heard once again the Voice whisper in his ear,

"Come."

He shivered involuntarily. Involuntarily he turned half round, as he always did at such times, although he knew quite well that there was nothing to be seen. No: the coffin lay there as they had left it a minute ago, untouched, unmoved. But it was not his voice--not the voice of him who lay sleeping so peacefully there--that haunted the ear of Kester St. George, and filled his life with a dread unspeakable. It was the voice of the man, who had been done to death so foully at Park Newton, that whispered to him thus often out of his untimely shroud.

Some hours later, as Richard Dering was crossing the entrance-hall of the villa, a low voice called his name from an upper floor. He looked up and saw Edith's earnest face shining down upon him.

"Are they gone--the two officers of police?" she asked.

"They left the villa two hours ago."

"Satisfied?"

"Perfectly satisfied."

"Thank Heaven for that!" she said, fervently. "And Kester, what of him?"

"He will take his leave immediately after dinner. He has declined Uncle Lionel's invitation to stay all night."

"You will have to see him again before he goes?"

"Yes--just for a minute or two. I shall not dine with him."

"Be careful."

"There is not the slightest cause for fear. But here he comes."

Edith's eyes met his for a moment, and her lips broke into a smile. She disappeared just as Kester St. George opened the glass door that led from the garden into the villa.

CHAPTER X. BACK AGAIN AT PARK NEWTON
General St. George's health improved so rapidly that, contrary to his first intention, he decided that he would return to England at once and, if possible, get settled down somewhere by Christmas. As he was running his eyes through the "Times" one day he saw, to his intense astonishment, that Park Newton was advertised as to be let. By the next post he sent a brief note to Kester, calling his attention to the advertisement, and asking him the meaning of it. In due course he received the following reply:

"My Dear Uncle,--The advertisement to which you allude has no other meaning than is visible on the surface of it. Park Newton is empty, and empty it will remain as far as I am concerned. Why not, therefore, try to find a tenant for it, and make at the same time a welcome addition to my income? I know what you will say--that, as the head of the family, it is my duty to live in the family home. That is very well from your point of view, but to me the place is burdened with a memory so terrible (which time can never efface or cause to fade from my mind) that for me to live there is a sheer impossibility.

"But, apart from all this, I think you know me sufficiently well to feel sure that to me a country life would soon become insupportable. After the first freshness had worn off--after I had eaten some of my own peaches and drunk some of my own buttermilk--after I had been duly coached by my bailiff in the mysteries of subsoils and top-dressings--and after going through all the dull round of bucolic hospitality: I should be sure to cut the whole affair in disgust some fine day, and not recover my peace of mind till after a little dinner at the Trois Frères and a stall at the Gymnase.

"So, my dear uncle, should you happen to hear of any eligible individual who would be content to pass his days among the dull but respectable commonplaces of English country life, pray try to secure him as a tenant for Park Newton, and render grateful for ever--Your affectionate nephew,

"Kester St. George.

"P.S. You say nothing in your note as to the state of your health. May I take it in this case that no news is good news, and that you are stronger and better than when I saw you last? I hope so with all my heart."

To this General St. George sent the following answer:

"Dear Nephew,--I will become the tenant of Park Newton. If one member of the family doesn't choose to live there, all the more reason why another should. No stranger shall call the old roof-tree his home while I am alive. I am better in health, thank Heaven, and you will probably see me in England before Christmas.--Yours,

"Lionel St. George."

In taking this step General St. George was guided as much by Richard Dering's wishes as by his own inclinations in the matter. "Nothing could have fallen out more opportunely for the purpose I have in view," Richard had said to him when the advertisement was first noticed.

"I can't see in what way it will assist your views for you to immure yourself at Park Newton," said the General.

"I shall be there on the spot itself," answered Richard; "and that seems to me one of the first essentials."

"You fairly puzzle me," said the General, with a shake of the head. "I can't see what more you can do than you have done already. It seems to me like groping in the dark."

"You are right, uncle--it is like groping in the dark. And yet I feel as sure as that I am standing here at the present moment that sooner or later a ray of light will be vouchsafed to me from somewhere. As to when and how it will come, I know nothing; but that it will come, if I clothe my soul with patience, I never for one moment doubt."

"My poor boy! But why not let well alone? You are wasting your life in the chase of a phantom. Be content with what you have achieved already."

"Never--never--so help me Heaven! I will go on groping in the dark as you call it, till in that dark I clutch my enemy's hand--and drag out of it into the full light of day the man on whose head lies the innocent blood of Percy Osmond."

"A waste of youth, of hope, of happiness," said the old soldier sadly.

"For me there is neither youth, nor hope, nor happiness, till my task is accomplished. Uncle, I have set myself to do this thing, and no power on earth can move me from it."

"I am heart and soul with you, boy, as you know full well already. But at times it does seem to me as if you were following nothing better than a deceptive will-o'-the-wisp, which, the further you follow it, the further it will lead you astray."

"No will-o'-the-wisp, uncle, but a steadfast-shining star; blood-red like Mars, if you will, but a guide across the pathless waste which leads to the goal to which I shall one day surely attain."

Three weeks later General St. George and his nephew were settled at Park Newton, while Mrs. Garside and Edith installed themselves in a pretty little cottage, half a mile beyond the park gates, but on the side opposite to Duxley.

Lionel Dering's marriage was still kept a profound secret: and as Edith, during the short time she had lived at Duxley, had never gone out without a thick veil over her face, there was not much fear that she would be recognized in her new home. Richard Dering rode over to the Cottage every other day, and we may be sure that Jane Culpepper was also a frequent visitor. Equally a matter of course was it that Tom Bristow, by the merest chance in the world, should often call in during the very time that Miss Culpepper was there: for Providence is kind to lovers, and seems often to arrange meetings for them, without their taking any trouble to do so on their own account.

Not a single day--nay, not a single hour had Kester St. George spent at Park Newton since his accession to the property. He had been down to Duxley on two occasions, and had taken up his quarters at the Royal Hotel, where his steward had waited upon him for the transaction of necessary business, and where the chief tenants of the estate had been invited to a banquet at his expense. But not once had he set foot even inside the park gates. He hated the place, the neighbourhood, the people. London and Paris, according to his view, were the only places fit for a man of fortune to live in, and it was from the latter place that he despatched a letter to his uncle, half ironical in tone, congratulating that veteran on his choice of the ancestral roof-tree for his future home, and hoping that he might live for fifty years to enjoy it. The General smiled grimly to himself as he read the letter and tossed it over to Richard.

"Uncle, you must invite him here before we are many weeks older," said the latter.

"But he hates the place, and won't come."

"He hates the place undoubtedly, but he will come all the same if you couch your invitation properly."

"In what terms would you like me to couch it?"

"Pardon me for saying so, but you have only got to hint that you feel you are growing old, and that you have serious thoughts of making your will before long, and then press him to come and see you."

"And you think the bait will tempt him?"

"I am sure of it. Your property would make a nice addition to his income. He would be the most dutiful and affectionate of nephews as long as you lived; he would bury you with every outward semblance of regret; and a month later there would be another horse in his stable at Newmarket."

"Faith, I believe you're right, Dick! But not a single penny of my money will ever go to Kester St. George. All the same I'll write the letter in the way you wish it to be written, when you tell me that the time for sending it has come."

"We will let Christmas get quietly over, and then we will talk about it again."

But still the General was puzzled. "I'm bothered if I can comprehend why you want to invite Kester to Park Newton," he said. "You hate the man, and yet you want me to ask him to come and stop under the same roof with you, where you must, out of common courtesy, meet him once or twice a day all the time he is here."

"The coming of Kester St. George to Park Newton may help us to another link in the chain of evidence which Bristow and I together are trying to forge out of the very poor materials at our command. It may prove in the end to be nothing better than a chain of sand--or it may prove strong enough to drag a murderer to his doom."

The General shuddered slightly. "Your words are very strong, my boy," he said. "I have seen so many tragedies in the course of the sixty years I have lived in this world that I have no desire ever to see another--least of all among those of my own kith and kin."

Richard did not answer at once. He rose from his chair, went to the window, and stood gazing out across the frosty landscape. At length he spoke gravely, almost sadly.

"My hand is put to the plough, uncle, and I cannot--I dare not draw back."

"No doubt you are right and I am wrong," said the General, meekly. "But I sometimes tremble when I look into the future, and ask myself what all these disguises and plottings have for their aim and object."

"They have but one aim and one object," said Richard, sternly, "both of which are comprised in one word--and that word is Retribution."

"'Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord,'" answered the old soldier, in a reverent whisper.

A deep sigh came from the bosom of the younger man. Again he paused before answering. "Oh, uncle! is there no pity, no thought for me?" he said. "Think of what I have suffered, of all that I have undergone! Name, wealth, position, lost to me for ever unless I can prove I am not the murderer that the world believes me to be. My very identity gone. Obliged to die and be buried, and assume the name and identity of another man; or live the life of a hunted animal, with a price set on my head, and with the ever-present shadow of a shameful death eating the life out of me inch by inch. Oh, think of all, and pity me!"

"I have thought of it all, day and night, night and day, for months. You know that I pity you from the bottom of my soul."

"Had it not been for you, and Edith, and Bristow--God bless him!--I should have shot myself long ago."

"Don't talk in that way, Dick--don't talk in that way!"

"Unless--unless I had taught myself to live for the sake of retribution," went on the other as if he had not heard his uncle's words. "And retribution is not vengeance; it is simple repayment--simple justice." He paused like one deep in thought.

"Do you know, uncle," he resumed with a startling change of tone--"do you know that a night hardly ever passes without my being visited by Percy Osmond? His cold hand touches mine and I awake to see him standing close beside me. He never speaks, he only looks at me. But oh! that look--so pleading, so reproachful, so soul-imploring! Awake and asleep it haunts me ever. It is a look that says, 'How much longer shall I lie in my bloodstained shroud, and justice not be done upon my murderer?' It is a look that says, Another day gone by and nothing done--nothing discovered.' Then he fades gradually, and I see no more of him till next night; but my hand remains numb and cold for more than an hour after he has left me."

The General was staring at Richard as if he could hardly believe the evidence of his ears. "Come," he said very gently, "let us take a turn in the garden. The air of this room is oppressive. Give me your arm, boy. This English winter finds out the weak places in an old man's joints."

As they paced the garden arm in arm, Richard (or Lionel--for Lionel it was, as the reader will long ago have surmised) went back to the topic he had last been talking about. "Were I to tell to a physician what I have just told you," he said, "he would simply put me down as the victim of a mental hallucination; he would tell me that I was suffering from a by no means uncommon form of cerebral excitement. So be it. I suppose I am the victim of a mental hallucination: but call it by what name you will, to me it is a most serious and terrible reality--a visitation that no medicines, no society, no change of scene, can alter or rid me of; that one thing alone can rid me of. When I have accomplished the bitter task that is appointed me to do, then, and then only, will this burden be lifted off my soul: then, and not till then, will Percy Osmond cease to visit me."

Again he sighed deeply. The General pressed the arm that held his a little more tightly, but did not speak. The case was beyond his simple skill. He was powerless to comfort or console the bruised spirit by his side. In silence they finished their walk.

But comfort and consolation were not altogether denied to Lionel Dering. Edith, and she alone, had power to charm away the cloud from off his brow, the shadow from off his heart. For the time being, all his troubles and anxieties were forgotten. For a little while, when with her, he would seem like the Lionel Dering of other days: buoyant, hopeful, full of energy, and glad with the promise of the happy future before him. But when he had kissed her and said good-night, long before he reached Park Newton, the cloud would be back again as deep as before. The burden which, as he firmly believed, had been laid upon his shoulders seemed to grow heavier from day to day. "Oh that I could cast it from me!" he would often say to himself with a sort of anguish. "Why did I not go to the other side of the world at first? There peace and obscurity would have been mine. But it is too late now--too late!"
CHAPTER XI. MRS. MCDERMOTT WANTS HER MONEY
Squire Culpepper, was laid up with an attack of his old enemy the gout. Thereby his temper was by no means improved. But to the ordinary pains which attend podagra was superadded another source of irritation and alarm. The shares of the Alcazar Silver Mining Company, in which promising speculation the Squire had invested the whole of his savings, had of late been going down slowly but steadily in the market. It was altogether unaccountable. They had no sooner reached the high-water point of value than they began to fall. But the difficulty had been to know when the high-water mark was reached. The Squire had bought at a low figure--at a remarkably low figure--and when, subsequently, the shares had risen so tremendously in value, he had often been tempted to sell out and realize. But the temptation to keep holding on, in the hope of being able to realize still larger profits, had hitherto proved the stronger of the two.

At first he had looked upon the decline as being merely one of those ordinary market fluctuations such as even the best securities are liable to at times. But at length he took alarm and wrote to his friend Mr. Bird, the secretary of the company, and the man who had persuaded him to invest so heavily in Alcazar securities.

To the Squire's letter Mr. Bird replied as under:

"My Dear Mr. Culpepper,--Your note of yesterday did not surprise me in the least. I quite expected to hear from you some days ago respecting the fall in Alcazars. Several other shareholders have either written to me or seen me on the same subject. The truth is that the partisans of a rival company (a company, be it said, whose shares have never yet risen to par, and are never likely to do so) have been doing their best to injure us by spreading abroad a report that a sudden irruption of water had put a stop to all our workings for an indefinite length of time. The whole affair is an infamous canard, having no other object than to discredit us in the opinion of the public. Unfortunately it is next to impossible to bring such things home to any particular individual, but I have every reason to believe that one or two who are most deeply implicated in this scandalous affair have been buying heavily for the rise which is sure to take place in a few days from the present time; and I strongly advise you, my dear sir, to follow their example. You cannot possibly do better. So satisfied am I on that point, that within the last few days I have invested every spare shilling of my own in Alcazars.

"In conclusion, I may just state that according to advices from our South American managers up to the latest date, received by me per last night's mail, the mine was never in so flourishing a condition as at the present moment.

"It is with the utmost confidence that I look forward to the declaration of a dividend and a bonus equivalent in the gross to seventy-five per cent. per annum, at the close of the current half-year.

"I remain, my dear Mr. Culpepper,

"Very truly yours,

"Theodore Bird."

This letter allayed the Squire's fears and kept him quiet for several days. Strange to say, however, the Alcazars still kept steadily declining, and at length the old man became seriously alarmed. He wrote again to Mr. Bird, but this time there came no answer. For five days he waited in such a state of mental agony, as he had never known before. He would have gone up to London himself, in order to see Mr. Bird, but by this time the gout had laid hold of him so severely that it was quite impossible for him to venture out of the house. What to do he knew not. No one, not even his daughter, knew how, or in what speculation, he had invested his money, and yet it was evident that he must now take some one into his confidence in the matter, or else be prepared to let the Alcazars go up or down at their own sweet will, and accept the result, whatever it might be, when he should be sufficiently recovered to attend to business himself. But in the face of matters, as they now stood, that was more than he could afford to do---it was more than he dare do. Where, then, was the person on whose honour, discretion, and good business knowledge he could safely rely to assist him in the dilemma in which he now found himself? He had employed five or six brokers at different times during the last eighteen months to buy stock for him, but he had no particular knowledge of, or confidence in, any of them. In Mr. Bird himself he had always placed the most implicit confidence, but that confidence had been severely shaken of late. Bird had originally been a protégé of his own, and had been placed by him as a junior clerk in Mr. Cope's bank. There he had remained for years, gradually working his way up, and always very grateful to the Squire for the interest that he had taken in his welfare. Then came an advantageous removal to London, after which the Squire lost sight of him for several years. When he next turned up it was as secretary to the Alcazar Mining Company, and as promoter of several other speculative schemes, with a fine house in the Regent's Park, a capital cellar of wines, and a pair of steppers in his brougham that a duchess might have been proud of. The Squire went to dine with him. Mr. Bird did not fail delicately to insinuate that to Mr. Culpepper's generous kindness in giving him such an excellent start in life he attributed all his after success, and that the blessings by which he was now surrounded owed their origin to the Squire alone. Before the day was over, Mr. Culpepper had agreed to invest a very considerable sum in Alcazar stock.

Squire Culpepper's income, considering his position and influence, was anything but a large one. It amounted in all to very little more than three thousand a year. The estate itself was strictly entailed, all but one corner of it, which had been bought by the present Squire and added to it. It was in this corner that he had proposed to build his new mansion. But unless the Alcazar shares should rise very much again in public favour, there would be no funds forthcoming wherewith to build a new mansion, or even to repair the old one.

Out of this income of three thousand a year the Squire had always contrived to save something; and thus, little by little, he had gradually accumulated some fifteen thousand pounds. This was to be Jane's dowry when she should marry. It was the hope of being able to turn this fifteen thousand into sixty or seventy thousand that had been his first inducement to speculate; and had he sold out when the Alcazars were at the flood tide of their success, not only would this hope have been realized, but what to many had seemed an idle boast, that before long he would have built for him a new and a more magnificent Pincote, would have become a substantial reality.

These golden prospects, however, these magnificent castles in the air, had of late been losing their brightness and were fast resolving themselves into the misty cloud-land from which they had sprung. Very loath, indeed, was the Squire to let them go. Buoyed up by Mr. Bird's letter, he had deferred from day to day the painful act of selling out, still clinging with desperate tenacity to his cloudy battlements, and trying with all his might to believe that the frown which fortune had of late put on had been merely assumed to frighten him for a little while, and that behind it her golden smile was still lurking, and ready at any time to shine on him again.

But, by-and-by, there came a day when the Alcazars, still bent on going down, reached at one fell plunge a lower deep than they had ever dropped to before. Next morning they were quoted in the lists at ten shillings per share less than they had been on the day when Squire Culpepper, allured by their fatal beauty, ventured on his first investment.

The London papers reached Pincote about luncheon time; and on this particular day the Squire, with his leg; swathed in flannel, was just discussing a basin of chicken broth when the post came in. With eager fingers that trembled with excitement he tore off the wrapper, turned to the City article, and there read the fatal news. The blow was so stunning that for a little while he could scarcely realize it. He pushed away his basin of broth untasted. His head drooped into his hands, and bitter tears sprang to his eyes. For the first time since his wife's death the old man cried.

With his newspapers had come several letters, but they all lay untouched beside him for more than an hour. By-and-by he roused himself sufficiently from his abstraction to turn them listlessly over, and then to take them up one after another and stare at their superscriptions with glazed, incurious eyes. There was only one, and it was the last one that he took up, which roused his dull senses to any sign of recognition. "This must be from Fanny," he said. "I'd swear to her writing anywhere. All the way from Ems, too. Still as fond of those nauseous German waters as ever she was. No wonder she's never well." Then his thoughts reverted to his loss, and with a sigh he dropped the letter on the table.

Two or three minutes later a sudden colour flushed his cheeks, and with nervous fingers he sought on the table for the letter from Ems.

"She--she can't be writing for her money!" he said with a gasp. Then he tore open the letter. This is what he read therein:--

"My Dear Brother,--

"I hope that this will find you quite well, although you were never the man to give me the least credit for caring about your health. I hope to be in England in the course of another fortnight, when I shall at once make my way to Pincote. I presume that I shall not be looked upon as an intruder if I ask you to find me a bed for a few nights. Goodness knows it is not often I trouble you, and I am sure Jane must have many things to talk about to me, who am her nearest living female relative. As regards the five thousand pounds which I desired you to invest for me, or make use of in any way that might seem most desirable under the circumstances, I shall be glad if you will arrange to hand it over to me together with any amount that may have accrued to it for interest, immediately upon my arrival at Pincote. I have decided to invest all my available funds in real estate: nothing else seems permanent and safe in these days of chances and changes. For my part, I shan't be a bit surprised if within the next ten years we see the guillotine as hard at work again as ever it was in the dreadful days of the First Revolution. I think it right to let you know about the money so that you may be prepared. Give my love to Jane. I hope her hair is no longer that intolerable red that it used to be. The resources of art are many and various, and something could doubtless be done for her. But I must talk to her about all these matters when I see her, although I am afraid that nothing can ever make her pretty. Believe me your loving sister,

"Fanny Mcdermott.

"P.S.--Don't give me a bedroom that faces either the east or the north; and not too many stairs to climb."

Jane Culpepper, coming into the room a quarter of an hour later, found her father lying in a sort of heap in his chair and quite unconscious. He was carried to bed; and Dr. Davidson was quickly on the spot. The attack, although sufficiently alarming, was pronounced to be not immediately dangerous, and in about a couple of hours the Squire had thoroughly recovered consciousness. His first words, whispered in Jane's ear, were, "Send for young Bristow." Jane could hardly believe that she had heard aright, and bent her head again that her father might repeat his words. Then, wondering greatly, she sent off a brief note to Tom, asking him to come up to Pincote with as little delay as possible. Two hours later Tom was there.

By this time the Squire was sufficiently recovered to be able to sit up in bed and talk in a feeble, querulous way, very different from his ordinary bluff, hearty style. Why he had sent for Tom he could not have told any one: he did not know himself. Tom's name had sprung instinctively to his lips while he was yet only half conscious--a pretty sure proof that Tom's image must have been in his thoughts previously.

"Bristow," he said feebly as he held his hand out to Tom, "I want you to do me a favour."

"You may command me, sir, in any and every way," was Tom's hearty answer.

"I have invested a considerable amount of money in the Alcazar Silver Mining Company."

"Ah!" interjected Tom, and his face lengthened visibly.

"The shares have been going down for this month past--not that I have by any means lost confidence in them--and I want you to go up to London for me, being laid up myself with this cursed gout, and inquire personally into the stability of the concern. I won't conceal from you that I am slightly anxious and uneasy, although I have Bird's word for it--clever fellow, Bird, very: you ought to know him--that the present panic is merely a temporary affair, and that the shares will go up again, in a few days, higher than they have ever been yet. In any case, there can be no harm in your making a few private inquiries on my behalf, and reporting the result to me. You are not very busy, I suppose, and you could go up to town--when?" His tone was very anxious as he asked this question.

"By the next train," answered Tom.

"Good boy--good boy!" said the Squire gratefully. "And you'll telegraph me, won't you? Don't wait to write, but telegraph to me."

"Don't think me impertinent if I ask you to tell me the extent of your liabilities as regards the Alcazar Mining Company."

"Why--ah--I cannot tell you to a fraction. A few thousands, I suppose. But I don't see how that fact can interest you."

Tom's long face grew still longer. "Don't you think, sir," he said, "that it might be advisable for you to empower me to sell out your stock in your behalf, should I find on inquiry to-morrow that there is the least likelihood of its sinking any lower than it is now?"

"Sell out!" exclaimed the Squire in horror. "Certainly not. What next, pray? Bird said the shares were sure to go up again, and I'll pin my faith to Bird through thick and thin."

It was with a sad heart that Tom left Pincote. He knew something of the Alcazar Mining Company, and he had no faith in its stability. He knew something of Mr. Bird, the secretary, and he had no faith in his honesty.

Mrs. McDermott was Squire Culpepper's only sister. She had been a widow for several years. She was perpetually travelling about, ostensibly in search of health, but really in search of change and excitement. The money about which she was writing to her brother was a sum of five thousand pounds which she had put into his hands some two or three years previously, with a request that he would invest it for her in some way, or put it to whatever use he might deem most advisable. He had managed her monetary affairs for her ever since her husband's death, and there was nothing strange in such a request. At first the amount had been invested in railway debentures, which brought in a modest four per cent. But when the Alcazar shares began to rise so rapidly, it seemed to the Squire that he would have been wronging his sister had he neglected to let her participate in the wonderful golden harvest that lay so close to his hand. To have written to her on the subject would have been the merest matter of form. She would only have answered, "Don't bother me, but do as you like with the money till I want it for something else." Then what a glorious surprise it would be to her to find that her little fortune had actually trebled and quadrupled itself in so short a space of time! Nothing venture, nothing win. The railway debentures were at once disposed of and Alcazar shares bought in their stead; and the Squire chuckled to himself many a time when he thought of his happy audacity in acting as he had done without consulting any one except his friend Mr. Bird.

But in proportion to his previous exultation was the dread which now chilled his heart, that not only might his daughter's dowry be lost to her for ever, but that his sister's money also--the savings of many years--might be sunk beyond recovery in the wreck that now seemed so close at hand. Most people under such circumstances would have telegraphed to their brokers to sell out at every risk; but there was a mixture of hopefulness and obstinacy in the Squire's disposition that made him cling to his purpose with a tenacity that would go far either to ruin him or make his fortune, as the case might be.

Tom Bristow did not reach London till long after business hours, but so anxious was he with regard to the matter which had taken him there, that he could not sit down comfortably and wait till morning before beginning his inquiries. After spending ten minutes at his hotel he took a hansom and drove off at once to the offices of the Alcazar Mining Company. The private watchman whose duty it was to look after the premises at night at once supplied him with Mr. Bird's address, and half an hour later Tom found himself in the neighbourhood of the Regent's Park. Mr. Bird's house was readily found, but Mr. Bird himself was not at home, as a rough-looking man with a short pipe in his mouth who, somewhat to Tom's surprise, answered his impatient knock, at once told him. "Where is Mr. Bird, and when can I see him?" asked Tom.

"As to where he is--I should say that by this time he's some hundreds of miles on his way to America or Australia. As to when you can see him--why you can see him when you can catch him, and not before."

"Then he's gone?" said Tom incredulously.

"Yes, sir, he's gone. The nest's empty and the bird's flown," added the man with a grin at his own witticism; "and the whole blessed concern has gone to smash."

"And the Squire will expect a telegram from me to-night!" muttered Tom.

CHAPTER XII. FOOTSTEPS IN THE ROOM
During the few months that elapsed between the murder of Percy Osmond and the arrival of General St. George in England, Park Newton had been shut up, Pearce, the old family butler, being left as custodian of the house. Of the former establishment he was allowed to retain his niece, Miss Piper, who had been still-room maid, and Finch, formerly a footman, but afterwards promoted to be Mr. Dering's body-servant; together with a woman or two to do the rough work of the house.

When the General fixed his home at Park Newton these people were all retained in their places, but their numbers were augmented by eight or ten more. All his life the General had been used to be waited upon by a number of people, and he could not quite get out of the way of it even in England.

On a certain wintry evening early in the new year, Finch and Miss Piper were sitting in the drawing-room toasting their toes before a seasonable fire. Between them was a small table on which stood a decanter of Madeira and two glasses, together with a dish of apples, nuts, and oranges. The family had gone out to dinner, and would not be home till late; Mr. Pearce had driven into Duxley to pay the tradesmen's accounts, and for the time being Mr. Finch and his fair companion commanded the situation.

Miss Piper wore a dress of rustling plum-coloured silk. At her elbow was a smelling-bottle and a lace-edged handkerchief. Mr. Finch, with one of General St. George's snuffboxes by his side, was lounging in his easy-chair, with all the graceful nonchalance of an old club-man who has just partaken of an excellent dinner.

"This Madeira is not so bad," he said condescendingly, as he swallowed his third glass at a gulp with the gusto of a connoisseur. "Miss Piper," refilling his glass, "I look towards you. Here's your very good health. May you live long and die happy."

"Oh, Mr. Finch! deeply gratified, I'm sure."

"I must have fallen into a doze just now, because I never heard you when you opened the door, and was quite startled when I saw you standing beside me. But then you always do go about the house more quietly than anybody else--except the ghost himself."

Miss Piper glanced round with a shudder, and hitched her chair a little nearer the fire and Mr. Finch. "But surely, Mr. Finch," she said, "you are not one of those who believe that Park Newton is haunted? Uncle Pearce says that he never heard of such rubbish in the whole course of his life."

"Can a man doubt the evidence of his own senses, ma'am? I have lived in too many good families to have any imagination: I am matter-of-fact to the back-bone. Such being the case, what then? Why simply this, Miss Piper: that I know for a fact this house is haunted. Haven't I heard noises myself?"

"Gracious goodness! What kind of noises, Mr. Finch?"

"Why--er--rumblings and grumblings, and--er--moanings and scratchings. And haven't I woke up in the middle of the night, and sat up in bed, and listened and heard strange noises that couldn't be made by anything mortal? And then in the dusk of evening, haven't I seen the curtains move, and heard feet come pitter-pattering down the stairs; and far-away doors clash in the dark as if shut by ghostly hands? Dreadful, I assure you."

"You make me feel quite nervous!" cried Miss Piper, edging an inch nearer.

"The old clock on the second landing has never kept right time since the night of the murder. And didn't Mary Ryan swear that she saw Mr. Percy Osmond coming downstairs one evening, in his bloodstained shirt?--asking your pardon, Miss Piper, for mentioning such a garment before a lady. These are facts that can't be got over. But there's worse to follow."

"Whatever do you mean, Mr. Finch?"

"At first the house was haunted by one ghost, but now they do say there's two of them."

"Oh, lor! Two! And whose is the second one?"

"Why, whose ghost should it be but that of our late master, Mr. Lionel Dering? Five servants have left in six weeks, and I shall give warning next Saturday."

"My nerves are turning to jelly," returned Miss Piper. "Oh, Mr. Finch, we should be dull indeed at Park Newton if you were to go away!"

"Then why not go with me and make my life one long happiness? You know my feelings, you know that I----"

"No more of that Mr. Finch, if you please. I know your feelings, and you know my sentiments. Nothing can ever change them. But don't let us talk any more nonsense. I want you to tell me about the ghosts."

"I don't know that I've much more to tell," said Finch, in a mortified tone.

"But about Mr. Dering--Mr. Lionel, I mean? Which of the servants was it that saw his ghost?"

"I am unable to give you any details, Miss Piper, as I never condescend to listen to the gossip of my inferiors; but I believe it to be the general talk in the servants' hall that the ghost of Mr. Lionel has been seen three or four times slowly pacing the big corridor by moonlight."

"How were the idiots to know that it was Mr. Lionel Dering?" asked Piper with a toss of the head. "Not one of them ever saw him when he was alive."

"Yes, Jane Minnows saw him in court during the trial, and she knew the ghost the moment she saw it."

"But then Jane Minnows was a terrible storyteller, and just as likely as not to invent all about the ghost simply to get herself talked about. But tell me, Mr. Finch, have you not noticed the remarkable likeness that exists between Mr. Richard Dering and his poor brother?"

"As a gentleman of discernment, Miss Piper, I have noticed the likeness of which you speak. He has the very same nose, the very same hands, the very same way of sitting in his chair. And then the voice! I give you my word of honour that when Mr. Richard yesterday called out rather suddenly 'Finch,' you might have knocked me down with a cork. It sounded for all the world as if my poor master had come back from the grave, and had called to me just as he used to do."

"You are not one of those, Mr. Finch, who believed in the guilt of Mr. Dering?"

"I never did believe in it and I never will to the last day of my life," said Finch, sturdily. "No one, who knew Mr. Lionel as I knew him, could harbour such a thought for a single moment."

"Uncle Pearce says exactly the same as you. 'No power on earth could make me believe it.' Them's his very words. But I say, Mr. Finch, isn't the old General a darling?"

"Yes, Miss Piper, I approve of the General--I approve of him very much indeed. But Mr. Kester St. George is a sort of person whom I would never condescend to engage as my employer. I don't like that gentleman. It seems a strange thing to say, but he has never looked his proper self since the night of the murder. His man tells me that he has to drench himself with brandy every morning before he can dress himself. Who knows? Perhaps it's the ghosts. They're enough to turn any man's brain."

"I know that I shouldn't like to go after dark anywhere near where the murder was done," said Miss Piper. "It's a good job they have nailed the door up. There's no getting either in or out of the room now."

"And yet they do say," remarked Finch, "that on the eighth of every month--you know the murder was done on the eighth of May--a little before midnight, footsteps can be heard--the noise of some one walking about in the nailed-up room. You, as the niece of Mr. Pearce, have not been told this, but it has been known to me all along."

"But you don't believe it, Mr. Finch?"

"Well, I don't know so much about that," answered Finch, dubiously. "You see it was on account of them footsteps that Sims and Baker left last month. They had been told about the footsteps, and they made up their minds to go and hear them. They did hear them, and they gave warning next day. They told Mr. Pearce that the place wasn't lively enough for them. But it was the footsteps that drove them away."

"After what you have told me, I shall be frightened of moving out of my own room after dusk. Listen!" cried Miss Piper, jumping up in alarm. "That's uncle's ring at the side bell. He must have got back before his time."

It was as Finch had stated. Kester St. George was staying as his uncle's guest at Park Newton. The General's letter found him at Paris, where he had been living of late almost en permanence. It was couched in such a style that he saw clearly if he were to refuse the invitation thus given, a breach would be created between his uncle and himself which might never be healed in time to come; and, distasteful as the idea of visiting Park Newton was to him, he was not the man to let any sentimental rubbish, as he himself would have been the first to call it, stand in the way of any possible advantage that might accrue to him hereafter. Rich though he was, he still hankered after his uncle's money-bags almost as keenly as in the days when he was so poor; and in his uncle's letter there were one or two sentences which seemed to imply that the probability of their one day becoming his own was by no means so remote as he had at one time deemed it to be.

"And who has so much right to the old boy's savings as I have?" he asked himself. "Certainly not that scowling black-browed Richard Dering. I hope with all my heart that he'll be gone back to India--or to Jericho--or to the bottom of the sea--before I get to Park Newton."

But when he did reach Park Newton he found, greatly to his disgust, that Richard Dering was still there, and that there were no signs whatever of his speedy departure. That there was no love lost between the two men was evident both to themselves and others; but although their coolness towards each other could hardly fail to be noticed by General St. George, he never made the slightest allusion to it, but treated them both as if they were the best of possible friends. Kester he treated with greater cordiality than he had ever accorded to him before.

Richard and Kester saw hardly anything of each other except at the dinner-table, and then the conversation between them was limited to the baldest possible topics. Richard never sat over his wine, and generally asked and obtained his uncle's permission to leave the table the moment dessert was placed upon it. He was an early riser, and had breakfasted and was out riding or walking long before his uncle or cousin made their appearance downstairs.

But these meetings over dinner, brief though they were, were to Kester like a dreadful oft-recurring nightmare which, although it may last for a minute or two only, murders sleep by the dread which it inspires before it comes, and the horror it leaves behind it after it has gone. Richard's voice, his eyes, the swing of his walk, the very pose of his head, were all so many reminders to Kester of a dead and gone man, the faintest recollection of whom he would fain have erased not from his own memory alone, but from that of every one else who had known him. But to hear Richard speak was to hear, as it were, Lionel speaking from the tomb.

General St. George made the delicate state of his health a plea for not seeing much company at Park Newton, nor did he visit much himself. But there was no such restriction on Kester, and he was out nearly every day at one place or another, though he generally contrived to get back in time to dine with his uncle. He had not forgotten Dr. Bolus's advice, and for the last month or two he had been leading a very quiet life indeed. As a result of this, he fancied that there was a decided improvement in the state of his health. In any case, he felt quite sure that the symptoms which had troubled him so much at one time troubled him less frequently now, and were milder at each recurrence. As a consequence, he had shrunk with a sort of morbid dread from seeking any further professional advice. He always felt the worst in a morning--so weak, nervous, and depressed when he woke up from the three or four hours of troubled sleep, which was all that nature could now be persuaded to give him. Let him tire himself as he might, he never could get much more sleep than when he went to bed comparatively fresh, the consequence simply being that he was more weak and ill than usual next morning. For a little while he tried narcotics; but the remedy proved worse than the disease it was intended to cure. More sleep he got, it is true; but sleep so burdened with frightful dreams that it seemed to him as if it would be better to lie awake for ever, than run the risk of floating helplessly in such a sea of horrors any more.

As Finch had said, he had to dose himself heavily with brandy before he could dress and crawl downstairs to breakfast. But as the day wore on he always got stronger and better, so that by the time it was necessary to dress for dinner, he was quite like his old self again, as well seemingly and as buoyant as the Kester St. George of a dozen years before. It was the dark hours that tried him most, when he was left alone in his great gloomy bedroom, with a candle, and a book, and his own thoughts.

He had brought his valet with him to Park Newton. Not Pierre Janvard this time. Pierre had left Mr. St. George's service a little while previously, and had started business on his own account as an hotel keeper at Bath.

Mr. St. George's new valet was an Englishman named Dobbs. He was a well-trained servant--noiseless, deferential, smooth-spoken, and treating all his master's whims and capricious fluctuations of temper as the merest matter of course: a man who would allow himself to be sworn at, and called an idiot, an ass, the biggest blockhead in existence; and retaliate only with a faint smile of deprecation, and a gentle rubbing of his lean white hands.

Mr. St. George had a strange dislike to being left alone. When he could not have any other society--that is to say, early in the morning, and late at night, after everybody else was in bed--he would rather have the company of Dobbs than that of his own thoughts only. In a morning, between six and seven--long before daylight in winter--Dobbs was there in his master's room, arranging his clothes, laying out his dressing-case, mixing him his cup of chocolate, supplying him with his brandy, doing anything--it did not matter what--so long as he was not out of his master's sight for many minutes at a time.

Then at night, late, when the old house was as quiet as a tomb, Mr. St. George would sit in his dressing-room, drinking cold brandy-and-water, and smoking cigars till far into the small hours. It was Dobbs's duty at such times to sit with his master in a chair removed a few yards away, and a little behind that of Mr. St. George. It was not that Kester wanted him there for conversational purposes, for he rarely condescended to speak to him except to ask him for something that he wanted. The man's silent presence was all that he required, and for such a duty as that Dobbs was invaluable. He never dozed--he would have sat up all night without closing an eye--he never read, he never sneezed or coughed, or made his presence objectionable in any way; and he never spoke unless first spoken to. Silent, watchful, and alert, he was always there and always the same.

Mr. St. George never slept without a light in his room, and Dobbs, who had a little sofa-bed in the dressing-room, and who was a remarkably light sleeper, was instructed to arouse his master at once should he hear the latter begin to toss about or moan in his sleep.

The eighth of February had come. Kester was beginning to think that it was about time his visit to Park Newton should be brought to a close. He had two horses in training at Chantilly, on which he based some brilliant expectations, and his heart and thoughts were in the stable with his pets. Every day that he prolonged his stay at Park Newton merely served to deepen his hatred of the place. "I shall have a fit of horrors if I stay here much longer," he said to himself. "I'll invent some important business, and try to get away the day after to-morrow. I must persuade the old boy to come and spend a month with me at Chantilly when the spring sets fairly in."

Dinner that day was quite an hour later than usual. General St. George had been to see an old friend who was ill, and he did not get back till late. Contrary to his usual practice, Richard Dering sat this evening with his uncle and cousin, after the cloth was removed: He sat drinking his wine in an absent mood, and scarcely joining in the conversation at all. By-and-by Pearce brought a note to the General on a salver. He put on his spectacles, opened the note, and read it. Then, with a little peevish exclamation, he tossed it into the fire.

"Another of them," he said. "We shall be left before long without a servant to wait on us. I certainly did not anticipate this annoyance when I came to live at Park Newton."

"What is the annoyance of which you speak?" asked Kester.

"Why, that fellow Finch has just given me notice that he intends to leave this day month. That will make the sixth of them, man or maid, that has left me since I came here; and I hear that the rest, old and new, are all likely to follow suit before long."

"You astonish me," said Kester. "You have always seemed to me the most indulgent of masters. If anything, too lenient--excuse me, sir, for saying so--and I can't understand at all why these idiots should want to leave you."

"Oh, it's not me they want to leave: it's the house that doesn't suit them."

"The house! And what have they to complain of as regards the house?"

"They swear, every man jack of them, that it's haunted."

Kester's pale face became a shade paler. He fingered his empty wine glass nervously and did not answer for a little while.

"Park Newton haunted! What ridiculous nonsense is this?" he said at last with a forced laugh. "I lived in the house for years when I was a lad; but I certainly never knew before that it had so peculiar a reputation."

"It is only of late--only since the murder last May--that people have got into the way of saying these things."

Again Kester was silent. Richard Dering's keen glance was fixed on his face. He felt it rather than saw it. His under lip quivered slightly. He moved uneasily in his chair.

"What a parcel of blockheads these people must be!" he exclaimed at last. "Do we live in the nineteenth century, or have we gone back to the middle ages? If I were in your place, sir, I would send the whole lot packing, and have an entirely new set from London. It is only these superstitious country-bred louts who believe in such rubbish as ghosts: your thoroughbred Cockney has no faith in anything half so unsubstantial."

"It is certainly very singular," said the General, "that these idle fancies of weak brains should be so contagious. The first man who propagates the idea of a house being haunted has much to answer for. He never finds any lack of ready-made believers; and it is remarkable that we who know better, when we have a subject like this so persistently forced on our notice, come at last, quite unconsciously to ourselves and with no desire whatever to do so, to give a sort of half credence to it. We listen with a more attentive ear to statements so obstinately made, and emanating from so many different sources."

"My dear uncle," cried Kester, "you are surely never going to allow yourself to be converted into a believer in this wretched nonsense!"

"My dear Kester, I am not aware that I have ever been accounted as a superstitious man, and I don't think that I am going to become one so late in the day. I merely say that there is about these matters a certain degree of contagion which it is next to impossible altogether to resist."

Richard, who up to this point had taken no part in the conversation, now spoke. "From what I can make out," he said, "there seems to be a strange coherence, a remarkable similarity, in the stories told by the different persons who profess to have seen these appearances. And now they are not content with saying that Park Newton is haunted by one ghost: they will have it that two of them have been seen of late."

"Two of them!" exclaimed the General and Kester in one breath.

"Ay, two of them," answered Richard. "One of them I need not name. The other one is said to be the ghost of my poor lost brother."

"What wretched fabrications are these!" exclaimed Kester. "Are you and I, sir," turning to the General, "to have our lives worried and our peace of mind broken by the babbling of a set of idiots, such as there unfortunately seems to be in this house?"

"They do not disturb my peace of mind, Kester."

"They do mine, sir. This house is my property--pardon me for mentioning the fact. Once let it acquire the unenviable reputation of being haunted, and for fifty years to come everybody will swear that it is so. Should you, sir, ever choose to leave the house, what chance shall I have of getting another tenant? None! With the reputation of being haunted, no one will live in it. Slowly but surely it will go to rack and ruin."

"It is hardly to be wondered at," said the General, "that these people have connected a tragedy so terrible, as that which will make Park Newton memorable for a century to come, with certain ghostly appearances. I myself find my thoughts dwelling upon the same thing very frequently indeed. What a strange, sad fate was that of poor young Osmond! Him I did not know. But in my dreams I am continually seeing the face of my poor lost boy whose fate was only one degree less sad. Do you never find yourself haunted in the same way, Kester?"

"Haunted, Uncle Lionel? That is a strange word to make use of. I have not forgotten my cousin, of course--nor am I likely ever to do so."

For a little while they all sat in silence. Nothing was heard save the crackling of the fire, or the dropping of a cinder; or, now and then, the moaning of the wintry wind, as it crept about the old house, trying the doors and windows, and seeming as though it were burdened with the weight of some terrible secret which it was striving to tell but could not.

Suddenly Richard Dering spoke. "This is the eighth of February," he said. "Nine months ago to-night, Percy Osmond was murdered, and under this very roof. To-night, at twelve o'clock, if what these people allege be true, footsteps will be heard--the noise of some one walking up and down the room where the murder was committed. Such being the case, what more easy than to prove or disprove the accuracy of at least this part of the story? Why not go, all three of us, a few minutes before twelve; and, accompanied by two or three of the servants who shall be chosen by the rest as a deputation, station ourselves close to the door of the nailed-up room, and there await the result? I do not for one moment anticipate that we shall either see or hear anything out of the ordinary way. Once let us prove this to the satisfaction of the servants, and I don't think that we shall be troubled with much more nonsense about ghostly footsteps or appearances at Park Newton."

"Not a bad idea, Dick, by any means," said the General. "What say you, Kester?"

Kester had pushed back his chair from the table while Richard was speaking. There was a strange look on his face: in his eyes terror, on his lips a derisive smile. He emptied his glass before answering.

"Faith, sir," he said, "it seems to me that you attach far too much importance to the cackling of these idiots. I would treat their assertions with the contempt they deserve, and send the whole crew about their business before they were two days older. Your presence there, as it seems to me, would be like a confession of your belief in the possible truth of certain statements which are really so childish that no sensible person can treat them otherwise than with the most supreme contempt."

"I hardly agree with you there, Kester," said General St. George. "Our presence would be like a guarantee of good faith, and would set the question at rest at once and for ever. At all events, the plan is one which I mean to try, and I should like both of you to be there with me. Richard, you can arrange for certain of the servants to be ready a few minutes before midnight."

"Really, sir, I should feel obliged if you would excuse me from accompanying you," said Kester. "I have a bad headache to-night, and intend to get between the sheets as soon as possible."

"Pooh--pooh--pooh!" said the General, hastily. "I shall not excuse you. Hang your headaches! When I was a young fellow we left headaches to the women, and did not know what such things were ourselves. I have set my mind on having a game of backgammon with you this evening, and I shall not let you go."

His uncle's tone was so peremptory that Kester dared not say another word. He sat down again in silence.

At five minutes before twelve, they all met in the library--General St. George, Richard, Kester, and a deputation from the servants' hall, headed by Finch with a pair of lighted candles. Finch led the way through the cold and dismal passages, up the black oaken staircase, through the dreary picture gallery, where the portrait of each dead and gone St. George looked down inquiringly, and seemed to ask the meaning of so strange a procession; and so at last they reached the door of the nailed-up room. Finch deposited his candles on the nearest window-sill, and by their dim, uncertain light, the company grouped themselves round the door, the servants a little way behind their superiors, and waited. No one spoke: no one wanted to speak. They were thinking of the dark tragedy that, but a few short months before, and in the dead of night, had been enacted behind that shut-up door. Presently the turret-clock began to strike. Slowly and lingeringly it tolled, as if unwilling to let the dying day drop into its grave. Over all there, a deeper hush fell. Twelve solemn strokes, and then silence and another day.

Silence for, perhaps, the space of half a minute; when, with an indescribable awe, they heard, one and all, a slight noise, as of a chair being pushed back; and next moment came the sound, clear, distinct, and unmistakable, of footsteps slowly pacing the bare, polished floor of the nailed-up room. The servants all shrank back a little, and turned their white and frightened faces on one another. Kester St. George, too, staggered back a step or two, and leaned for support against an angle of the wall.

Even at that supreme moment he could feel that the cold, stern eyes of Richard Dering were fixed on his face, and he hated him with a hatred like death.

Hardly breathing, they all listened, while the footsteps slowly, unhesitatingly, paced the room. Suddenly they heard another sound which several there present at once recognized. What they heard was the noise of a man coughing; and the cough they heard was the short, dry, grating cough that had been peculiar to Mr. Percy Osmond, and to him alone. Finch recognized it in a moment. So did Kester St. George; who, with a quick cry of pain, pressed his hand to his heart, and staggering back a pace or two, fell to the ground in a dead faint.
CHAPTER XIII. THE SQUIRE'S TRIBULATION
What more thankless office is there than to be the bearer of ill news to those we love or regard? Not often in the course of his life had such a duty fallen to the lot of Tom Bristow, and never had the burden seemed so heavy as on this present occasion. He would gladly have given a very fair share of all that he was worth could he but have turned his ill news into good news, or else have imposed upon some one else the telling of those evil tidings of which he was the bearer. From London he had sent a carefully-worded telegram to the Squire, which the latter would know how to interpret, hoping thereby to break in some measure the force of the blow which nothing could much longer avert.

When, on his return to Pincote, Tom was ushered into the Squire's room, he found the old man, to all appearance, very much better in health than when he had left him. Mental anxiety had gone a long way towards curing, for the time being, the physical ills from which he had been suffering. He held out his hand, and gave a long, searching look into Tom's face.

"All gone?" he whispered.

"Yes--all gone," answered Tom.

He gripped Tom's hand very hard. "I did not think it was quite so bad as that," he said. "Not quite. My poor Jenny! My poor little girl! What is to become of her after I'm gone? And Bird, too! The confidence I had in that villain!" He sighed deeply, dropped Tom's hand, and shut his eyes for a few moments, as if in pain.

"You will stay to dinner," he said, presently.

"If you will excuse me to-day----" began Tom.

"But I won't excuse you, sir. Why on earth should I?" he answered, with a flash of his old irritability. "The old house is not good enough for you, I suppose, now you know it holds nothing but paupers."

"Thank you, sir: I will stay to dinner," said Tom, quietly.

"It will be a charity to Jenny, too," added the Squire. "She's been moped up indoors, without a soul to speak to, for I don't know how long. And it's more than a month since she heard from young Cope--his letters must have miscarried, you know--and I'm afraid that's preying on her mind; and so you had better keep her company to-day."

Tom needed no further pressing, we may be sure. He smiled grimly to himself at the idea of Edward Cope's long silence being a matter of distress to Jane. He rose to go.

"Just ring that bell, will you?" said the Squire. "And sit down again for another minute or two. There's something I wanted to say to you, but I can't call to mind what it is just now."

Jane answered the bell in person. She gave Tom her hand in silence, but there was a world of meaning in her eyes as she did so.

"My dear, I wish you would see whether Ridley is anywhere about, and send word that I want to see him. What do you think the villain has done?"

"I don't know, I'm sure, papa."

"Why, he's planted a lot of white hyacinths along with the purple ones in your poor mother's favourite bed opposite the dressing-room window, when he knows very well that I never have any but purple ones there. She never had any but purple ones, and I never will. The scoundrel deserves to be well horsewhipped. I'll discharge him on the spot I swear I will!"

"I will tell him to come and see you," said Jane, calmly. She knew of old that her father's bark was worse than his bite, and that he had no more real intention of discharging Ridley than he had of flying to the moon.

"And now, if you will just give orders to have the basket-carriage brought round, I shall be glad, dear. I feel wonderfully better to-day, and I think a drive would do me good."

"But would Dr. Davidson approve of your going out to-day, papa?"

"Hang Dr. Davidson I'm not his slave, am I? I tell you that I feel very much better; and, to get out, if only for half an hour, will make me better still."

"Then you will let me go with you?" said Jane.

"Nothing of the kind. I've a great deal to think about while I'm out, and I want to be alone. Besides, I've asked Bristow to stay to dinner, and you must do your best to entertain him."

"If you go out, papa, I shall go with you," said Jane, in her straightforward, positive way. "Besides which, Briggs is ill to-day, and there's nobody to drive you--unless you will let Mr. Bristow be your coachman for once, and then we shall all be together."

With some difficulty the Squire was induced to consent to this arrangement. It was evident that he would have preferred to go out alone, but that was just what Jane would by no means allow him to do. Her woman's instinct told her that they were in the midst of a thunder-cloud, but where and when the lightning would strike she could not even guess. In any case, it seemed to her well that for some time to come her father should be left alone as little as possible.

So they drove out together, all three of them. The Squire was unusually silent, but did not otherwise seem different from his ordinary mood, and neither Tom nor Jane was much inclined for talking. On the road they found a child of six, a little girl who had wandered away from home and lost herself, who was sitting by the roadside crying bitterly. The Squire would have the child on his knee, although she was neither very neatly dressed nor very pretty. He kissed her, and soothed away her tears, and made her laugh, and found out where she lived. Then, in a little while, still sitting on his knee, she fell asleep, and the old man wrapped the thickest rug around her, and sheltered her from the cold as tenderly as though she had been his own child. And when the girl's mother was found, and the girl herself had to be given up, he made her kiss him, and put half-a-crown into her hand, and promised to call and see her in a day or two. Tom, watching him narrowly all the time, said to himself, "I don't understand him at all to-day. I thought my news would have overwhelmed him, but it seems to have had far less effect upon him than it had upon me. I'm fairly puzzled." But there are some troubles so overwhelming that, for a time at least, they numb and deaden the feelings by their very intensity. All the more painful is the after-waking.

"I think, dear, that I will go and lie down for a little while," said the Squire, when they had reached home. "You will wake me up in time for dinner."

But there was Blenkinsop, his steward, waiting by appointment, who wanted his signature to the renewal of a lease.

"Yes, yes, to be sure, Blenkinsop," said he Squire, in his old business-like way, as he sat down at his writing-table and spread out the paper before him and dipped his pen in the ink. Then he paused.

"Just your name, sir, nothing more--on that line," said the steward, deferentially, marking the place with his finger.

"Just so, Blenkinsop, just so," said the Squire, tremulously. "But what is my name? Just for the moment I don't seem as if I could recollect it."

A look of horror flashed from Jane's eyes into the eyes of Tom. She was by her father's side in a moment. He looked helplessly up at her, and tried to smile, but his lips quivered and tears stood in his eyes.

"What is it, dear?" she said, as she stooped and pressed her lips to his forehead.

"I want to sign this lease, and for the life of me I can't recollect my own name."

"Titus Culpepper, dear," she whispered in his ear.

"Of course. What an idiot I must be!" he exclaimed with a laugh, as he dashed off the name in his usual rapid style, and ended with a bigger flourish than usual.

"Won't you go to bed, papa?" said Jane, insinuatingly, as soon as Blenkinsop was gone. "You will rest so much better there, you know."

"Go to bed at this time of day, indeed! What are you thinking about? No, I'll just have a little snooze on the sofa--nothing more. And be sure you wake me up in time for dinner."

In less than two minutes he had gone off to sleep, as calmly and quietly as any little child. Jane rejoined Tom in the drawing-room.

"I am afraid that papa has heard some very bad news, Mr. Bristow," she said.

"Yes, and I was the unfortunate bearer of it," answered Tom.

"He sent you to London the other day to make certain private inquiries for him?"

"He did."

"And the ill news you brought this morning is the result of those inquiries?"

"It is."

There was a pause, which Tom was the first to break. "I think it only right, Miss Culpepper," he said, "that you should be made acquainted with the nature of the business which took me to London. You have no brother, and I know that you have had the practical management of many of your father's affairs for a long time. It is only right that you should know."

"But I would rather not know, Mr. Bristow, if you think that papa would prefer, in the slightest degree, that I should not be told."

"I think it highly desirable that you should be told," said Tom. "No doubt Mr. Culpepper himself will tell you everything before long."

"I am not so sure on that point," interrupted Jane. "As regards his pecuniary affairs, I know little or nothing, although I have long had my suspicions that there was something wrong somewhere."

"In such a matter as this there should be nothing hidden from you--at least not now; and I will take on myself the responsibility of telling you all that I know. Should Mr. Culpepper himself tell you subsequently, there will be no harm done, while you will have had time to think the affair over, and will be better able to advise him as to what ought to be done under the circumstances. Should he not choose to tell you, I still maintain that it will be better, both for himself and for you, that you should rest in ignorance no longer."

Tom then told her all about his visit to London, its object, and its result.

"Thank heaven that it's nothing more serious than the loss of a few thousand pounds!" said Jane, with an air of relief, when Tom had done. "Papa will soon get over that, and we shall be as happy again as ever we have been."

"I am by no means certain that Mr. Culpepper will get over it as easily as you imagine," said Tom, gravely. "I suspect that the entire savings of many years have gone in this crash; and that alone, to a man of your father's time of life, is something very serious indeed."

"Don't think, Mr. Bristow, that I want to make too light of the loss," said Jane, earnestly. "Still, after all, it is nothing but money."

Her spirits had risen wonderfully during the last few minutes, and she could not help showing it. "Dinner will be ready in half an hour," she added. "I will go and see whether papa is awake."

Presently she came back. "He is still fast asleep," she said.

"I think I would not disturb him if I were you," said Tom. "Sleep, just now, is his best medicine."

As the Squire still slept on, they dined alone, and alone they spent the evening together. They talked of a thousand things, and they seemed to have a thousand more to talk about when the time for parting had come. This evening Tom seemed to care no longer about hiding his feelings. He sat nearer to Jane, he bent more closely over her at the piano; once or twice his lips seemed to touch her hair lightly, but she was not quite sure on the point, and consequently did not care to reprove him. His eyes sought hers more persistently and boldly than they had ever done before, and beneath those ardent glances her own eyes fell, troubled and confused.

When it was time to go, Jane went with him to the door. Said Tom, as he stood on the threshold, hat in hand, "Should Mr. Culpepper speak to you about what I have told you this evening, and should he seem at all troubled in his mind about it, will you kindly suggest that he should send for me? It may seem rather conceited on my part to ask you to do this, but as your father has honoured me by taking me into his confidence so far, there can be no harm in my expressing a hope that he will do so still further. It may be in my power to help him through his difficulties or, at least, through part of them."

"You are very kind," said Jane, with tears in her eyes, as she pressed his hand, gratefully.

"And now--good-night," said Tom.

Still holding her hand, he looked earnestly into her face. They were standing together just under the hall lamp, and every shade of expression was plainly visible. Her eyes met his for a moment. He read something there--I know not what--that emboldened him. His arm stole round her waist. He pressed her unresisting form to his heart. His lips touched hers for one brief instant. It was the first kiss of love. "Good-night, my darling," he whispered; and almost before Jane knew what had befallen her, he was gone.

Her father being still asleep, Jane, all in a sweet confusion, took her work upstairs, and sat down by the dressing-room fire to wait till he should awake. But he still slept on, and by-and-by it grew late, so she sent the servants to bed, and made up her mind to sit by his side till morning. Just then nothing could have been more grateful to her. No thought of sleep would be possible to her for hours to come. She wanted to think over the events of that wonderful evening--to think over them in silence and alone. The time to analyze her feelings had not yet come: she did not care to make the attempt: she only wanted to realize quietly to herself the one sweet blissful fact, that she was loved, and by the one person in the whole world to whom her own love could be given in return. What happy thoughts nestled round her young heart in the midnight quietude of the old house! "He loves me!" she whispered to herself. But the night wind, listening at the window, caught the syllables and whispered them back, and then rushed gleefully away to tell the trees and the flowers, that began already to feel the warmth of spring in their veins, and the little birds sleeping cosily in their nests beneath the winter moon, and Jane's secret was a secret no longer.

It was nearly three o'clock when the Squire woke up from his long sleep. It was a minute or two before he could collect his thoughts, and call to mind all that had happened.

"You are no better than a little simpleton for sitting up," he said, gruffly. "As if I couldn't take care of myself when I awoke!" Then he drew her on to his knee and kissed her tenderly. "Get me some bread and cheese and ale," he said. "I'll have supper and breakfast in one."

"Won't you have something different from bread and cheese, papa?" she asked. "There is some game pie and----"

"No, nothing but bread and cheese," he said, gloomily. "That seems about the only thing I shall be able to afford in time to come."

So Jane went down into the lower part of the house, and brought up some bread and cheese and ale; but she brought some game pie also, and when she put a plateful of the latter article before her father, he ate it without a word, and without seeming to know what it was he was eating. He did not speak another word till he had done.

"Jenny, you are a clever girl," he said abruptly, at last, "but do you think you are clever enough to earn your own living?"

Jane laughed. "Your question is rather a strange one," she said. "I will answer it as a woman answers most questions--by asking another. Why do you ask me?"

"Because if I were to die to-morrow, or next month, or next year, that is certainly what you would have to do."

"And I don't doubt my ability to do it," said Jane, with spirit. "Only, papa, you are not going to die either next month, or next year, so that the subject is one which we need not discuss further."

"But it is a subject that must be discussed, and discussed very fully, too. Jane, my girl, you are a pauper, neither more nor less than a pauper!" He spoke in a dry harsh voice, as if he had made up his mind that his emotion should on no account over-master him.

"Well, papa dear, even if such be the case, I don't suppose that either you or I will love each other any the less on that account."

"That is not the question, girl. It was always a happiness to me to know that I should be able to give you fifteen or twenty thousand on your wedding day. In trying to turn that fifteen into fifty thousand, I have lost every penny of it, and in so doing I have altogether ruined your prospects in life."

"I can't see that at all, papa. What you did you did for the best, and if I ever do get married, I hope to marry some one who will love me for myself, and not for any money I might be possessed of."

"Very pretty, and very sentimental," said the Squire, gruffly, "but confounded rubbish for all that. And how hard on young Cope! He will be quite justified in breaking off the engagement."

"What a splendid opportunity Mr. Cope will now have for proving the sincerity of his affection!" said Jane, with a little contemptuous curl of the lip.

"You are talking rank nonsense, Janet. Edward Cope loves you; there's no doubt of that; but his father will never consent to his marrying a beggar, which is just about what you are at the present moment; and Edward has been too well brought up to go in opposition to his father. I confess it will be a great disappointment to me."

"But none to me, papa dear!" cried Jane, impulsively, as she flung her arms round her father's neck and kissed him--"no disappointment to me! Rather let us call it a happy release."

"I don't understand you," said the old man, as he took her by the shoulders and gazed into her face. "I thought you loved Edward Cope as much as he loved you. You don't mean to tell me that I have been mistaken."

"There has been a mistake somewhere, papa," faltered Jane, as she drew one of his arms round her neck, and nestled her head on his shoulder. "I--I almost fancy that it must have been on my side. I allowed myself to drift into an engagement with Mr. Cope almost without knowing what I was about. I liked Mr. Cope very well, and I thought that I could be happy as his wife, but I have found out my mistake since then. For me to marry Mr. Cope would be to condemn myself to a life of hopeless misery. I could never love him, papa, as a wife ought to love her husband."

"Tut--tut--tut, girl! What romantic rubbish have you got into your head? Cope's a nice young fellow, and when you were his wife you would soon learn to love him well enough, I warrant. All I'm afraid of is that he won't have you for a wife--and all through my fault--all through my fault!"

Jane saw that the present was no time to say more on the point, and wisely held her tongue. For a little while the silence between them was unbroken.

"But I haven't told you the worst yet, Jenny," he said at last.

"Oh! papa."

"Five thousand pounds of your Aunt Fanny's money has been lost in the crash. She had entrusted me with the money to do the best I could for her, and that's the result. She will be at Pincote in less than a week from now, and the first thing she will do, after she has taken off her bonnet and changed her boots, will be to ask me for her money. She will ask me for her money, and what am I to say to her?"

"Good gracious, papa! Aunt Fanny is your own sister, and surely she, of all people in the world, would be the last to trouble you for her money."

"She would be the first," said the Squire, fiercely. "I'd sooner, far sooner, be indebted to the veriest stranger than to her. You don't know your aunt as I know her. I should never hear the last of it. I should have no peace of my life. Day and night my turpitude--my vile criminality, as she would call it--would be dinned into my ears, till I should be driven half crazy. And not only that: your Aunt Fanny is a woman who can never keep a secret. To one confidential friend after another the whole affair would be whispered, with sundry embellishments of her own, till at last the whole country side would know of it, and I could never hold up my head in society again."

"As I understand the case, papa, you want to raise five thousand pounds within the next few days?"

"That is precisely what I want."

"Then why not ask Mr. Cope? Surely he would not refuse to lend it to you."

"I am not so sure about that," said Mr. Culpepper, dryly. "Cope has not been like the same man to me of late that he used to be. The old ship is beginning to leak, and the rats are deserting it. I suppose I shall be compelled to ask him, but I would almost sooner lose my right hand than do it."

"There's Mr. Bristow," suggested Jane, timidly. "Why not speak to him? He might, perhaps, find some means of helping you out of your difficulty."

"How can a man that's not worth five thousand pence be of any use to a man who wants five thousand pounds?" asked the Squire, contemptuously. "No, no; Bristow's all very well in his way. A decent, good-natured young fellow, with all his wits about him, but of no use whatever at a crisis like the present."

"Is there not such a thing as a mortgage?" asked Jane. "Could you not raise some money on the estate?"

"When my father lay on his deathbed," said the Squire, gravely, "he made me take a solemn oath that I would never raise a penny by mortgage on the estate, and I would rather suffer anything and everything than break that promise. But it's high time we were both in bed. You look worn-out for want of sleep, and I don't feel over bright myself. Kiss me, dearie, and let us say good-night, or rather good-morning. We must hope for the best, and at present that seems the only thing we can do."

The following post brought a letter from Mrs. McDermott. After mentioning on what day and by what train she might be expected to arrive, she wrote: "You won't forget the five thousand pounds, brother. I have bought some house property, and want to remit the money immediately on my arrival. I suppose it would not be reasonable to expect more than five per cent. interest on the amount?" The Squire tossed the letter across the table to Jane without a word.

END OF VOL. II.
Volume 3 CHAPTER I. A WAY OUT OF THE DIFFICULTY.
Two hours after the receipt of Mrs. McDermott's second letter, Squire Culpepper was on his way to Sugden's bank. His heart was heavy, and his step slow. He had never had to borrow a farthing from any man--at least, never since he had come into the estate--and he felt the humiliation, as he himself called it, very bitterly. There was something of bitterness, too, in having to confess to his friend Cope how all his brilliant castles in the air had vanished utterly, leaving not a wrack behind.

He could see, in imagination, the sneer that would creep over Cope's face as the latter asked him why he could not obtain a mortgage on his fine new mansion at Pincote; the mansion he had talked so much about--about which he had bored his friends; the mansion that was to have been built out of the Alcazar shares, but of which not even the foundation-stone would ever now be laid. Then, again, the Squire was far from certain as to the kind of reception which would be accorded him by the banker. Of late he had seemed cool, very cool--refrigerating almost. Once or twice, too, when he had called, Mr. Cope had been invisible: a Jupiter Tonans buried for the time being among a cloud of ledgers and dockets and transfers: not to be seen by any one save his own immediate satellites. The time had been, and not so very long ago, when he could walk unchallenged through the outer bank office, whoever else might be waiting, and so into the inner sanctum, and be sure of a welcome when he got there. But now he was sure to be intercepted by one or other of the clerks with a "Will you please to take a seat for a moment while I see whether Mr. Cope is disengaged." The Squire groaned with inward rage as, leaning on his thick stick, he limped down Duxley High Street and thought of all these things.

As he had surmised it would be, so it was on the present occasion. He had to sit down in the outer office, one of a row of six who were waiting Mr. Cope's time and pleasure to see them. "He won't lend me the money," said the Squire to himself, as he sat there choking with secret mortification. "He'll find some paltry excuse for refusing me. It's almost worth a man's while to tumble into trouble just to find out who are his friends and who are not."

However, the banker did not keep him waiting more than five or six minutes. "Mr. Cope will see you, sir," said a liveried messenger, who came up to him with a low bow; and into Mr. Cope's parlour the Squire was thereupon ushered.

The two men met with a certain amount of restraint on either side. They shook hands as a matter of course, and made a few remarks about the weather; and then the banker began to play with his seals, and waited in bland silence to hear whatever the Squire might have to say to him.

Mr. Culpepper fidgeted in his chair and cleared his throat. The crucial moment was come at last. "I'm in a bit of a difficulty, Cope," he began, "and I've come to you, as one of the oldest friends I have, to see whether you can help me out of it."

"I should have thought that Mr. Culpepper was one of the last people in the world to be troubled with difficulties of any kind," said the banker, in a tone of studied coldness.

"Which shows how little you know about either Mr. Culpepper or his affairs," said the Squire, dryly.

The banker coughed dubiously. "In what way can I be of service to you?" he said.

"I want five thousand five hundred pounds by this day week, and I've come to you to help me to raise it."

"In other words, you want to borrow five thousand five hundred pounds?"

"Exactly so."

"And what kind of security are you prepared to offer for a loan of such magnitude?"

"What security! Why, my I.O.U., of course."

Mr. Cope took a pinch of snuff slowly and deliberately before he spoke again. "I am afraid the document in question could hardly be looked upon as a negotiable security."

"And who the deuce wanted it to be considered as a negotiable security?" burst out the Squire. "Do you think I want everybody to know my private affairs?"

"Possibly not," said the banker, quietly. "But, in transactions of this nature, it is a matter of simple business that the person who advances the money should have some equivalent security in return."

"And is not my I.O.U. a good and equivalent security as between friend and friend?"

"Oh if you are going to put the case in that way, it becomes a different kind of transaction entirely," said the banker.

"And how else did you think I was going to put the case, as you call it?" asked the Squire, indignantly.

"Commercially, of course: as a pure matter of business between one man and another."

"Oh, ho that's it, is it?" said the Squire, grimly.

"That's just it, Mr. Culpepper."

"Then friendship in such a case as this counts for nothing, and my I.O.U. might just as well never be written."

"Let us be candid with each other," said the banker, blandly. "You want the loan of a very considerable sum of money. Now, however much inclined I might be to lend you the amount out of my own private coffers, you will believe me when I say that I am not in a position to do so. I have no such amount of available capital in hand at present. But if you were to come to me with a good negotiable security, I could at once put you into the proper channel for obtaining what you want. A mortgage, for instance. What could be better than that? The estate, so far as I know, is unencumbered, and the sum you need could easily be raised on it on very easy terms."

"I took an oath to my father on his deathbed that I would never raise a penny by mortgage on Pincote, and I never will."

"If that is the case," said the banker, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, "I am afraid that I hardly see in what way I can be of service to you." He coughed, and then he looked at his watch, an action which Mr. Culpepper did not fail to note and resent in his own mind.

"I am sorry I came," he said, bitterly. "It seems to have been only a waste of your time and mine."

"Don't speak of it," said the banker, with his little business laugh. "In any case, you have learned one of the first and simplest lessons of commercial ethics."

"I have, indeed," answered the Squire, with a sigh. He rose to go.

"And Miss Culpepper, is she quite well?" said Mr. Cope; rising also. "I have not had the pleasure of seeing her for some little time."

The Squire faced fiercely round. "Look you here, Horatio Cope," he said; "you and I have been friends of many years' standing. Fast friends, I thought, whom no reverses of fortune would have separated. Finding myself in a little strait, I come to you for assistance. To whom else should I apply? It is idle to say that you could not help me out of my difficulty, were you willing to do so."

"No, believe me----" interrupted the banker; but Mr. Culpepper went on without deigning to notice the interruption.

"You have not chosen to do so, and there's an end of the matter, so far. Our friendship must cease from this day. You will not be sorry that it is so. The insults and slights you have put upon me of late have all had that end in view, and you are doubtless grateful that they have had the desired effect."

"You judge me very hardly," said the banker.

"I judge you from your own actions, and from them alone," said the Squire, sternly. "Another point, and I have done. Your son was engaged to my daughter, with your full sanction and consent. That engagement, too, must come to an end."

"With all my heart," said the banker, quietly.

"For some time past your son, acting, no doubt, on instructions from his father, has been gradually paving the way for something of this kind. There have been no letters from him for five weeks, and the last three or four that he sent were not more than as many lines each. No doubt he will feel grateful at being released from an engagement that had become odious to him; and on Miss Culpepper's side the release will be an equally happy one. She had learned long ago to estimate at his true value the man to whom she had so rashly pledged her hand. She had found out, to her bitter cost, that she had promised herself to a person who had neither the instincts nor the education of a gentleman--to an individual, in fact, who was little better than a common boor."

This last thrust touched the banker to the quick. His face flushed deeply. He crossed the room and called down an India-rubber tube: "What is the amount of Mr. Culpepper's balance?"

Presently came the answer: "Two eighty eleven five."

"Two hundred and eighty pounds, eleven shillings, and five pence," said Mr. Cope, with a sneer. "May I ask, sir, that you will take immediate steps for having this magnificent balance transferred to some other establishment."

"I shall take my own time about doing that," said Mr. Culpepper.

"What a pity that your new mansion was not finished in time--quite a castle it was to have been, was it not? A mortgage of five or six thousand could have been a matter of no difficulty then, you know. If I recollect rightly, all the furniture and decorations were to have come from London. Nothing in Duxley would have been good enough. I merely echo your own words."

The Squire winced. "I am rightly served," he muttered to himself. "What can one expect from a man who swept out an office and cleaned his master's shoes?" He rose to go. For all his bitterness, there was a little pathetic feeling at work in his heart. "So ends a friendship of twenty years," was his thought. "Goodbye, Cope," he said aloud as he moved towards the door.

The banker, standing with his back to the fire, and looking straight at the opposite wall, neither stirred nor spoke, nor so much as turned his head to take a last look at his old friend. And so, without another word, the Squire passed out.

A bleak north wind was blowing as the Squire stepped into the street. He paused for a moment to button his coat more closely around him. As he did so, a poor ragged wretch passed trembling by without saying a word. The Squire called the man back and gave him a shilling. "My plight may be bad enough, but his is a thousand times worse," he said to himself as he walked down the street.

Where to go, or what to do next, he did not know. He had gone to see Mr. Cope without any very great expectation of being able to obtain what he wanted, and yet, perhaps, not without some faint hope nestling at his heart that his friend would find him the money. But now he knew for a fact that nothing was to be got from that quarter, he felt a little chilled, a little lonely, a little lost as to what he should do next. That something must be done, he knew quite well, but he was at a nonplus as to what that something ought to be. To raise five thousand five hundred pounds at a few days' notice, with no better security to offer than a simple I.O.U., was by no means an easy matter, as the Squire was beginning to discover to his cost. "Why not ask Sir Harry Cripps?" he said to himself. But then he bethought himself that Sir Harry had a very expensive family, and that only six months ago he had given up his hunter, and dispensed with a couple of carriage-horses, and had talked of going on to the continent for four or five years. No: it was evident that Sir Harry Cripps could do nothing for him.

In what other direction to turn he knew not. "If poor Lionel Dering had only been alive, I could have gone to him with confidence," he thought. "Why not try Kester St. George?" was his next thought. "No: Kester isn't one of the lending kind," he muttered, with a shake of the head. "He's uncommonly close-fisted, is Kester. What he's got he'll stick to. No use trying there."

Next moment he nearly ran against General St. George, who was coming from an opposite direction. They started at sight of each other, then shook hands cordially. Their acquaintanceship dated only from the arrival of the General at Park Newton, but they had already learned to like and esteem one another.

After the customary greetings and inquiries were over, said Mr. Culpepper to the General: "Is your nephew Kester still stopping with you at Park Newton?"

"Yes, he is still there," answered the General; "though he has talked every day for the last month or more about going. Kester is one of those unaccountable fellows that you can never depend on. He may stay for another month, or he may take it into his head to go by the first train to-morrow."

"I heard a little while ago that he was ill; but I suppose he is better again by this time?"

"Yes--quite recovered. He was laid up for three or four days, but he soon got all right again."

"Your other nephew--George--Tom--Harry--what's his name--is he quite well?"

"You mean Richard--he who came from India? Yes, he is quite well."

"He's very like his poor brother, only darker, and--pardon me for saying so--not half so agreeable a young fellow."

"Everybody seems to have liked poor Lionel."

"Nobody could help liking him," said the Squire, with energy. "I felt the loss of that poor boy almost as much as if he had been my own son."

"Not a soul in the world had an ill word to say about him."

"I wish that the same could be said of all of us," said the Squire. And so, after a few more words, they parted.

As General St. George had told the Squire, Kester was still at Park Newton. The doctor who was called in to attend him after his sudden attack on the night that the footsteps were heard in the nailed-up room, prescribed a bottle or two of some harmless mixture, and a few days of complete rest and isolation. As Kester would neither allow himself to be examined, nor answer any questions, there was very little more that could be done for him.

Kester's first impulse after his recovery--and a very strong impulse it was--was to quit Park Newton at once and for ever. Further reflection, however, convinced him that such a step would be unwise in the extreme. It would at once be said that he had been frightened away by the ghost, and that was a thing that he could by no means afford to have said of him. For it to get gossiped about that he had been driven from his own house by the ghost of Percy Osmond, might, in time, tend to breed suspicion; and from suspicion might spring inquiry, and that might ultimately lead to nobody knew what. No: he would stay on at Park Newton for weeks--for months even, if it suited him to do so. The incident of his sudden illness was a very untoward one: on that point there could be no doubt whatever; but not if he could anyhow help it should the faintest breath of suspicion spring therefrom.

The Squire's troubles had faded into the background for a few minutes during his interview with General St. George, but they now rushed back upon him with, as it seemed, tenfold force. There was nothing left for him now but to go home, and yet he had never felt less inclined to do so in his life. He dreaded the long quiet evening, with no society but that of his daughter. Not that Jane was a dull companion, or anything like it; but he dreaded to encounter her pleading eyes, her pretty caressing ways, the lingering embrace she would give him when he entered the house, and her good-night kiss. He felt how all these things would tend to unman him, how they would merely serve to deepen the remorse which he felt already. If only he could meet with some one to take home with him!--he did not care much who it was--some one who would talk to him, and enliven the evening, and take off for a little while the edge of his trouble, and so help him to tide over the weary hours that intervened between now and the morrow, by which time something might happen--he knew not what--or some light be vouchsafed to him which would show him a way out of his difficulties.

These, or something like these, were the thoughts that were floating hazily in his mind, when in the distance he spied Tom Bristow striding along at his usual energetic rate. The Squire being still very lame, wisely captured a passing butcher boy, and, with the promise of sixpence, bade him hurry after Tom, and not come back without him.

"You must come back with me to Pincote," he said, when the astonished Tom had been duly captured. "I'll take no refusal. I've got a fit of mopes, and if you don't come and help to keep Jenny and me alive this evening, I'll never speak to you again as long as I live." So saying, the Squire linked his arm in Tom's, and turned his face towards Pincote; and nothing loath was Tom to go with him.

"I've done a fine thing this afternoon," said Mr. Culpepper, as they drove along in the basket-carriage, which had been waiting for him at the hotel. "I've broken off Jenny's engagement with Edward Cope."

Tom's heart gave a great bound. "Pardon me, sir, for saying so," he said as calmly as he could, "but I never thought that Mr. Cope was in any way worthy of Miss Culpepper."

"You are right, boy. He was not worthy of her."

"From the first time of seeing them together, I felt how entirely unfitted was Mr. Cope to appreciate Miss Culpepper's manifold charms of heart and mind. A marriage between two such people would have been a most incongruous one."

"Thank Heaven! it's broken now and for ever."

"I've broken off your engagement to Edward Cope," whispered the Squire to Jane in the hall, as he kissed her. "Are you glad or sorry, dear?"

"Glad--very, very glad, papa," she whispered back as she rained a score of kisses On his face. Then she began to cry, and with that she ran away to her own room till she could recover herself.

"Women are queer cattle," said the Squire, turning to Tom, "and I'll be hanged if I can ever make them out."

"From Miss Culpepper's manner, sir," said Tom, gravely, "I should judge that you had told her something that pleased her very much indeed."

"Then what did she begin snivelling for?" said the Squire, gruffly.

"Why not tell him everything?" said the Squire to himself, as he and Tom sat down in the drawing-room. "He knows a good deal already,--why not tell him more? I know he can do nothing towards helping me to raise five thousand pounds, but it will do me good to talk to him. I must talk to somebody--and I feel sure my secret is quite safe with him. I'll tell him while Jenny's out of the room."

The Squire coughed and hemmed, and poked the fire violently before he could find a word to say. "Bristow," he burst out at last, "I want to raise five thousand five hundred pounds in five days from now, and as I'm rather a bad hand at borrowing, I thought that you could, maybe, give me a hint as to how it could best be done. Cope would have advanced it for me in a moment, only that he happens to be rather short of funds just now, and I don't want to trouble any of my other friends if it can anyhow be managed without." He began to hum the air of an old drinking-song, and poked the fire again. "Capital coals these," he added. "And I got 'em cheap, too. The market went up three shillings a ton the very day after these were sent in."

"Five thousand five hundred pounds is rather a large amount, sir," said Tom, slowly.

"Of course it's a large amount," said the Squire, testily. "If it were only a paltry hundred or two I wouldn't trouble anybody. But never mind, Bristow--never mind. I didn't suppose that you could help me when I mentioned it; and, after all, it's a matter of very little consequence whether I raise the money or not."

"I can only suggest one way, sir, by which the money could be raised in so short a time."

"Eh!" said the Squire, turning suddenly on him, and dropping the poker noisily in the grate. "You don't mean to say that you can see how it's to be done!"

"I think I do, sir. Do you know the piece of ground called Prior's Croft?"

"Very well indeed. It belongs to Duckworth, the publican."

"Between you and me, sir, Duckworth's hard up, and would be glad to sell the Croft if he could do it quietly and without its becoming generally known that he is short of money."

"Well?" said the Squire, a little impatiently. He could not understand what Tom was driving at.

"I dare engage to say, sir, that you could have the Croft for two thousand pounds, cash down."

"Confound it, man, what an idiot you must be!" said the Squire fiercely, bringing his fist down on the table with a tremendous bang. "Didn't I tell you that I wanted to borrow money, and not to spend it? In fact, as you know quite well, I've got none to spend."

"Precisely so," said Tom, coolly. "And that is the point to which I am coming, if you will hear me out."

The Squire's only answer was to glare at him, as if in doubt whether he had not taken leave of his senses.

"As I said before, sir, Duckworth will take two thousand pounds for the Croft, cash down. Now I, sir, will engage to raise two thousand pounds for you by to-morrow, at noon, with which to buy the piece of ground in question. The purchase can be effected, and the necessary deeds made out and completed, by ten o'clock the following morning. If you will entrust those deeds into my possession, I will guarantee to effect a mortgage for six thousand pounds, in your name, on the Croft."

If the Squire had looked suspicious with regard to Tom's sanity before, he now seemed to have no doubt whatever on the point. He quietly took up the poker again, as if he were afraid that Tom might spring at him unexpectedly.

"So you could lend me two thousand pounds could you?" said the Squire drily.

"I did not say that, sir. I said that I could raise two thousand pounds for you, which is a very different matter from lending it out of my own pocket."

"Humph! And who, sir, do you think would be such a consummate ass as to advance six thousand pounds on a plot of ground that had just been bought for two thousand?"

"Strange as such a transaction may seem to you, sir, I give you my word of honour that I should find no difficulty in carrying it out. Have I your permission to do so?"

"I suppose that the two thousand raised by you would have to be repaid out of the six thousand raised by mortgage, leaving me with a balance of four thousand in hand?" said the Squire, without heeding Tom's question, a smile of incredulity playing round his mouth.

"No, sir," answered Tom. "The two thousand pounds could remain on interest at five per cent. for whatever term might suit your convenience. Again, sir, I ask, have I your permission to negotiate the transaction for you?"

Mr. Culpepper gazed steadily for a moment or two into Tom's clear, cold eyes. There were no symptoms of insanity visible there, at any rate. "And do you mean to tell me in sober seriousness," he said, "that you can raise this money in the way you speak of?"

"In sober seriousness, I mean to tell you that I can. Try me."

"I will try you," answered the Squire, impulsively. "I will try you, boy. You are a strange fellow, and I begin to think that there's more in you than I ever thought there was. But here comes Jenny. Not a word more just now."
CHAPTER II. IN THE SYCAMORE WALK.
The Park Newton clocks, with more or less unanimity as to time, had just struck ten. It was a February night, clear and frosty, and Lionel Dering sat in his dressing-room in slippered ease, musing by firelight. He had turned out the lamp on purpose; it was too garish for his mood to-night. He was back again in thought at Gatehouse Farm. Again he saw the gray old cottage, with its moss-grown eaves--the cottage that was so ugly outside, but so cosy within. Again he saw the long low sandhills, where they stretched themselves out to meet the horizon, and, in fancy, heard again the low, monotonous plash of the waves, whose melancholy music, heard by day and night, had at one time been as familiar to him as the sound of his own voice. What a quiet, happy time that seemed as he now looked back to it--a time of soft shadows and mild sunshine, with a pensive charm that was all its own, and that was lost for ever in the hour which told him that he was a rich man! Riches! What had riches done for him? He groaned in spirit as he asked himself the question. He could have been happy with Edith in a garret--how happy none but himself could have told--had fortune compelled him to earn her bread and his own by the sweat of his strong right arm.

His musings were interrupted by a knock at the door. "Come in," he called out mechanically; and in there came, almost without, a sound, Dobbs, body-servant to Kester St. George.

"Oh, Dobbs, is that you?" said Lionel, a little wearily, as he turned his head and saw who it was.

"Yes, sir, I have made bold to intrude upon you for a few seconds," said Dobbs, with the utmost deference, as he slowly advanced into the room, rubbing the long lean fingers of one hand softly with the palm of the other. "My master has not yet got back from Duxley, and there's nobody about just now."

"Quite right, Dobbs," said Lionel. "Anything fresh to report?"

"Nothing particularly fresh, sir, but I thought that you might perhaps like to see me."

"Very considerate of you, Dobbs, but I am not aware that I have anything of consequence to say to you to-night."

"Thank you, sir," said Dobbs, with a faint smile and an extra rub of his fingers. "Master's still very queer, sir. No appetite worth speaking about. Obliged to screw himself up with brandy in a morning before he can finish his toilet. Mutters and moans a good deal in his sleep, sir."

"Mutters in his sleep, does he?" said Lionel. "Have you any idea, Dobbs, what it is that he talks about?"

"I've tried my best to ascertain, sir, but without much success. I have listened and listened for hours, and very cold work it is, sir; but there's never more than a word now and a word then that one can make out. Nothing connected--nothing worth recollecting."

"Does Mr. St. George still walk in his sleep?"

"He does, sir, but not very often--not more than two or three times a month."

"Keep your eyes open, Dobbs, and the very next time your master walks in his sleep come to me at once--never mind what hour it may be--and tell me."

"I won't fail to do so, sir."

"In these sleep-walking rambles does Mr. St. George always confine himself to the house, or does he ever venture out into the park or grounds?"

"He generally goes out of doors, sir, at such times. Three times out of four he goes as far as the Wizard's Fountain, in the Sycamore Walk, stops there for a minute or two, and then walks back home. I have watched him several times."

"The Wizard's Fountain, in the Sycamore Walk! What should take him there?"

"Then you know the place, sir?"

"I know it well."

"Can't say what fancy takes him there, sir. Perhaps he doesn't know hisself."

"In any case, let me know when he next walks in his sleep. I have no further instructions for you to-night, Dobbs."

"Thank you, sir. I have the honour to wish you a very good night, sir."

"Good-night, Dobbs. Keep your eyes open, and report everything to me."

"Yes, sir, yes. You may trust me for doing that, sir." And Dobbs the obsequious bowed himself out.

In his cousin's valet Lionel had found an instrument ready to his hand, but it was not till after long hesitation and doubt that he made up his mind to avail himself of it. The necessities of the case at length decided him to do so. No one appreciated the value of a bribe better than Dobbs, or worked harder or more conscientiously to deserve one. There was a crooked element in his character which made whatever money he might earn by indirect means, or by tortuous working, seem far sweeter to him than the honest wages of everyday life. Kester St. George was not the kind of man ever to try to attach his inferiors to himself by any tie of gratitude or kindness. At different times and in various ways he suffered for this indifference, although the present could hardly be considered as a case in point, seeing that it was not in the nature of Dobbs to resist a bribe in whatever shape it might offer itself, and that gratitude was one of those virtues which had altogether been omitted from his composition.

Late one afternoon, a few days after the interview between Lionel and Dobbs, Kester St. George had his horse brought round, and rode out unattended, and without leaving word in what direction he was going, or at what hour he might be expected back. The day was dull and lowering, with fitful puffs of wind, that blew first from one point and then from another, and seemed the forerunners of a coming storm. Buried in his own thoughts, Kester paid no heed to the weather, but rode quickly forward till several miles of country had been crossed. By-and-by he diverged from the main road, and turned his horse's head into a tortuous and muddy lane, which, after half an hour's bad travelling, landed him on the verge of a wide stretch of brown treeless moor, than which no place could well have looked more desolate and cheerless under the gray monotony of the darkening February afternoon. Kester halted for awhile at the end of the lane to give his horse breathing time. Far as the eye could see, looking forward from the point where he was standing, all was bare and treeless, without one single sign of habitation or life.

"Whatever else may be changed, either with me or the world," he muttered, "the old moor remains just as it was the first day that I can remember it. It was horrible to me at first, but I learned to like it--to love it even, before I left it; and I love it now--to-day--with all its dreariness and monotony. It is like the face of an old friend. You may go away for twenty years, and when you come back you know that you will find on it just the same look that it wore when you went away. Not that I have ever cared to cultivate such friendships," he added, half regretfully. "Well, the next best thing to having a good friend is to have a good enemy, and I can thank heaven for granting me several such."

He touched his horse with the spur, and rode slowly forward, taking a narrow bridle path that led in an oblique direction across the moor. "This ought to be the road if my memory serves me aright," he muttered, "but they are all so much alike, and intersect each other so frequently, that it's far more easy to lose one's way than to know where one is."

"I suppose I shall have the rough side of Mother Mim's tongue when I do find her," he went on. "I've neglected her shamefully, without a doubt. But such ties as the one between her and me become tiresome in the long run. She ought to have died off long ago, but she's as tough as leather. Poor devils in this part of the country, that haven't a penny to bless themselves with, think nothing of living till they're a hundred. Is it a superfluity of ozone, or a want of brains, that keeps them alive so long?"

He rode steadily forward till he had nearly crossed one angle of the moor. At length, but not without some difficulty, he found the place he had come in search of. It was a rudely-built hut--cottage it could hardly be called--composed of mud, and turf, and great boulders all unhewn. Its roof of coarsest thatch was frayed and worn with the wind and rain of many winters. Its solitary door of old planks, roughly nailed together, opened full on to the moor.

At the back was a patch of garden-ground, which was supposed to grow potatoes in the season, but which had never yet been known to grow any that were fit to eat. Mr. St. George looked round with a sneer as he dismounted.

"And it was in this wretched den that I spent the first eight years of my existence!" he muttered. "And the woman whom this place calls its mistress was the first being whom I learned to love! And, faith, I'm rather doubtful whether I've ever loved anybody half so well since."

Putting his horse's bridle over a convenient hook, and dispensing with the ceremony of knocking, Kester St. George lifted the latch, pushed open the door, stooped his head, and went in. Inside the hut everything was in semi-darkness, and Kester stood for a minute with the door in his hand, striving to make out the objects before him.

"Come in and shut the door: I expected you," said a hollow voice from one corner of the room; and the one room, such as it was, comprised the whole hut.

"Is that you, Mother Mim?" asked Kester.

"Ay--who else should it be?" answered the voice. "But come in and shut the door. That cold wind gives me the shivers."

Kester did as he was told, and then made his way to a wretched pallet at the other end of the hut. Of furniture there was hardly any, and the aspect of the whole place was miserable in the extreme. Over the ashes of a wood fire crouched a girl of sixteen, ragged and unkempt, who stared at him with black, glittering eyes as he passed her. Next moment he was standing by the side of a ragged pallet, on which lay the figure of a woman who looked ill almost unto death.

"Why, mother, whatever has been the matter with you?" asked Kester. "A little bit out of sorts, eh? But you'll soon be all right again now."

"Yes, I shall soon be all right now--soon be quite well," answered the woman grimly. "A black box and six feet of earth cure everything."

"You mustn't talk in that way, mother," said Kester, as he sat down on the only chair in the place, and took one of the woman's lean, hot hands in his. "You will live to plague us for many a year to come."

"Kester St. George, this is the last time you and I will meet in this world."

"I hope not, with all my heart," said Kester, feelingly.

"I know what I know, and I know that what I say is true," answered Mother Mim. "You would not have come now if I had not worked a spell strong enough to bring you here even against your will. I worked it four nights ago, at midnight, when that young viper there"--pointing a finger at the girl, who was still cowering over the ashes--"was fast asleep, and there were no eyes to see but those of the cold stars. Ah! but it was horrible! and if it had not been that I felt I must see you before I died, I could never have gone through with it." She paused for a moment, as though overcome by some dreadful recollection. "Then, when it was over, I crept back to bed, and waited quietly, knowing that now you could not choose but come."

"I ought to have come and seen you long ago--I know it--I feel it," said Kester. "But let bygones be bygones, and I give you my solemn promise never to neglect you again. I am rich now, mother, and you shall never want for anything as long as you live."

"Too late--too late!" sighed the woman. "Yes, you're rich now, rich enough to bury me, and that's all I ask you to do."

"Don't talk like that, mother," said Kester.

"If you had only come to see me!" said the woman. "That was all I wanted. Just to see your face, and squeeze your hand, and have you to talk to me for a little while. I wanted none of your money--no, not a single shilling of it. It was only you I wanted."

Kester began to feel slightly bored. He squeezed Mother Mim's hand, and then dropped it, but he did not speak.

"But you didn't come," moaned the woman, "and you wouldn't have come now if I hadn't worked a charm to bring you."

"There you wrong me," said Kester, decisively. "Your charm, or spell, or whatever it may have been, had no effect in bringing me here. I came of my own free will."

"Self-conceited, as you always were and always will be," muttered the woman. Then, half raising herself in bed, and addressing the girl, she cried: "Nell, you hussy, just you hook it for a quarter of an hour. The gent and I have something to talk about."

The girl rose sullenly, went slowly out, and banged the door behind her.

Kester wondered what was coming next. He had dropped the woman's hand, but she now held it out for him to take again. He took it, and she pressed his hand passionately to her lips three or four times.

"If the great secret of my life is to be told at all on this side the grave, the time to tell it is now come. I always thought to die without revealing it, but somehow of late everything has seemed different to me, and I feel now as if I couldn't die easy without telling you." She paused for a minute, exhausted. There was some brandy on the chimney-piece, and Kester gave her a little. Again she took his hand and kissed it passionately.

"You will, perhaps, curse me for what I am about to tell you," she went on, "but whether you do so or not, so may Heaven help me if it is anything more than the simple truth! Kester St. George, you have no right to the name you bear--to the name the world knows you by!"

Kester was so startled that for a moment or two he sat like one suddenly stricken dumb. "Go on," he said at last. "There's more to follow. I like boldness in lying as in everything else."

"Again I swear that I am telling you no more than the solemn truth."

"If I am not Kester St. George," he said with a sneer, "perhaps you will kindly inform me who I really am."

"You are my son!"

He flung the woman's hand savagely from him, and sprang to his feet with an oath. "Your son!" he said. "Ha! ha! ha! Your son, indeed! Since when have your senses quite left you, Mother Mim? A dark cell in Bedlam and a strait waistcoat would be your best physic."

"I am rightly punished," moaned the woman--"rightly punished. I ought to have told you years ago--ay--before you ever grew to be a man. But I loved you so, and had such pride in you, that I couldn't bear the thought of telling you, and it's only now when I'm on my deathbed that the secret forces itself from me. But it will go no farther, never you fear that. No living soul but you will ever hear it from my lips; and you have only got to keep your own lips tightly shut, and you will live and die as Kester St. George."

She sank back with the exhaustion of speaking. Mechanically, and almost without knowing what he was doing, Kester again gave her a little brandy. Then he sat down; and Mother Mim, finding his hand close by, took possession of it again. He shuddered slightly, but did not withdraw it.

Although Mother Mim had advanced no proofs in support of the strange story she had just told him, there was something in her tone which carried conviction to his inmost heart.

"I must know more of this," he said, after a little while, speaking almost in a whisper.

"How well I remember everything about it! It seems only like yesterday that it all happened," sighed the woman. "You--my own child, and he--the other one that was sent to me to nurse, were born within a few hours of one another. His father broke a blood-vessel about six weeks after the child was brought to me. The mother went with her husband to Italy to take care of him, and the child was left with me. A week or two afterwards he was taken suddenly ill, and died. Then the devil tempted me to put my own boy into the place of the lost heir. When Mrs. St. George came back from Italy she came to see her child, and you were shown to her as that child. She accepted you without a moment's suspicion. They let you stay with me till you were eight years old, and then they took you away and sent you to school. My husband and my sister were the only two beside myself who knew what had been done, and they both died years ago without saying a word. I shall join them in a few days, and then you alone will be the keeper of the secret. With you it will die, and on your tombstone they will write: 'Here lies the body of Kester St. George.'"

She had told her story with great difficulty, and with frequent interruptions to gather strength and breath to finish it. She now lay back, utterly exhausted. Her eyes closed, her hand relaxed its hold on Kester's, her jaw dropped slightly, the thin white face grew thinner and whiter: it seemed as if Death, passing that way, had looked in unexpectedly, and had beckoned her to go with him. Kester rose quickly, and struck a match and lighted a fragment of candle that he found on the chimney-piece. His next impulse was to try and revive her with a little brandy, but he paused with the glass in his hand. Why try to revive her? Would it not be better for him, for her, for every one, if she were really dead? If such were the case, it would do away with all fear of her strange secret being ever divulged to any one else. Yes--in every way her death would be a welcome release.

It was not without a tremor, it was not without a faster beating of the heart, that Kester took the bit of cracked looking-glass from the wall and held it to the woman's lips. His very life seemed to stand still for a moment or two while he waited for the result. It came. The glass clouded faintly. The woman was not dead. With a muttered curse Kester dashed the glass across the floor and put back the candle on the chimney-piece. Then he took up his hat. Where was the use of staying longer? She could tell him nothing more when she should have come to her senses than she had told him already: nothing, that is, of any consequence; and as for details, he did not want them--at least, not now. What he had been told already held food enough for thought for some time to come. He paused for a moment before going out. Was it really possible--was it really credible, that that haggard, sharp-featured woman was his mother?--that his father had been a coarse, common labouring man, a mere hedger and ditcher, who had lived and died in that mean hut, and that he himself, instead of being the Kester St. George he had always believed himself to be, was no other than the son of those two--the boy whose supposed death he remembered to have heard about when little more than a mere child?

Fiercely and savagely he told himself again and again that such a thing could not be--that what Mother Mim had told him was nothing more than a pack of devil's lies--the invention of a brain weakened and distorted by illness and the clouds of coming death. It was high time to go. He put five sovereigns on the chimney-piece, went softly out, and shut the door behind him. The girl was sitting on the low mud-wall near the door, with the skirt of her dress drawn over her head as some protection from the bitter wind. Her black, glittering eyes took him in from head to foot as he walked up to her. "Go inside at once. She has fainted," said Kester. The girl nodded and went. Then Kester mounted his horse and rode slowly homeward through the chilly twilight. Bitterest thoughts held him as with a vice. When he came within sight of the chimneys of Park Newton, he gave a sigh of relief, and put spurs to his horse. "That is mine, and no power on earth shall take it from me," he muttered. "That and the money that comes with it. I am Kester St. George. Let those disprove who can!"

A few nights later, as Lionel Dering was sitting in his dressing-room, smoking a last cigar before turning in, there came three low, distinct taps at the door, which he recognized as the peculiar signal of Dobbs. It was nearly an hour past midnight, and in that early household every one had been long abed, or, at least, had retired long ago to their own rooms.

Lionel opened the door, and Dobbs slid softly in. Such visits were by no means infrequent, but they were usually paid at a somewhat earlier hour than on the present occasion.

"Come in, Dobbs," said Lionel. "You are later to-night than usual."

"Yes, sir, I am, and I must ask you to pardon me for intruding at such an hour; but, if you remember, sir, you told me, a little while ago, that I was to let you know without fail the very next time my master took to walking in his sleep."

"Quite right, Dobbs. I am glad that you have not forgotten my instructions."

"Well, sir, Mr. St. George left his rooms, a few minutes ago, fast asleep."

"In which direction did he go?"

"He went down the side staircase, and through the conservatory, and let himself out through the little glass door into the garden."

"And then which way did he go?"

"I did not follow him any farther, but ran at once to tell you."

"Have you any idea as to what direction he would be most likely to take?"

"There is little doubt, sir, but that he has gone towards the Wizard's Fountain, in the Sycamore Walk. Three times already, that is the place to which he has gone."

"We must follow him, Dobbs."

"Yes, sir."

"We must watch him, but be careful not to disturb him."

"Yes, sir."

"I suppose there is little or no fear of his waking before he gets back to the house?"

"None whatever, sir, as far as my experience goes. As a rule, he goes quietly back to his own rooms, undresses himself as quietly and soberly as if he was wide awake, and gets into bed; and when he does really wake up in the morning, he never seems to know anything about what has happened over-night. But we must make haste, sir, if we wish to overtake him."

"I will be ready in one minute."

Lionel wrapped a warm furred cloak about him, and put a travelling-cap on his head. Three minutes later he and Dobbs stood together in the open air.

The night was clear, crisp, and cold. The moon was just rising above the tree-tops, bathing the upper part of the quaint old house in its white glory, but as yet the shrubbery and the garden-paths lay in deepest shadow. Nowhere could they discern the figure of the man whom they had come out to follow; but the Wizard's Fountain was a good half mile from the Hall, so they struck at once into the nearest footway that led towards it. A few minutes' quick walking took them there. Lionel knew the place well. It had been a favourite haunt of his when living at Park Newton during the few happy weeks that preceded the murder. Very weird and solemn the whole place looked, as seen by moonlight at that still hour of the night.

Although known as the Sycamore Walk, there were only two trees of that particular kind growing there, and they threw their antique shadows immediately over the fountain itself. The rest of the avenue consisted of beech, and oak, and elm. But all the trees were huge, and old, and fantastic: untended and uncared for--growing together year after year, whispering their leafy secrets to each other with every spring that came round, and standing shoulder to shoulder against the winds of winter: a hoary brotherhood of forest sages.

The fountain itself, whatever it might have been in years long gone by, was now nothing more than a confused heap of huge stones, overgrown with lichens and creepers. From the midst of them, and from what had doubtless at one time been a representation in marble of the head of a leopard or other forest animal, but which now was almost worn past recognition, trickled a thin stream of coldest water; which, falling into a broken basin below, over-brimmed itself there, and was lost among the cracks and interstices in the masses of broken masonry that lay scattered around.

"You had better, perhaps, wait here," said Lionel to Dobbs, as they halted for a moment at the entrance to the avenue.

Dobbs did as he was bidden, and Lionel advanced alone, keeping well within the shade of the trees. When within a dozen yards of the fountain, he halted and waited. The low, ceaseless monotone of the falling water was the only sound that broke the moonlit silence.

From out the dense shadow of the trees on the opposite side of the avenue, and as if he himself were part of that shadow, Kester St. George slowly emerged. In the middle of the avenue, and in the full light of the moon, he paused. His right hand was thrust into the bosom of his vest, as if he were hiding something there. Standing thus, he seemed, as it were, to shrink within himself. Still hugging that hidden something, he seemed to listen--to listen as if his very life depended on the act. Then, with a slow, creeping motion, as though his feet were weighted with lead, he stole towards the fountain. He reached it. He grasped the stonework with one hand, and then he turned to gaze, as though in dread of some hidden pursuer. Then slowly, almost reluctantly, he seemed to draw something from within his vest, and, while still gazing furtively around him, he thrust his arm, elbow deep, into a crevice in the masonry, let it rest there for a single moment, and then withdrew it. With the same furtively restless look, and ears that seemed to listen more intently than ever, he paused for an instant. Then he stole swiftly back across the moonlit avenue, and so vanished among the black shadows from whence he had come.

So natural had been his actions, so unstudied his every movement, that it seemed impossible to believe that he was indeed asleep.

Hardly had Kester St. George disappeared before Lionel Dering was by the fountain, on the very spot where his cousin had stood half a minute before. He had noted well the place. There, before him, was the very crevice into which Kester had thrust his arm. Into that same crevice was Lionel's arm now thrust--elbow deep--shoulder deep. His groping fingers soon laid hold of that which was hidden there. He drew out his arm quickly, and the something that he had found glittered steel-blue in the moonlight. With a cry of horror he dropped it, and it fell with a dull clash among the stones. Lionel Dering had recognized it in a moment as a dagger which he had last seen in the possession of Percy Osmond.
CHAPTER III. MISS CULPEPPER SPEAKS HER MIND.
Mrs. McDermott had reached Pincote, and she did not fail to let every one know it. As the Squire had predicted, the moment she had taken off her waterproof, and changed her boots, she marched straight into the library, and asked for her money. It was with a feeling of profound satisfaction that her brother unlocked his bureau, and handed her a roll of notes representing five thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds. She counted the notes over twice, slowly and carefully.

"What are the seven hundred and fifty pounds for?" she asked.

"Interest for three years at five per cent. per annum."

"I thought you would have got me seven per cent. at the least," she said ungraciously. "My man of business tells me that seven is quite a common thing nowadays. He says that he can get me nine or ten per cent. on real property, without any difficulty."

"I should advise you to be careful what you are about," said the Squire, gravely. "Big profits, big risks; little profits, little risks."

"I know perfectly well what I'm doing," said Mrs. McDermott, with a toss of her antiquated curls. "It's you slow, sleepy, country folks, who crawl behind the times, and miss half the golden chances that come to people who keep their eyes wide open."

The Squire shook his head, but said no more. He groaned in spirit when he thought what his "golden chance" had done for him.

"Let her buy her experience as I've bought mine," he said to himself. "From a girl she was always pig-headed: let her pay for it."

"Have you any idea how long your aunt is likely to stay?" he asked Jane, a day or two later.

"No idea whatever, papa. If the quantity of her luggage is anything to go by, I should say that her stay is likely to be a long one."

"I hope not, with all my heart," sighed the Squire.

Mrs. McDermott, in truth, was not a lady who ever troubled herself to make her presence agreeable to those with whom she might be staying. Consideration for the comfort of others was a thought that never entered her mind. From the day of her arrival at Pincote she began to interfere with the existing arrangements of the house; finding fault with everything: changing this, altering the other, and evidently determined to have her own way in all. The first thing she did was to find fault with her bedroom, although it was one of the pleasantest apartments in the house, and had been especially arranged by Jane herself with a view to her aunt's comfort. But it was not the best bedroom--the state bedroom, therefore Mrs. McDermott would have none of it. Into the state bedroom, a gloomy apartment fronting the north, which was never used above once or twice in half a dozen years, she migrated at once with all her belongings. Her next act, she being without a maid of her own at the time, was to induct one of the Pincote servants into that office, taking her altogether from her proper duties, and not permitting her to do a stroke of work for any one but herself. Then she talked her brother into allowing the dinner hour to be altered from six to half-past seven; so that, as the Squire grumbled to himself, the cloth was hardly removed before it was time to go to bed. Then the Squire must never appear at dinner without a dress coat, and a white tie--articles which, or late years, he had been tacitly allowed to dispense with when dining en famille. A white cravat especially was to him an abomination. He never could tie the knot properly, and after crumpling three or four, and throwing them across the room in a rage, Jane's services would generally have to be called into requisition as a last resource.

One other infliction there was which the Squire found it very difficult to bear patiently. After dinner, when there was no particular company at Pincote, it was an understood thing that the Squire should have the dining-room to himself for half an hour, in order that he might enjoy the post-prandial snooze which long custom had made almost a necessity with him. But this was an arrangement that failed to meet with the approbation of Mrs. McDermott. She insisted that the Squire should either accompany the ladies, or, otherwise, she herself would keep him company in the dining-room; and woe be to him if he dared so much as close an eye for five seconds! It was "Where are your manners, sir? I'm thoroughly ashamed of you;" or else, "Falling asleep, sir, in the presence of a lady? a clodhopper could do no more than that!" till the Squire felt as if his life were being slowly tormented out of him.

Nor did Jane fail to come in for a share of her aunt's strictures. Mrs. McDermott evidently looked upon her as little more than a child. Firstly, her hair was not arranged in accordance with her aunt's ideas of propriety in such matters, which, truth to say, belonged to a somewhat antiquated school. Then the girl was altogether too bright and sunny-looking, with her bows of ribbon and bits of lace showing daintily here and there. And she was too forward in introducing topics of conversation at meal-times, instead of allowing the introduction of appropriate themes to come from her elders and her betters. Then Jane was addicted to the heinous offence of laughing too heartily, and too often. Altogether her aunt saw in her much that stood in need of reformation. Jane bore everything with a sort of good-humoured indifference. "The time to speak is not come yet. I will see how much further she will go," she said to herself. But when the cook came to her one morning and said: "If you please, miss, Mrs. Dermott says that for the future I am to take my dinner orders from her," then Jane thought that the time to speak was drawing very near indeed.

"Do as Mrs. McDermott tells you," she said quietly to the astonished cook.

"Well, I never! I thought that the mistress had more spirit than that," said the woman as she went back to her duties in the kitchen.

Next day brought the coachman. "Beg pardon, miss," he said, with a touch of his hair; "but Mrs. McDermott have given orders that the brougham and gray mare is to be ready for her every afternoon at three o'clock to the minute. I am to take the order, miss, I suppose?"

"Quite right, John, till I give you orders to the contrary."

Next came the gardener. "Very sorry, miss, but I shall have to give notice--I shall really."

"Why, what's amiss now, Gibson?"

"It's all Mrs. McDermott, miss; begging your pardon for saying so. Why will she pretend to understand gardening better than me that has been at it, man and boy, for fifty year? Why will she come finding fault with this, that, and the other, in a way that neither the Squire nor you, miss, ever thinks of doing? And she not only finds fault, but gives orders, ridiculous orders, about things she knows nothing of. I can't stand it, miss, I really can't."

"Mrs. McDermott will give you no more orders, Gibson, after to-day. You can go back to your work with an easy mind."

Jane waited till next morning, and then having ascertained that her aunt had again given orders to the cook respecting dinner, she walked straight into the breakfast-room where she knew that she should find Mrs. McDermott alone, and busy with her correspondence--for she was a great letter writer at that hour of the morning.

"What a noisy girl you are," she said crossly, as her niece drew up a chair and sat down beside her. "I was just writing a few lines to dear Lady Clark when you came in in your usual brusque way and put all my ideas to flight."

"They must be poor, timid, little ideas, aunt, to be so easily frightened away," said Jane.

"Jane, there has been a flippant tone about you for the last day or two that I don't at all approve of. Flippancy in young people is easily acquired, but difficult to get rid of. The sooner you get rid of yours the better I shall be pleased."

Jane rose from her chair and swept Mrs. McDermott a stately curtsey. "Is it not almost time, aunt," she said quietly, "that you gave up treating me, and talking to me, as if I were a child?"

"If you are no longer a child in years, you are still very childish in many of your ways."

"You are quite epigrammatic this morning, aunt."

"Don't be impertinent, young lady."

"I have no intention of being impertinent. But I have come to see you about the order for dinner which you gave the cook half an hour ago."

"What about that?" asked Mrs. McDermott snappishly. "In what way does it concern you?"

"It concerns me very materially indeed," answered Jane. "You have ordered several things for dinner that papa does not care about; some, in fact, that he never eats. Fried soles, for instance, and veal cutlets--articles he never touches. So I have told the cook to supplement your order with some turbot and a boiled fowl à la marquise. I have also told her that for the future she will receive from me every evening the menu for next day. Should my list contain nothing that you care about, the cook has orders to obtain specially for you any articles that you may wish to have."

"Upon my word! what next?" was all that Mrs. McDermott could gasp out at the moment, so overcome was she with rage and surprise.

"This next," said Jane. "From to-day the dinner hour will be altered back to six o'clock. Half-past seven suits neither papa nor me. Should the latter hour be a necessity with you, you can always have your dinner served at that time in your own room. But papa and I will dine at six."

"I shall talk to your papa about this, and ascertain from his own lips whether I am to be dictated to and insulted by a chit like you."

"That is just what I must forbid you to do," said Jane. "Papa's health has not been what it ought to be for a long time past.

"Only a few weeks ago he had a slight stroke. Happily he soon recovered from it, but Dr. Davidson says that all exciting topics must be kept carefully from him. You know how little things will often excite him; and if you begin to worry him about any petty differences that may arise between you and me, you will do so at your peril, and must be satisfied to take whatever consequences may arise from your so doing."

Mrs. McDermott stared at her niece in open-mouthed wonder.

"Perhaps you have something more to say to me," she gasped out.

"Yes, several things. Before ordering the brougham to be at your beck and call every day at three o'clock, it might, perhaps, be just as well to make sure that your brother is not likely to want it. He has taken to using it rather frequently of late."

"Oh, indeed; I'll make due inquiry," was all that Mrs. McDermott could find to say.

"And if I were you, I wouldn't go quite so often into the greenhouses, or near the men at work in the garden."

"Anything else, Miss Culpepper? You may as well finish the list while you are about it."

"Simply this: that after dinner papa must be left to himself for an hour. He is used to have a little sleep at such times, and he cannot do without it. This is most imperative."

"I was never so insulted in the whole course of my life."

"Then your life must have been a very fortunate one. There is no intention to insult you, aunt, as your own common sense will tell you when you come to think calmly over all that I have said. You are here as papa's guest, and both he and I will do our best to make you comfortable. But there can be only one mistress at Pincote, and that mistress, at present, is your niece, Jane Culpepper."

And before Mrs. McDermott could find another word to say, Jane had bent over her, kissed her, and swept from the room.

For two days Mrs. McDermott dined in solitary state, at half-past seven, in her own room. But she found it so utterly wretched to have no one to talk to but her maid, that on the third day her resolution failed her; and when six o'clock came round she found herself in the dining-room, sitting next her brother, with something of the feeling of a school-girl who has been whipped and forgiven.

Her manner towards her brother and her niece was very frigid and stand-off-ish for several days to come. Towards the Squire she imperceptibly thawed, and the old familiar intimacy was gradually resumed between them. But between herself and Jane there was something--a restraint, a coldness--which no time could altogether remove. It was impossible for the older woman to forget that she had been worsted in the encounter with her niece. Could she have seen some great misfortune, some heavy trouble, fall upon Jane, she could then have afforded to forgive her, but hardly otherwise.

It was with a sense of intense relief that Squire Culpepper handed over to his sister the five thousand pounds that he was indebted to her. It was a great weight off his mind, and although he did not say much to Tom Bristow about it, he was none the less grateful in his secret heart. He was still as much at a loss as ever to understand by what occult means Tom had been able to raise the mortgage of six thousand pounds on Prior's Croft. He had hinted more than once that he should like to know the secret by means of which a result so remarkable had been achieved, but to all such hints Tom seemed utterly impervious.

Still more surprised was the Squire when, a few days after the six thousand pounds had been put into his hands, Tom came to him and said: "With regard to Prior's Croft, sir. You have taken my advice once in the matter: perhaps you won't object to it a second time."

"What is it, Bristow, what is it?" said the Squire, graciously. "I shall be glad to listen to anything you may have to say."

"What I want you to do, sir," said Tom, "is to have some plans at once drawn up, and have the foundations laid of a number of houses--twenty to thirty at the least--on Prior's Croft."

"I thought you crazy about the mortgage," said the Squire, with a twinkle in his eye. "Are you quite sure you are not crazy now?"

"I am just as sane now as I was then."

"But to build houses on Prior's Croft! Why, nobody would ever live in them. The place is altogether out of the way."

"That has nothing whatever to do with the question. If you will only take my advice, sir, you will get the foundations down without an hour's unnecessary delay."

"And where should I be at the end of a month, when the contractor came to me for the first instalment of his money?"

"All that can be arranged for without difficulty. Your credit is sound in the market, and that is the one thing indispensable."

"But what is to be the ultimate result of all these mysterious proceedings?"

"Now you get me in a corner. But I must again crave your indulgence, and ask you to let the mystery remain a mystery a little while longer. If you have sufficient faith in me, why, take my advice. If not--you will simply be missing a chance of making an odd thousand or so."

"And that is what I can by no means afford to do," said the Squire with emphasis.

The result was that a week later some forty or fifty men were busily at work cutting the turf and digging the foundations for the score of grand new villas which Mr. Culpepper had decided on building at Prior's Croft.

Everybody's verdict was that the Squire must be mad. New villas, indeed! Why there were hardly people enough in sleepy old Duxley to occupy the houses that fell vacant as the older inhabitants died off.

"That may be," said the Squire, when this plea was urged on his notice; "but I mean to make my villas so handsome, so commodious, and so healthy, that a lot of the old rattletrap dens will at once be deserted, and I shall not have house-room for half the people who will want to become my tenants." So spoke the Squire, putting a brave face on the matter, but really as much in the dark as any one.

But if there was one person more puzzled than another, that person was certainly Mr. Cope the banker. He had ascertained for a fact that within a few days of their interview--their very painful interview, he termed it to himself--his quondam friend had actually become the purchaser of Prior's Croft; and what was a still greater marvel, had actually paid down two thousand pounds in hard cash for it! And now the town's talk was of nothing but the grand villas which the Squire was going to build on his new purchase. Mr. Cope could hardly credit it all till he went and saw with his own eyes the men hard at work. Still, it was altogether incomprehensible to him. Could the Squire have merely been playing him a trick; have only been testing the strength of his friendship, when he came to him to borrow the five thousand pounds? No, that could hardly be; else why had his balance at the bank been allowed to dwindle to a mere nothing? Besides which, he knew from words that the Squire had let drop at different times, that he must have been speculating heavily. Could it be possible that his speculations had, after all, proved successful? If not, how account for this sudden flood of prosperity? For several days Mr. Cope failed to enjoy his dinner in the hearty way that was habitual with him: for several nights Mr. Cope's sleep failed to refresh him as it usually did.

Although the Squire's heaviest burden had been lifted off his mind with the payment of his sister's money, he had by no means forgotten the loss of his daughter's dowry. And now that his mind was easy on one point, this lesser trouble began to assume a magnitude that it had not possessed before. He could not get rid of the thought that there was nothing but his own frail life between his daughter and all but absolute penury. A few hundred pounds Jane would undoubtedly have, but what would that be to a young lady brought up as she had been brought up? "Not enough," as the Squire put it in his homely way, "to find her in bread-and-cheese and cotton gowns."

But what was to be done? Life assurance was out of the question. He was too old and too infirm. There was nothing much to be got out of the estate. It was true that he might thin the timber a little and make a few hundreds that way; but the heir-at-law had too shrewd an eye to his own ultimate interests to allow very much to be done in that line. Besides which, the Squire himself could not for very shame have impaired what was the chief beauty of the Pincote property--its magnificent array of timber.

There was, perhaps, a little cheese-paring to be done in the way of cutting down domestic expenses. A couple of servants might be dispensed with indoors. The under-gardener and the stable-boy might be sent about their business. The gray mare and the brougham might be disposed of. The wine merchant's bill might be lightened a little; and fewer coals, perhaps, might be burnt in winter--and that was nearly all.

But even such reductions as these, trifling though they were, could not be made secretly--could not be made, in fact, without becoming the talk of the whole neighbourhood; and if there was one thing the Squire detested more than another, it was having his private affairs challenged and discussed by other people. And what, after all, would the saving amount to? How many years of such petty economy would be needed to scrape together even as much as one-fourth of the sum he had lost by his mad speculations? It was all a muddle, as he said to himself; and his brain seemed getting hopelessly muddled, too, with asking the same questions over and over again, and still finding himself as far from a satisfactory answer as ever.

There was one thing that he could do, and one only, that had about it any real basis of satisfaction. He could sell that piece of ground which has already been spoken of as not forming part of the entailed estate--the piece of ground on which his new mansion was to have been built. Land, just now, was fetching good prices. Yes, he would certainly sell Knockley Holt, and fund in Jenny's name whatever money it might fetch--not that it would command a very high price, being a poor piece of land, as everybody knew. Still it would be a nest egg, though only a little one, for a rainy day.
CHAPTER IV. KNOCKLEY HOLT.
About this time Tom Bristow found himself very often at Pincote. The Squire would have him there. It seemed as if he could not do without Tom's society. Since the loss of his money he had been getting more and more disinclined either for going out himself or having company at home. Still he could not altogether do without somebody to talk to now and then; and Tom being either a good listener or a lively talker, as occasion might require, and having already rendered the Squire an important service, it seemed somehow to fall into the natural order of things that he should be invited three or four times a week to dine at Pincote. Nor after Mrs. McDermott's arrival was he there less frequently. Not that the Squire did not find his sister very lively company. In fact, he often found her too lively. She had too much to say: her tongue was never quiet. In season and out of season, she overwhelmed her brother with an unending flow of small-talk and petty gossip about things that had little or no interest for him; but about which he was obliged to feign an interest, unless, as he himself expressed it, "he wanted to know the length of his sister's tongue."

But when Tom was there the case was different. He acted as a sort of buffer between Mrs. McDermott and the Squire. By means of a few adroit questions, and a clever assumption of ignorance with regard to whatever topic Mrs. McDermott might be dilating on, he generally succeeded in drawing the full torrent of her conversation on his own devoted head, thereby affording the Squire a breathing space for which he was truly grateful. Sometimes, but not very often, Tom let the demon of mischief get the mastery of him. On such occasions he would lead Mrs. McDermott on by one artful question after another till she began to contradict herself and eat her own words, and ended by floundering helplessly in a sort of mental quagmire, and so relapsing into sulky silence, with a dim sense upon her that she had somehow been coaxed into making an exhibition of herself by that demure-looking young scamp of a Bristow, who seemed hand and glove with both her brother and her niece after a fashion that she neither liked nor understood.

Yet was the love of hearing herself talk so ingrained in Mrs. McDermott's nature, that by the time of Tom's next visit to Pincote she was ready to fall into the same trap again, had he been inclined to lead her on.

"Who is that young Bristow that you and Jane make such a pet of?" she asked her brother one day. "I don't seem to recollect any family of that name hereabouts."

"Pet, indeed! Nobody makes a pet of him, as you call it," growled the Squire. "He's the son of the doctor who attended poor Charlotte in her last illness. He's a sharp young fellow who has got his head screwed on the right way, and he's been useful to me in one or two business matters, and may be so again; so there's no harm in asking him to dinner now and then."

"Now and then with you seems to mean three or four times a week," sneered Mrs. McDermott.

"And what if it does?" retorted the Squire. "As long as I can call the house my own, I'll ask anybody I like to dinner, and as often as I like."

"Only if I were you, I wouldn't forget that I'd a daughter who was just at a marriageable age."

"Nor a sister who wouldn't object to a husband number two," chuckled the Squire.

"Why not set your cap at young Bristow, eh, Fanny? You might do worse. He's young and not bad looking, and if he has no money of his own, he's just the right sort to look well after yours."

Mrs. McDermott fanned herself indignantly. "You never were very refined, Titus," she said; "but you certainly get coarser every time I see you."

Mr. Culpepper only chuckled to himself, and poked the fire vigorously.

"I'll have that young Bristow out of this house before I'm three weeks older!" vowed the 'widow to herself. "The way he and Jane carry on together is simply disgusting, and yet that poor weak brother of mine can't see it."

From that day forth she took to watching Tom and Jane more particularly than she had done before. Not satisfied with watching them herself, she induced her maid Emma to act as a spy on their actions. With her assistance, Mrs. McDermott was not long in gathering sufficient evidence to warrant her, as she thought, in seeking a private interview with her brother on the subject. "And high time too," she said grimly to herself. "That minx of a Jane is carrying on a fine game under the rose. The arrant little flirt! And as for that young Bristow--of course it's Jane's money that he's after. Titus must be as blind as a bat, or he would have seen it all long ago. I've no patience with him--none!"

Having worked herself up to the requisite pitch, downstairs she bounced and burst into the Squire's private room--commonly called his study. She burst into the room, but halted suddenly the moment she had crossed the threshold. The Squire was there, but not alone. Tom Bristow was with him. The two were in deep consultation--so much she could see at a glance--bending towards each other over the little table, and speaking, as it seemed to her, almost in a whisper. The Squire turned with a gesture of impatience at the opening of the door. "Oh, is that you, Fanny?" he said. "I'll see you presently; I'm busy with Mr. Bristow, just now."

She went out without a word, but her face flushed deeply, and an evil look came into her eyes. "That's the way you treat your only sister, Mr. Titus Culpepper, is it?" she muttered under her breath. "Not a penny of my money shall ever come to you or yours."

Tom had walked over to Pincote that morning to see the Squire respecting the building going on at Prior's Croft. When their conference had come to an end, said the Squire to Tom: "You know that scrubby bit of ground of mine--Knockley Holt?"

Tom started. "Yes, I know it very well," he said. "It is rather singular that you should be the first to speak about it; because it was partly about that very piece of ground that I am here this morning to see you."

"Ay--ay--how's that?" said the Squire, suddenly brightening up from the apathy that had begun to creep over him so often of late.

"Why, it doesn't seem to be of much use to you, and I thought that perhaps you wouldn't mind letting me have a lease of it."

The Squire laughed heartily: a thing he had not done for several weeks. "And I had just made up my mind to sell it, and was going to ask your advice about it!"

Tom's face flushed suddenly. "And do you really think of selling Knockley Holt?" he asked, with his keen bright eyes bent on the Squire's face more keenly than usual.

"Of course I think of selling it, or I shouldn't have said what I have said. As things have gone with me, the money would be more useful to me than the land is ever likely to be. It won't fetch much I know, but then I didn't give much for it, and whoever may get it won't have much of a bargain."

"Perhaps you wouldn't object to have me for a purchaser?"

"You! You buy Knockley Holt? Why, man alive, you must know that I should want money down, and---- But I needn't say more about it."

"If you choose to sell Knockley Holt to me, I will give you twelve hundred pounds for it, cash down."

The Squire was getting into the way of not being astonished at anything that Tom might say, but he did look across at him for a moment or two in blank amazement.

"Well, you are a queer fish, and no mistake!" were his first words. "And pray, my young shaver, how come you to be possessed of twelve hundred pounds?"

"Oh, I'm worth a little more than twelve hundred pounds," said Tom, with a smile. "Why, only the other week I cleared a thousand by one little stroke in cotton."

"Well done, young one," said the Squire, heartily. "You are not such a fool as you look. And now take an old man's advice. Don't speculate any more. Fortune has given you one little slice of her cake. Don't tempt her again. Be content with what you've got, and speculate no more."

"At any rate, I won't forget your advice, sir," said Tom. "I wonder," he added to himself, "what he would think and say if he knew that it was by speculation, pure and simple, that I earn my bread and cheese."

"And so you would really like to buy Knockley Holt, eh?"

"I should indeed, if you are determined to sell it."

"Oh, I shall sell it, sure enough. But may I ask what you intend to do with it when you have got it?"

"Ah, sir, that is just one of those questions which you must not ask me," said Tom, laughingly. "If I buy it, it will be entirely on speculation. It may turn out a dismal failure: it may prove to be a big success."

"Well, well, that will be your look out," said the Squire, good-naturedly. "But, Bristow, it's not worth twelve hundred pounds, nor anything like that sum."

"I think it is, sir--at least to me, and I am quite prepared to pay that amount for it."

"I only gave nine fifty for it; and I thought that if I could get a clear thousand I should have every reason to be perfectly satisfied."

"I have made you an offer, sir. It is for you to say whether you are willing to accept it."

"Seeing that you offer me two hundred pounds more than I ever hoped to get, I'm not such an ass as to say, No. Only I think you are robbing yourself. I do indeed, Bristow; and that's what I don't like to see."

"I think, sir, that I'm pretty well able to look after my own interests," said Tom, with a meaning smile. "Am I to consider that Knockley Holt is to become my property?"

"Of course you are, boy--of course you are. But I must say that you are a little bit of a simpleton to give me twelve hundred when you might have it for a thousand."

"An offer's an offer, and I'll abide by mine."

"Then there's nothing more to be said: I'll see my lawyer about the deeds to-morrow."

Tom shook hands with the Squire and went in search of Jane.

"Perhaps I may come in now," said Mrs. McDermott five minutes later, as she opened the door of her brother's room.

"Of course you may," said the Squire. "Young Bristow and I were talking over some business affairs before, that would have had no interest for you, and that you know nothing about."

"It's about young Bristow, as you call him, that I have come to see you this morning."

"Oh, indeed," said the Squire drily. Then he took off his spectacles, and rubbed them with his pocket handkerchief, and began to whistle a tune under his breath.

Mrs. McDermott glared fiercely at him, and her voice took an added tone of asperity when she spoke again. "I suppose you are aware that your protégé is making violent love to your daughter, or else that your daughter is making violent love to him: I hardly know which it is!"

"What!" thundered the Squire, as he started to his feet. "What is that you say, Fanny McDermott?"

"Simply this: that there is a lot of lovemaking going on between Jane and Mr. Bristow. If it is done with your sanction, I have not another word to say. But if you tell me that you know nothing about it, I can only say that you must have been as blind as a bat and as stupid as an owl."

"Thank you, Fanny--thank you," said the Squire sadly, as he sat down in his chair again. "I dare say I have been both blind and stupid; and if what you tell me is true, I must have been."

"Miss Jane couldn't long deceive me," said the widow spitefully.

"Miss Jane is too good a girl to deceive anybody."

"Oh, in love matters we women hold that everything is fair. Deceit then becomes deceit no longer. We call it by a prettier name."

Her brother was not heeding her: he was lost in his own thoughts.

"The young vagabond!" he said at last. "So that's the way he's been hoodwinking me, is it? But I'll teach him: I'll have him know that I'm not to be made a fool of in that way. Make love to my daughter, indeed! I'll have him here to-morrow morning, and tell him a bit of my mind that will astonish him considerably."

"Why wait till to-morrow? Why not send for him now?"

"Because he left here a quarter of an hour ago.

"Oh, you would not have far to send for him."

"What do you mean?"

"Simply that he and Jane are in the shrubbery together at the present moment."

The Squire stared at her helplessly for a moment or two. "How do you know that?" he said at last, speaking very quietly.

"Because my maid, who was returning from an errand, saw them walking there, arm in arm." She paused, as if expecting her brother to say something, but he did not speak. "I have not had my eyes shut, I assure you," she went on. "But in these matters women are always more quick-sighted than men. From the very first hour of my seeing them together I had my suspicions. All their walking and talking together couldn't be for nothing. All their hand-shakings and sly glances into each other's eyes couldn't be without a meaning."

The Squire got up from his chair and rang the bell. A servant came in. "Ascertain whether Mr. Bristow is anywhere about the house or grounds; and, if he is, tell him that I should like to see him before he goes."

Mrs. McDermott rose in some alarm. It was no part of her policy to be seen there by Tom. "I am glad you have sent for him," she said. "I hope matters have not gone too far to be stopped without difficulty."

He looked up in a little surprise. "There will be no difficulty. Why should there be?" he said.

"No, of course not. As you say, why should there be? But I must now bid you good-morning for the present. There will be hardly any need, I think, for you to mention my name in the affair."

"There will be no need to mention anybody's name. Good-morning."

Mrs. McDermott went out and shut the door gently behind her. "Breaking fast, poor man," she said to herself. "He's not long for this world, I'm afraid. Well, I've the consolation of knowing that I've always done a sister's duty by him. I wonder what he'll die worth. Thousands, no doubt; and all to go to that proud minx of a Jane. We are not allowed to hate one another, or else I'm afraid I should hate that girl."

She shook her fist at an imaginary Jane, went straight upstairs, and gave her maid a good blowing-up.

Some three weeks had now come and gone since Tom, breaking for once through the restraint which had hitherto kept him back, did and said something which made Jane very happy. What he did was to draw her face down to his and kiss it: what he said was simply, "Good-night, my darling." Nothing more, but quite enough to be understood by her to whom the words were spoken. But since that evening not one syllable more of love had been breathed by Tom. For anything that had since passed between them Jane might have imagined that she had merely dreamt the words--that the speaking of them was nothing more than a fancy of her own lovesick brain.

Under similar circumstances many young ladies would have considered themselves aggrieved, and would not have been deemed unreasonable in so thinking, But Jane had no intention whatever of adopting an injured tone even in her own inmost thoughts. She had never been in the habit of looking upon herself in the light of a victim, and she had no intention of beginning to do so now. Surprised--slightly surprised--she might be, but that was all. In Tom's manner towards her, in the way he looked at her, in the very tone of his voice, there was that indescribable something which gave her the sweet assurance that she was still loved as much as ever. Such being the case, she was well satisfied to wait. She felt that her lover's silence had a meaning, that he was not dumb without a reason. When the proper time should come he would speak, and to some purpose. Till then Eros should keep a finger on his lips, and speak only the language of the eyes.

"So this is the way you treat me, is it, young man?" said the Squire, sternly, as Tom re-entered the room.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Tom, looking at him in sheer amazement.

"Oh, don't pretend that you don't know what I mean."

"It may seem stupid on my part, but I must really plead ignorance."

"You worm yourself into my confidence till you get the run of the house, and can come and go as you like, and you finish up by making love to my daughter!"

"It is no crime to love Miss Culpepper, I hope, sir. There are few people, I imagine, who could know her without loving her."

"That's all very well, but you don't get over me in that way, young sir. What right have you to make love to my daughter? That's what I want to know."

"I may love Miss Culpepper, but I have never told her so."

"Do you mean to say that you have never asked her to marry you?"

"Never, sir; on that point I give you my word of honour."

"A good thing for you that you haven't. The sooner you get that love tomfoolery out of your head the better."

"I promise you one thing, sir," said Tom; "if I ever do marry Miss Culpepper, it shall be with your full consent and good wishes."

The Squire could not help chuckling. "In that case, my boy, you will never have her--not if you live to be as old as Methuselah."

"Time will prove, sir."

"And look ye here. There must be no more walks in the shrubbery, no more gallivanting together among the woods. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly, sir. Your words could not be plainer."

"I mean them to be plain. There seems to be no harm done so far, but it's time this nonsense was put a stop to. Miss Culpepper must marry in a very different sphere from yours."

"Pardon the remark, sir, but you were quite willing to take Mr. Edward Cope as your son-in-law. Now, I consider myself quite as good a man as Mr. Cope--quite as eligible a suitor for your daughter's hand."

"Then I don't. Besides, young Cope would never have had the chance of getting her if he hadn't been the son of my oldest friend; the son of the man to whose bravery I owe my life itself. Master Edward owes it to his father and not to himself that I ever sanctioned his engagement to Miss Culpepper."

"I am indebted for this good turn to Mrs. McDermott," said Tom to himself, as he walked homeward through the park. "It will only have the effect of bringing matters to a climax a little earlier than I intended, but it will not alter my plans in the least."

"Fanny has been exaggerating as usual," was the Squire's comment. "There was something in it, no doubt, and it's just as well to have crushed it in the bud; but I think it's hardly worth while to say anything to Jenny about it."

A week later, the Squire happened to be riding on his white pony along the high road that fringed one side of Knockley Holt, when, to his intense astonishment, he heard the regular monotonous puffing and saw the smoke of a steam engine that was apparently hard at work behind a clump of larches in the distance. Riding up to the spot, he found some score or so of men all busily engaged. They were excavating a hole in the hill-side, filling-in stout timber supports as they got deeper down; the engine on the top being employed to hoist up the earth in big bucketfuls as fast as it was dug out.

"What's all this about?" inquired the Squire of one of the men; "and who's gaffer here?"

"Mr. Bristow, he be the gaffer, sur, and this hole be dug by his orders."

"Oh, ho! that's it, is it? And how deep are you going to dig the hole, and what do you expect to find when you get to the bottom?"

"I don't rightly know, sur, but I should think we be digging for water."

"A likely tale that! What the dickens should anybody want water for when we haven't had a dry day for seven weeks?"

"Our foreman did say, sur, as how Mr. Bristow was going to have a hole dug clean through, so as to make a short cut like to the other side of the world. Anyhow, it be mortal dry work."

The Squire gave a grunt of dissatisfaction, and rode off. "What queer crotchet has that young jackanapes got into his head now?" he muttered to himself. "It's just possible, though, that there may be a method in his madness."
CHAPTER V. AT THE THREE CROWNS HOTEL.

"Hi! Jean, whose is this luggage?" cried Pierre Janvard one morning to his head waiter. He pointed at the same time to a large portmanteau which lay among a pile of other luggage in the hall of the Three Crowns Hotel, Bath.

With that restless curiosity which was such a marked trait in his character, Janvard had a habit of peering about among the luggage of his guests, and even of prying stealthily about their bedrooms when he knew that their occupants were out of the way, and he himself safe from detection. It was not that he hoped to benefit himself in any way, or even to pick up any information that would be of value to him, by such a mode of proceeding; but it had been a habit with him from boyhood to do this kind of thing, and it was a habit that he could by no means overcome.

Passing through the hall this morning, his eye had been attracted by a pile of luggage belonging to several fresh arrivals, and he at once began to peer among the labels. The second label that took his eye was inscribed, "Richard Dering, Esq., Passenger to Bath." Janvard stood aghast as he read the name. A crowd of direful memories rushed to his mind. For a moment or two he could not speak. Then he called Jean as above.

"That portmanteau," answered Jean, "belongs to a gentleman who came in by the last train. He and another gentleman came together. They wanted a private sitting-room, and I put them into number twenty-nine."

"Has the other gentleman any luggage?"

"Yes, this large black bag belongs to him." Janvard stooped and read: "Tom Bristow, Esq., Passenger to Bath." "Quite strange to me, that name," he muttered to himself. At this moment the boots came, and shouldering the luggage, hurried with it upstairs.

"They have ordered dinner, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you hear them say how long they were likely to stay here?"

"No, sir."

"Wait on them yourself at dinner. Bear in mind all that they talk about, and report it to me afterwards."

"Yes, sir."

Pierre Janvard retired to his sanctum considerably disturbed in mind. Was the fresh arrival any relation or connection of the dead Lionel Dering, or was it merely one of those coincidences of name common enough in everyday life? These were the two questions that he put to himself again and again.

One thing was quite evident to him. Himself unseen, he must contrive to see this unknown Richard Dering. If there were a possibility of the slightest shadow of danger springing either from this or from any other quarter, it behoved him to be on his guard. He would see these people, after which, if requisite, he would at once write to Mr. Kester St. George for instructions.

He had just brought his cogitations to an end, and had opened his banker's passbook, the contemplation of which was a never-failing source of joy to him, when a tap came to the door, and next moment in walked Mr. Richard Dering and Mr. Tom Bristow.

It was on the face of this Richard Dering that Pierre Janvard's eyes rested first. In one brief glance he took in every detail of his appearance. Then his eyes fell. His sallow face grew sallower still. His thin lips quivered for a moment, and then his hands began to tremble slightly, so that in a little while he was obliged to take them off the table and bury them in his pockets.

He saw at once that this Mr. Dering must be a near relative of that other Mr. Dering whose face he remembered so well--whose face it was impossible that he should ever forget. They were alike, and yet strangely unlike: the same in many points, and yet in others most different. But the moment this dark-looking stranger opened his lips, it seemed indeed as if Lionel Dering had come back from the grave. A covert glance at Mr. Bristow assured Janvard that in him he beheld a man whose face he had no recollection of having ever seen before.

"Your name is Janvard, I believe?" said Mr. Dering, with a slight bow.

"Pierre Janvard at your service," answered the Frenchman, deferentially.

"You were formerly, I believe, in the service of Mr. Kester St. George?"

"I had that honour."

"My name is Dering--Richard Dering. It is probable that you never heard of me before, seeing that I have only lately returned from India. I am cousin to Mr. Kester St. George."

The Frenchman bowed. "I have no recollection of having heard monsieur's name mentioned by my late employer."

"I suppose not. But my brother's name--Lionel Dering--must be well known to you."

Janvard could not repress a slight start So that was the relationship, was it?

"Ah, yes," he said. "I have seen Mr. Lionel Dering many times, and done several little services for him at one time or another."

"You were one of the chief witnesses on the trial, if I recollect rightly?"

Janvard coughed, to gain a moment's time. The conversation was taking a turn that he did not approve of. "I certainly was one of the witnesses on the trial," he said, with an air of deprecation. "But monsieur will understand that it was a misfortune which I had no means of avoiding. I could not help seeing what I did see, and they made me tell all about it."

"Oh, we quite understand that," said Mr. Dering. "You were not to blame in any way. You could not do otherwise than as you did."

Janvard smiled faintly, and bowed his gratification.

"My friend here, Mr. Bristow, and myself, have come down to stay a week or two in your charming city. The doctors tell me there is something the matter with my spleen, and have recommended me to drink the Bath waters. Hearing casually that you were the proprietor of one of the most comfortable hotels in the place, and looking upon you somewhat in the light of a connection of the family, we thought that we could not do better than take up our quarters with you."

Again Janvard smiled and bowed his gratification. "Monsieur may depend upon my using my utmost endeavours to make himself and his friend as comfortable as possible. Pardon my presumption, but may I venture to ask whether Mr. St. George was quite well when monsieur saw or heard from him last?"

"My cousin was a little queer a short time ago, but I believe him to be well again by this time." Mr. Dering turned to go. "We have given your waiter instructions as to dinner," he said.

"I hope my chef will succeed in pleasing you," said Janvard., with a smile. "He has the reputation of being second to none in the city." With the same smile on his face he followed them to the door and bowed them out, and, still smiling, watched them till they turned the corner of the street. "No danger there, I think," he said to himself. "None whatever. Still I must keep on the watch--always on the watch. I must look to their dinners myself, and leave them nothing to complain of. But I shall be very much pleased indeed when they call for their bill: very much pleased to see the last of them."

Said Tom to Lionel, as they were walking arm-in-arm towards the pump-room: "Did you notice that magnificent ring which Janvard wore on the third finger of his left hand?"

"I could not fail to notice it. I was thinking about it at the very moment you spoke."

"I have not seen so splendid a ruby for a long time. The setting, too, is rather unique."

"Yes, it was the peculiar setting that caused me to recognize it again."

"That caused you to recognize it! You don't mean to say that you have ever seen the ring before?"

"I certainly have seen it before."

"Where?"

"On the finger of Percy Osmond."

Tom halted suddenly and stared at Lionel as if he could hardly believe the evidence of his ears.

"I am stating nothing but the simple truth," continued Lionel. "The moment I saw the ring on Janvard's finger the thought flashed through me that I had certainly seen it somewhere before. All the time I was talking to Janvard I was trying to call that somewhere to mind, but it did not come to me till after we had left the hotel--not, in fact, till a minute before you spoke about it."

"Are you sure you are not mistaken? There are many ruby rings in the world."

"I don't for one moment think that I am mistaken," answered Lionel deliberately. "If the ring worn by Janvard be the one I mean, it has three initial letters engraved inside the hoop. What particular letters they are I cannot now recollect. I chanced to express my admiration of the ring one night in the billiard-room, and Osmond took it off his finger in order that I might examine it. It was then I saw the letters, but without noticing them with sufficient particularity to remember them again."

"I always had an idea," said Tom, "that Janvard was in some way mixed up with the murder, and this would seem to prove it. He must have stolen the ring from Osmond's room either immediately before or immediately after the murder."

"I must see that ring," said Lionel decisively. "It must come into my possession, if only for a minute or two, if only while I ascertain whether the initials are really there."

"I don't think that there will be much difficulty about that," said Tom. "The fellow has no suspicion as to whom you really are, or as to the object of our visit to Bath. To admire the ring is the first step: to ask to look at it the second."

A quarter of an hour later Lionel gripped Tom suddenly by the arm. "Bristow," he whispered, "I have just remembered something. Osmond had that ruby ring on his finger the night before he was murdered! I have a distinct recollection of seeing it on his hand when we were playing that last game of billiards together."

"If this ring," said Tom, "prove to be the one you believe it to be, the finding of it will be another and a most important link in the chain of evidence."

"Yes--almost, if not quite, the last one that we shall need," said Lionel.

At dinner that evening Janvard in person took in the wine. The eyes of both Lionel and Tom fixed themselves instinctively on his left hand. The ring was no longer there.

"Can he suspect anything?" asked Lionel of Tom, as soon as they were alone.

"I think not," answered Tom. "The fellow is evidently uneasy, and will continue to be so as long as you stay under his roof But the very openness of our proceedings, and the frank way in which we have told him who we are, will go far to disarm any suspicions which he might otherwise have entertained."

Two or three days passed quietly over. Lionel drank the waters with regularity, and he and Tom drove out frequently in the neighbourhood of King Bladud's beautiful city. Janvard always gave them a look in in the course of dinner to see that everything was to their satisfaction; but he still carefully abstained from wearing the ring.

By-and-by there came a certain evening when Janvard failed to put in his usual appearance at the dinner table. Said Tom to the man who waited upon them: "Where is your master this evening? Not ill, I hope?"

"Gone to a masonic banquet, sir," answered the man.

"Then he won't be home till late, I'll wager."

"Not till eleven or twelve, I dare say, sir.

"Gone in full fig, of course?" said Tom, laughingly.

"Yes, sir," answered the man with a grin.

"Diamond studs and ruby ring, and everything complete, eh?" went on Tom.

"I don't know about diamond studs, sir," said the man, "but he certainly had his ring on, for I saw it on his finger myself."

"Now is our time," said Tom to Lionel, as soon as the man had left the room. "We may not have such an opportunity again."

It was close upon midnight when Pierre Janvard, alighting from a fly at the door of his hotel, found his two lodgers standing on the steps smoking a last cigar before turning in for the night. In this there was nothing unusual--nothing to excite suspicion.

"Hallo! Janvard, is that you?" cried Tom, assuming the tone and manner of a man who has taken a little too much wine. "I was just wondering what had become of you. This is my birthday: so you must come upstairs with us, and drink my health in some of your own wine."

"Another time, sir, I shall be most happy; but to-night----"

"But me no buts," cried Tom. "I'll have no excuses--none. Come along, Dering, and we'll crack another bottle of Janvard's Madeira. We'll poison mine host with his own tipple."

He seized Janvard by the arm, and dragged him upstairs, trolling out the last popular air as he did so. Lionel followed leisurely.

"You're a good sort, Janvard--a deuced good sort!" said Tom.

"Monsieur is very kind," said Janvard, with a smile and a shrug; and then in obedience to a wave from Tom's hand, he sat down at table. Tom now began to fumble with a bottle and a corkscrew.

"Allow me, monsieur," said Janvard, politely, as he relieved Tom of the articles in question, and proceeded to open the bottle with the ease of long practice.

"That's a sweet thing in rings you've got on your finger," said Tom, admiringly.

"Yes, it is rather a fine stone," said Janvard, dryly.

"May I be allowed to examine it?" asked Tom, as he poured out the wine with a hand that was slightly unsteady.

"I should be most happy to oblige monsieur," said Janvard, hastily, "but the ring fits me so tightly that I am afraid I should have some difficulty in getting it off my finger."

"Hang it all, man, the least you can do is to try," cried Tom.

The Frenchman flushed slightly, drew off the ring with some little difficulty, and passed it across the table to Tom. Tom's fingers clutched it like a vice. Janvard saw the movement and half rose, as if to reclaim the ring; but it was too late, and he sat down without speaking.

Tom pushed the ring carelessly over one of his fingers, and turned it towards the light. "A very pretty gem, indeed!" he said. "And worth something considerable in sovereigns, I should say."

"Will you allow me to examine it for a moment?" asked Lionel gravely, as he held out his hand. For the second time Janvard half rose from his seat, and for the second time he sat down without a word. Tom handed the ring across to Lionel.

"A magnificent stone, indeed," said the latter, "but somewhat old-fashioned in the setting. But that only makes it the more valuable in my eyes. A family heirloom, without doubt. And see! inside the hoop are three initials. They are somewhat difficult to decipher, but if I read them aright they are M. K. L."

"Yes, yes, monsieur," said Janvard, uneasily. "As you say, M. K. L. The initials of the friend who gave me the ring." He held out his hand, as if expecting that the ring should at once be given back to him, but Lionel took no notice of the action.

"Three very curious initials, indeed," said Lionel, musingly. "One could not readily fit them to many names. M. K. L. They put me in mind of a curious coincidence--of a very remarkable coincidence indeed. I once had a friend who had a ruby ring very similar to this one, and inside the hoop of my friend's ring were three initials. The initials in question were M. K. L. Precisely the same as the letters engraved on your ring, Monsieur Janvard. Curious, is it not?"

"Mille diables! I am betrayed!" cried Janvard, as he started from his seat, and made a snatch at the ring. But Lionel was too quick for him. The ring had disappeared, but Janvard had it not.

He turned with a snarl like that of a wild animal brought to bay, and looked towards the door. But between him and the door now stood Tom Bristow, no longer with any signs of inebriety about him, but as cold, quiet, and collected as ever he had looked in his life. Tom's right hand was hidden in the bosom of his vest, and Janvard's ears were smitten by the ominous click of a revolver. His eyes wandered back to the stern dark face of Lionel. There was no hope for him there. The pallor of his face deepened. His wonderful nerve for once was beginning to desert him. He was trembling visibly.

"Sit down, sir," said Lionel, sternly, "and refresh yourself with another glass of wine. I have something of much importance to say to you."

The Frenchman hesitated for a moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders and sat down. His sang-froid was coming back to him. He drank two glasses of wine rapidly one after another.

"I am ready, monsieur," he said, quietly, as he wiped his thin lips, and made a ghastly effort to smile. "At your service."

"What I want from you, and what you must give me," said Lionel, "is a full and particular account of how this ring came into your possession. It belonged to Percy Osmond, and it was on his finger the night he was murdered."

"Ah ciel! how do you know that?"

"It is enough that what I say is true, and that you cannot gainsay it. But this ring was not on the finger of the murdered man when he was found next morning. Tell me how it came into your possession."

For a moment or two Janvard did not speak. Then he said, sulkily: "Who are you that come here under false pretences, and question me and threaten me in this way?"

"I am not here to answer your questions. You are here to answer mine."

"What if I refuse to answer them?"

"In that case the four walls of a prison will hold you in less than half an hour. In your possession I find a ring which was on the finger of Mr. Osmond the night he was murdered. Less than that has brought many a better man than you to the gallows: be careful that it does not land you there?"

"If you know anything of the affair at all, you must know that the murderer of Mr. Osmond was tried and found guilty long ago."

"What proof have you--what proof was there adduced at the trial, that Lionel Dering was the murderer of Percy Osmond? Did your eyes, or those of any one else, see him do the bloody deed? Wretch! You knew from the first that he was innocent! If you yourself are not the murderer, you know the man who is."

Again Janvard was silent for a little while. His eyes were bent on the floor. He was considering deeply within himself. At length he spoke, but it was in the same sullen tone that he had used before.

"What guarantee have I that when I have told you anything that I may know, the information will not be used against me to my own harm?"

"You have no guarantee whatever. I could not give you any such promise. For aught I know to the contrary, you, and you alone, may be the murderer of Percy Osmond."

Janvard shuddered slightly. "I am not the murderer of Percy Osmond," he said quietly.

"Who, then, was the murderer?"

"My late master--Mr. Kester St. George."

There was a pause which no one seemed inclined to break. Although Janvard's words were but a confirmation of the suspicions which Lionel and Tom had all along entertained, they seemed to fall on their ears with all the force of a startling revelation. Of the three men there, Janvard was the one who seemed least concerned.

Lionel was the first to speak. "This is a serious charge to make against a gentleman like Mr. St. George," he said.

"I have made no charge against Mr. St. George," said Janvard. "It is you who have forced the confession from me."

"You are doubtless prepared to substantiate your statement--to prove your words?"

"I do not want to prove anything. I want to hold my tongue, but you will not let me."

"All I want from you is the simple truth, and that you must tell me."

"But, monsieur----" began Janvard, appealingly, and then he stopped.

"You are afraid, and justly so. You are in my power, and I can use that power in any way that I may deem best. At the same time, understand me. I am no constable--no officer of the law--I am simply the brother of Lionel Dering, and knowing, as I do, that he was accused and found guilty of a crime of which he was as innocent as I am, I have vowed that I will not rest night or day till I have discovered the murderer and brought him to justice. Such being the case, I tell you plainly that the best thing you can do is to make a full and frank confession of all that you know respecting this terrible business, leaving it for me afterwards to decide as to the use which I may find it requisite to make of your confession. Are you prepared to do what I ask of you?"

Janvard's shoulders rose and fell again. "I cannot help myself," he said. "I have no choice but to comply with the wishes of monsieur."

"Sensibly spoken. Try another glass of wine. It may help to refresh your memory."

"Alas! monsieur, my memory needs no refreshing. The incidents of that night are far too terrible to be forgotten." With a hand that still shook slightly he poured himself out another glass of wine and drank it off at a draught. Then he continued: "On the night of the quarrel in the billiard-room at Park Newton I was sitting up for my master, Mr. St. George. About midnight the bell rang for me, and on answering it, my master put Mr. Osmond into my hands, he being somewhat the worse for wine, with instructions to see him safely to bed. This I did, and then left him. As it happened, I had taken a violent fancy to Mr. Osmond's splendid ruby ring--the very ring monsieur has now in his possession--and that night I determined to make it my own. There were several new servants in the house, and nobody would suspect me of having taken it. Mr. Osmond had drawn it off his finger, and thrown it carelessly into his dressing-bag which he locked before getting into bed, afterwards putting his keys under his pillow.

"When the house was quiet, I put on a pair of list slippers and made my way to Mr. Osmond's bedroom. The door was unlocked and I went in. A night-lamp was burning on the dressing-table. The full moon shone in through the uncurtained window, and its rays slanted right across the sleeper's face. He lay there, sleeping the sleep of the drunken, with one hand clenched, and a frown on his face as if he were still threatening Mr. Dering. It was hardly the work of a minute to possess myself of the keys. In another minute the dressing-case was opened and the ring my own. Mr. Osmond's portmanteau stood invitingly open: what more natural than that I should desire to turn over its contents lightly and delicately? In such cases I am possessed by the simple curiosity of a child. I was down on my knees before the portmanteau, admiring this, that, and the other, when, to my horror, I heard the noise of coming footsteps. No concealment was possible, save that afforded by the long curtains which shaded one of the windows. Next moment I was safely hidden behind them.

"The footsteps came nearer and nearer, and then some one entered the room. The sleeping man still breathed heavily. Now and then he moaned in his sleep. All my fear of being found out could not keep me from peeping out of my hiding-place. What I saw was my master, Mr. Kester St. George, standing over the sleeping man, with a look on his face that I had never seen there before. He stood thus for a full minute, and then he came round to the near side of the bed, and seemed to be looking for Mr. Osmond's keys. In a little while he saw them in the dressing-bag where I had left them. Then he crossed to the other side of the room and proceeded to try them one by one, till he had found the right one, in the lock of Mr. Osmond's writing-case. He opened the case, took out of it Mr. Osmond's cheque book, and from that he tore either one or two blank cheques. He had just relocked the writing-case when Mr. Osmond suddenly awoke and started up in bed. 'Villain! what are you doing there?' he cried, as he flung back the bedclothes. But before he could set foot to the floor, Mr. St. George sprang at his throat, and pinned him down almost as easily as if he had been a boy. What happened during the next minute I hardly know how to describe. It would seem that Mr. Osmond was in the habit of sleeping with a dagger under his pillow. At all events, there was one there on this particular night. As soon as he found himself pinned down in bed, his hand sought for and found this dagger, and next moment he made a sudden stab with it at the breast of Mr. St. George. But my master was too quick for him. There was an instant's struggle--a flash--a cry--and--you may guess the rest.

"A murmur of horror escaped my lips. In another instant my master had sprung across the room and had torn away the curtains from before me. 'You here!' he said. And for a few seconds I thought my fate would be the same as that of Mr. Osmond. But at last his hand dropped. 'Janvard, you and I must be friends,' he said. 'From this night your interests are mine, and my interests are yours.' Then we left the room together. A terrible night, monsieur, as you may well believe."

"You have accounted clearly enough for the murder, but you have not yet told us how it happened that Lionel Dering came to be accused of the crime."

"That is the worst part of the story, sir. Whose thought it was first, whether Mr. St. George's or mine, to lay the murder at the door of Mr. Dering, I could not now tell you. It was a thought that seemed to come into the heads of both of us at the same moment. As monsieur knows, my master had no cause to love his cousin. He had every reason to hate him. Mr. Dering had got all the estates and property that ought to have been Mr. St. George's. But if Mr. Dering were to die without children, the estate would all come back to his cousin. Reason enough for wishing Mr. Dering dead.

"We did not talk much about it, my master and I. We understood one another without many words. There were certain things to be done which Mr. St. George had not the nerve to do. I had the nerve to do them, and I did them. It was I who put Mr. Dering's stud under the bed. It was I who took his handkerchief, and----"

"Enough!" said Lionel, with a shudder. "Surely no more devilish plot was ever hatched by Satan himself! You--you who sit so calmly there, had but to hold up your finger to save an innocent man from disgrace and death!"

"What would monsieur have?" said Janvard, with another of his indescribable shrugs. "Mr. St. George was my master. I liked him, and I was, besides, to have a large sum of money given me to keep silence. Mr. Dering was a stranger to me. Voilà tout."

"Janvard, you are one of the vilest wretches that ever disgraced the name of man!"

"Monsieur s'amuse."

"I shall at once proceed to put down in writing the heads of the confession which you have just made. You will sign the writing in question in the presence of Mr. Bristow as witness. You need be under no apprehension that any immediate harm will happen to you. As for Mr. St. George, I shall deal with him in my own time, and in my own way. There are, however, two points that I wish you to bear particularly in mind. Firstly, if, even by the vaguest hint, you dare to let Mr. St. George know that you have told me what you have told me to-night, it will be at your own proper peril, and you must be prepared to take the consequences that will immediately ensue. Secondly, you must hold yourself entirely at my service, and must come to me without delay whenever I may send for you, and wherever I may be. Do you clearly understand?"

"Yes, sir. I understand."

"For the present, then, I have done with you. Two hours later I will send for you again, in order that you may sign a certain paper which will be ready by that time. You may go."

"But, monsieur----"

"Not a word. Go."

Tom held open the door for him, and Janvard passed out without another word.

"At last, Dering! At last everything is made clear!" said Tom, as he crossed the room and laid his hand affectionately on Lionel's shoulder. "At last you can proclaim your innocence to the world."

"Yes, my task is nearly done," said Lionel, sadly. "And I thank heaven in all sincerity that it is so. But the duty that I have still to perform is a terrible one. I almost feel as if now, at this, the eleventh hour, I could go no farther. I shrink in horror from the last and most terrible step of all. Hark! whose voice was that?"

"I hear nothing save the moaning of the wind, and the low muttering of thunder far away among the hills."

"It seemed to me that I heard the voice of Percy Osmond calling to me from the grave--the same voice that I have heard so often in my dreams."

"How your hand burns, Dering! Shake off these wild fancies, I implore you," said Tom. "What a blinding flash was that!"

"They are no wild fancies to me, but most dread realities. I tell you it is Osmond's voice that I hear. I know it but too well, 'Thou shalt avenge!' it says to me. Only three words: 'Thou shalt avenge!'"
CHAPTER VI. TOM FINDS HIS TONGUE.
Nearly a fortnight elapsed after Tom's last interview with the Squire before he was again invited to Pincote, and after what had passed between himself and Mr. Culpepper he would not go there again without a special invitation. It is probable that the Squire would not have sent for him even at the end of a fortnight had he not grown so thoroughly tired of having to cope with Mrs. McDermott single-handed that he was ready to call in assistance from any quarter that promised relief. He knew that Tom would assist him if only a hint were given that he was wanted to do so. And Tom did relieve him; so that for the first time for many days the Squire really enjoyed his dinner.

Notwithstanding all this, matters were so arranged between the Squire and Mrs. McDermott that no opportunity was given Tom of being alone with Jane even for five minutes. The first time this happened he thought that it might perhaps have arisen from mere accident. But the next time he went up to Pincote he saw too clearly what was intended to allow him to remain any longer in doubt. That night, after shaking hands with Tom at parting, Jane found in her palm a tiny note, the contents of which were three lines only. "Should you be shopping in Duxley either to-morrow or next day, I shall be at the toll-gate on the Snelsham road from twelve till one o'clock."

Next day, at half-past twelve to the minute, Jane and her pony-carriage found themselves at the Snelsham toll-gate. There was Tom, sure enough, who got into the trap and took the reins. He turned presently into a byroad that led to nowhere in particular, and there earned the gratitude of Diamond by letting him lapse into a quiet walk which enabled him to take sly nibbles at the roadside grass as he crawled contentedly along.

Two or three minutes passed in silence. Then Tom spoke. "Jane," he said, and it was the first time he had ever called her by her Christian name, "Jane, your father has forbidden me to make love to you."

It seemed as if Jane had nothing to say either for or against this statement. She only breathed a little more quickly, and a lovelier colour flushed her cheeks. But just then Diamond swerved towards a tempting tuft of grass. The carriage gave a slight jerk, and Tom fancied--but it might be nothing more than fancy--that, instinctively, Jane drew a little closer to him. And when Diamond had been punished by the slightest possible flick with the whip between his ears, and was again jogging peacefully on, Jane did not get farther away again, being, perhaps, still slightly nervous; and when Tom looked down there was a little gloved hand resting, light as a feather, on his arm. It was impossible to resist the temptation. Dispensing with the whip for a moment he lifted the little hand tenderly to his lips and kissed it. He was not repulsed.

"Yes, dearest," he went on, "I am absolutely forbidden to make love to you. I can only imagine that your aunt has been talking to your father about us. Be that as it may, he has forbidden me to walk out with you, or even to see you alone. The reason why I asked you to meet me to-day was to tell you of these things."

Still Jane kept silence. Only from the little hand, which had somehow found its way back on to his arm, there came the faintest possible pressure, hardly heavy enough to have crushed a butterfly.

"I told him that I loved you," resumed Tom, "and he could not say that it was a crime to do so. But when I told him that I had never made love to you, or asked you to marry me, he seemed inclined to doubt my veracity. However, I set his mind at rest by giving him my word of honour that, even supposing you were willing to have me--a point respecting which I had very strong doubts indeed--I would not take you for my wife without first obtaining his full consent to do so."

Here Diamond, judging from the earnestness of Tom's tone that his thoughts were otherwhere, and deeming the opportunity a favourable one to steal a little breathing-time, gradually slackened his slow pace into a still slower one, till at last he came to a dead stand. Admonished by a crack of the whip half a yard above his head that Tom was still wide awake, he put on a tremendous spurt--for him--which, as they were going down hill at the time, was not difficult. But no sooner had they reached a level bit of road again than the spurt toned itself down to the customary slow trot, with, however, an extra whisk of the tail now and then which seemed to imply: "Mark well what a fiery steed I could be if I only chose to exert myself."

"All this but brings me to one point," said Tom: "that I have never yet told you that I loved you, that I have never yet asked you to become my wife. To-day, then--here this very moment, I tell you that I do love you as truly and sincerely as it is possible for man to love; and here I ask you to become my wife. Get along, Diamond, do, sir."

"Dearest, you are not blind," he went on. "You must have seen, you must have known, for a long time past, that my heart--my love--were wholly yours; and that I might one day win you for my own has been a hope, a blissful dream, that has haunted me and charmed my life for longer than I can tell. I ought, perhaps, to have spoken of this to you before, but there were certain reasons for my silence which it is not necessary to dilate upon now, but which, if you care to hear them, I will explain to you another time. Here, then, I ask you whether you feel as if you could ever learn to love me, whether you can ever care for me enough to become my wife. Speak to me, darling--whisper the one little word I burn to hear. Lift your eyes to mine, and let me read there that which will make me happy for life."

Except these two, there was no human being visible. They were alone with the trees, and the birds, and the sailing clouds. There was no one to overhear them save that sly old Diamond, and he pretended to be not listening a bit. For the second time he came to a stand-still, and this time his artfulness remained unreproved and unnoticed.

Jane trembled a little, but her eyes were still cast down. Tom tried to see into their depths but could not. "You promised papa that you would not take me from him without his consent," she said, speaking in little more than a whisper. "That consent you will never obtain."

"That consent I shall obtain if you will only give me yours first."

He spoke firmly and unhesitatingly. Jane could hardly believe her ears. She looked up at him in sheer surprise. For the first time their eyes met.

"You don't know papa as well as I do--how obstinate he is--how full of whims and crotchets. No--no; I feel sure that he will never consent."

"And I feel equally sure that he will. I have no fear on that score--none. But I will put the question to you in another way, in the short business-like way that comes most naturally to a man like me. Jane, dearest, if I can persuade your father to give you to me, will you be so given? Will you come to me and be my own--my wife--for ever?"

Still no answer. Only imperceptibly she crept a little closer to his side--a very little. He took that for his answer. First one arm went round her and then the other. He drew her to his heart, he drew her to his lips; he kissed her and called her his own. And she? Well, painful though it be to write it, she never reproved him in the least, but seemed content to sit there with her head resting on his shoulder, and to suffer Love's sweet punishment of kisses in silence.

It is on record that Diamond was the first to move.

While standing there he had fallen into a snooze, and had dreamt that another pony had been put into his particular stall and was at that moment engaged in munching his particular truss of hay. Overcome by his feelings, he turned deliberately round, and started for home at a gentle trot. Thus disturbed, Tom and Jane came back to sublunary matters with a laugh, and a little confusion on Jane's part. Tom drove her back as far as the toll-gate and then shook hands and left her. Jane reached home as one in a blissful dream.

Three days later Tom received a note in the Squire's own crabbed hand-writing, asking him to go up to Pincote as early as possible. He was evidently wanted for something out of the ordinary way. Wondering a little, he went. The Squire received him in high good humour and was not long in letting him know why he had sent for him.

"I have had some fellows here from the railway company," he said. "They want to buy Prior's Croft."

Tom's eyebrows went up a little. "I thought, sir, it would prove to be a profitable speculation by-and-by. Did they name any price?"

"No, nothing was said as to price. They simply wanted to know whether I was willing to sell it."

"And you told them that you were?"

"I told them that I would take time to think about it. I didn't want to seem too eager, you know."

"That's right, sir. Play with them a little before you finally hook them."

"From what they said they want to build a station on the Croft."

"Yes, a new passenger station, with plenty of siding accommodation."

"Ah! you know something about it, do you?"

"I know this much, sir, that the proposal of the new company to run a fresh line into Duxley has put the old company on their mettle. In place of the dirty ram-shackle station with which we have all had to be content for so many years, they are going to give us a new station, handsome and commodious; and Prior's Croft is the place named as the most probable site for the new terminus."

"Hang me, if I don't believe you knew something of this all along!" said the Squire. "If not, how could you have raised that heavy mortgage for me?"

There was a twinkle in Tom's eyes but he said nothing. Mr. Culpepper might have been still further surprised had he known that the six thousand pounds was Tom's own money, and that, although the mortgage was made out in another name, it was to Tom alone that he was indebted.

"Have you made up your mind as to the price you intend to ask, sir?"

"No, not yet. In fact, it was partly to consult you on that point that I sent for you."

"Somewhere about nine thousand pounds, sir, I should think, would be a fair price."

The Squire shook his head. "They will never give anything like so much as that."

"I think they will, sir, if the affair is judiciously managed. How can they refuse in the face of a mortgage for six thousand pounds?"

"There's something in that, certainly."

"Then there are the villas--yet unbuilt it is true--but the plans of which are already drawn, and the foundations of some of which are already laid. You will require to be liberally remunerated for your disappointment and outlay in respect of them."

"I see it all now. Splendid idea that of the villas."

"Considering the matter in all its bearings, nine thousand pounds may be regarded as a very moderate sum."

"I won't ask a penny less."

"With it you will be able to clear off both the mortgage and the loan of two thousand, and will then have a thousand left for your expenses in connection with the villas."

The Squire rubbed his hands. "I wish all my speculations had turned out as successful as this one," he said. "This one I owe to you, Bristow. You have done me a service that I can never forget."

Tom rose to go. "Mrs. McDermott quite well, sir?" he said, with the most innocent air in the world.

"If the way she eats and drinks is anything to go by, she was never better in her life. But if you take her own account, she's never well--a confirmed invalid she calls herself. I've no patience with the woman, though she is my sister. A day's hard scrubbing at the wash-tub every week would do her a world of good. If she would only pack up her trunks and go, how thankful I should be!"

"If you wish her to shorten her visit at Pincote, I think you might easily persuade her to do so."

"I'd give something to find out how. No, no, Bristow, you may depend that she's a fixture here for three or four months to come. She knows--no woman alive better--when she's in comfortable quarters."

"If I had your sanction to do so, sir, I think that I could induce her to hasten her departure from Pincote."

The Squire rubbed his nose thoughtfully.

"You are a queer fellow, Bristow," he said, "and you have done some strange things, but to induce my sister to leave Pincote before she's ready to go will cap all that you've done yet."

"I cannot of course induce her to leave Pincote till she is willing to go, but after a little quiet talk with me, it is possible that she may be willing, and even anxious, to get away as quickly as possible."

The Squire shook his head. "You don't know Fanny McDermott as well as I do," he said.

"Have I your permission to try the experiment?"

"You have--and my devoutest wishes for your success. Only you must not compromise me in any way in the matter."

"You may safely trust me not to do that. But you must give me an invitation to come and stay with you at Pincote for a week."

"With all my heart."

"I shall devote myself very assiduously to Mrs. McDermott, so that you must not be surprised if we seem to be very great friends in the course of a couple of days."

"Do as you like, boy. I'll take no notice. But she's an old soldier, is Fan, and if for a single moment she suspects what you are after, she'll nail her colours to the mast, defy us all, and stop here for six months longer."

"It is, of course, quite possible that I may fail," said Tom, "but somehow I hardly think that I shall."

"We'll have a glass of sherry together and drink to your success. By-the-by, have you contrived yet to purge your brain of that lovesick tomfoolery?"

"If, sir, you intend that phrase to apply to my feelings with regard to Miss Culpepper, I can only say that they are totally unchanged."

"What an idiot you are in some things, Bristow!" said the Squire, crustily. "Remember this--I'll have no lovemaking here next week."

"You need have no fear on that score, sir."
CHAPTER VII. EXIT MRS. MCDERMOTT.
Tom and his portmanteau reached Pincote together a day or two after his last conversation with the Squire. Mrs. McDermott understood that Tom had been invited to spend a week there in order to assist her brother with his books and farm accounts. It seemed to her a very injudicious thing to do, but she did not say much about it. In truth, she was rather pleased than otherwise to have Tom there. It was dreadfully monotonous to have to spend one evening after another with no company save that of her brother and Jane. She was tired of her audience, and her audience were tired of her. Mr. Bristow, as she knew already, could talk well, was lively company, and, above all things; was an excellent listener. She had done her duty by her brother in warning him of what was going on between Mr. Bristow and her niece; if, after that, the Squire chose to let the two young people come together, it was not her place to dispute his right to do so.

Tom was very attentive to her at dinner that day. Of Jane he took no notice beyond what the occasion absolutely demanded. Mrs. McDermott was agreeably surprised. "He has come to his senses at last, as I thought he would," she said to herself. "Grown tired of Jane's society, and no wonder. There's nothing in her."

As soon as the cloth was removed, Jane excused herself on the score of a headache, and left the room. The Squire got into an easy-chair and settled himself down for a post-prandial nap. Tom moved his chair a little nearer that of the widow.

"I have grieved to see you looking so far from well, Mrs. McDermott," he said, as he poured himself out another glass of wine. "My father was a doctor, and I suppose I caught the habit from him of reading the signs of health or sickness in people's faces."

Mrs. McDermott was visibly discomposed. She was a great coward with regard to her health, and Tom knew it.

"Yes," she said, "I have not been well for some time past. But I was not aware that the traces of my indisposition were so plainly visible to others."

"They are visible to me because, as I tell you, I am half a doctor both by birth and bringing up. You seem to me, Mrs. McDermott, pardon me for saying so--to have been fading--to have been going backward, as it were, almost from the day of your arrival at Pincote."

Mrs. McDermott coughed and moved uneasily on her chair. "I have been a confirmed invalid for years," she said, querulously, "and yet no one will believe me when, I tell them so."

"I can very readily believe it," said Tom, gravely. Then he lapsed into an ominous silence.

"I--I did not know that I was looking any worse now than when I first came to Pincote," she said at last.

"You seem to me to be much older-looking, much more careworn, with lines making their appearance round your eyes and mouth, such as I never noticed before. So, at least, it strikes me, but I may be, and I dare say I am, quite wrong."

The widow seemed at a loss what to say. Tom's words had evidently rendered her very uneasy. "Then what would you advise me to do?" she said, after a time. "If you can detect the disease so readily, you should have no difficulty in specifying the remedy."

"Ah, now I am afraid you are getting beyond my depth," said Tom, with a smile. "I am little more than a theorizer, you know; but I should have no hesitation in saying that your disorder is connected with the mind."

"Gracious me, Mr. Bristow!"

"Yes, Mrs. McDermott, my opinion is that you are suffering from an undue development of brain power."

The widow looked puzzled. "I was always considered rather intellectual," she said, with a glance at her brother. But the Squire still slept.

"You are very intellectual, madam; and that is just where the evil lies."

"Excuse me, but I fail to follow you."

"You are gifted with a very large and a very powerful brain," said Tom, with the utmost gravity. The Squire snorted suddenly in his sleep. The widow held up a warning finger. There was silence in the room till the Squire's gentle long-drawn snores announced that he was again happily fast asleep.

"Very few of us are so specially gifted," resumed Tom. "But every special gift necessitates a special obligation in return. You, with your massive brain, must find that brain plenty of work to do--a sufficiency of congenial employment--otherwise it will inevitably turn upon itself, grow morbid and hypochondriacal, and slowly but surely deteriorate, till it ends by becoming--what I hardly like to say."

"Really, Mr. Bristow, this conversation is to me most interesting," said the widow. "Your views are thoroughly original, but, at the same time, I feel that they are perfectly correct."

"The sphere of your intellectual activity is far too narrow and confined," resumed Tom; "your brain has not sufficient pabulum to keep it in a state of healthy activity. You want to mix more with the world--to mix more with clever people like yourself. It was never intended by nature that you should lose yourself among the narrow coteries of provincial life: the metropolis claims you: the world at large claims you. A conversationalist so brilliant, so incisive, with such an exhaustless fund of new ideas, can only hope to find her equals among the best circles of London or Parisian society."

"How thoroughly you appreciate me, Mr. Bristow!" said the widow, all in a flutter of gratified vanity, as she edged her chair still closer to Tom. "It is as you say. I feel that I am lost here--that I am altogether out of my element. I stay here more as a matter of duty--of principle--than of anything else. Not that it is any gratification to me, as you may well imagine, to be buried alive in this dull hole. But my brother is getting old and infirm--breaking fast, I'm afraid, poor man," here the Squire gave a louder snore than common; "while Jane is little more than a foolish girl. They both need the guidance of a kind but firm hand. The interests of both demand a clear brain to look after them."

"My dear madam, I agree with you in toto. Your Spartan views with regard to the duties of everyday life are mine exactly. But we must not forget that we have still another duty--that of carefully preserving our health, especially when our lives are invaluable to the epoch in which we live. You, my dear madam, are killing yourself by inches."

"Oh, Mr. Bristow, not quite so bad as that, I hope!"

"What I say, I say advisedly. I think that, without difficulty, I can specify a few symptoms of the cerebral disorder to which you are a victim. You will bear me out if what I say is correct."

"Yes, yes; please go on."

"You are a sufferer from sleeplessness to a certain extent. The body would fain rest, being tired and worn out, but the active brain will not allow it to do so. Am I right, Mrs. McDermott?"

"I cannot dispute the accuracy of what you say."

"Your nature being large and eminently sympathetic, but not finding sufficient vent for itself in the narrow circle to which it is condemned, busies itself, for lack of other aliment, with the concerns and daily doings of those around it, giving them the benefit of its vast experience and intuitive good sense; but being met sometimes with coldness instead of sympathy, it collapses, falls back upon itself, and becomes morbid for want of proper intellectual companionship. May I hope that you follow me?"

"Yes--yes, perfectly," said the widow, but looking somewhat mystified, notwithstanding.

"The brain thus thrown back upon itself engenders an irritability of the nerves, which is altogether abnormal. Fits of peevishness, of ill-temper, of causeless fault-finding, gradually supervene, till at length all natural amiability of disposition vanishes entirely, and there is nothing left but a wretched hypochondriac, a misery to himself and all around him."

"Gracious me! Mr. Bristow, what a picture! But I hope you do not put me down as a misery to myself and all around me."

"Far from it--very far from it--my dear Mrs. McDermott. You are only in the premonitory stage at present. Let us hope that in your case, the later stages will not follow."

"I hope not, with all my heart."

"Of course, you have not yet been troubled with hearing voices?"

"Hearing voices! Whatever do you mean, Mr. Bristow?"

"One of the worst symptoms of the cerebral disorder, from the earlier stages of which you are now suffering, is that the patient hears voices--or fancies that he hears them, which is pretty much the same thing. Sometimes they are strange voices; sometimes they are the voices of relatives, or friends, no longer among the living. In short, to state the case as briefly as possible, the patient is haunted."

"I declare, Mr. Bristow, that you quite frighten me!"

"But there are no such symptoms as these about you at present, Mrs. McDermott. The moment you have the least experience of them--should such a misfortune ever overtake you--then take my advice, and seek the only remedy that can be of any real benefit to you."

"And what may that be?"

"Immediate change of scene--a change total and complete. Go abroad. Go to Italy; go to Egypt; go to Africa;--in short to any place where the change is a radical one. But I hope that in your case, such a necessity will never arise."

"All this is most deeply interesting to me, Mr. Bristow, but at the same time it makes me very nervous. The very thought of being haunted in the way you mention is enough to keep me from sleeping for a week."

At this moment Jane came into the room, and a few minutes later the Squire awoke. Tom had said all that he wanted to say, and he gave Mrs. McDermott no further opportunity for private conversation with him.

Next day, too, Tom carefully avoided the widow. His object was to afford her ample time to think over what he had said. That day the vicar and his wife dined at Pincote, and Tom became immersed in local politics with the Squire and the Parson. Mrs. McDermott was anxious and uneasy. That evening she talked less than she had ever been known to do before.

The rule at Pincote was to keep early hours. It was not much past ten o'clock when Mrs. McDermott left the drawing-room, and having obtained her bed candle, set out on her journey to her own room. Half way up the staircase stood Mr. Bristow. The night being warm and balmy for the time of year, the staircase window was still half open, and Tom stood there, gazing out into the moonlit garden. Mrs. McDermott stopped, and said a few gracious words to him. She would have liked to resume the conversation of the previous evening, but that was evidently neither the time nor the place to do so; so she said good-night, shook hands, and went on her way, leaving Tom still standing by the window. Higher up, close to the head of the stairs, stood a very large, old-fashioned case clock. As she was passing it Mrs. McDermott held up her candle to see the time. It was nearly twenty minutes past ten. But at the very moment of her noting this fact, there came three distinct taps from the inside of the case, and next instant from the same place came the sound of a hollow, ghost-like voice. "Fanny--Fanny--list! I want to speak to you," said the voice, in slow, solemn tones. But Mrs. McDermott did not wait to hear more. She screamed, dropped her candle, and staggered back against the opposite wall. Tom was by her side in a moment.

"My dear Mrs. McDermott, whatever is the matter?" he said.

"The voice! did you not hear the voice!" she gasped.

"What voice? whose voice?" said Tom, with an arm round her waist.

"A voice which spoke to me out of the clock!" she said, with a shiver.

"Out of the clock?" said Tom. "We can soon see whether anybody's hidden there." Speaking thus, he withdrew his arm, and flung open the door of the clock. Enough light came from the lamp on the stairs to show that the old case was empty of everything, save the weights, chains, and pendulum of the clock.

"Wherever else the voice may have come from, it is plain that it couldn't come from here," said Tom, as he proceeded to relight the widow's candle.

"It came from there, I'm quite certain. There were three distinct raps from the inside as well."

"Is it not possible that it may have been a mere hallucination on your part? You have not been well, you know, for some time past."

"Whatever it may have been, it was very terrible," said Mrs. McDermott, drawing her skirts round her with a shudder. "I have not forgotten what you told me yesterday."

"Allow me to accompany you as far as your room door," said Tom.

"Thanks. I shall feel obliged by your doing so. You will say nothing of all this downstairs?"

"I should not think of doing so."

The following day Mr. Bristow was not at luncheon. There were one or two inquiries, but no one seemed to know exactly what had become of him. It was Mrs. McDermott's usual practice to retire to the library for an hour after luncheon--which room she generally had all to herself at such times--for the ostensible purpose of reading the newspapers, but, it may be, quite as much for the sake of a quiet sleep in the huge leathern chair that stood by the library fire. On going there as usual after luncheon to-day, what was the widow's surprise to find Mr. Bristow sitting there fast asleep, with the "Times" at his feet where it had dropped from his relaxed fingers.

She stepped up to him on tiptoe and looked closely at him. "Rather nice-looking," she said to herself. "Shall I disturb him, or not?"

Her eyes caught sight of some written documents lying out-spread on the table a little distance away. The temptation was too much for her. Still on tiptoe, she crossed to the table in order to examine them. But hardly had she stooped over the table when the same hollow voice that had sounded in her ears the previous night spoke to her again, and froze her to the spot where she was standing. "Fanny McDermott, you must get away from this house," said the voice. "If you stop here you will be a dead woman in three months!"

She was too terrified to look round or even to stir, but her trembling lips did at last falter out the words: "Who are you?"

The answer came. "I am your husband, Geoffrey. Be warned in time."

Then there was silence, and in a minute or two the widow ventured to look round. There was no one there except Mr. Bristow, fast asleep. She managed to reach the door without disturbing him, and from thence made the best of her way to her own room.

Two hours later Tom was encountered by the Squire. The latter was one broad smile. "She's going at last," he said. "Off to-morrow like a shot. Just told me."

"Then, with your permission, I won't dine with you this evening. I don't want to see her again."

"But how on earth have you managed it?" asked the Squire.

"By means of a little simple ventriloquism--nothing more. But I see her coming this way. I'm off." And off he went, leaving the Squire staring after him in open-mouthed astonishment.
CHAPTER VIII. DIRTY JACK.
There was one thing that puzzled both General St. George and Lionel Dering, and that was the persistent way in which Kester St. George stayed on at Park Newton. It had, in the first place, been a matter of some difficulty to get him to Park Newton at all, and for some time after his arrival it had been evident to all concerned that he had made up his mind that his stay there should be as brief as possible. But after that never-to-be-forgotten night when the noise of ghostly footsteps was heard in the nailed-up room--a circumstance which both his uncle and his cousin had made up their minds would drive him from the house for ever--he ceased to talk much about going away. Week passed after week and still he stayed on. Nor could his uncle, had he been desirous of doing so, which he certainly was not, have hinted to him, even in the most delicate possible way, that his room would be more welcome than his company, after the pressure which he had put upon him only a short time previously to induce him to remain.

Nothing could have suited Lionel's plans better than that his cousin should continue to live on at Park Newton, but he was certainly puzzled to know what his reason could be for so doing; and, in such a case, to be puzzled was, to a certain extent, to be disquieted.

But much as he would have liked to do so, Kester had a very good reason for not leaving Park Newton at present. He was, in fact, afraid to do so. After the affair of the footsteps he had decided that it would not be advisable to go away for a little while. It would never do for people to say that he had been driven away by the ghost of Percy Osmond. It was while thus lingering on from day to day that he had ridden over to see Mother Mim. One result of his interview was that he felt how utterly unsafe it would be for him to quit the neighbourhood till she was safely dead and buried. She might send for him at any moment, she might have other things to speak to him about which it behoved him to hear. She might change her mind at the last moment, and decide to tell to some other person what she had already told him; and when she should die, it would doubtless be to him that application would be made to bury her. All things considered, it was certainly unadvisable that he should leave Park Newton yet awhile.

Day after day he waited with smothered impatience for some further tidings of Mother Mim. But day after day he waited in vain. Most men, under such circumstances, would have gone to the place and have made personal inquiries for themselves. This was precisely what Kester St. George told himself that he ought to do, but for all that he did not do it. He shrank, with a repugnance which he could not overcome, from the thought of any further contact with either Mother Mim or her surroundings. His tastes, if not refined, were fastidious, and a shudder of disgust ran through him as often as he remembered that if what Mother Mim had said were true--and there was something that rang terribly like truth in her words--then was she--that wretched creature--his mother, and the filthy hut in which she lay dying his sole home and heritage. He knew that for the sake of his own interest--of his own safety--he ought to go and see again this woman who called herself his mother, but three weeks had come and gone before he could screw his courage up to the pitch requisite to induce him to do so.

But before this came about, Kester St. George had been left for the time being, with the exception of certain servants, the sole occupant of Park Newton. Lionel Dering had gone down to Bath to seek an interview with Pierre Janvard, with what result has been already seen. Two days after Lionel's departure, General St. George was called away by the sudden illness of an old Indian friend to whom he was most warmly attached. He left home expecting to be back in four or five days at the latest; whereas, as it fell out, he did not reach home again for several weeks.

It was one day when thus left alone, and when the solitude was becoming utterly intolerable to him, that Kester made up his mind that he would no longer be a coward, but would go that very afternoon and see for himself whether Mother Mim were alive or dead. But even after he had thus determined that there should be no more delay on his part, he played fast and loose with himself as to whether he should go or not. Had there come to him any important letter or telegram demanding his presence fifty miles away, he would have caught at it as a drowning man catches at a straw. The veriest excuse would have sufficed for the putting off of his journey for at least one day. But the dull hours wore themselves away without relief or change of any kind for him, and when three o'clock came, having first dosed himself heavily with brandy, he rang the bell and ordered his horse to be brought round.

What might not the next few hours bring to him? he asked himself as he rode down the avenue. They might perchance be pregnant with doom. Or death might already have lifted this last bitter burden from his life by sealing with his bony fingers the only lips that had power to do him harm.

For nearly a fortnight past the weather had been remarkably mild, balmy, and open for the time of year. Everybody said how easily old winter was dying. But during the previous night there had come a bitter change. The wind had suddenly veered round to the north-east, and was still blowing steadily from that quarter. Steadily and bitterly it blew, chilling the hearts of man and beast with its icy breath, stopping the growth of grass and flowers, killing every faintest gleam of sunshine, and bringing back the reign of winter in its cruellest form.

Heavy and lowering looked the sky, shrilly through the still bare branches whistled the ice-cold wind, as Kester St. George, deep in thought, rode slowly through the park. He buttoned his coat more closely around him, and pulled his hat more firmly over his brows as he turned out of the lodge gates, and setting his face full to the wind, urged his horse into a gallop, and was quickly lost to view down the winding road.

It would not have taken him long to reach the edge of Burley Moor had not his horse suddenly fallen lame. For the last two miles of the distance his pace was reduced to a slow walk. This so annoyed Kester that he decided to leave his horse at a roadside tavern in the last hamlet he had to pass through, and to traverse the remainder of the distance on foot. A short three miles across the moor would take him to Mother Mim's cottage.

To a man such as Kester a three miles' walk was a rather formidable undertaking--or, at least, it was an uncommon one. But there was no avoiding it on the present occasion, unless he gave up the object of his journey and went back home. But he could by no means bear the thought of doing that. In proportion with the hesitation and reluctance which he had previously shown, to ascertain either the best or the worst of the affair, was the anxiety which now possessed him to reach his journey's end. His imagination pictured all kinds of possible and impossible evils as likely to accrue to him, and he cursed himself again and again for his negligence in not making the journey long ago.

Very bleak and cold was that walk across the desolate, lonely moor, but Kester St. George, buried in his own thoughts, hardly felt or heeded anything of it. All the sky was clouded and overcast, but far away to the north a still darker bank of cloud was creeping slowly up from the horizon.

The wind blew in hollow fitful gusts. Any one learned in such lore would have said that a change of weather was imminent.

When about half-way across the moor he halted for a moment to gather breath. On every side of him spread the dull treeless expanse. Nowhere was there another human being to be seen. He was utterly alone. "If a man crossing here were suddenly stricken with death," he muttered to himself, "what a place this would be to die in! His body might lie here for days--for weeks even--before it was found."

At length Mother Mim's cottage was reached. Everything about it looked precisely the same as when he had seen it last. It seemed only like a few hours since he had left it. There, too, crouched on the low wall outside, with her skirt drawn over her head, was Mother Mim's grand-daughter, the girl with the black glittering eyes, looking as if she had never stirred from the spot since he was last there. She made no movement or sign of recognition when he walked up to her, but her eyes were full of a cold keen criticism of him, far beyond her age and appearance.

"How is your grandmother?" said Kester, abruptly. He did not like being stared at as she stared at him.

"She's dead."

"Dead!" It was no more than he expected to hear, and yet he could not hear it altogether unmoved.

"Ay, as dead as a door nail. And a good job too. It was time she went."

"How long has she been dead?" asked Kester, ignoring the latter part of the girl's speech.

"Just half an hour."

Another surprise for Kester. He had expected to hear that she had been dead several days--a week perhaps. But only half an hour!

"Who was with her when she died?" he asked, after a minute's pause.

"Me and Dirty Jack."

"Dirty Jack! who is he?"

"Why Dirty Jack. Everybody knows him. He lives in Duxley, and has a wooden leg, and does writings for folk."

"Does writings for folk!" A shiver ran through Kester. "And has he been doing anything for your grandmother?"

"That he has. A lot."

"A lot--about what?"

"About you."

"About me? Why about me?"

"Oh, you never came near. Nobody never came near. Granny got tired of it. 'I'll have my revenge,' said she. So she sent for Dirty Jack, and he took it all down in writing."

"Took it all down in writing about me?" She nodded her head in the affirmative. "If you know so much, no doubt you know what it was that he took down--eh?"

"Oh, I know right enough."

"Why not tell me?"

"I know all about it, but I ain't a-going to split."

Further persuasion on Kester's part had no other effect than to induce the girl to assert in still more emphatic terms that "she wasn't a-going to split."

Evidently nothing more was to be got from her. But she had said enough already to confirm his worst fears. Mother Mim, out of spite for the neglect with which he had treated her, had made a confession at the last moment, similar in purport to what she had told him when last there. Such a confession--if not absolutely dangerous to him--she having assured him that none of the witnesses were now living--might be made a source of infinite annoyance to him. Such a story, once made public, might bring forth witnesses and evidence from twenty hitherto unsuspected quarters, and fetter him round, link by link, with a chain of evidence from which he might find it impossible to extricate himself. At every sacrifice, Mother Mim's confession must be destroyed or suppressed. Such were some of the thoughts that passed through Kester's mind as he stood there biting his nails. Again and again he cursed himself in that he had allowed any such confession to emanate from the dead woman, whose silence a little extra kindness on his part would have effectually secured.

"And where is this Dirty Jack, as you call him?" he said, at last.

"He's in there"--indicating the hut with a jerk of her head--"fast asleep."

"Fast asleep in the same room with your grandmother?"

"Why not? He had a bottle of whiskey with him which he kept sucking at. At last he got half screwy, and when all was over he said he would have a snooze by the fire and pull himself together a bit before going home."

Kester said no more, but going up to the hut, opened the door and went in. On the pallet at the farther end lay the dead woman, her body faintly outlined through the sheet that had been drawn over her. A clear fire was burning in the broken grate, and close to it, on the only chair in the place, sat a man fast asleep. His hands were grimy, his linen was yellow, his hair was frowsy. He was a big bulky man, with a coarse, hard face, and was dressed in faded threadbare black. He had a wooden leg, which just now was thrust out towards the fire, and seemed as if it were basking in the comfortable blaze.

On the chimney-piece was an empty spirit-bottle, and in a corner near at hand were deposited a broad-brimmed hat, greasy and much the worse for wear, and a formidable looking walking-stick.

Such was the vision of loveliness that met the gaze of Kester St. George as he paused for a moment or two just inside the cottage door. Then he coughed and advanced a step or two. As he did so the man suddenly opened his eyes, got up quickly but awkwardly out of his chair, and laid his hand on something that was hidden in an inner pocket of his coat. "No, you don't!" he cried, with a wave of his hand. "No, you don't! None of your hanky-panky tricks here. They won't go down with Jack Skeggs, so you needn't try 'em on!"

Kester stared at him in unconcealed disgust. It was evident that he was still under the partial influence of what he had been drinking.

"Who are you, sir, and what are you doing here?" asked Kester, sternly.

"I am John Skeggs, Esquire, attorney-at-law, at your service. And who may you be, when you're at home? But there--I know who you are well enough. You are Mr. Kester St. George, of Park Newton. I have seen you before. I saw you on the day of the murder trial. You were one of the witnesses, and white enough you looked. Anybody who had a good look at you in the box that day would never be likely to forget your face again."

Kester turned aside for a moment to hide the sudden nervous twitching of his lips.

"I'm sorry the whiskey is done," said Mr. Skeggs with a regretful look at the empty bottle. "I should like you and I to have had a drain together. I suppose you don't do anything in this line?" From one pocket he produced an old clasp knife, and from the other a cake of leaf tobacco. Then he cut himself a plug and put it into his mouth. "When one friend fails me, then I fall back upon another," he said. "When I can't get whiskey I must have tobacco."

There was no better known character in Duxley than Mr. Skeggs. "Dirty Jack," or "Drunken Jack," were the sobriquets by which he was generally known, and neither of those terms was applied to him without good and sufficient reason. There could be no doubt as to the man's shrewdness, ability, and knowledge of common law. He was a great favourite among the lower and the very lowest classes of Duxley society, who in their legal difficulties never thought of employing any other lawyer than Skeggs, the universal belief being that if anybody could pull them through, either by hook or crook, Dirty Jack was that man. And it is quite possible that Mr. Skeggs's clients were not far wrong in their belief.

"No good stopping here any longer," said Skeggs, when he had put back his knife and tobacco into his pocket.

"No, I suppose not," said Kester.

"I suppose you will see that everything is done right and proper by our poor dear departed?"

"Yes, I suppose there is no one to look to but me. She was my foster-mother, and very kind to me when I was a lad."

"His foster-mother! Listen to that! His foster-mother! ha! ha!" sniggered Dirty Jack. Then laying a finger on one side his nose, and leering up at Kester with horrible familiarity, he added: "We know all about that little affair, Mr. St. George, and a very pretty romance it is."

"Look you here, Mr. Skeggs, or whatever your dirty name may be," said Kester, sternly, "I'd advise you to keep a civil tongue in your head or it may be worse for you. I've thrashed bigger men than you in my time. Be careful, or I shall thrash you."

"I like your pluck, on my soul I do!" said Skeggs, heartily. "If you're not genuine silver--and you know you ain't--you're a deuced good imitation of the real thing. Thoroughly well plated, that's what you are. Any one would take you to be a born gentleman, they would really. Which way are you going back?"

Kester hesitated a moment. Should he quarrel with this man and set him at defiance, or should he not? Could he afford to quarrel with him? that was the question. Perhaps it would be as well to keep from doing so as long as possible.

"I'm going to walk back across the moor as far as Sedgeley," said Kester.

"Then I'll walk with you--though three miles is rather a big stretch to do with my game leg. I can get a gig from there that will take me home."

Kester shrugged his shoulders, but made no comment. Skeggs took up his hat and stick, and proceeded to polish the former article with his sleeve.

"Queer woman that," he said, with a jerk of his thumb towards the bed--"very queer. Hard as nails. With something heroic about her, to my mind--something that, under different circumstances, might have developed her into a remarkable woman. Well, that's the way with heaps of us. Circumstances are dead against us, and we are not strong enough to overmaster them; else should we smite the world with surprise, and genius would not be so scarce an article in the market as it is now."

Kester stared. Was this the half-drunken blackguard who had been jeering at him but two minutes ago? "And yet, drunk he must be," added Kester to himself. "No fellow in his senses would talk such precious rot."

"Your obedient servant, sir," said Skeggs, with a purposely exaggerated bow as he held open the door for Mr. St. George to pass out.

The girl was still sitting on the wall with her skirt drawn over her head. Kester went up to her. "I will send some one along first thing to-morrow morning to see to the funeral and other matters," he said, "if you can manage till then."

"Oh, I can manage right enough. Why not?" said the girl.

"I thought that perhaps you might not care to be in the house by yourself all night."

"Oh, I don't mind that."

"Then you are not afraid?"

"What's there to be frittened of? She's quiet enough now. I shall make up a jolly fire, and have a jolly supper, and then a jolly long sleep. And that's what I've not had for weeks. And I shall read the Dream Book. She can't keep that from me now. I know where it is. It's in the bed right under her. But I'll have it." She laughed and nodded her head, then putting a nut into her mouth she cracked it and began to pick out the kernel. Kester turned away.

"Nell, my good girl," said Mr. Skeggs, insinuatingly, "just see whether there isn't such a thing as a drop of whiskey somewhere about the house. I've an awful pain in my chest."

"There's no whiskey--not a drop--but I know where there's half a bottle of gin. Give me five shillings and I'll fetch it."

"Five shillings for half a bottle of gin! Why, Nell, what a greedy young pig you must be!"

"Don't have it then. Nobody axed you. I can drink it myself."

"I'll give you three shillings for it. Come now."

"Not a meg less than five will I take," said Nell, emphatically, as she cracked another nut.

"Why, you young viper, have you no conscience at all?" he cried savagely. Then seeing that Nell took no further notice of him, he turned to Kester. "I find that I have no loose silver about me," he said. "Oblige me with the loan of a couple of half-crowns till we get to Sedgeley." Whenever Mr. Skeggs made a new acquaintance he always requested the loan of a couple of half-crowns before parting from him. But the half-crowns were never paid back until asked for, and asked for more than once.

A few premonitory flakes of snow were darkening the air as Kester St. George and Mr. Skeggs started on their way back across Burley Moor, the latter with a thick comforter round his neck and the bottle of gin stowed carefully away in the tail pocket of his coat. The cold seemed more intense than ever, but the wind had fallen altogether.

"We are going to have a rough night," said Skeggs as he stepped sturdily out. "We must contrive to get across the moor before the snow comes down very thick, or we shall stand a good chance of losing our way. Only the winter before last a pedlar and his wife were lost in the snow within a mile of here, and their bodies not found for a fortnight. This sudden change will play the devil with the young crops."

Kester did not answer. Far different matters occupied his thoughts. In silence they walked on for a little while.

"I suppose you could give a pretty good guess," said Skeggs at length, "at my reasons for asking you which way you were going to walk this afternoon?"

"Indeed, no," said Kester with a shrug. "I have not the remotest idea, nor do I care to know. It was you who chose to accompany me. I did not thrust my company upon you."

Skeggs laughed a little maliciously. "I don't think there's much good, Mr. Kester St. George, in you and I beating about the bush. I'm a plain man of business, and that reminds me,"--interrupting himself with a chuckle--"that when I once used those very words to a client of mine, he retorted by saying, 'You are more than a plain man of business, Mr. Skeggs, you are an ugly one.' I did my very utmost for that man, but he was hanged. Mais revenons. I am a plain man of business, and I intend to deal with this question in a business-like way. The simple point is: What is it worth your while to give me for the document I have buttoned up here?" tapping his chest with his left hand as he spoke.

"I am at a loss to know to what document you refer," said Mr. St. George, coldly.

"A very few words will tell you the contents of it, though, if I am rightly informed, you can give a pretty good guess already as to what they are likely to be. In this document it is asserted that you, sir, have no right to the name by which the world has known you for so long a time--that you have no right to the position you occupy, to the property you claim as yours. That you are, in fact, none other than the son of Mother Mim herself--of the woman who lies dead in yonder hut."

Kester drew in his breath with something like a sigh. It was as he had feared. Mother Mim had told everything, and, of all people in the world, to the wretch now walking by his side. He braced his nerves for the coming encounter. "I have heard something before to-day of the rigmarole of which you speak," he said, haughtily; "but I need hardly tell you that the affair is nothing but a tissue of vilest lies from beginning to end."

"I dare say it is," said Skeggs, good humouredly. "But it may be rather difficult for you to prove that it is so."

"It will be still more difficult for you to prove that it is not so."

"Oh! I am quite aware of all the difficulties both for and against--no man more so. You have got possession, and a hundred other points in your favour. Still, with what evidence I have already, and with what evidence I can get elsewhere, I shall be able to make out a strong case--a very strong case against you in a court of justice."

"Evidence elsewhere!" said Kester, disdainfully. "There is no such thing, unless you are clever enough to make the dead speak."

"Even that has been done before now," said Skeggs quietly. "But in this case we have no need to go to the churchyard to collect our evidence. I have a living, breathing witness whom I can lay my hands on at a day's notice."

"You lie," said Kester, emphatically.

"I'll wash that down," said Skeggs, halting for a moment and proceeding to take a good pull at his bottle of gin. "If you so far forget yourself again, I shall begin to feel sure that you are not a St. George. What I told you was not a lie. There were four witnesses who had all a personal knowledge of a certain fact. Three of those witnesses are dead: the fourth still lives. Of the existence of this fourth witness Mother Mim never even hinted to you. It was her trump card, and she was far too cunning to let you see it."

Kester walked on in silence. He felt that just then he had hardly a word to say. Was all that he had sacrificed so much for in other ways, all that he had run such tremendous risks for, to be torn from him by the machinations of a vile old hag, and the drunken, ribald scoundrel by his side? Through what strange ambushes, through what dusky by-paths, doth Fate oft-times overtake us! We look back along the broad highway we have been traversing, and seeing no black shadow dogging our footsteps, we go rejoicing on our way; when suddenly, from some near-at-hand shrub, is shot a poisoned arrow, and the sunlight fades from our eyes for ever.

"And now, after this little skirmish," said Skeggs, "we come back to my first question: What can you afford to give me for the document in my pocket?"

"Suppose I say that I will give you nothing--what then?" said Kester, sullenly.

"Then I shall get my evidence together, work out my case on paper, and submit it to the heir-at-law."

"And supposing the heir-at-law, acting under advice, were to decline having anything to do with your case, as you call it?"

"He would be a fool to do that, because my case is anything but a weak one. I tell you this in confidence. But supposing he were to decline, then I should say to him: 'I am willing to conduct this case on my own account. If I fail, it shall not cost you a penny. If I succeed, you shall pay all expenses, and give me five thousand pounds.' That would fetch him, I think."

"You have been assuming all along," said Kester, "that your case is based on fact. I assure you again that it is not--that it is nothing but a devilish lie from beginning to end."

"Really, my dear sir, that has little or nothing to do with the matter. I dare say it is a lie. But it is my place to believe it to be the truth, and to make other people believe the same as I do. Here's your very good health, sir." Again Mr. Skeggs took a long pull and a strong pull at his bottle of gin.

"Knowing what you know," said Kester, "and believing what you believe, are you yet willing to sell the document now in your possession?"

"Of course I am. What else is all this jaw for?"

"And don't you think you are a pretty sort of scoundrel to make me any such offer? Don't you think----"

"Now look you here, Mr. St. George--if that is your name, which I very much doubt--don't let you and me begin to fling mud at one another, because that is a game at which I could lick you into fits. I have made you a fair offer. If we can't come to terms, there's no reason why we shouldn't part friendly."

Once again Kester walked on in silence. The snow had been coming down more thickly for some time past, and already the dull gray moor began to look strange and unfamiliar, but neither of the two men gave more than a passing thought to the weather.

"If you feel and know your case to be such a strong one," said Kester, at last, "why do you come to me at all? Why send a white flag into your enemy's camp? Why not fight him à l'outrance at once?"

"Because I'm neither so young nor so pugnacious as I once was," answered Skeggs. "I go in for peace and quiet nowadays. I don't want the bother and annoyance of a law-suit. I have no ill-feeling towards you, and if you will only make me a fair offer, I shall be the last man in the world to disturb you in any way. Gemini! how the snow comes down! We are only about half way yet. We shall have some difficulty in picking our road across."

"I myself am as anxious as you can be, Mr. Skeggs, to be saved the trouble and annoyance of a law-suit, however sure I may feel that the result would be in my favour. But you must give me a little time to think this matter over. It is far too important to be decided at a moment's notice."

"Time? To be sure. You can make up your mind in about a couple of days, I suppose. Shall I call upon you, or will you call upon me?"

Hardly were the words out of Mr. Skeggs's mouth when his wooden leg sunk suddenly into a hidden hole in the pathway. Thrown forward by the shock, the lawyer came heavily to the ground, and at the same moment his leg snapped short off just below the knee.

Kester took him by the shoulders and assisted him to assume a sitting posture on the footpath.

Mr. Skeggs's first action was to pick up his broken limb and look at it with a sort of comical despair. "There goes a friend that has done me good service," he said; "but he might have lasted till he got me home, for all that. How the deuce am I to get home?" he asked, turning abruptly to Kester.

Kester paused for a minute and looked round before answering. The snow was coming down faster than ever. The moor was being gradually turned into a huge white carpet. Already its zig-zag paths and winding footways were barely distinguishable from the treacherous bog which lay on every side of them. In an hour and a half it would be dark with a darkness that would be unrelieved by either moon or stars. If it kept on snowing all night at this rate the drift would be a couple of feet deep by morning. Skeggs's casual remark about the pedlar and his wife, unheeded at the time, now flashed vividly across Kester's mind.

"You will have to wait here till I can get assistance," he said, in answer to his companion's question. "There is no help for it."

"I suppose not," growled Skeggs. "Was ever anything so cursedly unfortunate?"

"Sedgeley is the nearest place to this," said Kester. "There are plenty of men there who know the moor thoroughly. I will send half a dozen of them to your help."

"How soon may I expect them here?"

"In about three-quarters of an hour from now."

"Ugh! I'm half frozen already. What shall I be in another hour?"

"Oh, you'll pull through that easily enough. Your bottle is not empty yet."

"Jove! I'd forgotten the bottle," said Skeggs, with animation.

He took it out of his pocket, and held it up to the light. "Not more than a quartern left. Well, that's better than none at all."

"Goodbye," said Kester, as he shook some of the snow off his hat. "You may look for help in less than an hour."

"Goodbye, Mr. St. George," said Skeggs, looking very earnestly at him as he did so.

"You won't forget to send the help, will you? because if you do forget, it will be nothing more nor less than wilful murder."

Kester laughed a short grating laugh. "Fear nothing, Skeggs," he said. "I won't forget. About that other trifle, I will write you in two or three days. Again goodbye."

Skeggs's face had turned very white. He could not speak. He took off his hat and waved it. Kester responded by a wave of his hand. Then turning on his heel he strode away through the snowy twilight. In three minutes he was lost to sight. Skeggs could no longer see him. Tears came into his eyes. "He'll send no help, not he. I shall die here like a dog. The snow will be my winding-sheet. If ever there was mischief in a man's eye, there was in his, as he bade me goodbye."

Onward strode Kester St. George through the blinding snow. Altogether heedless of the weather was he just now. He had other things to think about. As instinctively as an Indian or a backwoodsman tracks his way across prairie or forest did he track his way across the moor, all hidden though the paths now were. He was a child of the moor. He had learned its secrets when a boy, and in his present emergency, reason and intellect must perforce give way to that blind instinct which was left him as a legacy of his youth.

At length the last patch of moorland was crossed, and a few minutes later he found himself close by a well-remembered finger-post, where three roads met. One of these roads led to Sedgeley, which was but a short quarter of a mile away; another of them led to Duxley and Park Newton. At Sedgeley his horse was waiting for him. There, too, was to be had the help which he had so faithfully promised Skeggs that he would send. Leaning against the finger-post, he took a minute's rest before going any farther. Which road should he take? That was the question which at present he was turning over and over in his mind. Not long did he hesitate. Taking out his pocket-handkerchief, he made a wisp of it, and tied it round his throat. Then he turned up the collar of his coat. Then once again he shook the snow off his hat. Then plunging his hands deep in his pockets, and turning his back on the finger-post, he set out resolutely along the road that led towards Park Newton. Once, and once only did he pause, even for a moment, before reaching home. It was when he fancied that he heard, away in the far distance, a low, wild, melancholy cry--whether the cry of an animal or a man he could not tell--but none the less a cry for help. Whatever it was, it did not come again, and after that Kester pursued his way homeward steadily and without pause. It was quite dark long before he reached his own room.

He changed his clothes and went down to dinner. Both his uncle and Richard Dering were away, and he dined alone, for which he was by no means sorry. Every half-hour or so he inquired as to the weather. They had nothing to tell him except that it was still snowing hard. The evening was one of slow torture, but at length it wore itself away. He went to bed about midnight. Dobbs's last report to him was that the weather was still unchanged. But several times during the night Dobbs heard his master pacing up and down his room, and had he been there he might, ever and again, have seen a haggard face peering out with eager eyes into the darkness.

"Twelve inches of snow, sir, on the drive," was Dobbs's first news next morning. "They say there has not been a fall like it in these parts for a dozen years."

The snow had ceased to fall hours before. By-and-by there came a few gleams of sunshine to brighten the scene, but the wind was still in the north, and all that day the weather kept bitterly cold. Soon after sunset, however, there was a change. Little by little the wind got round to the south-west. At ten o'clock Dobbs reported: "Snow going fast, sir. Regular thaw. Not be a bit left by breakfast-time."

"Call me at four," said his master, "and have some coffee ready, and a horse brought round by four thirty."

He was quite tired out by this time, and when he went to bed he felt sure that he should have four or five hours' sound sleep. But his sleep was several times disturbed by a strange dream: always the same thing repeated over and over again. He dreamt that he was standing under the finger-post on the edge of the moor. But the finger-post was neither more nor less than a gigantic skeleton, of which the outstretched arms formed the direction boards. On the bony palm of one outstretched arm, in letters of blood, was written the words: "To Sedgeley." Then as he read the words in his dream, again would sound in his ears the low, weird, melancholy cry which had arrested his steps for a moment as he walked home through the snow, and hearing the cry he would start up in bed and stare round him, and wonder for a moment where he was.

Dobbs duly called his master at four, and at four thirty he mounted his horse and rode away. The roads were heavy and sloppy with the melting snow. The morning was intensely dark, but Kester knew the country thoroughly, and was never at a loss as to which turn he ought to take. Not one human being did he meet during the whole of his ride. But, indeed, his nearest friend would have passed him by in the dark without recognition. He wore an old shooting suit, with a Glengarry bonnet and a macintosh, and had a thick shawl wrapped round his throat and the lower part of his face.

Day was just breaking as he reached the edge of the moor. He tethered his horse to the stump of an old tree behind a hedge. He had brought a powerful field-glass in his pocket. He scanned the moor carefully through it before proceeding farther on his quest. No living being was in sight anywhere. Satisfied of this, he set out without further delay, leaving his horse by itself to await his return. Not without a tremor--not without a faster beating of the heart--did he again set foot on the moor. A drizzling rain now began to fall, but Kester was not sorry for this. The worse the weather, the fewer the people who would be abroad in it. Onward he strode, keeping a wary eye about him as he went.

At length he reached a curve in the path from whence he ought to be able to discern the bulky form of John Skeggs, Esq., if that gentleman was still where he had last seen him. He looked, but the morning was still heavy and dark: he could see nothing. Then he adjusted his glass, and looking through that he could just make out a heap--a bundle--a shapeless something. It required a powerful effort on his part to brace his nerves to the pitch requisite to carry him through the task he had still before him. He had filled a small flask with brandy, and he now drank some of it. Then he started again. A few minutes more and the end of his journey was reached.

There lay Skeggs, on the very spot where he had left him, resting on his side, with one hand under his head, as if asleep. His hat had fallen off. On the ground near him were the empty bottle, his walking-stick, and his broken wooden leg. Numbed by the intense cold, he had fallen asleep while waiting for the help which was never to come, and had so died, frozen to death. Doubtless his death had been a painless one, but none the less, as he himself would have said, was Kester St. George his murderer.

Gloved though he was, it was not without a feeling of indescribable loathing that Kester could bring himself to touch the body. But it was absolutely necessary to do so. The paper he had come in quest of was in the breast pocket of the dead man's coat. It did not take him long to find it. Having made sure that he had got the right document, he fastened it up in the breast pocket of his own coat. "Now I am safe!" he said to himself. Then he took off his gloves and buried them carefully under a large stone. Then with one last glance at the body, he slunk hurriedly away, cursing in his heart the daylight that was now creeping up so rapidly from the east. In the clear light of dawn the foul deed he had done looked a thousand times fouler than it had looked before.
CHAPTER IX. WHAT TO DO NEXT?
Not to every one among the children of men is given the power, the faculty, to act as comforter to others. To listen to another's sorrow, to be told the history of another's trouble, is one thing: to be able to give back comfort is another. That delicate intuitive sympathy with another's woe which draws away the sting even while listening to it, which makes that woe its own property as it were, which sheds balm round the sufferer in every word and look and touch: this is surely as much a special gift as the gift of song or the poet's fine phrenzy, and without it the world would be a much poorer place than it is.

This rare gift of sympathy was possessed by Edith Dering in a pre-eminent degree. She was at once emotional and sympathetic. To Lionel in his dire trouble she was a comforter in the truest sense of the word. It was she who preserved his mental balance--the equipoise of his mind. But for her sweet offices he would have become a monomaniac or a misanthrope of the bitterest kind. Naturally she had him with her as much as possible, but still his home was of necessity at Park Newton. To the world he was simply Richard Dering, the unmarried nephew of General St. George. It would not do for him to be seen going to Fern Cottage sufficiently often to excite either scandal or suspicion. He could only visit there as the intimate friend of Mrs. Garside and her niece. Sometimes he took his uncle with him, sometimes Tom, in order to divert suspicion. For him to enter the garden gate of Fern Cottage was to cross the threshold of his earthly paradise. Edith and he had been married in the depth of a great trouble--troubles and danger had beset the path of their wedded life ever since. Owing, perhaps, to that very cause week by week, and month by month, their love seemed only to grow in depth and intensity. As yet it had lost nothing of its pristine charm and freshness. The gold-dust of romance lingered about it still. They were man and wife, they had been man and wife for months, but to the world at large they seemed nothing more than ordinary friends.

But all Edith's care and watchful love could not lift her husband, except by fits and starts, out of those moods of glom and depression which seemed to be settling more closely down upon him day by day. As link after link was added to the chain of evidence, each one tending to incriminate his cousin still more deeply, his moods seemed to grow darker and more difficult of removal. With his cousin Lionel associated no more than was absolutely necessary. They rarely met each other till dinner-time, and then they met with nothing more than a simple "How do you do?" and in conversation they never got beyond some half-dozen of the barest commonplaces. Lionel always left the table as soon as the cloth was drawn.

On Kester's side there was no love lost. That dark, stern-faced cousin was a perpetual menace to him, and he hated him accordingly. He hated him for his likeness to his dead and gone brother. He hated him because of the look in his eyes--so coldly scrutinizing, so searching, so immovable. He hated him because it was a look that he could in nowise give back. Try as he might, he could not face Lionel's steady gaze.

For some two or three weeks after his return from Bath with Janvard's written confession, Lionel was perfectly quiescent. He took no further action whatever. He was, indeed, debating in his own mind what further action it behoved him to take. There was no need to seek for any further evidence, if, indeed, any more would have been forthcoming. All that he wanted he had now got; it was simply a question as to what use he should make of it. Day and night that was the question which presented itself before his mind: what use should he make of the knowledge in his possession? His mind was divided this way and that; day passed after day, and still he could by no means decide as to the course which it would be best for him to adopt. Of all this he said not a word to Edith: he could not have borne to discuss the question even with her; but it is possible that she surmised something of it. She knew that she had only to wait and everything would be told her. Perhaps to Bristow, who knew all the details of the case as well as he did, he might have said something as to the difficulty by which he was beset, but as it happened, Tom was not at home just then. Much of his time was spent by Lionel in long solitary walks far and wide through the country. He could think better when he was walking than when sitting quietly at home, he used to say; and, indeed, the country folk who encountered him often turned to look at him, as he stalked along, with his eyes set straight before him, gazing on vacancy, and with lips that moved rapidly as he whispered to himself of his dreadful secret.

But, little by little, the need of counsel, of sympathy, grew more strongly upon him. He was still as much at a loss as ever as to the step which he ought to take next.

"They shall decide for me," he said at last; "I will put myself into their hands: by their verdict I will abide."

General St. George at this time was away from Park Newton. As has been already stated, he had been summoned to the sick-bed of a very old and valued friend. The illness was a long and tedious one, and at the request of his friend the General stayed on and kept him company. Truth to tell, he was by no means sorry to get away from Park Newton for awhile. Of late his position there had been anything but a pleasant one. The silent, deadly feud between his two nephews troubled him not a little. If Kester would only have gone away, then, so far, all would have been well. But having pressed him so earnestly to visit Park Newton, he could not, with any show of conscience, ask him to go till he was ready to do so of his own accord. Knowing what he knew, that Kester was all but proved to have been the murderer of Percy Osmond, he might well not care to live under the same roof with him, hiding his feelings under a mask, and, while pretending to know nothing, to be in reality cognisant of the whole dreadful story. Knowing what he knew, that Richard was none other than Lionel, and knowing the quest on which he was engaged, and that, sooner or later, the climax must come, he might well wish to be away from Park Newton when that most wretched day should dawn--a day which would prove the innocence of one nephew at the price of the other's guilt. Therefore did General St. George accept his old friend's invitation to stay with him for an indefinite length of time--till, in fact, Kester should have left Park Newton, or till the tangled knot of events should, in some other way, have unravelled itself.

When, at length, Lionel had decided that he would take the advice of his friends as to what his future course should be, he was obliged to await Tom Bristow's return before it was possible to do anything. Then, when Tom did get back home, the General had to be written to. When he understood what he was wanted for, he agreed to come on certain conditions. He was to come to Fern Cottage, spend one night there, and go back to his friend's house next day. No one, except those assembled at the cottage, was to know anything of his journey. Above all, it was to be kept a profound secret from Kester St George.

Thus it fell out that on a certain April evening there were assembled, in the parlour of the cottage, Edith, Mrs. Garside, General St. George, Tom Bristow, and Lionel. It was a very serious occasion, and they all felt it to be such.

The General would sit close to Edith, whom he had not seen for a little while; and several times during the evening he took possession of one of her hands, and patted it affectionately between his own withered palms.

"You are not looking quite so well, my dear, as when I saw you last," had been his first words after kissing her. Her cheeks were, indeed, just beginning to look in the slightest degree hollow and worn, nor did her eyes look quite so bright as of old. The wonder was, considering all that she had gone through during the last twelve months, that she looked as fair and fresh as she did. Of Mrs. Garside, whom we have not seen for some little time, it may be said that she looked plumper and more matronly than ever. But then nothing could have kept Mrs. Garside from looking plump and matronly. She was one of those people off whom the troubles and anxieties of life slip as easily as water slips off a duck's back. Although she had a copious supply of tears at command, nothing ever troubled her deeply or for long, simply because there was no depth to be troubled. She was always cheerful, because she was shallow; and she was always kind-hearted so long as her kindness of heart did not involve any self-sacrifice on her part. "What a very pleasant person Mrs. Garside is," was the general verdict of society. And so she was--very pleasant. If her father had been hanged on a Monday for sheepstealing, by Tuesday she would have been as pleasant and cheerful as ever.

But we must not be unjust to Mrs. Garside. She had one affection, and one only, her love for Edith. During all the days of Edith's tribulation, her aunt had never deserted her--had not even thought of deserting her; and now, for Edith's sake, she had buried herself alive in Fern Cottage, where her only excitement was a little mild shopping, now and then, in Duxley High Street, under the incognito of a thick veil, or a welcome visit once and again from Miss Culpepper. Under these depressing circumstances, it ought perhaps to be put down to the credit of Mrs. Garside, rather than to her discredit, that her cheerfulness was not one whit abated, and that her face was a picture of health and content.

"I think you know why I have asked you to meet me here to-night," began Lionel. "I want your advice: I want you to tell me what step I must take next. You know what the purpose of my life has been ever since the night I escaped from prison. You know how persistently I have pursued that purpose--that I have allowed nothing to deter me or turn me aside from it. The result is that there has grown under my hands a fatal array of evidence, all tending to implicate one man--all pointing with deadly accuracy to one person, and to one only, as the murderer of Percy Osmond. I have but to open my mouth, and the four walls of a prison would shut him round as fast as ever they shut round me; I have but to speak of half I know and that man would have to take his trial for Wilful Murder even as I took mine. But shall I do this thing? That is the question that I want you to help me to answer. So long as the chain of evidence remained incomplete, so long as certain links were wanting to it, I felt that my task was unfinished. But at last I have all that I need. There is nothing more to search for. My task, so far, is at an end. Knowing, then, what I know, and with such proofs in my possession, am I to stop here? Am I to rest content with what I have done, and go no step farther? Or am I to go through with it to the bitter end? What that end would involve you know as well as I could tell you."

He ceased, and for a little while they all sat in silence. General St. George was the first to speak. "Lionel knows, and you all know, that from the very first he has had my heartfelt sympathy in this unhappy business. He has not had my sympathy only, he has had my help, although I have seen for a long time the point to which we were all tending, and the terrible consequences that must necessarily ensue. Me those consequences affect with peculiar force. One nephew can only be saved at the expense of the irretrievable ruin and disgrace of the other. It is not as though we had been searching in the dark, and had there found the bloodstained hand of a stranger. The hand we have so grasped is that of one of our own kin--one of ourselves. And that makes the dreadful part of the affair. Still, I would not have you misunderstand me. I am as closely bound to Lionel--my sympathy and help are his as much to-day as ever they were, and should he choose to go through with this business in the same way as he would go through with it in the case of an utter stranger, I shall be the last man in the world to blame him. More: I will march with him side by side, whatever be the goal to which his steps may lead him. Such unparalleled wrongs as his demand unparalleled reparation. For all that, however, it is still a most serious question whether there is not a possibility of effecting some kind of a compromise: whether there is not somewhere a door of escape open by means of which we may avert a catastrophe almost too terrible even to bear thinking about."

"What is your opinion, Bristow?" said Lionel, turning to Tom. "What say you, my friend of friends?"

"I have a certain diffidence in offering any opinion," said Tom, "simply on account of the relationship of the two persons chiefly involved. To tell the world all that you know, would, undoubtedly, bring about a family catastrophe of a most painful nature. It therefore seems to me that the members of that family, and they alone, should be empowered to offer an opinion on a question so delicate as the one now under consideration."

"Not so," said Lionel, emphatically. "No one could have a better right, or even so great a right, to offer an opinion as you. But for you, I should not have been here to-night to ask for that opinion."

"Nor I here but for you," interrupted Tom.

"I will put my question to you in a different form," said Lionel; "and so put to you, I shall expect you to answer it in your usual clear and straightforward way. Bristow, if you were circumstanced exactly as I am now circumstanced, what would you do in my place?"

"I would go through with the task I had taken in hand, let the consequences be what they might," said Tom, without a moment's hesitation. "Nothing should hold me back. I would clear my own name and my own fame, and let punishment fall where punishment is due. You are still young, Dering, and a fair career and a happy future may still be yours if you like to claim them."

Tom's words were very emphatic, and for a little while no one spoke. "We have yet to hear what Edith has to say," said the General. "Her interests in the matter are second only to those of Lionel."

"Yes, it is my wife's turn to speak next," said Lionel.

"What my opinion is, you know well, dearest, and have known for a long time."

"My uncle and Bristow would like to hear it from your own lips."

"Uncle," began Edith, with a little blush, "whatever Lionel may ultimately decide to do will doubtless be for the best. The last wish I have in the world is to lead him or guide him in any way in opposition to his own convictions. But I have thought this: that it would be very terrible indeed to have to take part in a second tragedy--a tragedy that, in some of its features, would be far more dreadful than that first one, which none of us can ever forget. No one can know better than I know how grievously my husband has been sinned against. But nothing can altogether undo the wrong that has been done. Would it make my husband a happy man if, instead of being the accused, he should become the accuser? Let us for a few moments try to imagine that this second tragedy has been worked out in all its frightful consequences. That my husband has told everything. That he who is guilty has been duly punished. That Lionel's fair fame has been re-established, and that he and I are living at Park Newton as if nothing had ever happened to disturb the commonplace tenor of our lives. In such a case, would my husband be a happy man? No. I know him too well to believe it possible that he could ever be happy or contented. The image of that man--one of his own kith and kin, we must remember--would be for ever in his mind. He would be the prey of a remorse all the more bitter in that the world would hold him as without blame. But would he so hold himself? I think not--I am sure not. He would feel as if he had sought for and accepted the price of blood." Overcome by her emotion, she ceased.

"I think in a great measure as you think, my dear," said the General. "What course do you propose that your husband should adopt?"

"It is not for me to propose anything," answered Edith. "I can only suggest certain views of the question, and leave it for you and Lionel to adopt them or reject them, as may seem best to you."

"Holding the proofs of his innocence in his hands as he does," said the General, "is it your wish that Lionel should sit down contented with what he has already achieved, and knowing that the real facts of his story are in the keeping of you and me, and two or three trusted friends, rest satisfied with that and ask for nothing more?"

"No, I hardly go so far as that," said Edith, with a faint smile. "I think that the man who committed the crime should know that Lionel still lives, and that he holds in his hands the proof at once of his own innocence and of the other's guilt. Beyond that I say this: The world believes my husband to be dead: rather than re-open so terrible a wound, let the world continue so to believe. My husband and I can do without the world, as well as it can do without us. We have our mutual love, which nothing can deprive us of: against that the shafts of Fortune beat as vainly as hailstones against a castle wall. On this earth of ours are places sweet and fair without number. In one of them--not altogether dissevered from those ties of friendship which have already made our married life so beautiful--my husband and I could build up a new home, with no sad memories of the past to cling around it; and when this haunting shadow that now broods over his life shall have been brushed away for ever, then I think--I know--I feel sure that I can make him happy!" Her voice, her eyes, her whole manner were imbued with a sweet fervour that it was impossible to resist.

Lionel crossed over and kissed her. "My darling!" he said. "But for your love and care I should long ago have been a madman."

"You, my dear, have put into words," said the General, "the very ideas that for a long time have been floating about, half formed, in my own mind. Lionel, what have you to say to your wife's suggestions?"

"Only this: that I have made up my mind to follow them. He shall know that I am alive, and that I hold the proofs of his guilt, ready to produce them at a moment's notice, should I ever be compelled to do so. Beyond that, I will leave him in peace--to such peace as his own conscience will give him. The world believes Lionel Dering to be dead and buried. Dead and buried he shall still remain, and 'requiescat in pace' be written under his name."

The General got up with tears in his eyes and shook Lionel warmly by the hand. "Good boy! good boy! You will not go without your reward," was all that he could say.

"The eighth of May will soon be here," said Lionel--"the anniversary of poor Osmond's murder. On that day he shall be told. But I shall tell him in my own fashion. On that day, uncle, you must promise to give me your company; and you yours, Tom. After that I shall trouble you no more."

If Tom Bristow dissented from the conclusion thus come to, he said no word to that effect. There was one point, however, that struck his practical mind as having been altogether overlooked; and as soon as Edith and Mrs. Garside had left the room he did not fail to mention it.

"What about the income of eleven thousand a year?" he said. "You are surely not going to let the whole of that slip through your fingers?"

"Ah, by-the-by, that point never struck me," said the General. "No, it would be decidedly unjust both to yourself and your wife, Lionel, to give up the income as well as the position."

"Now you are importing a mercenary tone into the affair that is utterly distasteful to me. It looks as if I were being bribed to keep silence."

"That is sheer nonsense," said the General. "You have but to hold out your hand to take the whole."

Lionel said no more, but went and sat down dejectedly on the sofa.

"You and I must settle this matter between us," said the General to Tom. "It is most important. It shall be my place to see that whatever is agreed upon shall be duly carried out in the arrangement between the two men. I should think that if the income were divided it would be about as fair a thing as could be done. What say you?"

"I agree with you entirely," said Tom. "The other one will have the name and position to keep up, and that can't be done for nothing."

"Then it shall be so settled."

"There is one other point that I think ought to be settled at the same time. Who is to have Park Newton after his death? Lionel may have children. He may marry and have children. But, in common justice, the estate ought to be secured on Dering's eldest child, whether the present possessor die with or without an heir."

"Certainly, certainly. Good gracious me! a most valuable suggestion. Strange, now, that it never struck me. Yes, yes: Lionel's eldest child must have the estate. I will see that there is no possible mistake on that score."
CHAPTER X. HOW TOM WINS HIS WIFE.
After Mrs. McDermott's departure from Pincote, life there slipped back into its old quiet groove--into its old dull groove which was growing duller day by day. The Squire had altogether ceased to see company: when any of his old friends called he was never at home to them; and on the score of ill health he declined every invitation that was sent to him. But it was not altogether on account of his health that these invitations were declined, because three or four times a week he would be seen somewhere about the country roads being driven out by Jane in the basket-carriage. There was another reason for this state of things--a reason to which his friends and neighbours were not slow in giving a name. The Squire in his old age was becoming a miser: that is what the said friends and neighbours averred. But to dub him as a miser was altogether unjust: he was simply becoming penurious for his daughter's sake, as many other men are penurious for ends much more ignoble. He had, in fact, decided upon carrying out that modest scheme of domestic retrenchment of which mention has been made in a previous chapter, and the mode of living adopted by him now did undoubtedly, to many people, seem miserly in comparison with that lavish hospitality for which Pincote had heretofore been noted. The Squire knew that he could not go much into society without giving return invitations. Now the four or five state dinners which he had been in the habit of giving every year were very elaborate and expensive affairs, and he no longer felt himself justified in keeping them up. Instead of spending so many pounds per annum in entertaining a number of people for whom he cared little or nothing, would it not be better to add the amount, trifling though it might seem, to that other trifling amount--only some few hundreds of pounds when all was told--which he had already managed to scrape together as a little nest-egg for Jane when he should be gone from her side for ever, and Pincote could no longer be her home? "If I had only died a year ago," he would sometimes say to himself, "then Jenny would have had a handsome fortune to call her own. Now she's next door to being a pauper."

Half his journeys into Duxley nowadays were to the bank--not to Sugden's Bank, we may be sure, but to the Town and County--and he gloated over every five pounds added to the fund invested in his daughter's name as something more added to the nest-egg; and to be able to put away fifty pounds in a lump now afforded him far more genuine delight than the putting away of a thousand would have done six months previously.

There had been little or no conversation between Jane and her father respecting the loss of her fortune since that memorable night when the Squire himself first heard the fatal tidings, and Jane was far more anxious than he was that the topic should never be broached between them again. She guessed in part what his object might be when he began to cut down the house expenses at Pincote discharging some half dozen of his people; raising his farm rents where it was possible to do so; letting out the whole, instead of a portion only, of the park as pasturage for sheep; selling some of his horses, and the whole of his famous cellar of wines; besides arranging for part of the produce of his kitchen garden to be taken by a greengrocer at Duxley. She guessed, but that was all. Her father said nothing definite as to his reasons for so doing, and she made no inquiry. The sphere of his enjoyment had now become a very limited one. If it gave him pleasure--and she could not doubt that it did--to live penuriously so as to be enabled to put away a few extra pounds per annum, she would not mar the edge of that pleasure by seeming even to notice what was going on, much less make any inquiry as to its meaning. The Squire, on his part, had many a good chuckle in the solitude of his own room. "After I'm gone, she'll know what it all means," he would say to himself. "She's puzzled now--they are all puzzled. They call me a miser, do they? Let 'em call me what they like. Another twenty put away to-day. That makes----" and out would come his passbook and his spectacles.

The fact that the Squire no longer either received company or went into society compelled Jane, in a great measure, to follow his example. There were two or three houses to which, if she chose, she could still go without its being thought strange that there was no return invitation to Pincote; and there were two or three old school friends whom she could invite to a cup of tea in her own little room without their feeling offended that they were not asked to stay to dinner. But of society, in the general sense of the term, Jane now saw little or nothing. To her this was no source of regret. Just now she was far too deeply in love to care very much for company of any kind.

Happy was it for Jane that the only exception to her father's no-society rule was in favour of the man she loved. The Squire had by no means forgotten Mrs. McDermott's warning words, nor Tom's frank confession of his love for Jane; and it had certainly been no part of his intention to encourage Tom's visits to Pincote after the widow's abrupt departure. In honour of that departure, there had been, next day, a little dinner of state, at which Mr. Culpepper had made his appearance in a dress coat and white cravat, at which there had been French side dishes, and at which the Squire had drunk Tom's health in a bumper of the very best port which his cellar contained. But when they parted that night, when the Squire, having hobbled to the front door, shook hands with Tom, and bade him good-night, it was with a sort of half intimation that some considerable time would probably elapse before they should have the pleasure of seeing him at Pincote again. In the first flush of his delight at having got rid of his sister, the Squire thought that he could be content and happy at home of an evening with no company save that of Jane, even as he had been content and happy long before he had known Tom Bristow. But in so thinking he had overlooked one very important point. The Titus Culpepper of six months ago had been a prosperous, well-to-do gentleman, satisfied with himself and all the world, in tolerable health, and excited by the prospect of making a magnificent fortune without trouble or anxiety. The Titus Culpepper of to-day was a broken-down gambler--a gambler who had madly speculated with his daughter's fortune, and had lost it. Broken-down, too, was he in health, in spirits, and in temper; and, worst sign of all, a man who no longer found any pleasure in the company of his own thoughts, and who began to dislike to sit alone even for half an hour at a time. Of this change in himself the Squire knew and suspected nothing: how few of us do know of such changes! Other people may change--nay, do we not see them changing daily around us, and smile good-naturedly as we note how querulous and hard to please poor Jones has become of late? But that we--we--should so change, becoming a burden to ourselves and a trial to those around us, with our queer, cross-grained ways, our peevish, variable tempers, and our general belief that the sun shines less brightly, and that the world is less beautiful than it was a little while ago--that is altogether impossible. The change is always in others, never in our immaculate selves.

The Squire was a man who, all his life, had preferred men's company to that of the opposite sex. His tastes were not at all ?sthetic. He liked to talk about cattle, and crops, and the state of the markets; to talk a little about imperial politics--chiefly confined to blackguarding "the other side of the House"--and a great deal about local politics. He had been in the habit of talking by the hour together about paving, and lighting, and sewage, and the state of the highways: all useful matters without a doubt, but hardly topics calculated to interest a lady. Though he liked to have Jane play to him now and then--but never for more than ten minutes at any one time--he always designated it as "tinkling;" and as often as not, when he asked her to sing, he would say, "Now, Jenny, lass, give us a squall." But for all this, in former times Jane and he had got on very well together on the occasions when they had been without company at Pincote. He was moving about a good deal in the world at that time, mixing with various people, talking to and being talked to by different friends and acquaintances, and was at no loss for subjects to talk about, even though those subjects might not be particularly interesting to his daughter. But Jane made a capital listener, and could always give him a good commonplace answer, and that was all he craved--that and three-fourths of the talk to himself.

Of late, however, as we have already seen, the Squire had all but given up going into society, by which means he at once dried up the source from which he had been in the habit of obtaining his conversational ideas. When he came to dine alone with Jane he found himself with nothing to talk about. Under such circumstances there was nothing left for him but grumbling. But even grumbling becomes tiresome after a time, especially when the person to whom such complainings are addressed never takes the trouble to contradict you, and is incapable of being grumbled at herself.

It was after one of these tedious evenings that the Squire said to Jane, "We may as well have Bristow up to-morrow, I think. I want to see him about one or two things, and he may as well stop for dinner. So you had better drop him a line."

The Squire had nothing of any importance to see Tom about, but he was too stubborn to own, even to himself, that it was the young man's lively company that he was secretly longing for. The weather next morning happened to be very bad, and Jane smiled demurely to herself as she noted how anxious her father was lest the rain should keep Tom from coming. Jane knew that neither rain nor anything else would keep him away. "Papa is almost as anxious to see him as I am," she said to herself. "He thought that he could live without him: he now begins to find out his mistake."

Sure enough, Tom did not fail to be there. The Squire gave him a hearty greeting, and took him into the study before he had an opportunity of seeing Jane. "I've heard nothing more from those railway people about the Croft," he said. "Penfold was here yesterday and wanted to know whether he was to go on with the villas--all the foundations are now in, you know. I hardly knew what instructions to give him."

"If you were to ask me, sir," said Tom, "I should certainly say, let him begin to run up the carcases as quickly as possible. I happen to know that the company must have the Croft--that they cannot possibly do without it. They are only hanging fire awhile, hoping to get you to go to them and make them an offer, instead of their being compelled to come to you; which, in a transaction of this nature, makes all the difference."

"I don't think you are far wrong in your views," said Mr. Culpepper. "I'll turn over in my mind what you've said." Which meant that the Squire would certainly adopt Tom's advice.

"No lovemaking, you know, Bristow," whispered the old man, with a dig in the ribs, as they entered the dining-room.

"You may trust me, sir," said Tom.

"I'm not so sure on that score. We are none of us saints when a pretty girl is in question."

Tom did not fail to keep the Squire alive during dinner. To the old man his fund of news seemed inexhaustible. In reality, his resources in that line were never put to the test. Three or four skilfully introduced topics sufficed. The Squire's own long-winded remarks, unknown to himself, filled up three-fourths of the time. Then Tom made a splendid listener. His attention never flagged. He was always ready with his "I quite agree with you, sir;" or his "Just so, sir;" or his "Those are my sentiments exactly, sir." To be able to talk for half an hour at a time to an appreciative listener on some topic that interested him strongly was a treat that the Squire thoroughly enjoyed.

After the cloth was drawn he decided that instead of remaining by himself for half an hour, he would go with the young people to the drawing-room. He could have his snooze just as well there as in the dining-room, and he flattered himself that his presence, even though he might be asleep, would be a sufficient safeguard against any of that illicit lovemaking respecting which Bristow had been duly cautioned.

As a still further precaution, he nudged Tom again, as they went into the drawing-room, and whispered, "None of your tomfoolery, remember." Five minutes later he was fast asleep.

They could not play, or sing, or talk much, while the Squire slept, so they fell back upon chess. "There's to be no lovemaking, you know, Jenny," whispered Tom, across the table, with a twinkle in his eye.

"None, whatever," whispered Jane back, with a little shake of the head, and a demure smile.

A mutual understanding having thus been come to, there was no need for any further conversation, except about the incidents of the game, which, truth to tell, was very badly played on both sides. In place of studying the board, as a chess-player ought to do, Jane found her eyes, quite unconsciously to herself, studying the face of her opponent, while Tom's hand, wandering purposelessly about the board, frequently found itself taking hold of Jane's hand instead of a knight or a pawn; so that when at last the game did contrive to work itself out to an ineffective conclusion, they could hardly have said with certainty which one of them had checkmated the other. The Squire woke up, smiling and well-pleased. He had not heard them talking to each other, and there could be no harm in their playing a simple game of chess. If he were content, they had no reason to be otherwise.

After this the Squire would insist on having Tom up at Pincote, as often as the latter could possibly contrive to be there. In spite of himself the old man's heart warmed imperceptibly towards him, and when it so happened that business took Tom away from home for two or three days, then the Squire grew so fretful and peevish that all Jane's tact and good temper were needed to make life at all endurable. She tried her best to persuade him to invite some of his old friends to come and see him, or go himself and call up on some of them, but in vain. Bristow he wanted, and no one but Bristow would he have. He looked upon himself as a ruined man, as a man whom it behoved to economize in every possible way. To keep company costs money: Tom Bristow was a sensible fellow, with whom it was not necessary to stand on ceremony, or be at any extra expense--a man who was content with a chop and a rice pudding, and a glass of St. Julien. "He doesn't come here for what he gets to eat and drink. I like his society, and he likes mine. He finds that he can learn a good many things from me, and he's not above learning."

All this time the works at Knockley Holt were being pushed busily forward, much to the bewilderment and aggravation of the good people of Duxley. They were aggravated, and they considered they had a right to be aggravated, because they could not understand, and had not been told, what it was that was intended to be done there. In a small town like Duxley, no inhabitant has a right to put before his fellow-citizens a problem which they find incapable of solution, and then when asked to solve it for them decline to do so. Such conduct merits the severest social reprehension.

Surely next to the madness of building a row of villas on Prior's Croft, was the puzzling folly of digging a hole in Knockley Holt. After much discussion pro and con, amongst the townspeople--chiefly over sundry glasses of whiskey toddy, in sundry bar parlours, after business hours--it seemed to be settled that Culpepper's Hole, as some wag had christened it, could be intended for nothing else than an artesian well--though what was the exact nature of an artesian well it would have puzzled some of the Duxley wiseacres to tell, and why water should be bored for there, and to what uses it could be put when so obtained, they would have been still more at a loss to say. The Squire could not drive into Duxley without being tackled by one or another of his friends as to what he was about at Knockley Holt. But the old man would only wink and shake his head, and try to look wise, and say, "It doesn't do to blab everything nowadays, but between you and me and the post--this is in confidence, mind--I'm digging a tunnel to the Antipodes." Then he would chuckle and give the reins a shake, and Diamond would trot off with him, leaving his questioner angry or amused, as the case might be.

It was not known to any one in Duxley, except the Squire's lawyer, that Knockley Holt was now the property of Tom Bristow. That the works there were under Tom's direction was a well-known fact, but he was merely looked upon as Mr. Culpepper's foreman in the matter. "Gets a couple of hundred or so a year for looking after the Squire's affairs," one wiseacre would remark to another. "If not, how does he live? Seems to have nothing to do when he's not at Pincote. A poor way of getting a living. Serve him right: he should have stopped with old Hoskyns when he had the chance, and not have thought he was going to set the Thames on fire with his six thousand pounds."

No one could be possessed by a more burning desire than the Squire himself to know the meaning of the works at Knockley Holt, but having asked once and asked in vain, his pride would not allow him to make any further direct inquiry. Not a day passed on which he saw Tom, that he did not try, by one or two vague hints, to lead up to the subject, but when Tom turned the talk into another channel, then the old man would see that the time for him to be enlightened had not yet come.

But it did come at last, and after what was, in reality, no very long waiting. On a certain afternoon--to be precise in our dates, it was the fifth of May--Tom walked over to Pincote, in search of the Squire. He found him in his study, wearying his brain over a column of figures, which would persist in coming to a different total every time it was added up. The first thing Tom did was to take the column of figures and bring it to a correct total. This done, his next act was to produce something from his pocket that was carefully wrapped up in a piece of brown paper. He pushed the parcel across the table to the Squire. "Will you oblige me, sir," he said, "by opening that paper, and giving me your opinion as to the contents?"

"Why, bless my heart, this is neither more nor less than a lump of coal!" said the Squire, when he had opened the paper.

"Exactly so, sir. As you say, this is neither more nor less than a lump of coal. But where do you think it came from?"

"There you puzzle me. Though I don't know that it can matter much to me where it came from."

"But it matters very much to you, sir. This lump of coal came from Knockley Holt."

The Squire was rather dull of comprehension. "Well, what is there so wonderful about that?" he said. "I dare say it was stolen by some of those confounded gipsies, and left there when they moved."

"What I mean is this, sir," answered Tom, with just a shade of impatience in his tone. "This piece of coal is but a specimen of a splendid seam which has been struck by my men at the bottom of the shaft at Knockley Holt."

The Squire stared at him, and gave a long, low whistle. "Do you mean to say that you have found a bed of coal at the bottom of the hole you have been digging at Knockley Holt?"

"That is precisely what I have found, sir, and it is precisely what I have been trying to find from the first."

"I see it all now!" said the Squire. "What a lucky young scamp you are! But what on earth put it into your head to go looking for coal at Knockley Holt?"

"I had a friend of mine, who is a very clever mining engineer, staying with me for a little while some time ago. But my friend is not only an engineer--he is a practical geologist as well. When out for a constitutional one day, we found ourselves at Knockley Holt. My friend was struck with its appearance--so different from that of the country around. 'Unless I am much mistaken, there is coal under here,' he said, 'and at no great distance from the surface either. The owner ought to think himself a lucky man--that is, if he knows the value of it.' Well, sir, not content with what my friend said, I paid a heavy fee and had one of the most eminent geologists of the day down from London to examine and report upon it. His report coincided exactly with my friend's opinion. You know the rest, sir. I came to you with a view of getting a lease of the ground, and found you desirous of selling it. I was only too glad to have the chance of buying it. I set a lot of men and a steam engine to work without a day's delay, and that lump of coal, sir, is the happy result."

The Squire rubbed his spectacles for a moment or two without speaking. "Bristow, that's an old head of yours on those young shoulders," he said at last. "With all my heart congratulate you on your good fortune. I know no man who deserves it more than you do. Yes, Bristow, I congratulate you, though I can't help saying that I wish that I had had a friend to have told me what was told you before I let you have the ground. For want of such a friend I have lost a fortune."

"That is just what I have come to see you about, sir," said Tom, as he rose and pushed back his chair. The Squire looked up at him in surprise. "Although I bought Knockley Holt from you as a speculation, I had a pretty good idea when I bought it as to what I should find below the surface. If I had not found what I expected, my bargain would have been a dear one; but having found what I expected, it is just the opposite. In fact, sir, you have lost a fortune, and I have found one."

"I know it--I know it," groaned the Squire. "But you needn't twit me with it."

"So far the speculation was a perfectly legitimate one, as speculations go nowadays. But that is not the sort of thing I wish to exist between you and me. You have been very kind to me in many ways, and I have much to thank you for. I could not bear to treat you in this matter as I should treat a stranger. I could not bear to think that I was making a fortune out of a piece of ground that but a few short weeks ago was your property. The money so made would seem to me to bring a curse with it, rather than a blessing. I should feel as if nothing would ever prosper with me afterwards. Sir, I will not have this coal mine. There are plenty of other channels open to me for making money. Here are the title deeds of the property. I give them back to you. You shall repay me the twelve hundred pounds purchase-money, and reimburse me for the expenses I have been put to in sinking the shaft. But as for the pit itself, I will have nothing to do with it."

Tom had produced the title deeds from his pocket and had laid them on the table while speaking. He now pushed them across to the Squire. Then he took the deed of sale tore it across, and threw the fragments into the grate.

It is doubtful whether Titus Culpepper had ever been more astonished in the whole course of his life than he was at the present moment. For a little while he seemed utterly at a loss for words, but when he did speak, his words were not lacking in force.

"Bristow, you are a confounded fool!" he said with emphasis.

"I have been told that many times before."

"You are a confounded fool--but you are a gentleman."

Tom merely bowed.

"You propose to give me back the title deeds of Knockley Holt, after having found what may literally be termed a gold mine there--eh?"

"I don't propose to do it, sir. I have done it already. There are the title deeds," pointing to the table. "There is the deed of sale," pointing to the fire-grate.

"And do you think, sir," said the Squire, with dignity, "that Titus Culpepper is the man to accept such a romantic piece of generosity from one who is little more than a boy! Not so.--It would be impossible for me to forgive myself, were I to do anything of the kind The property is fairly and legally yours, and yours it must remain."

"It shall not, sir! By heaven! I will not have it. There are the title deeds. Do with them as you will." He buttoned his coat, and took up his hat, and turned to leave the room.

"Stop, Bristow, stop!" said the Squire, as he rose from his chair. Tom halted with the handle of the door in his hand, but he did not go back to the table.

Mr. Culpepper walked to the window and stood there looking out for full three minutes without uttering a word. Then he turned and beckoned Tom to go to him.

"Bristow," he said, laying his hand affectionately on Tom's shoulder, "as I said before, you are a gentleman--a gentleman in mind and feeling. More than that a man cannot be, whether his family be old or new. You propose to do a certain thing which I can only accede to on one condition."

"Name it, sir," said Tom briefly.

"I cannot take Knockley Holt from you without giving you something like an equivalent in return. Now, I only possess one thing that you would care to receive at my hands--and that is the most precious thing I have on earth. Exchange is no robbery. I will agree to take back Knockley Holt from you, if you will take in exchange for it--my daughter Jane."

"Oh! Mr. Culpepper."

"That you love her, I know already, and I dare say the sly hussy is equally as fond of you. If such be the case, take her. I know no man who so thoroughly deserves her, or who has so much right to her as you have."
CHAPTER XI. THE EIGHTH OF MAY.
The eighth of May had come round at last.

Of all days in the year this was the one that Kester St. George intended least to spend at Park Newton, but, as circumstances fell out, he could not well avoid doing so.

After the death and burial of Mother Mim--the expenses of the last-named ceremony being defrayed out of Kester's pocket--it had been his intention to leave Park Newton at once and for ever. But it so fell out that in the document purloined by him from the pocket of Skeggs when that individual lay dead on the moor, there was given the name of a certain person, still living, who could depose, of his own personal knowledge, to the truth of the facts as put down in the dying woman's confession. This person was the only witness to the facts there stated who was now alive. The name of the man in question was William Bendall, and the point that Kester had now to clear up was: Who was this William Bendall, and where was he to be found? There was no address given in the Confession, nor any hint as to the man's whereabouts; but Skeggs had doubtless known where he was to be found, and had, in fact, told Kester that he could put his hand on the man at a day's notice.

With such a sword as this hanging over his head, Kester felt that it was impossible for him to leave Park Newton. When the man should learn that Mother Mim was dead, which he probably would do in the course of a few days, and when the restraining power which had doubtless kept him silent should be removed for ever, what was to prevent him from telling all that he knew, or, at least, from giving such broad hints as to the information in his possession as might lead to inquiry--to many inquiries, perchance: to far more than Kester would care to encounter--unless he should ever be so unfortunate as to be driven to bay?

But, as yet, he was not driven to bay, nor anything like it. It behoved him, therefore, or so it seemed to him, to make certain cautious inquiries as to the whereabouts of Mr. William Bendall, with the view of ascertaining what kind of a man he was, or whether there was any danger to be apprehended from him. And if so, how could the danger best be met?

It was quite evident that it would be unadvisable for Kester to leave Park Newton while these inquiries were afoot. He might be wanted at any hour should Mr. Bendall, when found, prove intractable; so he stayed on at the old place, very much against his will in other respects. But, to a certain extent, his patience had already been rewarded. Mr. Bendall's address had been discovered, and Mr. Bendall himself had been found to be first cousin to Mother Mim, and a railway ganger by profession. But just at this time he was away from home--his home being at Swarkstone, a great centre of railway industry, about twenty miles from Duxley--he having been sent out to Russia in charge of a cargo of railway plant. He was now expected back in the course of a few days, and Kester determined not to leave the neighbourhood till he had found out for himself what manner of man he was.

We may here finally dispose of Skeggs. His body was not found till two days after Kester's visit to it. There, too, was found his broken leg, so that the nature of the accident he had met with was clearly seen, and it was at once understood how he had come by his death. No one except the girl Nell had seen Kester St. George in his company, so, as it fell out, that gentleman's name was never even whispered in connexion with the affair.

The future of Nell had been a point that Mr. St. George had anxiously discussed in his own mind, after Mother Mim's death. What to do with such a strange girl he knew not, nor how best to secure her silence. Did she really know anything, as she asserted that she did, or did she not? If anything, how much did she know, and to what use did she intend to put her knowledge? Kester had no opportunity of talking to her in private before the funeral, so he made an appointment with her for the morning following that event. She was to meet him at a certain milestone on the Duxley Road at eleven o'clock. Kester was there to the minute. But Miss Nell was not there, nor did she come at all. Kester went back home in a fume, and after luncheon he rode over to Mother Mim's cottage without once slackening rein. There he found the old woman who had been looking after matters previously to the funeral: From her he ascertained that Nell had disappeared about two hours after her return from seeing the last of her grandmother, taking with her her new black frock and a few other things tied up in a bundle, and had given no hint as to where she was going, or whether it was her intention ever to come back.

The girl's disappearance had been a source of considerable disquietude to Kester for several days, but as time passed on without bringing any sign of her, or any information as to where she was, his uneasiness gradually wore itself away, till he came at last to persuade himself that from that quarter at least there was no possible danger to be apprehended.

But had it not been for another and a much more potent reason, Kester St. George would certainly not have spent the eighth of May at Park Newton, not even though he could not have left it till the seventh, and had been compelled to come back to it on the ninth. He would have gone somewhere--anywhere if only for a dozen hours--if only from sunset till sunrise, had it in anyway been possible for him to do so. But it so happened that it was not possible for him to do so. On the fifth he received a letter from his uncle, which astonished him very much. General St. George was still staying at Salisbury with his sick friend, Major Beauchamp. He wrote as under:

"All being well, I shall be back at Park Newton on the eighth instant, but for a few hours only. I don't know whether your cousin Richard has told you that he is tired of England, and has decided upon going out to New Zealand, and that he has persuaded me to go with him."

"The old fool! To think of going to New Zealand at his time of life!" muttered Kester. "Of course, it's Master Richard's dodge to take him with him, so as to make sure of his money when he dies. Well, if I can only get rid of the young one, the old one may go with him, and welcome." Then he went on with his uncle's letter.

"I shall reach Park Newton on the eighth, about four P.M., when I hope to spend the evening with you. It will be my last evening at the old place, and there are several things I wish to talk to you about. We--that is, Richard and I, leave by the eight o'clock train next morning direct for Gravesend, where the ship will be waiting for us. By this day next week, I shall have bidden a final farewell to dear Old England."

"So deucedly sudden. I hardly know what to make of it," said Kester, as he folded up the letter. "I would give much if it was any other day than the eighth. I never thought to spend that day here. But there's no help for it. Well, it will be better to spend it in company than to spend it here alone. Nothing could have persuaded me to do that."

"Yes, if the old boy goes to the other side of the world, there's no chance of any of his money coming to me," he said to himself later on. "That scowling cousin of mine will come in for the lot. Poor devil! I don't suppose he's got enough of his own to pay his passage out. I wouldn't mind giving a thousand pounds myself to be rid of him for ever."

The eighth dawned at last, cold and dull as English May days so often are. Breakfast was hardly over before Kester ordered his horse, and away he started without telling any one where he was going. He was out all day, and did not get back till five o'clock, an hour after the arrival of his uncle, with whom had come Mr. Perrins, the family lawyer. Him Kester knew of old, but had not seen for a long time. He was rather surprised to see him, but it struck Kester that his uncle had probably some private arrangements to make before leaving England, in which the aid of Mr. Perrins might be required.

"This is very sudden, uncle, about your leaving England," said Kester.

"Yes, it is very sudden," replied the General. "It is not more than three weeks since Dick told me that he intended to go out. The reasons he gave me for coming to that conclusion were such that I could not blame him. I have no son of my own, and, somehow, since poor Lionel left us, I seem to cling to that boy; and so it fell out, that I presently made up my mind to go with him. I cannot bear the idea of living alone. I have only you and him--and you; Kester, are too much of a Bohemian, too much a citizen of the world--a wandering Arab who strikes his tent a dozen times a year--for me ever to think of staying with you. Dick is far more of an old fogey than you are, and he and I--I don't doubt--will get on very well together."

"All the same, uncle, I shall be deucedly sorry to lose you."

Kester was destined to be still more surprised when he came down to dinner, for there he found Mr. Hoskyns and the Reverend Mr. Wharton, the octogenarian Vicar of Duxley. Mr. Hoskyns he had seen incidentally during the course of the trial, but not since. The vicar he had known from boyhood.

It was by Lionel's express desire that the two lawyers and the vicar had been invited to-day to Park Newton. What he was going to tell Kester to-night should be told to them also. They were all, in a certain sense, friends of the family; they were all men of honour; with them his secret would be safe. In simple justice to himself, he felt that it was not enough that his uncle and Bristow should be the sole depositories of that secret. There ought to be at least two or three family friends to whose custody it might be implicitly trusted, and whose good wishes and friendship would be sweet to him even in exile.

None of the three gentlemen had any suspicion as to the one particular reason why they had been invited to Park Newton: not one of them had any suspicion that Richard Dering was none other than the Lionel whom they all so sincerely mourned. They had simply been invited to a little dinner party given by General St. George on the eve of his departure from England for ever.

The last to arrive at Park Newton--and he did not arrive till two minutes before dinner was served--was Mr. Tom Bristow. He had driven Miss Culpepper from Pincote to Fern Cottage, and had stayed talking with Edith till the last minute.

Tom was an entire stranger to Kester St. George. The General introduced them to each other. Tom had seen Kester several times, knowing well who he was, but the latter had no recollection of having ever seen Tom.

Neither the General, nor Tom, nor even Edith herself, had any idea as to the particular mode which Lionel would adopt for telling his cousin that which he had made up his mind to tell him. On that point he had kept his own counsel, having spoken no word to any one. It was a subject on which even his wife felt that she could not question him. During the past week he had been even more silent and distrait than usual. His thoughts were evidently occupied with one subject, to the exclusion of all others. He seemed hardly to notice, or be aware of, what was going on around him. For Edith the time was a very anxious one. All the preparations for the approaching voyage devolved upon her: that she did not mind in the least; what she prayed and longed for was that the fatal eighth might come and go in peace: might come and go without any encounter between her husband and his cousin. Lionel and Tom were to ride across from Park Newton to Fern Cottage at the close of the evening--Tom, in order that he might escort Jane back to Pincote: Lionel, because he should then have bidden the old house a last farewell, because he should then have done with the past for ever, and because he should then be ready to start with his wife for their new home on the other side of the world.

"And will nothing that any of us can say or do, persuade you to reconsider your determination?" said Jane to Edith, as they sat, hand in hand, after Tom had gone forward to Park Newton. Mrs. Garside had gone into Duxley to make some final purchases, and they had the little parlour all to themselves.

"I'm afraid not," answered Edith with a melancholy smile

"It seems so hard to lose you, just when everything is made straight and clear--just as your husband is able to prove his innocence to the world! Yes, and were I in his place I would prove it. I would cry it aloud on the housetops, and let that other one pay the penalty which he deserves to pay. I would never banish myself from my native country for his sake; he is not worthy of such a sacrifice."

"You must not talk like that," said Edith, with a little extra squeeze of Jane's hand; "but it is easy to see who has been inoculating you with his wild doctrines."

"They are my own original sentiments, and not second-hand ones," said Jane emphatically. "There's nothing wild about them; they are plain common sense."

"There could be no happiness for either Lionel or me were we to follow the course suggested by you. Depend upon it, Jane, that what we are about to do is best for all concerned."

"I will never believe that it is good for me to lose my friends in this way. Do you know, I feel almost tempted to go with you."

"I wish, with all my heart, that you were going with us; but I'm afraid Mr. Culpepper is too deeply rooted in English soil to bear transplanting to a foreign clime."

"Yes, I suppose so," said Jane, with a little sigh. "Only I should so like to travel: I should so like a six months' voyage to somewhere."

"The voyage is just what I dread, only it would not do to tell Lionel so."

"You might have fixed on some place a little nearer than New Zealand, some place within four or five days' journey, where one could run over for a little holiday now and then and see you. It is very ridiculous of you to go so far away."

"When you say that, dear, you forget certain peculiarities of the case. If Lionel were to settle down at any place where there would be the least possibility of his being recognized, it would necessitate a perpetual disguise. This, in a little while, would become intolerable. He must go to a place where there will be no need for him to stain his face, or dye his hair, and where he can go about freely, and without fear of detection."

"I can quite understand what an immense relief it must be to you to get away from this neighbourhood, with all its painful associations--to hide yourself in some remote valley where no shadow of the past can darken your door; but it seems to me that you need not go quite so far away in order to do that."

"It will be all for the best, dear, depend upon it."

"No; I cannot see it. If you had only gone to America, now! No one would recognize Mr. Dering there, and it would not be too far away for me to pay you a visit once every now and again. In fact, I should make it a condition of marrying Tom, that he gave me a promise to that effect. But, New Zealand!"

As the evening wore itself on, so did Edith's uneasiness increase, but she did her best to hide it from Jane and Mrs. Garside. Lionel had told her that she must not expect him much before midnight, and up to the time of the clock striking eleven she contrived to take her share in the conversation with tolerable composure, but after that time she was unable to altogether control herself. What terrible scenes might not even then be enacting at Park Newton! To what danger might not her husband be exposed, while, only a mile away, they three were idly chatting about twenty indifferent topics! How intolerable it was to be a woman, to be condemned to inaction, to have no share in the dangers of those one loved, to be able to do nothing but wait--wait--wait! If she went to the window once, she went twenty times, to listen for the sound of coming hoofs. The roads were hard and dry, and it would be possible to hear the horsemen while they were still some distance away. To and fro she paced the little room like an imprisoned leopardess. White-faced, eager-eyed, her long slender fingers clasping and unclasping themselves unceasingly, she looked like some priestess of old, who sees in her mind's eye a vision of doom--a vision of things to come, pregnant with woe unutterable. The two women watched her in silence: her mood infected them: it could not be otherwise; but there was nothing for them to do; they could only wait and listen.

"I can bear this no longer," said Edith, at last; "the room suffocates me. I must get out into the fresh air. I must go and meet Lionel." She snatched up a shawl of Mrs. Garside's, that lay on the sofa, and flung it over her head and shoulders.

"Let me go with you," cried Jane, "I am almost as anxious as you are."

"Hush! hush!" cried Edith, suddenly, "I hear them coming!"

Hardly breathing, they all listened.

"I can hear nothing but the low moaning of the wind," cried Mrs. Garside, after a few moments.

"Nor I," said Jane.

"I tell you they are coming," said Edith. "There are two of them. Listen! Surely you can hear them now!" She flung open the window as she spoke; then could be plainly heard the sound of hoofs on the hard highroad. A minute or two later the horsemen drew rein at the cottage door. Martha Vince, candle in hand, lighted them up the stairs, at the top of which the ladies stood waiting to receive them.

Very stern and very pale looked the face of Lionel Dering as, followed by Tom Bristow, he walked slowly upstairs as a man in a dream. He was no longer disguised: face, hands, and hair were their natural colour. To see him thus sent a thrill to every heart there. To each, and all of them, he seemed like a man newly risen from the grave.

Hardly had he reached the top of the stairs before Edith's white arms were round his neck.

"My darling: what is it?" she said. "What dreadful thing has happened?" He stooped his head still lower, and whispered something in her ear. She stared up into his face for a moment, then his arms tightened suddenly round her, and they all saw that she had fainted.

At Park Newton the evening wore itself slowly and gloomily away. Tom and Mr. Hoskyns, assisted occasionally by Mr. Perrins and the vicar, did their best to keep the conversation from flagging, but at times with only indifferent success. None of them could forget what day it was--could forget what took place that night twelve months ago, only a few yards from where they were sitting; and so remembering, who could wonder that the dinner seemed tasteless and the wines without flavour, that the lights seemed to burn low, and that to the imagination of more than one there a shrouded figure was with them in the room, invisible to mortal eyes, but none the less surely there, drinking when they drank, pledging a health when they pledged one, and knowing well all the time which one of the company would be the first to join it in that Land of Shadows to which it now belonged.

Kester was altogether gloomy and preoccupied, and Lionel hardly spoke at all except when spoken to. General St. George was obliged to keep up some show of conversation out of compliment to his guests; but no one but himself knew how irksome it was to do so. What did Lionel intend to do? Would there be a scene--a fracas--between the two cousins? What would be the end of the wretched business? How fervently he wished that the morrow was safely come, that he had seen that unhappy man's face for the last time, and that he, and Lionel, and Edith were fairly started on their long journey to the other side of the world!

The vicar and the two men of law had naturally expected that the party would break up by ten o'clock at the latest. Not that it mattered greatly to either Perrins or Hoskyns, who were to stay at Park Newton all night. But the vicar was an old man, and anxious to get home in decent time, so that when he began to fidget and look at his watch, Lionel, who was only waiting for him to make a move, knew that it would be impossible to detain him much longer.

"I must really ask you to excuse me, General," said the old man at last. "But I see that it is past ten o'clock, and quite time for gay young sparks like me to be thinking of their night-caps."

"I hope you are not particular to a few minutes, vicar," said Lionel. "I have ordered coffee to be served in my room, and, with my uncle's permission, we will all adjourn there."

"You must not keep me long," said the vicar.

"I will not," said Lionel. "But I know that you like to finish up your evening with a little café noir; and I have, besides, a picture which I want to show you, and which I think will interest you very much--a picture--which I want to show not only to you, Dr. Wharton, but to all the other gentlemen who are here to-night."

They all rose and made a move towards the door.

"As I don't care for café noir, and don't understand pictures, you will perhaps excuse me," said Kester, ignoring Lionel, and addressing himself to his uncle.

"You had better go with us," said Lionel, turning to his cousin. "You are surely not going to be the first to break up the party."

"I don't want to break up the party. I will wait here till you come back," answered Kester, doggedly.

"You had better go with us," said Lionel, meaningly, but speaking so that the others could not hear him.

"Pray who made you dictator here?" said Kester haughtily. "I don't choose to go with you. That is enough."

"You had better go with us," said Lionel for the third time. "If you still decline, I can only assume that you are afraid to go."

"Afraid!" sneered Kester. "Of whom and what should I be afraid?"

"That is best known to yourself."

"Anyhow, I'm neither afraid of you nor of anything that you can do."

"If you decline going to my rooms, I can only conclude that you are kept away by some abject fear."

"Lead on.--I'll follow.--But mark my words, you and I will have this little matter out in the morning--alone."

"Willingly."

The rooms occupied by Lionel were in the opposite wing of the house to those occupied by Kester. They were, in fact, in the same wing as, and no great distance from, the room where Percy Osmond had been murdered: a good and sufficient reason why Kester should get as far away as possible.

Lionel's sitting-room was a good-sized apartment, but it was divided into two by large folding doors, now closed. A moderator lamp stood on the table, together with coffee, cognac, and cigars.

"Gentlemen, I must ask you to excuse me for a few minutes," said Lionel. "My picture requires a little preparation before I can show it to you." So speaking he left the room. There was no servant. Each of the gentlemen, Kester excepted, helped himself to a cup of coffee.

Kester seated himself apart on a chair near the door. His eyes were bent on the floor. He played absently with his watch-guard. Just now, as he was coming slowly upstairs, a shadowy hand had been laid on his shoulder, a ghostly voice had whispered in his ear. It was only that one little word that he had heard whispered oft-times before. "Come!" was all the voice said, but it was followed, this time, by a little malicious laugh, such as Kester had never heard before. Round his heart there was a cold, numb feeling, that was altogether strange to him; a dull singing in his ears like the faint echo of a tide beating on some far-away shore. No one spoke to him. No one seemed to know that he was there. He felt at that moment, with an unspeakable bitterness, how utterly alone he was in the world. There was no human being anywhere who, if he were to die that moment, would really regret him--not one single creature who would drop a solitary tear over his grave.--But such thoughts were miserable; they must be driven away somehow. He rose and went to the table, poured himself out half a tumbler of brandy, and drank it off without water. "It puts fresh life into me as it goes down," he muttered to himself.

He was in the act of replacing the glass on the table when a sudden noise caused all eyes to turn in one direction. The folding doors were being unbolted from the inner side. Then they were opened till they stood about half a yard apart, but as yet all within was in darkness. Then from out this darkness issued the voice of Lionel--or, as most there took it to be, the voice of Richard--but Lionel himself was unseen.

"Gentlemen," said the voice, "you all know what day this is. It is the eighth of May. Twelve months ago to-night Percy Osmond was murdered. About that crime I have often thought and often dreamed. I dreamed about it only a little while ago, and in my dream I seemed to see how the murder really was done. What I then saw in my sleep, I have painted. What I have painted I am now going to show to you."

The folding doors were closed for a minute, and then flung wide open. The farther room was now a blaze of light. Facing this light, so that every minute detail could be plainly seen, was a large unframed canvas, on which in colours the most vivid, was painted Lionel Dering's Dream.

The scene was Percy Osmond's bedroom, and the moment selected by the artist was the one when, after the brief struggle between Osmond and Kester, the latter has obtained possession of the dagger, and while pinning Osmond down with one knee and one arm, has, with his other hand, forced the dagger deep into his opponent's heart. Peeping from behind the curtains could be seen the white, terror-stricken, face of Pierre Janvard. The figures were all life-size, and the likenesses takable.

Awe-struck they crowded round the folding doors, and gazed silently at the picture, forgetting for the moment that the man thus strangely accused was one of themselves.

"Now you see how the murder really happened--now you know who the murderer really was," said Lionel, speaking from some place in the farther room where he could not be seen. "This is no dream but a most dread reality that you see pictured before you. I have proofs--ample proofs--of the truth of that which I now state. The murderer of Percy Osmond stands among you. Kester St. George is that man!"

At these words, every eye was turned instinctively on Kester. He was still standing at the table where he had put down his glass. His right hand was hidden in his waistcoat. With his left hand he supported himself against the table. A strange lividity had overspread his face; his lips twitched nervously. His frightened eyes wandered from one face to another of those who were now gazing on him. He tried to speak, but could not. Then his eyes fixed themselves on the brandy. Tom interpreted the look and poured some into a glass. He drank it greedily and then he spoke.

"What you have just been told," he said, "is nothing but a cruel, cowardly; devilish lie! Where is this man who accuses me? Why does he hide himself? He hides himself because he is a liar--because he dare not face either you or me. We all know who was the murderer--we all know that Lionel Dering----"

"Lionel Dering is here to answer for himself. It is he who tells you to your face that you are the murderer of Percy Osmond!"

Yes, there, framed by the archway, full in the blaze of light, stood Lionel, no longer disguised--the dye washed off his face, his hands, his hair--the Lionel that they all remembered so well come back from the dead--his own dear self, and none but he, as they could all see at a glance, and yet looking strangely different without his long fair beard.

For a full minute Kester St. George stood as rigid as a statue, glaring across the room at the man whom he had so bitterly wronged.

One word his lips tried to form, but only half succeeded in doing so. That one word was Forgive. Then a strange spasm passed across his face; he pressed his hand to his left side, and turning suddenly half round, fell back into the arms of the man nearest to him.

"He has fainted," said the General.

"He is dead," said Tom.

"Heaven knows, I had no thought of knowledge of this," said Lionel. "None whatever!"
CHAPTER XII. GATHERED THREADS.
The terribly sudden death of Kester St. George, left Lionel Dering with two courses to choose between. On the one hand he could carry out his original intention of going abroad, under an assumed name, leaving the world still to believe that he was dead. On the other hand, he could give himself up to justice, under his real name, and, his first trial never having been finished--take his stand at the bar again under the original charge, and with the proofs he had gathered in his possession, let his innocence of the crime imputed to him work itself out through a legitimate channel to a verdict of Not Guilty. This latter course was the only one open to him if he wished to clear himself in the eyes of the world from the stain of blood, or even if he wished to assume his own name and his position as the owner of Park Newton. But did he really wish this thing? That idea of going abroad, of burying himself and his wife in some far-away nook of the New World, had taken such hold on his imagination, that even now it had by no means lost its sweetness in his thoughts. Then, again, Kester having died without a will, if he--Lionel were to leave himself undeclared, the estate would go to General St. George, as next of kin, and after the old soldier's time it would go, in the natural course of events, to his brother Richard. Why, then, declare himself? why give himself into custody and undergo the pain and annoyance of another term of imprisonment, and another trial--and they would be both painful and annoying, even though his innocence were proved at the end of them? Why not rather bind over to silence those few trusted friends to whom his secret was already known, and going abroad with Edith, spend the remainder of his days in happy obscurity. Why re-open that bloodstained page of family history, over which the world had of a surety gloated sufficiently already?

But in this latter view he was opposed by everybody except his wife; by his uncle, by Tom, by the vicar, and by nobody more strongly than by Messrs. Perrins and Hoskyns. The cry from all was--take your trial; let your innocence be proved, as proved it must be, and assume the name and position that are rightfully yours. Edith, with her head resting on his shoulder, only said: "Do that which seems best to you in your own heart, dearest, and that alone. Whether you go or stay, my place is by your side--my love unalterable. Only to be with you--never to lose you again--is all I ask. Give me that: I crave for nothing more."

Strange to say, the person who brought matters to a climax, and finally decided Lionel as to his future course of action, was the girl Nell, Mother Mim's plain-spoken grand-daughter. Through some channel or other she had heard of the death of Mr. St. George, and one day she marched up the steps at Park Newton, and rang the big bell, and asked, as bold as brass, to see the General. The General was one of the most accessible of men, and when told that the girl wanted to see him privately, he marched off at once to the library, and ordered her to be admitted.

It was a strange story the girl had to tell--so strange that the General at first put her down as a common impostor. Fortunately Mr. Perrins happened to be still at Park Newton, and he at once called the shrewd old lawyer to his assistance.

But Miss Nell was now taken with a stubborn fit, and refused either to say any more or to answer any more questions, till five pounds had been given her as an earnest of more to follow, in case her information should prove to be correct. The five pounds having been put into her hands, she told all that she knew freely enough, and answered every question that was put to her. Then she was dismissed for the time being, having first left an address where she might be found when wanted.

Nell had told them how the body of Dirty Jack had been found dead on the moor, and the first point to ascertain was, what had become of the confession which was known to have been in his possession when he left Mother Mim's cottage? Had it been found on his person? If so, where was it now? It was rather singular that Mr. St. George should be the last person known to have been seen in the company of Skeggs. The second question was, where was Mr. Bendall to be found? Mr. Perrins set to work without delay to solve this latter problem, by engaging one of Mr. Hoskyns's confidential clerks to make the requisite inquiries for him. To the first question, the whereabouts of the confession, he determined to give his own personal attention. But before he had an opportunity of doing this, he found among the papers of Kester the very document itself--the original confession, duly witnessed by Skeggs and the girl Nell. A day or two later Mr. Bendall was also found, and--for a consideration--had no objection to tell all he knew of the affair. His evidence, and that given in the confession, tallied exactly. There could no longer be any moral doubt as to the fact of Kester St. George having been a son of Mother Mim.

This revelation was not without its effect on the question Lionel was still debating in his own mind. It armed his uncle and Tom with one weapon more in favour of the course they were desirous that he should pursue. If Kester St. George were not Lionel's cousin, if he were not related to the family in any way, there was less reason than ever why Lionel should not declare himself, why he should not give himself up, and let his own innocence be proved once and for ever, by proving the guilt of this other man.

Even Edith at last added her persuasions to those of his uncle and the others, and when this became the case Lionel could hold out no longer. Exactly a week after the death of Kester St. George (as we may as well continue to call him) Lionel Dering walked into the police-station at Duxley, and gave himself up into the hands of the sergeant on duty.

Mr. Drayton was astounded, as well he might be. "How can you be Mr. Dering?" he said. Lionel being now close-shaved, did not tally with the superintendent's recollection of him. "I saw that gentleman lying dead in his coffin in the church of San Michele, in Italy, and I could have sworn to him anywhere."

"What you saw, Mr. Drayton, was a cleverly-executed waxen effigy, and not the man himself. Me you did see and talk to, but without recognizing me. At all events here I am, alive and well, and if you will kindly lock me up, I shall esteem it a favour."

"I was never so sold in the whole course of my life," said Drayton. "But there's one comfort--Sergeant Whiffins was just as much sold as I was."

At the ensuing summer assizes Lionel Dering was again put on his trial for the murder of Percy Osmond. Janvard, whose safety had been carefully looked after by a private detective in the guise of a guest at his hotel, was admitted as evidence for the Crown, and without leaving their box a verdict of Not Guilty was found by the jury. Never had such a scene been known in Duxley as was enacted that summer afternoon, when Lionel Dering walked down the steps of the Court-house a free man. A landau was in waiting, into which he was lifted by main force. No horses were needed, or would have been allowed. Relays of the crowd dragged the carriage all the way to Park Newton, in company with two brass bands, and all the flags that the town could muster. Lionel's arm had never ached so much as it did that evening, after he had shaken hands with a great multitude of his friends--and every man and boy prided himself upon being Mr. Dering's friend that day. As for the ladies, they had their own way of showing their sympathy with him. Half the children in the parish that came to light during the next twelve months were christened either Edith or Lionel.

The post-mortem examination showed that heart disease of long standing was the proximate cause of Kester St. George's death. He was buried not in the family vault where the St. Georges for two centuries lay in silent state, but in the town cemetery. The grave was marked by a plain slab, on which was engraved simply the initials of the name he had always been known by, and the date of his death.

"I warned him of it long ago," said Dr. Bolus to two or three fellows at Kester's old club, as he stood with his back to the fire and his coat tails thrown over his arms. "But whose warnings are sooner forgotten than a doctor's? By living away from London, and leading a perfectly quiet and temperate life, he might have been kept going for years. But, above all things, he should have avoided excitement of every kind."

Lionel and Edith put off for a little while their long-talked-of tour in order that they might be present at the wedding of Tom and Jane. The ceremony took place in August. Tom and his bride went to Scotland for their honeymoon. Lionel and his wife started for Switzerland, en route for Italy, where they were to spend the ensuing winter.

Of late the Squire had recovered his health wonderfully. He seemed to have grown ten years younger in a few weeks. In the working of that wonderful coal-shaft, and in the prospect of his making a far larger fortune for his daughter than the one he so foolishly lost, he found a perpetual source of healthy excitement, which, by keeping both his mind and body actively and legitimately employed, had an undoubted tendency to lengthen his life. Besides this, Tom had asked him to superintend the construction of his new house. It was just the sort of job that the Squire delighted in--to look sharply after a lot of working men, and while pretending that they were all in a league to cheat him, blowing them up heartily all round one half-hour, and treating them to unlimited beer the next.

"I should like to see you in the Town Council, Bristow," said the Squire one day to his son-in-law.

"Thank you, sir, all the same," said Tom, "but it's hardly good enough. There will be a general election before we are much older, when I mean, either by hook or by crook, to get into the House."

"Bristow, you have the cheek of the Deuce himself," was all that the astonished Squire could say.

It may just be remarked that Tom's ambition has since been gratified. He is now, and has been for some time, member for W----. He is clever, ambitious, and a tolerable orator, as oratory is reckoned nowadays. What may not such a man aspire to?

Mr. Hoskyns is a frequent guest both of Tom and Lionel. Chatting with the former one day over the "walnuts and the wine," said the old man: "I have often puzzled my brain over that affair of Baldry's--that positive assertion of his that he saw and spoke to me one night in the Thornfield Road when I was most certainly not there. Have you ever thought about it since?"

"Once or twice, I dare say, but I could have enlightened you at the time had I chosen to do so. It was I whom Baldry met. I had made myself up to resemble you, and previously to my visit to the prison in your character, I thought I would try the effect of my disguise upon somebody who had known you well for years. As it so happened, Baldry was the first of your acquaintances whom I encountered on my nocturnal ramble. The rest you know."

"You young vagabond! And yet you have the audacity to call yourself a respectable member of society. Perhaps you can explain the mystery of the ghostly footsteps at Park Newton when poor Pearce, the butler, was frightened out of the small quantity of wit that he could lay claim to?"

"That, too, I can explain. The ghostly footsteps, as it happened, were very corporeal footsteps, being those of none other than your humble servant."

"But how did you get into the room? It had been nailed up months before."

"The nailing up was more apparent than real. The nails were sham nails. The door could be unlocked at any time, and the room entered in the ordinary way."

"But how about the cough--Mr. Osmond's peculiar cough?"

"That was an imitation by me from lessons given me by Mr. Dering. It answered the purpose admirably for which it was intended."

"To hear such sounds at midnight in a room where a man had been murdered was enough to shake the strongest nerves. I wonder you were not frightened yourself to be in the room."

"That would have been ridiculous. There was nothing to be afraid of."

"In any extraordinary circumstances I shall never believe the evidence of my own senses again."

Mr. Cope was not long in perceiving that he had committed a grave error of judgment in refusing Mr. Culpepper the assistance he had asked for. There would be a splendid fortune for Jane after all. It was enough to make a man tear his hair with vexation--only Mr. Cope hadn't much hair to tear--to think what a golden chance he had let slip through his fingers. Edward was recalled at once on the slight chance that if a meeting could anyhow be brought about between him and Jane, the old flame might spring up with renewed ardour in the young lady's bosom, in which case she might insist upon her engagement with Edward being carried out. But Edward bore his disappointment very philosophically, and had not been three hours in Duxley before he found himself eating pastry, and being ministered to by Miss Moggs, who was still unmarried, and still as plump and smiling as ever.

Three weeks later the good people of Duxley were treated to a delightful sensation. Mr. Cope, Junior, had run away with the daughter of Mr. Moggs, the confectioner, and Mr. Cope, Senior, had threatened to cut his son off with the well-known metaphorical shilling.

The latest news of young Mr. Cope is, that he is living in furnished apartments in a cheap suburb of London. The late Miss Moggs, her plumpness notwithstanding, has developed into a Tartar. They have six children. Mr. Cope's income is exactly two hundred a-year, left him by his mother. His father will not give him a penny, and he is either too lazy, or too incompetent, to attempt to add to his means by a little honest work. He is very stout and very short of breath. When he has any money he spends his time in a neighbouring billiard-room, smoking a short pipe and drinking half-and-half, and watching other men play. When he has no money he stops at home and rocks the cradle, and listens to his wife's reproaches. Mrs. Cope vows that she will buy a mangle and make her husband turn it, and try whether she cannot shame him into work that way. And all this is the result of eating pastry and being waited upon by a pretty girl.

After the trial was over, Nell, by means of some speciously-concocted tale, contrived to cozen General St. George out of twenty pounds. With this she disappeared, and was never either seen or heard of in Duxley or its neighbourhood again.

During the time that Lionel and his wife were abroad the General went with his friend, Major Beauchamp, to Madeira, and wintered there.

It had been Lionel's intention to stay abroad for about three years. But as it fell out, he and Edith were back at Park Newton by the end of twelve months, being brought thither by the expectation of an all-important event. Lionel has not since then left home for more than a month at a time. So full of painful memories was Park Newton to him, that it was only by Edith's persuasion that he was induced to settle there at all. But years have come and gone since then, and nothing would now induce him to live anywhere else. Whatever gloomy associations might otherwise have clung to the old house have been exorcised long ago by the merry laughter of children. It was difficult at first for the Echoes of that murder-haunted roof to bring themselves to mimic the soft syllables of childhood, but when one little stranger after another came to teach them, then their voices, rusty and creaky at first through long disuse, gradually won back to themselves a long-forgotten sweetness; and now the Echoes follow the children wherever they go, and all the grim old pile is musical with the laughter and songs and free joyous shouts of childhood. Many a time they have a bout together--the children and the Echoes--trying which of them can make the more noise; and then the children call to the Echoes and bid them come out of their hiding-places and show themselves in the dusky twilight; but the Echoes only laugh back their answer, and are ever too timid to let themselves be seen.

Who, of all people in the world, should be the children's primest favourite and slave but General St. George? His heart is in the nursery, and there he spends hours every day. He "keeps shop" with them, he plays at soldiers with them, he is their horse, their roaring lion, their wild man of the woods. It is certainly amusing to see the old warrior, whose very name was once a word of terror among the lawless hill-tribes of the far East see him led about by one boy by means of a piece of string tied round his arm, and while another youthful scapegrace deafens you with the noise of a drum, to watch him imitate, with dangling paws, the uncouth gracefulness of a dancing bear. There can be no doubt on one point--that the old soldier enjoys himself quite as much as the children do.

After his year's imprisonment was at an end--to which mitigated punishment Janvard was condemned, in consideration of his having acted as witness for the Crown--he and his sister went over to Switzerland, and opened an hotel there at one of the chief centres of tourist travel. There, not long ago, he was encountered by Lionel. Smirking, bowing, and rubbing his hands, Janvard went up to him, with a request that Monsieur Dering would do him the honour of stopping at his hotel. But Lionel would have nothing to do with him, and when Janvard could be made to comprehend this, his face became a study of mortification and surprise. His feelings, such as they were, were evidently hurt. He never could be made to understand why Monsieur Dering had refused so positively to take up his quarters at the Lion d'Or.

In a world that is full of permutation and change, there are happily a few things that change not. One of these is the friendship between Lionel and Tom, which neither time nor absence, nor the growth of other interests has power to alter in the least. When they both happen to be in Midlandshire at the same time, a week never passes without their seeing more or less of each other, and between their wives there is almost as firm a friendship as there is between themselves. Four people more united, more happy in each other's society, it would be impossible to find.

It was only last summer, during the long spell of hot weather, that Edith and Jane, with their youngsters, went over to Gatehouse Farm together, for the sake of the fresh sea breezes that seem to blow perpetually round the old house. They were sitting one day on the broad yellow sands, idling through the glowing afternoon, with their embroidery and a novel, when one of Jane's little girls happened to fall and hurt her finger. She began to cry, and Edith's little boy was by her side in a moment.

"Don't cry," he said, as he stooped and kissed her. "I will marry you when I grow to be a big man."

The little girl's tears at once ceased to flow. The two ladies looked up. Their eyes met, and they both smiled.

"Such a thing is by no means improbable," said Edith.

"I shall not be a bit surprised if it really comes to pass," replied Jane.

THE END.