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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57416 ***
+
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+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+     1. Page scan source: Google Books
+        https://books.google.com/books?id=XYgnAAAAMAAJ&pg
+        (the New York Public Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Front cover. "Minion of the moon: A romance of the
+king's highway." Thomas Wilkinson Speight]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "God people, your money or your lives!" he said.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A MINION OF THE MOON
+
+
+
+BY
+T. W. SPEIGHT
+AUTHOR OF
+"THE MYSTERIES OF HERON DYKE," "HOODWINKED," "BY
+DEVIOUS WAYS," "THE HEART OF A MYSTERY," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY
+156 FIFTH AVENUE  NEW YORK  MDCCCXCVII
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1896,
+BY
+NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+--------
+           THE PROLOGUE
+
+CHAPTER
+      I. "We fly by Night."
+     II. On the King's Highway
+
+
+           THE NARRATIVE
+
+      I. A Prentice Hand.
+     II. In Search of a Lodging.
+    III. Mr. Ellerslie of Rockmount.
+     IV. The Squire of Stanbrook.
+      V. Family Matters.
+     VI. A Man who Never Forgave.
+    VII. Who shall be Heir?
+   VIII. "A Woman of a Thousand."
+    IX.  Converging Threads.
+      X. The Sequel of Miss Baynard's Adventure.
+     XI. "Little Short of Miraculous."
+    XII. A Startling Recognition.
+   XIII. Love the Conqueror.
+    XIV. A Fresh Actor on the Scene.
+     XV. "Fate Points the Way."
+    XVI. The Shears of Atropos.
+   XVII. An Astounding Discovery.
+  XVIII. The Missing Heir.
+    XIX. Mutual Confidences.
+     XX. The Adventures of a Snuff-Box.
+    XXI. In Quest of the Missing Heir.
+   XXII. The Hon Mrs. Bullivant to Captain Ferris.
+  XXIII. A Joyful Surprise.
+   XXIV. A Parting and a Letter.
+    XXV. A Desperate Resolve.
+   XXVI. "For my Sake."
+  XXVII. Three Years After.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A MINION OF THE MOON.
+
+
+
+THE PROLOGUE.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+"WE FLY BY NIGHT."
+
+
+When the nineteenth century was still a puling infant scarcely able
+to stand alone, and not yet knowing what to make of the strange
+hurly-burly into which it found itself born, Abel Ringwood and Sarah
+his wife were respectively landlord and landlady of the King's Arms, a
+noted commercial hotel and posting-house at Appleford, a town in the
+North of England, on one of the great coach roads from the south to
+Scotland. All His Majesty's mails, which travelled by that route,
+stopped to change horses at the King's Arms, and, as there was a great
+deal of private posting by noblemen and rich commoners in those days,
+the hotel stables had seldom fewer than from twenty to thirty horses
+in them at one time.
+
+In view of the fact that Appleford--was and is--on the high-road from
+the south to Gretna Green, it was hardly to be wondered at that a week
+seldom passed without one or more runaway couples stopping to change
+horses at the King's Arms, and then hurrying on again, helter-skelter,
+as hard as they could go. Thus there was nothing out of the common
+when, about six o'clock on a certain December evening, a post-chaise
+dashed up to the hotel door containing a runaway couple and a lady's
+maid.
+
+The gentleman, although he seemed in a desperate hurry to get on,
+induced the young lady to alight in order to relieve her cramped limbs
+while fresh horses were being put into the chaise, and the lamps
+freshly trimmed. She declined all refreshment, but he partook of a
+glass of sherry and a biscuit, while a glass of steaming negus was
+handed to the maid inside. The young lady, who was dressed from head
+to foot in expensive furs, was exceedingly pretty, with large,
+pathetic-looking eyes, and a wistful smile. The gentleman was
+enveloped in a long military cloak, and was evidently connected with
+the army. In three minutes and a half they were on the road again.
+Everybody there, down to the stable-boy, wished them God-speed and a
+happy ending to their adventure. The evening was clear and frosty;
+there had been a slight fall of snow in the afternoon, which still lay
+crisp and white on the hard roads; the moon would rise in less than an
+hour.
+
+No long time passed before it was known throughout the hotel who the
+runaways were. The post-boy whispered the news to John Ostler, who, a
+few minutes later, told it to his mistress. The lady was Miss Dulcie
+Peyton, the niece and ward of Sir Peter Warrendale, of Scrope Hall,
+near Whatton Regis. The gentleman was a Captain Pascoe, the heir of an
+old but impoverished family.
+
+According to report, Sir Peter had set his heart on his niece's
+marrying some one who was utterly distasteful to her, and, with more
+anger than politeness, had shown Captain Pascoe the door when that
+gentleman had called upon him to ask permission to pay his addresses
+to Miss Dulcie. It was further reported that for the last three months
+or more the poor young lady had been virtually a prisoner, never on
+any pretence being allowed outside the precincts of the park; and that
+Sir Peter vowed a prisoner she should remain till the last hour of his
+guardianship had struck, which would not be for three long years to
+come. But "bolts and bars cannot keep love out," nor in either, for
+that matter. The pretty bird had escaped from its cage, and everybody
+devoutly hoped that it would not be recaptured.
+
+The runagates had not been gone more than forty minutes when up dashed
+another post-chaise, out of which bounced a very irascible-looking,
+red-faced, middle-aged gentleman, presumably Sir Peter Warrendale,
+who, with much spluttering and several expletives, ordered fresh
+horses to be instantly put into the chaise, and then, perceiving
+comely Mrs. Ringwood where she sat among the glasses and bottles in
+her little snuggery, he strode up to her, and in his arrogant way
+demanded to know whether she had seen anything of a runaway couple,
+who, so he was credibly informed, had passed through Appleford a
+little while before on their way to Gretna Green.
+
+Now, the conscience of the worthy landlady was of that tender kind
+that it would not allow her to tell a lie, but, in order to give the
+fugitives a few minutes more start, she asked him to describe the two
+persons to whom he referred. This he did in very few words, and
+nothing was then left Mrs. Ringwood but to confess that she had seen
+the young people in question, and that they had changed horses there
+about an hour before.
+
+On hearing this, the red-faced gentleman indulged in more bad
+language, ordered a glass of hot brandy-and-water, which half choked
+him in his hurry to swallow it, and then, still growling savagely in
+his throat, was shut up next minute in his chaise, and driven rapidly
+away. One small service Mrs. Ringwood had been able to do the
+runaways. She had secretly told John Ostler to let them have the two
+best horses in the stables, and the latter, of his own accord, had
+supplied the red-faced gentleman with the two worst. Unless something
+unforeseen should happen, there was not much likelihood of the
+fugitives being overtaken.
+
+Everything was going well with them, they had left Appleford about a
+dozen miles behind, and had pretty well got over the worst part of the
+fells, when one of the horses fell lame, and it quickly became
+apparent that the poor animal was unable to go at any pace faster than
+a walk, and that only with difficulty. What was to be done?
+
+The next place where they could hope to obtain fresh horses was five
+or six miles ahead, and it was almost a certainty that before they
+could get so far they would be overtaken by Sir Peter, who, they
+had not the slightest doubt, was in close pursuit of them. The
+quick-witted post-boy suggested that they should tie the lame horse to
+a tree by the roadside, leaving it to be fetched later on, and press
+forward as fast as possible with the remaining horse; but, even so,
+the chances were that the irate Sir Peter would overtake them before
+another hour had gone by. It was a desperate chance, but no other was
+left them.
+
+The post-boy had just tied up the lame horse, and was on the point of
+mounting the other, when, not more than a dozen yards from the chaise,
+and as if he had sprung that moment out of the ground, a masked
+horseman leaped the rough wall that divided the high-road from the
+fells. "Stand, or you are a dead man!" he exclaimed in commanding
+tones, as he presented a pistol at the postboys head. Then, turning to
+the chaise window, which was open, and at the same moment flashing a
+bull's-eye lantern on the travellers: "Good people your money or your
+lives!" he said. The maid gave utterance to a scream; but the young
+lady only clung in terrified silence to her lover's arm.
+
+A network of filmy clouds covered the sky; but the moon, which had now
+risen, gave enough light to enable the postilion to see that the
+highwayman was mounted on a powerful black horse with a white stocking
+on its near fore-leg, and a white star on its forehead; that he wore a
+bell-shaped beaver hat; that his mask just reached to the tip of his
+nose, and that his outer garment was a dark horseman's cloak with
+several capes to it.
+
+"I durst wager a thousand pounds to a farden it's Captain Nightshade,"
+he muttered under his breath.
+
+"Sir," said the young captain, bending forward so that his face was in
+a line with the open window, speaking with much dignity and a
+ceremonious politeness more common in those days than now, "here is my
+watch, together with that of this lady, and here are our purses; but
+if the feelings of a gentleman are still cherished by you--and by your
+accent I judge you to be one--and if the sentiments of our common
+humanity have still power to appeal to your heart, I beg and entreat
+that you do not leave us wholly destitute of the means wherewith to
+prosecute our journey. I and this lady are on our way to Gretna Green.
+She has escaped from the custody of a most tyrannical uncle, who is
+also her guardian, and who would fain force her into marriage with a
+man whom she detests. That he is in pursuit of us, and no great
+distance behind, we have every reason to believe. Now, sir, should you
+be sufficiently hard-hearted to deprive us of the whole of our funds,
+even should we by some miracle be enabled to reach the end of our
+journey, the needful gold would still be lacking wherewith to forge
+that link of Hymen which would give me a husband's right to protect
+this dear girl from all the tyrannical uncles in existence."
+
+The highwayman had listened attentively. The reins lay on his horse's
+neck; his left hand held the lantern, the light from which shone full
+into the body of the chaise; his right grasped a pistol the barrel of
+which gleamed coldly in the moonlight.
+
+"Sir, not another word, I entreat," he said when the captain had done
+speaking, bowing low and withdrawing the light of his lantern at the
+same moment. "Never shall it be said of me that I took toll of lovers
+in distress. Rather would I do all that in me lies to aid them as far
+as my poor powers might avail."
+
+"Sir, I thank you most heartily," answered the captain with as much
+high-breeding as though he were addressing a duke.
+
+"One of your horses has fallen lame, is it not so?" demanded the
+robber.
+
+"Alas! yes; and the chances are a score to one that we shall be
+overtaken by Sir Peter before we can reach any place where we can
+obtain fresh ones."
+
+The highwayman, who had put back his pistol into its holster,
+refreshed himself with a pinch of snuff from a box, the jewels in
+which flashed in the moonbeams, before he spoke. Then he said:--
+
+"In that case, sir, it seems to me there is only one thing left you to
+do."
+
+"And that is----?" queried the captain eagerly.
+
+"For you and the young lady to make use of my mare to speed you on
+your journey. Leila will carry the pair of you to Gretna, and be as
+fresh as a daisy at the end of it. And as for Sir Peter overtaking
+you----" His scornful laugh rang clear through the frosty night.
+
+Captain Pascoe might be excused if he fairly gasped for breath as he
+listened to this extraordinary proposition, but it was far too good an
+offer to be lightly refused. As a matter of politeness he made some
+slight demur, which the highwayman promptly overruled, and three
+minutes later he was astride the black mare. Then the highwayman,
+taking the young lady round the waist, swung her lightly on to the
+crupper.
+
+"But what is to become of you?" queried the captain.
+
+"Never fear for me, sir," replied the other. "I shall know how to take
+care of myself."
+
+Then in a low voice he gave the captain certain instructions where to
+leave the mare, which he would send a trusty man to reclaim on the
+morrow.
+
+Then the captain held out his hand, which the other frankly grasped.
+"It is the hand of one," he said, "who, under different circumstances,
+would doubtless have been a different man."
+
+Then the two men lifted their hats, the lady waved her hand, and half
+a minute later black Leila and her double burden had disappeared round
+a turn of the road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+ON THE KING'S HIGHWAY.
+
+
+The amazed post-boy was now directed to put the lame horse back into
+its place and go slowly ahead, while the highwayman himself took the
+captain's place inside the chaise.
+
+"Don't you be frightened, my dear," he said to the trembling
+waiting-woman, whom her young mistress had done her best to reassure
+before leaving her. "I love your sex far too dearly ever to harm one
+of you. With your leave I will ride part of the way with you, and
+should anybody ask my name, you may call me Mr. Darke."
+
+He removed his mask as he spoke; but it was too dark inside the
+chaise to allow of his features being distinguished, even if the
+waiting-woman had not been too terrified to do more than glance
+furtively at him.
+
+They had gone on slowly for about a quarter of an hour when it became
+evident that some other vehicle was approaching them rapidly from the
+rear.
+
+"Keep your veil down and don't say a word," said Mr. Darke to his
+companion after a backward glance through the open window.
+
+He drew his hat down over his brows and turned up the collar of his
+redingote about his ears, so that even had it been daylight little of
+his face would have been visible. It was not unlikely that the Sir
+Peter of whom mention had been made might do the same as he had
+done--throw the light of a lantern on the inmates of the chaise.
+
+Presently the pursuing chaise came up at a great pace, the post-boy
+lashing his horses freely, and, passing the other one, drew up
+suddenly some dozen yards ahead, straight across the narrow road, so
+as effectually to bar its progress and bring it to a stand.
+
+Mr. Darke put his head out of the window. "Post-boy, what is the
+meaning of this stoppage?" he called. "Why don't you go on?"
+
+"Can't do it, sir--road blocked by t'other shay."
+
+Before more could be said, Sir Peter himself came stalking up
+trembling with rage, followed by his servant with a lantern.
+
+"So, so! sir, your nefarious scheme has not succeeded; your villainous
+plot has miscarried, as it deserved to do," he stuttered, his words
+tumbling headlong over each other in his passion. "I'll have the law
+of you, sir, for this! You shall be taught that you cannot run off
+with a gentleman's ward with impunity! You shall be cast for damages,
+sir. Five thousand pounds--not one farthing less--damme!--But where is
+that niece of mine--the shameless hussy? I will----"
+
+"May I ask, sir, the meaning of this singular outrage?" demanded a
+grave, stern voice from the interior of the chaise. "If His Majesty's
+liege subjects are to be stopped on the highway by every inebriate
+brawler, it is indeed time for the hand of authority to intervene. I
+am myself in the Commission of Peace, and I must demand from you your
+name and address, sir, in order that further inquiry may be made into
+this most discreditable proceeding."
+
+But by this time the servant had directed the rays of his lantern into
+the interior of the chaise. Sir Peter stood like a man petrified. In
+the farther corner sat a plainly-dressed, thin, angular woman, bolt
+upright, and as rigid as a ramrod, who, although her face was hidden
+by a thick veil, no one in his senses would for a moment mistake for
+Miss Dulcie Peyton, and it was doubtless owing to the veil that he
+failed to recognize in her that young lady's maid, with whose features
+he was presumably not unfamiliar. Of the person who had addressed him
+little could be seen save a large aquiline nose and a pair of fierce
+black eyes. It was equally impossible, however, to confound him with
+Captain Pascoe.
+
+"I crave your pardon, sir," said Sir Peter, in a tone of almost abject
+apology, as he took off his hat and made a ceremonious bow. "I shall
+never forgive myself for my stupid blunder; but the fact is I mistook
+your chaise for the one in which a niece of mine--confound her!--is at
+the present moment on her way to Gretna Green. We had tidings of her
+at the place where we last changed horses, and I made sure that the
+first chaise we should overtake must be the one of which we were in
+pursuit."
+
+"Sir, your apology makes ample amends," responded Mr. Darke in the
+most gracious of tones. "Your mistake was a most natural one. No doubt
+the flight of your niece has been a source of much annoyance to you."
+
+The scowl on Sir Peter's face was not pleasant to see.
+
+"If once I clap hands on her, she won't escape me again. Bolts and
+bars and bread-and-water--that's the only treatment for refractory
+wenches. But pardon me for not introducing myself. I am Sir Peter
+Warrendale, of Scrope Hall, near Whatton Regis."
+
+"And I, Colonel Delnay, of Scowthwaite, by Carlisle." At this point
+the two gentlemen bowed ceremoniously to each other. "I trust, Sir
+Peter, to have the pleasure of meeting you on some more auspicious
+occasion."
+
+"With all my heart, Colonel, I reciprocate the wish. But,
+ouns-an-codlins! I'm forgetting all about my runaway niece. May I ask
+whether anything has passed you on the road at all resembling a
+fly-by-night couple in a post-chaise?"
+
+"Nothing resembling what you speak of, Sir Peter, I give you my word.
+Most likely they have a post-boy with them who is acquainted with the
+short cut across the fells. It's a dangerous road for a chaise to
+traverse after dark, and the chances are that they will come to grief
+before they reach the end of it."
+
+"I'd give a hundred guineas, damme if I wouldn't, if one of their
+linch-pins was to drop out! But I may yet be in time to overtake 'em."
+
+And so, with a few more polite phrases on both sides, the two men
+parted.
+
+No sooner had the other chaise started on its way than Mr. Darke lay
+back in his seat and gave vent to a burst of hearty laughter. Then, in
+a full rich voice, he sang as under:--
+
+
+   You may ride through the night, nor draw rein all the day,
+   Change horse as you list, and--tantivy! away!
+   But from Humber to Ribble, 'twixt Derwent and Dee,
+   You'll ne'er find a trace of sweet Ellen O'Lee!
+
+
+"Poor uncle! Poor Sir Peter!" he exclaimed. "His pretty niece will
+have been wed a couple of hours ere he crosses the Border. What a
+surly old curmudgeon he looks! No wonder his little bird was tired of
+its cage, and seized the first chance to flutter its wings and away."
+
+When they had gone about a mile further, he called to the post-boy to
+stop, and alighted from the chaise. Dipping his hand into one of his
+capacious pockets, he drew out something which he presented with a bow
+to the maid. "Here's a trifle for you, my dear, to keep you in mind of
+Mr. Darke," he said. "And now I must wish you goodnight and _bon
+voyage_, with the hope that one of these days you will be run away
+with by as gallant a gentleman as he who has carried off your
+mistress."
+
+With that he took off his hat and swept her a low bow with all the
+grace imaginable. Then, stepping up to the post-boy, he put a couple
+of guineas into his hand, "just to drink my health with," as he said.
+
+Half-a-minute later he was lost to view in a plantation of young trees
+which at that point lined one side of the road. The present he had
+given the maid proved to be a chased-silver sweetmeat box of elaborate
+workmanship, which had doubtless at one time been the property of some
+person of quality.
+
+
+Some six weeks later than the events just recorded, Mrs. Ringwood, the
+landlady of the King's Arms, was drinking a dish of tea with her
+friend, Miss Capp, who had been from home for a couple of months, and
+was agog to hear all the news.
+
+"The young people had been three hours married by the time Sir Peter
+reached Gretna Green," said the landlady, in continuation of what had
+gone before. "He stormed and raved, as a matter of course, and vowed
+he would have the law of Captain Pascoe; but it was well known that he
+would never have dared to go into court and let the world know with
+how much cruelty he had treated his orphan niece. When the captain and
+his bride came south a week later they stopped and dined at the King's
+Arms, and it was then I learned all the particulars I have just told
+you of their strange adventure."
+
+"But what about Mr. Darke? What about the highwayman?" queried Miss
+Capp eagerly.
+
+"I can tell you very little about him. As to who he really was,
+nothing has ever come out. He may have been the notorious Captain
+Nightshade, as the post-boy firmly believes, or he may not. The
+post-boy says he recognized him by the horse he was riding--a black
+mare, with a white stocking on the near fore-leg and a white blaze on
+the forehead. In any case, the act was that of one who had not
+forgotten that once on a time he was a gentleman."
+
+"It was the act of one who, whatever his other faults may be, has not
+yet forfeited all right to that title," responded the enthusiastic
+spinster, who envied Miss Peyton's maid her adventure.
+
+"By the way, I mustn't forget to tell you that poor Sir Peter was
+unlucky enough to be stopped on his way back from Gretna Green, and
+eased of his watch and purse, together with his snuff-box, which
+latter it seems he set great store by, it being a sort of family
+heirloom. And I have it from the post-boy in charge of the chaise that
+as the highwayman was on the point of riding away he lifted his hat
+and said: 'Colonel Delnay has the honor, Sir Peter, to wish you a very
+goodnight.'"
+
+
+
+THE NARRATIVE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+A PRENTICE HAND.
+
+
+Among other wayfarers who, on a certain evening some four months
+subsequently to the events already narrated, halted at the King's Arms
+Hotel, Appleford, in order to refresh the inner man, was a stranger on
+horseback, with a rather bulky saddle-bag strapped behind him, who,
+judging from his style and appearance, might have been a cattle jobber
+on his way to some fair, or farm bailiff, a "statesman" who farmed his
+own acres, and had a comfortable little balance at the local bank; or,
+at any rate, a man used to a healthy, outdoor country life, to whom
+existence in a town would have been nothing less than intolerable.
+
+Having dismounted from his very serviceable nag, he gave it into the
+ostler's charge, with strict injunctions that it was to be well cared
+for, and then made for the coffee-room, where, five minutes later, he
+was seated with a noble cold sirloin before him, and at his elbow a
+tankard of the best old ale the house could supply.
+
+He was a prime trencherman, was John Dyce--they were common enough in
+those days--and it would have made a modern dyspeptic stare to watch
+the heroic way in which he attacked the sirloin, and with what
+unequivocal appetite one well-mustarded slice after another, with its
+accompaniment of delicious home-made bread, was disposed of. But not
+even John could go on eating forever, and by and by he laid down his
+knife and fork with an audible sigh, which might be partly due to the
+satisfaction which comes--or should come--of comfortable repletion,
+and partly a sigh of regret at having to bid farewell to the sirloin.
+While the waiter cleared away he went as far as the stable in order to
+satisfy himself that his nag was being properly looked after. He was
+gone some little time, and when he came back he ordered a churchwarden
+pipe, a screw of tobacco, and a tumbler of cold punch to be brought
+him.
+
+There were some half-dozen people in the room who had been there when
+he arrived, and a number of others had come and gone in the interim.
+Now and then a bell would be heard to ring somewhere indoors, now and
+then a chaise or other vehicle would rattle up to the door and come to
+an abrupt stand. The _Highflyer_ coach, going south, had stopped for
+exactly three minutes and a half in order to change horses, during
+which time a majority of the passengers had crowded into the hotel,
+clamoring for drinks of various kinds.
+
+John Dyce, sitting apart in a quiet corner of the long, oak-panelled,
+low-ceilinged room, and puffing meditatively at his churchwarden, had
+a quietly observant eye for every fresh face that came in. At
+length--but not till his glance had travelled more than once, with
+some anxiety in it, to the clock over the chimney-piece--his waiting
+was rewarded.
+
+The coffee-room door opened, and there entered a little,
+comfortable-looking, rosy-gilled man, in whose features professional
+gravity seemed to be struggling against a latent sense of humor. He
+was Mr. Tew, managing clerk to Mr. Piljoy, solicitor of Arkrigg, a
+town at the other end of the county. His employer being laid up with
+gout, he had been sent to Stanbrook in his stead in order to get
+Squire Cortelyon's will duly signed and witnessed. Having accomplished
+his errand, he was now on his way back home, with the will carefully
+buttoned up inside his breast pocket. Squire Cortelyon was not
+expected to live from hour to hour.
+
+"Bottle-green surtout with black velvet collar," muttered John Dyce to
+himself. "Front tooth broken short off; red and black silk muffler
+round his throat; white beaver hat the worse for wear. It must be
+him."
+
+Mr. Tew beckoned the waiter.
+
+"Ham and eggs and a cup of strong coffee; and let me have them as
+quick as possible. I must be on the road again in half an hour."
+
+"'Am-an'-eggs--yessir--have 'em in a jiffy. Going far, sir, to-night,
+may I ask?"
+
+"Only as far as Arkrigg."
+
+"A dozen long miles, sir, and as nasty a bit o' road as any in the
+county, being nearly all up-hill and windin' in an' out among the
+moors--let alone its bein' such a favorite road with Captain
+Nightshade." Then, insinuatingly: "Better stay where you are, sir.
+Could put you up very comfortable. His Grace of Malvern stayed with us
+a night last month, and before goin' away he says, says he----"
+
+"No, no," broke in Mr. Tew good-naturedly--waiters in our
+great-grandfathers' days were often privileged mortals--"it's not a
+bit of use your trying to tempt me. Home to-night I must get--highly
+important; and as for Captain Nightshade, he flies at higher game than
+the likes of me. If he were to strip me to the shirt, all I have would
+hardly fetch him the price of a decent dinner and a bottle of wine. So
+now for my ham and eggs."
+
+Not a word of all this had escaped John Dyce, but his stolid face was
+absolutely devoid of expression. He had changed his position to the
+settle near the chimney-corner, and was sitting with one hand buried
+deep in his breeches pocket, while the other held his long pipe, his
+gaze meanwhile being contemplatively fixed on a corner of the
+well-smoked ceiling.
+
+He had already paid his "shot," and he now put down his pipe, stood
+up, yawned, stretched himself, and then, after clapping his hat on his
+head, strode slowly out of the room. Passing the bar, now empty of
+customers, through the inner window of which he could see the plump
+landlady busy with her knitting-needles, he paused for a few moments
+at the top of the flight of broad shallow steps which led up to the
+front door. Like so many similar establishments in those days, the
+King's Arms Hotel formed three sides of a quadrangle, with the windows
+facing into it, the fourth side consisting of an open gateway large
+enough for a coach-and-four to be driven through with ease, having
+shops on either side, the windows of which fronted on the main street.
+
+As John Dyce stood on the topmost step he looked to right and he
+looked to left. For a small provincial town the hour was growing late.
+In the inn yard no one was about. A light shone dimly through the
+stable window, and in one corner Mr. Tew's chaise, with two or three
+other vehicles, made a confused heap, dimly discernible. Half an hour
+later, with the arrival of the _Comet_, bound for Edinburgh, the whole
+place would wake up, as at the stroke of an enchanter's wand, to a
+brief spasm of feverish energy and excitement. Meanwhile somnolence
+reigned.
+
+John Dyce, whistling under his breath, descended the steps and picked
+his way slowly in the direction of the stable, presumably in search of
+the ostler; but it was not till a full quarter of an hour later that
+he rode out of the inn yard, and, having crossed the market-place,
+took the road which led due north out of the town. The clock of the
+old church chimed the half-hour past ten as he left it behind. A
+crescent moon was sailing in a clear sky.
+
+Presently John's nag broke into a gentle trot, and so the two jogged
+quietly along till the last house in Appleford had been left some four
+miles behind. Then, at a point where the road, dipping a little, cut
+through the dark heart of a plantation of firs, he drew rein and let
+his horse subside into a walk. He had got about halfway through the
+plantation when, a little way ahead of him, what looked like an
+irregular fragment of the blackness which walled him in on either hand
+broke itself away, as it were, and, moving out into the middle of the
+road, showed there clear and distinct by the light of the young moon,
+and then, as he drew a pace or two nearer, took on itself the shape of
+another horse and another rider.
+
+John seemed in nowise alarmed by the sudden apparition, but rather,
+indeed, as if the _rencontre_ was not unexpected by him.
+
+"So! it is you; I was rather doubtful at first," said the other in a
+full rich voice as he drew near. "Well, what luck have you had?"
+
+As well as could be seen, the speaker was a young and very handsome
+man, with an unmistakable air of distinction. His outer garment was a
+long, loose, dark blue cloak without sleeves, fastened at the throat
+by a silver clasp, which hid the rest of his attire except his long
+riding boots and his small three-cornered hat. His dark hair, the real
+color of which could not be distinguished by that light, was slightly
+sprinkled with powder and tied up behind with black ribbon into the
+form of an ample queue. His hands were covered by a pair of buff
+gauntlets, and from the holsters in front of him the stocks of a brace
+of pistols bulged menacingly.
+
+John Dyce carried a finger to his forehead as his nag came to halt.
+"Everything gone off all right, your honor," he said in reply to the
+young man's question. "I left Mr. Tew at the King's Arms in Appleford.
+He'd just ordered his supper, but seemed in a hurry to get on, and I
+should say that by this time he's nearly ready to start again, so that
+your honor's wait for him shouldn't be a long one. Before coming away
+I managed, unseen by anybody, to draw the charges of his pistols,
+which he had left behind him in the chaise when he went in to supper."
+
+"Well done, John! There's far more in that head of years than most
+people give you credit for. But now you must leave me. I will await
+Mr. Tew here. I don't think I could find a more convenient bit of road
+for my purpose than this. You will wait for me, as arranged, at the
+first toll-bar on the Whinbarrow road."
+
+"Better not send me away, your honor," said John in a tone of earnest
+entreaty; "better let me keep with you, or, at least, be within hail
+in case of accident."
+
+"No, no, John, I won't have you mixed up in the affair more than is
+absolutely necessary. There's nothing to fear--more especially now
+that you have drawn the charges of the pistols. But, at the best of
+times, I don't believe Mr. Tew has an ounce of courage in that plump,
+well-lined body of his. More likely than not he will take me for
+Captain Nightshade, and be all a-quake with fright. So you must just
+do as you are bidden, and make the best of your way to the place
+agreed upon. And remember, I forbid you on any account to wait about
+here."
+
+John attempted no further protest, knowing, probably, how futile it
+would have been, but wheeling his nag round, without a word more
+started off down the road at a gentle trot.
+
+The young man waited without stirring till the last thud of his
+horse's hoofs had died into silence. Then he shivered--the night was
+bitter enough to excuse his doing so--and drew his cloak more closely
+around him; and then he glanced about him, somewhat timorously it
+might have been thought.
+
+"Pish! what folly is this!" he muttered peevishly. "A gentleman of the
+road, a despoiler of timid travellers, shivering and shaking because
+he finds himself alone, drawing on for midnight, on a solitary bit of
+the King's highway! I shall be frightened of my own shadow next.
+Captain Nightshade would indeed laugh me to scorn."
+
+He patted his mare on the neck and began to walk her up and down on
+the narrow stretch of turf which fringed the road on either hand. It
+was not one of the great thoroughfares running north and south, busy
+day and night with traffic in one or other of its manifold forms, but
+merely a by-road between one provincial town and another. The only
+living things seen by our young horseman while he waited were a drove
+of cattle, in charge of a couple of men, on their way to Appleford
+market. While they were passing he withdrew into the shade of the
+plantation.
+
+After all, he had hardly so long to wait as he had feared he would
+have. John Dyce had not been more than a quarter of an hour gone when
+his straining ears caught the faint sound of wheels. He had already
+adjusted the crape mask he had brought with him, and settled his chin
+in the ample folds of the India silk muffler he had tied round his
+throat. He now set his hat more firmly on his head, and drew a pistol
+from its holster.
+
+And now, some distance down the road, there shone two yellow points of
+flame, as they might be the eyes of some wild animal shining in the
+dark. They were the lamps of the coming chaise. Nearer and nearer
+sounded the hoof-beats of the horses on the hard road. A minute more
+and the whole concern had passed out of the moonlight into the gully
+of blackness in which our horseman was lurking. The moment for action
+had come. Three strides of his horse brought him into a line with the
+postilion. "Halt, or you are a dead man!" he called out in commanding
+tones, as he held a pistol to the man's head, and at once the horses
+were pulled up short on their haunches. It was not the first command
+of the kind that postilion had been called upon to obey.
+
+The highwayman had brought no lantern with him. He knew, or thought he
+knew, quite well who the occupant of the chaise was. He could just
+discern a vague huddled-up figure in one corner. And now, in no
+uncertain voice, came the formula, sacred by long use on such
+occasions: "Your money or your life!" Not that it was the traveller's
+money our young friend was risking so much to obtain, but something
+very different, only he had not seen his way at the moment to vary the
+customary command.
+
+The answer was a flash and a report from the interior of the chaise,
+and the same instant a harsh voice yelled out, "Drive on Tim, and be
+damned to you!" Hardly had the words left his lips before the
+post-boy's lash came down heavily on his horses, and the chaise sprang
+forward.
+
+Unused to such surprises, the young man's horse shied violently and
+then backed towards the plantation, as if its rider had lost control
+of it. What would have happened next there is no telling, had not
+another horse and rider, springing from nowhere, as it seemed,
+appeared at this instant on the scene. Our would-be highwayman, his
+hat fallen off and his head thrown back, was swaying in his saddle,
+and the newcomer was only just in time to grasp him round the waist,
+and so save him from falling.
+
+A few seconds later he gave vent to a low whistle, expressive of an
+amazement almost too deep for words.
+
+"By the Lord that made me--a woman!" was his whispered ejaculation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+IN SEARCH OF A LODGING.
+
+
+It was not the chaise of timorous-hearted Mr. Tew, but of hot-tempered
+Sir Humphrey Button, which the young highwayman had so valorously
+bidden to halt.
+
+At the last moment Mr. Tew had been accosted by an old friend whom he
+had not seen for a number of years, and had been easily persuaded to
+put off his departure for another hour in order to talk over bygone
+days, and discuss a jorum or two of punch with him.
+
+Our young friend was not long in coming to himself, and mightily
+surprised and discomposed he was at finding his waist firmly
+encircled by a sinewy arm, and to dimly discern a pair of eyes gazing
+intently into his own--his head was reclining on the stranger's
+shoulder--through the orifices of a crape mask. He was bareheaded, and
+his own mask had come unfastened and had fallen off. For a moment or
+two he felt dazed, and could not make out what had happened to him.
+Then in a flash he recalled everything. With a quick, resentful
+movement he drew himself away from the stranger's clasp, and set his
+back as stiff as a ramrod. For all that, his cheek was aflame with
+blushes, but the kindly night hid them.
+
+"Thank you very much," he said in freezing accents, "but I am all
+right now. I was never taken like it before, and trust I never shall
+be again. It was too ridiculous."
+
+"Let us hope that you were more startled than hurt," said the other.
+"For all that, it was a close shave."
+
+With that he swung himself off his horse, and, going a yard or two
+down the road, he picked up the youngster's hat and mask.
+
+"There's a bullet-hole through the brim," he remarked, as he handed
+him his property. "Yes, a very close shave indeed." Then, as he
+proceeded to remount his horse, he added with a mellow laugh, "If an
+old professor may venture an opinion, you are a prentice hand at this
+sort of business."
+
+"Yes, indeed. This is my first adventure of the kind, and I am quite
+sure it will be my last. If you are under the impression," he
+continued, with a touch of hauteur which seemed to become him
+naturally, "that the object of my adventure to-night was merely the
+replenishing of my pockets by the emptying of those of somebody else,
+you were never more mistaken. My intent was not money or jewels, but
+to obtain possession of a will--of a most iniquitous will--the
+destruction of which would have the effect of righting a great wrong.
+Unhappily, my attempt has failed, and the wrong will never be righted.
+I mistook my man. The traveller in the chaise was not the person I was
+expecting. _He_ has doubtless made up his mind to stay the night at
+Appleford."
+
+"A very wise resolve on his part, considering how unsafe the King's
+highway is for honest folk after dark," retorted the elder man, with
+his careless laugh. "But tell me this, young sir. Even if you had
+succeeded in getting possession of the will and destroying it, what
+would there have been to hinder the testator from having a fresh one
+drawn up in precisely similar terms?"
+
+"Merely the fact that he is given up by the doctors, and that, in the
+event of the first will having been destroyed, he would not have lived
+to have a second one drawn up and signed. At any moment he may breathe
+his last. Possibly he is dead already."
+
+"Your heroic attempt to right a great wrong is of a nature to appeal
+to every generous heart. Such being the case, it will not, perhaps, be
+deemed presumptuous on my part to suggest that where you have failed
+it is just possible that I might succeed. Should you, therefore, be
+pleased to accept of my services, I beg to assure you that they are
+yours to command." Here he removed his hat and swept the youngster a
+low bow.
+
+The other hesitated for a few moments, as hardly knowing in what terms
+to reply, but when he did speak it was with no lack of decision. "From
+the bottom of my heart I thank you, sir, for your offer, which I
+assure you I appreciate at its full value; but, for certain reasons
+which I am not at liberty to explain, it is quite out of the question
+that I should avail myself of it."
+
+"In that case, there is nothing more to be said. Will it be deemed an
+impertinence on my part if I ask in what direction you are now bound?"
+
+Neither of them had noticed a huge black cloud which had been
+gradually creeping up the sky, and which at this moment burst in a
+deluge of rain. As by mutual consent, the two men who had so strangely
+come together pricked up their horses and sought such shelter as the
+plantation afforded from the downpour.
+
+Then said the younger man in reply to the other's question: "What I am
+anxious to do is to find my way into the Whinbarrow road, after which
+I shall manage well enough."
+
+"Do you know the way to it from here?"
+
+"No more than a dead man."
+
+"It's an awkward road to hit on after dark, and you might flounder
+about till daybreak without finding it. In five minutes from now what
+little moonlight there's left will be swallowed up by this confounded
+rain-cloud, after which it will be as dark as the nethermost pit. On
+such a night for you, a stranger, to attempt to find the Whinbarrow
+road would be the sheerest madness."
+
+"What, then, do you recommend me to do?"
+
+"I will tell you. Not more than three miles from here stands a lonely
+house among the moors, Rockmount by name. Its owner, a solitary, is a
+man well advanced in years--a scholar and a bookworm. But although
+leading such a secluded life, his door is open day and night to any
+one who--like yourself--has lost his way, or who craves the shelter of
+his roof on any account whatever. To Rockmount you must now hie you
+and put Mr. Ellerslie's hospitality to the proof: that you will not do
+so in vain I am well assured. I know the way and will gladly guide you
+there. Come, let us lose no more time. This cursed rain shows no signs
+of leaving off."
+
+"But if this part of the country is so well known to you," urged the
+other, "why not direct me the way I want to go, instead of pressing
+me--and at this hour of the night--to intrude on the hospitality of a
+stranger?"
+
+"There are two, if not more, very sufficient reasons why I am unable
+to oblige you in this matter," responded the other dryly. "In the
+first place, I could not direct you, as you call it, into the
+Whinbarrow road. On such a night as this no directions would avail
+you; I should have to lead you there, and plant the nose of your mare
+straight up the road before leaving you. In the second place, my way
+lies in an opposite direction. Matters of moment need my presence
+elsewhere, and before the first cock begins to crow I must be a score
+miles from here."
+
+As if to bar any further discussion in the matter, he took hold of the
+bridle of the other's horse and, leading the way out of the
+plantation, started off at an easy canter up the road in the direction
+taken by the chaise. The younger man offered no opposition to the
+proceeding.
+
+He seemed little more than a boy, and the night's adventures had
+fluttered his nerves. To go wandering about in the pitch-dark,
+hunting for a road that was wholly strange to him--not one of the
+great highways, which he could hardly have missed, but a narrow
+cross-country turnpike which had nothing to distinguish it from
+half-a-dozen other roads--was more than he was prepared to do. He felt
+like one in a half-dream; all that had happened during the last hour
+had an air of unreality; he was himself, and yet not himself.
+To-night's business seemed to separate him by a huge gap both from
+yesterday and to-morrow. His will was in a state of partial
+suspension; he allowed himself to be led blindly forward, he neither
+knew nor greatly cared whither.
+
+Before long they turned sharply to the left up a rutted and stony
+cart-track, which apparently led right into the heart of the moors.
+Here they could only go slowly, trusting in a great measure to the
+instinct and surefootedness of their horses. The highwayman still kept
+hold of the other's bridle. The rain had in some measure abated, and a
+rift in the clouds low down in the east was slowly broadening.
+
+Not a word had passed between them since they left the plantation. But
+now, as if the silence had become irksome to him, the man with the
+crape mask burst into song. His voice was a full, clear baritone:
+
+
+     "Oh, kiss me, Childe Lovel," she breathes in his ear;
+     "Night's shadows flee fast, the moon's drown'd in the mere."
+      He turns his head slowly. "Christ! what is't I see?
+      A demon rides with me!" shrieks Ellen O'Lee.
+
+
+When he had come to the end of the verse, he drew forth his snuff-box,
+tapped it, opened it, and with a little bow proffered it to his
+companion.
+
+The moon had come out again, dim and watery, by this time, and they
+were now enabled to see each other so far as outlines and movements
+were concerned, although the more minute points of each other's
+appearance were still to some extent conjectural.
+
+"_Bien oblige, monsieur_," replied the younger man, "but snuff-taking
+is an acquirement--I ought, perhaps, to say an accomplishment--to
+which as yet I cannot lay claim, and, in so far, my education may be
+said to be incomplete."
+
+"'Tis a necessary part of a gentleman's curriculum--a pinch of Rappee
+or good Kendal Brown serves at once to soothe the nerves, disperse
+the vapors, and enliven the brain. But you are young yet, my dear
+sir--_oh, les beaux jours de la jeunesse!_--and, with luck, have many
+years before you for the cultivation of a habit which, unlike other
+habits I could name, the older you grow the more quiet satisfaction
+you derive from the practice of it. Amid the straits and
+disappointments of life, when his fortunes are at their lowest, and
+his fair-weather friends have fallen one by one away, many a man draws
+his truest consolation from his snuff-box."
+
+"You speak like one grown old both in years and experience," said the
+other laughingly. He was recovering his _sang-froid_, and, the failure
+of his enterprise notwithstanding, was beginning to enjoy the
+adventure for the adventure's sake.
+
+The highwayman gave vent to an audible sigh. "Experience keeps a dear
+school," he said, "and 'tis only fools who fail to learn at it."
+
+And so for a time they rode on in silence. Then said the younger man,
+"You seem to know your way hereabouts pretty well."
+
+"The home of my youth was no great distance away, and, as a lad, I
+wandered over these moors and fells till I grew to know them, as one
+might say, by heart."
+
+"Have we much farther to go, may I ask?"
+
+"Another ten minutes will bring us to our destination." With that he
+proceeded to remove his mask and stuff it into one of his pockets.
+
+For a little while they jogged along side by side without speaking.
+The tract of country they were traversing was wild and desolate in the
+extreme. On every side stretched the bare swelling moorland--bare save
+for the short sparse grass and the many-hued mosses which grew in its
+hollows and more sheltered places, but left naked its huge ribs and
+bosses of granite, which showed through the surface in every
+direction, and seemed to crave the decent burial which only some great
+cataclysm of nature could give them. Here and there at wide intervals
+a narrow track-way unwound itself like a dusky ribbon till it was lost
+in the distance. These rude by-roads had been in use for more
+centuries than history or tradition knew of, and served to connect one
+outlying hamlet with another. Over them from time to time paced great
+droves of cattle and sheep on their way to one or other of the
+frequent fairs which in those days, far more than now, brought the
+country-side together and formed one of the most distinctive features
+of English rural life.
+
+"Here we are at last," said the highwayman, as an indefinite mass of
+black buildings loomed vaguely before them--for the rain was over and
+gone, and the moon was again shining in a clear sky--which presently,
+as they drew nearer, took on the shape of a long, low, two-storied
+house, with a high-pitched roof and twisted chimneys, and having a
+group of detached outbuildings in the rear.
+
+As they reined in their horses a few yards from the low wall, which
+enclosed a space of rank and untended shrubbery, the younger horseman
+saw, not without a sense of misgiving, that the whole front of the
+house was in darkness. Not the faintest glimmer of light was anywhere
+visible.
+
+"And do you mean to tell me," he asked in a low voice, for a
+sense of night and darkness was upon him, "that this desolate and
+out-of-the-world spot is any one's home?"
+
+"It is the home of Mr. Cope-Ellerslie, as I have already remarked."
+
+"How far away is Mr. Ellerslie's nearest neighbor?"
+
+"Four good miles, as the crow flies. But he is a recluse and a
+student, and the loneliness of Rockmount was probably his main
+inducement for becoming its tenant."
+
+"In any case, we are too late to-night to claim his hospitality. There
+is not a light anywhere visible."
+
+"You mean that there's none to be seen from where we are standing,"
+retorted the highwayman dryly. "But that's no proof Mr. Ellerslie's
+abed. He's a genuine nightbird, and often does not go to roost before
+daybreak, so busy is he over his studies of one kind or another."
+
+At another time the younger man might have wondered how his
+law-breaking companion had acquired such an intimate knowledge of the
+habits of the recluse of Rockmount, but just then he had other things
+to think about.
+
+"Follow me," said the highwayman, and with that he walked his horse
+round a corner of the house, to where a large bow window, invisible
+before, bulged out from the main building.
+
+"That is the window of Mr. Ellerslie's study," he resumed. "You can
+see by the light shining through the circular openings at the top of
+the shutters that he is still at work."
+
+"That may be," rejoined the other, "but doubtless all his household
+are asleep long ago, and rather than disturb Mr. Ellerslie himself at
+such an hour I would----"
+
+"What a fastidious young cock-o'-wax you are!" broke in the elder man.
+"Do you think I would have brought you here if there had been nobody
+but Mr. E. to the fore? As I happen to know, his old manservant never
+on any account goes to bed before his master. Him we shall find as
+wide awake as an owl at midnight. Follow me."
+
+He led the way back to where a ramshackle, loosely-hung gate, merely
+on latch, gave admittance to a gravelled path which led up to a small
+carriage-sweep in front of the house, on reaching which, at the
+instance of the highwayman, they both dismounted. Then going up to the
+door, he lifted the massive knocker and struck three resounding blows
+with it slowly one after the other; after which, going back to his
+companion, he said, "Here, young sir, we must part."
+
+"But not, I trust, before you have told me to whom I am indebted for
+the very great service you have rendered me to-night."
+
+A bitter laugh broke from the other. "My real name," he said, "is that
+of a broken and ruined man, whom the world already has well-nigh
+forgotten. That by which I am customarily known nowadays is--Captain
+Nightshade, at your service."
+
+The younger man showed no trace of surprise. "I suspected as much from
+the first," he said. "In this part of the country only one _gentleman_
+of the road does us the honor of taking toll of us. The rest are
+scum--mere vulgar ruffians, ripe for the gallows-tree."
+
+"Sir, you flatter me"--with a grave inclination of the head. "May I,
+in my turn, if it be not deemed an impertinence, ask to whom I am
+indebted for an hour of the pleasantest companionship it has been my
+good fortune to enjoy for many a long day?"
+
+"_My_ name? Hum! I must consider. By the way, you remarked a little
+while ago, and very truly, that, as far as your profession was
+concerned, I was a prentice hand. Suppose, then, that you call me Jack
+Prentice. 'Twill serve as well as another."
+
+"Mr. Jack Prentice let it be, with all my heart. 'Tis a name I shall
+not forget. Ah! here comes somebody in answer to my summons." And,
+indeed, there was a noise as of the undoing of the bolts and bars of
+the massive door, which, a few seconds later, was opened wide,
+disclosing a gray-haired serving-man in a faded livery, who stood
+there staring into the darkness, shielding with one hand a lighted
+candle which he carried in the other.
+
+Captain Nightshade strode up to the door, and in his easy, off-hand
+way said, "You are one of Mr. Ellerslie's servants, I presume?"
+
+"I be," answered the old man laconically.
+
+"Then be good enough to present my compliments to your master, the
+compliments of a neighbor--hem!--and tell him there's a young
+gentleman at the door who has been belated on the moors and craves the
+hospitality of Rockmount for the remainder of the night."
+
+Mr. Jack Prentice had followed close on the captain's heels, and, as
+the candlelight shone full on the latter's face, he had now, for the
+first time, an opportunity of seeing what the noted highwayman was
+like. What he saw was a long, lean, brown face, the face of an ascetic
+it might almost have been termed, had it not been contradicted by a
+pair of black, penetrating eyes of extraordinary brilliancy, and by a
+mobile, changeable mouth which rarely wore the same expression for
+three minutes at a time. His rounded, massive chin seemed a little out
+of keeping with the rest of his features, as though it belonged of
+right to another type of face. His high nose, thin and curved, with
+its fine nostrils, lent him an air of breeding and distinction. In
+figure he was tall and sinewy. His black hair, tied into a queue not
+more than half the size of his companion's, showed no trace of powder.
+His prevailing expression might be said to be one of almost defiant
+recklessness mingled with a sort of cynical good-humor. It was as
+though into an originally noble nature a drop of subtle poison had
+been distilled, which had served to muddy and discolor it, so that it
+no longer reflected things in their true proportions, without having
+been able to more than partially corrupt it.
+
+The old man-servant's lips worked as though he were mumbling over the
+message with which he had been charged, then with a curt nod he turned
+away, and, putting down his candlestick on a side table, was presently
+lost to view in the gloom of the corridor beyond the entrance-hall.
+
+If Captain Nightshade had any consciousness of the brief but keen
+scrutiny to which he had been subjected, he failed to betray it. While
+they were awaiting the man's return, he slowly paced the gravelled
+sweep, singing in a low voice a snatch of a ditty the last line of
+which had something to do with "ruby wine and laughing eyes."
+
+Then the serving-man came back.
+
+"The master bids yo welcome," he said. "There's supper, bed, and
+breakfast at yore sarvice. He's busy just now, but mayhap he'll find
+time to see yo for a few minutes by an' by."
+
+"I felt assured you would not claim the hospitality of Rockmount in
+vain," said Captain Nightshade. "And now, my dear Mr. Prentice, I must
+wish you a very goodnight, coupled with the hope that sound sleep and
+pleasant dreams will be yours. I have a presentiment that we have not
+seen the last of each other, and my presentiments generally come
+true."
+
+He would have turned away, but the other held out his hand. "I am your
+debtor for much this night," he said. "You say you have a presentiment
+that we shall meet again. When that time comes I may, perhaps, be able
+to repay you. At present 'tis out of my power to do so."
+
+Their hands met for a moment and parted, and each bowed ceremoniously
+to the other. Then Captain Nightshade climbed lightly into his saddle,
+waved his hand, gave rein to his horse and disappeared in the
+darkness. The same instant a second servant appeared from somewhere,
+and, taking charge of Mr. Prentice's horse, led it away towards the
+rear of the house.
+
+Then, with such a throb of the heart as one experiences on stepping
+across the threshold of the unknown, doubtful of what one may find on
+the other side, our young gentleman stepped across the threshold of
+Rockmount and heard the bolts and bars of the great door shot one by
+one behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+MR. ELLERSLIE OF ROCKMOUNT.
+
+
+Having resumed possession of his candlestick, the old serving-man,
+whose face wore a sour and suspicious look, beckoned Mr. Jack, and,
+leading the way, presently threw open a door at the end of a corridor,
+and ushered him into a spacious panelled room, in the grate of which a
+cosy fire was burning.
+
+"Supper's bein' got ready, sir, and will be served in the course of a
+few minutes," said the man, and with that he lighted a couple of wax
+candles on the centre table and two more over the chimney-piece. Then
+he stirred up the fire to a blaze and hobbled out of the room without
+a word more.
+
+Mr. Jack's first action was to relieve himself of his sodden cloak,
+which he laid over the back of a chair. That done, he spread his
+chilled fingers to the blaze, and proceeded to take stock of his
+surroundings.
+
+This was soon done, for the room held nothing calculated to arrest his
+attention or excite his curiosity. It was sparsely furnished, and its
+few chairs and tables, together with the bureau in one corner,
+although of choice workmanship, were all venerable with age. Carpet
+and hearthrug alike were faded and in places worn threadbare. Of
+pictures or ornaments of any kind, except for a small malachite vase
+on the chimney-piece, the room was wholly destitute. Judging from
+appearances, it seemed clear that the master of Rockmount was not a
+wealthy man.
+
+Scarcely had Mr. Jack concluded his survey before the door was opened,
+and in came a middle-aged woman, carrying a supper-tray, which she
+proceeded to deposit on a centre table, and then wheeled the latter
+nearer the fire. The tray proved to contain a cold fowl, some slices
+of ham, butter, cheese, bread, and a bottle of claret. To our young
+friend, ravenously hungry and chilled to the marrow, it seemed a
+supper fit for the gods.
+
+"Will you please to ring, sir, when you are ready for your coffee?"
+said the woman. And then he was left alone.
+
+Not till half an hour had gone by did he ring the bell, by which time
+his spirits had gone up several degrees. Intensely chagrined though he
+was by his failure to secure that for which he had risked so much,
+there was a relish about his adventure which he appreciated to the
+full, which appealed at once to his imagination and to the
+unconventional side of a character which had often vainly beat itself
+against the restrictions and restraints by which it was environed. He
+felt that to-night was a night to have lived for. It would dwell
+freshly in his memory to the last day of his life. For the space of
+one hour and a half he had been hand-and-glove with Captain
+Nightshade, the most redoubtable highwayman in all the North Country;
+and if some people might think that was nothing to be proud of, it was
+at any rate something to remember. Whether he was proud of it or no,
+he was conscious of a secret sense of elation, into the origin of
+which he had no wish to inquire. He only knew that he would not have
+foregone the night's experiences for a great deal.
+
+But the night was not yet over, although there seemed to be some
+danger of his forgetting that fact, so busy were his thoughts with the
+events of the last couple of hours. However, the bringing in of his
+coffee served to break up his reverie, and he began to wonder whether
+he was destined to see his unknown host. He was not left long in
+doubt.
+
+"Mr. Ellerslie, sir, will do himself the pleasure of waiting upon you
+in the course of a few minutes," said the woman.
+
+Together with the coffee she had brought in a case of spirits, with
+the needful concomitants for the manufacture of grog, without a
+tumbler or two of which, by way of nightcap, our great-grandfathers
+rarely thought of wending their way bedward.
+
+While the woman cleared the table Mr. Jack went back to his chair near
+the fire. The blaze, as he bent towards it in musing mood, resting an
+elbow on either knee, lighted up a face that was very pleasant to look
+upon. In shape it was a rather long oval, the cheeks as smooth and
+rounded as those of a girl of twenty, with that pure healthy tint in
+them which nothing but plenty of exposure to sun and wind can impart;
+indeed, if you had looked closely, you would have seen that here and
+there they were slightly freckled. Add to this a nose of the Grecian
+type, long and straight, and a short upper lip with a marked cleft in
+it. His hair, which was brushed straight back from his forehead, so as
+to help in the formation of his queue, was of the color of filberts
+when at their ripest, with here and there a gleam of dead gold in it.
+His large eyes were of the deepest shade of hazel, heavily lashed, and
+with a wonderful velvety softness in them, which, when he was at all
+excited, would glow and kindle with a sort of inner flame, or, if his
+temper were roused--which it easily was--would flash with scornful
+lightnings, while the line between his brows deepened to a veritable
+furrow. For, truth to tell, Mr. Jack Prentice was of a quick and
+somewhat fiery disposition; a little too ready, perhaps, to take
+offence; with an intense hatred for every kind of injustice, and a
+fine scorn, for the little meannesses and subterfuges of everyday
+life, the practice of which with many of us is so habitual and
+matter-of-course that we no longer recognize them for what they really
+are.
+
+But if Master Jack was a little too ready, so to speak, to clap his
+hand on the hilt of his rapier, he never bore any after-malice. His
+temper would flare out and be done with it with the suddenness of a
+summer storm, which has come and gone and given you a taste of its
+quality almost before you know what has happened.
+
+But we shall know more of "Jack," generous, loyal, and true-hearted,
+before we have done with him.
+
+The door opened and Mr. Cope-Ellerslie came in. His guest stood up and
+turned to receive him.
+
+The master of Rockmount was a tall, thin, elderly man, apparently
+about sixty years old, with a pronounced stoop of the shoulders. His
+outer garment was a dark, heavy robe or gaberdine, which wrapped him
+from throat to ankle. His long, grizzled hair, parted down the middle,
+fell on either side over his ears, and rested on the collar of his
+robe; the crown of his head was covered with a small velvet skull cap.
+He wore a short Vandyck beard and moustache, which, like his prominent
+eyebrows, were thickly flecked with gray. For the rest, his face, when
+seen from a little distance, looked like nothing so much as a mask
+carved out of ivory with the yellow tint of age upon it; but when, a
+little later, Jack was enabled to view it close at hand, it was seen
+to be marked and lined with thousands of extremely fine and minute
+creases and wrinkles, as it might be the face of a man centuries old.
+But there was nothing old about the eyes, which were very bright and
+of a singularly penetrative quality.
+
+Jack started involuntarily when his own traversed them. Of whose eyes
+did they remind him? When and where had he seen that look before? Was
+it in some dream which he had forgotten till they supplied the missing
+link? If so, all else had escaped him.
+
+Hardly, however, had he time to ask himself these questions before his
+host, advancing with a grave inclination of the head, said: "Welcome
+to Rockmount, young gentleman. I am happy to be in a position to
+extend to you the hospitality of my humble roof. You are neither the
+first nor the second who, having lost his bearings in this remote
+district, has found shelter here. You were fortunate in there being no
+fog to-night; at such times to be lost on the moors is not merely
+unpleasant, but dangerous. I am sorry my people were not prepared to
+put before you fare of a more _recherché_ kind, but we are very
+isolated here, as you may imagine, and so few are my visitors that it
+would be folly to prepare for people who might never come. For my own
+part, I may add that I am no Sybarite."
+
+There was a peculiarly hollow ring about Mr. Ellerslie's voice, as
+though it reached one from out of the depths of a cavern; and yet it
+seemed to his guest as if there was a note of half-familiarity in it,
+as if he had heard it somewhere before--it might be long ago. But
+that, of course, was absurd.
+
+While speaking, Mr. Ellerslie had advanced to the fire, and, motioning
+his guest to resume his seat, had himself taken possession of a chair
+on the opposite side of the hearth.
+
+Then Master Jack made haste to express his gratitude for the
+hospitality so generously extended to him.
+
+"Very prettily turned, young gentleman," said Mr. Ellerslie, with a
+nod of approval when he had come to an end. "You have good choice of
+words, and express yourself without any trace of that affectation
+which nowadays mars the speech of so many of our so-called bucks and
+young men of _ton_."
+
+The blush of ingenuous youth mantled in Jack's cheeks for a moment or
+two. He could not help noticing--and in after-days it was a point
+which often recurred to him--that his host never smiled, that no
+flitting shade of expression ever changed the mask-like, bloodless
+features. They remained wholly unmoved in their set, waxen pallor.
+
+"And now," resumed Mr. Ellerslie, "will there be any impropriety in my
+asking my guest to favor me with his name? But if, for any reason
+whatever, he would prefer to remain incognito, he has merely to
+intimate as much and his reticence will be duly respected."
+
+Mr. Jack was prepared for the question, and he answered it without
+hesitation. "If, Mr. Ellerslie, we should ever meet in after-days, as
+I sincerely trust we may, and you should accost me by the name of
+Frank Nevill, you will find me answer to it."
+
+"It is a name I promise not to forget. You seem to have got _my_ name
+quite pat, Mr. Nevill."
+
+Mr. Nevill, or Mr. Prentice, or whatever his real name was, laughed a
+little uneasily. "It was from the--er--gentleman who acted as my
+guide and brought me here that I learnt it."
+
+"How you learnt it, my dear sir, is a matter of no moment, so long as
+you know it. But I am forgetting that the grog is waiting to be mixed.
+You will join me over a tumbler, of course?"
+
+But this his guest politely but firmly declined doing. Mr. Ellerslie
+was careful not to press him farther than good breeding sanctioned,
+which, however, did not hinder him from mixing a stiff and steaming
+tumbler for himself. Having tasted it and apparently found it to his
+liking, he went back to his seat by the fire.
+
+"You were good enough just now, Mr. Nevill, to express a hope that you
+and I might some day meet again. Such a meeting, although not beyond
+the bounds of possibility--as, indeed, in this world, what is?--hardly
+comes within the range of likelihood. You are just on the point of
+stepping into the arena--the struggle, the turmoil, the dust, the
+elation of victory or, it may be, the bitterness of defeat, lie
+still before you; while for me it is all over. I have come out of the
+fight with reversed arms, I have left the sweating crowd and its
+plaudits--plaudits never showered upon me!--behind me forever. Here,
+in this rude hermitage--somewhat bleak, of a truth, in winter time--I
+hope to pass the remainder of my days, as Mr. Pope so aptly expresses,
+it, 'the world forgetting, by the world forgot.' Therefore, my dear
+Mr. Nevill, the chances are that after to-night you and I are hardly
+likely to meet again. To you belong the golden possibilities of the
+future, to me nothing but memories."
+
+He stirred his grog, took a good pull at it, and then went on with his
+monologue:--
+
+"Rockmount has now been my home for a couple of years, and I have no
+desire to leave it. Here I live in the utmost seclusion with my books
+and a few scientific instruments. An act of the blackest treachery
+drove me from the world, a ruined man, bankrupt in hope, in
+friendship, in means, with not one illusion left of all those with
+which----but I weary you with my egotistic maunderings. Besides, the
+hour is late--I cannot expect you to be such a night-owl as I am--and
+doubtless you are hungering for your bed."
+
+Nevill protested, a little mendaciously, that he was not at all tired.
+Tired he was, but not sleepy. He would willingly have sat out the rest
+of the night with his singular host.
+
+Presently Mr. Ellerslie, having finished the remainder of his grog,
+said, "By the way, towards which point of the compass are you desirous
+of bending your steps in the morning?"
+
+"If I could only find my way to the Whinbarrow road, I should know
+where I was."
+
+"One of my fellows shall go with you and not leave you till he has put
+you into it. You have but to name your own hour for breakfast, and
+Mrs. Dobson will have it ready for you."
+
+He rose, as intimating that the moment for retiring had come. A light
+was burning in the entrance-hall, and two bed-candles had been placed
+in readiness, one of which Mr. Ellerslie proceeded to light.
+
+At the foot of the stairs he held out his hand. It was a long, lean,
+sinewy hand, Nevill could not help noticing, and not at all like that
+of a man on whom age had in other respects set its unmistakable seal.
+
+"I am one of those mortals who have an uncomfortable habit of turning
+night into day," remarked the elder man as he clasped his guest's
+fingers. "I usually sit up till dawn is in the sky, and, as a
+consequence, I sleep till late in the forenoon. As you tell me that
+you want to be on your way at an early hour, I had better, perhaps,
+say both goodnight and goodbye here and now----Ah, a mouse!"
+
+Frank Nevill gave a backward spring, and a little frightened cry
+escaped his lips. Next moment the blood rushed to his face, and he
+felt as if he could have bitten his tongue out for betraying him as it
+had.
+
+But Mr. Ellerslie seemed to have noticed nothing. "We have not many
+such vermin, I am happy to say," he resumed after a momentary pause.
+"But these old country houses are seldom altogether free of them."
+
+And so presently they parted.
+
+Mrs. Dobson was awaiting Nevill at the head of the stairs. "Your room,
+sir, is the third door on the left down the corridor," she said. "At
+what hour would you be pleased to like breakfast?"
+
+"Will eight o'clock be too early?"
+
+"No hour you may name will be either too early or too late, sir."
+
+"Then eight o'clock let it be."
+
+Thereupon the woman curtsied, wished him a respectful goodnight, and
+left him.
+
+As soon as he found himself in the room indicated, and with the door
+not merely shut but locked, he sat down with an air of weariness,
+almost of despondency. Body and brain were alike tired out, yet never
+had he felt more wakeful than at that moment. Even had he been in the
+habit of trying to analyze his emotions, which he certainly was not,
+the effort to do so would have puzzled him just then. The bitter
+consciousness that he had failed in the endeavor for which he had
+risked so much was always with him, lurking, as it were, in the
+background of his brain. He felt it like a dull, persistent ache which
+never quite let go its hold of him, whatever other subject might be
+occupying the forefront of his thoughts. And then, there were all the
+other events of the day just ended, which----
+
+He started to his feet. "I shall have to-morrow and a hundred
+to-morrows in which I shall have nothing to do but think, and think,
+and think. If I begin the process to-night I shall not sleep a wink."
+
+As yet he had given neither a thought nor a glance to the room, but he
+now began to look about him with a little natural curiosity.
+
+It was a somewhat gloomy chamber, the walls having been originally
+painted a dull chocolate color, which had not improved with the
+passage of time. In one corner was a large four-poster bed, with
+furniture of dark moreen. The dressing-table of black oak was
+crowded with an assortment of toilet requirements and appurtenances,
+silver-mounted and of most elegant workmanship.
+
+Then his wandering glances were arrested by something--a garment of
+snowy whiteness--which had been laid over the back of a chair. Mr.
+Nevill, crossing to it, took it up gingerly and opened it. It proved
+to be a fine lawn _chemise de nuit_, frilled and trimmed with
+beautiful lace--a garment such as a duchess might have worn, but
+certainly never intended to be worn by one of the opposite sex.
+
+Our young friend dropped it as if it were a red-hot cinder, and,
+sinking into the nearest chair, covered his face with his hands. From
+head to foot he felt as if he were one huge blush.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+THE SQUIRE OF STANBROOK.
+
+Before proceeding to narrate the sequel of the strange adventure of
+the _soi-disant_ Mr. Frank Nevill, it may be as well that the reader
+should be made acquainted with the circumstances to which was owing
+his appearance on the King's highway in the character of an amateur
+Claude Duval.
+
+At the time with which our narrative has to do, Mr. Ambrose Cortelyon,
+commonly known as Squire Cortelyon, of Stanbrook, an old family seat
+in one of the most northern counties of England, was well over his
+seventieth birthday. Thrown by his horse more than twenty years
+before, he had not only broken his leg, but three or four of his ribs
+into the bargain.
+
+Surgical science in those days, especially in country places, was not
+what it is now. His leg was badly set, with the result that from that
+time he had been a partial cripple, who when he walked any distance
+alone, had to do so with the help of a couple of stout sticks, but who
+usually preferred the arm of his factotum, Andry Luce, and one stick.
+
+Andry--of whom we shall hear more later--was a man of forty, with a
+big, shaggy head and the torso of an athlete set on the short, bowed
+legs of a dwarf. Further, he was dumb (the result of a fright when a
+child), a deficiency which only caused his employer to value him the
+more. He was clever with his pen and at figures, and kept the Squire's
+accounts and wrote most of his letters, for Mr. Cortelyon hated pen
+work, and besides suffered occasionally from gout in his fingers.
+
+Finally, Andry filled up his spare time by dabbling in chemistry in an
+amateurish fashion, being quite content to experiment on the
+discoveries of others, and having no ambition to adventure on any of
+his own.
+
+A full-length oil painting of Squire Cortelyon, taken a short time
+before his accident, and still in existence, represents him as a thin,
+wiry-looking man of medium height, close shaven, with a long, narrow
+face--a handsome face, with its regular, clear-cut features, most
+people would call it; cold, unsympathetic light-blue eyes, and a dry,
+caustic smile. His dark, unpowdered hair, cut short in front, is
+doubtless gathered into a queue, only, as he stands facing the
+spectator, the picture fails to show it. He is dressed in a
+high-collared, swallow-tailed, chocolate-colored coat with gilt
+buttons. His waistcoat is of white satin, elaborately embroidered with
+sprays of flowers. His small-clothes, tight-fitting and of some dark
+woven material, reach to the ankle, where they are tied with a knot of
+ribbon and are supplemented by white silk stockings and buckled shoes.
+Round his throat is wound a soft cravat of many folds; his shirt is
+frilled, and he wears lace ruffles at his wrists. He stands in an easy
+and not ungraceful posture, looking right into the spectator's eyes.
+In one hand he clasps his snuff-box, deprived of which life for him
+would have lost half its value.
+
+Although Squire Cortelyon courted and loved a cheap popularity, at
+heart he was a man of a hard and griping disposition, whose chief
+object in life, more especially of late years, had been the
+accumulation of wealth in the shape of landed property. Even in early
+life he had never either hunted or shot, but, for all that, he
+subscribed liberally to the nearest pack of hounds, as also--but less
+liberally--to the usual local charities. Although he employed a couple
+of keepers, he did not preserve too strictly, a fact which tended to
+his popularity among his poorer neighbors, while having an opposite
+effect among those of his own standing in the county. In point of
+fact, three-fourths of the game on his estates was shot by his keepers
+and sent, under his direction, for sale to the nearest large town.
+
+When Ambrose Cortelyon, at the age of thirty-five, came into his
+patrimony, it was not only grievously burdened with debt, but, as far
+as mere acreage was concerned, owing to extravagant living on the part
+of his two immediate progenitors, had dwindled to little more than a
+third of what it had been sixty years before. From the first the new
+Squire made up his mind that the follies of his father and grandfather
+should not be repeated in his case. From the first he set two objects
+definitely before him, and never allowed himself to lose sight of
+them. Object number one was to wipe off the burden of debt he had
+inherited from his father. This, by the practice of rigid economy, he
+was enabled to do in the course of eight or ten years, after which he
+began to save. Object number two was to become, in the course of time,
+a large landowner, even as his great-grandfather and his more remote
+ancestors right away back to the sixteenth century had been.
+
+Thus, in the course of time it came to pass that Ambrose Cortelyon
+had become the owner of sundry considerable properties (not all of
+them situated in his own county, but none of them farther off than a
+day's ride) which, owing to one cause or another, had come into the
+market. Every season--and what was true then seems equally true
+to-day--brought its own little crop of landed proprietors who, owing
+to improvidence or misfortune or both, had fallen upon evil days, and
+whenever there was a likely property in the neighborhood to be had a
+bargain, the Squire, or his agent Mr. Piljoy, was always to the fore.
+
+With the former it was an article of faith that, for one reason or
+other, landed property would rise greatly in value in the course of
+the next generation or two, and so constitute a stable inheritance for
+those to come after him. In so believing the prescience with which he
+credited himself was undoubtedly at fault. Many things were to happen
+during the next half-century of which not even the most far-seeing of
+the statesmen of those days had the slightest prevision.
+
+Squire Cortelyon was turned forty before he married. He fixed his
+mature affections on a banker's daughter, who brought him a dowry of
+ten thousand pounds, with the prospect of thirty thousand to follow at
+her father's demise. But three years later the bank in which Mr.
+Lowthian was senior partner failed, and the prospective thirty
+thousand went in the general smash. Such a loss to such a man was
+undoubtedly a terrible blow. A couple of years later still his wife
+died, leaving him with one child,--a son. He had felt no particular
+affection for her while living, and he was not hypocrite enough to
+pretend to mourn her very deeply now she was dead.
+
+Ambrose Cortelyon was one of those men who never feel comfortable, or
+at home, in the presence of children, and as soon as Master Dick was
+old enough he was packed off to a public school, and for the next
+dozen or more years, except at holiday times, it was but little he saw
+either of his father or his home. From school he went to college, but
+with his twenty-first birthday his career at Cambridge came to an end.
+The life his father intended him for was that of a country gentleman,
+with, perhaps, an M.P.-ship _in future_. Where, then, would have been
+the use of wasting more time in competing for a degree which, even if
+he should succeed in taking it, would be of no after-value to him? Far
+better that he should spend a season or two in town, perfecting
+himself in his French meanwhile--the country swarmed with _emigrés_
+glad to give lessons for the merest pittance--and after that devote a
+couple of years to the Grand Tour. Mr. Cortelyon would have his son a
+man of the world, and neither a milksop nor a puritan. With his own
+hands he put a copy of "Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son" into
+Dick's valise. "A book to profit by," he said. "Let me adjure you to
+read and re-read it."
+
+Dick felt more respect--which till he was grown-up had not been
+unmixed with awe--than affection for his father. All his life Mr.
+Cortelyon had been a reserved and undemonstrative man, and averse from
+any display of feeling or sentiment. Still, that his son was far
+dearer to him than aught else in life, and that he looked with secret
+pride and hope to moulding him in accordance with his own views and
+wishes, can hardly be doubted. The mistake he made was in imagining
+that Dick was fashioned on the same lines, mental and moral, as
+himself; whereas the lad took after his mother in almost every
+particular. Easy-going, affable to all, led far more by his heart than
+his head, everybody's friend and nobody's enemy but his own--how was
+such a young man, with his handsome person, well-lined purse, and a
+certain element of rustic simplicity which still clung to him, to
+escape shipwreck in the great maelstrom of London in one form or
+another?
+
+At any rate, Dick Cortelyon did not escape shipwreck in so far as the
+utter ruin of his worldly prospects was concerned. He had not been a
+year in town before he committed the unpardonable folly--unpardonable
+in the only son of Squire Cortelyon--of marrying a fascinating little
+actress of no particular ability, who at that time was playing
+"chambermaid" parts at one of the patent theatres for a remuneration
+of a guinea a week.
+
+The marriage was kept by Dick a profound secret both from his father
+and his friends. But it had to be told the former when, some months
+later, he summoned Dick home on purpose to inform him that it was his
+wish--really tantamount to a command on the part of such a man--that
+he should "make up" to Miss Onoria Flood, the only daughter of a
+neighbor, and do his best to secure her before any other suitor
+appeared on the scene.
+
+When the fatal news was broken to the Squire he bundled Master Dick
+out of doors without a moment's hesitation. There and then he took an
+oath that he would never forgive him, nor ever set eyes on him again,
+and he was a man who prided himself on keeping his word. At once he
+stopped Dick's allowance.
+
+Some few years before these things came to pass, the Squire's
+grand-niece--granddaughter of his sister Agatha--an orphan left
+without means beyond a narrow pittance of eighty pounds a year, had
+come to live at Stanbrook, no other home being open to her. Although
+there was a difference of some six years in their ages, and although
+they had only met at intervals, they had been to each other like elder
+brother and younger sister. From the first Miss Baynard had conceived
+an almost passionate liking and admiration for her handsome,
+kind-hearted kinsman, and now that poor Dick was leaving home never to
+return, she contrived to have a stolen interview with him before he
+went. Although only just turned sixteen, she was in many things wise
+beyond her years, and before parting from Dick she obtained from him
+an address at which, he told her, a letter would at any time find him.
+Not being sure what his future movements might be, he gave her the
+address of his wife's uncle, who kept a tobacconist's shop in a street
+off Holborn. That done, Dick kissed her and went, and with his going
+half the sunshine seemed to vanish out of Nell's life.
+
+At once Dick Cortelyon broke with his old life and all its
+associations. The fashionable world knew him no more: he disappeared,
+he went under. He took a couple of furnished rooms in an obscure
+neighborhood, and for the next few months his wife's earnings and the
+proceeds of the sale of his watch and trinkets kept the pair of them.
+But there came a time when his wife could earn no more; and then a son
+was born to him. In this contingency he deemed himself a fortunate man
+in being able to get a lot of copying to do for a law firm in Chancery
+Lane.
+
+But poor Dick's trials and troubles--the fruit, as every reasonable
+person must admit, of his own headstrong folly--were not destined to
+be of long duration. When his child was about six months old he caught
+a fever, and died after a very short illness. One of his last requests
+was that when all was over his wife should write and inform Miss
+Baynard of his death. This Mrs. Cortelyon did not fail to do. Her
+letter conveyed the double news of Dick's death and the birth of his
+son.
+
+[Illustration: "He gave her the address of his wife's uncle."]
+
+Miss Baynard at once took the letter to her uncle. His sallow face
+became still sallower as he read the account of his son's death, but a
+frown deeper than the girl had ever seen on them before darkened his
+features by the time he had come to the end of the letter.
+
+"Had Dick not been idiot enough to wed that play-acting huzzy," he
+said, "the lad would have been alive to-day. I owe his loss to her.
+Neither her nor her brat will I ever countenance or acknowledge. Tell
+her so from me. Stay, though; you may send her this ten-pound note,
+with the assurance that it is the last money she will ever receive at
+my hands."
+
+A few days later the note was returned to the Squire through the post,
+accompanied by a few unsigned lines to the effect that the widow of
+Richard Cortelyon would accept no help at the hands of the man who had
+treated her husband with such inhuman cruelty.
+
+Not long after this Miss Baynard wrote to the widow, to the
+address furnished by her in her letter, mentioning how attached she
+had been to Dick, and hinting delicately at the happiness it would
+afford her to send Mrs. Cortelyon a little monetary help now and
+again. But at the end of a fortnight her letter came back marked,
+"Gone away--present address not known," and enclosed in an official
+envelope. It had been opened and resealed by the post-office
+authorities. As it happened, the letter fell into the Squire's hands,
+who, noticing only the official envelope, opened it without perceiving
+that it was addressed to his niece. As a consequence he at once sent
+for her.
+
+After explaining how it happened that he had opened the letter, he
+continued: "I am astonished and annoyed, Nell--very seriously
+annoyed--that, after what thou heard me say two or three weeks ago,
+thou should have chosen of thy own accord to communicate with this
+play-acting creature, and even to offer to help her out of thy own
+scanty means. Fortunately, the woman has disappeared. No doubt she has
+gone back to the life and the companions that are most congenial to
+her--curses on her for a vile baggage! To her I owe it that my boy
+lies mouldering in the grave. Never again, Nell, on pain of offending
+me past forgiveness, do thou attempt to have aught to do with her.
+'Tis beneath thee to notice such creatures in any way--and she above
+all others."
+
+It was an injunction which Nell--who had listened to his tirade with a
+sort of proud disdain and without a word of reply--determined to obey
+or disobey as circumstances might determine. For the present she was
+helpless to do more than she had done. Unfortunately, she had mislaid
+the address given her by Dick at parting, otherwise she might perhaps
+have been able to obtain tidings of Mrs. Cortelyon through the
+latter's uncle, the London tobacconist.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+FAMILY MATTERS.
+
+
+Four years passed away without bringing any further tidings of the
+widow and her child, during all which time their names were not once
+mentioned between uncle and niece. By the latter their existence was
+by no means forgotten; she often thought about them, often longed to
+see them. Whether it ever entered the mind of Squire Cortelyon that he
+had a living grandson was known to himself alone. He grew old and made
+no sign.
+
+Meanwhile Miss Baynard had shot up from a lanky slip of a girl into a
+very beautiful young woman.
+
+When she first went to live at Stanbrook, the Squire, having no female
+element in his house of a higher status than that of housekeeper,
+engaged the services of Mrs. Budd--widow of the Rev. Onesimus
+Budd--for the dual positions of _gouvernante_ and companion to his
+orphan niece. Mrs. Budd's duties as governess had long ago come to an
+end, but therewith she had assumed what to many people would have
+seemed the much more responsible and onerous post of chaperon. But,
+although a clever little woman in her way, Mrs. Budd was nothing if
+not easy-going. For her the wheels of existence were always well
+oiled. Nothing disturbed her much. Responsibility slid off her like
+water off a duck's back. Life for her meant little more than a
+sufficiency of sofas fitted with the softest cushions. She was
+excessively good-natured, and, hating to be worried herself, was
+careful never to worry others. She and her charge got on capitally
+together, chiefly because she was too wise ever to offer any very
+strenuous opposition to the whims and vagaries of that self-willed
+young woman. A mild protest, by way of easement to her conscience, she
+did now and then venture upon, which, however, Miss Baynard would
+brush aside with as little effort or compunction as she would a
+cobweb.
+
+To some of Squire Cortelyon's neighbors it seemed an inconsistency on
+his part that he, who had packed off his son to school at the earliest
+possible age, should have taken to his hearth, and have kept her
+there, an orphan niece of no fortune, when he might so easily have rid
+himself of her in the same way that he had rid himself of Dick. And
+certainly, as has been remarked, the Squire was no lover of children,
+and was generally credited with not having an ounce of sentiment in
+his composition. For all that, Miss Baynard stayed on at Stanbrook,
+knowing no other house, her great-uncle so far relaxing his ingrained
+parsimony on her account as to pay Mrs. Budd's salary without a
+murmur, and allow his niece a few--a very few--guineas a year by way
+of pocket-money.
+
+Perhaps it might be said of Ambrose Cortelyon that he had never really
+cared but for one person, and that one his sister Agatha, who had been
+the solitary ray of sunshine that had brightened the home-life of his
+youth--a youth repressed and stunted, and thrown back upon itself, but
+in all higher respects uncared for, under the rule of a tyrannical and
+passionate father, who was accustomed to flog him unmercifully for the
+most trivial offences, and of an indifferent, cold-hearted mother, who
+left her children to vegetate in the country for three parts of the
+year, while she led the life of a woman of fashion in town.
+
+But Agatha Cortelyon, in the course of time, had grown tired and sick
+of her life at home, and had ended by running away with, and becoming
+the wife of, an impecunious young lieutenant in a marching regiment.
+Thereafter brother and sister had never met. The young wife had died
+three years later, leaving one daughter, who in her turn had grown up
+and married, but who had never been acknowledged or recognized in any
+way by her mother's family. She also had died young, her husband
+having pre-deceased her, leaving one child, the Miss Elinor Baynard
+with whom we have now to do.
+
+Not till then did Ambrose Cortelyon become aware of the existence of
+his grand-niece. He had heard at the time of his sister's death, but
+no further news having reference to her husband or child had reached
+him, nor had he ever felt the least inclination to seek for any. Thus,
+to find himself with a girl of twelve, of whom he had never heard,
+thrown on his hands was for him anything but an agreeable surprise.
+Immediately after her mother's funeral the child had been packed off
+to Stanbrook by some half-cousins of her dead father--who had neither
+the means nor the will to keep her--with almost as little ceremony as
+if she had been a Christmas hamper.
+
+The Squire happened to be out riding when Nell was put down by the
+coach at the gate of Stanbrook, and it fell to Mrs. Dace, the
+housekeeper, to break the news to him on his return and hand him a
+letter from one of the half-cousins which the girl had brought with
+her. When, an hour later, the Squire, in response to Nell's timid
+knock at the library door, gruffly bade her enter, he was quite
+prepared to dislike her at first sight, and had already determined in
+his mind to at once pack her off to some cheap country school, and so
+rid himself, at any rate for some time to come, of her unwelcome
+presence under his roof.
+
+Yet somehow he did neither one nor the other. Was it because he was
+struck by a vague, elusive something in the girl's eyes, her air, her
+manner, and the way she carried her head, which brought vividly to
+mind the half-forgotten image of the dead-and-gone sister of his
+youth, that his determination to send her away presently melted into
+thin air and never again took shape in his thoughts? In any case, from
+that day forward Stanbrook was Nell's home; but that its being so was
+due not so much to the mere tie of relationship, by which her uncle
+set no great store, as to a sentimental recollection on his part, was
+what she had no knowledge of and would have found hard to credit. She
+had grown up self-willed and high-spirited, and with no small share of
+that determination of character--some people, chiefly such as had come
+into contact with it, stigmatized it as sheer obstinacy--for which
+the Cortelyons had always been noted. But above and beyond that,
+she had an intense scorn for all that was mean, base, sordid, or
+double-faced, and she was never slow to give expression to it.
+
+For many of the small conventions and grandmotherly restrictions with
+which society at that period (leaving the present out of question) saw
+fit to hedge round its fledglings, she betrayed a fine indifference,
+going her own way without let or hindrance, and without deigning a
+thought to what others might say or think about her. That she should
+be regarded with favorable eyes by mothers with daughters about the
+same age as herself could hardly be expected. They averred that she
+set their darlings "a dangerous example"; but many of the darlings in
+question secretly envied her, and wished that a kind fate had allowed
+of their following her example.
+
+Her uncle must be credited with allowing her to do pretty much as she
+liked. There was nothing strait-laced about the Squire. He was a
+strenuous hater of shams in others, while not being without a few
+little weaknesses of his own; and his niece's somewhat wilful
+independence of character secretly delighted him, even when, as
+sometimes happened, it opposed itself to his own flinty will, and
+sparks resulted from the collision.
+
+Between two people so constituted there could be and was no question
+of sentiment. From the first it had seemed to Nell that her uncle
+simply tolerated her presence under his roof. He had taken her in
+because no other door was open to her, and because it would never have
+done for Squire Cortelyon's niece to have sought the shelter of the
+workhouse. His kindness, if kindness it could be called, had in it, or
+so she fancied, a certain grudging element which deprived it of
+whatever grace it might otherwise have had.
+
+She knew nothing of a certain strange, haunting likeness on her own
+part, nor how often, when her uncle's eyes seemed to be watching her
+every movement, it was not her he saw at all, but some one known to
+her only by hearsay, who had been in her grave these forty years or
+more.
+
+When Dick Cortelyon had been a little more than four years in his
+grave, the Squire, acting on his doctor's advice, went up to London
+for the purpose of undergoing a certain operation. It was an operation
+which is not usually supposed to be attended with any particular risk,
+and Mr. Cortelyon was quite cheerful about it; but of course in such a
+case, although he did not seem to think so, the question of age
+becomes an important factor. At this time he was within a month or so
+of his seventy-second birthday, but, barring his permanent lameness,
+the result of an accident a score years before, he avouched himself to
+be--and he fully believed it--as brisk and robust as when he was only
+half that age.
+
+So up to town, accompanied by his niece, he travelled by easy stages
+in the roomy and comfortable, if somewhat lumbering, family chariot,
+which dated from his grandfather's time; while, perched in the rumble,
+Tatham, his body-servant, made platonic love to Miss Baynard's elderly
+maid, who had not known what it was to feel a man's arm round her
+waist for more years than she cared to remember.
+
+Comfortable lodgings in Bloomsbury had been secured beforehand, and
+there the operation was presently performed by one of the most eminent
+surgeons of the day.
+
+Everything went well with the Squire, as he had felt sure from the
+first it would do, and at the end of six weeks he was back at
+Stanbrook thoroughly cured.
+
+But Miss Baynard, when she found herself in London, set herself a task
+she had hitherto had no opportunity of undertaking. This was nothing
+less than the hunting-up of her dead cousin's widow and child.
+
+As already stated, she had lost the address given her by Dick, and had
+never afterwards found it. She remembered that the name on the slip of
+paper, that of Dick's wife's uncle, was McManus, and that the man was
+a tobacconist in a small way of business in one of the many turnings
+off Holborn, but the name of the street itself she had clean
+forgotten.
+
+Fortunately for her purpose, there was a sharp youth connected with
+the lodgings who, besides making himself generally useful indoors, was
+willing to run on errands of any and every kind for anybody disposed
+to pay for his services. Him Miss Baynard engaged to discover for her
+what she wanted to know; nor had she long to wait. Within a very few
+hours he placed in her hands the address of Mr. McManus.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+A MAN WHO NEVER FORGAVE.
+
+
+To the address thus obtained by her--her uncle being now well on the
+road to recovery--Miss Baynard went next afternoon in a hackney-coach,
+accompanied by her maid.
+
+Mr. McManus, a little, old, and very snuffy man, with a shrewd but
+kindly expression, readily furnished her with the information asked
+for, after Nell had introduced herself and told him for what purpose
+she wanted it.
+
+"Ah, poor lass! I'm sadly afraid she's not long for this world,"
+remarked the old fellow with a melancholy shake of the head, in
+allusion to Dick's widow.
+
+"Is she so ill as that?" queried Nell, thoroughly shocked.
+
+"Aye, that is she. Long afore next year at this time the daisies'll be
+growin' over her grave. She caught a chill last Christmas, and it
+settled on her chest, which was always delicate, and now--why now, as
+I say, all the doctors in the world couldn't set her on her feet
+again."
+
+"I cannot tell you how grieved I am to hear this. And the boy--her
+child--what of him?"
+
+"Oh, he's as right as a trivet. A famous young shaver, and no mistake.
+There's nothing the matter with him."
+
+Miss Baynard drove direct from Holborn to the address given her, which
+was Lawn Cottage, Chelsea. There Marjory Cortelyon rented a couple of
+rooms, a middle-aged widow, Mrs. Mardin by name, being at once her
+landlady and her nurse.
+
+Nell, having sent in her name, was presently admitted to the invalid's
+little sitting-room, with its pleasant outlook across a wide sweep of
+sunny meadows, long ago covered with bricks and mortar.
+
+The ex-actress lay on a couch near the window, a frail figure, wasted
+by illness to little more than skin and bone. That she had been very
+pretty once on a time was still plainly evident, and in her large,
+lustrous eyes, sunken though they were, Nell read something which went
+direct to her heart. There had never been anything meretricious or
+tawdry about her, otherwise Dick Cortelyon would not have made her his
+wife. She had been good and pure, and, in her way, a lady.
+
+Nell, after pausing on the threshold for a couple of seconds while she
+took in the scene, went quickly forward and, dropping on one knee by
+the couch, bent over and kissed the dying woman. Tears dimmed her
+eyes, and a few moments passed before a word would come. Indeed,
+Marjory was the first to speak. At the touch of Nell's lips her ivory
+cheeks flushed, and a lovely smile played for a few seconds round her
+mouth. "My Dick loved you very dearly, and no wonder," she said
+softly. "I have often longed to see you, and I'm sure I shall die
+happier now that I have done so."
+
+Nell's visit lasted upwards of an hour. She explained to Marjory how
+it happened that she had been unable either to communicate with her or
+to visit her before. Greatly to her disappointment, young Evan was
+from home, he having been taken into the country to spend a few days
+with a married sister of Marjory's, but Nell was told that if she
+chose to come again in a week's time he would then be back, and this
+she promised herself that she certainly would do.
+
+By and by Nell said: "And now, Marjory dear, you must allow me to
+renew the offer made by me in the letter which failed to find you.
+Although you do not see your way to accept pecuniary help from Mr.
+Cortelyon, there is no reason in the world why you should not accept
+it from me, and I am quite sure that if poor dear Dick could speak to
+you from the grave he would agree with all I say. That he left you
+very poorly off, although through no fault of his own, I know full
+well. Therefore, I say again, why not----"
+
+The sick woman held up one of her transparent hands. "You are kindness
+itself, Miss Baynard," she said, "and were I in want of help, you
+would be the first person to whom I would appeal; but I am not in want
+of anything. I have everything I need, and more, thanks to the
+generosity of Mr. Geoffrey Dare."
+
+"Of Mr. Geoffrey Dare?" echoed Nell.
+
+"Did Dick never speak of him to you?"
+
+"Not to my knowledge; but you must remember that when Dick first came
+to London I was hardly out of the schoolroom, and that we saw very
+little of him at Stanbrook afterwards, before that last visit of all,
+with its unhappy ending."
+
+"Well, my husband and Geoff Dare--we always used to call him and speak
+of him as 'Geoff'--were like brothers (not that all brothers hit it
+off together by any means), and of all Dick's many fine friends he was
+the only that was in the secret of our wedding. It was a secret he
+told to nobody, and when Dick's father cast him off and hard times
+came, he remained just the same Geoff that he had always been; not the
+least bit of change did we ever find in him. Then, when my child was
+born, nothing would suit him but that he must stand godfather to it.
+All through Dick's illness, which lasted a matter of four months,
+he would leave his gayeties and engagements at the other end of
+the town--we were living at that time in a couple of rooms in
+Clerkenwell--and come two or three times a week to sit with him and
+cheer him up. And when all was over, it was his money that helped to
+bury my husband, and it was on his arm that I leaned as I stood by the
+grave-side--he and I by our two selves. Is there any one like him in
+the world, I wonder?"
+
+She sank back exhausted; but a little wine and water which Miss
+Baynard proceeded to administer speedily revived her.
+
+Then said Nell: "Judging from what you tell me, Mr. Dare must indeed
+be a friend among a thousand, and for what he has done for you and
+yours I honor and respect him. Now, however, that you and I have found
+each other, there is no reason why you should any longer burden his
+generosity. You and I, my dear Marjory, are cousins; Dick and I, as
+you know, loved each other like brother and sister; consequently, it
+is to me, and to me only, that you and Evan ought to look in time to
+come."
+
+A faint smile, it might almost be termed a smile of amusement, lighted
+up the sick woman's face. "'Tis very evident that you don't know Geoff
+Dare, or you would not talk like that," she said. "Why, merely for me
+to hint at such a thing would turn him into a thundercloud, and then
+there would be an explosion fit to bring the roof off. Oh, he has a
+fine temper of his own, I can tell you! And besides and worse than
+all, it would cut him to the quick, and that is what I would never be
+a party to doing. Then again, dear Miss Baynard, it isn't as if he was
+a poor man. In that case what you urge would bear twice thinking
+about. But Geoff is anything but poor, although--so Dick used to
+say--far over-fond of the gaming table and the race-course, like most
+young bucks of the day."
+
+Nell sat silent, if not convinced. The ground, so to speak, had been
+cut from under her, and she was at a loss what to say next.
+
+Presently Mrs. Cortelyon spoke again. "While we are talking about Mr.
+Dare, there is something else with which he is concerned that I may as
+well tell you about, as my doing so may perhaps prevent any
+misunderstanding in time to come."
+
+She closed her eyes for a few seconds while she inhaled her
+smelling-salts. Then she went on:
+
+"Although both the doctor and Mrs. Mardin try to keep the truth from
+me, I am not deceived. That my days are numbered, that a very few
+weeks will bring the end, I know full well--and Mr. Dare knows it too.
+The last time he was here I challenged him with the truth, and he
+could not deny it. It was the uncertainty about my child's future,
+which lay like a dead weight at my heart, that impelled me to do so.
+But he--God bless him for it!--at once put my mind at rest on that
+score. He gave me his solemn promise that when I am gone he will act a
+father's part by his dead friend's child. He will bring up Evan as if
+he were his own son. That the boy is his godson I have already told
+you."
+
+"But what if Evan's grandfather should some day change his mind and
+want to claim him?" The question sprang to Nell's lips almost before
+she knew that it had formed itself in her mind.
+
+An angry light leapt into the young widow's eyes; a spot of vivid red
+flamed out in either cheek. For a moment or two she bit her nether lip
+hard, as if thereby to control her emotion. Then she said: "If I
+thought there was any likelihood of my darling ever falling into the
+hands of that cruel and wicked old man, I am quite sure that I should
+never rest in my grave. Oh, if only, when I am dead, I may be allowed
+to haunt him! But you do not think, do you, dear Miss Baynard, that he
+is ever likely to want to claim Evan?"
+
+"One never can tell what may happen. Even the most self-willed people
+sometimes see reason to change their mind. My uncle is an old man, and
+Evan is his lineal heir. He has neither child nor grandchild but him.
+What more natural than that he should some day turn round, hold out
+his arms, and say: 'The past is dead and buried. Come to me. You
+belong to me and to me only. I am rich, and all that I have is yours?'
+What is to hinder such a thing from coming to pass?"
+
+Mrs. Cortelyon remained silent for a few moments as if considering the
+picture thus presented to her. Then she said: "When Geoff comes next I
+must talk to him about it. You have frightened me. Neither he nor I
+have dreamt of such a possibility. When I am dead the child must
+disappear, he must be hidden away by Geoff where the Squire, should he
+ever want to do so, could not find him. Rather, I truly believe, could
+I bear to see Evan stark in his coffin than walking hand in hand with
+that flinty-hearted old man. I never hated any one in my life as I
+hate him, and I shall keep on hating him after I am dead."
+
+
+Miss Baynard paid two more visits to Lawn Cottage before the time came
+for her and her uncle to go back to Stanbrook. Evan was at home on
+both occasions, and on both occasions they went together for a long
+walk. The boy took to her from the first. He was a handsome, healthy
+child, and--or so it seemed to Nell--wonderfully like what his father
+must have been at the same age. She would have liked dearly to take
+him and set him down suddenly in front of the Squire, and leave the
+rest to Nature's prompting, but such a course was out of the question.
+All she could do was to extort a promise from Mrs. Cortelyon that if
+that should come to pass which she herself asserted to be inevitable,
+and the boy before long be left motherless, then should she, Nell, be
+informed, either by Mr. Dare or Mr. McManus, where he could at any
+time be found, and should be allowed to have access to him as often as
+she might feel disposed to claim the privilege.
+
+When the time came for the two women to say goodbye, both knew that
+the parting was a final one, but not a word was said by either to that
+effect. Both feigned a cheerfulness which was the last thing in the
+heart of either, and it was a relief to both when the ordeal was over
+and the door shut between them. Then came the time for tears.
+
+Before leaving town Nell paid a second visit to Mr. McManus, and got
+him to promise to write to her as soon as all was over. It was a
+promise the old tobacconist faithfully kept, and Nell had only been
+six weeks back at home when the fatal tidings reached her.
+
+After a little time given to tears in the solitude of her room, she
+dried her eyes and went in search of her uncle. She found him in the
+library, dusting and gloating over one of his cases of coins. He
+looked up sourly as the door opened. When so engaged he did not like
+being interrupted, but for that Nell cared not at all.
+
+Walking directly up to the table, she said without preface: "Uncle,
+news has just reached me of the death of poor Dick's widow. She died
+of consumption three days ago."
+
+The Squire dropped his duster, and, leaning back in his chair, grasped
+an arm of it with either hand, and turned his cold eyes full upon her.
+
+"And pray, Miss Baynard, may I ask in what way the news concerns me?"
+
+He had not called her "Miss Baynard" since her last mention of her
+cousin's name more than four years before, and Nell did not forget it.
+But she was in no wise daunted.
+
+"If you choose to consider that the death of your son's wife is no
+concern of yours, so be it. That is a matter between yourself and your
+conscience. But, in case the fact should have escaped your memory, I
+may be allowed to remind you that Dick left a child behind him--a
+son--who is now both fatherless and motherless."
+
+"And what have I to do with that?"
+
+"Everything. He is your grandson, your sole descendant, your natural
+heir. He is flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone, and ought to be
+dearer to you than all the world beside. Poor Dick died years ago. Why
+avenge his fault, if fault it was, on his innocent child? Think,
+uncle, think and----"
+
+He brought down his fist heavily on the table. "Think, girl, say'st
+thou? Zounds! there's no need for me to think. My mind was made up
+long ago, and nothing thou can'st urge will move me from it. I tell
+thee, my grandson is no more to me than the veriest beggar's brat that
+crawls in a London gutter. Never will I acknowledge him, or have aught
+to do with him in any way. And if thou hast any regard left for me, or
+any care for my displeasure, thou wilt never speak of him in my
+presence again. As thou ought to have found out by now, I am a man who
+never forgives."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+WHO SHALL BE HEIR?
+
+
+From that day forward Ambrose Cortelyon seemed to regard his niece
+with a certain amount of suspicion and distrust, but it was a distrust
+that found no expression in words, and although Nell was conscious of
+an undefinable change in her uncle's manner towards her, she was
+wholly at a loss to what cause to attribute it.
+
+The Squire was a man who expected those of his household, and all who
+were in any way dependent on him, not merely to believe as he
+believed, but to share his conviction that whatever decision he might
+come to in any given set of circumstances was the right one, and that
+all who differed from him were, theoretically, either fools or worse.
+In short, he was one of that numerous class who have a firm belief in
+their own infallibility in all the concerns of life; and as he was an
+autocrat in his own domain, with nobody to contradict him, it was not
+to be expected that his opinion of himself would become less confirmed
+with advancing years. When, therefore, his niece chose to impugn his
+action in a certain affair--and he now called to mind that it was not
+the first time she had done so--and even to imply, not by her words
+but by her manner, that his treatment of his grandson, or, to speak
+correctly, his absolute neglect of him, was both cruel and unjust, he
+was not, at any rate at first, so much angered as amazed at her
+audacity in daring to set up her feeble girl's will in opposition to
+his own, and, indeed, at her presumption in venturing to question his
+decision in any way.
+
+Nor, when he came to think the matter over at his leisure, did his
+surprise, not unleavened with resentment, diminish. He told himself
+that he could not have believed it of her; she had hurt him in a
+tender place, and he felt as if she could never be quite the same to
+him again as she had been in the past: and she never was.
+
+It is just possible that the Squire's little smoulder of resentment
+against his niece would gradually have died out had he not been beset
+by a certain underlying consciousness, of which he vainly strove to
+rid himself, that all through Nell had been undeniably in the right
+and he indisputably in the wrong. Had he but seen his way to overlook
+his son's _mésalliance_, and have brought him and his wife to
+Stanbrook, in all probability Dick would still have been living. And
+then, with regard to this grandson of his, this child of a play-acting
+mother---- But when he got as far as that in his musings his passion
+seemed to choke him. No, he had done right, quite right; no other
+course was open to him. Come what might, he would never acknowledge
+the brat. His blood was tainted; he was no true Cortelyon. But all his
+arguing with himself did not suffice to pluck out the hidden thorn; it
+was still there, rankling in his flesh. But if he could not get rid of
+it, no one save himself should know of its existence, and he swore a
+great oath that in the matter of his grandson he would not go back
+from his word.
+
+A day or two after her interview with her uncle Nell replied to Mr.
+McManus's letter. What she wished him to do was to inform Mr. Dare
+that he need be under no apprehension that Mr. Cortelyon would claim
+his grandson or interfere in any way with the boy's future. She
+further asked to be informed of the latter's address when Mr. Dare
+should have settled upon a home for him.
+
+To this the old tobacconist replied in the course of a week or two.
+What he had to tell her was that for the present Mr. Dare had decided
+to let Evan remain at Lawn Cottage in the care of Mrs. Mardin; but
+that should he later think well to remove the child, Miss Baynard
+should be duly advised of the change.
+
+And there for the present the matter rested.
+
+When Squire Cortelyon found himself once more at home, he went back to
+his old mode of life with an added relish. He knew now that he had
+just escaped a great danger. He had been led to believe that the
+operation he was advised to undergo was of a very simple nature, but a
+casual remark of the great London doctor, which he chanced to
+overhear, had served to open his eyes after a very uncomfortable
+fashion. In reality, the operation was anything but a simple one,
+in view of possible consequences in the case of a man of threescore
+years and ten. However, all is well that ends well. The dreaded
+consequences had not developed themselves. He had come back home
+feeling a new man, with every prospect of a renewed lease of life,
+and he smiled grimly to himself to think how "that scoundrel of a
+Banks"--his local medico--had succeeded in thoroughly hoodwinking him.
+
+So he went back to the old familiar routine as if there had never been
+a break in it, save that life seemed to have taken on an added
+sweetness now that he knew what he had escaped. He trembled when he
+thought of the risk he had run, not merely in one way, but in another,
+for had the operation had a fatal termination he would have died
+intestate (he had torn up his will after his quarrel with Dick and had
+never made another), in which case his detested grandson would have
+been his heir-at-law and have inherited everything. It was enough to
+put him in a cold sweat when he thought of it. Of course, the day
+would come when he could no longer defer asking himself the question,
+"To whom or to what shall I leave my property?" But it was an
+uncomfortable question to face, and a difficult one to answer; so, as
+there seemed no immediate need for answering it, he shelved it till
+what he chose to term "a more convenient time."
+
+Pleasant to him were those long forenoons in the library, with no
+company save that of Andry Luce, who kept his accounts, looked after
+his rents, and to whom he dictated his correspondence. Pleasant it
+was, with the help of Andry's sturdy arm, to stroll slowly about the
+grounds, watching the gardeners and laborers at their work, chatting
+with his bailiff, and giving his orders about this or the other.
+
+Not less pleasant was it, when the fit took him, to have himself
+driven in his old shandrydan to one or other of his outlying
+properties, some of which lay many miles away, and satisfy himself
+that everything was going on as it should do, which meant so far as
+the interests of his own pocket were concerned.
+
+But when the weather was bad, and he could not get out of doors, he
+had other occupations wherewith to engage his time. He was an ardent
+numismatist, and was very proud of his collection of coins and medals,
+to which he kept adding from time to time as opportunity served. He
+was also something of a bibliophile, and possessed a small but rather
+choice collection of rare books and illuminated MSS. He would gloat
+over these treasures as a miser gloats over his gold, and he derived
+the most intense satisfaction from the belief (which on no account
+would he have had disturbed) that his collections contained two or
+three absolutely unique specimens in the way of coins such as no other
+cabinet could match.
+
+And so some months passed away, and no such person as young Evan
+Cortelyon might have been in existence for any mention of him between
+uncle and niece.
+
+Then, as the winter crept springward, the Squire became unpleasantly
+conscious that his physical powers were slowly, almost imperceptibly,
+declining. For some little time he succeeded in persuading himself
+that it was a mere temporary _faiblesse_ from which he was suffering,
+due probably, in a great measure, to the moist oppressiveness of an
+unhealthy season, which was carrying off numbers of younger people
+than he. But when, at length, the weather vane on the stables veered
+from southwest to northeast, and stuck there day after day, as if it
+would never move again, bringing with it dry, sunny morns, and crisp,
+bracing nights, he was obliged to seek for some other excuse for his
+growing weakness. Not yet, however, would he give in and summon Dr.
+Banks. Although the son on whom he had at one time built such hopes
+was dead and gone, not for years had existence been sweeter to him
+than it was just then, and yet, to all seeming, it was gradually but
+surely slipping away from him. He felt as if a great wrong were being
+done him. What was Providence about?
+
+At length his weakness so far increased that he reluctantly authorized
+Andry to summon Dr. Banks, who had attended him, off and on, from the
+date of his accident, and in the course of years had extracted more
+guineas from his purse than the Squire cared to reckon up.
+
+"You have been very remiss, Mr. Cortelyon, very remiss indeed," said
+the fussy little rural practitioner when he had completed his brief
+examination, and had listened to the Squire's recital of his symptoms.
+"You ought to have sent for me six weeks ago, if not earlier than
+that. There has been a serious lowering of the vital forces, and, at
+your time of life----"
+
+"At my time of life! Damme! what d'ye mean? You don't mean to call me
+an old man, and I not seventy-three till next birthday! Zounds! I'm
+only just in my prime. Banks, you're an ass! It will be time enough
+for you to begin to hint at my age--only to hint at it, mind you--a
+dozen years hence."
+
+Dr. Banks did his best, but his best in this instance proved of no
+avail. The diminution of strength still went slowly on. At length the
+Squire became too weak to go out of doors, even for a drive, and then
+after a time the day came when he was unable to leave his bedroom.
+
+At Dr. Banks's request, that well-known physician, Dr. Mills, of
+Lanchester, was called into consultation, but all he could do, after
+making one or two minor suggestions, was to accord his full approval
+to the treatment already adopted by his colleague.
+
+"I won't pay you your fee, doctor--hang me if I will, sir--till you
+tell me what you think of me," said the Squire in his masterful way
+when Dr. Mills was ready to go.
+
+"Well, Squire, to be frank with you, I think your condition a somewhat
+grave one. But while there's life there's hope, you know. Yes, yes, we
+mustn't give up hope on any account; and you could not be in better
+hands than those of my friend Dr. Banks."
+
+"You would advise me to make my will, eh?" The cunning smile with
+which he leered up into the physician's face hid a terrible anxiety at
+the back of it.
+
+The doctor pursed out his lips. "In such matters it is always
+advisable to be prepared, to take time by the forelock, as
+one may say. And in your case, Mr. Cortelyon, I am inclined to
+think--um--well, yes, that any testamentary arrangements you may have
+to make should not----"
+
+"I understand," broke in the Squire with a wave of his hand. "Not a
+word more is needed. Here is your fee. I am obliged to you for your
+frankness; and so good-day to ye." He felt as if sentence of death had
+just been pronounced on him.
+
+Yes, it was no longer possible to cheat himself with vain hopes of
+recovery. The dread fact that for him life's business was nearly over
+could no longer be ignored, and the sooner he clasped it to him and
+made himself familiar with its grim visage, the better it would be for
+him during the little time he could call his own. He had lately had
+private information from Piljoy that a certain property, on which for
+years he had set longing eyes, would be in the market before another
+twelvemonth was over, and yet he, Ambrose Cortelyon, would not be
+there to bid for it! Again he asked himself what Providence was about.
+
+Still, however much he might rail and rebel in secret at the dark
+prospect before him, knowing all the while how childish and futile it
+was to do so, his hard face in nowise softened to those about him, and
+he betrayed no slackness of interest in any of the little everyday
+affairs that went on around him.
+
+But another spectre, besides that grisly one which Dr. Mills's words
+had called up, began to haunt him, hovering round his pillow by night,
+and never being far from his elbow between daybreak and dark. There
+was only one way of exorcising it, as he knew full well, and that was
+by making his will. The entail had been cut off in his grandfather's
+time, sixty years before. How hateful soever the necessity might be,
+it was one which could not with safety be much longer delayed, unless
+he wished that all he might die worth should go to his disowned and
+unknown grandson. Beyond him and Nell, so far as he knew, he had not a
+single living relative. Whom, then, should he make his heir? For him
+it was fast becoming the question of questions.
+
+Oh, it was hard, hard, while he was still in what, rightly considered,
+ought to be looked upon as the prime of life, to have to part from the
+earthly possessions he loved so well, and which had cost him such long
+and painful scraping to accumulate! But there was no help for it;
+leave them he must; the fatal fiat had gone forth. At times, it may
+be, his heart sent forth an anguished cry for his dead son; but if
+such were the case, it in nowise served to mitigate the rancor, almost
+inhuman in its bitterness, with which he regarded the dead man's
+child. He had spoken no more than the truth when he said that he never
+forgave.
+
+It was just about this time that the Hon. Mrs. Bullivant, having heard
+of his illness, drove over from Uplands to see him. The Squire had
+never been very popular among those of his own class, and even now,
+when he was reported to be in failing health, there were not many
+callers at Stanbrook. Such as there were got no farther than the
+entrance hall, for in each case the Squire, on the plea of illness,
+excused himself from seeing them, and probably the majority of them
+were as well pleased that he did so. But of the Hon. Mrs. Bullivant a
+special exception was made. She was shown up into his bedroom, where
+the Squire lay in his huge four-poster, propped up with pillows, and
+there she stayed for upwards of an hour. For this, however, there was
+a reason.
+
+Mrs. Bullivant, when known to the world as Miss Onoria Flood, the only
+daughter and heiress of a wealthy brewer, was the lady chosen by Mr.
+Cortelyon for his son's prospective wife. He and Mr. Flood were
+neighbors, so to speak, for only a short half-dozen miles divided
+Uplands from Stanbrook, and when once the subject was broached--by the
+Squire in the first instance--they were not long in coming to a quiet
+understanding between themselves. Then Mr. Flood dropped a hint of
+what was in the wind to Onoria, who was a dutiful daughter, and at
+once fell in with her father's views. After that, all the Squire had
+to do was to recall his son from London and break the news to him. To
+Mr. Cortelyon the match seemed an eminently desirable one. Although
+the brewer did not come of a county family, he was most respectably
+connected, having one brother an archdeacon, and another high up in
+the service of John Company. But the great attraction of all lay in
+the fact that on coming of age Onoria would be entitled to a legacy of
+twenty thousand pounds bequeathed her by her grandfather. Further, she
+would be her father's sole heiress (he had Flood's word for that); and
+as the brewer was of a gouty habit and somewhat plethoric withal, it
+seemed not unlikely that---- Yes, in every way a most desirable match.
+
+But we know what happened when Dick was told his father's goodwill and
+pleasure in the matter. However willing under other circumstances he
+might have been to fall in with the old man's views, he was precluded
+from doing so by the simple fact that he was already a married man.
+Thereupon followed the quarrel, and all that sad succession of events
+with which we are already acquainted.
+
+But Onoria did not go long unwedded. Before six months had gone by she
+became the wife of the Hon. Hector Bullivant, the second son of Lord
+Cossington, an impecunious peer, whose estates were mortgaged up to
+the hilt. Neither affection nor sentiment had anything to do with the
+union. Onoria married for position, the Hon. Hector for money.
+Everybody who knew the young couple said that what followed was only
+what they had prophesied all along, so easy is it to be wise after the
+event.
+
+The Hon. Hector was a notorious gambler and _roué_, and within a
+couple of years of his marriage he had contrived to dissipate his
+wife's fortune to the last guinea. A few months later he came by his
+end in a drunken brawl, greatly to the relief of everybody connected
+with him, leaving behind him one child, a boy a little over twelve
+months old. Then the widow went back home to her father, taking her
+son with her. Not long afterwards Mr. Flood was carried off in a fit
+of apoplexy.
+
+When his will was read it was a terrible disappointment to Onoria to
+find that, instead of coming in for everything, as she had all along
+been led to expect she would, she was merely left an income of six
+hundred a year, together with the Uplands estate, and that everything
+else was left in trust for her son. She had known that her father was
+not likely to be a long liver, and, backed up by his wealth, she had
+looked forward to a brilliant _rentrée_ into London society at no very
+distant date, with, it may be, a second and more brilliant marriage in
+the background. It was, indeed, a terrible disappointment.
+
+Mrs. Bullivant at this period of her life was what is generally
+understood by the term "a fine woman," that is to say, she was built
+on ample lines, and was of generous proportions. Later on she would
+tend to obesity. She was black-eyed and black-haired, with regular
+features of a cold, statuesque type, which, as she was essentially
+unemotional and a thorough specimen of ingrained selfishness, formed a
+fair enough index to her disposition.
+
+Such was the woman who came one day to see Squire Cortelyon on what
+she had been given to understand was likely to be his deathbed. As a
+matter of course, she knew of the quarrel between father and son, of
+Dick's untimely death, and of his having left a widow and a child whom
+the old man refused to acknowledge or to recognize in any way. She and
+the Squire had not met since a little while before her marriage;
+still, it seemed only what was due to good feeling and neighborly
+sympathy, more especially in view of what had happened in the past,
+that she should be desirous of seeing him once again before it was too
+late. If there was any other motive, or half-motive, at work below the
+surface, she would hardly have confessed its existence even to
+herself.
+
+As already stated, the interview between her and the Squire lasted
+over an hour. By the time it came to an end the sick man was pretty
+well exhausted; still, he was glad, he was very glad, that he had seen
+her. Her visit had supplied him with a ray of light where all had been
+darkness before. She was a woman after his own heart--energetic,
+capable, a man as regarded business ability, of a like saving
+disposition and with an ambition similar to his own; that is to say,
+to become a great landed proprietor, or rather, that her son should
+become one when he grew up and came into his inheritance. He did not
+think that Flood had treated her as handsomely as he ought to have
+done. Still, Uplands was hers--a fine property, and one which could
+not have come into more capable hands.
+
+Had the fates proved propitious, Onoria would have been his
+daughter-in-law; it was owing to no fault of hers that she was not;
+consequently she might, in a sense, be said to have a claim upon him.
+Why should he not leave her a life-interest in his landed property,
+the same, at her decease, to devolve upon her son, on condition of his
+adding the name of Cortelyon to his present one? But it was a project
+not to be hastily decided upon. He would think it over. And he did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+"A WOMAN OF A THOUSAND."
+
+
+About this time Tatham, the Squire's body-servant, fell ill, and at
+his own request was allowed to leave Stanbrook for awhile and go to
+stay with his married sister, who lived in the next county. Hitherto
+he and Miss Baynard had shared the duties of the sick-room between
+them, and as the Squire, instead of gathering strength, seemed to be
+slowly losing what little was left him, it was evident that some one
+must be found to fill Tatham's place during his unavoidable absence.
+
+Now in the village--a populous and thriving one--the outlying houses
+of which lay within a bowshot of the park gates of Stanbrook, there
+dwelt at this time a certain Mrs. Dinkel, herself English, but the
+widow of a Dutchman who had formerly been head gardener at
+Heronscourt, the seat of Sir Willoughby Freke. Mrs. Dinkel had been
+left with enough to keep her comfortably in humble village fashion,
+but being at the time of her husband's death scarcely beyond middle
+age, and of an active disposition, she presently began to cast about
+for some way not merely of adding to her limited income, but of
+banishing from her life the idleness which her soul abhorred.
+
+Being determined to find work, she took the first chance that came in
+her way, which was to nurse a young lady laid up with a virulent
+fever. And thus it fell out that within a couple of years of that time
+Mrs. Dinkel's name had become well known throughout a wide circle of
+provincial society as that of a woman with a born gift for nursing.
+Like many others of both sexes, she had not discovered her _métier_
+till late in life, but having once found it, she stuck to it. Still,
+her services were not at the beck and call of anybody, nor were they
+to be bought merely by the offer of a certain number of guineas. She
+would only go out to nurse among gentlefolk, or, as she termed them,
+"the quality," and whenever none of the quality stood in need of her
+services she preferred to stay at home with folded hands, doing
+nothing, till they should send for her.
+
+When a message from Stanbrook one day reached her, she responded to it
+with alacrity.
+
+To the Squire it seemed very inconsiderate on Tatham's part that he
+should choose to fall ill at such a time, but as he supposed there was
+no help for it, it mattered not a jot to him, he said, whom they
+supplied him with by way of temporary substitute. So, at the express
+instance of Dr. Banks, Mrs. Dinkel was sent for.
+
+She was a woman of few words and strong nerve, who seemed never to
+require more than two hours' sleep out of the twenty-four. All her
+thoughts and attention were given to her patient; she moved about the
+sick room almost as silently as a shadow, and before long the Squire
+found her presence far more soothing, and her ministrations far more
+gentle, than those of Tatham had been. Nell took to Mrs. Dinkel from
+the first. They seemed to understand each other instinctively. The
+sick man was the bond between them. Each in her separate way had for
+the time being vowed herself to his service.
+
+
+A few days later, and Mr. Cortelyon had finally made up his mind,
+bitter as the need for doing so was to him. But it was indeed high
+time that he should come to some conclusion, for the sands of life
+were now beginning to run very low indeed, and he knew it. What but a
+little while before had been a suggestion--not emanating from any
+outside source, but his own suggestion to himself--had now become a
+determination. To Mrs. Bullivant in the first place, and to her son
+after her, he would bequeath three-fourths of everything he was worth.
+
+He was quite aware that, in the ordinary course of things--his
+grandson being out of the running--his niece's claim upon him ought to
+have had priority of that of everybody else. And he told himself that
+it should have had if only Nell had been a clear-headed, sensible,
+businesslike woman of the type of Onoria Bullivant. Unfortunately,
+she was nothing of the kind. Instead, her head was crammed full of
+high-flown, sentimental, and quixotic notions (he prided himself on
+having read her thoroughly), and he felt morally sure that if he were
+to leave her any large lump sum, say fifteen or twenty thousand
+pounds, by way of legacy, she would be quite capable, when she found
+that Master Evan had been left out in the cold, of making over a big
+slice, perhaps even the whole of it, for the benefit of the brat. Such
+a result as that must on no account be allowed to come to pass. What
+he would do was, to invest a certain number of thousands in her name
+in the Funds, just enough to bring in about three hundred a year, and
+allow her the interest to live upon. With such an income she could not
+do much harm, or what the Squire designated to himself as harm. Should
+she be fool enough to take the boy to live with her, and assume the
+responsibility of his future, why, she was welcome to do so. But owner
+of Stanbrook and Barrowmead, and of his latest purchase, that big
+property on the Yorkshire border, his grandson never should be.
+
+Thus it one day came to pass that Mrs. Bullivant received a note
+written by Andry Luce, asking her, if convenient, to drive over next
+day to Stanbrook in time for luncheon, and take her son with her. The
+widow was a shrewd woman, and it seemed to her that such a note was
+capable of but one interpretation, and as she drove through the
+country lanes next day on her way to the Hall her heart beat high with
+hopes, which, however wanting in substance they might be, were none
+the less _couleur de rose_.
+
+In point of fact, before causing his testamentary dispositions to be
+recorded in black and white the Squire was desirous of taking stock of
+the youngster whom he was proposing to constitute his heir. If he
+should prove to be a weak, puling child, or betray any signs of
+delicacy of constitution, why, in that case that there would be good
+reason for reconsidering his decision.
+
+As it turned out, the Squire had no cause for uneasiness on that
+score. Young Gavin Bullivant, who had just entered on his fifth year,
+looked as strong and sturdy as an oak sapling. He was a bright-eyed,
+apple-cheeked lad, both inquisitive and acquisitive by natural
+disposition, and not knowing what shyness meant. He was very like his
+mother, but more in expression than features, and at times one caught
+a far-off hint of something in his face, at once hard and cunning,
+which seemed curiously out of keeping with his years. It was as though
+a very old man--and not a good old man either--was peering at you from
+behind a beautiful mask of childhood.
+
+"Not much likeness here to the late lamented--hey?" queried the Squire
+after a good stare at him, which the boy returned with interest.
+
+Mr. Cortleyon had only met the Hon. Hector on one occasion, at a sale
+of some of Lord Cossington's stock, and had felt no desire to
+cultivate his acquaintance.
+
+"It may seem like self-flattery to say so," replied Mrs. Bullivant
+with a complacent smile, "but both in looks and disposition dear Gavin
+takes wholly after me. Even his grandfather cannot help admitting as
+much."
+
+Then the Squire proceeded to put several questions to the lad, which
+he answered with promptitude and aplomb. He betrayed no timidity in
+the presence of the sick man, although to many a child of his age the
+latter would have seemed a sufficiently formidable object, with his
+parchment-like skin, his hollow cheeks, his heavy, grizzled eyebrows,
+which seemed bent in a perpetual frown, and the strange half-fierce,
+half-pathetic eyes beneath them, in which the flame of life seemed to
+burn all the more strongly just now because it was so soon to be
+extinguished forever.
+
+After that Gavin was planted in the big easy-chair, with a supply of
+sweet cakes to keep him quiet while his mother and the Squire talked
+together in confidential fashion.
+
+But it was not in Gavin to keep quiet for any length of time, and
+hardly had the last cake gone the way of the rest before he had slid
+from his perch to the ground, bent on a more minute inspection of the
+room and its contents than he had yet been able to give them. So,
+while the two elder people talked together in low tones, he went about
+his self-imposed task, examining this object and the other, opening
+every drawer that was unlocked in the big escritoire and making a
+study of its contents, and in all respects making himself thoroughly
+at home.
+
+At the end of three-quarters of an hour Mrs. Bullivant rose to take
+her leave, for the Squire was showing signs of fatigue. There was upon
+her a sense of disappointment, for nothing of a confidential nature
+had fallen from the sick man's lips, and she was still at a loss to
+imagine not merely why she had been sent for, but why she had been
+asked to bring Gavin with her. Sick people are subject to strange
+whims, but surely there was something more than a whim at the back of
+Mr. Cortelyon's request to see her son!
+
+The Squire's keen eyes seemed to be reading her thoughts. "Onoria," he
+said--and he was holding her hand as he spoke--"Onoria, I am about to
+make my will, a new one, for I destroyed the old one some years ago
+and I have sent for you to-day in order to tell you that it is my
+intention to bequeath you the sum of three thousand pounds. Nor will
+the boy be forgotten, as you will find when my testament comes to be
+read. No thanks, please--they would only worry me, and--and I can't
+afford to be worried nowadays."
+
+Mrs. Bullivant raised the hand that was holding hers to her lips and
+kissed it. "Dear Mr. Cortelyon," she said, and for once her voice had,
+or seemed to have, a tremor in it, "although you forbid me to thank
+you for your act of noble generosity to me and my son, you cannot, at
+any rate, hinder me from remembering you in my prayers."
+
+
+[Illustration: "His mother now produced the Squire's watch and
+appendages."]
+
+
+A cynical smile lighted up the Squire's haggard face. Perhaps the
+picture of Mrs. Bullivant on her knees, returning thanks for a
+thumping legacy--for that was the form her remembrance of him would
+take, if it took any--struck him as being a trifle incongruous.
+
+Next moment an exclamation escaped him. He had suddenly missed his big
+gold watch, with its pendant of seals and trinkets, which he was in
+the habit of keeping within reach on the little table by his bedside.
+That it had been there only a few minutes before he was fully
+convinced. Whither, then, had it vanished?
+
+Mrs. Bullivant at once began a search for the missing article, but at
+the end of two or three minutes she gave it up as a bad job. Then her
+eyes fell on Gavin, who had gone back to his perch on the easy-chair,
+and had been watching her movements with much apparent interest. She
+knew from previous experience that when he looked the most cherubic he
+was usually most in fault. It seemed to her that he appeared too
+unconscious to be wholly innocent. "Come here," she said, beckoning
+him with her finger. He obeyed without hesitation.
+
+He had only lately been breeched, and very proud he was at having been
+emancipated from petticoats. Pockets had not been omitted from his
+jean trousers--cut short in the leg, as was the fashion, so as to
+leave displayed an amplitude of white stocking--and from one of them
+his mother now produced the Squire's watch and appendages. He flushed
+a little and threw a timorous glance at the sick man, but, on the
+whole, his mother was the more put about of the two.
+
+"I cannot imagine what made him do such a thing," she said, with tears
+of vexation in her eyes. "But you may rest assured, dear Mr.
+Cortelyon, that I will not fail to chastise him most severely when we
+reach home."
+
+But the Squire was sniggering. "I trust, Onoria, you will do no such
+thing," he said. "It was merely the trick of a child too young to know
+the difference between _meum_ and _tuum_. The best course will be to
+overlook it as if it were a matter of no consequence and so leave him
+to forget it. Indeed, I am rather glad than otherwise to have had such
+a proof of the young rascal's acquisitive faculty. It goes, I think,
+to prove that he will not grow up a prodigal like his father."
+
+When his visitors had left him the Squire lay for some time deep in
+thought. At length he said, speaking aloud, for he had just taken his
+cordial and was alone: "The more I see of her, the more confirmed I am
+in my decision. Her views in all that relates to the great question of
+property are almost the counterpart of my own. She is a woman of a
+thousand. What an admirable daughter-in-law she would have made! If
+only that poor headstrong lad of mine had---- But why go back to that
+business even in thought? The past is dead and buried; we have now to
+deal with the present and to arrange for the future. I would give
+something to be able to see Onoria's face while she is hearing the
+will read. I told her about the legacy of three thousand pounds, but I
+said nothing about a life-interest in my landed estate. I have left
+that by way of a surprise, and what a joyful surprise it will be to
+her! Well, well, to-morrow I will send for Piljoy."
+
+It was in the course of the afternoon of the second day after Mrs.
+Bullivant's last visit that Mr. Piljoy arrived at Stanbrook. He was
+genuinely shocked at the condition in which he found the Squire, whose
+confidential business agent he had been for more than a quarter of a
+century. The sick man's lamp of life had indeed flickered down to a
+very feeble flame. Evidently no time must be lost in having the
+all-important document drawn up and then signed and witnessed in due
+form.
+
+So for a full hour or more the two men, lawyer and client, were
+closeted together in the latter's bedroom. The will itself, engrossed
+and ready for signature, was to be brought by Mr. Piljoy three days
+later.
+
+The lawyer was to dine and stay the night at Stanbrook, as he had done
+many times before; and in order that he should not lack company, his
+old acquaintance Mr. Herries, the vicar, had been asked to meet him.
+
+Miss Baynard and Mrs. Budd honored the two gentlemen with their
+company at dinner, but left them to their own devices as soon as the
+meal was over. Then the lawyer and the vicar--the latter of whom was a
+jovial, fox-hunting parson of what we are accustomed to term "the old
+school!"--drew their chairs closer, in anticipation of a pleasant
+evening over their long pipes and a steaming bowl of punch, and in all
+likelihood they were not disappointed.
+
+At ten o'clock the vicar's man came with a lantern to light his master
+home. By this time Mr. Piljoy was not quite so steady on his feet as
+he customarily was, and when Andry Luce brought him his bed-candle and
+proffered his arm to help him upstairs, he accepted it without demur,
+for he had sense enough to know that at his time of life it would not
+do to risk a fall. But, indeed, Andry had helped him in similar
+fashion on more than one occasion before.
+
+Nor did the thoughtful Andry leave him till he had helped him off with
+his coat, waistcoat, cravat, gaiters, and shoes. He also wound up his
+watch, and placed it, together with his purse and bunch of keys, on
+the dressing-table. One of the abominations of those days, known as a
+rushlight, was left to burn itself away.
+
+An hour later, Andry, minus his shoes, stole into the bedroom, having,
+earlier in the evening, taken the precaution to abstract the key of
+the door. The lawyer's measured, long-drawn breathing convinced him
+that he had nothing to fear. Inside the small valise Mr. Piljoy had
+brought with him he found the paper of instructions for the drawing-up
+of the Squire's will. To make himself master of its contents was the
+object of his nocturnal intrusion. Five minutes by the dim aid of the
+rushlight sufficed for his purpose. Then he put the paper back and
+went his way as silently as he had come.
+
+Mr. Piljoy left Stanbrook immediately after breakfast, and without
+seeing the Squire again, travelling, as he always did on such
+occasions, by post-chaise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+CONVERGING THREADS.
+
+
+In the course of the same forenoon Andry Luce sought Miss Baynard with
+the view of making a certain private communication to her. Talking on
+Andry's part was, of course, done by means of his fingers, but long
+practice had made Nell an adept at reading the language of the dumb.
+
+Andry, who retained no recollection of his parents, in his brooding,
+self-contained fashion had never really cared but for two people,
+to-wit, his young master, Dick Cortelyon, and Miss Baynard. One of
+them was dead, and to the other was now given a double measure of that
+love and devotion which had sprung full-grown from his heart the
+moment he first set eyes on her, and had burnt there with a steady,
+unflickering flame ever since. She was the secret goddess at whose
+shrine he worshipped daily. His love was unmixed with any taint of
+ordinary passion, and was as absolutely pure as that of a father for
+his child. It was the one well-spring of living water his maimed life
+knew. There was nothing in the wide world he would not have done, or
+have attempted, at Miss Baynard's bidding.
+
+His object in seeing her this morning was to enlighten her with regard
+to the provisions of the Squire's new will, which Mr. Piljoy was to
+bring a couple of days hence for the purpose of having it signed and
+witnessed. He did not tell her through what channel he had obtained
+his information, and, naturally enough, Nell imagined that it was he
+and not Mr. Piljoy who had drawn up the instructions, or, at any rate,
+that he had been present at their specification by her uncle. But
+before Andry's fingers, working although they were at their quickest,
+had got more than half through their tale, Nell's thoughts were
+otherwise engaged.
+
+She was rendered terribly indignant, as Andry knew full well she would
+be, by the thought of the gross and cruel injustice of which Mr.
+Cortelyon meditated making his innocent grandson the victim. She was
+made both to love strongly and to hate strongly, and there was nothing
+she hated more than aught that savored of cruelty or injustice. She
+had loved poor dead and gone Dick as a younger sister loves a
+handsome, generous, kind-hearted elder brother, and it made her blood
+boil to think that his child should be treated as an outcast from the
+hearth to which he ought to have been welcomed as the pride and the
+heir.
+
+But what could be done? How could the purpose of this most iniquitous
+will be defeated? She could discern no way--none. She was as helpless
+in the matter as a new-born babe. Tears hot and passionate were shed
+by her in the privacy of her own room. But of what avail are a girl's
+tears? They fall, only to be dried up as quickly as a summer shower.
+
+Now, it so happened that about this time a certain peripatetic dealer
+in rare books, coins, and curios of different kinds, of whom Mr.
+Cortelyon had made sundry purchases at various times, called at
+Stanbrook on purpose to submit to the Squire a choice illuminated MS.
+of the fifteenth century, for which he was desirous of finding a
+customer. The price asked was a high one, but after a little
+haggling--he was too weak to hold out long--the Squire agreed to pay
+it rather than let the treasure go.
+
+It was not so much that he had fallen in love with it on his own
+account, as he believed that in it he had secured a rarity, to possess
+which his friend Mr. Delafosse, who was also a bibliophile and a
+numismatist, but more of the former than the latter, would be willing
+to give in exchange a certain unique stater of Epaticcus which he,
+Ambrose Cortelyon, had long coveted. Although he believed himself to
+be so near his end, it seemed to him that he should die happier with
+the precious stater shut up in his palm, and the knowledge that at
+last it was his own.
+
+Yes, Nell should go to Dene House, taking the MS. with her and
+negotiate the exchange. She was already known to Mr. Delafosse, who
+was no stranger at Stanbrook, and, in point of fact, was a special
+favorite of the old collector. Dene House was some twenty-five miles
+away across country. She could go on horseback, accompanied by John
+Dyce by way of escort.
+
+So great became his impatience that he would have her set out that
+very afternoon. The days were already long, and she could reach Dene
+House soon after sunset, stay there overnight--Mrs. Delafosse would
+give her a hearty welcome--and be back home before noon on the morrow.
+
+So Nell was sent for, and the manuscript given into her charge. By
+this time her uncle's weakness had become so extreme that his wishes
+and instructions had perforce to be limited to a few whispered
+sentences. But Nell gave him to understand that she knew exactly what
+he wanted done, and he was satisfied. She would set out in the course
+of the afternoon, and be back by midday on the morrow.
+
+About an hour later Dr. Banks arrived, accompanied by Dr. Mills. The
+Squire had expressed a wish to see the latter about once a week, and
+although all the doctors in the world could have done nothing for him,
+that was no reason why his whim should not be humored. But there was
+no need for a lengthened visit, and the pair had come and gone in the
+course of half an hour.
+
+This was the day fixed for the return of Mr. Piljoy with the will, and
+about half-past two a post-chaise drove up, from which, however, there
+alighted not the lawyer himself, but his managing clerk, Mr. Tew. Mr.
+Piljoy, he reported, was laid up with gout, and unable to come, but
+he, Mr. Tew, was just as competent to see to the proper signing of the
+will.
+
+Mr. Tew was not sorry to be told that the Squire was asleep and must
+on no account be disturbed. He was both tired and hungry, and was glad
+to be able to put the hospitality of Stanbrook to the proof before
+having to attend to the business which had taken him there.
+
+It was not till close upon five o'clock that he was summoned to the
+Squire's presence. The sick man was alone, propped up in bed as usual,
+but Andry Luce had been instructed to keep within hearing of his
+master's bell.
+
+Mr. Tew, having explained the cause of his employer's absence, went
+on, at the Squire's request, to read the will aloud, slowly and
+deliberately, the testator giving a nod of approval at the end of each
+clause. Five or six minutes brought the reading to an end, and as he
+took off his spectacles Mr. Tew said: "I presume, sir, that your
+witnesses are in readiness?"
+
+The Squire nodded. "Ask Andry to summon the gardener and the groom.
+They have been told to hold themselves in readiness," he whispered.
+
+The two subordinates in question were not long in making their
+appearance, and very self-important, albeit somewhat sheepish, they
+looked. They did not know they had been chosen as witnesses because
+most of the older servants were legatees under the will, whereas they
+were not mentioned in it. Besides, it had been ascertained that they
+could actually sign their names, which, for persons of their class,
+was regarded in those days as a very considerable accomplishment.
+
+Then Andry, who had charge of the proceedings, brought in the Squire's
+big leaden inkstand, together with a couple of quill pens, which he
+had cut and trimmed specially for the occasion. All being in
+readiness, Andry put a stalwart arm round his master, and held him in
+a firm support while the latter, with slow and painful elaborateness,
+wrote his name at the foot of the will, which Mr. Tew held for him in
+a convenient position. That done, the groom and the gardener in turn
+followed their master's example, not without many strange facial
+contortions as the pen travelled shakily over the parchment. Then they
+touched their forelocks and shuffled out of the room, glad the
+ceremony was over, and yet feeling themselves to be much more
+important persons than they had been a quarter of an hour before. As
+they shambled downstairs they whispered to each other that they had
+set eyes on "th' owd Squire" for the last time. Of the contents of the
+document signed by them they knew nothing. They had been told it was
+their employer's will, and that was enough for them.
+
+Mr. Tew was not allowed to leave Stanbrook till after dinner, nor,
+indeed, had he any particular desire to do so. He could not stay
+overnight, as Mr. Piljoy would have done, but so long as he was back
+at business by nine o'clock on the morrow, that was all that would be
+expected of him. He was carrying back with him the signed will, in an
+envelope sealed with the Squire's own seal, to be retained in the
+custody of his employer till the time should have come for it to be
+made public.
+
+Mrs. Budd and he dined alone. He was told that Miss Baynard, to whom
+he had been introduced earlier in the afternoon, had in the meantime
+left the Hall on some private business for her uncle, and was not
+expected back till next day.
+
+Shortly after seven o'clock, Mr. Tew, who was beginning to be a little
+muddled with the quantity of old port he had imbibed, bade Mrs. Budd
+an almost affectionate farewell (she was a widow, and, to his
+thinking, still a charming woman), climbed into his chaise, and was
+driven off on his return to Arkrigg.
+
+Night settled down over the old house. In those remote country parts
+people kept early hours, and when the hall clock chimed the half-hour
+past ten the only light left burning in the Hall was the one in the
+sick man's room. Near it sat Nurse Dinkel busily knitting--for she
+could not bear her fingers to be idle--but watchful and alert, as she
+always was. The Squire did not like to be looked at as he lay there,
+and from where she sat she could not see him for the heavy curtains
+that shrouded the head of the bed, but the slightest movement of his
+fingers on the counterpane drew her to his side.
+
+She was a woman of some education, and had a low and pleasant voice,
+and as Mr. Cortelyon's nights were often restless and wakeful, he had
+got into the way of occasionally asking her to read aloud to him. Her
+doing so took him for a time out of the dungeon of his own thoughts
+and sometimes brought in its train the sleep he longed for.
+
+So to-night, after lying awake for some time, as motionless as if he
+were already dead, he said, "Nurse!"
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"I want you to read to me." His voice was still very feeble, but
+stronger than it had been in the afternoon; such fluctuations were
+frequent with him.
+
+"Yes, sir. What would you like? Shall I go on with Mr. Pope from where
+we left off the night before last?"
+
+"Aye, you can't improve on him. Draw back this curtain that I may the
+better hear you."
+
+When the curtain had been drawn back Nurse Dinkel did not return to
+her chair, but stood there, looking at her patient, nursing an elbow
+in either hand.
+
+"Mr. Cortelyon, sir," she said after a brief pause, "I have something
+on my mind which I wish most particularly to say to you, if you will
+kindly give me leave to do so."
+
+"Surely, Mrs. Dinkel, I will listen to anything you may have to say.
+But don't stand there while you talk. Go back to your chair."
+
+"Thank you, sir," she said, as she resumed her seat. "I will try not
+to tire you, although what I wish to say may at the beginning seem a
+bit tedious. You may or may not be aware, sir, that I have a son,
+Cornelius by name, who is now turned thirty years of age. When he was
+quite a boy--and a clever boy he was, though 'tis I who say it--the
+late Sir Willoughby Freke took a great fancy to him. In the course of
+time he went to London, at Sir Willoughby's expense, for he was bent
+on studying to become a doctor. And study he did to such good purpose
+that he passed all his examinations with flying colors. Hardly,
+however, had he obtained his diploma before a very good offer was made
+him to go out to Java, where he has relations on his father's side
+engaged in business. It was an offer he felt bound to accept. That was
+ten years ago, and now he has come back to England and is not going
+abroad any more. His home will be in London, but before settling down
+there he has come to spend a little time with his old mother, from
+whom he has been so long parted. And now, sir, I come to the reason
+why I have taken on myself to trouble you with all these dry
+particulars.
+
+"My son has brought a wonderful discovery back with him from the East.
+According to his account, it will cure certain diseases after all
+other medicines have been tried in vain, and, in some cases, will
+almost bring dead people back to life. What the drug consists of I
+cannot tell you, because that is my son's secret, and one which he
+would not think of opening his lips about even to me. All I know is
+that the chief ingredient is the powdered bark of a certain tree, of
+which he has brought a considerable supply back with him. Cornelius
+feels as sure as it is possible for a man to be of anything that he
+has only to introduce his discovery to the medical world of London to
+find himself on the high road to a big fortune. His heart is buoyed up
+not merely by hope but by certainty.
+
+"Well, sir, no longer ago than last Sunday afternoon, when you and
+Miss Baynard were good enough to spare me from my duties for a few
+hours, I had a long talk with my son, and took the liberty of telling
+him about your illness. And what do you think he said, sir? Why this:
+'If Mr. Cortelyon could only be persuaded into trying my drug, I feel
+sure that it would give him a new lease of life.' Those were his very
+words, sir--'a new lease of life.'"
+
+The Squire lay silent for a little while. Then he said, "And it is
+your opinion that I ought to allow myself to be experimented upon by
+this vaunted remedy of your son?"
+
+"Most emphatically it is, sir. Cornelius is no idle boaster; he always
+knows what he is talking about, and he would not have said what he did
+without good reason. He tried the drug again and again in several
+desperate cases before he left Batavia, and in no instance was it a
+failure."
+
+"But I am an old man, Mrs. Dinkel, and my case is not one of any
+particular disorder, but a gradual decay of the vital forces, which
+can have but one end--and that is now close at hand."
+
+"Don't say that, sir, I beg. Who can say what wonder my son's remedy
+might not effect even in your case, as it has already done in those of
+others? It is true that neither Dr. Banks nor Dr. Mills seems able to
+do anything for you, but that is no reason why you should refuse the
+help now offered you from another source. My son knows your age within
+a year or two; I described to him all about your illness, and yet for
+all that, it is his deliberate opinion that he can give you a fresh
+lease of life."
+
+Again the Squire lay for some time without speaking. "Only one quack
+the more," he murmured to himself with a touch of his old cynicism.
+"Well, why not? From the highest to the lowest they're quacks, every
+mother's son of 'em. As it is, I'm at death's door already, and if the
+fellow can do me no good, I'll defy him to do me much harm."
+
+Then he said aloud: "D'you know, I'm half inclined to let this son of
+yours experiment upon me, if only to take some of the brag out of him
+and prove to him that in such a case as mine his wonder-working stuff
+is no more effectual than a dose of senna would be."
+
+"Then you _will_ try it, sir! That is all I ask. In any case, no harm
+can come of it."
+
+"My own opinion exactly"--with a dismal attempt at a chuckle. "Yes, I
+agree to try it. Only, the affair must be kept secret; outside this
+room nobody must know about it, unless it be my man, Andry Luce. And
+now, when can this son of yours be smuggled into the house?"
+
+"It's only a little past eleven o'clock, sir, and if you think you can
+spare me, I will go at once and bring him back with me. The servants
+are all abed, and my son could come and go without one of them being a
+whit the wiser."
+
+"That's a very good notion of yours, damme! Go at once, my dear woman;
+but first give me a drink of that cordial. I shall want nothing till
+you get back. And if I can coax that shy dog, Morpheus, to keep me
+company meanwhile, so much the better."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+THE SEQUEL OF MISS BAYNARD's ADVENTURE.
+
+
+It was with a bitter sense of helplessness that Miss Baynard continued
+to brood over the news brought her by Andry Luce. The knowledge that,
+with the exception of a certain legacy to herself and sundry small
+bequests to old servants, the whole of her uncle's wealth, both in
+land and money, would go to Mrs. Bullivant and her son, who were not
+even cousins six times removed, cut her to the quick. The amazing
+injustice of the thing, so to speak, struck her dumb. To think that a
+man who knew full well his span of life had dwindled to a few brief
+hours should, in cold blood, choose to perpetrate so black a sin--for
+in her eyes it was nothing less--was to Nell wholly inconceivable. And
+all for what? Merely because his son had married beneath him, and had
+thereby brought to naught a certain ambitious scheme on which his
+heart had been set. And now the innocent child was to suffer for its
+father's fault, if fault it were. Oh, it was monstrous--monstrous!
+
+Of one thing she was quite sure: she would never touch her uncle's
+legacy. Every shilling of it should go to the boy. But what was such a
+pittance in comparison with the income which, when he should come of
+age, ought to be his of inalienable right? Yet his name was not once
+mentioned in the will! The last of the Cortelyons--bone of his bone,
+and flesh of his flesh--might die in a gutter or come to the gallows
+for anything the old man cared. Such a revenge was more than human; it
+was fiendish, and could only have been prompted by the devil. Nell
+burnt from head to foot with a fine flame of indignation when she
+thought of these things, and for the next forty-eight hours she could
+think of nothing else.
+
+It was in the course of the second afternoon after Andry Luce had told
+her that she happened--herself unseen--to overhear the two doctors
+talking together as they stood for a few moments in the corridor after
+coming out of her uncle's room. "I give him three days at the
+outside," one of them said. To which the other replied: "Hum! I
+daresay you are right. But I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he were
+to go off in his sleep between now and to-morrow."
+
+Nell gave one quick gasp, and a shudder ran through her from head to
+foot. She had known for some time what each day was bringing nearer,
+but to hear from the lips of those who knew that the end was so close
+came upon her with a shock, and for a moment or two made her feel as
+if she had suddenly come face to face with a skeleton.
+
+It was the day Mr. Piljoy had promised to bring the will for the
+purpose of having it signed, and as she remembered this she could not
+help saying to herself: "If I could only get hold of it and destroy
+it, my uncle would hardly live to sign another in its stead, and Evan,
+as his grandfather's heir-at-law, would succeed to everything!"
+
+Then a little derisive laugh at her folly broke from her lips. Get
+hold of the will, forsooth! Why, she would not be allowed to so much
+as set eyes on it. Her brain must be softening even to imagine such a
+thing.
+
+About an hour later her uncle sent for her. It was in connection with
+the errand to Mr. Delafosse that he wanted to see her. Having received
+her instructions--given brokenly and in whispers--and had the precious
+MS. committed to her charge, she left the room. He gazed after her, a
+little wistfully as it seemed, thinking, perhaps, that she might have
+kissed him before going--for in his heart he loved the girl--as at
+another time she most likely would have done; but her proud, set face
+had never changed while he gave her his message, and when he had done
+she simply inclined her head and went. She felt that even if she were
+never to see him alive again she could not forgive him; but he did not
+know that.
+
+About two o'clock Mr. Tew, in Mr. Piljoy's stead, arrived with the
+will. In the absence of Mrs. Budd, who had gone into the village, he
+was received by Miss Baynard, to whom he explained the nature of his
+business and apologized for his employer's absence.
+
+Nell's heart grew cold as she listened. Why did not Providence
+intervene, and not allow so black a deed to be consummated? If only
+Mr. Tew's arrival had been delayed for two or three days--she would
+not have cared by what means--then would he have come too late, and
+all would have been well. As it was, she could but wring her hands in
+sheer helplessness.
+
+She was going sadly upstairs to her own room (after seeing Mr. Tew
+planted in front of a pigeon pie), when an idea flashed across her
+brain which for a moment or two seemed mentally to blind her. But it
+was a notion at once so wild and extravagant that, after drawing one
+long breath, her hands went involuntarily to her head, and she said to
+herself, "My reason must be deserting me." For all that, she could not
+thrust the notion from her; indeed, it had taken such a firm grip of
+her that when she reached her room she found herself under compulsion
+to sit down and face it, and, however bizarre and impracticable it had
+at first seemed, to consider it dispassionately from a common-sense
+point of view. The idea which had so startled her, and without any
+conscious leading up to it on her own part, was nothing less than, in
+the guise of a highwayman, to stop Mr. Tew when on his way back to
+Arkrigg and despoil him of the will.
+
+When a young spark of nineteen or twenty, Dick Cortelyon, on the
+occasion of one of his brief visits at home, had attended a fancy ball
+in the neighborhood in the character of a gentleman of the road. In
+the wardrobe in his room upstairs--a room left untouched since the
+date of his quarrel with his father--the dress, wig, mask, pistols,
+and other items of his make-up on that occasion were stored to the
+present day, a fact which was within Nell's cognizance. The picture of
+her cousin, masked and ready to set out for the ball, had impressed
+her girlish imagination very vividly at the time, and had often
+recurred to her memory since; and this recollection it must have been,
+acting through some sub-conscious channel, which, while asking herself
+despairingly how she could get possession of the will, had inspired
+her with the idea of turning highwayman in reality--for one night
+only.
+
+We know at what decision she arrived. Instead of scouting the idea and
+casting it from her, as ninety-nine young women out of every hundred
+would have done, she determined, _coûte que coûte_, to put it to a
+practical issue. Whatever risks might be connected with, or follow on,
+the affair she was prepared to face, if only she could thereby insure
+the destruction of her uncle's iniquitous will.
+
+Fortunately for her, when she came to consider, several things seemed
+to work in favor of her scheme, desperate as at first sight it had
+appeared.
+
+In the first place, everything in the way of dress and accessories
+needful for the part she had made up her mind to play were there ready
+to her hand. In the second, John Dyce, who was to act as her escort,
+had known her from childhood, was devoted to her, and could be
+thoroughly depended upon to keep any secret she might think well to
+entrust him with. In point of fact, John had originally been one of
+her father's servants, and he it was who had brought her, a girl of
+twelve, to Stanbrook, where he had remained ever since, filling the
+part of man-of-all-work in the Squire's establishment. Then, again, it
+was a good thing, so far as her purpose was concerned, that a married
+cousin of John should be keeper of the first toll-bar on the
+Whinbarrow road, which was the road she would have to journey by on
+her errand to Mr. Delafosse.
+
+For the last time she asked herself, "Shall I adventure it, or shall I
+not?" knowing all the while what the answer would be. By now the
+afternoon was so far advanced that she must no longer delay her
+preparations. She knew already that Mr. Tew would not set off on his
+return journey till dinner should be well over. She herself would
+start in the early dusk about an hour in advance of him.
+
+She made it her first business to see John Dyce and have a little
+private talk with him. Next she invented an errand for her maid to a
+neighboring village which would keep that elderly damsel out of the
+way till after her own departure. Next came one of the most essential
+features of the programme she was bent on carrying out: the
+transformation of Miss Baynard into the guise of a young man.
+
+The change was affected in due course, and a very handsome and dashing
+young blade she looked. She took a long survey of herself in the
+cheval glass, blushing and smiling as she did so. Nell was a tall,
+Juno-like young woman, and as her cousin Dick had been a somewhat
+slender, medium-sized young fellow, his clothes fitted her almost as
+if they had been made for her.
+
+But servants have prying eyes, and not thus would it do for her to be
+seen leaving the house; besides, there was the risk of encountering
+some one in the village to whom her face was known. So, over her man's
+dress she now proceeded to put on certain articles of feminine attire,
+to wit, a long riding-skirt, and a mantle with a hood to it, the
+latter of which she drew over her head. It was a common enough costume
+for ladies travelling on horseback.
+
+Into a couple of saddle-bags, which John Dyce had supplied her with,
+she had already stowed away a number of things. Then, when all was
+ready, she went down by way of the back staircase, and so out of the
+house, unseen by any one save a gaping kitchen wench. In the court
+near the stables were two horses in readiness, one of them being her
+mare Peggy, a birthday gift, two years before, from her godmother,
+Lady Carradine. John helped her into the saddle, then mounted his own
+horse, and two minutes later they were cantering down the avenue.
+
+They rode through the village, and so on their way for a couple of
+miles or more till they reached a little wooded hollow somewhat
+removed from the high-road. There Nell, having doffed her riding skirt
+and hooded mantle (her hair having been previously brushed back from
+her forehead and fashioned into a queue), substituted for them the
+three-cornered hat worn by her cousin at the fancy ball, with, by way
+of overall, an ample riding cloak, well worn, which poor Dick had been
+used to travel in. These articles she produced from the saddle-bags.
+Neither was the mask forgotten. Although she had never seen Mr. Tew
+before that day, and then only for a few minutes, it would not do to
+leave the slightest opening for his recognition of her in the part she
+was bent on playing.
+
+John, meanwhile, had been changing Peggy's sidesaddle for an ordinary
+one. That done, he again helped her to mount. It was as well for Nell
+in her new character that her mare had been thoroughly trained, and
+that she was a fearless horsewoman. Whatever awkwardness or
+embarrassment she might feel at first the friendly night covered up;
+but presently she had other things to think of than any little hot and
+cold shivers of her own. In the holsters in front of her were stuck a
+brace of unloaded pistols. John's pistols, however, were fully
+charged.
+
+
+How Miss Baynard sped on her hare-brained expedition has already been
+told: how she mistook the chaise of a stranger for that of Mr. Tew;
+how she was fired at, but escaped with nothing worse than a fright;
+and how the notorious Captain Nightshade appeared in the nick of time
+and acted as her guide as far as Rockmount, where, under the name of
+Mr. Frank Nevill (that of a cousin in India) she was made welcome, and
+found shelter for the night.
+
+We left her just after Mr. Cope-Ellerslie's housekeeper had shown her
+to her chamber; and now that the two threads of our narrative have
+been brought together we will take up her history from the following
+morning.
+
+When "Mr. Frank Nevill" went downstairs he found an excellent
+breakfast awaiting him in the same room into which he had been shown
+overnight. He was waited upon by Mrs. Dobson, who expressed much
+concern at the smallness of his appetite. When the meal had come to an
+end she said, "At what o'clock, sir, would you like your horse to be
+brought round?"
+
+"As soon as it can be got ready, for I am anxious to get on my way."
+
+In ten more minutes he was in the saddle. In accordance with Mr.
+Ellerslie's promise, a serving-man on horseback was in readiness to
+show him the way as far as the Whinbarrow road. He did not part from
+Mrs. Dobson without asking her to convey to her master his warmest
+thanks for the hospitality which had been extended to him; nor did he
+forget to press a guinea into her palm, reluctant though she was to
+take it.
+
+As he turned away from the house he gave it a long backward look. It
+was a two-storied domicile, plain to the verge of ugliness, built of
+roughly-hewn blocks of the dark gray stone of the country. Its walls
+were of great thickness, and it was roofed with huge slabs of slate,
+well fitted to withstand the fierce gales which assailed it during the
+winter months. It stood alone in the centre of a great plateau of
+stony, desolate moorland, which spread away on every side till it was
+lost in the distance. No other homestead or sign of man's occupancy or
+vicinage was anywhere visible. A narrow rutted lane, originally, no
+doubt, nothing more than a sheep track, passed close by it, seemingly
+coming from nowhere and leading to nowhere. Frank Nevill shuddered as
+he looked. What must it be like, he asked himself, to live there in
+winter? What man in his proper senses would think of building a house
+on such a spot? And yet Mr. Cope-Ellerslie seemed well satisfied to
+live there!
+
+After traversing the lane for a matter of three or four miles, Frank
+and his conductor emerged on one of the great highways running due
+north and south. Crossing this, they found themselves after a little
+while in a tangle of country roads, among which a stranger would
+infallibly have lost himself. Frank's guide, however, evidently knew
+every foot of the way, and at the end of a couple of hours, at a point
+where the cross-road they had been traversing debouched into one much
+wider, he pulled up his horse and said: "This is the Whinbarrow road,
+sir; six miles straight ahead will bring you to Dunthale Prior. Do you
+wish me to go any further with you, sir?"
+
+They were almost the first words the man had spoken, and Frank, as in
+honor bound, had refrained from putting any questions to him.
+
+He now dismissed him with thanks and a little present for himself.
+Twenty minutes later he drew rein and dismounted at the first
+toll-bar, at which place it had been arranged that John Dyce should
+await his arrival.
+
+And there honest John was, and a glad man was he to set eyes again on
+his young mistress. Never before had he passed so wretched a night.
+Fear and anxiety had rendered him half crazy, and had put all thought
+of sleep out of his head.
+
+As already stated, the keeper of the toll-bar was a cousin of
+John Dyce; and Mrs. Nixon, his wife, now proceeded to show "Mr.
+Nevill" into a neat little bedroom. It was the last time that young
+gentleman was seen by mortal eye. At the end of half-an-hour Miss
+Baynard--stately and gracious, but with a defiant sparkle in her eye
+which seemed to say, "Challenge me who dare!"--issued from the chamber
+and made her way downstairs.
+
+
+Miss Baynard reached Dene House on the stroke of noon, where she was
+warmly welcomed by Mr. Delafosse and his wife. The old bibliophile
+proved to be quite willing to exchange his gold stater of Epaticcus
+for the rare MS. on vellum which Nell had brought with her. Although
+genuinely grieved to receive such a bad account of his old friend, he
+could not help reminding himself that there were several rarities in
+Cortelyon's collection the possession of which he had long envied him.
+Well, we must all die some time, and as his friend's collection would
+be sure to come to the hammer, there would at length be a possibility
+of his becoming the owner of such articles as he especially coveted.
+All the more would they be valued by him for having been the property
+of a man he so highly esteemed.
+
+After joining the Dene House family over their three o'clock dinner,
+Miss Baynard set out on her return, and, there being nothing this time
+to detain her on the road, Stanbrook was reached by dusk. As she rode
+up the avenue she glanced anxiously at the windows. Had the Squire
+been dead the blinds would have been drawn down. But there was no
+change in the usual aspect of the house, and it was with a relieved
+heart that she dismounted.
+
+She went up to her uncle's room without delay when told that he had
+more than once asked for her. "There's a great improvement in him
+to-day, my dear," Mrs. Budd had said to her in the entrance hall. "Dr.
+Banks was quite struck by the change when he called this morning."
+
+Nell found her uncle awake. His eyes met hers questioningly as she
+entered the room, but when she produced the coveted coin and placed it
+in his hand his face lighted up wonderfully. "Good lass! good lass!"
+he murmured. Then he gave a sigh of relief, and his lean fingers
+closed lovingly over the stater.
+
+
+As to whether Miss Baynard's attempt to purloin her uncle's will was,
+or was not, under the circumstances morally justifiable, the writer
+wishes it to be understood that the point is one with which he
+considers himself in nowise concerned. His duty, as he apprehends it,
+is simply that of a recorder of facts, without taking on himself
+either to justify or condemn any actions, good, bad, or indifferent on
+the part of his characters, who are allowed to go their own way
+without let or hindrance, and as we all have to do, must accept and
+make the best of whatever consequences may result therefrom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+"LITTLE SHORT OF MIRACULOUS."
+
+
+Yes, as Mrs. Budd had told Miss Baynard, there was a decided change
+for the better in Mr. Cortelyon's condition, but by what means the
+change in question had been brought about was known to three people
+only--the sick man, his nurse, and the latter's son.
+
+Cornelius Dinkel had gone to Stanbrook in obedience to his mother's
+midnight summons, taking with him a small quantity of his remedy, and
+had spent an hour with the Squire, unknown to any of the household.
+
+He was a tall, sallow, dried-up man, who looked as if all the juices
+of his body had been sucked out of him by the heat of a tropical
+climate. He was thirty years old, but might well have been taken for a
+man of forty-five. Nobody would have ventured to call him handsome,
+but his expression was one of marked intelligence, in combination with
+considerable will-power and great tenacity of purpose.
+
+"Mr. Cortelyon, my son," said Mrs. Dinkel, as she introduced the young
+doctor into the sick room.
+
+Dinkel bowed gravely. The Squire blinked his eyes; he would have
+nodded, but had not strength to do so.
+
+Then he said, speaking in a thin whisper, broken by frequent gaspings
+for breath: "Your mother informs me that you have brought some
+wonderful discovery back home with you, and she would fain cozen me
+into the belief that by means of it you can succeed in prolonging the
+life of a moribund like me. I tell you at once that I don't believe in
+your ability to do anything of the kind. No, damme! I'm too far gone
+for any hanky-panky of that sort, and both Banks and Mills would
+simply dub you a quack for your pains."
+
+Dinkel's face remained impassive. "Permit me, Mr. Cortelyon," he said,
+and with that he proceeded to submit the other to a brief but
+searching examination. Till it had come to an end no one spoke. Then
+taking up a position on the hearth with his back to the fire, and
+speaking in the tone of one who felt himself master of the situation,
+he broke the silence:
+
+"Your case, Mr. Cortelyon, I find to be exactly such as my mother
+described it to me. That I can permanently cure you I at once admit to
+be an impossibility. You are too advanced in life, and your
+constitution is too nearly worn out, to warrant any such hope. But
+that I can succeed in prolonging your life for weeks, nay, it may well
+be for several months to come, I make no manner of doubt--such is the
+marvellous efficacy of the remedy I have brought back with me from
+abroad."
+
+This, to a man who had every reason for believing that a few more
+hours would bring the end, was news indeed. Weeks--perhaps months--of
+life, when he had looked forward to being buried about a week hence!
+It was too marvellous to credit.
+
+For a little while he was too overcome to speak. Then he murmured, and
+Dinkel had to bend over him in order to catch what he said: "I--I
+cannot believe it--I cannot!"
+
+"Nevertheless, Mr. Cortelyon, I am not dealing in romance--heaven
+forbid that I should in such a case!--but in sober fact. There is a
+homely proverb which affirms that the proof of the pudding is in the
+eating. I have brought with me a small quantity of my remedy. Will you
+permit me to administer a dose of it to you?"
+
+Again there was a space of silence. The sick man's gaze was bent on
+the young doctor as if he would fain read him through and through,
+while his grizzled eyebrows made a straight line across his forehead,
+he liked the look of him; there was something in that strong, earnest,
+plain face which inspired confidence. Compared with him, Dr. Banks
+looked like an amiable old woman.
+
+"First of all, I should like to know what this so-called wonder-worker
+of yours is compounded of," he murmured, after a time.
+
+Dinkel shrugged his shoulders. "Its chief constituent is the dried and
+powdered bark of the tatao tree--a tree indigenous to the island of
+Java. The other ingredients consist of sundry drugs in certain fixed
+proportions, the secret of which I am not at present prepared to
+divulge."
+
+"Quite right--quite right. Very sensible on your part. You don't want
+to poison me, I suppose--hey?"
+
+The ghost of a smile flitted across Dinkel's rugged face. "What should
+I gain by that, sir? Only the hangman's noose. I think you ought to
+credit me with a desire for lengthening your days, not for shortening
+them."
+
+"It would puzzle you to make 'em much shorter than they seem likely to
+be," gasped the Squire, with a painful imitation of one of his old
+chuckles. "Well, well," he resumed, "I'll venture on a dose of this
+stuff of yours, not because I've any faith in it, mind you, but merely
+to take the cock-a-doodle out of you, and prove to you that you're not
+the wonderfully clever fellow you're inclined to crack yourself up as
+being."
+
+Not for days had the Squire spoken so much in so short a time, and as
+the last words died from off his lips his eyes closed and he sank into
+a half swoon.
+
+He could not have been in more competent hands, and before long he was
+brought back to consciousness. His first words, in a feeble whisper,
+were: "Give me the stuff; I'll take it."
+
+From his waistcoat pocket Dinkel extracted a tiny phial, no bigger
+than his little finger, about three-parts full of a ruby-colored
+fluid, which he proceeded to empty into a dessert spoon.
+
+"You won't find it at all disagreeable," he said, as he proffered the
+spoon and its contents to the Squire.
+
+"It tastes not unlike the liquorice-root I used to be fond of when a
+lad," murmured the latter half a minute later, and with that his eyes
+closed again.
+
+Dinkel held up his hand, and for a little space neither he nor his
+mother stirred. Then said the young doctor, "He is asleep, and if all
+goes well, as I have every reason to think it will, he won't awake for
+five or six hours. I will go now, and return between six and seven
+o'clock."
+
+As already stated, Dr. Banks, when he called as usual in the course of
+next forenoon, was considerably surprised at finding such a decided
+improvement in his patient's condition, when, according to all the
+rules and regulations of medical science, he ought to have been
+nearly, if not quite, in a state of collapse. "It's merely a flash in
+the pan--the sudden flare-up of a candle before it drops into
+darkness," he said to himself. "He's a wonderful old fellow, and I've
+evidently underrated the strength of his constitution."
+
+But next day, and the day after that, a still further improvement
+unmistakably manifested itself. Dr. Banks rubbed his nose with his
+forefinger and was clearly nonplussed. On the fourth morning he was
+joined by Dr. Mills, who had been expecting from hour to hour to have
+tidings of the Squire's demise. He and Banks did not fail to discuss
+the case as they drove over to Stanbrook in the latter's gig, but
+neither of them could make head or tail of it, and certainly it was
+difficult for them to believe the evidence of their eyes when, on
+entering their patient's room, they found him seated in his
+easy-chair, propped up by cushions, and not only that, but dictating a
+letter in a firm voice to his secretary, Andry Luce.
+
+He favored them with a curt nod, but did not otherwise notice them
+till he had brought his dictation to an end. Then turning with a
+sardonic smile, he said: "Good-morrow, gentlemen. Very pleased to see
+you, especially you, Mills. You find an unlooked-for change in me
+since you were here last week--hey? It's all your friend Jimmy Banks's
+doing. From the hour he changed my physic, now four or five days
+since, I began to mend. Why he didn't change it before, instead of
+letting me get down to death's door first, the Lord only knows. But
+Jimmy always was a wag. Don't shake your pow in that way, sir; you
+know I'm speaking the truth. What grand weather for the crops we are
+having just now! I'm told that both my corn and my taties are coming
+on famously; but I hope to drive round in a day or two and see them
+for myself."
+
+There was nothing to be done and very little to be said, and the two
+doctors cut their visit as short as possible.
+
+Said Mills to the other after they had left the room: "What was the
+change of medicine he spoke of? What fresh treatment have you been
+subjecting him to?"
+
+"To none at all, I give you my word. I am sending him the same mixture
+now that I was sending him three weeks ago--the one that you and I
+agreed upon. No single ingredient has been changed. In saying what he
+did he was only poking fun at us in his cynical way."
+
+"Possibly at you, Banks, but certainly not at me," rejoined the other
+in his pompous way. "In any case, he's a very remarkable old man, and
+although I could not quite follow you in thinking that his vitality
+was at such a low ebb as you seemed to make out, I certainly did not
+credit him with the possession of the marvellous recuperative powers
+to which our eyes have just borne testimony."
+
+"Humph! You seem to be blessed with a very short memory, Mills. Your
+own words on the occasion of your last visit were, 'I give him three
+days at the outside,' and that's just a week ago."
+
+"Well, well; we are all liable to err, of course. Still, I'm afraid
+that I allowed my judgment to be in some measure led astray by your
+diagnosis. I ought to have subjected him to a more comprehensive
+examination than seemed to be necessary at the time. For all that, I
+cannot deny that his case is one of the most remarkable which has come
+under my notice. In short, I should hardly be going too far if I were
+to term his recovery, however temporary it may be, little short of
+miraculous."
+
+Dr. Banks grunted. He was too indignant to reply in words. Only to
+himself he said, "I always set you down in my own mind as a humbug,
+and now I'm more convinced of it than ever."
+
+As the reader will have rightly surmised, the marvellous change in
+Squire Cortelyon was wholly and solely due to the drug administered to
+him by Cornelius Dinkel. Already, as we have seen, he was able to sit
+up--although only for a short hour at first--and transact business;
+and each day brought its own small addition of strength and vital
+power. Soon he was able to go out on fine days for a drive, and a
+little later he even got so far as, with the help of Andry Luce's arm,
+to take short strolls about the grounds.
+
+But this eminently satisfactory state of things could only be
+maintained on one condition: it was absolutely essential that a
+certain regulated dose of the wonderful drug should be administered to
+the patient daily. For the purpose of carrying out this arrangement
+Dinkel made a point of coming to the Hall every evening after dark,
+bringing the day's dose with him in a phial. He simply waited long
+enough to see the Squire swallow it, and then went his way.
+
+Mrs. Dinkel remained at Stanbrook, nor, although he was so much
+better, would her patient listen to a word about her departure.
+Perhaps it seemed to him that so long as he could succeed in retaining
+her services he would have a firmer hold on those of her son. Besides,
+his man Tatham was not yet able to resume his duties.
+
+So interested was young Dinkel in the case of Mr. Cortelyon that for
+the present he made up his mind to stay where he was. As his mother
+had told the Squire, the object of his life now was to take his
+discovery to London, and build up a fortune on the strength of it. But
+he was gifted with the patience, slow but sure, of his father's race,
+and was content to wait.
+
+By this time it had got rumored about the country-side that the
+Squire's amazing recovery was due to Dinkel, or rather, to the effect
+of some magic compound he had brought with him from abroad. Further,
+it was commonly reported that so long as Dinkel continued to practise
+his arts on the old man, the latter would not, or could not, die.
+Among others, the whisper went that the Squire had sold himself, body
+and soul, to the young doctor on condition of his life being prolonged
+till he was a hundred.
+
+These rumors were not lessened by Dinkel's mode of life. He had fitted
+up an old shed at the back of his mother's cottage, and there he
+conducted his experiments. Strange-colored flames would often be seen
+issuing from its chimney after dark, and one or two bolder spirits,
+who had ventured to pry upon him, averred that they had seen him
+warming his hands at a big glass jar which gave off blue sparks when
+he touched it. Evidently he was a man to be both shunned and feared.
+
+But the love of life burns strongly in us. Not merely are we desirous
+of prolonging our own existence, but the lives of those dear to us,
+and among the villagers were three mothers who, their children having
+been given up by the local doctor, went to Cornelius Dinkel as a last
+resource, and prayed him with tears in their eyes to try to save their
+little ones. He did try, and in two cases out of the three he
+succeeded.
+
+Still, the country people, with their ingrained superstitious
+prejudices, fought shy of him, and regarded him with a suspicion that
+was largely mixed with dislike. "He's a man-witch, that's what he is,"
+they muttered among themselves. If he could prolong "th' owd Squire's"
+life, why couldn't he save Molly Grigg's child?--and why didn't he
+try his hand on old Tommy Binns, who was only eighty-seven when he
+died?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+A STARTLING RECOGNITION.
+
+
+In view of the astonishing and wholly unexpected change for the better
+in Mr. Cortelyon's condition, it became manifest to Miss Baynard that,
+even if she had succeeded in despoiling Mr. Tew of the will, her doing
+so would have been to no purpose, seeing that her uncle had lived long
+enough to make half-a-dozen others had he been so inclined. She could
+not help cherishing a faint hope that, now a fresh lease of life had
+mercifully been granted him, he would see fit to change his mind in
+the matter of his grandson, and, either by means of a codicil to his
+present will, or the drawing-up of a new will, repair, in a greater or
+lesser degree, the act of cruel injustice of which he had been guilty.
+
+But as time passed on Nell's hope faded and died. No allusion to his
+will ever passed her uncle's lips, or she would have heard of it from
+Andry Luce. It seemed that he was satisfied to let it stand unchanged.
+
+One day a brief letter from her godmother, Lady Carradine, was
+received by Miss Baynard. Her ladyship was up in town for a
+fortnight--her usual home was in Devonshire--and she wrote very
+pressingly to Nell to join her there during her stay.
+
+This Nell was by no means loth to do; and as her uncle raised no
+objection to her going, but rather urged her to accept the invitation,
+she and her maid were driven over to Lanchester a couple of days
+later, where she booked two inside places in the London mail.
+
+Nell was especially glad to find herself again in London, because she
+would now be enabled to renew her acquaintance with young Evan, whom
+she had not seen since his mother's death.
+
+But before going to Lawn Cottage, where, so far as she was aware, the
+boy was still domiciled, she deemed it advisable to call upon Mr.
+McManus, whom she found in nowise changed, but still as genial, as
+shabby-looking, and as snuffy as ever.
+
+"Yes," he said in answer to a question, after he had ushered his
+visitor into a little parlor behind the shop, "the young shaver is
+quite well and hearty, or was so a week since, and is still in charge
+of Mrs. Mardin."
+
+"And all the expenses in connection with him are still defrayed by Mr.
+Dare?"
+
+"In that respect nothing is changed. I may, however, just mention that
+some time ago a report reached me--although, mind you, Miss, I can't
+tell how true it was--that between two and three years ago Mr. Dare
+came to the end of his tether--was ruined, in point of fact (no doubt
+gambling had to do with it), and had to give up all his fine
+acquaintances and leave London. But be that as it may, I have it from
+Mrs. Mardin's lips that the quarter's money for young Evan is always
+punctually remitted. He's one of those gentlemen, is Mr. Dare, whose
+word is his bond. I wish all so-called gentlemen were like him."
+
+The old man paused to refresh himself with a pinch of his favorite
+mixture and then went on:
+
+"I myself, on a fine Sunday afternoon, sometimes manage to get as far
+as Chelsea, in order to satisfy myself as to how the boy is getting
+on. Although Mrs. Mardin knows me for his great-uncle on the mother's
+side, that fact, at my request, has been kept a secret from Evan. From
+the first I made up my mind that I would not spoil any chance the boy
+might have of one day being acknowledged by his father's relations by
+putting my humble self in the way, and when you entered the shop just
+now, Miss, I was in hopes you had come to tell me that Mr. Cortelyon
+had changed his mind at last, and had sent you to fetch his grandson."
+
+Nell shook her head sadly. "I am afraid there is no present likelihood
+of my uncle doing anything of the kind. Up till now his feelings in
+the matter have undergone no change."
+
+"And maybe he will go down to the grave without having known how sweet
+it is to forgive. Poor old gentleman, how I pity him!"
+
+An hour later Nell despatched a note to Mrs. Mardin, telling her that
+she hoped to be at Lawn Cottage in the course of the afternoon of next
+day, and there the specified time found her.
+
+Evan had by no means forgotten his "Aunt Nell," and she was made very
+glad thereby. But she had sent him so many presents of toys and other
+things from time to time that it would have been odd if he had not
+remembered her. To her he seemed to have grown more like his father
+than ever. If his grandfather would but once have admitted the lad to
+his presence, surely his hard heart would have softened at Evan's
+haunting likeness to the dead man! But, as the old tobacconist had
+said he would go down to the grave without having known how sweet it
+is to forgive.
+
+Mrs. Mardin was nothing if not hospitable, and before long tea was
+served; nor were the toothsome buns for which Chelsea was famed
+forgotten. But scarcely had the first cup been poured out before Mrs.
+Mardin rose suddenly to her feet. Some one had just passed the window,
+and next moment there was a tug at the front-door bell.
+
+"I declare if here isn't Mr. Dare!" exclaimed the widow. "What a
+strange thing that you and he should happen to come on the same day!"
+And with that she hurried out of the room.
+
+Miss Baynard had often desired to make the acquaintance of this
+unknown benefactor of her dead kinsman's widow and child, and now her
+wish was about to be gratified. She stood up as the door opened, with
+a slightly heightened color, and with a heart that beat somewhat
+faster than common.
+
+A second later every vestige of color fled her face, and it seemed to
+her as if her limbs were on the point of giving way under her. She
+drew one long, gasping breath, and unconsciously her hand gripped the
+back of her chair, as if to keep herself from falling. In the man who
+now entered the room she had recognized--or she felt nearly sure she
+had--the notorious Captain Nightshade, he who had come to her help
+that night when she was reeling in her saddle after having been fired
+at by the unknown traveller in the chaise, and who had afterwards
+acted as her guide as far as Rockmount!
+
+It was true that she had only had a clear view of his face for a few
+brief seconds, while the old serving-man stood at the open door with
+his lighted candle, but the picture thus seen had burnt itself into
+her memory as few things had ever done, and many a time since then had
+she conjured it up in fancy till its every lineament seemed to have
+grown familiar to her.
+
+And now, marvel of marvels, here before her, a living reality, was the
+face she had never thought to see again--long and brown, with its
+thin, high-ridged nose, its delicate nostrils, its black, brilliant
+eyes, its mobile mouth, and its massive, rounded chin, together with
+that air of almost defiant recklessness which of itself would have
+served to mark the man out from his more commonplace fellows, and
+which seemed to sit so easily upon him. And there, too, had further
+proof been needed, was the tiny brown mole on the lower half of the
+left side of his face, which had caught her attention at the time, as
+a "beauty-patch" might have done on the cheek of one of her own sex.
+
+She tightened her grip on the back of the chair, and their eyes met.
+Into his there came no flicker of recognition, no slightest evidence
+which betrayed any consciousness on his part that they had ever met
+before. His glance encountered hers with the clear, unwinking
+steadfastness of one stranger regarding another. His features were
+grave and composed; there was no start of surprise; the sallow of his
+cheeks remained untinged by any faintest flush of color. Miss Baynard
+was bewildered. Could it be that he had known beforehand whom he was
+about to meet and had schooled himself accordingly? But this was a
+question Nell had no grounds for asking herself.
+
+
+[Illustration: "She had recognized the notorious Captain Nightshade."]
+
+
+The girl's perturbation and amazement passed unnoticed by Mrs. Mardin,
+whose eyesight was no longer what it once had been, and she now went
+through the office of introducing the young people in the fewest words
+possible.
+
+Miss Baynard curtsied a little _gauchement_, which was not like her.
+Mr. Dare, with his hat pressed to his heart, made her a profound bow.
+
+"I am indeed fortunate in finding here to-day a lady whom it has long
+been the chief desire of my existence to have the felicity of
+meeting."
+
+Such a speech addressed nowadays by a young man to a young woman would
+seem, and rightly so, absurdly high-flown and unreal; but to our
+great-grandfathers and grandmothers it would have appeared nothing of
+the kind. They and their progenitors for generations had brought the
+art of compliment, especially as between the sexes, to a degree of
+perfection of which we, in these degenerate times, retain little more
+than the tradition. Very likely it was all very artificial and
+insincere, but the fair sex of a day which now seems so far removed
+not only expected it but liked it. If we have been brought up on
+sugared food, the taste for it generally clings to us through life.
+
+If any doubt had lingered in Miss Baynard's mind with regard to the
+dual personality of the man before her, his first words would have
+finally dispelled it. She would have known his voice among a thousand.
+How many times since she first heard those full deep tones had she
+heard them again in her dreams? She would have blushed to tell how
+often had she cared, or been able to count them. Yes, the last shred
+of amazed doubt was gone. Had she encountered Dare in the dark and
+heard him speak, she would have whispered to herself, "That is the
+voice of Captain Nightshade, and of no one but him."
+
+And yet he had not recognized her! But perhaps there was nothing to
+wonder at in that. So far as she knew he had had no opportunity of
+scanning her features as she had of his, and probably had no curiosity
+to do so, besides which he had been unaware of her sex, and had parted
+from her as one man parts from another. To a man of his profession the
+adventure of that night would seem a tame little episode hardly worth
+the trouble of remembering. She was glad, she was very glad, that he
+had failed to recognize her, and yet--being of the sex she was--even
+while she told herself so she felt a bitter heart-stab. _She_ would
+have known _him_ again anywhere, and under any disguise.
+
+But she put this thought from her, and drew a breath of reviving
+courage. Her blood began to flow again, and soon a strange gladness,
+for which she could not account, began to make itself felt at her
+heart.
+
+Before this came about she had found words to reply to Dare's little
+speech.
+
+"And I on my part, Mr. Dare, can say in all sincerity that I am very
+glad to make your acquaintance. I have long wanted to be able to thank
+you for your generous kindness towards both the dead and the living,
+and now the time has come when I can do so. But pray let us be
+seated."
+
+Mrs. Mardin had discreetly withdrawn. She was sorry that all the good
+tea in the pot would be spoiled with standing, but such little mishaps
+cannot always be avoided.
+
+Master Evan was in the garden, urging on his wild career on a big
+rocking-horse which his Aunt Nell had sent him by carrier the day
+before.
+
+"Dick Cortelyon and I were very dear friends, Miss Baynard, as you are
+doubtless aware. When his premature death left those he loved on the
+verge of destitution, was it not the place of him he had honored with
+his friendship to come forward and shield them, in some measure at
+least, from the chill blasts of penury? This it has been my privilege
+to be able to do. 'Twas but little--very little--and had our places
+been reversed I feel assured that Dick would have done the same by
+me."
+
+"There I agree with you; but such friendships are rare, or so I am
+bidden believe. For all you have done in the past, Mr. Dare, I thank
+you from the bottom of my heart; it is what not one so-called friend
+out of a hundred would have done. But from to-day his charge upon your
+generosity must cease."
+
+A shade of perplexity passed across Dare's face. "Pardon me, Miss
+Baynard, if I fail to apprehend your meaning."
+
+"What I mean is that my cousin's child must no longer be a burden on
+you, and that it devolves upon those to whom he is bound by the ties
+of blood to care henceforth for his future."
+
+"A burden, Miss Baynard! The word stabs me."
+
+"Pardon me, I was wrong. It ought never to have passed my lips. I am
+very sorry."
+
+Mr. Dare bent his head as accepting the apology, and, indeed, for once
+Nell looked almost abject.
+
+"From your remark," said Dare, "I can only conclude that Mr.
+Cortelyon's hard heart has at length relented, and that he has made up
+his mind to acknowledge his grandson."
+
+Nell shook her head. "I am sorry to say that nothing of the kind has
+come to pass. My uncle is still as much embittered against the boy as
+ever he was."
+
+"Excuse me, but you spoke of those to whom the boy is bound by the
+ties of blood as----"
+
+"Am I not bound to Evan by the tie of blood, Mr. Dare?"
+
+"The fact is one which cannot be disputed. Then, you wish me to
+understand----?" He paused.
+
+"That from now I charge myself wholly and solely with Evan's future.
+'Tis what I have long wished, nay, determined to do, but till to-day
+you and I have never met." The last words had hardly passed her lips
+before a quick flush mounted to her cheeks. Unthinkingly she had given
+utterance to an untruth. They two _had_ met before, although he seemed
+to be wholly unaware of the fact. But there was no possibility
+of recalling her words even had she been desirous of doing so.
+"And----and consequently I have had no opportunity of making this
+known to you before." The break had only been momentary. Had he
+noticed it? She could not tell.
+
+Dare's face darkened, and the line between his eyebrows became more
+marked. "I was certainly not prepared for this," he replied. "Had I
+had any prevision of what I was about to hear, much as I value my
+introduction to Miss Baynard, I think I should hardly have come near
+Lawn Cottage to-day."
+
+Nell's eyes struck fire, and for a moment or two her teeth bit into
+her underlip; but when she spoke it was with no trace of temper.
+
+"That was a very rude speech on your part, Mr. Dare, to address to a
+lady. But, under the circumstances, I can make every allowance for
+your feelings, and I am not going to take offence at it. The one thing
+I am sorry about in connection with this affair is that some such
+arrangement was not come to long ago."
+
+"And I am grieved that it should ever be come to. It will cut me to
+the quick, I tell you plainly. When poor Dick lay on his deathbed I
+gave him my word that while I had a crust his boy should not want,
+and that I would do my best to make up to him for that stroke of
+ill-fortune which was about to rob him of a father's love and care. It
+was a promise which, as far as the exigencies and circumstances of my
+life would allow, I have striven to fulfil to the best of my ability.
+That life--my life--is a very lonely one, how lonely you cannot
+conceive, and in the course of time my dead friend's son has grown
+very dear to me. Yet now, Miss Baynard, you would come between us (how
+cruel in some things is your sex!) and would deprive me of him."
+
+"You misapprehend my intentions, Mr. Dare. I have no wish to come
+between you and the boy in any way. You will have full freedom to
+visit him as often as you wish. All I say is, that henceforth all
+charges in connection with him must be defrayed by me."
+
+Dare got up abruptly, crossed to the window, stared out of it for a
+few moments, and then went back to his seat.
+
+"Look here, Miss Baynard," he said, "why should not you and I come to
+a compromise in this matter, as one finds it advisable to do in so
+many of the affairs of life? Suppose we share the expense--'tis a mere
+bagatelle after all. Come, now, what say you?"
+
+Miss Baynard shook her head. "It cannot be, Mr. Dare. On this point my
+mind is finally made up. I am very sorry if my telling you so causes
+you any pain or annoyance, but there is no help for it. My action is
+based on reasons which I do not feel at liberty to explain. Your
+goodness in the past will never be forgotten by me, and I trust----"
+
+"Not a syllable more, I beg," said Dare, with a queer little break in
+his voice. "My 'goodness,' forsooth! Revile me, strike me, but never
+fling that word at me again as applicable to anything between me and
+my dead friend! But I will urge you no longer. You tell me your mind
+is made up, in which case there is nothing more to be said or done."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+LOVE THE CONQUEROR.
+
+
+Although Dare had not succeeded in persuading Miss Baynard to reverse
+or modify the decision she had come to in the case of her cousin's
+child, and although he was at no pains to hide his chagrin and
+disappointment, he and she did not fail to part as good friends are in
+the habit of parting. Neither of them had any wish to part otherwise,
+and it would have been hard to say which of them would have been the
+more sorry to do so; indeed, Nell was unwilling to say goodbye till
+she had obtained from him an address--that of a lawyer--to which she
+could write in case she should have occasion to communicate with him
+about the boy.
+
+Both of them put the selfsame question to themselves within five
+minutes of their parting: "When and where, if ever, shall we meet
+again?"
+
+Dare went direct from Chelsea to Holborn. Miss Baynard had said that
+her action was influenced by certain reasons which she did not feel at
+liberty to specify. Was one of those reasons based on the fact that he
+was now a ruined man? If so, through what channel had the information
+reached her?
+
+Finding Mr. McManus as usual in his shop, Dare at once challenged him
+with being the tale-bearer. It was an accusation he made no attempt to
+rebut; but that in saying what he had to Miss Baynard he had been
+actuated by any feeling of ill-will towards Dare was too absurd a
+notion to be entertained for one moment. However, the mischief was
+done and could not be undone, and with all his faults Dare was not the
+man to vent his annoyance on so helpless an object as the old
+tobacconist.
+
+But Miss Baynard had spoken as if there were more reasons than one for
+the decision she had arrived at. Might not another, and perhaps the
+chief one, lie in the fact that in him she had recognized the man who
+had been mixed up with herself in a certain memorable adventure, and
+who, when asked his name, had told her that he was none other than the
+notorious "Captain Nightshade"? It was a recognition he had not
+counted on, being unaware how incautiously he had afforded her the
+opportunity of scanning his features by the light of the serving-man's
+candle at the door of Rockmount. But that she had recognized him was
+an indisputable fact. Was it, then, to be wondered at that she should
+refuse in such positive terms to permit him any longer to defray young
+Evan's expenses with money which she doubtless regarded as the
+proceeds of robbery on the King's highway?
+
+No, he felt bound to admit that it was not to be wondered at, and
+that, in point of fact, no other course was open to her. And yet,
+knowing him now to be that which he had told her he was, she had
+parted from him with a cordiality in which he felt assured there was
+no _arrière-pensée_. She had given him her hand frankly, and in her
+beautiful eyes he had read nothing but kindliness, with just a hint of
+sadness, or so he fancied, shining through it. And then, what had her
+last words to him been? "Let us not say goodbye, but _au revoir_."
+And this to the man who had confessed to being Captain Nightshade!
+
+But to attempt to follow the turnings and twistings of that
+incomprehensible thing, a woman's mind, was what he made no
+pretensions to doing. It was enough for him that her own lips had said
+_au revoir_; and that a propitious fate in its own good time would
+bring them together again he did not permit himself to doubt.
+
+Dare had had no thought or expectation of finding Miss Baynard at Lawn
+Cottage; he had not even known that she was in town; consequently the
+meeting was as great a surprise to him as it was to her. But what he
+did know, and had known all along, was that she and the _soi-disant_
+"Mr. Jack Prentice" were one and the same person. So piqued had his
+curiosity been by the adventure which had brought them together after
+such a strange fashion, that after her departure from Rockmount he had
+caused a watch to be set upon her movements till she had been traced
+back to Stanbrook. That she should prove to be the cousin of his dead
+friend, Dick Cortelyon, was merely one of those coincidences such as
+people who habitually keep their eyes open can see happening around
+them every day.
+
+Dare had been quite right in his surmise as to the reasons which had
+actuated Nell in her refusal to allow him to contribute any longer,
+even in part, towards the cost of Evan's maintenance. The fact that he
+was a ruined man would of itself have been argument sufficient for the
+step she had decided upon taking. But when, in addition, she had to
+face the question, and it was one she could not shirk, "From what
+source is the money derived which is remitted every quarter-day to
+Mrs. Mardin?" she felt that no answer was needed from her. It was a
+question which answered itself. And this state of things had been
+going on for she knew not how long! Not another day must it last.
+
+She had only been a couple of days back at Stanbrook when a small
+packet reached her through the post. It bore the London postmark, and
+was addressed in a writing wholly strange to her. She opened it, not
+without curiosity, to find that all it contained was the mask worn by
+her on a certain never-to-be-forgotten occasion. She had been unable
+to find it when, after reaching home, she proceeded to replace Dick's
+habiliments in the closet whence she had disinterred them. To the best
+of her belief she had inadvertently left it behind her in the bedroom
+at Rockmount, but it was a point as to which she could not be
+positive. Anyhow, here it was, sent back to her by an unknown hand,
+and her receipt of it in such fashion raised more than one perplexing
+question.
+
+But supposing she was in error in thinking she had left the mask at
+Rockmount? In that case only one conclusion was open to her--that it
+was not Mr. Ellerslie, but Mr. Dare, who had returned it. One or the
+other of them it must be. If Mr. Dare were the sender of it, how
+woefully in error she must have been in assuming that he had not
+recognized her when they met accidentally at Lawn Cottage! And yet, by
+not so much as the flicker of an eyelid had he betrayed any knowledge,
+or even suspicion, of their ever having met before! If he did
+recognize her on that occasion, then of course her secret--the secret
+of her sex--was equally in his keeping. Perhaps he had known or
+guessed it from the first! Had he not, when she reeled and all but
+swooned in the saddle, caught her in his arms? and had she not, with
+wandering senses, lain for a little while--a very little while--in his
+embrace! Was it then he made the discovery, supposing it to have been
+made at all?
+
+Hardly had she asked herself the question before a delicious thrill
+went through her from crown to foot, and all the pulses of her being
+began to palpitate with a strange, new, sweet life, far sweeter than
+anything she had hitherto known. She felt as a chrysalis may feel when
+it bursts its husk and first spreads its wings to the sun.
+
+She sat for some little time, her face hidden in her hands, although
+she was alone, and her veins aglow with something that almost
+frightened her. Then on a sudden her mood changed: she sprang to her
+feet, and with clenched hands and hard-set face took to pacing her
+room from end to end, doing silent battle with herself meanwhile.
+Never had she been so assailed before, and she brought all the forces
+of her womanly pride to bear on the insidious foe that was undermining
+her outworks one by one. She had deemed herself invulnerable; she had,
+as it were, set herself on a pedestal as a being apart, whom the one
+great weakness of her sex--for such it seemed to her--could never
+touch. And now nature was beginning to revenge itself by proving to
+her that she was no stronger in some ways than the weakest of her weak
+sisters. But she would not yield, she would not give way, she told
+herself again and again with a sort of fierce despair, while conscious
+all the while that one bastion after another was crumbling before the
+enemy's assaults. "Shall not a woman remain mistress of her own fate?"
+she cried despairingly.
+
+In some things she shall, my dear Nell, but not in all, as you are
+proving to your cost. There is a power within you that is stronger
+than yourself.
+
+At length, sick and weary at heart, she cast herself on her bed and
+buried her face in the pillows. "Never, never will I submit!" she
+moaned. But even as the words escaped her some traitor in the garrison
+hauled down the flag which had flaunted itself so defiantly, and the
+citadel was won.
+
+But who the sender of the mask was remained as much a mystery as
+before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+A FRESH ACTOR ON THE SCENE.
+
+
+Except in a few occasional instances, Mr. Ambrose Cortelyon, who
+prided himself on his possession of an unbiassed mind, was not in the
+habit of being unreasonable either in his demands or his expectations,
+whether they concerned himself or others. Thus, he was quite aware
+that when his convalescence, so to call it, had reached a certain
+point and made no advance beyond it, it would be both useless and
+unreasonable on his part to look for any. Although Dinkel's marvellous
+drug could do much, it could not work miracles. He, the Squire, must
+not only be content, but must deem himself one of the most fortunate
+of men that such a measure of health had been given back to him as was
+now his, and henceforward his most fervent prayer must be for a
+continuance of it for an indefinite time to come.
+
+Dinkel had held out to him the hope--nay, it had been next door to a
+promise--of a prolongation of his life for several months. What was
+there to hinder those months from extending themselves to years? He
+himself could see nothing in the way. Why should he not go on as he
+was going on now till his years had stretched themselves out to
+fourscore? Of course, he was only living a half-life, as it were; it
+was existence with sadly maimed powers, but only on such terms was
+existence possible to him at all. When we can't have what we would,
+the only wisdom is to content ourselves with what we have.
+
+He was quite aware of his utter dependence on Dinkel, but on that
+score he had no fears. He knew that the young doctor meditated a
+removal to London before long; indeed, the contingency had already
+been discussed between them and provided for. Week by week Dinkel
+would forward to his mother by coach a small packet containing seven
+phials, the contents of one of which would be administered to the
+Squire each day by Mrs. Dinkel, whose services had been exclusively
+secured by the payment of a wage far more liberal than she could hope
+to obtain elsewhere. Dinkel's own services were to be remunerated at
+the rate of one hundred pounds a month for as long a time as he should
+prove successful in keeping his patient in the land of the living.
+
+Under these circumstances, the Squire could bear to look forward to
+Dinkel's proximate departure with tolerable equanimity.
+
+Dr. Banks, at the Squire's request, still kept up his visits to the
+Hall, but he no longer came daily as of yore. At each visit the same
+little farce, which each knew to be a farce, was enacted between him
+and his patient. Having felt the latter's pulse and looked at his
+tongue, Banks would remark in his inanely amiable way: "We are going
+on famously--famously. Strength thoroughly maintained; total absence
+of febrile symptoms; temperature absolutely normal. I think we could
+not do better than keep on with the old medicine."
+
+"Of course we couldn't, Banks," the Squire would respond with a
+chuckle. "It's wonderful stuff that of yours. Send another pailful
+along as soon as you like."
+
+Then would Banks take his departure, knowing well that not one
+drop of his medicine would be swallowed by the master of Stanbrook.
+But he had a large family, and could not afford to quarrel with his
+bread-and-cheese. He was no worse than the majority of his fellows,
+for circumstances make humbugs of most of us, if not in one way, then
+in another.
+
+He had heard all that common report had to tell him about Dinkel, and
+about the magical drug he had brought with him from the East, but he
+forebore to make any inquiries of his own into the matter. To him the
+whole thing was an insoluble mystery; but, for all that, there was one
+consolatory feature connected with it. So long as Mr. Cortelyon could
+be kept alive, even were it with the connivance of the Foul Fiend
+himself, so long would he, James Banks, continue to draw a certain
+number of guineas for visits paid and physic supplied, although the
+one might be nothing more than a solemn farce, and the other might be
+poured down the kitchen sink.
+
+To himself he stigmatized Cornelius Dinkel as a "Son of the Devil."
+
+
+But what about the Hon. Mrs. Bullivant all this time?
+
+After that last interview with the Squire, she had waited with
+exemplary patience for the news of his demise. He was a dear old man,
+and she had been grieved at finding him so near to death's door; but
+all these things are ordained by Providence for the best, and it would
+not only be useless but wicked to rebel against them. Of course, under
+the circumstances, she would have to go into mourning--that is to say,
+into a modified kind of mourning--for a short time. Society would
+expect it of her when the dead man's munificent bequest to her was
+made public. Well, she had the consolation of knowing that she never
+looked better than she did in mourning. Dear, dear Mr. Cortelyon!
+
+Still, the expected news--one hardly likes to term it the longed-for
+news--failed to come. It was strange, it was very strange. After
+waiting a few more days with restrained impatience, she sent one of
+her servants direct to the Hall with a diplomatically worded message
+having reference to the state of Mr. Cortelyon's health. The answer he
+brought back was both surprising and disconcerting. An unexpected
+change had manifested itself; the Squire was very much better, and the
+improvement seemed likely to last.
+
+"Oh, I am so glad, so very glad!" said Mrs. Bullivant to her messenger
+when he had unburdened himself of his news. "You have relieved me of a
+great anxiety."
+
+"So the improvement seemed likely to last, did it?" she said to
+herself. But that was sheer nonsense. It had been her lot to see a
+good deal of sickness and death, and if she had ever seen a man whose
+hours were numbered, that man was Ambrose Cortelyon. The so-called
+improvement, as to the nature of which every one about him seemed to
+be laboring under a misapprehension, was but Nature's expiring effort.
+She had been a witness of such things before. For a few brief moments
+the lamp would flame up as brightly as ever it had done, and then
+would come sudden darkness.
+
+It was with an easy mind that she set out next day for London, where
+some law business connected with her late father's affairs rendered
+her presence imperatively necessary. She was gone six weeks, during
+the whole of which time she looked, morning by morning, to receive a
+letter containing an announcement of the Squire's demise. But none
+came to hand. It was both unaccountable and disappointing. It would
+have been such an advantage to her to be able to buy her mourning in
+town! She journeyed back home in anything but a pleasant frame of
+mind. It was no longer "dear, noble-hearted Mr. Cortelyon," with her;
+he was now a "nasty tiresome old man, who ought to be ashamed of
+himself to be so long a-dying."
+
+On this occasion Mrs. Bullivant had a travelling companion in the
+person of her half-brother, Captain Wilton Ferris, who was a son of
+the late Mrs. Flood by her first husband.
+
+Captain Ferris, who had sold out of the army some years before in
+consequence of a certain scandal with which his name was prominently
+mixed up, was a handsome but blasé-looking man of forty. He was
+well-known in London society as a gambler and a rake who had been
+black-balled at more than one club. In his time he had gone through
+two fortunes, his own and his wife's--he was now a widower without
+family--and for the last few years had been reduced to living by such
+wits as nature had endowed him with; but at length he had come to the
+end of his tether. He had received a quiet hint that his presence on
+the heath at Newmarket was undesirable; men looked shyly on him at the
+card-table; his reputation with the dice-box seemed to have preceded
+him wherever he went; pigeons worth the plucking were few and far
+between; and, worse than all, a bill for five hundred pounds, bearing
+his signature, would fall due in about ten weeks' time, his failure to
+take up which would involve nothing less than social ruin--such ruin
+as was still possible to him--and outlawry.
+
+His strait was a desperate one, and, as a last resource, he had come
+to his half-sister, in the hope that once more--neither for the first
+nor second time--he might find salvation at her hands.
+
+Mrs. Bullivant was a woman of tepid affections; nature had made her
+so, and she could not help herself; but, in her limited and narrow
+way, she had always cherished a fondness for her handsome, scampish
+half-brother. Her own bringing-up had been of the most strait-laced
+kind, and maybe for that very reason she liked him none the worse on
+account of his faults, which--and so far one may give him credit--he
+never strove to hide from her; in point of fact, she was the only
+person in the world to whom he ever spoke frankly. As a consequence,
+she cherished no illusions in respect of him; she knew that at his
+time of life it was useless to look for any radical change or
+improvement in him; that which he had been and was now he would remain
+till the end.
+
+He had told her all about the "damnable fix" in which he now found
+himself, and if she did not sympathize with him, that was probably
+because it was not in her nature to sympathize with any one. On the
+other hand, she did not blame him, as so many people in her place
+would have done, for the reckless folly which had at length landed him
+in such an _impasse_.
+
+But if she did not sympathize with him in words, she did something
+else which was very much more to the purpose so far as he was
+concerned. She said to him, "As soon as ever Mr. Cortelyon's legacy of
+three thousand pounds comes into my hands--and I am expecting the news
+of his death from hour to hour--I will place five hundred pounds of it
+at your disposal."
+
+That had been a fortnight ago, but the wished-for news was still
+lacking; so now Captain Ferris was journeying down to Uplands with his
+sister, glad enough to get away from London for awhile, where, so
+importunate were his creditors becoming, it was no longer safe for him
+to venture out of his lodgings by daylight. Besides, at Uplands he
+would be on the spot when the longed-for legacy, in which lay his only
+hope of salvation, should drop into his sister's lap.
+
+At this time it so happened that Mrs. Bullivant was not in a position
+to supply her brother out of her own resources with anything
+approaching the sum needed to help him out of his difficulty. She had
+just completed the purchase of a considerable slice of freehold
+property abutting on her own estate, and for the present her balance
+at her banker's might be said to be down to zero.
+
+Although the late Mr. Flood had never liked his stepson, and after his
+wife's death, which occurred within a few years of their marriage, had
+kept him at arm's-length as much as possible, he had yet felt
+compelled, for the sake of appearances, to invite him now and again on
+a short visit to Uplands, so that the Captain was no stranger to the
+place and its surroundings.
+
+No sooner was breakfast over on the morning after the arrival of
+himself and his sister than he set out on foot for a long ramble. The
+way he took led him in the direction of Stanbrook, and when he reached
+the village of that name, which, as we know, lay within a bowshot of
+the Hall, he marched into the bar parlor of the White Hart Inn and
+called for a bottle of the best sherry the house could furnish.
+
+Such an order was attended to by the landlord in person, which was
+just what Ferris had counted on.
+
+After they had chatted together for a few minutes about the weather
+and the crops, there was nothing out of the common in the Captain
+asking the worthy Boniface to join him over a glass of his own wine. A
+second glass helped to loose the latter's tongue, after which the rest
+was easy. They gossiped together for upwards of an hour before Ferris
+went his way. There was no need for him to seek further information
+elsewhere; he had learnt all he wanted to know.
+
+What he had heard impressed him greatly; nor was its effect less
+marked upon his sister, who was, however, inclined to be skeptical
+with regard to some of the details. One thing was evident to both:
+Mrs. Bullivant must go to Stanbrook on the morrow and ascertain for
+herself how matters were progressing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+"FATE POINTS THE WAY."
+
+
+"Well, how did you fare? How much longer is the old scoundrel going to
+keep Beelzebub out of his own?"
+
+These questions were addressed by Captain Ferris to his sister, who
+had just got back from Stanbrook. He had been awaiting her return with
+ill-concealed impatience. It seemed to him that she had been gone an
+unconscionable time.
+
+"My dear Wilton, I wish you wouldn't flurry one so. I will tell you
+all there is to tell if you will give me time. But first of all, mix
+me a little brandy-and-water."
+
+Having taken off her outdoor things, inducted her feet into a pair of
+roomy house-shoes, and planted herself in her favorite easy-chair Mrs.
+Bullivant was ready to begin her narrative:
+
+"In the first place, the rumors which have reached us from various
+quarters about Mr. Cortelyon's amazing recovery are not a bit
+exaggerated. I know for a fact that, at the time I saw him last, he
+had been given up by both his doctors, and was not expected to last
+the week out. If I ever saw a man with death in his face, it seemed to
+me he was that man. When I left him I bade him (mentally) a final
+farewell. So far so good. But what do I find to-day on reaching
+Stanbrook? The same man, truly, and yet another. Not the Ambrose
+Cortelyon whom I left at death's door, on whose face I saw already the
+shadow of the tomb, but Ambrose Cortelyon as I remember him a number
+of years ago. For him Time's dial has been put back a decade. Can you
+wonder if, for a few moments, I was struck dumb with astonishment?
+
+"I found him, not in his bedroom, but in his library, and how do you
+think he was engaged? Why, in drawing up, with the help of his
+secretary, a catalogue of the coins and medals which he has been
+accumulating for the last forty years? When he turned to greet me his
+voice was as firm and resonant as I ever remember it to have been.
+Then his secretary left the room and we were alone.
+
+"He held out a lean, withered hand, and his face lighted up with one
+of his peculiar smiles. (When Mr. Cortelyon smiles you never can be
+sure whether he is smiling with you, at you, or merely at some hidden
+thought of his own.) 'Welcome, Onoria!' he began. 'I have been
+expecting a visit from you for some time past, but better late than
+not at all. You are surprised--he!--he! (now don't deny it, I can read
+your face like a book) at finding me perched here and busying myself
+with my favorite trivialities, when, if only I had behaved as ordinary
+mortals are wont to do, I should have been shouldered to my last abode
+weeks ago, and you would have been a considerably richer woman than
+you are to-day. Well, well, nobody can be more surprised than I. But
+why don't you sit down? I hate to have people standing about and
+staring at me.'
+
+"What I said in reply, when he gave me a chance of speaking, is not
+worth repeating. As a matter of course, I explained how I had been
+called from home and did not get back till yesterday, but he listened
+without seeming to hear what I was talking about. Evidently he was
+busy with his own thoughts.
+
+"His next words had reference to Gavin. He wanted to know whether the
+boy was quite well. When assured on the point he nodded his head and
+seemed pleased. Then he lay back in his chair for a little while
+without speaking, twiddling between his fingers, as if he loved it, a
+large gold coin which looked as if it might have been minted a couple
+of thousand years ago.
+
+"At length he spoke: 'There is one matter, Onoria, about which I wish
+to give you my assurance. It is this: that whether I die to-morrow or
+not for five years to come, my will, as it now stands, will remain
+unchanged. When once my mind is made up, it is made up for good; I
+never go back from my decision. Consequently, you may make yourself
+easy on that point. You know already that neither yourself nor your
+son has been forgotten in the will; indeed, I will go so far as to
+tell you this, that there is perhaps such a surprise in store for you
+as you little wot of. And now let us talk of something else. I hear
+the Browhead property is likely to come into the market in the course
+of a few weeks. I wish you would drive as far some day soon, look over
+it, and let me know what you think of it.'
+
+"Nothing more passed that it would interest you to be told about, and
+before long I took my leave, but not till Mr. Cortelyon had requested
+me to visit him again on this day fortnight and take Gavin with me."
+
+Captain Ferris's face was black as night. "Then it's quite evident the
+old fox has made up his mind not to die just yet," he said. "And yet
+it might be as well that he should not live too long. His promise
+about the will may be taken for what it's worth. Invalids--and I
+suppose Mr. Cortelyon may be counted one still--are notoriously
+changeable, and any day may see your hopes dashed to the ground."
+
+Mrs. Bullivant looked at him, but his eyes did not meet hers. There
+was something behind his words, but she was not quite sure what it
+was. "Of course I fully admit, between you and me, that it would be a
+great relief if the Lord were to see fit to take the poor man to
+Himself," she said, after a pause. "But what can I do? In a case of
+this sort one is absolutely helpless." The Captain was trimming his
+nails, and did not reply.
+
+After waiting a moment or two, his sister said: "By the way, I have
+something more to tell you. As I was driving back I overtook Ann
+Thorpe, who used to be under-cook at Uplands, but left my service
+three years ago to enter that of the Squire. I know her for a
+talkative, simple-minded young woman, and the sight of her supplied me
+with an idea which I at once proceeded to put into practice. Stopping
+the carriage, I alighted, and bade Trotter drive on slowly and pick me
+up at the toll-bar. Then I joined Ann, and we walked on together. It
+was a lonely bit of road, and there was nobody to observe us. I was
+desirous of putting certain questions to her which no one but an
+inmate of the Hall could have answered to my satisfaction.
+
+"With the questions themselves I need not trouble you. What I wanted
+from Ann was a confirmation or otherwise of the all but incredible
+news you picked up yesterday with reference to the man Dinkel and his
+doings at the Hall. What you had heard might be merely one of those
+idle rumors in which ignorant folk delight, but which they are never
+at the trouble to sift; or there might be a substratum of truth in it,
+but so overlaid with fiction that it would be next to impossible to
+separate the two. Strange to say, your statement was confirmed by Ann
+Thorpe in almost every particular.
+
+"Mrs. Dinkel, the mother, has been acting as nurse to the Squire ever
+since Tatham, his body-servant, had to resign his duties on account of
+ill-health, and it was she who introduced her son at the Hall, but not
+till her patient had been given up by his doctors and was hardly
+expected to live from hour to hour.
+
+"As you were told yesterday, this young Dinkel is said to have brought
+with him a marvellous drug from the Far East, which will almost bring
+dead people back to life. In any case, it seems certain that he has
+effected several remarkable cures in the village and neighborhood, and
+from the date of his first visit to the Hall the Squire began to mend.
+It appears that he goes there every evening after dark, taking with
+him a dose of his wonderful medicine, which he will allow no one to
+administer but himself.
+
+"I have told you already how changed I found the Squire from what he
+was when I saw him last. It is a change which to me seems little less
+than miraculous, and yet, so far as can be gathered, it is wholly due
+to the man Dinkel. Dr. Banks, who has attended the Squire for years,
+keeps on sending his physic as usual, but Ann Thorpe assures me that
+the bottles are never as much as uncorked. From what I saw myself
+to-day, and from what I gathered from Ann, it seems not unlikely that
+the Squire may last for a year or two, or even longer. But life is
+made up of crosses, and, however much one may try to convince oneself
+that everything is ordered for the best, it is sometimes a little
+difficult to do so."
+
+Captain Ferris shut his penknife with a click. "And what would be the
+consequence, so far as Mr. Cortelyon is concerned, in case of anything
+happening to this fellow Dinkel?" he asked.
+
+Mrs. Bullivant lifted her eyebrows. "Really, my dear Wilton, that is a
+question which I have no means of answering."
+
+"For all that, it is one which might be worth considering."
+
+He got up, stretched himself, crossed to the window, and stood staring
+out, whistling under his breath. His sister followed him with her
+eyes. She could read between the lines of his character far more
+clearly than any one else could.
+
+"In such a case as you speak of, I should think it would be a very bad
+thing for Mr. Cortelyon," she said after a pause, in a low voice.
+
+"My own opinion exactly," he made answer, without turning round.
+
+
+
+The days followed each other till a week had gone by, and Captain
+Ferris was still at Uplands. Indeed, he knew of nowhere else to go to.
+London was too hot to hold him; the bailiffs were looking for him high
+and low. Here at any rate, he could lie by for awhile. But not for
+long. Hour by hour the day was creeping nearer when the fatal bill for
+five hundred pounds would fall due. After that not even Uplands would
+be safe for him. He must put the Channel between himself and the
+bloodhounds of the law.
+
+
+[Illustration: "The body of the 'Man-witch' had been found shot
+through the heart."]
+
+
+Little further allusion was made either by his sister or himself to
+the subject which loomed so largely in the thoughts of both. What
+more, indeed, was there to be said? Talk for talking's sake was what
+neither of them was given to indulge in. For them, just then, life
+seemed to be at a standstill. They were waiting breathlessly, so to
+speak, for the tidings which still delayed their coming. Captain
+Ferris was out and about a great deal, putting a discreet question
+here, and eliciting a morsel of information there, but all he heard
+pointed to an unchanged state of affairs at the Hall. Any fine
+afternoon Mr. Cortelyon might be seen driving about the country roads
+in the shabby old chariot which dated from his grandfather's era, and
+had in those days ranked as one of the grandest coaches in town.
+
+"He'll live to be a hundert, you see if he doan't, sir," said one man
+to whom the Captain had put a certain question.
+
+Ferris turned away with a stifled oath.
+
+It was on the afternoon of the tenth day after Mrs. Bullivant's return
+from London that some startling news reached Uplands. It was brought
+by the Tuxford carrier, who retailed it as a _bonne bouche_ to the
+maids in the kitchen, whence, before long, it penetrated to the
+drawing-room. The body of the "man-witch," Cornelius Dinkel, had been
+found early that morning, shot through the heart, in Threeways Spinny.
+So far nobody had been arrested for the crime.
+
+Mrs. Bullivant was alone in the drawing-room when her maid brought her
+the news. Gavin had lately had a pony given him, and his uncle had
+taken him out for a ride on it. A sudden vertigo took the mistress of
+Uplands almost before her maid had got halfway through her story. She
+motioned for her salts, and for a few moments lay back in her chair
+with closed eyes and white face. Then presently, with a faint, "I'm
+better; you can go," she dismissed the girl.
+
+It was not the news itself, startling though it was, which had had
+such an effect on Mrs. Bullivant. It was a horrible suspicion which,
+so to speak, had gripped her by the throat and refused to loosen its
+hold of her.
+
+Yesterday evening, as daylight was dying into dusk, her brother had
+left the house without saying either where he was going or when he
+might be looked for back. But she was used to his queer moods and
+apparently purposeless comings and goings, and found it best to
+question him as little as possible. She had hardly thought to see
+anything more of him till breakfast time next morning. Great,
+therefore, was her astonishment when, on crossing the hall a little
+after eleven o'clock on her way to her bedroom, she suddenly met him
+face to face. He had entered the house by a side door which could be
+opened from the outside without disturbing any of the servants. That
+he was both surprised and disconcerted by the meeting he showed
+plainly, his intention having apparently been to reach his room unseen
+by any one.
+
+But it was not so much the fact of coming unexpectedly on her brother
+as the appearance he presented that caused Mrs. Bullivant to start
+back with a low cry of alarm. For his face was as colorless as that of
+a corpse; his features were drawn and haggard; he looked at her with
+eyes which she did not recognize as his, so strangely changed was
+their expression; he was bareheaded, and his black hair, matted with
+sweat, was all in disorder; while his chest rose and fell pantingly
+like that of one who had outspent himself with running. Finally, both
+his boots and his clothes were bespattered with mud, for much rain had
+fallen in the course of the day.
+
+"Great heavens! Wilton, what ails you? What has happened to you?"
+cried Mrs. Bullivant.
+
+"For God's sake not so loud! Such an adventure!" he panted. "Set upon
+by two ruffians in a lonely part of the road. One of 'em I managed to
+knock over with a lefthander--then took to my heels. If I hadn't
+they'd have bludgeoned my brains out. Two to one, you know."
+
+"What a narrow escape for you! But what has become of your hat?"
+
+"I've not lost it, have I?" he gasped, while a great terror leapt into
+his eyes. "If so, I'm lost too!" A moment later his expression
+changed. "What a fool I am!" he exclaimed with a ghastly attempt at a
+smile. "I've got it all the while. It fell off while I was running and
+as the rascals were not far behind me I made a dash at it and crammed
+it into one of my pockets. It will look a pretty object to-morrow,
+_sans doute_. But now to bed, for I'm dog-tired."
+
+"Shall I send you up some hot water and----"
+
+"Curse it all, no! I want no eye but yours to see me to-night." He
+glared at her for a moment as if he was about to strike her. Then with
+a shrug and a sudden dropping of his hands, he said. "Forgive me,
+Onny, I'm not myself to-night." And with that he passed her and went
+swiftly upstairs, and presently she heard the key turned in the lock
+of his room.
+
+It was the recollection of this scene which shook her with such a
+terrible fear this afternoon. What had her brother meant by saying
+that if his hat were lost he was lost too? Supposing he had lost it
+and it had afterwards been found, what then? And why had he been so
+anxious that no eyes save hers should see him on his return? Was there
+any truth in the story of his encounter with the two men? But, above
+all, had he had any hand in last night's tragedy? That he was utterly
+unscrupulous she had long known, and she divined, without knowing,
+that in his nature there were dark unsounded depths in which the most
+ghastly secret might be hidden up forever. She was only too well aware
+by what desperate reasons her brother was urged to wish Dinkel out of
+the way. To him it might, and most likely would, mean all the
+difference between salvation and ruin.
+
+She waited his coming with a quaking heart. She was sitting in a mixed
+light, that of the dying afternoon and that thrown out by the glowing
+embers on the hearth, when he entered the room. Having shut the door,
+he stood there with the handle in his hand, without advancing. "Well,
+have you heard the news?" he asked abruptly in a high, harsh voice,
+very different from his usual smooth cultivated tones. "Dinkel's
+dead--shot through the heart last night, presumably when on his way
+back from Stanbrook. Body found early this morning by some hedgers on
+their way to work. What will happen now, I wonder? There's the rub,
+both for you and me."
+
+"I had already heard. The Tuxford carrier brought the news about an
+hour ago."
+
+"Had I known that I needn't have hurried back, as I did, on purpose to
+tell you. But no matter."
+
+"Have any traces of the--the perpetrator of the crime been discovered,
+or have they any idea where to look for him?"
+
+"'Pon my soul, I don't know. I never asked. 'Twas a point that had no
+interest for me. But now I'll go upstairs and make myself presentable,
+and join you presently over a cup of tea. We have had a famous
+scamper, the boy and I. But he will be with you in a minute or two."
+
+After tea they played ecarté for a couple of hours, and never had Mrs.
+Bullivant seen her brother more cheerful and at his ease. She went to
+bed not knowing what to think.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+THE SHEARS OF ATROPOS.
+
+The news of the tragedy in Threeways Spinny reached Stanbrook about
+nine o'clock in the morning. The body of the murdered man had already
+been taken home, and it was Mrs. Dinkel's next-door neighbor who was
+deputed to convey the sad tidings to her.
+
+She was on the point of taking the Squire's breakfast upstairs when
+the man arrived at the Hall, and asked to see her.
+
+Ten minutes later Mrs. Dinkel entered her patient's room. Like the
+thoughtful creature she was, even in the midst of her distress she had
+not forgotten the breakfast tray. Having placed it on the table by the
+bedside, she turned to the Squire, and, in a voice which not all her
+efforts could render firm, said:
+
+"Sir, a great misfortune has befallen me--the most terrible that could
+have happened. My son has been murdered! The tidings have just reached
+me. His body was found early this morning in Threeways Spinny. He had
+been shot through the heart--he who had not an enemy in the world!
+Sir, I must leave here at once. I am wanted at home, as you can well
+conceive; but if----"
+
+"Dead! your son dead!" shrieked the Squire, almost as shrilly as a
+woman might have done. Then for a few seconds he remained speechless.
+His heart stopped beating, and a black veil dropped before his eyes.
+But the very force of the shock brought its own reaction. He flung up
+his arms, and then let them drop helplessly on the bed. "In that case,
+what is to become of me?" he moaned.
+
+"The Lord in heaven only knows, sir, for I'm sure I don't," answered
+Mrs. Dinkel. It was all she could do to crush down her emotion.
+
+The Squire sank back on his pillow with a groan. The bereaved mother
+stood looking at him, anxious to go, and yet, so strong was the
+professional instinct in her, not liking to leave him.
+
+Of a sudden he beckoned her to go closer to him, and when she had done
+so he clutched her by the sleeve of her gown. In three short minutes
+his face seemed to have aged a dozen years. His lips had turned of a
+grayish purple, and a thin froth had gathered at their corners. His
+eyes were the eyes of a terror-hunted soul brought to bay, and yet
+ready to turn and curse with its latest breath the inexorable fate
+which had driven it there.
+
+"Don't think I do not pity you, because that would be a mistake on
+your part," he said. "I pity you and sympathize with you most
+sincerely. But--but your son must have left a lot of the drug--you
+know what I mean--behind him. Don't you think so, hey? And--and as
+soon as ever you can spare time--in the course of the day, you
+know--you will have a thorough search made, and ascertain the
+quantity, and let me know at the earliest possible moment, won't you?
+Yes, yes; he must have left quite a considerable quantity ready
+prepared. I feel sure of it; so don't forget to send me word as soon
+as you can."
+
+There was a terrible eagerness in the way he spoke, and he would not
+loose his hold of her till she had promised him, that he should hear
+from her in the course of the forenoon.
+
+When she was gone her place was taken by Miss Baynard.
+
+That morning the Squire's breakfast was sent away untasted, and he
+made no effort to get up. Anxiety held him as with a vise--an anxiety
+shot through and through with forebodings the most dire. He lay
+without speaking, watching with feverish eyes the slow-moving fingers
+of the clock on the chimney-piece, each of whose solemn ticks seemed
+to him to mark a stitch in the tapestry of Doom. It was a few minutes
+past two when a servant brought upstairs a small sealed packet,
+together with a letter, both of them addressed to "Ambrose Cortelyon,
+Esq.," and both of them just brought by a special messenger. The sick
+man had no need to ask who was the sender.
+
+"Open the letter and read it aloud, Nell," he said, as soon as the
+servant had left the room. It was not merely that he had lost the
+control of his fingers--he shook from head to foot like one in an ague
+fit.
+
+Nell did as she was bidden.
+
+
+"Honored Sir" (she read), "In accordance with your wish and my own
+promise, I have made diligent and careful search in every corner,
+cupboard, and drawer of the room in which my poor son mixed his
+physics and attended to his doctoring business, with the result (and
+it grieves me much to have to tell it you) that I have not succeeded
+in finding more than two phials of the stuff ready mixed for taking,
+the which, under cover, I herewith send you.
+
+"It would appear to have been my son's custom not to prepare any large
+quantity of the drug beforehand, perhaps--but on this point I speak
+without certainty--because he found that some portion of its virtue
+was lost with keeping.
+
+   "I remain, honored sir,
+
+             "Your obedient, humble servant,
+
+                              "Martha Dinkel.
+
+"P.S.--Since writing the above I have made another thorough search,
+high and low, in every nook and corner of the premises, but it has
+proved a sheer waste of time.
+
+"Mr. Cortelyon, sir, in the midst of my own distress, permit me
+respectfully to observe that my heart bleeds for you."
+
+
+When Nell had read to the last word, the Squire made no comment aloud,
+only to himself he murmured: "_Mors ultima linea rerum est_." He had
+not opened his Horace for years, but the line came back to him quite
+freshly to-day. He knew that he was a doomed man, and that no earthly
+power could save him. Well, according to all human calculations he
+ought to have been dead and buried a number of weeks ago, but another
+brief spell of life had been granted him, and if, through a tragic
+misfortune which no one could have foreseen, it had come prematurely
+to a close, why, there was no help for it. All that was now left him
+to do was to wrap his toga about him and await the end with silent
+stoicism.
+
+Although he took the two remaining doses of the drug in due course, he
+made no attempt to rise from his bed after hearing of Dinkel's death.
+From that hour life, with its manifold interests, became to him as a
+dead letter. He had done with it, and it had done with him. They were
+quits.
+
+So, day after day and night after night, he lay in the big four
+poster, silent for the most part, and often without opening his eyes
+for hours together; feeling his strength ebbing imperceptibly away,
+and, between his fitful snatches of sleep, thinking, ever thinking,
+for his mind remained as vigorous and lucid as ever it had been. What
+strange and awesome thoughts must oftentimes have been his as he lay
+there in grim resolute silence, waiting for his "order of release"!
+
+His niece and Andry Luce took it in turns to watch by him. It was an
+easy task, there was so little that he wanted or that could be done
+for him. Miss Baynard had taken it on herself to send for Drs Banks
+and Mills, who responded to the summons in all haste.
+
+The Squire opened his eyes and favored them with one of his sardonic
+smiles as they entered the room.
+
+"Eh-eh! come to see the last of your handiwork?" he said, and already
+his voice had sunk to a half-whisper. "Very kind and attentive of you,
+I'm sure. And besides, my case is such an interesting and uncommon
+one. It will be something for you to wrangle over as long as you live,
+and at the end you will know no more about it than you do now. Yes,
+yes, very kind and attentive of you; but as for your physic, I'll have
+no more on't--that's flat. Throw it to the dogs, as Shakespeare says.
+And now, 'I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.'"
+
+Of course they could do nothing, and to Miss Baynard they were candid
+enough to admit as much. It was a sad state of things.
+
+And so the muffled hours stole after each other one by one till a week
+had gone by, by which time it became evident that the end was not far
+off.
+
+No arrest had yet been made in connection with the murder of Cornelius
+Dinkel, and it may here be added that none ever was made. The murderer
+had left no traces behind him, and, search as diligently as they
+might, not a tittle of evidence was forthcoming to back up any of the
+theories propounded by the authorities in relation to the crime.
+
+On a certain afternoon, somewhat to Miss Baynard's surprise, Mrs.
+Bullivant made her appearance at the Hall. It was a step which she had
+not taken till after mature consideration. The first few days after
+Dinkel's death had been passed by her in a fever of apprehension.
+Precisely what it was that she feared she did not whisper even to
+herself, but she could not bear a ring or a knock at the door without
+experiencing a spasm of silent terror. Yet all this time her brother
+remained as darkly quiet, as listless, and apparently as indifferent
+to everything, save his own little comforts, as she ever remembered
+him to have been. Wet or fine, he went out every day for a long walk,
+and it was he who brought back the rumors he lighted on in his rambles
+anent the Squire of Stanbrook.
+
+One day he brought back something which was more than a rumor. It was
+something he had been told at second-hand as having emanated from no
+less an authority than Dr. Banks. Mr. Cortelyon was at death's door,
+and this time there was no possible chance of his recovery! Then it
+was that Mrs. Bullivant debated with her brother whether she ought not
+to pay one more visit to Stanbrook while the Squire was able to
+recognize her. Captain Ferris was strongly of opinion that she ought
+on no account to omit doing so. There was no knowing what influences
+might be at work. What more easy than to persuade a dying man to
+execute a codicil to his will, or even to have a fresh will drawn up,
+cancelling wholly or in part the provisions of the one already in
+existence? Most certainly she ought to see for herself how the land
+lay, not merely in her own interest, but in that of her son, and, if
+necessary, remain on the spot till all was over.
+
+Little persuasion was needed to induce Mrs. Bullivant to fall in with
+her brother's views. By this time her vague, unspoken apprehensions
+had in a great measure subsided. Dinkel had been dead more than a
+week, and nothing had happened. Nothing would happen now, she told
+herself. She would go to Stanbrook.
+
+More than once--indeed quite a number of times--when talking over her
+last interview with Mr. Cortelyon, her brother had made her repeat one
+sentence in particular which the Squire had addressed to her in
+allusion to the contents of his will: "There is perhaps such a
+surprise in store for you as you little wot of." To both her and the
+Captain it was a sentence which seemed pregnant with golden
+possibilities; and it is hardly to be wondered at that, on her way to
+Stanbrook, her imagination built up more than one gorgeous aerial
+fabric, although, as a rule, she kept that arrant jerry-builder in the
+most complete subjection.
+
+On hearing that Mrs. Bullivant had arrived, Miss Baynard went
+downstairs to receive her. When they met the former made as if she
+would have kissed Nell, but the girl drew back a little haughtily. She
+was not in the habit of being kissed, even by those of her own sex,
+and in her visitor's case it would have seemed to her a veritable
+_baiser de Judas_. But she could not, with any show of courtesy,
+refuse her hand.
+
+"How is he, dear Miss Baynard?" were Mrs. Bullivant's first words. She
+spoke in hushed tones, although as yet she had got no farther than the
+entrance-hall.
+
+"He is sinking fast, and is almost speechless."
+
+"You shock me more than I can say." And, to do her justice, for the
+moment she looked shocked. To herself she said, "If he is speechless,
+or nearly so, it is too late for him to think of altering his will,
+and, if he has done so already, I have come too late to help it."
+Aloud she went on: "I had not the faintest idea that his illness had
+assumed the gravity you tell me it has--news percolates to us so
+slowly at Uplands--otherwise I should have been here before now. But
+now that I am here, dear Miss Baynard, you must let me stay with you
+till the end. Mr. Cortelyon, as you are probably aware, regarded me
+with a very special affection. Had circumstances turned out
+differently, I should have been his daughter-in-law. But my life has
+been one long disappointment."
+
+Knowing what she did of the purport of her uncle's will, Nell felt
+that, little as she liked the woman, she was not in a position to
+object to her presence in the house. In a very little while Mrs.
+Bullivant would be mistress of Stanbrook and of everything in it,
+while she, Nell, would be little better than an outcast. But however
+bitter and humiliating it might be to know this, she had other things
+to think of just now.
+
+When Mrs. Bullivant and Nell entered the sick room together some
+minutes later, Mrs. Budd, who had been keeping watch in the interim,
+rose, curtsied to the newcomer, and went.
+
+Mr. Cortelyon lay with closed eyes and with both arms extended on the
+coverlet; one shut hand held the coveted stater of Epaticcus, the
+other grasped his silver snuff-box. An involuntary exclamation escaped
+Mrs. Bullivant as her eyes fell on his face. Once before she had
+believed him to be at the point of death, and only by what might
+almost be termed a miracle had his life been prolonged. This time no
+miracle would intervene. His hours, nay, his very minutes, were
+numbered; Death's awful shadow was already closing round him; would he
+live through the night?
+
+About half an hour later he opened his eyes, turned his head slightly
+and stared about him. Mrs. Bullivant rose, crossed on tiptoe to the
+bed and bent over him. "Dear Mr. Cortelyon, don't you know me?" she
+murmured. "Yes, I am sure you do."
+
+For a second or two he peered up into her face with contracted lids,
+as if not quite sure about her identity. Then, with an inarticulate
+noise, which seemed more indicative of anger and repulsion than of
+anything else, he raised both his hands and pushed her rather roughly
+away. Mrs. Bullivant went back to her chair with a somewhat heightened
+color in her cheeks. "Poor dear!" she said in an undertone; "it is
+quite evident that he no longer knows what he is about."
+
+And so daylight slid slowly into dark, and the two women still kept
+watch on either side of the bed. Dr. Banks, with a cheerful fire and a
+magnum of port to keep him company, sat below in the library--merely
+for form's sake, and because it would be an injustice to his wife, and
+family not to make his bill as long a one as possible while the chance
+was his of doing so.
+
+For some hours the dying man's skin had been gradually changing color,
+till now it had become of one uniform leaden blue tint. Dr. Banks, who
+stepped upstairs for a couple of minutes every half-hour or so, said
+to himself that it must be one of the effects of "that damned drug."
+
+Midnight was drawing on. For upwards of an hour Mr. Cortelyon had been
+lying to all appearance in a comatose state, when of a sudden he
+opened his eyes and raised himself in bed without help--a thing he had
+not done for days past. "The will! the will!--get it and destroy it
+before it's too late!" he cried in harsh, insistent tones, punctuated
+by gasps. "I've done wrong--wrong. I know it now--I feel it. To my
+grandson all--all! To that woman"--pointing to the shocked Mrs.
+Bullivant--"nothing. Send at once--not a minute's delay. Piljoy has
+it. Or else it will be too late--too late!"
+
+Alas! it was already too late. He sank back, gasping for breath, with
+eyes that were already beginning to glaze. Five minutes later all was
+over.
+
+Mrs. Bullivant dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. "Poor dear! I am
+so thankful he did not suffer much," she said. "That he should wander
+a little in his mind at the last is not to be wondered at. Nearly all
+aged people do that when they are dying."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+AN ASTOUNDING DISCOVERY.
+
+
+It was five days later.
+
+The funeral was over. Everything had been done decently and in order,
+and in the great drawing-room at Stanbrook, the shutters of which of
+late years had been rarely opened, a small company were assembled, by
+invitation of Mr. Piljoy, to hear the reading of the dead man's will.
+
+Miss Baynard and Mrs. Budd sat together on one of the couches; a
+little way removed, in stately isolation, sat Mrs. Bullivant; while
+Mrs. Dace, the housekeeper, remained modestly in the background, with
+Andry Luce and two or three other old servants to keep her company.
+
+The gentlemen comprised Mr. Herries, the vicar; Mr. Delafosse, Sir
+James Dalrymple, of Langrig, and Squire Staniforth, of Claypool; the
+two latter of whom, at Mr. Cortelyon's request, had agreed to act as
+trustees under his will. They were clear-headed, thoroughly practical
+men, with plenty of leisure on their hands, and, as such, had
+recommended themselves to the late Squire, who was their senior by
+more than a score years, and had known their fathers before them.
+
+Mr. Piljoy sat by himself at the big oval table in the centre of the
+room. The will, as yet unopened, lay there in front of him.
+
+When everybody had settled into their places and the door was finally
+shut, Mr. Piljoy cleared his voice, and, leaning forward a little with
+his clasped hands resting on the table, said, addressing the company
+at large: "Before breaking the seal of the document which I am here
+for the purpose of reading to you, I may just remark for the
+information of everybody, and in order to satisfy any curiosity which
+might otherwise be felt on the point, that this is not the first
+testament drawn up by me for the late Mr. Cortelyon. There was a much
+earlier will, the provisions of which, I need scarcely tell you, were
+of a widely different nature from those of the present one; but that
+will was destroyed at the time of the unhappy quarrel between father
+and son, of which, I daresay, most of those here have some cognizance.
+For the next few years no will of any kind was in existence, nor could
+Mr. Cortelyon be persuaded into making another till he found himself
+overtaken by illness of a very serious kind. I will now, with your
+permission, proceed to open and read the will."
+
+Sir James tapped his snuff-box, opened it, offered it to his
+co-trustee, and then indulged himself with a large pinch. The servants
+in the background laid their heads together and whispered among
+themselves. Mrs. Bullivant tried to look as if the reading was a
+matter which in no way concerned her, and almost succeeded. Miss
+Baynard and Andry Luce alone knew what was coming. To the former the
+whole proceeding was fraught with heartfelt torture, from which she
+would fain have escaped had there been any way open for her to do so.
+
+The will itself was enclosed in a sheet of parchment secured with two
+large black seals. These latter Mr. Piljoy did not break, but cut
+round them with his penknife and got at the contents that way. Pushing
+the envelope aside, he proceeded to unfold and straighten out the
+will; then, having settled his spectacles more firmly astride his
+nose, he gave a preliminary cough and turned over the first page.
+
+Apparently, however, he had forgotten to how many pages the document
+extended, and in order to satisfy himself on the point, before
+beginning to read he turned the leaves over one by one--there were
+only five or six in all--till he came to the last one, on reaching
+which his eye instinctively travelled to the foot of it.
+
+Next instant he gave a start and sprang to his feet, his eyes still
+glued to the bottom of the will. He looked dazed--thunderstruck--and
+well he might.
+
+"What is the meaning of this?" he cried. "What devilry has been at
+work? The will is unsigned!"
+
+And so, indeed, it proved to be. There was the space for the three
+signatures, those of the testator and the two witnesses, but the
+signatures themselves were wanting.
+
+Over the scene that ensued we need not linger. The servants were told
+that they were no longer wanted, and went back to their duties
+terribly crestfallen. The legacies on which they had so surely counted
+seemed to have dissolved on a sudden into thin air.
+
+For the first few minutes after the fatal announcement Mrs. Bullivant
+sat like an image of stony despair. So stunned was she that, for the
+time being, she seemed deprived of the power of coherent thought. She
+was roused, in part at least, by some words addressed by Sir James
+Dalrymple to Mr. Piljoy.
+
+"Of course the will as it stands is wholly inoperative, still, Mr.
+Staniforth and I are a little curious with regard to its contents, so
+perhaps you won't mind devoting a minute or two to our enlightenment.
+There is no need for you to read out the different clauses; all we
+want is to be made acquainted with the main features of the document."
+
+"Five minutes will suffice for that purpose," replied the lawyer. "To
+begin with, there are some half-dozen bequests, varying in amount, to
+as many old servants and dependents, with the details of which I need
+not trouble you. To the testator's old friend, Mr. Delafosse"--bowing
+to that gentleman--"are bequeathed sundry coins, medals, and other
+curios, a list of which will be found among the private papers of the
+deceased. Then I must not omit to mention that to each of you
+gentlemen, for your trouble in acting as trustees, is left the sum of
+one hundred and fifty guineas; and to Mr. Herries a similar sum for
+distribution among the deserving poor of the parish. With regard to
+his niece, Miss Baynard"--here he favored Nell with a bow--"the
+testator's instructions are that a sum of money be invested in her
+name in the public funds sufficient to bring her in an annual income
+of three hundred pounds, the which she shall enjoy for life, the
+principal at her demise to be divided among certain specified
+charitable institutions. To the Hon. Mrs. Bullivant"--a bow for that
+lady--"is left the sum of three thousand pounds in hard cash. Every
+thing else of which the testator may die possessed--including the
+Stanbrook and Barrowmead properties, another large estate on the
+borders of Yorkshire, and certain other smaller estates--is willed in
+trust to Gavin Bullivant, the son of the Hon. Mrs. Bullivant, on
+condition that on coming of age he adds to his present cognomen that
+of 'Cortelyon.' Finally, I may mention that as regards the Stanbrook
+property Mrs. Bullivant is bequeathed a life-interest in the same."
+
+He ceased, and Sir James and his friend stared at each other in sheer
+amazement, but in Mrs. Bullivant's presence they could not well give
+expression to what they thought. Mr. Staniforth was the first to break
+the silence.
+
+"Both Sir James and I were under the impression that the late Mr.
+Cortelyon had a grandson. His only son died some few years ago, did he
+not, leaving behind him a widow and one child?"
+
+"He did."
+
+"And yet in your summary of the contents of the will you made no
+mention of either of their names."
+
+"The widow died some time ago. There was no mention of the boy's name
+on my part for the very good reason that it is not included in the
+will. Mr. Cortelyon never forgave his son's marriage, and refused in
+any way to acknowledge his grandchild."
+
+Again the two men looked at each other, and again they refrained from
+giving expression to the thoughts at work within them.
+
+Then said Sir James: "An unsigned will is so much waste paper. In case
+no other will, duly executed, should turn up, what will happen?"
+
+"Only one thing can happen. The case will resolve itself into one of
+intestacy, and everything--lock, stock, and barrel--will go to the
+heir-at-law, that is to say, to the grandson of whom mention has just
+been made."
+
+The two gentlemen nodded. That was their own view exactly.
+
+Miss Baynard had sat all this time without speaking or stirring. When
+Mr. Piljoy made the startling announcement that the will was without
+signature, she flashed a look at Andry Luce which seemed to ask in
+bewilderment, "What is the meaning of this?" But Andry, nursing his
+chin in the palm of one hand, was apparently staring straight before
+him, and did not, or would not, meet her eyes. When, however, Mrs.
+Dace and the others proceeded to leave the room, Andry, who was about
+to follow them, glanced at Nell, and, in obedience to a signal from
+her, resumed his seat.
+
+Nell as was dumfounded as Mrs. Bullivant by the turn events had taken.
+She had not clearly comprehended what the result would be of the will
+being unsigned till she heard Mr. Piljoy's declaration that, in the
+event of no other will being found, everything would go to Evan as his
+grandfather's heir-at-law. Then a great gladness took possession of
+her, and her heart swelled with thankfulness.
+
+But of a sudden, a shiver of apprehension ran through her. Mr.
+Staniforth was speaking:
+
+"Have you any reason whatever, Mr. Piljoy, for supposing that any
+other will than this unsigned one is in existence?"
+
+Not Miss Baynard only, but Mrs. Bullivant as well, awaited the
+lawyer's answer with strained breathlessness.
+
+Mr. Piljoy shrugged his shoulders. "That, sir, is a question which
+just now I am hardly prepared to answer, and for this reason, that no
+one can be more mystified and puzzled by the turn affairs have taken
+this afternoon than I am. One supposition, and one only, suggests
+itself to me as tending in the slightest degree to elucidate the
+mystery. What that supposition is I will, with your permission, now
+proceed to explain."
+
+He lay back in the big library chair, cleared his voice, and toyed
+with his spectacles for a few seconds before proceeding.
+
+"In accordance with Mr. Cortelyon's instructions, his will was drawn
+up by me in duplicate. This was done as a provision of safety; in the
+event of any hitch or blunder occurring in the signing or witnessing
+of one document, the other would be available. Gout having laid me by
+the heels, I gave the duplicate wills into the charge of Mr. Tew, my
+managing clerk, who was just as competent to see to the signing and
+witnessing as I was. Here before me is the will which he next day
+brought back and handed to me for safe custody in the belief that it
+had been duly signed and witnessed; and here is the envelope that held
+it, sealed in two places with Mr. Cortelyon's own seal, and with the
+words, 'Ambrose Cortelyon--His Will' written across the face of it
+with his own pen. Now, on consideration, it seems to me just possible
+that, through some mischance, the unsigned will got substituted for
+the signed one in the envelope. If my supposition has any basis of
+fact, the question that naturally follows is, What became of the
+duplicate will? Is there any one present, who is in a position to
+throw any light on the point involved?"
+
+Whether consciously or unconsciously, as he asked the question his
+eyes fixed themselves on Miss Baynard. The eyes of every one there
+followed those of Mr. Piljoy.
+
+Nell stood up, her cheeks warmed with the fine glow of color. "My
+uncle's secretary, Andry Luce, who is now present, was, I believe, in
+the room when the will was signed."
+
+"Then he will doubtless be willing to answer to the best of his
+ability any questions we may think well to put to him?"
+
+Turning to Andry, Nell said, "You are quite willing to answer any
+questions Mr. Piljoy or these other gentlemen may ask you, are you
+not?"
+
+The reply was two vigorous nods in the affirmative.
+
+Turning to Sir James and his friend, Nell said, "Unfortunately, Andry
+is dumb, and has been so from his youth, so that I shall have to
+translate his answers for you."
+
+"Come a bit more to the front, Andry, there's a good fellow," said Mr.
+Piljoy, who knew him of old. Then he seemed to consider for a few
+seconds while Andry changed his seat.
+
+"You were in the room when the will was signed?" was the lawyer's
+first question.
+
+With a look at Nell, his quick-moving fingers spelled out the answer,
+"I was," which was repeated aloud by her; and the same process had to
+be gone through in the case of all his answers.
+
+"What persons were in the room at the time besides yourself and the
+testator?"
+
+"Mr. Tew, and the two witnesses--Peter Grice, the groom, and Mike
+Denny, the under-gardener."
+
+"Were you aware that Mr. Tew had brought two wills with him?"
+
+"I was, I saw both of them."
+
+"On entering the room what did he do with them?"
+
+"He gave them both to the Squire."
+
+"And what happened next?"
+
+"The Squire thrust one of them under his pillow, and gave the other
+back to Mr. Tew for him to read it aloud."
+
+"And what happened when the reading had come to an end?"
+
+"The bell rang for me--I had been ordered out of the room while the
+reading took place--and, on entering, Mr. Tew told me that the Squire
+was ready for the witnesses, whom I had been careful to have close at
+hand, so that there should be no delay."
+
+"Proceed."
+
+"The witnesses were brought into the room and placed where they could
+see all that went forward. Pen and ink were in readiness. I raised the
+Squire in bed--he was too weak to sit up without help--and supported
+him with an arm round his waist. Mr. Tew placed the will in front of
+him, gave him the pen, pointed out the place for him, and with that
+Mr. Cortelyon slowly and carefully signed his name. Then Mr. Tew took
+the will to the table and caused Grice and Denny to sign it one after
+the other. When that was done the two men were dismissed."
+
+"Yes, and after that?"
+
+"Following the men into the corridor, by the Squire's orders I made
+each of them a present of a crown piece. That done, I at once went
+back to the room. Mr. Tew was standing by the table with the folded
+will in his hand. 'Seal it up,' said my master to me. Mr. Tew having
+handed to it to me, I at once proceeded to enclose it in the sheet of
+parchment, out of which it was taken by Mr. Piljoy a little while
+since, sealing the packet in two places with my master's own seal.
+Then I held him up again, and with a trembling hand he wrote on the
+envelope, 'Ambrose Cortelyon--His Will.' That done, the packet was
+given into the custody of Mr. Tew, and the business was at an end."
+
+"Not quite, Andry, not quite--at least as far as we are concerned. You
+are forgetting the duplicate will. What became of that?"
+
+"Mr. Tew had not been five minutes gone before my master drew the
+other will from under his pillow, and, giving it to me, said, 'Burn it
+now--at once.' There was a fire in the room, and, taking the will, I
+thrust it between the bars. Mr. Cortelyon never took his eyes off the
+grate till it was burnt to ashes."
+
+"You have no reason whatever for supposing that the unsigned will was
+substituted for the signed one during the time you were out of the
+room?"
+
+"No, sir--how should I? Mr. Tew never left the room, and when I went
+back it was from his hands I received the will in order to seal it
+up."
+
+Apparently Mr. Piljoy had no more questions to put. After a
+glance round at the perplexed faces of his audience, he said:
+"Notwithstanding the very clear and straightforward statement with
+which Andry Luce has just favored us, the mystery of the unsigned will
+remains exactly where it was before. We seem no nearer a solution of
+it than we were at first, and I confess myself wholly at a loss to
+advise as to what step, if any, it behoves us to take next. Never in
+the whole of my experience have I been confronted with a state of
+affairs so puzzling and inexplicable."
+
+"Never heard tell of owt like it, dang me if I have!" exclaimed Sir
+James, who had a habit of lapsing into the vernacular now and again.
+
+"Licks cock-fighting all to bits, that it does," muttered Mr.
+Staniforth.
+
+The Vicar and Mr. Delafosse spoke together in low tones.
+
+So far Mrs. Bullivant had maintained an unbroken silence. Though more
+than once greatly tempted to do so, she had put a strong restraint
+upon herself, and had sat there with compressed lips listening to all
+that was said, passing through the whole gamut of feeling from hope to
+despair, and finally struck to the earth, almost, as it seemed, beyond
+recovery, by Mr. Piljoy's last words. There had been revealed to her a
+golden vision far exceeding her utmost dreams, but between her and it
+some malignant fiend had dug a shadowy gulf which he defied her to
+overpass. She had been vouchsafed a glimpse of Paradise, only to have
+the gates of pearl slammed in her face. It was maddening. Her very
+soul was aflame with impotent rage. She was tortured almost beyond
+endurance by the knowledge of all she had lost; of all that had
+slipped through her fingers, as at the bidding of a necromancer,
+before she had a chance of grasping it; of all that ought to have been
+hers, but was not!
+
+She could no longer keep silent. "It is very evident to me," she
+began, addressing herself directly to the lawyer, "that my helpless
+boy and I have been made the victims of a vile conspiracy. Whether
+you, sir, are in the secret of it or no I cannot say, but I give you
+warning that I shall lose no time in placing the affair in the hands
+of my solicitors, and that even if it cost me every shilling I have in
+the world, this foul attempt to defraud me and mine shall be unmasked,
+and the concocters of it brought to the bar of justice."
+
+She spoke with studied quietude and without any trace of passion, but
+her hearers felt that in those smooth accents there was a hidden venom
+far more dangerous than any mere outburst of feminine anger would have
+been.
+
+"A vile conspiracy!" burst forth the irate lawyer. "I would have you
+know, madame, that----"
+
+She stopped him with an imperious gesture. "I have said all I wish to
+say, and no empty protestations on your part will avail anything.
+Roguery has been at work and must be unmasked. It is enough that you
+know my intentions."
+
+She had risen while speaking, and now, after the slightest possible
+bow to Sir James and the others, she moved with her proudest and most
+dignified air towards the door, which Andry hastened to open for her,
+and so went her way, to the great relief of everybody there.
+
+"Well, that caps everything!" ejaculated Mr. Staniforth. "A sweet
+temper to live with, eh, Jimmy?"
+
+"Ay, but think of all the woman has lost, and by a turn of fortune's
+wheel the like of which I never heard tell of. No wonder she's put
+about; in her place who wouldn't be? Not but what, mind you, I
+consider the will a most unjust one, and I can't say I'm anything but
+glad that things have turned out as they have."
+
+Mr. Delafosse had sat through the proceedings as mum as a mouse. He
+had all a collector's selfishness, and although he told himself how
+glad he was that, despite his late friend's unjust will, the rightful
+heir would succeed to the property, he could not help being very
+sorrowful on his own account. Under the changed circumstances of the
+case not a coin, not a medal, not a curio of any kind would come to
+him; and there were so many things in his friend's collection which
+his soul coveted! It was very, very sad, but there was no help for it.
+
+When the others were gone Mr. Piljoy and Nell had a little
+confidential talk together.
+
+"Never in the whole of my professional experience have I been so
+perplexed and mystified as by the events of this afternoon," said the
+lawyer. "I can't make head or tail of 'em, and that's a fact. Of
+course, when I get back I shall question Tew very closely about all
+that took place at the signing of the will, but I must say that I have
+very little hope of his being able to throw any fresh light on the
+affair. It's just as if we had all been made the victims of a
+conjurer's trick. Not but what, Miss Nell, I'm more than pleased at
+the way things have turned out, and I don't mind confessing to you
+that I was strongly opposed to the will as it stands, and went as far
+as I dared in the endeavor to persuade your uncle not to disinherit
+his grandson _in toto_. But you know the kind of man he was, how
+obstinate, and how utterly opposed to any suggestions from others
+which ran counter to his own views; indeed, he would hardly listen to
+me, and ended by telling me with an oath to mind my own business. On
+one point only do I feel sorry. If no other will turns up, of which I
+fail to see any likelihood, you, my dear Miss Nell, will be left out
+in the cold, for in that case, as I have remarked already, the son of
+Richard Cortelyon becomes the sole heir and legatee."
+
+"And do you think for one moment, Mr. Piljoy, that I am anything but
+rejoiced that such should be the case?" demanded Nell, with sparkling
+eyes. "If you do, you misjudge me strangely. Oh! it was a most unjust
+and unnatural will, and my uncle himself acknowledged it to be so,
+but not till too late. With his last breath he implored me to send for
+the will and destroy it. His last conscious words were, 'To my
+grandson--all; to that woman'--meaning Mrs. Bullivant, who was there
+by the bedside--'nothing.' Had he but lived a few hours longer, the
+will would have been destroyed in accordance with his wishes."
+
+"I am very glad you have told me this, Miss Nell, very glad indeed. If
+one were superstitiously inclined, one would not find it hard to
+believe that it was the Squire's own hand which, by some means unknown
+to us, erased his signature from a document the existence of which, in
+the clear light which sometimes comes to people at the point of death,
+he saw reason to regret."
+
+"Should I live to be a hundred, I shall look back to this day as one
+of the red-letter days of my existence," said Nell with fervor. "No
+words could express to you how glad I am. But tell me, Mr. Piljoy,
+what is the next thing to be done?"
+
+"My advice is that just at present we do nothing. Should it really
+prove to be Mrs. Bullivant's intention to contest the heir's
+claim--for one never can foretell what a desperate woman may or may
+not choose to do--I shall doubtless hear from her solicitors before
+long. Meanwhile, our best plan will be to rest quietly on our oars."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+THE MISSING HEIR.
+
+
+Not till a fortnight had gone by did Nell hear from Mr. Piljoy. Then
+he wrote as follows:--
+
+"Dear Miss Baynard,--Before parting from you last I told you that on
+getting back home I would lose no time in minutely questioning my
+clerk Tew with regard to all that passed between Mr. Cortelyon and
+himself at the signing of the will. As you may remember, the chief
+point that wanted clearing up was whether there was any possibility of
+the unsigned will having been substituted for the signed one during
+the two or three minutes Andry Luce was absent from the room. Tew is
+positive no such substitution took place. His words are: 'The signed
+will was never out of my keeping from the moment the witnesses left
+the room till Andry Luce's return, when, by Mr. Cortelyon's direction,
+I gave the will to him to be enclosed and sealed up.' So we remain
+just as wise as we were before.
+
+"I believe I told you that, for a little while to come, I thought it
+would be advisable to remain quiescent in the affair while awaiting
+the first move on the part of Mrs. Bullivant's solicitors, provided
+they thought it advisable to move at all. Well, a couple of days ago I
+was waited upon by Mr. Cotwell, the junior partner in a firm of
+Lanchester lawyers. He met me in a by no means hostile spirit, the
+main object of his visit being to obtain my permission to put to Tew
+the very question I had put to him already. Of course Tew could only
+give Mr. Cotwell the same answer that he had given me, and, so far as
+Mrs. Bullivant was concerned, there was no satisfaction to be got out
+of that.
+
+"Cotwell and I had a long confabulation before he left. From certain
+hints he let fall, I judge that Mrs. B. has not scrupled to give
+expression to her belief that she was designedly tricked by Mr.
+C.--that of set purpose he caused the signed will to be burnt and left
+the unsigned one in existence; all which is an absolute contradiction
+of what Tew is prepared to swear to. But what strange beliefs will not
+a disappointed woman cherish, more especially when she sees cause for
+imagining that she has been hoodwinked into the bargain!
+
+"After all, it seems to be very doubtful whether Mrs. B. will go to
+law. In my opinion it would be sheer madness on her part to do so, and
+I have very little doubt that, privately, Cotwell thinks the same,
+only, of course, he is bound to bark at the bidding of his client; but
+when it comes to biting--we shall see.
+
+"At any rate, I shall wait no longer, but at once proceed to take the
+necessary steps for legalizing the rights of the youthful heir, as if
+no such person as Mrs. B. were in existence.
+
+"Will you be good enough to inform me at your convenience under whose
+care the child is now living, and where he may be found, provided, of
+course, that his present address is known to you?"
+
+
+Nell's reply was sent by the next post. It was on a Friday morning
+that Mr. Piljoy's letter came to hand, and had she not been suffering
+from a cold which had reduced her voice to a mere whisper, she would
+have set out for London within a few hours of her receipt of it. But,
+although she was hungering to see the child, a delay of a few days
+would not matter greatly, and doubtless she would be well enough to
+travel (it was a matter of between two hundred and fifty and three
+hundred miles, and all by coach) by the following Tuesday or Wednesday
+at the latest.
+
+Tuesday morning came, and found Nell's few preparations made. Her
+impatience would brook no further delay. Places for herself and her
+maid had been secured in the London coach, which passed through
+Tuxford shortly after midday. But a surprise was in store for her.
+
+
+[Illustration: "Evan has been missing since yesterday."]
+
+
+The postman's time for arriving at Stanbrook was ten o'clock or
+thereabouts. This morning he brought a letter for Miss Baynard, which
+she knew by the address, before opening it, to be from Mrs. Mardin.
+One of those intuitions which come to us we know not how or whence
+whispered to her that it was a bringer of ill tidings. Her fingers
+trembled as she opened it. All it had to tell was told in little more
+than a dozen words:--
+
+
+"Evan has been missing since yesterday, and cannot be found anywhere.
+Come at once.
+
+"Harriet Mardin."
+
+
+Never had the journey to London seemed so long and tedious to Nell as
+it did on this occasion. From the coach office she drove to Lady
+Carradine's, where, although she had not advised her ladyship of her
+coming, she knew that she was sure of a welcome. Half an hour later
+she was on her way to Chelsea.
+
+Mrs. Mardin received her with a burst of tears; indeed, the good soul
+had done little else than cry since the child had been missed. Her
+story did not take long in the telling.
+
+It was a fine afternoon, and Evan had been playing, as he was often
+allowed to do, with some neighbors' children in a field not more than
+a couple of hundred yards from the house. Mrs. Mardin had been on the
+point of going to call him in to tea, when one of his playmates came
+to tell her that Evan had gone off with a tall, dark gentleman, who
+went up to him in the field, and, telling him that "a pretty lady" had
+sent for him, led him away to a carriage which was waiting in the lane
+close by, into which they both got and were at once driven away. From
+the first Mrs. Mardin had felt convinced in her own mind that the boy
+had been abducted by means of a ruse, and that there was no intention
+of bringing him back.
+
+Then she went on to inform Nell that she had not only written to her,
+but to Mr. Dare as well, who fortunately happened to be in town, and
+had lost no time in making his appearance at Lawn Cottage. Further,
+when told that Miss Baynard had been communicated with, and in all
+likelihood would come as fast as the coach could bring her after her
+receipt of the news, he had at once hired a room at an inn in the
+neighborhood, thinking that she might perhaps like to see him and
+consult with him in the matter as soon as possible after her arrival.
+
+At the mention of Dare's name the wild-rose tints in Nell's cheeks
+deepened till they glowed like those of a damask rose, and the thought
+of so soon seeing him again sent a rush of happiness to her heart, and
+caused her to tingle from head to foot with a flush of gladness which
+yet had in it a touch of apprehension. It might be a fact that her
+strength had failed her in her struggle against fate, and that her
+heart had secretly capitulated, but the secret was her own and should
+never pass her lips. Her conqueror should never know that he had
+conquered; on that point she was resolved. And yet in the midst of her
+happiness she trembled at the thought of meeting Dare again. Was it
+because she had a fear of betraying herself in her own despite, or was
+it because she was conscious that she had to guard against a traitor
+who had betrayed her once already?
+
+A question which Mrs. Mardin put to her did not tend to reassure her:
+
+"Shall I send word to Mr. Dare that you are here, Miss, and that you
+would like to see him?"
+
+She was still hesitating over her reply when there came a ring at the
+bell. "Why, that must be him!" exclaimed the widow; and so it proved
+to be. He had been watching for Nell's arrival, had seen her come,
+and, after waiting half-an-hour, had followed her to the cottage. But
+of all this he said nothing.
+
+Nell strung herself up, and met him without any show of embarrassment,
+but not without a touch of heightened color. Dare was as easy, cool,
+and as much master of himself as he always was. The only difference
+that any one who knew him well might have marked in him was that his
+eyes to-day were more than ordinarily brilliant. When he had shaken
+hands with Nell he sat down in the chair just vacated by Mrs. Mardin.
+
+Nell had not forgotten the return of the mask and all that was implied
+thereby, and as her eyes met Dare's she could not help saying to
+herself, "Does he still know me simply as Miss Baynard of Stanbrook,
+or has he discovered in me the amateur highwayman to whom on a certain
+occasion he behaved with such signal kindness?" But it was a question
+she was no nearer being able to answer to-day than she had been the
+first time she asked it.
+
+Dare plunged at once _in medias res_, like a man who has a matter in
+hand in dealing with which there must be neither delay nor hesitancy.
+Before his coming Nell had felt utterly helpless in the affair; she
+had neither known what to do, nor what even to suggest; but she had
+not been long in his company before she felt, figuratively speaking,
+as if a strong arm had been put round her from which she drew both
+comfort and support. His mere presence braced and strengthened her
+like a tonic.
+
+"This is a very strange piece of business, Miss Baynard, which has
+brought you and me together again," he began. "I presume that Mrs.
+Mardin has made you acquainted with such scanty particulars as are
+known to her. That the case is one of abduction there can, I think, be
+very little doubt, if any at all. I saw the notice of Mr. Cortelyon's
+death in the _Times_. Presumably the stolen boy is his grandfather's
+heir. But doubtless you are in a position to inform me whether such is
+or is not the case."
+
+"That Evan is his grandfather's heir is due to a singular and wholly
+inexplicable circumstance, the nature of which it may be as well that
+I should explain to you."
+
+With that Nell went on to relate to him the story of the will as
+already known to the reader. He was intensely interested in the
+recital. When she had come to an end he remained for some moments lost
+in thought.
+
+Then he said: "So far as I can see at present, there is only one
+person who would have any motive for spiriting away the boy. That
+person is Mrs. Bullivant, and the motive--revenge. But to revenge
+oneself on an innocent child! It seems too mean and cowardly, for
+belief. Happily, Miss Baynard, you have seen but little of the darker
+side of human nature. Mean and cowardly actions are far more common
+than such as you have any notion of; but, if my supposition has any
+truth in it, the case we are now considering will go far to widen your
+knowledge of such things. With your permission, I will go at once to
+Bow Street and report the circumstances of the abduction, so far as
+they are known to us, to the authorities there, but without any
+mention of Mrs. Bullivant's name, leaving them to take whatever steps
+may seem advisable. As regards Mrs. Bullivant, I purpose making
+certain private inquiries on my own account, the result of which I
+will communicate to you as early as possible. Meanwhile, I would
+suggest that it would be as well for you to write to Mr. Piljoy
+informing him of the disappearance of the child, as also that the case
+has been reported to the proper authorities. Finally, it may be
+advisable that for the present my name should be kept in the
+background."
+
+And so, after a little further talk they parted, with an agreement to
+meet again at Lawn Cottage next day. A hackney coach was fetched, and
+Dare saw Miss Baynard into it. She had been startled by his
+announcement that he was about to go personally to Bow Street. Such a
+proceeding on his part seemed to her the very acme of recklessness.
+One would have thought it was the last place in the world at which
+"Captain Nightshade" would have cared to show his face. She could not
+help admiring him for his daring, but, all the same, she felt that she
+should breathe more freely when she knew that he had gone and come in
+safety.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+MUTUAL CONFIDENCES.
+
+
+One may be sure there was no failure of appointment next day on the
+part of either of our young people.
+
+After Nell had informed Dare that the letter to Mr. Piljoy had been
+duly written and dispatched, and he had given her a brief account of
+his visit to Bow Street--where he had left a full description of
+the missing child, compiled with information furnished by Mrs.
+Mardin--there seemed little more to say or do. Of a certain task he
+had set before himself, and of a certain journey he meant to
+undertake, Dare deemed it best not to enter into any details. All he
+gave Miss Baynard to understand was, that nothing should be left
+undone on his part in his endeavor to trace the abducted heir.
+
+But Nell felt strongly that the time had come for a clear
+understanding on both sides. Their masks had been seen through, their
+disguise penetrated. Each of them had played a double part within the
+other's knowledge, and yet each had pretended to ignore the fact. The
+day of make-believe was at an end.
+
+She saw clearly that if any reference was to be made to their first
+meeting, it must come from herself. Dare, she felt sure, would never
+as much as hint at a circumstance, her silence about which could only
+lead him to conclude that she was determined to ignore it. Further
+than that, she wanted to set herself straight with him--to explain the
+motives which led to her assumption for one night only of the _rôle_
+of a "gentleman of the road." She could no longer rest satisfied with
+the consciousness that any action of hers should remain in his eyes
+under the shadow of ambiguity or suspicion.
+
+That she had managed so far not to betray her other and far sweeter
+secret she felt pretty well assured, and the knowledge comforted her
+exceedingly; for, while determined to brush aside all the cobwebs that
+had hitherto existed between them, she was equally as determined that
+of that hidden flower which perfumed and made beautiful the garden of
+her heart he should know nothing whatever.
+
+"You and I, Mr. Dare, had met on one occasion before our first meeting
+under this roof," began Nell, turning her large hazel eyes, with a
+sort of grave questioning in them, full upon him.
+
+It was not often that Dare was taken by surprise, but he certainly was
+just now. His swarthy cheeks flushed with a color that was rare to
+them; but it did not take him longer than half a dozen seconds to
+recover himself. With a low bow, he said, "It is not for me to dispute
+any statement Miss Baynard may choose to make."
+
+"My reason for referring to the occasion in question is because I am
+desirous of explaining under what circumstances I was led to embark on
+that hare-brained adventure."
+
+"Pardon me, but is any such explanation needed? Certainly it is not by
+me. Such an impertinence is what I never dreamed of. Why go into a
+matter which now belongs wholly to the past?"
+
+"For my own satisfaction, if for nothing else."
+
+Again Dare gravely inclined his head. It was evident Miss Baynard was
+determined to have her own way, although probably she had nothing more
+to tell him than he either knew or guessed already.
+
+"On the occasion of our first meeting of all," resumed Nell, "I
+believe I remarked to you that the object of my escapade was, not to
+despoil some innocent traveller of his purse, but to obtain possession
+of a will which I knew to be in the keeping of a certain person who,
+on his way home, travelling by post-chaise, was bound to pass the
+place where I was lying in wait for him."
+
+"So much I gathered from what you told me."
+
+"The will in question was the one I spoke to you about yesterday, by
+the provisions of which my uncle disinherited his grandson in favor of
+the son of the woman between whom and himself there was no
+relationship whatever. I thought then, as I think still, that the will
+was a most unjust and iniquitous one and I determined, if it were
+anyhow possible to do so, to get possession of it and destroy it. How
+ignominiously I failed in the attempt you know already."
+
+"All this I understood from what you were good enough to tell me
+yesterday. That served to throw a clear light on whatever had seemed
+dark before."
+
+"When I ventured on my rash attempt, which, so fortunately for all
+concerned, proved unsuccessful, my uncle had been given up by his
+doctors, and I had every reason for believing that he could not
+possibly live to make another will. As for the moral aspect of the
+affair, I think perhaps that the less I say on that score the better.
+I was carried away by a flame of indignation, which, so to speak,
+swept me off my feet, thrusting all considerations of prudence, as
+well as of right or wrong, into the background, blinding my moral
+sense for the time being, and leaving room in my mind for nothing save
+a burning desire, at whatever cost, to get the will into my hands. But
+Fate defeated my purpose, and the end I aimed at was brought about by
+far different means."
+
+Miss Baynard had relieved her mind, and one usually derives a sense of
+comfort from being able to do that. She had put herself straight with
+Dare; there was no longer any question between them of a dual
+personality. He knew that in him she had recognized the Captain
+Nightshade of her adventure, and he had heard from her own lips, if
+there was any satisfaction in that, what he most likely knew or
+guessed before, that she was the masquerader in male attire who had
+played such an unheroic part on that occasion.
+
+But one confidence often tends to beget another, and now, strange to
+say. Geoffrey Dare felt strongly impelled to crave Miss Baynard's
+patience for a little while in order that he might make clear to her
+under what stress of circumstances he had been driven to take to the
+King's highway.
+
+Miss Baynard raised no objections to listening to anything he might
+have to tell her. Did not Desdemona "seriously incline" to the Moor of
+Venice, the while he told the tale of his adventures by sea and land,
+and why should not she do the same?
+
+"What I have to tell you is in the main a record of faults and
+follies," began Dare when leave had been given him, "but I will make
+my narrative as brief as possible. Let me start by remarking that I
+have good blood in my veins, and can trace back my ancestry in a
+direct line for upwards of two hundred years. It was my misfortune to
+lose both my parents long before I was out of my teens. On coming of
+age I succeeded to a fortune of forty thousand pounds, the accumulated
+income of my minority. Thereupon I at once plunged into all the
+gayeties and temptations of town life, showering my guineas right and
+left with lavish hands, as if they could never come to an end. Cards,
+dice, and the turf helped me in turn on the downward road. I had no
+one to counsel or warn me. The person who had filled the post of
+guardian to me from the date of my father's death was himself a broken
+man of pleasure, who encouraged rather than restrained me in the road
+I was treading, and had no scruple about dipping his hand into my
+purse whenever he had been more than usually unlucky at the tables.
+
+"Then by and by I fell in love, or what at that time I believed to be
+love. But I know now, and have long known, that I was drawn to Miss
+Tighe as in the fable we read how hapless mariners were drawn to the
+sirens of the deep--because they had not enough will-power to resist
+their wiles. However, I was infatuated, and--which was all she cared
+about, for she was a compound of greed and selfishness--I lavished
+jewelry and presents upon her as if I could not do enough to make
+patent my folly. Thus it came to pass that my twenty-fourth birthday
+found my fortune reduced to a very few thousands. The end came shortly
+after with the elopement of Miss Tighe with the man whom (next to Dick
+Cortelyon) I had accounted my dearest friend.
+
+"I was still staggering from this blow when another of my 'dear
+friends,' by means of a forged cheque, contrived to defraud me of the
+poor wreck of my fortune, save a few paltry hundreds, before putting
+the Atlantic between himself and me.
+
+"It was not till ruin stared me in the face, and I knew not which way
+to turn, that I took to the 'road'--as many a broken-down spendthrift
+of as good birth as I has done before me. But it is some slight salve
+to my conscience to know that I have never eased any man of his purse
+who was not well able to bear the loss, that I have never despoiled
+one of the opposite sex, and that I have never failed to distribute
+among the poor more than half of all I have taken from the rich."
+
+He ceased, and for some moments neither of them broke the silence. His
+eyes had been fixed on the window as he told his tale, and he still
+kept them turned away from his companion. He was now softly tapping
+his teeth with the nails of one hand.
+
+It was wrong, it was very wrong, and Nell admitted it to be such, but,
+do what she would, she could not blame him. The man, by his own
+admission, was a highwayman, a "minion of the moon"; of course the
+fact had long been known to her, but it had never been so clearly
+brought home to her before to-day, and yet all she could do was to
+pity him! Oh, it was shameful! And besides, we all know how close pity
+is akin to something else. She tried to despise herself, and to feel
+enraged with herself, but could not.
+
+But they could not sit mum forever. It was her turn to speak.
+Something she must say--but what?
+
+"The dangers and perils of the kind of life you have been speaking of
+are many and great." Her words faltered a little in her own despite.
+"Why not give it up, Mr. Dare? Why not try to find some other and more
+reputable way of making a living? How I wish you would! How
+I wish----"
+
+"Pardon me, Miss Baynard, but I _have_ given it up." He spoke with a
+certain abruptness, and as he did so he turned his black eyes full
+upon her. "Captain Nightshade's last adventure on the road was the one
+in which you yourself were so singularly mixed up. From that night he
+resolved to turn over a fresh leaf. For one short hour he had come
+under an influence powerful enough and sweet enough to make a new man
+of him. The resolve then made has never been broken."
+
+He spoke with an emphasis which left no room for mistake as to his
+meaning. Nell's eyes sank before the half-veiled passion which had
+suddenly leapt to life in his. Face and throat flushed a lovely color.
+It was all she could do not to betray that she was a-tremble in every
+limb.
+
+"I am very, very glad, Mr. Dare, to hear that you have seen your way
+to a changed mode of life." Was it Miss Baynard who spoke or some one
+else? What was this strange new feeling of timidity, almost of
+shrinking, which had seized upon her? She might have been the veriest
+bread-and-butter miss fresh from school. Never had she despised
+herself more heartily than at that moment.
+
+"I have told you, Miss Baynard, that I left London a broken man,"
+resumed Dare after a pause. "I had, however, my mother's jewelry still
+untouched, but, no other resource being now left me, I was compelled
+to let it go. A little later the sum of four hundred pounds reached me
+anonymously, with a letter stating that it was 'conscience money'
+returned by a dying man, it having been won from my father twenty
+years before by cheating at cards. That it came as a veritable godsend
+I need hardly tell you."
+
+"And yet, if I would have let you, you would still have gone on paying
+for Evan's maintenance."
+
+"I had promised my dead friend that I would care for the boy as if he
+were my own, and, had you not come between me and him, it was a
+promise I was resolved to keep at every cost. I had already decided on
+my plans for the future, and when I left England I should have taken
+the boy with me."
+
+"When you left England, Mr. Dare?"
+
+"I have some relations settled in Virginia who have more than once
+pressed me to go out to them. It was, and remains, my intention to
+settle there, and there to lay the foundations of a new life, very
+different from the old one. Now I shall have to go alone. But first I
+shall see this business through of my missing godson."
+
+Why did Nell's heart sink so unaccountably at this statement of Dare's
+intentions? What did it matter where he might choose to make his
+future home? Whatever he might secretly be to her, she was nothing to
+him, and it was out of the question that she ever could be. She knew,
+and she made no attempt to disguise the fact from herself, that when
+he sailed away from England he would take her heart with him. But what
+then? Of how many women was it not the lot to give away their hearts
+in secret, and to go through life hopeless of a return? nay, in many
+cases without the man to whom it was given knowing that he had such a
+thing in his keeping? Her case would be merely one more added to the
+number.
+
+Nell was to return to Stanbrook on the morrow, and before she and Dare
+parted it was arranged that he should communicate with her there as
+soon as he had any tidings of the missing child, and that the Bow
+Street authorities on their part should do the same.
+
+There was one point with regard to which Nell wished that Dare had
+seen fit to enlighten her, and that was as to the nature of the
+relationship between himself and the mysterious Mr. Ellerslie of
+Rockmount, for that a relationship of some sort existed between them
+she now felt more convinced than ever. She had seen Mr. Ellerslie but
+once, and that merely for an hour by candlelight, and, while conscious
+of a strange illusive likeness on his part to some one, more
+especially about the eyes, she had been unable to recall to mind who
+that some one was. She knew now, and had known for some time, that the
+original of the shadowy likeness was none other than Geoffrey Dare.
+But no mention of Mr. Ellerslie's name had escaped the latter's lips,
+and it was certainly not her place to question him.
+
+There was one more point as to which her curiosity seemed doomed to
+remain equally unsatisfied. She was still ignorant whether she was
+indebted for the return of her mask to Mr. Ellerslie or to Geoffrey
+Dare.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+THE ADVENTURES OF A SNUFF-BOX.
+
+
+It may or may not be remembered by the reader that in an early chapter
+of this veracious history mention was made of a certain Sir Peter
+Warrendale, and of his unavailing pursuit of his runaway niece and her
+lover when on their way to Gretna Green. It was also told how, on his
+return journey, he was stopped by a highwayman, whom, under the title
+of "Colonel Delnay," he had met before under rather peculiar
+circumstances, and was politely relieved of his purse, snuff-box, and
+other trifles.
+
+No one need have wished for a worse character than that borne by Sir
+Peter Warrendale for a score miles round Whatton Ferris. His private
+life would not bear examination; as a landlord he was mean and
+close-fisted to a degree, and in his magisterial capacity he was never
+known to temper mercy with justice, but always to make a point of
+inflicting the maximum penalty allowed by law on any poor wretch who
+might have the misfortune to be haled before him.
+
+Notwithstanding his irascibility of temper and the bluster in which he
+indulged when in pursuit of his runaway niece, Sir Peter was an arrant
+poltroon at heart, and into such a fright did he fall when his chaise
+was stopped by the sham Colonel Delnay that, happening to have his
+snuff-box in his hand, he proffered it on the impulse of the moment,
+together with his purse, if only his life might be spared.
+
+The box was studded with brilliants, and Dare--for he was the
+"gentleman of the road"--being well aware of the mean and avaricious
+nature of the man, and how the loss of it would grieve him to the
+soul, took it, with the intention of returning it anonymously after
+the lapse of a few weeks. But when, about a month later, he caused
+certain inquiries to be made with a view to the restitution of the
+box, he found that Scrope Hall was shut up, and that Sir Peter and his
+family had taken their departure for Bath, and from thence were
+expected to go to town. Then, somewhat later, came the news that
+Scrope Hall was to let and that the baronet had taken up his permanent
+residence in London.
+
+It may here be noted that it was Captain Nightshade's invariable
+practice to limit his attentions to hard cash and bank-notes--to the
+purse of the well-to-do traveller by chaise or coach, and the
+plethoric money-bag of the wealthy landowner on its way to or from the
+local bank. Watches, snuff-boxes, rings, and other trinkets he put
+politely aside as "unconsidered trifles" with which he did not choose
+to concern himself.
+
+Dare at the time troubled himself no further about Sir Peter's
+snuff-box, but when he next went to London he took it with him, with
+the intention of ascertaining Sir Peter's address and forwarding it to
+him by a trusty messenger. But it was found that Sir Peter was on the
+Continent, and when Dare went back to the North the box went with him.
+
+Once more he had brought the box to town, hoping on this occasion to
+be able to rid himself of it. But before he had an opportunity of
+doing so, the news of Evan's abduction reached him, and he at once
+hurried off to Chelsea, and for the next two or three days his time
+and thoughts were taken up with far more important matters than the
+baronet's snuff-box. Meanwhile, with the carelessness, hardly removed
+from recklessness, that was characteristic of him, he carried the box
+about with him in his waistcoat pocket.
+
+Now, it so happened that in the course of the forenoon of the day
+following that of his second interview with Miss Baynard, as he was
+taking a short cut to his lodgings through one of the narrow and not
+over savory lanes which divided Holborn from the Strand, he came on a
+crowd of people gathered round a man who had fallen down in a fit,
+either real or simulated. Dare had pushed his way steadily, through
+the crowd and had got some yards beyond it, when some instinct, so to
+call it, caused him to clap his hand to his waistcoat. Sir Peter's
+jeweled snuff-box was gone!
+
+For Geoffrey Dare such an experience was certainly a novel one. No
+sooner did he realize his loss than he broke into a cynical but not
+unamused laugh. "Confound the rogue's impudence!" he exclaimed half
+aloud. "Where were his eyes that he failed to recognize a gentleman of
+his own kidney? It is to be feared that he will find himself landed at
+Tyburn one of these days."
+
+He was still standing with his hand pressed to his empty pocket, and
+staring at the fluctuating crowd, when a hand was laid on his shoulder
+and a voice said in his ear: "What's the matter, Mr. Dare? You look as
+if you had just lost something."
+
+Dare, turning, recognized the speaker for John Tipway, a famous Bow
+Street runner, whose acquaintance he had made a couple of days before
+when reporting the abduction of the young heir.
+
+"That's exactly what I have done," replied Dare.
+
+"Pocket picked, eh?"
+
+Dare nodded.
+
+"Anything of consequence?"
+
+"A very valuable snuff-box."
+
+"Ah-ha! A noted neighborhood this for petty larceny. Hardly a worse
+anywhere. But come along with me to the office--I'm on my way
+there--and lodge a description of the missing property. Who knows but
+we may be able to recover it for you from the pawnbroker's or
+somewhere else."
+
+Dare hesitated, and well he might, considering under what
+circumstances the box had come into his possession. But in the company
+of Mr. Tipway to have hesitated over a matter of that sort would have
+tended to provoke suspicion, and that was what he could not afford to
+do. So he accompanied the runner to Bow Street--not without a certain
+relish for the comedy of the situation--and there furnished a
+description of the stolen box, leaving an address, that of a humble
+lodging in a back street in Bloomsbury, at which any tidings of it
+might be communicated to him.
+
+By that night's coach he started for the North in order to take up the
+quest to which he had vowed himself.
+
+About a fortnight later the snuff-box was found in the possession of a
+swell-mobsman who had been arrested for another offence.
+
+Now, it so fell out that Sir Peter Warrendale, who was much put about
+by the loss of his box--although he had himself almost thrust it into
+the hands of the self-styled Colonel Delnay--not only because it was
+intrinsically valuable, but because it was a cherished heirloom, had,
+on his arrival in town some weeks after his encounter with the
+highwayman, given a description of it at Bow Street, on the faint
+chance that it might turn up at one of the London pawnshops, or in
+some other fashion. A peculiarity of the box was that it had a false
+bottom, a fact which Dare had failed to discover. But it was a feature
+which Sir Peter, in his account of the box, had not forgotten to
+specify, so that the Bow Street official, who happened to be blessed
+with a good memory, found himself in possession of an article which
+was claimed by two different owners and was stated to have been stolen
+from both!
+
+Sir Peter Warrendale was communicated with, and at once identified the
+box as his property, and explained the mystery of the false bottom,
+under which lay _perdu_ a miniature of his great-grandmother when a
+beauty of eighteen.
+
+The question that now put itself was by what means had the box come
+into Dare's possession? It was a question which only himself could
+answer. So a messenger was sent to his lodgings with a request that he
+would go to Bow Street and identify the box. But Dare was not there,
+and all the information his landlady could supply was that he had gone
+into the country and that the date of his return was uncertain.
+
+Accordingly, a message was left requesting his presence at Bow Street
+immediately upon his return to town. Meanwhile the snuff-box remained
+in the hands of the authorities.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+IN QUEST OF THE MISSING HEIR.
+
+
+Mr. Geoffrey Dare alighted from the London coach at Tuxford, a small
+market-town some half dozen miles from Uplands.
+
+Next morning he set about making certain inquiries, which resulted in
+his ascertaining that Uplands was now empty and to let, and that Mrs.
+Bullivant had transferred herself and her belongings to a much smaller
+house, known as Homecroft, about twenty miles away on the other side
+of the country. The nearest town to Homecroft was Broxham, a place of
+some twelve thousand inhabitants, and thither Dare lost no time in
+betaking himself.
+
+After breakfast next morning he hired a horse and started for a long
+ride. When he got back in the early evening he had learnt a good deal
+more about Homecroft than he knew when he set out. Whether the
+particulars thus gathered by him would prove of any after use it was
+too early to determine: in point of fact, he had not yet decided upon
+his course of action. The subject was one which needed careful
+consideration if a fiasco were to be avoided, and just then he was
+turning it over and over in his mind.
+
+Next day was Broxham horse and cattle fair, and from early morn till
+late at night the little town was a busy scene in which business and
+pleasure were strangely commingled. Dare was a lover of horseflesh,
+and he found much to interest him in a casual way as he strolled idly
+about the fair, mentally chewing over the question of what his next
+step ought to be in the undertaking to which he had bound himself.
+
+In those days even more than now a horse fair acted as a sure magnet
+for bringing together a small crowd of gypsies, and certainly there
+was no lack of them on this occasion at Broxham.
+
+Dare had come across a couple of their encampments while riding out
+the day before, but it was not till to-day when, as he stood on the
+fringe of the crowd, listening to the chaffering and bargaining, but
+thinking of other things, a smiling, black-eyed, ruddy-lipped _chi_
+sidled up to him and asked him to cross her hand with a bit of silver,
+that of a sudden an idea came to him which seemed to open up a way out
+of the difficulty with which he had been perplexing his brain ever
+since he left London.
+
+If Dare crossed the girl's hand with a piece of silver, it was not
+with the view of having his fortune told. Drawing her further apart
+from the crowd, he stood in earnest talk with her for several minutes,
+nor did they part till they had come to a mutual understanding. Dare's
+last words to the girl were, "Tell your father that he may expect to
+see me at dusk to-morrow."
+
+Dare was not unacquainted with Romany life and Romany ways. As a lad
+of seventeen he had once spent a month of _vie intime_ at one of their
+encampments, and the knowledge then acquired by him he hoped to be
+able to turn to good account on the present occasion.
+
+Not till the sun had dipped below the horizon did he set out next
+afternoon to walk the couple of miles or more which would bring him to
+a certain furze-lined hollow among the moors, where a number of
+gypsies whom the fair had brought into the neighborhood had made their
+temporary home. He had got about halfway, and was on the point of
+turning off the high-road--which was here unfenced and open to the
+moors on both sides--at a place previously described to him, when he
+was suddenly confronted by a man who started up from behind a thick
+clump of brambles. Dare came to a halt, and for a few moments the two
+stood measuring each other in silence.
+
+The stranger, an unmistakable gypsy, was the first to speak: "You are
+the _gorgio_ that had something to say to my daughter yesterday at the
+fair?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"And you want her, with my leave, to do something for you for which
+you are willing to pay us in good red gold?"
+
+"You could not have put the case in fewer words."
+
+"Well, here we are, with only the rising moon and our own shadows for
+company. We could not have a better chance for saying what is to be
+said."
+
+Nothing could have suited Dare's purpose better.
+
+The _gryengro_, or horse-dealer, proceeded to charge and light his
+pipe, while Dare refreshed himself with a copious pinch of snuff.
+Then, by the light of the young moon, as they slowly paced the soft
+turf to and fro, the latter went on to unfold his wishes:
+
+"About a mile on the other side of Broxham there stands in its own
+grounds a small country house, the name of which is Homecroft. After
+remaining empty for a long time, it has now found a tenant in the
+person of Mrs. Bullivant, whose husband died a few years ago, and
+whose one child, a boy of five or six, is at present from home, most
+probably on a visit to his grandfather, Lord Cossington. Now, although
+her own child is away, I have strong reasons for believing that Mrs.
+Bullivant has another child, who has been stolen away from his
+friends, hidden in the house, whose presence there is only known to
+the _rawni_ herself and two or three of her domestics. So, what I want
+to have found out for me is, whether there is, or is not, such a child
+as the one I speak of under the roof of Homecroft, and the first
+question is, whether your daughter can obtain that information for me
+without arousing any suspicion on the part of Mrs. Bullivant or any of
+her people."
+
+To this the gypsy, whose name was Enoch Bosworth, replied that he had
+very little doubt his daughter Rosilla could manage to obtain the
+required information if time were allowed her, and she was allowed to
+go to work in her own way in the affair. Dare did not care how she
+went to work, so long as she got him the needed particulars. It then
+became a question of terms between the two men, and these having been
+satisfactorily arranged, they parted, with an agreement to meet again
+at the same hour and place four  evenings later.
+
+Although Dare kept his appointment to the minute, he found the
+_gryengro_ and his daughter waiting for him, and it soon appeared that
+Rosilla had indeed made good use of her time. She was already in a
+position to assure him that his belief in the presence of a strange
+child at Homecroft was amply justified. Such a child was there, a boy,
+with regard to whom none of the domestics knew anything--neither his
+name, where he came from, the connection between him and the mistress
+of Homecroft, or, in point of fact, why he was there at all. A
+middle-aged woman who had been in Mrs. Bullivant's service for a
+number of years, was his sole attendant, and none of the other
+servants were ever allowed to speak to him--not that much chance of
+doing so was given them, a couple of rooms having been set apart for
+the boy and the woman, into which they were forbidden to penetrate.
+
+All this information the artful Rosilla, in the exercise of her
+calling as a fortune-teller, had succeeded in worming out of Mrs.
+Bullivant's maid, a girl of the name of Moggy Dredge, who, for some
+reason or other, had conceived a violent dislike for her mistress--an
+admission of which Dare did not fail to see the importance.
+
+He must contrive an interview with the girl Dredge, and this Rosilla
+was commissioned to arrange for. If Mrs. Bullivant's maid would name
+her own time and place for meeting a certain gentleman, name unknown,
+and there answer a few questions he would put to her having no
+reference to herself or her own business, she would find her pocket
+the richer by a couple of guineas.
+
+Rosilla at once undertook to do her best to arrange the meeting in
+question, which took place a couple evenings later at a solitary spot
+a little way outside the palings of the Homecroft grounds.
+
+The gypsy-girl, of her own accord, went a little way apart out of
+hearing while the _gorgio_ and the lady's-maid said what they had to
+say to each other.
+
+Even before she quite comprehended what it was Dare wanted her to do,
+Moggy did not hesitate to confess that, in her own words, she hated
+her mistress "worse than poison," and that because of the latter's
+treatment of her, and of the insults she saw fit to heap upon her. In
+reply to this, Dare very naturally asked her why she did not leave
+Mrs. Bullivant and go into service elsewhere. Thereupon Moggy burst
+out crying, and, after sobbing quietly for a little while, confided to
+Dare that she had had a "misfortune," and had thereby forfeited her
+character, and that it was Mrs. Bullivant's knowledge of this fact
+which enabled her to trample on the unhappy girl in the way she did.
+
+Moggy could tell Dare little more about the strange child than he had
+already learnt from Rosilla. Nor had he expected that she would be
+able to do so. What he had now to arrange for was the future, and he
+did not part from the girl till she had given him her promise to
+furnish him daily with a written report of everything she could hear
+or gather having reference to the child. This report she was to place
+each day after nightfall in the hollow of a certain tree, whence it
+would be fetched by Rosilla, who would play the part of messenger
+between her and Dare. Later, there would be three more guineas for
+her, and she confessed that she was badly in need of money to help to
+pay for the keep of her child.
+
+Moggy kept her promise, and night after night Dare received at the
+hands of the gypsy-girl her brief and half-illegible reports, the
+writing of which caused her many groans, and was the cause of much
+perturbation of spirit. But it was not till ten days had gone by that
+she found anything of consequence to communicate. Then, indeed, her
+news was of a sufficiently startling kind.
+
+It had been arranged, Moggy wrote, that Mrs. Balchin, the child's
+attendant, together with her husband, who was Mrs. Bullivant's
+coachman, were to start next evening for Liverpool on their way to
+America, the report being that, by the death of a relative in the
+States, they had come in for a small fortune, which, however, could
+not be paid over to them without their presence on the spot. But it
+was not till Dare had got nearly to the end of Moggy's ill-spelt
+effusion--he was painfully deciphering it in his room at the inn by
+the light of a solitary candle--that of a sudden he sat up and gave
+vent to a low whistle. The child, the mysterious child, about whom
+none of the servants at Homecraft knew anything, was to accompany the
+Balchins on their long journey--a journey, in those days, infinitely
+more formidable than it is now.
+
+The little party of three were to leave Homecraft in Mrs. Bullivant's
+carriage at half-past eight p.m., so as to reach Tuxford in time to
+catch the night coach bound for the south.
+
+Dare sat for some time staring at the letter, but without seeing it,
+when he had succeeded in mastering its contents. What step ought he to
+take next? was the question he was revolving in his brain, and for
+some time no satisfactory answer was forthcoming.
+
+Of course, all along he had been without any absolute certainty that
+the child in question was young Evan Cortelyon. Morally sure he might
+be, but that was hardly foundation enough on which to base any action
+of a definite kind. If he were to go to Piljoy and state his
+conviction in the matter, what could the lawyer do? At present no
+evidence was available conclusive enough to justify an application for
+a warrant, especially against a person of the social standing of the
+Hon. Mrs. Bullivant. And yet, if the child were really Evan (as to
+which he felt no sort of doubt in his own mind), then must he be
+rescued at every cost.
+
+For a full hour he sat with bent brows, excogitating one scheme after
+another, only to reject each in turn, till he had worked round to the
+notion which had struck him first of all, but which he had put
+temporarily aside till he had satisfied himself that no other plan was
+equally feasible.
+
+At length he rose abruptly and pushed back his chair, "'Tis the only
+way," he said aloud. "'Twas the first notion that came to me, and if I
+had only had the sense to embrace it there and then, I might have
+saved myself all this useless muddling of my brains. A year ago--nay,
+far later than that--I should not have hesitated a moment; but
+now----! What has come over me? What strange change has been at work
+within me? Is that a conundrum very hard to crack, Geoff, my boy? It
+may be true, after all, that the moon is made of green cheese."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+THE HON. MRS. BULLIVANT TO CAPTAIN FERRIS.
+
+
+"My dear Wilton," wrote Mrs. Bullivant to her half-brother a couple of
+days subsequently to the events recorded in the last chapter, "I have
+some very singular news for you which I lose no time in communicating;
+but whether--bearing in mind the peculiar features of the case--you
+will be inclined to stigmatize it as bad news or to bless it as good,
+seems to me somewhat problematical, and I at once confess that I am
+myself at a loss to know in which light to regard it.
+
+"Although my disappointment in the matter of Mr. Cortelyon's will was
+so extreme as almost for a time to drive me beyond myself, and to stir
+up within me feelings and passions to which I had been a stranger
+aforetime, and although I took a silent oath that, come what might, I
+would be revenged for what I then regarded, and still regard, as the
+vile trick of which I was made the victim; yet am I inclined to think
+that had it not been for your persistent fanning of the flame which
+just then burnt so fiercely within me, my passion would gradually have
+cooled down, my reason would have again found its equipoise, and I
+should never have given my sanction to a certain step, the rashness
+and futility of which I recognized almost from the moment of agreeing
+to it.
+
+"Mind, in writing this I am not imputing any blame to you; or, if
+there is any, we share it on equal terms. Your own disappointment was
+bitter enough in all conscience to goad you on to do things from
+which, at another time and in your calmer moments, you would have
+turned away as being not merely useless, but impolitic.
+
+"From the moment you placed young Cortelyon in my hands my almost
+insane longing to be revenged for the foul wrong his grandfather had
+done me slackened and grew faint, and I recognized with overwhelming
+clearness what a blunder we had made and with what a burden I had
+saddled myself. Now that I had got the child into my keeping what was
+I to do with him? There was the rub. As for carrying out the dark hint
+you one day let drop--only by way of trying me, I feel sure, and with
+no thought that I would agree to act on it--as you know, I shrank from
+it aghast. I have a child of my own, and I could not forget it; and,
+little cause as I had to love young C., whatever else might happen to
+him his life was absolutely safe so long as he remained under my roof.
+But the perplexing question of how to dispose of him was one which
+allowed me no rest.
+
+"As you are aware, from the date of the lad's arrival at Homecroft I
+put him into the sole charge of Mrs. Balchin (whom, as I have good
+reason for knowing, I can thoroughly trust), and kept him wholly
+secluded from the rest of the household, for whose benefit I invented
+a little fable explanatory of my reasons for acting as I did, but to
+what extent they believed it I have no means of knowing.
+
+"If I had been uncomfortable before, you may imagine what effect your
+letter had on me in which you informed me that a reward of five
+hundred pounds was offered for the recovery of the missing heir. For
+the next few days I was like a distracted woman, turning over in my
+mind a dozen schemes, each one more wild and impracticable than the
+last.
+
+"Then, all at once, the black clouds opened and a way of escape lay
+clear before me.
+
+"As I daresay you may remember, not only Mrs. Balchin, but her
+husband, is in my service, the latter having acted as my coachman ever
+since my marriage. Well, a few mornings ago Balchin received a letter
+from a firm of lawyers in New York informing him that a legacy
+equivalent to five hundred pounds of English money had been left him
+by an uncle lately deceased, but that it would be requisite for him to
+go over to the States, and be prepared to prove his identity, before
+the money could be paid him. When he came to me and showed me his
+letter, and told me all this, I could have found it in my heart to
+embrace him.
+
+"Can you guess, _mon cher frère_, what were the first words I said to
+myself? They were these: 'Balchin's wife shall keep him company on the
+voyage, and with them they shall take young Cortelyon. _But they shall
+come back alone?_
+
+"There is no need to trouble you with details. It will be enough to
+state that by the evening of the second day after Balchin's receipt of
+the letter all arrangements had been made, and the little party of
+three were ready to start. They were to have the use of my carriage as
+far as Tuxford, where they would join the night coach for the south on
+their way to Liverpool, from which port they would sail by the first
+available packet for New York, Balchin is a capable man, and I had no
+fear about his failing to carry out the instructions laid down for
+him. Of course the expenses of the journey, so far as his wife and the
+child were concerned, were to be defrayed by me.
+
+"I ought to mention here that I had often heard Mrs. Balchin refer to
+her numerous clan of cousins in America, and when I put the case
+before her she readily engaged, for a hundred pounds paid down, to get
+the boy permanently adopted by one of them. As you know, I could ill
+spare any such sum, but I would have made a still greater sacrifice
+rather than let the opportunity go by of ridding myself of what had
+latterly become the incubus of my life.
+
+"The clocks were striking nine when they started, which would leave
+them an hour and a-half for the journey to Tuxford. Balchin was on the
+box, with the stable-boy beside him, whom it was necessary to take in
+order that he might bring back the carriage. Inside were Mrs. Balchin
+and the child, the latter soundly asleep under the influence of a
+narcotic. You can but faintly imagine with what an intense feeling of
+relief I watched the carriage disappear in the soft darkness of the
+autumn night.
+
+"You will be wondering by this time as to the nature of the singular
+news which I began this letter by telling you I had to communicate.
+You shall now be told it, what I have written so far being merely the
+needful introduction thereto.
+
+"Imagine, then, if you can, my feelings of mingled amazement and alarm
+when, shortly after ten o'clock, my maid came to tell me that the
+carriage had just returned, and that Balchin was very anxious to speak
+to me. I ordered him to be at once admitted, and the moment I set eyes
+on his face I knew that something had gone amiss, although the mere
+fact of his presence there was enough to convince me on that point.
+
+"Without giving him time to speak, I said quickly: 'Where is the
+child? Nothing has happened to him I hope?'
+
+"'Only this, ma'am, that we've been robbed of him,' was his reply.
+
+"And so it proved to be. As they were crossing Blaydon Heath they had
+been stopped by a masked horseman carrying a pistol in one hand and a
+small lantern in the other, who had bidden Balchin bring the carriage
+to a halt, on pain of instant death. Naturally the man was much
+frightened, seeing that in his wife's purse was not merely the
+passage-money for all three, but the hundred pounds given by me for
+the purpose just named. But in that respect his fears proved to be
+unfounded. Riding up to the carriage window, the horseman first turned
+his lantern full on Mrs. Balchin and then on the face of the sleeping
+child. 'As I thought, madam, as I thought,' he said. 'I find you here
+in possession of property which does not belong to you. With your good
+pleasure I will relieve you of it. Nay, no demur, or you will find it
+the worse for you. Child-stealing, allow me to remind you, is a crime
+punishable with a long term of transportation. Hand the boy over to me
+at once, and thank your lucky stars that you are allowed to escape so
+easily.'
+
+
+[Illustration: "The compliments of Captain Nightshade."]
+
+
+"What could the woman do but comply? Indeed, as she has since told me,
+she was nearly frightened out of her wits. Without dismounting, the
+horseman opened the carriage door, and the child, still sleeping
+soundly, was transferred to him. Placing the boy in front of him, with
+one arm round him, he backed his horse from the carriage, and then
+addressing Balchin, said, 'You can drive back home, and when you get
+there give my compliments to your mistress--the compliments of Captain
+Nightshade--and tell her she ought to go down on her knees and thank
+me for having saved her from the consequences of a most shameful
+crime.' With that he waved his hand, set spur to his horse, and
+cantered off.
+
+"Such was the story brought back by Balchin.
+
+"Captain Nightshade, I must tell you, is a notorious highwayman who
+for two or three years past has been the terror of this part of
+England. For the last six or seven months, however, nothing has been
+heard of him, and everybody was hoping that he had seen fit to
+transfer his attentions elsewhere.
+
+"Now, tell me this if you can. How did he, of all people in the world,
+succeed in discovering that young C. was hidden under my roof, and
+that he was about to be smuggled away at that particular time? It is a
+question which the oftener I ask it, the more bewildered I become.
+Somebody must have acted the part of spy and traitor, but who is that
+somebody? and through what mysterious channel did he or she succeed in
+communicating my intentions to the highwayman? I have my suspicions in
+the matter, but I refrain from inflicting them upon you.
+
+"Captain Nightshade's motive in getting hold of the boy is as plain as
+a pikestaff. He will restore him to his friends, and claim the reward
+offered for his recovery.
+
+"And after such an ignominious fashion has the scheme of revenge
+hatched by you, and in a weak moment acceded to by me, collapsed and
+crumbled to pieces. That I should ever have allowed myself to be mixed
+up with any such affair seems to me, writing now, wholly
+inconceivable; but it merely serves to prove to what lengths a woman
+will go when blinded by passion, spite, and the overthrow of her most
+cherished hopes.
+
+"Somehow, I have not much fear that the friends of young C., even
+should the facts of the case be made known to them, will take any
+further steps in the affair. They will not, I am quite sure, if Miss
+Baynard has any say in the affair. I could love that girl, Wilton,
+were it in my nature to love anybody. And to think that not a shilling
+of her great-uncle's wealth will come to her! It is most shameful.
+
+"But enough, I am tired, and must leave till another day my answers to
+certain questions which you ask in your last letter.
+
+     "Your affectionate sister,
+
+             "Onoria Bullivant."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+A JOYFUL SURPRISE.
+
+
+All this time Miss Baynard was waiting at Stanbrook for the news which
+seemed so long in coming.
+
+As one slow day followed another without bringing the longed-for
+tidings her heart grew sick within her. Perhaps the boy had been
+spirited out of the country, and she should never set eyes on him
+again; perhaps something worse even than that had befallen him. Mr.
+Piljoy came over on business connected with the estate, but brought no
+comfort with him. Till some tidings of the missing heir should come to
+hand no steps whatever could be taken with reference to the settlement
+of the property. After his receipt of Nell's letter containing the
+news of the abduction he had communicated direct with the authorities
+in London, but, beyond a reply to the effect that the case was already
+in hand and having their best attention, he had heard nothing. He had
+more than one question to put to Miss Baynard having reference to Mr.
+Geoffrey Dare, to which she contented herself with replying that Dare
+had been her cousin's bosom friend, and was the missing boy's
+godfather, and had promised poor Dick to look after him as if he were
+his own son. What would have been Mr. Piljoy's horror and amazement
+had he been told that Mr. Geoffrey Dare and the notorious Captain
+Nightshade were one and the same person! Nell could not help laughing
+a little to herself as her imagination conjured up the picture.
+
+But our heroine's state of soul-wearing suspense was not destined to
+last much longer.
+
+On the evening of the second day after Mr. Piljoy's return home a
+letter was brought her which caused her to start with amazement the
+moment her eyes fell on it. The address was in the same writing as
+that of the packet in which her lost mask had been returned to her.
+For a space of some seconds she stood staring at it like one
+fascinated; then with fingers that shook a little she broke the seal
+and tore open the letter. Here is what she read: "Mr. Cope-Ellerslie
+presents his compliments to Miss Baynard, and has much happiness in
+informing her that news has reached him not only of the safety but of
+the whereabouts of her young relative, Master Evan Cortelyon.
+
+"Should Miss Baynard think it worth her while to come as far as
+Rockmount, Mr. Ellerslie will be pleased to tell her all that has come
+to his knowledge in connection with the affair, in which case the
+bearer of this letter is instructed to act as her guide and escort on
+the journey."
+
+She could hardly make out the last few lines for the happy tears which
+already dimmed her eyes, and so had to read them again.
+
+Go to Rockmount! Of course she would. Had it been to the end of Europe
+she would have gone, and ten minutes later she was ready to start. Day
+was already drawing to dusk, and timorous-hearted Mrs. Budd would fain
+have persuaded her to put off her journey till morning. But timid
+counsels had never prevailed with Nell, and it was not in the least
+likely that they would in a case like the present.
+
+She had at once sent word to have her mare saddled and brought round,
+and it was waiting for her, in charge of John Dyce, by the time she
+was ready. Nell was hardly surprised at finding that the man who had
+brought the letter, and who was waiting for an answer to it, was the
+one who on the occasion of her first sojourn at Rockmount had acted as
+her guide as far as the Whinbarrow road. Would he recognize in her the
+young spark whom he had then escorted? It seemed hardly likely that he
+would, and in any case, it did not matter greatly. It was far more
+probable that he would recognize her mare Peggy.
+
+"I am going back with you to Rockmount," she said to him.
+
+"All right, mum," he replied, with a tug at his forelock. "You
+couldn't have a finer evenin' for a ride."
+
+Neither man nor horse had lacked for refreshment while waiting. And so
+presently they set out, Miss Baynard leading the way by about a dozen
+yards. This lasted till they had gone some six or eight miles, and had
+reached a point where it became necessary to diverge from the great
+highway they had hitherto been traversing and take to one of the
+tortuous cross-country roads which branched off into the desolate
+region of fells and moors. Then the position of the two was reversed,
+and it was the man who led the way.
+
+It was quite dark by the time they reached Rockmount, or as nearly so
+as it ever is on a clear, starlit autumnal night. As Miss Baynard drew
+rein in front of the house, her mind was busy with the incidents of
+that other night, now many months old, when one whom she had since
+learnt to love in secret with all the fervency of a first great
+passion had brought her to the door of Rockmount and had there left
+her. How full of incident for her those months had been! What a
+changed life, both inwardly and outwardly, had hers become between
+then and now!
+
+Her guide, having dismounted, gave a resounding knock on the great
+oaken door and then helped Miss Baynard to alight. When that was done
+he led the horses away towards the back premises, and the same instant
+there was the sound of bolts and bars being unloosened one by one. So
+remote and lonely was the house that it was no wonder the inmates
+looked carefully to their fastenings.
+
+Then the door was opened, disclosing the same sour-visaged old
+serving-man, carrying a lighted candle, whom Nell had seen on the
+first occasion.
+
+"Be good enough to tell your master that Miss Baynard is here," she
+said.
+
+Making an arch of one of his knotted hands, he peered at her for a
+moment or two from under it. Then he said: "The Master is expecting yo.
+Will yo be pleased to come in?"
+
+And so for the second time, Nell crossed the threshold of Rockmount.
+The door having been shut behind her, the old fellow led the way
+across the hall, and so brought her presently to the same sparsely
+furnished room with which she was already so well acquainted. Then she
+was left alone.
+
+As Nell looked round the room she could have fancied that only a few
+hours had gone by since she was last there. The candles were alight, a
+cheerful fire was burning in the grate; the heavy curtains of faded
+red moreen were closely drawn; nothing was changed. From moment to
+moment she looked to see Mr. Cope-Ellerslie enter.
+
+Would he, when they met, treat her as a stranger, or as one whom he
+knew already? It was a question she had asked herself more than once
+while on her way to Rockmount. That he knew the pseudo Mr. Frank
+Nevill to be none other than Miss Baynard, of Stanbrook, he had
+himself furnished her with proof positive in the return of her mask;
+but did he know at the time he gave her a night's lodging who she was,
+or did he not discover it till afterwards? And, in either case, by
+what mysterious means had he made the discovery? She had not
+forgotten, nor was it likely she should forget, that in the chamber
+assigned her at Rockmount she had found a certain feminine garment,
+but whether placed there by accident or design she had no means
+whatever of knowing. If by design, then must Mr. Ellerslie from the
+first have penetrated the secret of her sex. It was a thought which,
+even after all this time, caused the blood to tingle in her veins.
+
+But these questions, personal to herself, perplexing though they were,
+did not cause her for more than a minute or two at a time to lose
+sight of the main object which had brought her to Rockmount, while
+wholly at a loss to imagine how it had come to pass that the first
+news of the lost child should have reached her through Mr. Ellerslie,
+and neither through Bow Street nor Geoffrey Dare. Not that it mattered
+greatly, so long as news of him had come to hand. She was all
+impatience to hear what Mr. Ellerslie had to tell her.
+
+She could not help starting when the door opened, thinking to see him;
+but it was Mrs. Dobson, the housekeeper, who now came in. Nell had by
+no means forgotten Mrs. Dobson, and she scrutinized her a little
+anxiously. Would the housekeeper recognize her? Would there be
+anything in her manner to betray a knowledge of their having ever met
+before?
+
+Mrs. Dobson, having shut the door, came forward a little way, crossed
+her hands in front of her, and made Miss Baynard a respectful curtsey.
+Then their eyes met, and Nell read nothing in those of the other which
+she might not have read in the eyes of any stranger. Undisguised
+admiration they betrayed of a surety, but to that our young lady was
+so used that she thought nothing of it.
+
+"Madam," began the housekeeper, with the tone and manner of a
+well-bred dependent, "my master desires me to say that in another room
+there is a very charming little picture, a view of which he feels sure
+would please you vastly. If you will be good enough to accompany me I
+will conduct you to it."
+
+Miss Baynard stared at the housekeeper with wide-set eyes. "A
+picture!" she said. "Surely Mr. Ellerslie has not asked me to
+Rockmount merely to show me a picture!"
+
+"That is more than I can say, miss. My business is simply to repeat my
+master's message. But I feel quite sure that if you knew what the
+picture is, you would never forgive yourself for having refused to see
+it. Do come, miss," she added next moment, seeing that Miss Baynard
+still hesitated.
+
+"Very well, I will go with you," said Nell.
+
+Mrs. Dobson led the way through the gloomy old house to a bedroom on
+the first floor, but not the one occupied by Miss Baynard on the
+occasion of her first visit to Rockmount, although differing very
+little from it in its furniture and appointments, except in one
+particular. In the middle of the floor stood a couch, to which Nell's
+eyes travelled instinctively the moment she entered the room. It had
+been made up temporarily with pillows and coverlets, so as to form a
+child's bed. A solitary wax candle was alight on the chimney-piece.
+
+A low, inarticulate cry broke from Nell. Brushing past the
+housekeeper, she went swiftly forward and bent over the couch. The
+truth had flashed across her as she set foot over the threshold, and
+now her eyes verified it. There, in rosy slumber, his cheek pillowed
+on one hand, the other arm flung with graceful abandon outside the
+coverlet, lay the missing child. This was the picture Mr. Ellerslie
+had invited her to come and see!
+
+Tears rushed to her eyes and overbrimmed them; a sob broke in her
+throat. Not for a full minute, for fear of waking him, did she venture
+to stoop and touch the peach-bloom of his cheek with her lips. Her
+heart was full, and not till a few more moments had gone by would she
+trust herself to speak. The housekeeper was at her elbow.
+
+"Who brought him, and how long has he been here?" she asked.
+
+"I found him keeping master company in the library when I came
+downstairs this morning. Some one had brought him in the course of
+the night. He has been playing about on the moors a good part of the
+day--not, of course, without some one to look after him--and came to
+bed thoroughly tired out. What a dear little gentleman he is! Not a
+bit like many children I've known, but trying to make friends with
+everybody. I suppose, miss, that you won't have any objection to
+sharing this room with him to-night?"
+
+Miss Baynard was startled. "But I have not seen Mr. Ellerslie yet,"
+she objected. "When his message reached me, my only aim was to lose no
+time in getting here, and certainly I had no thought or intention of
+staying the night at Rockmount."
+
+"But consider the lateness of the hour, miss; and you would hardly
+care, I should think, to have the child wakened in order to take him a
+long journey in the middle of the night."
+
+"No, I certainly should not care for that. But when I left home I did
+not know that Evan had been found, and that I was going to see him;
+only that Mr. Ellerslie had a message of some kind for me which
+concerned him."
+
+"Well, miss, master certainly expects you to stay till morning, and
+asked me hours ago to arrange accordingly. But most likely he will
+speak to you himself about it. And now, if you are ready, we will go
+downstairs."
+
+But Nell could not go without another kiss. "He is not left alone
+while he sleeps," remarked Mrs. Dobson as they left the room; "my
+niece watches by him."
+
+Downstairs Miss Baynard found the table laid for one person, and three
+minutes later a dainty little supper was brought in.
+
+"When shall I see Mr. Ellerslie?" she asked, as the housekeeper was on
+the point of leaving the room.
+
+"He will do himself the honor of waiting upon you in the course of
+half an hour."
+
+It was very rarely that Nell's appetite failed her, and her long ride
+through the night air had, if anything, tended to sharpen it on the
+present occasion. She was a healthy English girl, who came of a
+healthy stock. She hardly knew that she had such things as nerves. She
+was neither hysterical, nor anæmic, nor introspective. No
+_fin-de-siècle_ questions troubled her, because the century was yet in
+its infancy. She was a warm-hearted, warm-blooded creature, somewhat
+too impulsive perhaps, and too easily led away by her own generous
+instincts, and although an existence such as hers would nowadays be
+regarded as intolerably narrow and antiquated, yet was her life an
+exemplar of several of those minor if homely virtues with which so
+many of our up-to-date young women profess to be, and probably are,
+wholly unacquainted, and to regard with silent contempt. At any rate,
+Miss Baynard did full justice to her supper.
+
+Scarcely had the table been cleared when Mr. Ellerslie entered the
+room. To Nell it seemed as if she might have parted from him no longer
+ago than the day before, so wholly unchanged was he from the picture
+of him which still lived so freshly in her memory. There was the long,
+grizzled hair parted down the middle, the short Vandyck beard and
+moustache, the black velvet skull cap, and the dark monkish robe which
+wrapped him from head to foot. There, too, was the set, mask-like face
+with its thousands of fine wrinkles, which from a little distance
+looked as if it were carved out of old ivory, a face which seemed to
+emphasize the pair of brilliant black eyes that looked out from under
+their heavy penthouse brows with an illusive something in them which
+reminded Nell strangely of Geoffrey Dare.
+
+As he entered the room Miss Baynard rose and advanced to meet him with
+both hands outstretched. "Oh, Mr. Ellerslie!" she said, and in her
+voice there was a veiled emotion not far removed from tears, "how can
+I ever thank you enough, how ever be sufficiently grateful to you, for
+the glad surprise you have given me this evening? Surely you must be a
+necromancer, or the good wizard of a fairy tale, for to me it seems
+nothing less than a fairy tale to have one I hold so dear restored to
+me in this fashion."
+
+Mr. Ellerslie took her hands in his, bent over them, and raised them
+for a second to his lips. "Nay, nay, my dear young lady," he replied,
+"if any thanks be due in the matter--though why there should be I fail
+to see--then must they fall not to my share, but to that of my nephew,
+Geoffrey Dare."
+
+An involuntary "Oh!" broke from Miss Baynard. His nephew! It was a
+revelation which seemed to throw light on several things.
+
+"It was Geoff who brought the child here at a late hour last night,
+asleep and perched on his horse in front of him. As to whom, where,
+and how he picked the youngster up, I must refer you to him in
+person."
+
+"But when shall I see Mr. Dare? Is he not here?"
+
+"At present he is not. Some business called him away in the course of
+the day. But I have his promise that he will be back not later than
+ten o'clock to-morrow morning."
+
+"And I shall see him then?"
+
+"Certainly you will, my dear Miss Baynard. He will be here immediately
+after breakfast."
+
+By this time he had led her back to her chair, and had seated himself
+in another on the opposite side of the hearth.
+
+Miss Baynard hesitated a moment, then she said: "When I left Stanbrook
+in consequence of your message, Mr. Ellerslie, it was certainly
+without any design of staying over night at Rockmount."
+
+"But, my dear young lady, as circumstances have fallen out, I fail to
+see how you can very well help yourself; that is to say, unless it is
+your intention to leave your young cousin for a time under my charge,
+a charge, I need scarcely tell you, which I will very gladly
+undertake."
+
+"You are very good, Mr. Ellerslie, but when I go back Evan must go
+with me."
+
+"Then permit me to observe that, putting yourself out of the question,
+the hour is far too late a one for the child to travel." It was the
+same argument the housekeeper had made use of.
+
+"Besides, where's your hurry?" resumed Mr. Ellerslie. "The boy is
+restored to you, and that, as I take it, is the main thing. The rest's
+but leather and prunella."
+
+"You might have added, Mr. Ellerslie, by way of clinching your
+argument, that it would not be the first time I have slept under the
+roof of Rockmount."
+
+"Eh?" exclaimed Mr. Ellerslie, with a palpable start.
+
+"A certain Mr. Frank Nevill sought and found shelter here one night
+early in the present year. It may be that you have not quite forgotten
+the young man in question?"
+
+"I have not by any means forgotten him."
+
+"Furthermore, you have been for some time aware--for how long I do not
+know--that the aforesaid Mr. Nevill and Miss Baynard, of Stanbrook,
+were and are one and the same person. And how I happen to know this I
+will now make clear to you. For a certain reason--which at the time
+seemed to him all-powerful, but which after-circumstances turned to
+foolishness--the _soi-disant_ Frank Nevill chose, for one night, to
+enact the part of an amateur highwayman, and wound up his adventure by
+accepting the hospitality of Rockmount. On quitting here next morning,
+by some oversight he left his mask behind him. Time passed on, and
+when three or four months had gone by the missing mask was forwarded
+through the post to Miss Baynard, but without any word of explanation,
+or any clue to the sender of it. And there the matter rested till this
+afternoon, when Miss Baynard received a note from Mr. Ellerslie
+informing her that he had certain news to communicate. To Miss B. the
+writing seemed not wholly strange, and on comparing it with the
+address on the sheet of paper, which she had kept, in which the mask
+had been enclosed, she could not doubt that they had both emanated
+from one pen. But doubtless much of this is old news to you, Mr.
+Ellerslie. To Mr. Dare my double identity has for some time been no
+secret, and he----"
+
+Mr. Ellerslie held up his hand. "Pardon me. Not even to me would my
+nephew speak of matters which involved a point of honor between
+himself and another. That which you have just told me has now become a
+matter of little or no moment, and such being the case, there can be
+no harm in my confessing that the identity of Miss Baynard with Mr.
+Frank Nevill was suspected by me almost from the first. Why was the
+same mare ridden by both, as one of my men, who chanced on Miss
+Baynard next day when on her way back to Stanbrook, averred to be the
+fact? But it was my housekeeper who was the first to raise a doubt in
+my mind with regard to the sex of 'Mr. Frank Nevill.' That young blade
+had not been ten minutes under my roof before she came to me and said,
+'You may take my word for it, sir, that yon young gentleman in the oak
+parlor is no more a gentleman than I am, and would be far more at home
+in petticoats than in what he's wearing now.' Evidently Mrs. Dobson
+knew what she was talking about. She is a woman of penetration, and I
+have a great respect for her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+A PARTING AND A LETTER.
+
+
+Next morning Miss Baynard and Evan breakfasted alone, Mr. Ellerslie
+remaining invisible. But Nell, who was becoming accustomed to her
+host's eccentricities, was hardly surprised at his non-appearance. Not
+much appetite had she this morning. Dare was coming at ten o'clock,
+and the thought of her forthcoming interview with him disturbed her
+strangely. They were about to part. When she had given expression to
+her gratitude, and they had taken leave of each other, and she had
+gone her way and he his, what chance or likelihood was there of their
+ever meeting again? By his own confession his business in England was
+now at an end; in a few days, or a few weeks at the latest, he would
+have left its shores, never to return; they would have passed out of
+each other's life, and, except for one thing, all would be as it was
+before they first met.
+
+Yes, save and except for one thing, but one which to Nell made all
+imaginable difference. Then she had held her heart fast in her own
+keeping, but what had become of the poor thing now? She had given it
+away without having been asked for it. Could anything be more
+shameful? It was gone from her past reclaiming; lost to her forever;
+and yet he into whose keeping it had been given knew nothing about it.
+And he never would know. He would carry it away with him, all
+unwitting, and to all outward seeming, life with her would go on just
+as before. She alone would know that she had lost something which
+nothing else could make up to her, that some of the magic had faded
+out of existence, and that the sun no longer shone quite so brightly
+as it had been used to do.
+
+Hardly had the clocks struck ten when there came a tap at the door,
+which was followed by the entrance of Geoffrey Dare. Young Evan was on
+the floor busied with some toys which the housekeeper had disinterred
+for him out of one of the garrets. The moment he saw who the newcomer
+was, he called out: "Uncle Geoff, come here. One of my horses has only
+got three legs, and I want you to make me a new one."
+
+"Presently, my dear boy, presently," he replied, as, after pausing for
+a moment at the door, he went slowly forward, his eyes fixed full on
+Miss Baynard.
+
+She was standing, supporting herself with one hand on the table and
+with the other pressed to her side. For a little space her gaze met
+his without the flicker of an eyelash and then dropped before the
+ardor of his regard. Her heart was beating tumultuously, while the
+quick rise and fall of her bosom told of the emotions at work beneath.
+A lovely flush suffused both face and throat; but Dare was paler than
+ordinary, and haggard and weary-looking, and might have just risen
+from a sick bed. Both were putting a strong restraint on themselves,
+but each showed it in a different way.
+
+Nell did not advance with impulsive outstretched hands, as she had
+done in the case of Mr. Ellerslie. It was as though her limbs refused
+to move under her. But when Dare came up and held out one of his
+hands, she laid one of hers in it readily enough. "It did not take
+long to bring you here, Miss Baynard," he said, "when once you knew
+that my uncle had tidings of the boy."
+
+After pressing her hand slightly he had withdrawn his own. They might
+have been the merest casual acquaintances, Nell felt a little
+bitterly. And yet, unless her feelings had blinded her, as he entered
+the room, she had detected in his eyes a flame of passionate ardor
+from which her own had been fain to shrink abashed. Could it be that
+he was hiding something from her, even as she was hiding something
+from him? As this question flashed across her she raised her eyes once
+more to his. But the flame which had so dazzled her a minute before
+was no longer there. Had it been extinguished? or was it merely that a
+veil had been temporarily drawn before it?
+
+It was after a scarcely observable pause that she answered his remark.
+"You may be sure that after Mr. Ellerslie's message reached me I let
+no grass grow under my feet. I came, looking to have merely some
+tidings of the boy, whereas it was Evan himself whom I found! But I am
+only telling you what you know already. When I began to thank your
+uncle, under the belief that I owed Evan's recovery to him, he stopped
+me. It seems that you are the person to whom my thanks are due.
+Believe me, Mr. Dare, they are yours from the bottom of my heart."
+
+Dare bowed. "Not a word more on that score, I beg," he said with a
+smile. "I need not tell you that it makes me very happy to have been
+the means of restoring Evan to you; but, as you are aware, I myself
+have a strong interest in the boy--strong enough to make it impossible
+for me to leave a stone unturned till he had been found, whether by me
+or some one else did not greatly matter."
+
+"I am very glad it was you, and not another, who found him."
+
+"And, of course, I am not sorry that such should have been the case."
+
+Miss Baynard had resumed her chair, and Dare had dropped into another
+no great distance away.
+
+"If there is no secret involved in the affair, and it will be breaking
+no confidence on your part, I should like you to tell me, not only how
+you succeeded in discovering Evan's whereabouts, but by what means you
+contrived to rescue him from the wretches--for wretches they must have
+been--who, to gratify some vile purpose of their own, stole him away
+in broad daylight."
+
+"'Tis a story very easily told. To your old friend Captain Nightshade
+is due the boy's rescue from those who abducted him."
+
+"To Captain Nightshade? Oh!"
+
+"Who once more, and for the last time, revisited the glimpses of the
+moon. But I am starting my story at the wrong end. I will tell it you
+from the beginning, since you say you would like to hear it. First of
+all, however, I must inquire into the state of Master Evan's horse,
+which seems to be minus one of its legs."
+
+Miss Baynard left Rockmount two hours later, but without seeing Mr.
+Ellerslie again, who sent his apologies by his nephew. His rheumatism
+had come on in the night, and this morning he was unable to rise.
+
+Dare rode with Miss Baynard as far as the park gates of Stanbrook,
+with Evan in front of him. Next day he was going to London, there to
+complete a few preparations and arrange certain business matters for
+Mr. Ellerslie, before setting sail for that New World where his home
+would henceforth be. But this was not to be their final farewell; they
+would see each other once more in about a fortnight, when Dare would
+come north in order to bid his uncle goodbye, on which occasion he
+would not fail to call at Stanbrook. He would not, of course, dream of
+leaving England without seeing his godson again.
+
+And so they parted, both secretly consumed with love. Dare would not
+open his lips. In the first place, he was far too poor to marry; and
+then, to dream that, in any case, the proud and beautiful Miss Baynard
+would stoop so low as to wed the notorious "Captain Nightshade" was
+the veriest moonstruck folly. Had he but known how often Nell, with
+despair gnawing at her heartstrings, murmured sadly to herself, "If
+only he would say one word!" what a change, little less than
+miraculous, would have come over him!
+
+But the word was not said, and they separated with nothing warmer than
+a hand-grasp--torn asunder, not by Fate, but by their own pride, and
+to the full as wretched as parted lovers are always said, or supposed,
+to be.
+
+
+Lady Carradine, having much leisure time on her hands, and being fond
+of letter-writing, not infrequently obliged her goddaughter with one
+of her lengthy and somewhat diffusely-worded epistles. To Miss
+Baynard, in the retirement of Stanbrook, these occasional glimpses of
+a life so different from her own were always welcome; and as her
+ladyship had now taken up her permanent residence in London and saw a
+good deal of company, she had much to tell that was both fresh and
+interesting.
+
+Nearly a fortnight had gone by since Nell's return from Rockmount, and
+she was looking daily for the coming of Dare, when one of Lady
+Carradine's crossed and recrossed letters--postage in those days was a
+consideration--came to hand. With only one part of her ladyship's
+epistle are we in any way concerned. The part in question ran as
+under:--
+
+"I forget, my dear, whether I ever mentioned to you that among my many
+acquaintances is numbered Sir Peter Warrendale, a baronet of old
+family, whose home, when he is at home, is somewhere in your benighted
+part of the country. Of late years, however, he has been seen a good
+deal in town. I have a notion that his health is not quite what he
+would like it to be, and that he has little or no faith in your rural
+practitioners, which I can't wonder at. But that is his own secret.
+
+"He is now well on for seventy, a tetchy, cross-grained old man, with
+a good word for nobody behind their back; and I have not the least
+doubt he pulls me to pieces before others, just as he pulls others to
+pieces before me. I candidly confess that I don't like him, but he
+helps to amuse me, and to any one who does that I can forgive much.
+
+"I had not seen him for some little time till one evening about a week
+ago, when he called upon me, evidently brimful of news, of which it
+was needful that he should relieve himself to somebody if he wished to
+escape a fit of apoplexy. I quite expected that I was about to be
+treated to the latest scandalous _on dit_, or the most recent morsel
+of society gossip, which would lose nothing in Sir Peter's telling,
+but for once I was mistaken. What he had to tell me was the
+particulars of a somewhat singular incident in which he had figured as
+one of the chief actors.
+
+"It would appear that several months ago Sir Peter, while travelling
+in his own chariot, was stopped by a mounted highwayman and relieved,
+among other things, of a choice snuff-box--an heirloom, and set with
+brilliants--by which he set great store. Although the affair happened
+in his own part of the country, when he came to town, a few weeks
+later, he reported his loss at Bow Street, and handed in a full
+description of the box. This he did in the faint hope that the box
+might some day find its way to one of the London pawnbrokers--to each
+of whom a description of it would have been furnished--and, through
+him, back to its rightful owner.
+
+"Time went on, and Sir Peter had given up all hope of ever seeing his
+box again, when he was one day requested to betake himself to Bow
+Street, and there, sure enough, he set eyes once more on his precious
+heirloom. It had been found on the person of a low London thief who
+had been arrested for something altogether different.
+
+"But now comes the most singular feature of the affair. The box had
+been _twice_ stolen, once, several months ago, from the person of Sir
+Peter, and a second time, a few weeks ago, here in London, from the
+person of a certain Mr. Geoffrey Dare, and both losses had been
+notified to the authorities.
+
+"Sir Peter having identified the box as his property, it became
+needful to ascertain through what channel it had come into the
+possession of Mr. Dare, who seems to be one of those numerous young
+men of good family about whom one is continually hearing, who seem to
+think that twenty thousand pounds will go as far as a hundred
+thousand, and who, after their follies and extravagances have made
+them the talk of the town for a few seasons, vanish and are no more
+seen. At any rate, that, some two or three years ago, the young man in
+question was a well-known figure in London society, and that, with the
+help of the gaming table--an important factor in nearly all such
+cases--he dissipated his fortune to the last shilling, are well
+ascertained facts.
+
+"When inquired for at his lodgings--a couple of cheap rooms in some
+horrid back street--it was ascertained that he had gone into the
+country for an indefinite time, without leaving any word where he
+might be found. Such being the state of affairs, nothing more could be
+done till he should return, which he did about ten days ago. A message
+had been left at his lodgings, requesting his attendance at Bow
+Street, which he seems to have lost no time in obeying. There he was
+questioned as to how the snuff-box came into his keeping, and, his
+answers not being deemed satisfactory, he was confronted with Sir
+Peter.
+
+"In him--although he admitted that the highwayman was masked--the
+baronet professed to recognize the man who robbed him of his purse and
+the box; indeed, on being pressed, he actually went so far as to swear
+to his identity with the robber, although, from what he has confessed
+to me, I cannot help thinking that the evidence on which he grounds
+his accusation is of the flimsiest possible kind.
+
+"But be that as it may, after two or three remands at Bow Street, Dare
+has been committed to take his trial for highway robbery at the next
+Lanchester assizes, within a few miles of which town Sir Peter was
+waylaid.
+
+"I had written thus far yesterday when Sir Peter himself rang the
+bell. He brought me some further news with regard to young Dare which
+is of a sufficiently remarkable kind.
+
+"It would appear that the authorities have some ground for believing
+that in him they have laid hands on no less a personage than a certain
+Captain Nightshade (a sobriquet, of course), whose exploits and
+adventures as a gentleman of the road in the course of the past two or
+three years have, according to Sir Peter, formed the fireside talk of
+half the households in the north of England. It seems, however, that
+some six or eight months ago he disappeared, and has not been heard of
+since. But now that the runners have been laid on the scent, 'twill
+not be their fault if they fail to run their quarry to earth.
+
+"Poor fellow! I can't help feeling sorry for him, although it may be
+very reprehensible on my part to say so. I am afraid it will go hard
+with him at his trial. 'Tis said that Captain Nightshade was one of
+the most chivalrous of men, and never robbed a woman in his life."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+A DESPERATE RESOLVE.
+
+
+Lady Carradine's letter, figuratively speaking, smote poor Nell, like
+a bolt from the blue. She had imagined several things, any one of
+which might have delayed Dare's coming--he had given her to understand
+that his business in London would not take up more than a fortnight at
+the most--but no faintest dread or suspicion that, after so long a
+time, he would be arrested and cast for trial on a charge connected
+with his past career had ever entered her mind. It was like a stab in
+the dark by an unseen hand, and she reeled under it, and felt for a
+while as if she were hurt in a vital part past hope of recovery.
+
+She did not sleep a wink during the whole of the night after her
+receipt of the news. Now and then she lay down for a little while on a
+couch, but for the most part she spent the long dark hours in pacing
+her room restlessly from end to end. No sooner, however, had the first
+streak of daylight appeared in the sky than she quitted the house,
+and, making her way down to the banks of the little river which ran
+past the foot of the park, she followed its solitary windings for some
+miles, till it drew near the village of Mosscrags, where the early
+housewives were now astir, and the laborers going forth to their work;
+then she turned and retraced the way she had come. It had seemed to
+her that she could think more clearly and coherently under the free
+air of heaven than in the confined space of her own chamber.
+
+All her thinking had for its intent the answering of one question:
+"What can I do to help him?" But so bitterly did the sense of her
+powerlessness weigh upon her that she could have beaten her head
+against the wall in a tempest of rage and impotent passion. She could
+do nothing--nothing; a month-old babe would be as competent to help
+him as she was. The four walls of a jail held him, and there was no
+door of escape open to him save that last one of all which led to the
+gallows. Several times in the course of the night the shadows that
+seem to lurk so thickly around one at such times had shaped themselves
+into the ghastly semblance of a cross-tree with its dangling rope,
+which, all imaginary though it was, had caused her soul to shudder and
+grow sick within her.
+
+In the days to which our narrative refers the old barbarous and
+inhuman penal code was still in full operation, and crimes which a
+short term of imprisonment with hard labor would now expiate had the
+last dread sentence of the law pronounced on them without hope of
+reprieve. At the Lanchester spring assizes of that year, as Miss
+Baynard did not fail to call to mind, a couple of men had been
+condemned to death, one of them for sheep-stealing and the other for
+shop-lifting. In the eye of the law the crime for which Geoffrey Dare
+stood committed was of a much more heinous kind than either of those,
+and should the charge be proved against him, as there seemed every
+likelihood of its being, then would the gallows seen by Nell with the
+eyes of her imagination develop into a very real erection on the roof
+of Lanchester jail. In such a case as Dare's--whether or no they
+succeeded in identifying him with "Captain Nightshade"--the death
+penalty would indubitably be exacted. Justice would demand her victim,
+while Mercy wept with her face turned to the wall.
+
+And still Nell's heart echoed persistently with the cry, "What can I
+do to help him?" But it was a cry which both earth and heaven flung
+back, and to which no answer was vouchsafed her. All that day and all
+the next night she was like a distracted creature, but distracted
+after the quiet fashion of one who craves for absolute solitude, and
+to whom even the society of those nearest and dearest is distasteful,
+if not positively unbearable.
+
+Kind-hearted Mrs. Budd was greatly put about, being altogether at a
+loss to divine what was the matter with Nell, and whether the
+strangeness of her manner was due to a mental or bodily cause. Never
+before had she developed such peculiar symptoms, for no more sane and
+healthy being ever existed. She had never swooned in her life,
+although swooning, at proper times and season, was regarded rather as
+a fashionable accomplishment than otherwise. She never fancied that
+she was ill when nothing ailed her, or pretended that she had lost her
+appetite; she was never troubled with qualms, or spasms, or "the
+vertigo"; and as for being dyspeptic, she did not know the meaning of
+the word. She had been rendered very anxious and unhappy by the
+abduction of Evan, and proportionately happy by his recovery, but
+there had been nothing in the way she bore herself at that time which
+at all resembled the peculiar and inexplicable mood of which she had
+been the victim for the last four-and-twenty hours.
+
+It was in a certain measure due to Mrs. Budd's instinctive tact, which
+taught her when it was advisable to speak and when to keep silent,
+that she and Miss Baynard had got on so well together. On the present
+occasion her instinct told her that Nell was in no mood to bear
+questioning, and she kept a guard on her tongue accordingly. But by
+the afternoon of the second day her uneasiness had grown to such an
+extent that she felt she should be lacking in her duty to one so much
+younger than herself if she refrained any longer from endeavoring to
+discover what it was that had changed Miss Baynard so unaccountably in
+so short a space of time.
+
+"My dear Elinor, what is it that ails you? Whatever is the matter with
+you?" she at length summoned up courage to ask. "You are not like the
+same girl that you were at breakfast-time yesterday."
+
+"Am I not? And yet I am the same," replied Nell with a smile which had
+more of tears than mirth in it. "What is't that ails me, do you ask!
+Nothing more serious than a fit of the megrims, I assure you. But I am
+apt to be dangerous at such times. You had better not come too near
+me; I might grow worse and bite you."
+
+Then, before the astonished lady had time to collect her faculties,
+she found herself hugged and kissed, and left alone. Half a minute
+later she heard Miss Baynard singing as she went upstairs to her room.
+Then a door clashed somewhere in the distance, and all was still.
+
+Some time in the dead of night Nell lay down on the couch in her
+bedroom, and presently sank into the deep sleep of utter exhaustion.
+In that sleep she had a very vivid dream, from which, at the end of a
+couple of hours, she suddenly awoke. So strongly had the particulars
+of her dream impressed themselves upon her that she lay for another
+hour without stirring, turning them over and over in her mind till she
+had mastered every detail of the scheme which, as she firmly believed,
+had been revealed to her by some supernatural influence in her sleep.
+
+She had scarcely eaten a mouthful of anything since her receipt
+of her godmother's letter, but this morning she appeared at the
+breakfast-table as usual, and looking as if the last two days had been
+blotted out of her existence. She was still a little pale, and dark
+round the eyes, but the eyes themselves had lost that look of almost
+fierce despair, as of a creature driven to bay and not knowing which
+way to turn, which had been their dominant expression for the last
+eight-and-forty hours. Now they shone with a serene and steadfast
+lustre, which yet had in it a something of fixed resolution, as if
+bent on carrying out some hidden purpose, which the busy brain behind
+was brooding remotely over, even while its outward attention was
+occupied and given with seeming abandonment to far other things.
+
+Mrs. Budd saw and was satisfied, and was far too wise to put any
+further questions with reference to a state of affairs which was so
+evidently over and done with.
+
+Nell followed Mrs. Budd's lead over breakfast-table-talk wherever that
+good lady chose to let it wander, and her divagations were many and
+various. She seemed in the best of spirits, and when the meal was over
+she indulged herself and Evan with a wild romp.
+
+The boy had been much put about in his childish way because for the
+last two nights he had been banished from his Aunt Nell's chamber to
+that of Mrs. Budd (in those first days after his recovery Nell would
+not entrust him at night to the care of any of the servants), but this
+glorious romp made amends for everything.
+
+After that Nell disappeared for some hours, and was engaged upstairs
+in her own rooms; but she joined Mrs. Budd and Evan at dinner, and in
+the afternoon they all drove out together and watched the sunset from
+the summit of Goat Scar. Then followed a long and happy evening. Never
+had Mrs. Budd seen the girl more seemingly merry and light-hearted
+than she was that day; she and the Nell of the day before were two
+different beings. And yet at times there would come a pause in her
+gayety, and for a few seconds the light in her eyes would deepen and
+darken, and a look would come into them as if something had suddenly
+crossed her vision, seen by herself alone. But, whatever it might be,
+it went as quickly as it had come, and with one sharp-drawn breath she
+was herself again.
+
+Next day at breakfast her mood was unaltered; but again, in the course
+of the forenoon, she was invisible for a couple of hours. That there
+was some secret business afoot Mrs. Budd felt satisfied, but, being
+the most discreet of matrons, she would rather have tied a
+handkerchief over her eyes than have allowed them to see what it was
+evidently not intended they should see. Still, it was not without a
+little shock of surprise that she heard the news which Nell broke
+abruptly to her as soon as their two o'clock dinner had come to an
+end.
+
+"I am about to leave you for a little while," said the girl, smiling
+bravely. "At present I can tell you neither the object of my journey
+nor my destination, but that you will know everything in good time I
+do not doubt. Neither can I fix the date of my return, because that is
+a point about which I am not quite clear. I leave Evan in your hands
+with every confidence. That you will look well after him I feel
+assured. He loves you and will be happy with you."
+
+After this followed a few directions with regard to household and
+other matters; then Miss Baynard went to get ready for her journey.
+
+An hour later Mrs. Budd and Evan were waiting on the steps of the main
+entrance to see her start. Presently, mounted on her mare Peggy, and
+followed by John Dyce, also on horseback, she came riding round from
+the stables, and a very fair and gracious picture she made in her long
+dark-blue riding habit, over which she wore a short gray cloak lined
+with black and tied with black ribbons, being in mourning for Mr.
+Cortelyon. Her hat was of black beaver, broad-brimmed and ornamented
+with two sweeping ostrich plumes of the same color.
+
+The afternoon sun, shining upon three or four heavy ringlets of
+chestnut hair which had escaped from under her hat, made a golden
+glory of them. The late pallor of her complexion had given place to a
+lovely flush of color. Her eyes, while more than ordinarily brilliant,
+did not smile as her lips did; rather did it seem as if they were
+charged with the light of some great resolution which might need all
+her courage to carry it through.
+
+Evan was held aloft for the sake of a last kiss. There was a fervent
+"Heaven keep you, darling!" a flickering smile, the glisten of a tear,
+a last wave of the hand, and Nell was gone. The widow and child stood
+hand in hand till the trees of the avenue hid her from view and the
+sound of hoof-beats had died into silence. Then they went back indoors,
+but for both the light and gladness of the house had vanished. There
+was a chill upon everything, their spirits included.
+
+An hour-and-a-half's good riding brought Miss Baynard and her escort
+to the quaint old town of Lanchester, with its narrow streets and
+narrower alleyways, with its many overhanging, lopsided houses, and
+its grim old county jail, built of ragged graystone, which frowns
+blankly down from the upper end of its wide, irregularly-shaped
+market-place, as if in mute warning to all and sundry. Miss Baynard,
+whose road led her past one corner of it, shuddered involuntarily as
+she glanced at it out of a corner of her eye. For her just then that
+gray old pile was the most vitally interesting spot in the whole
+world.
+
+She was bound, first of all, for Langrig, the seat of Sir James
+Dalrymple, which was situated in the suburbs of Lanchester. Sir James,
+it may be remembered, was one of the trustees appointed under Mr.
+Cortelyon's unsigned will, and very glad he was, when he came to learn
+the contents of that document, to find that it was so much waste
+paper, and that he would not be called upon to help in the carrying
+out of what he regarded as its most wicked and unjust provisions. He
+had a warm regard for Nell, not only for her own sake, but for that of
+her father, whom he had known and liked, and with whom he had spent
+many a roystering evening when they were young blades together about
+London town. Finally, it may be mentioned that Sir James was chairman
+of the Lanchester bench of magistrates.
+
+"I have come to you, Sir James, on rather a singular errand," began
+Miss Baynard, when she had been shown into the library, where she
+found the baronet sitting with one leg in a gout-rest, and after the
+usual greetings had passed between them.
+
+"My dear young lady, my humble services are at your command in any and
+every way."
+
+"At the present time there is a certain prisoner, Mr. Geoffrey Dare by
+name, in Lanchester jail, awaiting his trial at the next assizes."
+
+"Which open in three weeks from now. To be sure--to be sure. The
+rascal who is said to have waylaid Sir Peter Warrendale and robbed him
+of his watch and snuff-box, and who is shrewdly suspected of being none
+other than the notorious Captain Nightshade. But what about him?"
+
+"Merely this, Sir James, that I want you to give me an order of
+admission--I know you have ample power to do so--to see him privately
+in prison. When I say privately in prison, I of course mean without
+witnesses."
+
+Sir James gave vent to a low whistle. "My dear Miss Baynard, do you
+know that this is really a somewhat extraordinary request of yours?"
+
+"I am quite aware of it. But let me explain why I have preferred it."
+She drew a long breath. Without she was prepared to tell a lie--nay,
+more than one--she felt sure that her request would run the risk of a
+refusal. Lies to her had ever been an abomination, but the aim she had
+set before herself was such as to leave her no option in the matter.
+When a man's life is at stake, and that the life of the person you
+love best in the world, the ordinary rules of conduct are apt to get
+mixed and blurred, and much may be forgiven. In such extreme cases
+black is liable to be regarded as white, and white as any color you
+please.
+
+Miss Baynard had come prepared to answer objections, and she went on
+after a hardly observable pause.
+
+"The fact of the matter is, Sir James, that Mr. Dare, in his more
+prosperous days, was the bosom friend of my late cousin, Dick
+Cortelyon, whose young son, as you are aware, has just inherited his
+grandfather's property. Well, it so happens that a couple of days ago,
+in turning over some letters and other effects which had belonged to
+my cousin, I came across a sort of rough diary which had been kept by
+him during the last year of his life. In it there is a passage in
+which he makes mention of a batch of rather important family papers
+which, after he had fallen into disgrace at home, he had entrusted to
+the keeping of Mr. Dare. Now, although I have sought for them high and
+low, I have failed to find any trace of the papers in question, and am
+consequently most anxious to ascertain from Mr. Dare what has become
+of them; indeed, I think it most likely that they are still somewhere
+in his keeping. Such is my reason, Sir James, for desiring an
+interview with him. If it could be arranged for to-day I should esteem
+it a great favor, as some very special business will take me from home
+to-morrow, and the date of my return is altogether uncertain."
+
+"My dear Miss Baynard, not a word more is needed. I will at once write
+and give you a note, addressed to Captain Jeffs, the governor of the
+jail, authorizing him to permit you to have a private interview with
+the prisoner Dare. What a pity, what a damnable pity it is (begging
+your pardon) that a young fellow with good family and with the
+brilliant prospects which, I am given to understand, were once
+his, should have brought his kettle of fish to such a market as he
+seems to have done! But, as we make our bed, so must we lie on it.
+And now---- But, dear me! dear me! here am I running on without ever
+thinking to ask you what you will take in the way of refreshment.
+That's one of the fruits of being an old bachelor, and of having no
+womenfolk to keep me up to the mark and teach me not to forget the
+minor courtesies of life."
+
+In the result, Nell agreed to accept a glass of the baronet's
+"particular old Madeira" and a biscuit. Not to have done as much as
+that would have been to infringe the unwritten laws of north-country
+hospitality.
+
+Then said Sir James: "I had Lawyer Piljoy here t'other day. His
+purpose in coming was to tell me all about the lost child and its
+recovery, and a most amazing story it is; and, further, to consult
+with me as to what steps, if any, it is advisable to take in the
+affair. The first thing I did was to send for Staniforth, who was to
+have been your uncle's other trustee, and then we three laid our heads
+together. I need not bother you with reciting any of our arguments pro
+and con, but in the end we agreed that it would not, for various
+reasons, be advisable that any further proceedings should be taken in
+the matter. The child has been restored, which is the main thing to be
+borne in mind, and we felt pretty sure that no attempt would be made
+to abduct him a second time."
+
+"You say, Sir James, that the child has been restored, which is quite
+true, but do you know whom we have to thank for it?"
+
+"Haven't the remotest notion. I asked Piljoy how it came about, but he
+couldn't tell me. He said that if anybody knew, you did, but that
+beyond telling him it was the Honorable Mrs. B. who had abducted the
+youngster (what a she-cat that woman must be!) you had favored him
+with no particulars."
+
+"It is to Mr. Geoffrey Dare, now a prisoner in Lanchester jail, that
+the child's recovery is due. It had been arranged that he--the
+boy--should be secretly transported to America, where we should never
+have heard of him more, when Mr. Dare, having discovered what was
+afoot, in the guise of a highwayman stopped the carriage in which he
+was being carried off, and rescued him from the wretches to whose
+charge he had been committed."
+
+"Never heard of such a thing in my life, damme if I did! Um--um! I
+crave your pardon, my dear, but strong feelings have a way of finding
+their vent in strong language. And young Dare did that, did he? Well,
+well, we must see what can be done for him when his trial comes on.
+Such stuff as he seems made of is too good for the gallows. And now I
+will write you the promised note. I'm afraid you'll be a little later
+than the regulation hour for seeing prisoners, but maybe Jeffs will
+strain a point for once in a way. At any rate, I'll ask him to do so."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+"FOR MY SAKE."
+
+
+The late September afternoon was closing rapidly in when John Dyce
+helped his mistress to alight from her mare, which had been reined up
+close to the great, black, bolt-studded gates of Lanchester jail. It
+was a rare thing for those gates to be opened except for the admission
+of prisoners, the usual means of entrance and exit being by a postern
+in the wall no great distance away.
+
+On this door Miss Baynard now proceeded to give three resounding blows
+with the huge iron knocker. Half a minute later a small wicket was
+opened, and a hirsute face peered out into the glowing darkness.
+
+"Be good enough to have this note given to Captain Jeffs without a
+minute's delay," said Miss Baynard in her clear, imperious tones. "It
+is of the utmost importance. I will wait here while you obtain an
+answer." With that she handed in Sir James's note at the wicket, but
+on the top of it lay a shining guinea.
+
+There was a grunt, and the wicket was shut.
+
+While awaiting an answer, Nell drew from one of her pockets a long
+diaphanous black veil, which she proceeded to fix round the brim of
+her hat and to fasten in a knot behind in such a fashion that it came
+halfway down her face, leaving nothing of it exposed save her upper
+lip, her mouth, and her chin.
+
+The wait seemed an intolerably long one, and her nerve was beginning
+to give way a little, when the wicket was opened for the second time,
+and the same hirsute face made its appearance. "The governor says it's
+beyont the hour for visitors, and that ye should have come earlier;
+but as ye're a friend o' Sir James Dalrymple's he'll admit ye. He
+sends word that he's sorry not to come and speak to ye hisself, but
+he's got company at dinner, and can't leave th' table." Such, in the
+gruffest of tones, was the doorkeeper's welcome message.
+
+Then the wicket was closed again, and half a minute later the narrow
+black door had opened to admit Nell. She slipped in like a shadow, the
+postern was shut with a clash, and she found herself in a bare,
+flagged ante-room or entrance-hall, with three or four doors opening
+out of it, and dimly lighted with a couple of guttering candles. Here
+was a second man, like the first, in uniform, who carried in one hand
+a jingling bunch of keys, and to whom the doorkeeper introduced her
+with the remark, "This is Willyam, mum, who will show ye the way if ye
+will please to follow him."
+
+"Then perhaps William will oblige me by accepting this trifle," said
+Miss Baynard; and before the turnkey knew what had happened there was
+a guinea nestling in his palm.
+
+Then from some mysterious pocket Miss Baynard produced a large, flat
+bottle containing a quart of the most potent brandy in the Stanbrook
+cellars. "And here is something to share between you and to drink my
+health in," she added, as she proffered the bottle for the
+doorkeeper's acceptance, who took it as tenderly as if it had been a
+month-old baby.
+
+"Eh, mum, but it's agen the rules to accept anything o' this sort," he
+remarked, with a wag of his head. "We'll not engage to drink it. No,
+no. Rules isn't made in order that they may be broke. We'll just hide
+it away where nobody but ourselves can find it, so as not to put
+temptation in the way of any other poor body." And with that the
+rascal favored his fellow-officer with a portentous wink.
+
+The latter functionary now lighted a small lantern, and, having
+unlocked one of the inner doors, he said, "If you will be pleased to
+follow me, mum."
+
+By this time Nell's nerves were worked up to a point of tension that
+was almost unendurable. She set her teeth hard and clenched her hands
+as if she intended never to open them again.
+
+Success had attended her so far; would it desert her now? What she had
+already achieved was as nothing in comparison with that which was
+still before her. For a few moments it seemed as if the courage which
+had hitherto sustained her were about to give way.
+
+As she followed the man she had merely a vague impression of a gloomy,
+flagged, earth-smelling corridor, lighted only by the turnkey's
+lantern; of a heavy iron door which had to be unlocked to allow of
+their further advance; of another corridor the counterpart of the
+first, save that on one side of it some half-dozen doors were ranged
+at intervals. At one of these her conductor came to a halt, and,
+having selected a key from his bunch, proceeded to unlock it. Then,
+flinging wide the door, he said in deep, gruff tones which seemed to
+fill the corridor, "Prisoner, a lady to see you," and with that he
+moved aside to allow Miss Baynard to enter.
+
+At the words Dare sprang to his feet. He had been reading, stretched
+at full length on the pallet which served him for a bed by night and a
+couch by day. A wooden sconce, fixed against the wall, held a solitary
+candle of the coarsest tallow, which diffused a dim, sickly light
+through the cell. It was an indulgence his own pocket had to pay for.
+Had not the volume on which he was engaged been in large print he
+could not have seen to read it.
+
+At sight of him all Nell's failing courage came back to her with a
+rush, mingled with a great wave of love and compassion. Hardly could
+she command her voice while she whispered to the turnkey, "Leave us
+for half-an-hour; don't come before."
+
+"All right, mum," whispered the man back.
+
+Then Nell stepped across the threshold of the cell, and the door
+was locked behind her. Dare, his book fallen unheeded to the floor,
+stood staring at her with wide-lidded eyes as though she were some
+visitant from the tomb. Nell responded to his amazement with a
+strangely-wistful smile, and eyes that no longer strove to hide a
+secret which, she flattered herself, they had never revealed before.
+She could not have spoken at that moment to save her life. She felt as
+if a spell were upon her; everything about her was unreal. Dare
+himself was not a creature of flesh and blood, but merely a projection
+of her own imagination. Some sorceress had thrown an enchantment over
+her which----
+
+"Is it you, Miss Baynard, whom I see? and here, of all places in the
+universe!"
+
+Dare's voice broke the spell that was upon her, and recalled to
+her, as in a flash, the very real business--the matter of life and
+death--which had taken her there, and which must be entered on without
+a minute's unnecessary delay.
+
+"Yes, it is I, Mr. Dare," she answered in accents that were slightly
+tremulous. "You did me and mine a great, nay, an inestimable service;
+and I am here to see whether I cannot do something for you in return."
+
+A bitter smile lit up his sallow features for a moment. "It is indeed
+good of you to have put yourself to so much trouble about such a
+worthless wretch as I. But, were I a hundred-fold more worthy than I
+am, neither you, Miss Baynard, nor any power on earth (save and except
+the King's clemency, which is altogether out of the question) could do
+aught to help me out of the coil of trouble which I have brought upon
+myself."
+
+"Do not be too sure on that point, Mr. Dare. It is the humblest
+instruments which sometimes avail for the most difficult tasks. We
+have all read the fable of the lion and the mouse, and cases might
+arise in which even such an inconsiderable person as I, owing to my
+very insignificance might be able to do things which would be
+impossible in any one of greater importance." Her voice was firm
+enough by now, and her eyes confronted his unwaveringly. She had
+pushed up her veil till only an edge of it was visible across her
+forehead at the moment the turnkey had locked the door behind her.
+
+Dare bowed, but looked slightly puzzled. To what was all this the
+prelude? That she had not come there without having some very special
+purpose in view he could no longer doubt. But merely to see her face
+again was to him what the sight of water is to some poor wretch dying
+of thirst in the desert. To himself he always spoke of her as the Lady
+of his Dreams.
+
+"Will you not be seated, Miss Baynard?" he now said, as he brought
+forward a substantial three-legged stool, the only thing, except his
+pallet, he had to sit on. "My accommodation is of the simplest, as you
+can see for yourself. That, however, is not my fault, but an oversight
+(shall we call it?) on the part of my custodians, whose affection for
+me is so extreme that they cannot bear to part from me."
+
+So Nell sat down on the three-legged stool, while Dare stood a little
+apart, with folded arms, resting a shoulder against the whitewashed
+wall of his cell.
+
+Miss Baynard cleared her voice; the crucial moment had come at last.
+
+"I am not here this evening, Mr. Dare, merely to sympathize with you,"
+she resumed, "although that my most heartfelt sympathy is yours needs
+no assurance on my part, but to put before you a certain definite
+proposition, which has been carefully thought out in all its details,
+and the carrying out of which seems to me perfectly feasible. Here, in
+the fewest words possible--necessarily few because half an hour at the
+outside must bring my visit to an end--is my proposition. It is simply
+that you and I shall change places. In half a hour from now you shall
+quit this cell in the guise of Elinor Baynard, and I shall stay where
+I am, having, for the nonce, exchanged my personality for that of Mr.
+Geoffrey Dare."
+
+Dare had sprung to "attention" long before Nell had come to an end. A
+wave of dark crimson swept across his lean face, leaving it sallower
+than before. His eyes lighted up with an intense glow. Would any
+woman, he asked himself, any woman who was young and beautiful, put
+such a proposition to a man if she did not love him? It was a question
+he did not wait to answer. He would have time enough to consider it
+later on.
+
+"Never had an undeserving man a more noble offer made him than you
+have just made me. But, putting aside the insuperable difficulties in
+the way of carrying it out, there are other reasons which----"
+
+"There are no insuperable difficulties in the way of carrying it out,"
+broke in Nell. "Every arrangement has been made, as you shall
+presently hear. But remember this, that we have no time to waste in
+explanations or idle objections."
+
+Dare bowed as accepting a correction. "Then permit me to say as
+briefly as may be, Miss Baynard, that it cannot be, that on no account
+whatever could I, or would I accept such a sacrifice at your hands."
+
+"A sacrifice! Oh, the mockery of the phrase!" Although she spoke
+aloud, the words seemed addressed to herself rather than to Dare. She
+had removed her riding gloves, and the long, slender fingers of one
+hand now gripped those of the other convulsively. Her sharp, white
+teeth bit into her underlip and left their mark there. She seemed to
+be bracing herself for a final effort.
+
+"You are no doubt aware," she resumed, "that your trial will come on
+in about three weeks from now."
+
+"That is a circumstance I am not likely to forget."
+
+"And have you considered, have you allowed your imagination to paint
+for you what the consequence will be should the verdict at your trial
+go against you?"
+
+"As, considering the evidence which will be brought against me, it is
+nearly sure to do. Yes, I have fully considered the consequence, and
+may be said to be on pretty familiar terms with it by this time. But
+as for my imagination, I trust it is too well-bred to allow itself to
+dwell unnecessarily on details which are best kept in the background
+till the latest possible moment."
+
+"And the prospect does not appall you?"
+
+"Appall me? No. 'Tis not a pleasant one, I admit. But what would you?
+I played a game with Fate, the dice went against me, and I have lost.
+That, however, is no reason why I should bewail myself like a puling
+child, or why my cheek should blanch at the prospect which I shall
+presently be called upon to confront."
+
+"But will you not see, cannot you comprehend, that a door of escape is
+open for you?" Her voice had in it a ring of almost passionate
+impatience. The precious minutes were drifting away one by one.
+
+"Possibly so, but only at an expense which I do not choose to incur."
+
+"Oh, what headstrong folly! Did the world ever see its like? And you
+would rather face your--your doom than accept this sacrifice, as you
+choose to call it, at my hands?"
+
+"Even so. I have said it, and nothing will avail to move me from it."
+
+For a moment or two she beat her hands together in an agony of
+helplessness. Then she stood up. Her face was colorless, and her
+forehead contracted as if with a spasm of intense pain.
+
+"You do not know how cruel you are," she said in low, concentrated
+tones. "You drag from me things which I thought never to reveal to a
+living soul." She paused for a space of half-a-dozen heart-beats, as
+though fighting against some hidden emotion. Then she went on. "Should
+it be your fate to die, Geoffrey Dare, the same day that ends your
+life shall end mine! I swear it." She lifted up her hands and let her
+face sink into them.
+
+An inarticulate cry broke from Dare, a great light leapt into his
+eyes, he drew a step nearer and held out both his arms. Then he half
+drew back, with his arms extended in mid-air. "Such words, unless I am
+a bad interpreter, can have but one meaning." He seemed to breathe the
+syllables rather than to speak them.
+
+For a few seconds there was no reply, and when it did come he had to
+strain his ears or he would have lost it.
+
+"Your death-day shall be mine. I have said it. Is not that enough?"
+
+A moment later his arms were about her, and he was straining her
+passionately to his heart. "And you love me!--me!!" he ejaculated.
+"Oh, miracle of miracles!"
+
+Sweet to him as a breath from Paradise was the whispered answer: "I
+have loved you ever since the night you were so kind to Jack
+Prentice."
+
+It was three minutes later. With what passed in the interim we are in
+no way concerned.
+
+"But consider, my darling, think and consider before it is too late,"
+urged Dare. "That Miss Baynard of Stanbrook should stoop to love
+Captain Nightshade--a highwayman--a minion of the moon! No, it must
+not be! And I--I should be a scoundrel to accept so great a gift,
+unless----"
+
+A hand was laid on his lips. "Oh, hush! I will not listen to such
+words. You steal away a poor girl's heart, and then you bid her think
+and consider! Too late, too late. But never, never will I forgive you
+for having wrung my secret from me! Yet, what am I saying? On one
+condition I will forgive you fully and freely."
+
+"And that is----?"
+
+"That without a word more of demur you do your share in helping me to
+carry out the scheme which brought me here. What that scheme is I have
+already told you."
+
+"But, my dearest----"
+
+For the second time a hand was laid on his lips. "Not a word! I will
+not listen. You will do it, if not for your own sake, then for mine.
+Do you hear? For mine."
+
+"For yours, then, let it be," he assented, but for the life of him he
+could not see by what means she purposed carrying out her
+extraordinary proposition.
+
+The prison clock began to boom the hour. Miss Baynard started.
+"Heavens! Our little slice of time more than half gone, and nothing
+done!"
+
+Then, without a word more, she untied her short gray cloak and laid it
+aside. Under it she had on a loosely fitting bodice and her long
+riding skirt, both of which garments a couple a minutes later lay in a
+heap on the floor; and then to Dare's astonished eyes there stood
+revealed the seeming figure of a young man, wearing a ruffled shirt
+and cravat, a pair of dark small clothes and Hessian boots--all at one
+time the property of unfortunate Dick Cortelyon. Only the plumed hat,
+the veil, and the heavy chestnut curls still remained to bespeak their
+owner's sex. But Nell's hands went quickly up to her head, there were
+a few deft movements of her fingers, and the whole paraphernalia--hat,
+veil, and ringlets came bodily away. Well might Dare's eyes open
+themselves still wider. Before leaving home she had shorn off
+her wealth of tresses, and then, by means of some feminine
+sleight-of-hand, had contrived to secure them to the inner side of her
+hat in such a way that when the hat was worn the curls lay in quite
+natural fashion round the nape of the neck.
+
+Nor was Dare's wonder yet to end. From a pocket in her small-clothes
+Nell now drew forth a black wig, a masquerade relic of poor Dick's,
+and proceeded to draw it on over her close-cropped chestnut locks.
+Then turning to her companion, who had been regarding her all this
+time without a word, she said in mock-serious tones, "Your coat and
+vest, sir, or your life!"
+
+At once Dare divested himself of the articles in question, and when
+Nell had inducted herself into them her transformation was complete,
+and a very dashing and debonair young buck she looked.
+
+"And now it is high time for Miss Baynard to make _her_ toilet," she
+remarked; "but such an awkward young woman is she that it may be as
+well I should lend her a helping hand."
+
+Dare, who recognized the futility of any further opposition, yielded
+himself into her hands and did exactly as she bade him. Although Nell
+was tall, he was three inches taller than she, but the riding skirt
+admitted of ample allowance for the difference. When, however, it came
+to the bodice, that garment cracked ominously, and the hooks and eyes
+wholly refused to come together. But, happily, the gray cloak was
+ample enough to hide all shortcomings.
+
+
+[Illustration: "Your coat and vest sir--or your life."]
+
+
+Lastly, the elaborate headdress--hat, veil, and curls--had to be
+adjusted. This was a matter of some nicety, but presently it was
+accomplished to Miss Baynard's satisfaction. Then, stepping back a
+pace, she took a general survey of her handiwork. "Yes, I think you'll
+do," she said, "although you do look so preternaturally tall. On no
+account must you either speak or cough, and do for goodness' sake try
+to mitigate that seven-league stride of yours. I suppose that, try as
+you might, you couldn't mince or bridle a little, as all young ladies
+are supposed to do?"
+
+Although she spoke with such seeming levity, her nerves were all
+a-tingle with mingled apprehension and excitement. She felt as if she
+were strapped down on the operating table, and waiting for the coming
+of the surgeon with his terrible knife.
+
+The only remark made by Dare during the process of his transformation
+was when Nell was on the point of crowning him with the hat and curls.
+With a caressing touch on one of the tresses, he said: "Oh, my dear
+one, to think you should have done this for me! What a sacrifice! Can
+I ever forgive you?"
+
+"Of course you can," she answered lightly. "Am I not making you a
+present of the rubbish, to do what you like with? Some lovers think
+themselves well off if they can secure a tiny tress of their mistress'
+hair, but so great is _my_ generosity that I freely present you with
+enough to stuff a sofa cushion."
+
+He caught her in his arms and kissed her passionately.
+
+But now was heard a faint sound as of the unlocking and opening of a
+door in the distance, and then, heralded by a cough, the noise of
+approaching footsteps on the flagged floor of the corridor. Instead of
+a bare thirty minutes, our young people had been nearly an hour
+together. Whether the guineas and the brandy were in any way concerned
+with such a liberal measurement of time is more than one would
+undertake to decide.
+
+"The time to part has come," said Nell in a hurried whisper. "Listen.
+My man John Dyce is waiting outside, in charge of my mare. He may be
+trusted implicitly. He has had his instructions, and will ask no
+questions. The future I leave wholly in your hands."
+
+More was impossible. The turnkey was at the door. After a preliminary
+rap on it, he called out, "Time's up long since, mum. Are you ready?"
+
+"Quite ready, William, thank you," was Miss Baynard's clear response.
+
+So William unlocked the door, and drew it back on its hinges. What he
+saw when he had done so was his prisoner, as it seemed to him, seated
+on his pallet in a dejected attitude, with bowed head, and his elbows
+resting on his knees; nor did he so much as look up at the opening of
+the door.
+
+Just inside, waiting apparently for the opening of the door, and with
+her back to the candle, was the young lady visitor, whose face was now
+wholly hidden by her veil. As soon as the door was opened she passed
+out without a word, and then stood aside for a moment, while it was
+shut and relocked. That done, William, swinging his hand-lantern, and
+not, it must sorrowfully be confessed, quite so steady on his feet as
+he had been earlier in the evening, led the way, in happy ignorance of
+the peck of trouble he was brewing for himself.
+
+Hardly was the cell door shut before Nell was kneeling by it with one
+ear pressed to its cold iron surface. The footsteps died into silence,
+then as before, was heard the clash of a distant door, and after that
+all was still with a stillness as of the tomb.
+
+Then Nell stood up, a great calm, a great happiness almost, shining
+out of her eyes. "If only I have succeeded in saving him," she said
+aloud, "nothing else matters!"
+
+But next moment her overwrought nerves gave way. Staggering across the
+floor and flinging herself face downward on the pallet, she burst into
+a tempest of tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+THREE YEARS AFTER.
+
+
+_From Mrs. Dare to Lady Carradine_.
+
+"My Dear Godmother,--Your last letter, to hand five days ago, brought
+me a large measure of happiness. In it you tell me that you have at
+length forgiven me in full for what heretofore you have always
+designated as my 'rash and ill-considered marriage.' It does indeed
+make me glad to learn that I am once more to be taken back, fully and
+freely, into your affections, the loss of which has been the bitterest
+drop in the cup of my married felicity.
+
+"In your letter you put several questions to me having reference to
+the events of the last few weeks prior to my departure from England.
+These I will now endeavor to answer to the best of my ability.
+
+"Thanks to the interest brought to bear by your ladyship in a certain
+high quarter, your scapegrace goddaughter, after having made three
+appearances before the Lanchester bench of magistrates, was
+unceremoniously set at liberty. This, of course, is ancient history to
+you, but it is the point from which, for your information, I purpose
+narrating as briefly as may be what befell me afterwards up to the
+date of my departure for America.
+
+"I had only been a couple of days back at Stanbrook when a note
+reached me which had been brought by a man on horseback. The writer of
+it was Mr. Cope-Ellerslie, of Rockmount, whose acquaintance I had made
+some time before under rather peculiar circumstances, asking me to go
+back with his messenger, as the writer had some news of importance to
+communicate. This I had no hesitation about doing, seeing that Mr.
+Ellerslie was known to me as the uncle of Geoffrey Dare.
+
+"A couple of hours later I alighted from my mare at the door of
+Rockmount.
+
+"A man between sixty and seventy, tall and bowed, habited in a
+monkish robe, with a moustache and a short peaked beard, long
+grizzled hair parted down the middle, and a singular waxen pallor of
+complexion--such was the Mr. Ellerslie known to me, and such was the
+man who now received me. I had assumed that it was in order to be
+favored with some tidings of, or to receive some message from, his
+nephew (who had been utterly lost to me from the moment the cell door
+was shut between us), that I had been summoned to Rockmount. Nor was I
+mistaken.
+
+"After having referred to the Lanchester affair in terms which I would
+not recapitulate even if I could, Mr. Ellerslie went on to mark that
+his nephew had not yet left the country, but was in safe hiding no
+great distance away. Proceeding, he went on to observe that he was the
+bearer of a certain message from Geoffrey, but that he found himself
+somewhat at a loss for terms in which to convey it. Stripped, however,
+of all verbiage it came to this: Geoffrey would not hold me to my word
+or promise, given him in the cell at Lanchester, if, since then, and
+after further consideration, I in the slightest degree regretted, or
+wished, to recall, anything which had passed between us on that
+occasion.
+
+"Then, before I had time to frame into words the answer which leapt
+from my heart, Mr. Ellerslie proceeded to address me on his own
+account. I was young and parentless, he remarked, and, so far as he
+could judge, somewhat liable to be led away by generous but
+undisciplined impulses. He begged of me to pause, to reflect coolly
+and dispassionately, before linking my lot with that of a man who,
+should no worse fate befall him, must henceforth be an outcast from
+his native land. And so on, and so on, till I begged of him to cease.
+
+"Need I tell you, my dear godmother, in what terms I answered him? No,
+I am sure I need not. You know your Nelly too well not to have guessed
+already.
+
+"The pith of all I had to say was comprised in less than a score
+words: 'Geoffrey Dare is my chosen husband, and, come weal or woe, I
+will wed none but him.'
+
+"Mr. Ellerslie threw up his hands. 'If you will persist, my dear young
+lady, in your headstrong course, then have I nothing more to urge. My
+ambassadorial functions are at an end, and the sooner my nephew comes
+and does his own talking the better for all concerned.'
+
+"Without a word more he rose and left the room, and five minutes later
+Geoffrey entered it.
+
+"To relate what passed between him and me would not entertain you in
+the least. It will be enough to state that if we had not been
+betrothed lovers before, we became so from that hour.
+
+"It was to Rockmount that Geoffrey had directed his steps on the night
+of his escape, and there he had been in hiding ever since.
+
+"When the time had come for me to take my departure in order that I
+might get back to Stanbrook before dark, I said to him, 'But shall I
+not see Mr. Ellerslie again before I go?'
+
+"'That you certainly will not,' he replied with one of his puzzling
+smiles. 'Mr. Cope-Ellerslie is no longer in existence. He died about
+an hour ago. His life was brief but necessary. Peace to his remains!'
+Then, seeing my look of amazement, he added, 'Have you not yet found
+out, or even suspected, that Mr. Ellerslie and Geoffrey Dare were one
+and the same person?"
+
+"No, that I certainly had not. Nevertheless, I was now assured that
+such was the fact, and I had to delay my departure for another half
+hour while the mystery was cleared up for me.
+
+"When Geoffrey Dare left London a ruined man, bankrupt in love, in
+friendship, in means (I long ago explained to you under what peculiar
+circumstances he was induced to take to the King's highway), he came
+to Rockmount, which was his own property, and which, owing doubtless
+to its isolated situation in the midst of a wide stretch of desolate
+moorland, had been untenanted for years. With him he brought three old
+family servants, whom not even the rack or the thumbscrew would have
+forced into betraying him. But it was Mr. Cope-Ellerslie, the scholar
+and the recluse, who had become the tenant of Rockmount, and no
+faintest suspicion ever got abroad that there was, or could be, any
+connection between him and Captain Nightshade.
+
+"So far so good; but I still failed to comprehend the nature of a
+disguise which so completely changed Geoffrey's identity that only an
+hour before my eyes had failed to penetrate it. To take one point
+alone: in Mr. Ellerslie's face, leaving out of account the difference
+in the complexions, there bad been a thousand fine lines and creases,
+whereas in Geoffrey's it would have puzzled one to find a dozen.
+
+"Then was I enlightened. Mr. Cope-Ellerslie's face was a mask, of
+which moustache, beard, eyebrows, and hair formed component parts. The
+foundation of the mask consisted of the skin of a newly-born kid,
+pared or scraped to an exceeding fineness, and moulded to the features
+while still plastic. Geoffrey had brought it with him from Italy
+several years before, where such disguises seem to be not unknown, and
+where it had been made for him in order that he might take part in a
+certain carnival frolic. So simple sometimes is the explanation of an
+apparently inscrutable mystery!
+
+"But my letter is dragging itself out to an unconscionable length, and
+I must hurry on.
+
+"Of a certain quiet wedding in Holland, and of the after-sailing of
+the two people concerned for the United States, I have no particulars
+worth recounting beyond those already known to you. Here they have
+lived happily ever since, and here--whatever home-sickness they may
+have felt in secret--they had made up their minds to pass the rest of
+their days, when a passage in your last letter set their hearts
+dancing with a happiness so unlooked-for that since it burst into
+their life like a flash of sunlight they have hardly been able to talk
+about anything else.
+
+"You write, my dear godmother, that you have fair hopes of being
+able, by and by, through bringing your influence to bear in the same
+all-powerful quarter in which you brought it to bear once before, to
+secure for Geoffrey a free pardon. What two happy and grateful beings
+you would, in that case, make of my husband and me, I should fail to
+tell you in any words.
+
+"You are kind enough to say, further, that you miss your Nelly's face
+and long to see it again, as also that there is a big corner for her
+in your will. We will say nothing about the latter, but, as regards
+the former, let me whisper in your ear that you need not be very much
+surprised if you see me in London in the course of next season. If
+Geoffrey should be free to come with me, what happiness that would be!
+But, in any case, I think you may look forward pretty confidently to
+seeing your vagrant goddaughter.
+
+"You will readily believe me when I tell you that I am also very
+desirous of setting eyes again on my young kinsman, Evan Cortelyon,
+the account of whose abduction and recovery had for you such a special
+interest. (Don't forget, please, that his recovery was wholly due to
+my dear husband.) He has been made a ward in Chancery, and although I
+have frequent news of him, and am assured that he is well and happy,
+yet that is not like seeing him and feeling his dear arms about my
+neck.
+
+"What you had to tell me in your last letter anent the Hon. Mrs.
+Bullivant took me by surprise, as you said it would; but I'm afraid my
+disposition is not of a sufficiently forgiving kind to allow of my
+stating, with any regard for truth, that I feel sorry for her, because
+I certainly do nothing of the kind.
+
+"My surprise arises from the fact that she--of all women I have ever
+known the most unlikely--should have allowed herself to be so
+thoroughly hoodwinked as she seems to have been over her marriage with
+the Earl of Mortlake. Of course she was dazzled by the prospect of
+becoming a countess, and by the likelihood--you say she regarded it as
+a certainty--that in less than a twelvemonth she would be left a widow
+(a titled widow with a handsome jointure), such a mere wreck of
+humanity was his lordship, to all seeming, when she accepted him,
+besides being more than double her age.
+
+"If this latter consideration was--and you appear to have no doubt on
+the point--her chief reason for becoming his wife, then, indeed, must
+her awakening have been anything but a pleasant one when she found
+that the man who had been carried into the church by four of his
+tenants, so feeble did he seem, was able, as soon as the ceremony was
+over, not merely to walk unassisted out of the sacred edifice, but to
+offer his bride the support of his arm. What a genuine comedy scene it
+must have been for everybody there, save and except her newly-made
+ladyship!
+
+"And now you tell me that his lordship is likely to live for a dozen
+years to come. I know that he has been married twice before, and that
+he has the reputation of being one of the most brutal and unfeeling of
+husbands, a reputation with which it is hard to believe his present
+wife can have been unacquainted.
+
+"Yes, on consideration I think I can afford to forget bygones, and to
+spare a little pity for my lady countess. Hers is indeed an unhappy
+fate; nor will she derive much consolation from the knowledge that she
+owes it wholly to herself.
+
+"I have kept a very singular bit of news till the last.
+
+"You may remember that when we came here we brought with us the dumb
+man, Andry Luce, who had been my Uncle Cortelyon's secretary and
+factotum, and about whom you have often heard me speak.
+Notwithstanding his infirmity, Geoffrey found him very useful in
+keeping the books and accounts of the large property of which my
+husband has the management. He was deeply attached to me, and I had a
+very warm regard for him.
+
+"Well, I am grieved to have to relate that the poor fellow has come to
+a sad end. About a fortnight ago he was fatally injured while trying
+to stop a runaway horse and vehicle. Some days passed before he
+succumbed to his injuries, and it was while he lay dying (I am
+thankful to say he did not suffer much) that he confessed something to
+me which perhaps I might otherwise have gone to the grave without
+knowing.
+
+"You and I, my dear godmother, in days gone by, more than once
+bewildered our brains in trying to solve the mystery of my uncle's
+unsigned will, for if he had not believed it to be signed, why should
+he have been so anxious in his last moments, as he certainly was, to
+have it destroyed?
+
+"This was the puzzle which Andry's confession--spelled out to me word
+by word on his fingers after the manner of dumb people--solved once
+for all.
+
+"Andry was in the habit of dabbling in chemicals in his spare moments,
+and it was with a chemically prepared ink, manufactured by him
+specially for the purpose, that the will was signed by the testator
+and the witnesses. The special property of the ink in question was
+that, within forty-eight hours of its having been used, anything
+written with it would fade out of existence, leaving nothing but the
+blank, unsullied paper where it had been.
+
+"Of course it was a very wicked thing of Andry to do, but he had
+somehow learnt the contents of the will, and his indignation at the
+iniquity of its provisions seems to have utterly confused his sense of
+right and wrong, as, I verily believe, it would have done mine had I
+been in his place.
+
+"If you ask me what notice I intend taking of the information which
+has thus strangely come into my keeping, I answer, none at all. And it
+is a view in which my husband bears me out. I hold myself to be wholly
+absolved from taking any action whatever in the affair, because my
+uncle's last wish--nay, his positive command--was that the will in
+question should be destroyed.
+
+"And thus, after all, his dying wish was carried out, but in a way
+certainly never contemplated by him."
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Minion of the Moon, by
+T. W. (Thomas Wilkinson) Speight
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57416 ***