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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57616 ***
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+Transcriber's Notes:
+     1. Page scan source:
+        Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=ew9NAAAAMAAJ
+
+        "The Secret of Wyvern Towers" in THE ARGOSY, VOLUME XXVI.
+         (DECEMBER, 1897), No. 1, pp. 1-78, published by
+         Frank A. Munsey in 1898.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+VERY STRANGE TIDINGS.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+AFTER THE TELLING OF THE NEWS.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+SIR JOHN CONDUCTS THE INQUIRY.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+A BACKWARD GLANCE.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+IN THE LEFT WING.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+RECREANT LOVER.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+AN AMAZING CONFESSION.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+WAITING FOR THE VERDICT.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+IN THE LAST RESORT.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+ONE STEP NEARER.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+ON THE BRINK.
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+LAST THINGS.
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+WITH ALL SPEED.
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+THE SECRET OP WYVERN TOWERS.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SECRET OF WYVERN TOWERS.*
+[*_Copyright, 1897, by T. W. Speight_.]
+
+BY T. W. SPEIGHT.
+
+
+Being an account of the circumstances that shadowed the happiness of
+Felix Drelincourt--Why two persons proclaimed themselves guilty of a
+fearful crime, on account of which a vagabond's life was placed in
+jeopardy--The blotting out of an identity brought about by an
+unexpected legacy.
+
+(_Complete in This Issue_.)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+VERY STRANGE TIDINGS.
+
+
+On a certain sunny May morning, about forty years ago, the owner of
+Wyvern Towers stepped into a lovely glade of Barras Wood, which was a
+portion of his extensive property.
+
+Felix Drelincourt was a man who stood a little over six feet in
+height. His black, silky hair had a careless wave in it, and his thin
+mustache, with its up curled tips, was the cause of his often being
+taken for a foreigner.
+
+But his eyes were the most striking feature of a striking personality.
+They were black, and of an extraordinarily piercing quality, with a
+sort of veiled, somber glow in them at times, as it might be the glow
+thrown out from between the bars of some hidden furnace, the fire in
+which was eating its heart away in the flame of its own burning
+unrest. It was not easy to judge his age, but one might put it down as
+being somewhere between eight and twenty and four or five and thirty.
+This morning he was dressed in a velveteen shooting jacket, with cord
+breeches and leggings, and was wearing a low crowned felt hat.
+
+"What has brought me here on this one morning of all mornings of the
+year?" he said. "Ah, what! Am I wrong in terming it a force--a
+magnetic attraction--I was powerless to resist? This is _her_
+birthday. Where is she? Does an English sun shine here on this
+morning, or that of some far off land? Vain questions, and idle as
+vain."
+
+He took a couple of turns from end to end of the glade with compressed
+lips and bent brows. Then his thoughts again took articulate form.
+
+"This is the spot--the forest temple--the grove sacred to the memory
+of that hour--where, only three short years ago, Madeline told me that
+she loved me! Only three little years ago, and yet I seem to have
+lived through a cycle since then. Yes, here our lips met in love's
+first kiss, and here we vowed that nothing on earth should divide us.
+Poor fools that we were! We did not dream of treachery; we hardly knew
+there was such a word."
+
+He came to a halt by a sturdy young oak at the upper end of the
+opening.
+
+"It was in the bark of this tree that I cut her initials and my own.
+Here they are still to convince me I am not dreaming of something
+which never happened. Time's obliterating fingers have dealt tenderly
+with them, as though the old graybeard knew they were a lover's
+handiwork, and remembered a far off eon when he was young himself."
+
+At this moment the clock of a distant church began to strike the hour.
+Drelincourt stood listening till the last stroke had died into
+silence.
+
+"Nine of them," he said. "It's time to think of going back to the Cot.
+At what hour did I leave it? There's the mystery. It must have been
+near midnight before I fell asleep, dog tired. The rest is an absolute
+blank till I---- Ah! Some one is calling me. It sounds like Rodd's
+voice. What can he want with me at this hour?"
+
+Taking a silver whistle from his pocket, he put it to his lips and
+blew. Its keen, shrilly scream cut the silence, like a knife.
+
+Two minutes later a man came brushing roughly through the underwood.
+At the edge of the glade he paused for a moment, while he took off his
+hat and mopped his brow.
+
+Drelincourt stood motionless, his eyes turned upon him. Under his
+breath he said: "He has the look of one charged with a message of
+doom."
+
+The newcomer, Roden Marsh by name, was Felix Drelincourt's foster
+brother. He was a tall, gaunt man, with a pronounced stoop of the
+shoulders which detracted considerably from his height. He had a long,
+thin face, a high ridged, prominent nose, thoughtful, deep set eyes,
+and a profusion of straw colored hair parted down the middle.
+
+His clothes, generally more or less worn and threadbare--not from
+necessity, but because he was both indifferent to appearances and
+parsimoniously inclined--hung loosely on his lean and bony frame. By
+strangers he was often taken for the village schoolmaster.
+
+As he advanced into the glade, any one familiar with his customary
+phlegmatic and unemotional manner would have seen at once that he was
+the bearer of no ordinary tidings.
+
+"Thank Heaven I have found you!" were his first words, and there could
+be no doubt of the sincerity with which they were spoken.
+
+"It is a small mercy to be thankful for," replied the other, with the
+ghost of a smile.
+
+"A terrible discovery has been made at the Towers."
+
+"Those are strong words, my dear Rodd, but they fail to convey any
+definite idea to my mind. They may mean much or they may mean very
+little."
+
+"Mrs. Drelincourt has been murdered in her sleep."
+
+"Murdered!" Drelincourt staggered back a pace or two, and then,
+putting forth his right hand, he caught hold of an oak sapling and
+gripped it hard. For a few seconds his body rocked like that of a man
+whose brain has been stunned and dizzied by some great shock.
+
+"That is indeed a terrible discovery to have made," he went on, after
+a pause. "Kate dead! It seems incredible; altogether beyond belief."
+
+"For all that, it is true."
+
+"But what possible motive could any one have for the commission of
+such a crime?"
+
+Roden's thin lips tightened. Evidently the question was one which he
+either would not or could not answer.
+
+"When and by whom was the discovery made?" asked Mr. Drelincourt,
+after a brief pause.
+
+"It was made by Lucille, nearly a couple of hours ago. She went as
+usual to take her mistress an early cup of chocolate, and--and found
+her dead in bed."
+
+"Go on. Tell me all the particulars known to you."
+
+"Mrs. Drelincourt had been stabbed to the heart, most probably while
+she was asleep."
+
+"So! Has the weapon with which the deed was committed been found?"
+
+"It had not when I left the Towers."
+
+Drelincourt seated himself on the fallen trunk, and resting his elbows
+on his knees, he bent his eyes on the ground.
+
+"As soon as the crime became known," resumed the other, "I sent off a
+groom on horseback to fetch Dr. Carew. On the way he met Mr. Ormsby
+and told him the news, and was ordered by him to at once communicate
+with the police."
+
+"A very proper thing to do."
+
+"Mr. Ormsby, accompanied by another gentleman, a stranger, had just
+reached the Towers before I left it."
+
+"To come in search of me?"
+
+"Exactly. It has taken me nearly an hour to find you. I hurried, first
+of all, to the Cot, but you were not there. Margery Trant had not
+heard you leave the house, and was unable to tell me in which
+direction you had gone. I set out to look for you, and it must have
+been instinct which directed my steps to this place."
+
+He paused. A throstle in the wood piped a few notes and then ceased.
+
+"Go on," said Drelincourt, without looking up. "You have something
+more to tell me."
+
+"As I bent over Mrs. Drelincourt's dead body, I found this close by
+her pillow."
+
+As he finished speaking, he drew from one of his pockets a white
+handkerchief bordered with a thin line of black, and having shaken it
+out, held it up to the light. On it were three or four crimson stains.
+"It is yours. Here are your initials in one corner," he said.
+
+He had a softly modulated voice, but just now there was no more
+emotion either in it or his manner than if he had been discussing the
+state of the weather.
+
+Drelincourt started to his feet, his face blanched to the lips. A
+moment or two he stared at the handkerchief as though it had for him a
+horrible fascination. Then the eyes of the two men met in a silence
+which seemed charged with hidden meaning.
+
+"A dumb witness, but enough to hang a man," said Drelincourt at
+length, as he turned away with a shudder.
+
+Marsh did not reply, but, after a keen glance round, as if to make
+sure there was no lurking onlooker, he let the handkerchief drop to
+the ground, and then, dropping on one knee, he set it alight with a
+match from his fusee box.
+
+Drelincourt, his back supported by a tree, stood looking on in silence
+till the flame had burned itself out, and nothing was left save a
+little fine ash, which a wandering breeze presently caught up and
+frolicked off with into the depths of the wood.
+
+"This also I found," resumed Roden. "It was lying open on the writing
+table in your dressing room at the Towers for anybody to see. It is in
+your writing, and is dated today."
+
+As he spoke, he produced a letter from his breast pocket and handed it
+to Drelincourt, who took it mechanically and like a half dazed man.
+It was without an envelope, and was simply folded in two. Opening it,
+he read it in silence and with growing amazement.
+
+"An unfinished letter to my friend, Professor Ridsdale. And you say
+that you found it in my dressing room at the Towers?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"It refers to certain chemical experiments in which my friend and I
+are interested. It is the very letter, almost word for word, which I
+made up my mind to write to him the first thing after breakfast this
+morning.. And yet I slept last night at the Cot, while you found this
+an hour or more ago at the Towers!"
+
+Again the eyes of the two met in pregnant silence.
+
+"Rodd, you must have guessed the truth?"
+
+"I have, Felix."
+"Yes, no other explanation is possible. Yet it seems
+monstrous--unbelievable. And by my hand! Oh!"
+
+He ended with a groan, turned his face aside, and was silent. For
+once this man, usually so proudly self-centered, so stoically
+self-repressed, was moved to the depths of his soul as never in his
+life before.
+
+Crossing to him, Roden Marsh grasped one of his hands in both his own.
+
+"Felix, between you and me not a word more is needed--I comprehend.
+You have suffered. Your life has been made a burden almost too bitter
+to be borne. I have seen and known it for long. I have suffered with
+your sufferings; my heart has bled for you times without number. I can
+speak now; hitherto I have had to look on and be dumb."
+
+"Yes, you have seen something--perchance much; but you know no more
+than your eyes have shown you, whatever you may have guessed. Of the
+details of her treachery--_hers_, Rodd--which was black as hell, you
+know nothing. Sit you there and listen. The tale shall be told, now
+and here, from beginning to end."
+
+Roden seated himself on the fallen trunk, while Drelincourt, pacing
+slowly back and forth, half a dozen yards this way and as many that,
+began his narrative.
+
+"You will not have forgotten that about three years ago Colonel
+Fenwicke and his niece were staying with the Ormsbys at Denham Lodge,
+where I was an occasional visitor. I had met Madeline Fenwicke abroad
+in the course of the previous summer, and had fallen in love with her;
+but at that time I was comparatively a poor man, and marriage was not
+to be thought of. In the interim my father had died, and I had
+succeeded to the entail. There was no longer any reason why I should
+keep silent. It was in this very glade, Rodd--here--here--that I met
+my darling and told her my secret! It was here her lips touched mine
+in love's first kiss. O Heaven! To think of all that has happened
+between then and now!"
+
+He took a turn or two in silence. Roden sat with crossed legs, nursing
+an elbow with one hand, his chin supported in the hollowed palm of the
+other.
+
+"Madeline and Kate Ormsby had been schoolfellows, and the former had
+no secrets from her friend. The day following our interview I was
+called away to London by the illness of my aunt, Mrs. Gascoigne. At
+Denham Lodge there is a terrace with a stone balustrade, from which a
+flight of steps leads to the lower garden. As Madeline and Kate were
+leaning over this balustrade after dark a few evenings later,
+listening to a nightingale, two people came along the lower walk, a
+man and a woman, judging from their voices. Said the man, as they drew
+near:
+
+"'The way Mr. Drelincourt has behaved to the girl is common talk in
+the village. Of course he can't marry her--she's too far beneath him
+for that--and now they say she's fit to break her heart because he
+refuses to have anything more to do with her.'
+
+"'Perhaps he's grown tired of her and found somebody more to his
+liking. That's often the way you men have of treating us,' answered
+the woman.
+
+"Oh, come! We're not all as bad as that,' said the man with a laugh,
+after which they passed out of earshot.
+
+"An hour later Madeline wrote me that all was at an end between us.
+The letter, which should have reached me next morning, was kept back
+by Kate, and did not come to hand till three days later. Within four
+hours of receiving it I was at Denham Lodge, only to find that
+Madeline and her uncle had left there the day before.
+
+"My aunt lingered on from week to week. I was her last living
+relative, and she would not hear of my leaving for longer than a few
+hours at a time. All I could do was to write a note to Madeline,
+begging for an explanation, and inclose it under cover to the colonel
+at his club. A week later my note was returned to me from Paris,
+together with a few lines from the colonel, stating that thenceforward
+all communication with me must cease, both on his part and that of his
+niece. What I had been guilty of which deserved such a sentence I was
+wholly at a loss to conceive. I could not comprehend the meaning of
+such an action.
+
+"A month later my aunt died. As soon as I was at liberty, I set out
+for the continent, but nowhere could I come across a trace of those I
+was in search of. You know what followed a little later: how I was
+accidentally wounded while out shooting; how I was carried to Denham
+Lodge, and there nursed back to convalescence by Kate Ormsby."
+
+"Some part of what you have now told me I know or guessed already,"
+said Roden; "but not the whole of it."
+
+"You did not know how, one day, Kate read to me a passage from a
+letter professedly written by her correspondent, Lady Linthorpe, in
+which it was stated that Madeline Fenwicke had been married a
+fortnight before at Rome. Within six weeks of that day Kate Ormsby had
+become my wife."
+
+Seating himself on the tree by the side of Marsh, he began to
+manufacture a cigarette. By this time, to all outward seeming, he was
+thoroughly himself again.
+
+The shock of the news brought him by his foster brother had stunned,
+and in a measure unmanned him for a little while, but his nature was
+too self-poised, and his nerves too thoroughly under control, to allow
+of his equanimity being seriously disturbed for any length of time.
+That which had happened, however much it was to be deplored, belonged
+to the past, and not all the powers of Heaven and earth combined could
+alter or undo it. The only thing left him was to face the
+consequences, and that he was prepared to do.
+
+"It was not a fact, then, that Miss Fenwicke was married?" queried
+Roden, after a pause.
+
+"The statement was false from beginning to end. No such letter was
+ever written by Lady Linthorpe; but not till about a month ago did
+that fact come to my knowledge, and not till then was I in a position
+to fathom the depths of my wife's treachery. It was she who arranged
+the conversation overheard by Madeline that evening on the terrace,
+the actors in it being the son of her father's bailiff and the
+governess to her two younger sisters. It was a damnable plot, but it
+succeeded."
+
+He proceeded to light his cigarette, which done, he resumed his slow
+pacing to and fro.
+
+"It was indeed a black business," said Roden. "Did you tell Mrs.
+Drelincourt of your discovery?"
+
+"I did not fail to do so."
+
+"And she----?"
+
+"Laughed at me with that cold blooded laugh of hers which used to go
+through me like a knife. In those days, she said, she was such a
+simpleton as to fancy herself in love with me, and, in any case, she
+had vowed to herself that Miss Fenwicke should never be my wife. She
+will never laugh at me again."
+
+"I am glad, Felix, you have told me this," said Roden presently. "It
+has served to make clear much that was obscure to me before."
+
+"I have not done yet. Something more remains to be told."
+
+Tossing away what was left of his cigarette, Drelincourt sat down
+again on the felled trunk.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+AFTER THE TELLING OF THE NEWS.
+
+
+"When, soon after my marriage," resumed Mr. Drelincourt, "I furnished
+the Cot--which, some years before, had been tenanted by my father's
+gamekeeper--and fitted up a couple of its rooms as a laboratory, I had
+a double object in view. First of all, I wanted a place where I could
+prosecute my experiments free from the interruptions and annoyances to
+which I was subjected at the Towers; and, secondly, because it would
+be a haven of refuge to which I could escape at any time when matters
+at home had become so insupportable that I felt I must get away from
+them for a while lest I should go mad.
+
+"Well, five days ago I left the Towers and took up my quarters at the
+Cot. It was after a scene with my wife of more than ordinary violence.
+As you know, I some time ago made old Margery Trant a fixture at the
+Cot, so that she might be on the spot to look after my meals and what
+not. On previous occasions when I have made the place my temporary
+home, I have always been able to plunge into my experiments with a
+vast feeling of relief. Grateful to me was the sense of solitude and
+of isolation from all my kind. Even you, Rodd, never intruded upon me
+at such times.
+
+"This time, however, I could not settle down to anything. My mind was
+upset as it had never been before. The discovery of Kate's treachery
+weighed me down like a hideous nightmare from which I could not free
+myself. For the first time my experiments had become distasteful to
+me. My laboratory was as a temple of despair. I spent my days out of
+doors, sometimes on horseback, at other times on foot, keeping as far
+as possible from the haunts of men, and only returning to the Cot to
+eat and sleep when mind and body alike refused to hold out any longer.
+
+"It had been dark some hours when I got back last night. I had taken
+Favorita for a twenty miles' stretch across the downs, and she was as
+tired as I was. After supping on a biscuit and a glass of Madeira, I
+lay down, without undressing, on the couch in my study, and a few
+minutes later fell asleep. The next thing I knew was that I was broad
+awake--but where, think you? In the library at the Towers! Yes, so far
+as regarded any waking consciousness on my part, there was no
+perceptible interval of time between the moment of my closing my eyes
+in sleep at the Cot and that of my opening them at the Towers. But you
+have already surmised the truth. I had been walking in my sleep; a
+habit to which, you know full well, I have been more or less subject
+from my youth upward.
+
+"There, then, I was, suddenly brought back to conscious life by the
+merest accident. In my sleep, in obedience to some somnambulistic
+impulse, I had unlocked and opened the old secretaire in the library
+in which are stored a number of family papers. In shutting down the
+lid, I had accidentally trapped my finger, and the pain thereby caused
+me had been sufficient to awake me. I stared around in an effort to
+collect my amazed faculties. Then the truth dawned upon me. Very
+similar experiences had been mine before, although not oftener than
+once or twice since my marriage. Of all that must have happened up
+stairs prior to the moment of my awaking I retain no faintest shadow
+of recollection.
+
+"Presently I turned and left the house by the way I had entered
+it--that is to say, by the little side door in the north wing, which
+the butler has orders to leave unbolted and merely locked when I am
+from home, so that I can let myself in at any hour of the day or night
+by means of my pass key. So far as I am aware, not a creature saw me
+either enter the house or leave it. And then, after a while, I found
+myself here."
+
+A silence ensued, which Roden Marsh was the first to break.
+
+"I wholly fail to see how, in the eye of the law, a man can be held to
+be even partially accountable for anything that may happen, or any
+deed he may commit, while in a state of somnambulism."
+
+Drelincourt lighted another cigarette before speaking. Then he said:
+"But where are my witnesses to prove I was in that state when this
+morning's tragedy took place?"
+
+"For the matter of that, where are the witnesses to prove you had any
+hand at all in the affair?"
+
+"I know of none."
+
+"Then, as it seems to me, all you and I have to do is simply to keep
+our own counsel, and let the affair work itself out as best it may."
+
+To this Drelincourt apparently found nothing to reply.
+
+Roden lapsed into a brown study.
+
+"No," he said, after a pause, with a shake of his head, "neither
+legally nor morally can you be held accountable for this morning's
+work."
+
+Drelincourt flicked the ash off his cigarette.
+
+"And I am just as convinced that if the crime is brought home to me,
+the law will find me guilty and hang me in due course. What judge or
+jury would for one moment give credence to my plea of somnambulism? It
+would be brushed aside as an attempt, at once foolish and futile, to
+escape the consequences of my act. Pray disabuse your mind on that
+point, my dear Rodd. And now, as regards the moral guilt of the act.
+If the notion of my wife's death, and of the vast difference such an
+event would make to me, had not been a factor--embryonic, if you
+will--in my mind, if it had not found receptivity there, would it ever
+have evolved itself in action in the way it has done?"
+
+"For all that, a man who, while sleep walking, kills another cannot be
+deemed guilty of murder," protested Rodd dogmatically.
+
+"Undoubtedly he can, and ought to be so deemed morally; because,
+believe me, he must already have been guilty in thought--although not
+necessarily in intention--and, under such circumstances as we are
+considering, the deed itself is merely the natural outcome of the
+rudimentary idea."
+
+Again Rodd shook his head. Evidently he was not open to conviction.
+
+"Had we not better make our way to the Towers without further delay?"
+he asked. "It is known that I came in search of you, and your
+prolonged absence may excite suspicion."
+
+Drelincourt turned on him with one of his peculiar smiles.
+
+"Why hurry ourselves, my dear Rodd? Let the first scare get itself
+over; we shall be in excellent time for the sequel. What a lovely nook
+is this! I could linger here for hours. Look how that shaft of
+sunlight quivers through the crowns of yonder elms. But thou hast no
+eye for such effects, Rodd; thou art woefully lacking in artistic
+insight. See! a squirrel. What a pretty rascal it is?"
+
+Roden had risen. "I am waiting for you, Felix," he said coldly. "But
+perhaps you wish me to leave you here and go back alone."
+
+Although Roden Marsh addressed his foster brother as "Felix" when they
+were alone, in the presence of others he always spoke of and to him as
+"Mr. Drelincourt."
+
+"What a restless, weariful mortal thou art," said the latter. "Come,
+then, let us go!"
+
+But scarcely had they taken half a dozen steps before they both came
+to a stand. Some one in the distance was calling Mr. Drelincourt by
+name.
+
+"Unless I'm mistaken, that is the voice of Dixon, the groom," said
+Rodd. "He has probably been sent in search of you. Let me go to him
+while you wait here, and ascertain whether he's the bearer of any
+fresh news."
+
+A moment later he had plunged into the depths of the wood.
+
+"I am afraid that in no case will the next few days prove pleasant
+ones for the master of Wyvern Towers," murmured Drelincourt, as he
+stood where the other had left him. "_Eh, bien!_ the first act of the
+drama is over; soon the curtain will rise on the second. I am as
+curious as if I were merely a looker on to know how the plot will
+develop itself, and to what extent it will involve F. D. Will it prove
+to be merely a nine days' wonder and there end? By this time next year
+it may be merely an old wife's tale, to tell o' nights by the chimney
+corner. Or the _dénouement_ may be something altogether different; a
+tolling bell, a crossbeam, and a dangling rope. Those who live will
+see."
+
+He turned and began to pace the glade slowly, his hands crossed behind
+his back. As he walked, his lips moved.
+
+"Oh Madeline, Madeline, could I but bring back the hour I met you
+here, when, soft and low, with many a blush, you told me that you
+loved me! If I could but wake up and find the time between then and
+now nothing more than a hideous nightmare fancy of my own! In vain! It
+is no wild imagining of a disordered brain, but a baleful reality,
+with far reaching consequences which no human eye can foresee. But
+here comes Rodd, red faced and out of breath. What a pity it is--and
+how futile--to take things so seriously as he does."
+
+"It _was_ Dixon, as I thought," exclaimed the other as he came up.
+"Much has happened since I left the Towers. It has been discovered
+that Mrs. Drelincourt's jewel case has been rifled, and, by Mr.
+Ormsby's orders, Gumley has been arrested on suspicion of being both
+the thief and--and----"
+
+"The murderer. Why fight shy of the word, my dear Rodd? 'Tis always
+best to call things by their right names. But who is this Gumley that
+you speak of?"
+
+"An ill conditioned, saucy sort of fellow who was taken on about a
+fortnight ago to help in the gardens. He and Mrs. Drelincourt had some
+words the other day, when she lashed him across the face with her
+riding whip."
+
+"Just the sort of thing Kate would do. But this rifling of the jewel
+case--and last night, too! The coincidence, if one may call it such,
+is somewhat remarkable."
+
+"Had we not better get back to the Towers with as little delay as
+possible?"
+
+"Under the circumstances, it may perhaps be as well to do so. And so
+this fellow--this Gumley--has been arrested by James Ormsby's orders!
+I have always regarded Ormsby as a meddlesome fool; now I'm sure he's
+one."
+
+"We have yet to learn under what circumstances the arrest was
+effected."
+
+"True for you, my youthful Solomon. Well, let us be gone. But the
+coincidence, Rodd, the coincidence--the strangeness of the two things
+happening together!"
+
+Roden Marsh did not reply, but led the way out of the glade.
+Drelincourt, who was following him, on reaching the edge of it,
+turned, and lifting his hat, said softly: "Adieu, Madeline!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+SIR JOHN CONDUCTS THE INQUIRY.
+
+
+The middle of the library at the Towers was occupied by a large oblong
+oaken table, with a number of leather seated chairs ranged around it.
+At the upper end of this sat Sir John Musgrave, who had lately bought
+the mansion and estate of Grovelands, and was as yet a comparative
+stranger in the neighborhood. Mr. Ormsby, brother-in-law to Mr.
+Drelincourt, took the chair on the right of the baronet.
+
+Roden Marsh was the first to enter, and, by the baronet's request, he
+took a seat about half way down the table to the left of the latter.
+He had brought his writing materials with him.
+
+Next came in Chief Constable Draycot and the man Gumley, while a
+constable in uniform took up a position near the door. By Sir John's
+direction, Draycot and his prisoner took possession of a couple of
+chairs somewhat removed from the lower end of the table. Gumley, who
+was dressed like an ordinary laboring man, cast a comprehensive scowl
+around, and then, having subsided into his chair, he crossed his legs
+and stretched them out in front of him, as he might have done in a tap
+room, and seemed intent on examining the lining of his old felt hat.
+
+Sir John, addressing himself to him, said: "Attend to me, Gumley, if
+you please. Although the evidence I am about to take down this morning
+is merely preliminary to the fuller inquiry which will have to be held
+later on, when the same evidence will have to be sworn to a second
+time, I have deemed it right that you should be present in order that
+you may have a clear understanding from the first of what you are
+charged with, and may thereby have every opportunity afforded you of
+disproving the same when the time for doing so shall have arrived."
+
+"All right, guv'nor," answered Gumley, in the sullen way which seemed
+natural to him. "I can onny say, as I said afore, that I'm as
+innercent of the charge as the babby onborn."
+
+Drelincourt crossed from the window and sat down on a chair a little
+withdrawn from the table and apart from the others.
+
+"This fellow's face is an indictment of itself," he said under his
+breath, "and with nine people out of every dozen would go far to
+convict him."
+
+"Inform Mrs. Drelincourt's maid that she is wanted," said Sir John to
+the constable at the door.
+
+"A faithful, good hearted creature. My poor sister was much attached
+to her," remarked Mr. Ormsby, _sotto voce_, to the baronet.
+
+Enter Lucille, a rather attractive looking young woman, not in the
+least shy or embarrassed by the unfamiliar surroundings among which
+she finds herself. She favored the two gentlemen at the head of the
+table with a graceful courtesy as soon as the door was shut behind
+her, and then went slowly forward.
+
+Here a momentary hitch occurred, which was got over by Roden Marsh's
+production of a Greek Testament from one of the bookshelves. The
+witness was then sworn in the usual way by the constable in waiting,
+who had been so often called upon to take the oath in his own person
+that he had the formula at his tongue's end.
+
+When the witness had stated that her name was Lucille Fretin, and that
+she had filled the position of maid to the late Mrs. Drelincourt from
+the time of that lady's marriage, Sir John said to her: "You have
+already, I believe, had some conversation with Mr. Ormsby about this
+most shocking affair; be good enough to tell us here, on your oath,
+all that you know about it."
+
+"Monsieur and gentlemen," began Lucille, standing with a hand thrust
+into each pocket of her coquettish looking apron, and speaking with a
+pronounced French accent, "yesterday madame, my mistress, gave me
+permission to go to London to see my sister, who is ill. She had the
+_bonté_ to say that I might stay all night, but that I must return by
+the first train this morning. That is what I do. I come back by the
+early train, and I reach the house just as the clocks are about to
+strike seven. Five minutes later I enter madame's room. I call her
+softly. I say, '_Madame, je suis arrivée_.' She does not reply. I say
+to myself, 'She sleeps. I will not disturb her.' Then I go a little
+nearer, and then--_mon Dieu!_--I see something which frightens me. It
+is one big drop like blood on the pillow! Then I bend over her, and I
+see that her eyes are not shut, but open and staring; and then
+something tells me that they are the eyes of a dead woman."
+
+Drelincourt rose abruptly, and going to the side table, he poured out
+a glass of wine and drank it. Then he went back to his chair.
+
+"After that," said Sir John to Lucille, "you were just able to arouse
+the household, and then you fainted and knew nothing more for some
+time?"
+
+"_C'est vrai, monsieur_."
+
+"How long was it after you came to your senses before you discovered
+that your mistress' jewel case had been rifled?"
+
+"About half an hour, monsieur."
+
+"And what led you to make the discovery?"
+
+"Madame's jewel case was kept in the top drawer of the bureau in her
+dressing room. This morning I found the case on the floor near the
+window. It was empty."
+
+"You have furnished the chief constable with a description and list of
+the missing articles as far as your memory serves you?"
+
+"_Oui, monsieur_."
+
+"And at the proper time you will be prepared to swear that you saw the
+articles in question in your mistress' jewel case yesterday afternoon
+before you left home?"
+
+"_Certainement, monsieur_."
+
+"Had not your mistress, a few days ago, a difference or disagreement
+of some kind with one of the people in Mr. Drelincourt's employ?"
+
+"_Oui, monsieur_."
+
+"Who was the person with whom your mistress had the difference in
+question?"
+
+"_Cet homme lá_," replied Lucille, without a moment's hesitation,
+pointing a rigid forefinger at Gumley.
+
+"Be good enough, mademoiselle, to tell us what you know of the
+affair."
+
+"It was on Saturday last. Madame was dressed to go out riding, and was
+waiting for her horse to be brought round. That man was in the flower
+garden close by the long window which opens out of her boudoir. Madame
+had given him some instructions in the morning which he had not
+attended to, and she stepped out of the window to speak to him. Madame
+was a lady who would not have her slightest order neglected. She was
+very angry. She said something to him in her quick, haughty way, and
+he answered her back--insolently."
+
+"You say insolently. Can you not tell us exactly what he said?"
+
+"No, monsieur, I was not near enough to hear; but I could tell from
+the way the man looked up at madame--he was kneeling on one knee at
+the time--that his words were insolent."
+
+"What happened next?"
+
+"Madame lifted her riding whip and lashed him with it three or four
+times across the head and shoulders."
+
+Before anybody could stop him, Gumley started to his feet, and
+pointing to a livid whelt across his cheek, exclaimed in hoarse
+accents, "Ay, and here's the mark to bear witness to it--curse her!"
+
+Sir John turned on him with an admonitory frown. "Silence, man, or it
+will be worse for you!"
+
+Then Draycot whispered sternly to him, and he resumed his seat,
+sullenly enough.
+
+Sir John turned again to Lucille. "What followed?"
+
+"Madame turned and came back indoors, while he--the
+_polisson!_--sprang to his feet and shook his clenched hand, and
+called after her, 'You will live to be sorry for this day's work, my
+fine Madam, for I'll have my revenge if I swing for it!' The same
+evening he was discharged by madame's orders."
+
+Again Gumley started to his feet. "That's a lie!" he called out. "What
+I said was, 'If you was my wife, my fine madam, dash my limbs if I
+wouldn't break every bone in your body, though I had to swing for it!'
+
+"Shut up, you fool," said Draycot in a fierce whisper, as he pulled
+him down into his seat.
+
+"_Will_ you be quiet, fellow?" snarled Sir John. Then to Lucille: "You
+recognize the locket found in this man's possession as having been the
+property of Mrs. Drelincourt?"
+
+"_Oui, monsieur_."
+
+Addressing himself to Drelincourt, Sir John said: "The prisoner's
+statement is that he found the locket in question a few days ago in a
+summer house in which Mrs. Drelincourt was in the habit of sitting on
+fine afternoons, and that he pocketed it with the intention of
+subsequently disposing of it for his own benefit. In so far he admits
+his guilt, but he persists in asserting that he had no hand in the
+robbery, or in the commission of the far more serious crime with which
+we are more especially concerned at present."
+
+Once more he turned to Lucille. "As I am led to understand, you are
+not prepared to assert positively that you saw the locket in your
+mistress' jewel case yesterday or the day before?"
+
+"_Non, monsieur_. I do not remember."
+
+"Thank you, mademoiselle; I have nothing further to ask you at
+present."
+
+"_Merci, monsieur_."
+
+Having favored Sir John with an elaborate courtesy, she left the room.
+"There is still one point on which I am not clear," remarked Sir John.
+"What gave rise, in the first instance, to this man's arrest?"
+
+"The onus of that rests with me," replied Mr. Ormsby. "It was in
+answer to certain questions put by me and Draycot to Lucille that we
+were told of the threats this scoundrel had made use of towards my
+poor sister."
+
+Once more Gumley could not restrain himself. "Scoundrel, eh?" he said
+with a scowl. "I wish you had _this_ acrost your face instead o' me!"
+
+"Gumley, you are unbearable," said Sir John, in his most severe
+accents. "The next time you attempt to interrupt the proceedings I
+will have you removed."
+
+"Then it was," resumed Mr. Ormsby, "that I suggested to Draycot that
+this man should be found--we were given to understand that he had not
+yet left the village--and that both he and his lodgings should be
+searched. The result was that one of the missing articles--a
+locket--was found on his person."
+
+"But nothing else has been found?" It was Mr. Drelincourt who asked
+the question.
+
+Draycot took on himself to answer it. "Not yet, sir. His lodgings will
+be thoroughly searched in the course of the next hour."
+
+Gumley felt compelled to make another protest. "As I said afore, and
+as I say agen, I know nothen about the murder and nothen about the
+robbery. I found the locket in the----"
+
+"Silence, fellow!" Almost yelled Sir John. "Once for all, let me
+caution you to hold your tongue."
+
+But Gumley was determined to have the last word. "All I wants is to
+speak the truth," he growled sullenly.
+
+"As it happens," resumed Mr. Drelincourt, "I am in a position to
+confirm at least one portion of this man's statement. Some time in the
+course of last week my wife spoke to me about having missed the locket
+now in question, which was rather a favorite with her, and which she
+was afraid she had lost a day or two previously somewhere in the
+grounds. Such being the case, I fail to see how the locket could have
+formed part of the missing jewels."
+
+Sir John and Mr. Ormsby exchanged looks.
+
+Gumley pricked up his ears. The sort of sullen apathy which had
+hitherto marked his demeanor vanished. From that moment he became a
+different man.
+
+"Your statement, Mr. Drelincourt, is certainly a strong point in the
+prisoner's favor," remarked Sir John, after a few moments' cogitation.
+"Still, bearing in mind the threats made use of by him towards Mrs.
+Drelincourt, I do not feel myself justified in sanctioning his
+release. The coroner's inquest will take place at the earliest
+possible moment, and I have decided to remand the prisoner till
+tomorrow, when he will be brought up before the bench of magistrates
+at Sunbridge."
+
+Draycot nudged his prisoner. "Now, then!" he said.
+
+Gumley stood up, and addressing himself to Mr. Drelincourt, said:
+"God-bless you, sir, for helpin' to get a pore, innercent cove out of
+a scrape wot he's got into through no fault of his'n." Then, as he
+followed Draycot, he said to himself, "It was a lie, though, wot he
+told about the locket. Now, wot's his little game, I wonder?"
+
+The baronet, having filled up and signed the necessary commitment
+order, handed it to Roden Marsh to give to the superintendent. Rodd
+then gathered up his papers and followed the others out of the room.
+
+Sir John stood up and stretched himself. "In spite of your evidence
+about the locket, Mr. Drelincourt," he said, "I am strongly of opinion
+that in Gumley we have got hold of the real criminal."
+
+"My own opinion exactly," responded Ormsby. "The scoundrel's
+countenance is enough of itself to proclaim him guilty."
+
+"If we were all judged by our looks, how few of us would escape
+condemnation," remarked Drelincourt dryly. "For my part, I am strongly
+inclined to believe in the fellow's innocence."
+
+"My dear Drelincourt, you surprise me," remarked his brother-in-law,
+as he crossed to the side table.
+
+"It is possible, Mr. Drelincourt," suggested the baronet, "That your
+suspicions point in some other direction."
+
+"No, I have no suspicions--none whatever. For all that, I have a sort
+of intuitive belief in Gumley's innocence."
+
+"Time will prove."
+
+"Possibly so. But there are some mysteries which time never solves."
+
+"My experience as a magistrate convinces me that they are few and far
+between. You remember what old Chaucer says: 'Murder will out, that
+see we day by day'--words as true now as they were five hundred years
+ago."
+
+Mr. Drelincourt looked slightly bored.
+
+Sir John consulted his watch. "Later than I thought. I have an
+appointment at Sunbridge, and am already overdue."
+
+"And I, too, must be off," remarked Ormsby. "I quite expect to find my
+wife in hysterics when I get home. She was awfully attached to poor
+Kitty."
+
+"For the present, then, goodby," said Sir John to Drelincourt, as he
+proffered his hand. "To attempt to condole with you under such a
+terrible blow would be an impertinence on my part; but this I must
+say--that you have my heartfelt sympathy."
+
+"Of that I am quite sure, Sir John."
+
+They shook hands cordially, and then Drelincourt crossed and rang the
+bell. "Ormsby, I shall see you in Sunbridge later in the day," said
+Sir John. Three seconds later he was gone, shown out by Simmons.
+
+"Now to get rid of this pompous fool," said Drelincourt to himself as
+he came forward.
+
+Now that the two were alone, Ormsby had resumed his most lugubrious
+expression.
+
+"Felix," he began, "I am at a loss for words wherewith to express a
+tithe of what I feel on this most heartrending occasion."
+
+"Then I wouldn't try to find any, if I were you. There are some things
+which won't bear talking about, and this is one of them."
+
+"That seems rather unfeeling, doesn't it?"
+
+"Are one's feelings to be gauged by the amount of talk one may give
+utterance to? Are there not occasions when silence may be the heart's
+most eloquent tribute?"
+
+"Possibly--possibly," replied Mr. Ormsby, with a little cough behind
+his hand. "I dare say you are right--from your point of view. If you
+would like Octavia to come and look after matters at the Towers for
+the next week or two, I am sure that she----"
+
+"Not for the world! I am a strange fellow, Ormsby, as I dare say you
+have found out before today. The more I am left to myself just at
+present, the better I shall be pleased."
+
+"Well, well, as you will. Still, I cannot but feel sure that my wife
+would have been a great comfort to you in your affliction. She is so
+truly sympathetic."
+
+"Good day, Ormsby," said the other abruptly. "I know you mean well,
+and I thank you. But I'm all on edge just now and I can't talk any
+more."
+
+"I can sympathize with you, my dear fellow. I have something of the
+same feeling myself." With that he held out his hand.
+
+"Ah, excuse me, but I sprained my wrist this morning." He crossed to
+the fireplace and rang the bell, and then stood grasping his right
+wrist with his left hand.
+
+"That's unfortunate. Well, _au revoir_," said Ormsby, as he took
+possession of his hat and gloves.
+
+The attentive Simmons stood holding the open door.
+
+"I'm nearly sure he shook hands with Sir John," muttered Ormsby, as he
+made his exit. "What a queer, ill-conditioned beggar he is! Still, I
+wish he would have had Octavia here. She would have been just in her
+element on an occasion like this. And then, she is so truly
+sympathetic."
+
+No sooner did Drelincourt find himself alone than he strode to one of
+the windows and flung open the casement.
+
+"At last I can breathe! For a little while the torture is relaxed, but
+only for a little while. What would I not give if the next few days
+were well over! This fellow Gumley must be saved at all risks. Of
+course, it was he who stole the jewels; and yet for the sake of a
+wretch like this I shall have to lie and perjure myself again and
+again. To me such a necessity is more hateful than I can express. The
+mere thought of such comradeship in crime sends a shudder down my
+spine. For all that, he _must_ be saved! All may go well if only the
+rest of the jewels remain undiscovered. In that case, my lie about the
+locket ought to be enough to clear him. Faugh! Let me try to get this
+greasy smelling knave out of my thoughts for a while."
+
+There was a box of cigars on the top of one of the low bookcases, from
+which he now proceeded to select one and light it.
+
+"'Murder will out'--so quotes Sir John. But does that follow as a
+matter of course? Facts--indisputable facts--prove the contrary.
+Though Nemesis may dog the footsteps of a man for years, yet oftener
+than we wot of she fails to overtake him. In any case, the man who,
+after having incurred a penalty--whether with wide open eyes or as the
+result of circumstances outside his control--shrinks from facing the
+consequences when they are brought home to him, is both a fool and a
+coward. That is not the stuff, I trust, of which Felix Drelincourt is
+made."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+A BACKWARD GLANCE.
+
+
+Presently Mr. Drelincourt quitted the library, and, traversing the
+entrance hall, went up the fine old oaken staircase at the farther
+end. But on reaching the spacious landing at the top, instead of
+turning to the right in the direction of his own and his late wife's
+apartments, he turned to the left, and after going some way down a
+corridor which gave access to sundry rooms, he came to a red baize
+covered door--the others were all of oak or walnut--with a bell pull
+pendent at one side of it. At this he gave a tug, which was responded
+to by a faint tinkle somewhere inside.
+
+Half a minute later a little wicket in the door was drawn back, and a
+woman's face appeared at the opening. On perceiving who it was that
+had rung the bell, the face, an unusually grave one, for the most
+part, brightened perceptibly.
+
+"Will you be kind enough to open the door," said Mr. Drelincourt.
+Sometimes he contented himself with asking a question or two at the
+wicket, and did not enter.
+
+The woman nodded, and shut the wicket. Then from the bunch of keys at
+her waist she selected one, and with it opened the door, which was
+shut and relocked as soon as Mr. Drelincourt had crossed the
+threshold.
+
+But at this point it may be as well to take leave of the master of
+Wyvern Towers for a while, and in order that the reader may have a due
+comprehension of what has yet to be told, make him acquainted, in as
+brief terms as may be, with certain particulars having reference to
+that person's family history, and to the relations which had existed
+between his father and himself.
+
+The late Colonel Drelincourt had been twice married, and had left
+behind him two children--Felix, his son by his first wife, and Anna,
+his daughter by his second. At the time of the colonel's death the
+former was twenty three years old, and the latter thirteen. His second
+wife had predeceased him by a few years.
+
+As a young man, Felix had serious differences with his father, whose
+pet project it was that his son should follow his own profession.
+This, however, Felix resolutely declined to do.
+
+He had no taste whatever for soldiering; nor, on the other hand, did a
+political career hold out any attractions for him. He was a studious
+and bookishly inclined man, addicted to experimental chemistry, and
+with a strong liking for travel and exploration. Of sport, in the
+common acceptance of the term, he knew nothing and cared as little;
+but he had a fondness for horses, and was an intrepid rider.
+
+The colonel, a military martinet of the old school, who held a blind
+obedience to one's superiors to be one of the main rules of conduct,
+never forgave his son's refusal to follow in the course he had
+prescribed for him. At his death it was found that, outside the
+entailed property, he had left everything he was possessed of to his
+daughter, to whom he had been passionately attached.
+
+He had married her mother for love (like many another man, he had
+never touched even the fringe of romance till he was past his fortieth
+year), whereas he had married his first wife for her dowry. Thanks to
+certain arrangements made by his mother, Felix was in a measure
+independent of his father even before he became of age.
+
+About three years prior to the colonel's death a terrible mischance
+befell his daughter, at that time in her tenth year.
+
+It was Christmas week, at which season a certain amount of license is
+often winked at among the servants in country houses. In the dusk of
+afternoon, and in the gallery at the head of the stairs, Anna
+encountered what she took for an apparition, but which, in point of
+fact, was merely one of the servants dressed up in a sheet, and having
+her face whitened, on her way to join in some mummeries below stairs.
+
+The child, who from her birth had been of a highly excitable
+temperament, with hysterical tendencies, gave one piercing scream, and
+fell to the ground in a fit, which was followed by several others, and
+for some days her life was despaired of.
+
+Gradually, however, she regained her health, and everybody hoped--her
+father, of course, most of all--that the shock her system had
+undergone had left no ill effects behind it.
+
+One of the colonel's first acts after his daughter's seizure had been
+to send for Mrs. Jenwyn, with whose services, only a little while
+before, he had seen fit to dispense. It was Mrs. Jenwyn who had nursed
+his wife through the long illness which had preceded her death, and it
+was in fulfilment of Mrs. Drelincourt's dying request that he had
+installed her in the dual position of nurse and governess to his
+motherless girl, who, in the course of time, had learned to love her
+almost, if not quite, as well as the parent she had lost.
+
+Whether it was a feeling of jealousy that his child should care so
+much for any one but himself, or some other whim, which caused him to
+give Mrs. Jenwyn notice to leave, was known only to himself. In any
+case, Anna took the separation greatly to heart, far more so than her
+father was aware of, for the child's deepest moods were silent ones;
+of what she felt most she talked least, and the colonel was not
+skilled in reading below the surface.
+
+Now, however, he blamed himself with undue severity for having sent
+Mrs. Jenwyn about her business. Again and again he told himself, most
+unreasonably, that had she been on the spot the mischance would never
+have happened. It was some consolation to him to witness the naïve and
+touching delight with which Anna welcomed Mrs. Jenwyn's return.
+
+For all that, as he quitted the room, leaving them together, he could
+not help saying to himself, with a touch of bitterness, "She loves
+that woman better than she loves me."
+
+Unfortunately, the colonel's fondly cherished hope that the shock to
+his daughter's system would entail no after consequences was not
+destined to be fulfilled. To all appearance, Anna had regained her
+health and strength in full measure, and her fright was a matter six
+months old, when, without any warning, so to speak, an unaccountable
+change came over her which found its physical expression in a state of
+irritability and low fever, supplemented by insomnia. Dr. Carew was
+called in, and prescribed, but declined to commit himself to any
+expression of opinion.
+
+On the fifth day from the beginning of her attack, Anna fell into a
+deep, trance-like sleep which lasted eighteen hours. When at length
+she awoke, everything that had happened to her during the six months
+which had intervened since the date of her fright was lost to her
+memory. She went back and took up her life again at the point where
+consciousness had left her at the moment of her scare in the gallery.
+
+All Mrs. Jenwyn had taught her in the interim was clean gone. A book
+half read at the time she now began afresh and finished, and she
+resumed the practice of a piece of music on which she had been engaged
+during the forenoon of that unfortunate day. The break in her memory
+was absolute and complete.
+
+By Dr. Carew's recommendation, no attempt was made to enlighten her.
+Everybody about her accommodated themselves to circumstances as she
+believed them to be. The doctor trusted to time. It was all he could
+do.
+
+Any attempt at a cure on his part, as he was not slow to recognize,
+might have been productive of more harm than good, and possibly have
+entailed consequences he would have been loath to face. He watched the
+case with the deepest interest, but beyond prescribing a harmless
+draft or two, he left nature to work after her own fashion.
+
+At the end of a fortnight Anna fell into another trance-like sleep,
+and awoke from it her proper self. The two preceding weeks were
+blotted from her memory. She had merely had a longer and sounder sleep
+than ordinary, from which she had awaked feeling strangely refreshed.
+
+From that time forward the same thing had happened to her, at
+irregular intervals, every three or four months. After certain
+preliminary symptoms, which hardly ever varied, she would fall into a
+deep sleep, always to awake at that moment of her life which preceded
+her meeting with the supposed apparition in the gallery. At the end of
+ten days or a fortnight, and after another sleep, she would become her
+normal self again.
+
+She had been ten years old at the time of her first attack, and she
+was now eighteen. A lovely girl (but with no touch of resemblance to
+Felix), and of an affectionate and amiable disposition; bright and
+cheerful enough at times, but, for the most part, with a vague shadow
+of melancholy brooding over her, as of one who realized in all its
+bitterness the fact that there was about her a something which set her
+apart from her fellows; for long before now the full measure of her
+affliction had become known to her.
+
+Mrs. Jenwyn had given Colonel Drelincourt her promise on his deathbed
+that she would never leave Anna while it was the latter's wish that
+she should stay with her. In order, however, to make assurance doubly
+sure, the colonel had left instructions in his will that the sum of
+two hundred guineas per annum should be paid to Mrs. Jenwyn out of his
+estate so long as she should retain her position by his daughter's
+side.
+
+As already remarked, the colonel had bequeathed to Anna all that it
+was in his power to leave her. An ample sum was settled on her, under
+the control of trustees, during her minority, and when she should come
+of age she would find herself mistress of an income of twelve hundred
+a year, with absolute power over ten thousand pounds of the gross sum
+capitalized by her father.
+
+About a year before his death, and when he had no prevision of that
+event being so near, Colonel Drelincourt had caused to be set aside,
+and specially arranged for their use, a suite of rooms in the left
+wing of the Towers, to which his daughter and Mrs. Jenwyn could retire
+whenever Anna's symptoms gave warning that one of her periodical
+attacks was imminent.
+
+He had also caused a considerable space or ground on the same side of
+the house to be walled in, so as to form a private garden in which the
+two could obtain a sufficiency of fresh air and exercise without being
+overlooked or spied upon by any visitors at the house, or by any
+casual outsiders, there being a right of public footway through the
+park at the back of the Towers, as a consequence of which stragglers
+were sometimes found in those parts of the grounds where they had no
+business to be.
+
+When, at his father's death, Felix Drelincourt came into the property,
+matters, so far as they related to his half sister, were in no wise
+changed. All he did was to cut down the staff of servants, and to
+request Mrs. Jenwyn to take upon herself the control of the
+establishment, he himself having no intention at that time of settling
+permanently at the Towers. Not till after his marriage, some three
+years later, did he make it his home.
+
+When talking over future arrangements with his prospective wife, he
+had given Miss Ormsby clearly to understand that his marriage was to
+alter nothing so far as his half sister was concerned. Anna's home, as
+heretofore, would still be at the Towers, and the special suite of
+rooms in the left wing still be reserved for the occupancy of herself
+and Mrs. Jenwyn at certain seasons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+IN THE LEFT WING.
+
+
+And now to revert to Mr. Drelincourt's visit to the left wing of the
+Towers on the day his wife came by her tragic end.
+
+His first question, in a low voice, to Mrs. Jenwyn, after the baize
+covered door had been locked behind him, was: "You have heard the
+news?"
+
+"I have, sir, and I need not tell you what a dreadful shock it was to
+me. Poor lady! Poor unhappy lady!"
+
+Drelincourt bit his lip for a moment. Then, "You have not breathed a
+word about it to Anna?"
+
+He had taken a chair, after motioning Mrs. Jenwyn to another.
+
+"Certainly not, sir. I should not dream of doing so without your
+permission. Indeed, I am far from sure that just now it would be
+advisable to say anything to her about it."
+
+"My own opinion exactly. The news must be kept carefully from her
+while she is as she is. It will be time enough to break it to her when
+she is herself again. Of course, her present attack has not yet run
+its course?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir; it is only five days since she was taken. We may
+calculate on another week at the least."
+
+"So much the better. By that time the funeral and other matters will
+be over and done with."
+
+Drelincourt sat for a few moments without speaking, toying with his
+watch-guard. Mrs. Jenwyn knew better than to break the silence.
+
+At this time, judging from appearances, she was somewhere about forty
+years of age. Her features were regular and refined, and she would
+still have been accounted a very handsome woman but for the abnormal
+pallor of her complexion, her sunken cheeks, and a certain worn and
+tired look about her keenly watchful eyes, with their slightly
+contracted lids, which might be the result of insomnia.
+
+Like her hair, her eyes were of a brown so dark as in some lights to
+be hardly distinguishable from black. Although her face was
+essentially feminine in certain of its aspects, its dominant
+expression was one of innate resolution, and of an amount of will
+power rather unusual in one of her sex. "A woman of great force of
+character, who would do and dare much to gain her ends, whatever they
+might be," was Mr. Drelincourt's pithy summing up of her.
+
+For all that, there must have been a sunny corner hidden somewhere
+under the husk of her almost frozen reserve, or Anna Drelincourt--so
+susceptible to chills of every kind--would not have learned to love
+her and cling to her as she did. Scarcely less dear had Anna's mother
+held her.
+
+Beyond the fact that she was a widow, Drelincourt knew nothing of her
+history or antecedents, and did not seek to know anything. He had
+accepted her, so to speak, as a legacy from his father, and had soon
+learned to like and respect her for herself.
+
+There was something about her self-contained character, with its
+reserve of quiet force, which appealed specially to him. She was the
+very woman--one out of a thousand--he told himself, for the peculiar
+post she occupied, and he was careful to treat her with every
+consideration.
+
+Some little time passed before Mr. Drelincourt spoke again. To Mrs.
+Jenwyn he seemed to be debating some point with himself. At length he
+said:
+
+"Contrary to what I had ventured to hope before they came together, my
+wife always seemed to be very fond of Anna, and to make much of her.
+That, at least, is how matters presented themselves to me. What is
+your opinion, Mrs. Jenwyn? You were in a position to observe things
+from a far more intimate point of view than I was."
+
+His eyes were fixed on the matron; she could not choose but answer
+him. Her dark, prominent brows came together for a moment; a little
+wave of color tinged her pale cheeks for a second or two.
+
+"A question so plainly put, Mr. Drelincourt, ought to be met by a
+plain answer. Is not that so?"
+
+"Why, certainly, Mrs. Jenwyn."
+
+"Now that Mrs. Drelincourt is unhappily no more, there seems to me no
+reason why I should any longer refrain from mentioning to you a
+certain conclusion which I could not help arriving at on the occasion
+of Mr. Guy Ormsby's visit at the Towers a few months ago."
+
+Mr. Drelincourt sat up in his chair. "Go on, please," was all he said.
+
+"To such an extent and so openly did Mrs. Drelincourt make it her
+business to throw Miss Anna and Mr. Guy together, that at length I
+could not help having my eyes opened to the ulterior object she had in
+view. What at first had been nothing more than suspicion was turned
+into certainty by a few words between brother and sister which I
+accidentally happened to overhear."
+
+"And that object was--"
+
+"The marriage--not just now, but after Miss Anna shall have come of
+age--of the two young people."
+
+It was not often that Drelincourt was betrayed into an expression of
+surprise, but he was on this occasion.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed. "Scheme to wed her brother to a girl mentally
+afflicted as my poor sister is? It would be nothing less than
+monstrous."
+
+"Mrs. Drelincourt, sir, professed to believe, with Dr. Pounceby, the
+London specialist, that Miss Anna would grow out of her affliction in
+the course of a few years."
+
+"An opinion, I am grieved to say, wholly opposed to that of an equally
+eminent man--Dr. Ferrers."
+
+"And then, sir, it behooves Mr. Guy Ormsby, as a younger son without
+expectations, to look out for a wife with money."
+
+"Why do you say that, Mrs. Jenwyn?"
+
+"I am merely repeating Mrs. Drelincourt's own words to her brother."
+
+"So!" Then to himself he added: "Evidently between my wife and this
+woman there was no love lost."
+
+He seemed to consider for a few moments, and then he said: "But tell
+me this, Mrs. Jenwyn: Did Anna seem to take to young Ormsby in the way
+you think my wife would have liked her to do--that is to say, did he
+succeed in entangling her affections? For I have no doubt he was ready
+enough to follow up his sister's precious scheme."
+
+"That is more than I can say, sir, with any degree of certainty.
+Sometimes I am inclined to think one thing, and sometimes another.
+Miss Anna is not an easy person to read."
+
+"Not an easy person to read? One of the most transparent and simple
+minded girls in existence."
+
+A thin smile flickered for a moment over Mrs. Jenwyn's bloodless
+features. She had a soft, level voice, which, while it fell soothingly
+on the ear, was not without a certain penetrative quality of its own.
+
+"Excuse me, sir, but you don't know so much of her as I do, or you
+would scarcely say that. You think her transparent and easy to read,
+whereas there are depths in her character which not even I, who am
+with her every day and all day, have yet succeeded in sounding. You
+can never make sure beforehand of what she will either say or do in
+reference to any given subject. In short, Miss Anna is a law unto
+herself."
+
+Drelincourt looked puzzled and only half convinced. It was not
+pleasant to him to be told that he had so completely misread the
+character of his seeming simple minded sister.
+
+"It's a pity you did not give me a hint at the time of what was going
+forward," he remarked, after a momentary pause.
+
+"Young Mr. Ormsby's visit had nearly come to an end before I had
+anything more than vague suspicions to go upon. And the next thing I
+heard was that his regiment was presently going abroad. After that it
+seemed to me all further danger was at an end, and I came to the
+conclusion that my wisest plan would be to keep my discovery to
+myself."
+
+"I presume you have satisfied yourself that no correspondence has
+passed between Lieutenant Ormsby and Anna?"
+
+"On that point I am quite satisfied."
+
+"Does she talk much, or at all, about him?"
+
+"I have not heard her even mention his name during the last month or
+more."
+
+"Then I suppose all there is left me to do is to hope for the best,
+and to trust that no real harm has been done?"
+
+"If signs go for anything, sir, I am certainly inclined to believe
+that Miss Anna is still heart whole and fancy free. But, as I have
+already remarked, her character is not an easy one to read. Of course,
+if Mr. Guy were to appear again on the scene, I could not answer for
+what might happen."
+
+"There is not much fear of that--now," said Mr. Drelincourt
+significantly. "It is not at all likely that he and Anna will ever set
+eyes on each other again."
+
+He rose and pushed back his chair.
+
+"Will you not see Anna for a few minutes, sir, while you are here?"
+queried the matron. "She always seems brighter and better for some
+time after one of your visits; indeed, except myself, you are the only
+person from whose presence at these times she does not shrink with a
+sort of nervous dread, as though doubtful whether they might not be
+about to do her some bodily harm. It was rather singular, was it not,
+sir, that Mrs. Drelincourt's presence at these times always had a
+peculiarly disturbing effect upon her?"
+
+If Drelincourt heard the question, he did not care to answer it. He
+was cogitating, with a finger pressed to his lips.
+
+"Yes," he said presently. "I will see her. I have much to do, but I
+can spare her a few minutes."
+
+Thereupon Mrs. Jenwyn at once led the way to an inner room, which
+opened out of the first one. It was a large and sunny apartment,
+lighted by three windows, from which there was a view beyond the
+surrounding park of some miles of rolling, well timbered country. In
+the middle window hung a brass cage containing a couple of canaries.
+On a soft cushion reposed a Persian cat. From a brace of hooks in the
+ceiling was suspended a swing. Near at hand was a big rocking horse
+fitted with a side saddle. On the floor lay a pair of Indian clubs, a
+battledore and shuttlecock, and a hoop. In one corner was a small
+bookcase.
+
+On a low chair near one of the windows sat Anna Drelincourt, busily
+engaged in sewing some lace on one of several dresses composing the
+wardrobe of a big wax doll which, seated limply on an opposite chair,
+its arms dangling loosely by its sides, seemed with its glassy,
+unwinking eyes to be watching every movement of her needle.
+
+Occasionally Anna would look up from her work for a moment to nod her
+head and chirrup at Ninon, which was the doll's name; and possibly to
+her imaginative eyes that young person's fixed, vacuous smirk became
+endued, for a second or two, with a responsive meaning.
+
+At this time, as already stated, Anna was eighteen years old. She had
+a slender figure of medium height, with glossy chestnut hair, and eyes
+of the darkest blue. Her face might have been called insignificant had
+not her features been so perfectly formed, and her complexion so
+almost dazzlingly fair.
+
+Never was there a more April day face than Anna's, one liable to more
+swift changes of expression or that betrayed more ingenuously the
+thoughts and emotions--which sometimes ranged over a wide gamut--at
+work below.
+
+This morning she was wearing a simple white frock, with her unbound
+hair, confined by a bit of blue ribbon, falling nearly to her waist. A
+tiny foot, on which dangled a bronze slipper, peeped from under the
+hem of her frock. She was humming softly to herself as she plied her
+needle.
+
+As the door opened she glanced up, and at sight of Drelincourt sprang
+to her feet with a little cry of pleasure. Then running to meet him,
+she caught both his hands in hers, and held up her face to be kissed.
+
+"I knew you would come and see me this morning," she said brightly.
+"The Voices told me so, and they never deceive. You don't know what a
+number of secrets they whisper to me, and whatever they bid me do that
+I am bound to do. It is not only that, if I were to refuse, I should
+run the risk of their displeasure, but because I cannot help myself.
+Oh, to disobey them would be terrible! The mere thought----"
+
+"Anna!"
+
+Merely her name pronounced by Mrs. Jenwyn, but its effect on the girl
+was instantaneous. She still had hold of Drelincourt's hands, and he
+was conscious of a momentary spasmodic twitching of her fingers, such
+as might have been caused by a slight electric shock. Then his hands
+were released; something seemed to catch her breath for a second or
+two, her eyes opened and shut quickly several times, and therewith her
+mood changed.
+
+"What have I been rambling on about?" she asked, with a rippling,
+childlike laugh. "How silly of me! But whatever it was, it's all
+gone--all gone. And now, Felix, you must come and say 'Good morning'
+to Ninon, and ask her how she is. She is a good little thing on the
+whole, but sometimes I feel her temper rather trying." With that she
+drew him forward by the lapel of his coat. "Sit down," she said, "and
+nurse her for a little while. I fancy she looks slightly feverish this
+morning. I hope I shall not have to call in Dr. Carew."
+
+Drelincourt did as he was told. The doll was placed in his arms, and
+was held by him as awkwardly as might be expected. A smile, which had
+in it as much of pathos as of humor, played round his lips, but the
+expression of his eyes was one of grave tenderness and pity for the
+unhappy girl.
+
+Mrs. Jenwyn sat a little way apart, busy with her favorite crochet
+work, seeing everything without seeming to do so. It was evident that
+her presence acted powerfully on Anna as a restraining influence.
+
+Drelincourt stayed a quarter of an hour longer, chatting as lightly
+and pleasantly with Anna as though he had not a thought or a care
+beyond those of the passing moment, although all the while that dread
+Object lying cold and stark in another room framed itself like a
+ghastly picture on the background of his consciousness.
+
+
+                *     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+
+It was a month later, when, on a certain afternoon, as Mr. James
+Ormsby was walking down the platform of one of the London terminal
+stations on his way to the train, he was startled by a tap on his
+shoulder.
+
+On turning in his touchy way to ascertain who had ventured on such a
+liberty with him, he was pleasurably surprised to find that the
+offender was none other than Tom Thornswade, son of Squire Thornswade
+of Highcroft, whom he had known from the time he was short coated.
+
+"Thought I couldn't be mistaken in your back, Mr. Ormsby, as you
+marched along in front of me," said Master Tom, with a merry laugh, as
+his hand met that of the elder man in a cordial clasp. "I must say I'm
+awfully glad to see you. Yours is the first face known to me that I've
+set eyes on since I landed at Southampton four days ago."
+
+"Glad you've got back safe and sound, Tom. Your father told me all
+about your having to go out to the States to look after some property
+which has been left him there."
+
+The two had many topics in common, and found much to say to each
+other, and it was not till the train was fairly under way that young
+Tom, with a sudden change of tone and manner, said: "I must really
+crave your pardon, Mr. Ormsby, for having omitted to give expression
+to my sincere regrets at the great and irreparable loss you have
+recently sustained. Poor dear Mrs. Drelincourt! I cannot tell you how
+shocked I was when I read the account of her terrible end in one of
+the newspapers sent me by my mother."
+
+"Yes, it was indeed a tragical affair," replied Mr. Ormsby, with what
+he meant for a heartfelt sigh, and a sudden elongation of his visage.
+"I was her favorite brother, Torn--her favorite brother! What I have
+suffered God alone knows. I don't think I shall ever be quite my own
+man again. Poor Kate! Poor Kate!"
+
+"And the sad affair is still wrapped in mystery, is it not?" asked
+Tom, after a pause.
+
+"It is."
+
+"In the paper sent me there was an account of some man having been
+arrested on suspicion and examined before the magistrates, but who was
+afterwards set at liberty for want of sufficient evidence to bring the
+crime home to him."
+
+"That is so. Gumley, the fellow in question, had been temporarily
+engaged as under gardner at the Towers, and although, thanks to the
+evidence of my brother in law, who--and I can't help saying so--acted
+very strangely throughout the affair, he was released, nothing will
+persuade me that in him we had not got hold of the murderer of my
+sister. Unfortunately there was a link wanting in the chain of
+evidence--only one, mind you. But some day it may be found. I do not
+despair. Time solves many mysteries and brings many a clue to light."
+
+"It was a great blow to Mr. Drelincourt, was it not?"
+
+"Um"--with a pursing out of his under lip. "That is a question which
+he could best answer--if he chose to do so. At any rate, it's one I
+don't feel called upon to answer for him."
+
+"Not an ordinary sort of man, by any means, I should imagine, nor one
+easily bottomed, judging from what little I saw of him from time to
+time," remarked Tom, who was not without some grains of shrewdness.
+
+"That's as it may be. A shallow fool is often mistaken for a deep one
+by those who don't know better. In any case, we are not likely to see
+much of Drelincourt for a considerable time to come. He has shut up
+the Towers, putting in a man and his wife as caretakers, and has gone
+abroad for an indefinite period."
+
+"And Miss Drelincourt, his half sister, what has become of her?"
+
+"Her chest is said to be delicate, and she and the person who has
+charge of her have gone to live for a time in Devonshire. She's a
+charming girl--leaving her mental affliction out of question--and my
+poor sister was greatly attached to her."
+
+"And an uncommonly pretty girl, too," added Master Tom _sotto voce_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+RECREANT LOVER.
+
+
+Mrs. Drelincourt had been dead a year.
+
+Anna and Mrs. Jenwyn were still at Combe Fenton, the Devonshire
+village to which they had retired shortly after the death of the
+mistress of Wyvern Towers.
+
+On the particular morning to which we have now come, Anna set off for
+her customary after breakfast constitutional on the sands. It was her
+favorite walk, and one which she rarely missed in fine weather. She
+was accompanied by Fanny, a demure looking but rather pretty girl, and
+a native of Combe Fenton, who filled the post of maid and attendant to
+both the younger and the elder lady.
+
+About a fortnight before this, Mrs. Jenwyn, while gathering ferns, had
+slipped and sprained her ankle so severely that she had not yet been
+able to use it for longer than a few minutes at a time for walking
+purposes. As a consequence, she had been under the necessity of
+substituting Fanny for herself as Anna's companion during the latter's
+outdoor rambles. In so doing no faintest suspicion entered her mind
+that she might be exposing her charge to a risk.
+
+This morning, however, her eyes were destined to be opened.
+
+After Anna's departure the housemaid wheeled her in her bath chair to
+a favorite spot in the grounds under a spreading beech, where she was
+in the habit of reading and working the time away till the girl's
+return. Here she had been some time engaged with her tatting, when she
+was startled by the appearance of a man who came suddenly from behind
+a thick clump of laurels and rhodendrons, and halting a few yards from
+her, took off his soft felt hat and made her a low bow.
+
+He was young, and looked what he was, a superior mechanic. Before Mrs.
+Jenwyn could find her tongue he spoke.
+
+"I crave your pardon, ma'am, for intruding upon you in this way," he
+began, "but I couldn't very well call upon you at the house, because
+the servants there all know me. And now, ma'am, I must ask you to
+excuse me if I put a certain question to you. Are you aware that the
+young lady who lives here with you is in the habit, morning after
+morning, of meeting a young gentleman on the sands of Carthew Bay?"
+
+For a few seconds Mrs. Jenwyn could not speak, so utterly astounded
+was she.
+
+Then she said, a little faintly, "No, I am certainly not aware of
+anything of the kind."
+
+"That, however, is what takes place. The young gentleman is always
+there, waiting for her, and they walk up and down the sands together,
+or sit side by side on some of the big stones which are strewn about,
+for an hour at a time. Yesterday--excuse me, ma'am, for mentioning
+it--he kissed her twice before they parted."
+
+"Do you happen to know how long these meetings have been going on?"
+
+"This will make the eleventh day."
+
+"You seem to have done your spying to some purpose to be able to tell
+me all this."
+
+The young man merely screwed up his lips.
+
+"Describe the young gentleman's appearance as nearly as you can."
+
+"He's not so tall as I am by half a foot, but rather stiffly built;
+with sandy hair and a light mustache. In one eye he carries a glass."
+
+"Guy Ormsby!" exclaimed Mrs. Jenwyn under her breath. "I felt nearly
+sure it must be he; and yet not eighteen months ago I heard him tell
+his sister that his regiment was ordered abroad." Aloud she said, "But
+how is it, I should like to know, that Fanny Davis has never said a
+word to me about these meetings at Carthew Bay?"
+
+"Because, ma'am, she has no doubt been bribed not to tell. She just
+perches herself on a bit of rock out of the way of the others, and
+reads novelettes all the time they are together. Oh, she's a deep un,
+is Fan, and not to be trusted further than one can see her!" He spoke
+with a touch of bitterness not observable before.
+
+Like most women, Mrs. Jenwyn was certainly not without her occasional
+intuitions.
+
+Looking the young fellow straight in the eyes, she said: "You either
+are or have been in love with Fanny Davis, and she has jilted you."
+
+He looked first amazed and then sulky, while his face turned the color
+of a peony. "Whether that's so or not," he said, after a brief pause,
+"I don't see that it has anything to do with what I came here to tell
+you."
+
+"You are quite right," replied Mrs. Jenwyn pleasantly. "One thing has
+nothing whatever to do with the other. It was merely a guess on my
+part. By the way, what is your name? You need not be afraid of telling
+it me, because I shall not speak to any one about our interview."
+
+"My name is John Clisby."
+
+"Thank you. Then, Mr. Clisby, there are two more items of information
+which I should feel obliged by your obtaining for me. First of all,
+I should like to know the address of our young friend with the
+eyeglass--that is to say, at what place he has taken up his quarters
+for the time being; and, secondly, what name he is passing under."
+
+"He's staying at the Golden Swan, at the other end of the village, and
+has been since he came here, nearly three weeks since. As for his
+name, I'll engage to find that out for you by tomorrow."
+
+After a little further talk the young carpenter went his way, fully
+satisfied with his morning's work. He told himself that he had merely
+been playing a game of tit for tat. After leading him on and trifling
+with him for six months, Fanny had finally sent him about his
+business, and now he had done his best to be even with her.
+
+"She'll get the sack as sure as her name's Fan D., and serve her jolly
+well right," he said to himself with a chuckle, as he took his way
+through the shrubbery.
+
+Miss Drelincourt and her maid were back from the bay in time for
+luncheon; indeed, Anna's punctuality could always be depended on.
+
+"How innocent and good they both look," said Mrs. Jenwyn to herself,
+as they entered the house. "As for the girl, I always misdoubted that
+demure face of hers--but Anna! And yet, why wonder? Did I not say to
+Mr. Drelincourt that she was a hard one to read? And now, I suppose, a
+new factor has come to complicate matters, and will have to be
+reckoned with. Oh, what a pity!--what a pity! I would rather Guy
+Ormsby were dead and buried than he should have found his way here."
+
+But nothing of what she felt or thought was visible to the others.
+Anna was conscious of no change in her, and the day passed over as
+quietly and uneventfully as hundreds before it had done.
+
+Next morning Anna and her attendant set out for their usual forenoon
+ramble, utterly unsuspicious that Mrs. Jenwyn had any knowledge of the
+magnet which drew the former's footsteps unerringly in the direction
+of Carthew Bay.
+
+Half an hour later a note, which had been brought to the house by a
+boy, was put into Mrs. Jenwyn's hands. It contained two lines only:
+
+
+The person we spoke about yesterday is passing under the name of Mr.
+Harold Vince, but his portmanteau is marked with the letters G. O.
+
+          Your obedient servant,
+
+                                John Clisby.
+
+
+When Miss Drelincourt, accompanied by Fanny, got back from her
+forenoon walk on the day following that of John Clisby's visit to
+Rosemount, she found that Mrs. Jenwyn had gone for a drive in the pony
+chaise they were in the habit of hiring from a jobmaster in the
+village; and, further, that she had left word Anna was not to wait
+luncheon for her, as she might possibly be rather late in returning.
+
+It was such an unusual thing for Mrs. Jenwyn to drive out without her
+that the girl could not help speculating as to the nature of the
+errand which had taken her from home (why had she said no word of her
+intention at breakfast?), but no faintest suspicion of the truth
+entered her mind.
+
+Mrs. Jenwyn went for a long country drive, and it was close upon two
+o'clock before Combe Fenton was reached on her return, by which time
+she felt pretty sure Guy Ormsby would be back from his usual
+appointment with Anna. Nor was she mistaken. She had requested her
+driver to stop at the Golden Swan Hotel, and on inquiring whether "Mr.
+Harold Vince" was indoors, she was told, to her satisfaction, that he
+was.
+
+By this time her sprain was very much better, and with the driver's
+help, and that of a walking stick, she managed to alight and limp
+indoors. A minute later there was a tap at the door of "Mr. Vince's"
+sitting' room, and in response to his "Come in," it was opened by the
+landlady, who the same moment announced, "A lady to see you, sir."
+
+Guy, who, with one leg thrown over the arm of his easy chair, was
+indulging in an after luncheon cigar, sprang to his feet, and on
+recognizing his visitor, which he did at the first glance, he stood
+staring at her for some seconds with a dropped jaw and a face which
+had faded to the color of an unripe lemon.
+
+Mrs. Jenwyn waited till the door was shut behind the landlady before
+she spoke. Then she said pleasantly:
+
+"Good afternoon, Mr. Ormsby. My intrusion upon you seems to have taken
+you a little by surprise, which, perhaps, is hardly to be wondered at.
+Still, although your natural timidity has hindered you from calling
+upon us at Rosemount, I have no wish to appear unneighborly, and I
+know of no reason why I should not call upon you. I trust that you
+left them all well at Denham Lodge."
+
+Guy's smile was not a pleasant one to see. Flinging away what was left
+of his cigar, he said: "Will you not be seated, Mrs. Jenwyn? I may at
+once confess that your visit is a surprise, but not, let me add, an
+unwelcome one. May I be permitted to hope that Miss Drelincourt is
+quite well?"
+
+He felt that he must talk, but he hardly knew what to say. One of his
+first thoughts at sight of her had been, "Can Anna have been such a
+fool as to tell this woman that she has agreed to a secret marriage?"
+It was a disquieting question.
+
+"As you have had the pleasure of seeing Miss Drelincourt within the
+last two or three hours, you are in a better position to judge of the
+state of her health than I am, who have not seen her since breakfast
+time."
+
+This was not a very promising beginning, as Guy could not but admit.
+"Hang it all!" he said to himself. "Where's the good of beating about
+the bush? Some specific purpose has brought her here. What is it? The
+sooner I find out the better."
+
+After a brief pause, he said aloud: "I perceive, Mrs. Jenwyn, that you
+are not unaware that Miss Drelincourt and I have seen each other?"
+
+Mrs. Jenwyn's reply was a grave inclination of the head.
+
+"We have met more than once--several times, in point of fact--at
+Carthew Bay. I have no wish to deny that such is the case."
+
+"It would be useless of you to attempt to do so."
+
+"Am I right in assuming that your call upon me today is in reference
+to those meetings?"
+
+"You are quite right in your assumption. As you are aware, Miss
+Drelincourt is here under my sole charge, and it rests with me to
+safeguard her by every means in my power. That being the case, I am
+fully justified in demanding of you with what purpose you have been at
+the trouble of tracing her to this remote village, and then of
+contriving stealthy meetings with her at a time when you knew I was
+laid up and not there to look after her. That, Mr. Guy Ormsby, is what
+I am justified in demanding to know."
+
+There was no trace of excitement either in her voice or manner, but
+the very quietude of her demeanor lent her words an added
+impressiveness. Evidently Mrs. Jenwyn was not a woman to be trifled
+with.
+
+Guy cleared his voice before replying. "Your demand, as you term it,
+Mrs. Jenwyn, certainly lacks nothing on the score of frankness," he
+said, "and I will endeavor to be equally frank in my reply to it. I
+have been at the pains of tracing Miss Drelincourt, and of following
+her to this place, because I am deeply and sincerely in love with her,
+and because it is my dearest hope to be able to win her for my wife."
+
+This was probably no more than Mrs. Jenwyn had expected to be told;
+indeed, on the assumption that he was a man of honor, no other plea of
+justification was open to him.
+
+"You know, as you must have known from the date of your visit to
+Wyvern Towers, if not before then, all about poor Anna's mental
+affliction, and yet in the face of this terrible visitation you tell
+me that you love her and would fain make her your wife! To me such a
+thing seems inconceivable. You must be very differently constituted
+from others of your sex, Mr. Ormsby--very differently indeed."
+
+"Say what you please, Mrs. Jenwyn, think what you choose--I am
+perfectly sincere in what I have told you. I love Anna, and I am here
+with the purpose of winning her for my wife. Besides, I believe, with
+my poor dead and gone sister, that Anna will grow out of her
+affliction, as you call it. If I am not mistaken, that was the opinion
+of Dr. Pounceby, the celebrated specialist."
+
+Mrs. Jenwyn shook her head sadly. "I wish I could discern any grounds
+for such a belief," she said, "but at present I see none whatever."
+Then, after a pause, "Tell me this, Mr. Ormsby: Seeing you were so
+bent on making love to Anna, why, after you had discovered her
+retreat, did you not come direct to Rosemount, send in your card, and
+ask to see her?"
+
+A faint tinge of color flushed his cheeks for a moment, but he
+answered quite coolly, "I will tell you why, Mrs. Jenwyn. Because, if
+I had presented myself at Rosemount, I should not have been allowed to
+see Miss Drelincourt--at least, not alone. I should have had no
+opportunity afforded me of pressing my suit, or of saying a twentieth
+part of what I wanted to say to her. You, my dear madam, would have
+taken jolly good care of that. Such being the state of affairs, no
+course was open to me save to act as I did."
+
+Mrs. Jenwyn's thin lips came together for a moment. "You are quite
+right, Mr. Ormsby. I should have opposed your suit by every means in
+my power. It would have been my duty to do so. Before coming near
+Rosemount, you ought to have gone to Mr. Drelincourt, or, at any rate,
+have written to him, asking him to sanction your suit with his
+sister."
+
+"A sanction I should never have succeeded in obtaining--of that I am
+quite sure. Besides, Anna is only his half sister, and there's nothing
+in her father's will which gives him the least control over either her
+or her property."
+
+"But surely, as her nearest living relative, he has a right to be
+consulted in so important a matter, more especially as Anna is still
+considerably under age."
+
+"I fail to recognize any such right on his part. Besides, he would
+only flout me. I know him--curse him! The things he sometimes said to
+me at the Towers used to make me wild with rage, only there was never
+anything to lay hold of. He was too cunning for that."
+
+"There are Miss Drelincourt's trustees, through whom her income is
+paid her while she is under age."
+
+"SO there are. But why should I go near them? I suppose the old
+colonel had got it into his head that his daughter would never marry.
+At any rate, there's no clause in his will which empowers her trustees
+to alienate a shilling of her income, even should she marry under age
+and without their consent. On that point I've satisfied myself."
+
+"You are not a very rich man, I believe, Mr. Ormsby?"
+
+The hot color surged up to the roots of his hair. He half rose to his
+feet, and then sat down again as if remembering himself. "Faith,
+you're right there, Mrs. Jenwyn," he said, with a short laugh. "I am a
+poverty stricken beggar, and no mistake. I freely admit it."
+
+"And of course it would be great pecuniary gain to you to marry any
+one with Anna's prospective income?"
+
+"To be sure it would. I should be a fool to deny it. If I marry at
+all, I must marry money; that's absolutely essential. So, why should I
+not wed Anna? She is, or will be, fairly well off; and then she's a
+lovely girl and I'm awfully gone on her."
+
+He finished with a self satisfied smirk and a twist of his mustache,
+and then sat staring at Mrs. Jenwyn through his monocle, with his
+other eye half shut, as implying that, so far as he was concerned, the
+last word had been said, and that the interview might be considered as
+at an end.
+
+But Mrs. Jenwyn was by no means of the same opinion.
+
+"Then, am I to understand, Mr. Ormsby, that it is your intention to
+persist in your suit, despite anything I can say or urge to the
+contrary?"
+
+"That is what I certainly wish you to understand."
+
+"Will nothing move you from your resolve?"
+
+"Nothing whatever."
+
+"What is there to hinder me from taking Anna away and placing her
+directly under the charge of Mr. Drelincourt? That is a possibility
+you seem to have lost sight of."
+
+"Not at all. The question is, if you were to propose any such measure,
+would Anna agree to it? I affirm distinctly that she would not. The
+time has gone by, my dear madam, when your wishes were a law to her.
+Allow me to tell you this: I have Anna's distinct promise to marry
+me."
+
+Under the circumstances, he might perhaps be excused the smile of
+exultation and gratified vanity which overspread his features; but,
+for all that, Mrs. Jenwyn felt a strong desire to slap his face
+vigorously with both hands.
+
+What he had just told her did not surprise her greatly. From the
+moment John Clisby stated that he had seen Ormsby kiss Anna she had
+known that matters must have come to a serious pass between them.
+
+She sat for a few moments as if considering. Then she said: "If Anna
+has indeed given you such a promise as you say she has, the matter at
+once assumes a very different complexion. All the more needful is it
+that Mr. Drelincourt should at once be communicated with, in order
+that either he or her trustees may be in a position to decide where
+and with whom Anna's home shall be during the remaining term of her
+minority."
+
+"Pardon me, my dear madam, but there will be no need whatever for
+either you or any one else to enter into any such arrangements with
+regard to Miss Drelincourt's future. In less than a month from now her
+home will be with me. The dear girl has consented to make me the
+happiest of men as soon as the needful arrangements for our marriage
+can be concluded."
+
+He rose and pushed back his chair.
+
+"We love each other; why, then, defer our happiness till she shall be
+of age?"
+
+There was a touch of bluster in his way of asking the question, as
+though he anticipated some further opposition on Mrs. Jenwyn's part.
+
+Not without a little dismay did that lady learn that matters had gone
+so far between the young people.
+
+"It is all the fault of my accident," she said to herself. "But for
+that, I should have had her constantly under my eye, and he would have
+had no opportunity of meeting her except in my presence, which would
+not have suited his purpose at all. But the harm is done, and I am
+driven to my last intrenchment. Oh, Anna, Anna, where are your eyes,
+that you cannot see through this shallow, selfish pretender--a cad at
+heart, if ever there was one--who cares no more for you than for the
+flower in his buttonhole, who seeks you only for your money, and who
+would break your heart when once he had made you his wife, as surely
+as the sun will rise tomorrow morning! But you shall be saved in your
+own despite, my poor darling, even if your foolish little heart should
+be cracked in the process. There is no help for it--none!"
+
+She had ample time for these and other thoughts while Ormsby crossed
+to a corner cupboard, from a decanter in which he poured out a
+"Thimbleful" of neat spirits and drank it off, wondering to himself
+meanwhile how much longer his unwelcome visitor was going to intrude
+her presence upon him. But Mrs. Jenwyn had not done with him.
+
+"Sit down in that chair, Mr. Ormsby," she said, as he turned from the
+cupboard, speaking in a tone so peremptory that he could not repress a
+start. After staring at her for a second or two, he did as he was
+told.
+
+It was not the chair he had occupied before, but one drawn up close to
+the narrow table on the opposite side of which she was seated. Leaning
+forward, with her arms resting on the table, and her face within a
+yard of his, she said: "Listen, Guy Ormsby. I have something to say to
+you, the telling of which you have brought on yourself by your own
+persistent folly."
+
+Then, after a backward glance, as if to assure herself that the door
+was really shut, with lowered voice, and eyes which compelled his to
+confront them whether they would or no, she went on to speak to him
+for the next five minutes without a break or ever hesitating for a
+word. It was evident that she spoke from a heart fully charged, and
+while her utterance was so impressive, that which she had to tell him
+was of a nature so singular that when she had come to an end Guy might
+be excused if for a few seconds he felt rather uncertain whether he
+was standing on his head or his heels.
+
+Various emotions had chased themselves across his face during the
+telling--simple surprise deepening into wide eyed amazement, and
+lurking incredulity ripening into a conviction of the truth of what he
+was being told, which for a little space left his cheeks nearly as
+bloodless as those of the woman opposite him, whose cold, incisive
+tones seemed to cut into his consciousness like a surgeon's knife.
+
+Presently he drew a long, deep breath, like that of a person coming
+round after an operation. Then, in a voice as guarded as Mrs. Jenwyn's
+own, he said: "And you are prepared to swear that what you have just
+told me is the truth?"
+
+"I swear it before Heaven!"
+
+A brief space of silence ensued, which Mrs. Jenwyn was the first to
+break.
+
+"And now, Mr. Ormsby, may I ask whether you are still in the same mind
+with regard to Miss Drelincourt? Are you still as firmly determined as
+before to persist in your suit?"
+
+"No, that I am not," responded Guy, with some emphasis. "What I have
+just learned has put that notion wholly out of the question. I'm sorry
+for poor dear Anna that matters have gone so far between us; but
+what can I do, Mrs. Jenwyn? Tell me that. It's not altogether my
+fault--now, is it?--that things have come to the pass they have."
+
+"Certainly not, Mr. Ormsby. You are merely one more victim to the
+force of circumstances. You have already admitted that pecuniarily
+your position is not a very flourishing one. Of course, you have your
+regimental pay, but am I right in assuming that outside that your
+income is--what shall I call it?"
+
+"Call it strictly limited, Mrs. Jenwyn, and then you will be
+absolutely right," replied Guy, with a little jarring laugh. "In point
+of fact, as you have seen fit to tell me so much, I don't mind
+admitting to you that I haven't even my regimental pay to fall back
+upon. In other words, I've thrown up my commission, and am now a
+private gentleman at large, with empty pockets, and a hankering after
+the fleshpots of Egypt which I have no longer the means of
+gratifying."
+
+"That must be a very uncomfortable state of affairs for you."
+
+"It is; it is."
+
+"Well, now, I have a certain proposition to make to you," said Mrs.
+Jenwyn. Guy pricked up his ears and became all attention. "In the
+first place, you shall give me your solemn promise never to reveal to
+any one the secret which I have just confided to your keeping; and, in
+the second place, you shall write Anna a couple of notes which I will
+dictate to you. That is all. In return, if you care to accept of a
+little present of a hundred pounds, you will be very welcome to it."
+
+"If I care to accept it! My dear--my very dear--Mrs. Jenwyn! In the
+present state of my finances a hundred pounds will be like---- But
+never mind that. I am yours to command. There are writing materials on
+the side table, so that----"
+
+"I am quite ready, Mr. Ormsby."
+
+The first note, dictated by Mrs. Jenwyn and written by Guy, ran thus:
+
+
+Dearest:
+
+I have just been telegraphed for on account of my brother's illness,
+and must leave here at once. I will write you at greater length as
+soon as possible. Meanwhile, believe me,
+
+Devotedly yours,
+     G. O.
+
+
+It was arranged that this note should be delivered to Anna by
+messenger next morning, after she and Fanny should have left the house
+for their usual forenoon ramble.
+
+The second note read as follows:
+
+
+Dear Miss Drelincourt:
+
+After what occurred between us at our last few meetings on the sands
+of Carthew Bay, you probably think it due to you that I should have
+written you before now; and, indeed, my omission to do so would have
+been unpardonable had not my silence been dictated by certain
+considerations which I have found it impossible to ignore.
+
+Into the nature of those considerations I have no wish to enter, nor
+would it, perhaps, be desirable that I should do so. It will be enough
+to state, in as few words as possible, to what conclusion they have
+gradually but surely led me. It is to this: That, unwittingly and
+unthinkingly, and as one walking blindfold, I have been guilty of the
+most deplorable mistake of my life.
+
+Is there any need for me to be more explicit, or to enter into details
+which could not fail of being painful to us both? No, I am sure there
+is not. Your woman's instinct will have already revealed to you the
+nature of the mistake in question.
+
+This I may add, that when I last parted from you I had no faintest
+prevision of what was so soon to happen. Perhaps it never would have
+happened had circumstances not called me away from Combe Fenton.
+
+Yet who shall say it is not best for the happiness of both that the
+discovery should have been made before the time had gone by for
+remedying it! That is the light in which I trust you will endeavor to
+regard it.
+
+In conclusion, my dear Miss Drelincourt, I can only ask you to believe
+in the sincerity of my contrition should my conduct be the cause of
+any temporary unhappiness to you. And that, in any case, it will be no
+more than temporary is the heartfelt hope of him who now subscribes
+himself
+
+        Your obedient and devoted servant,
+
+                                    Guy Ormsby.
+
+
+When the foregoing had been written, it was sealed up, addressed in
+full to "Miss Drelincourt, Rosemount, near Combe Fenton, Devon," and
+taken charge of by Mrs. Jenwyn.
+
+All that now remained to be done was to arrange for the handing over
+of the hundred pounds, and then for Mrs. Jenwyn to take her departure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+AN AMAZING CONFESSION.
+
+
+Within a month of the events recorded in the preceding chapter, Mrs.
+Jenwyn and her charge had left Combe Fenton. Anna had conceived a
+violent dislike to the place, and was restless till she got away from
+it. After her receipt of Guy Ormsby's letter, which Mrs. Jenwyn had
+arranged to have mailed from London, she never set foot on the sands
+of Carthew Bay. It is almost needless to state that the girl Fanny was
+left behind. She had heard of John Clisby's visit to Rosemount, and
+she needed no one to tell her why Mrs. Jenwyn had chosen to dispense
+with her services.
+
+A few days before Anna's departure she received the news of her half
+brother's marriage. The ceremony had been solemnized at the British
+embassy at Naples, the bride being a Miss Madeline Fenwicke, whose
+name Anna seemed to remember as that of a visitor at Denham Lodge some
+three years previously.
+
+In the course of the next four years, at the end of which period we
+take up their history afresh, Mrs. Jenwyn and her charge found a
+temporary home in three or four widely different places.
+
+Anna's coming of age, and with it her command of the fortune left her
+by her father, had made no difference in her simple and inexpensive
+mode of life. She had had more than enough before for all her needs,
+and except that she now set aside a considerably larger sum for
+charitable purposes, the major portion of her income was never drawn
+upon, but allowed to accumulate untouched in her banker's coffers.
+
+Anna and her brother had met but once since the latter's marriage, and
+then he brought with him the news of the birth of a daughter.
+
+It was during the time of Anna's sojourn at Dieppe that Drelincourt,
+when on his way back from London, whither some law business had taken
+him, made a detour on purpose to see his sister and spend a week with
+her. He had exiled himself from England, preferring to live abroad,
+chiefly in Italy, the climate of which seemed to suit both him and his
+wife, but now and then wintering in Egypt or elsewhere.
+
+But although he and Anna saw so little of each other, he wrote to her
+regularly once a month, and his letters, chatty, vivacious, and
+stuffed with news and gossip of one kind or another, made one of the
+chief pleasures of her quiet existence.
+
+They were the sole link between her and that great, restless, seething
+world outside her about which she knew so little, and from any closer
+contact with which she was kept by her constitutional timidity and
+that distaste for mixing in general society which she found it quite
+impossible to overcome.
+
+But latterly--that is to say, within the last twelve months or so--the
+dread shadow which for so long a time had brooded over her life had
+been penetrated by a ray of sunlight which was gradually broadening
+and brightening, so that it seemed as if, at no very distant date, Dr.
+Pounceby's prediction that, in the course of time, Anna would outgrow
+her mental malady, was on the eve of fulfilment.
+
+For some time past each recurrent attack had been of shorter duration
+than the preceding one, so that now, instead of extending over twelve
+days or a fortnight, as used to be the case, they lasted for two or
+three days only; and there was every reason for hoping that in the
+course of another year or two they would leave her altogether.
+
+Mrs. Jenwyn had few living relatives, and only one with whom she kept
+up anything like a regular correspondence. The person in question was
+a first cousin, Martin Soanes by name, whose position in life was that
+of managing clerk to a London solicitor in a large way of business.
+
+From Mr. Soanes, when she had been about six months at Guernsey, she
+one day received a letter, the contents of which proved to be of a
+sufficiently startling kind.
+
+In it her cousin informed her that, in consequence of an advertisement
+he had come across in the _Times_, he had called upon a certain firm
+in his own line of business, and, on making himself known to them, was
+told that the person advertised for had, through the death of an uncle
+in Australia, become entitled to a bequest of twenty two thousand
+pounds.
+
+That fortunate person was none other than herself, Henrietta Jenwyn,
+_née_ Henrietta Wynter, daughter of so and so. Finally, Mr. Soanes
+wrote, her presence was desired in London as speedily as possible,
+with the view of enabling her to prove her identity.
+
+For a little while after reading the letter Mrs. Jenwyn felt like a
+stunned person. Some time was needed to enable her to realize her good
+fortune--if such it should prove to be; and, indeed, at first she
+hardly knew whether to feel glad or sorry, not being able just yet to
+discern to what extent it might affect the relations between herself
+and Anna.
+
+But presently she took comfort. Why need it affect them in any
+way--this legacy by a man she had never set eyes on, even if it should
+prove to be hers? Why should not matters go on as they had hitherto
+done? It certainly would not be her fault if they did not.
+
+The legacy proved to be no myth, but a very pleasant and substantial
+reality. The sum total was invested in certain railway scrip which for
+the last half dozen years had never paid a less dividend than five per
+cent per annum, and there the fortunate legatee decided to let it
+remain.
+
+It would not have been easy to find a safer or more profitable
+investment, and the income derivable therefrom seemed to her amply
+sufficient to meet all needful requirements on her part, even should
+she finally decide on carrying out a certain project which had been
+simmering in her brain from within a few hours of her receipt of her
+cousin's letter.
+
+But it was a project not to be decided upon in a hurry. It was rife
+with certain consequences from which there would be no escape, and
+some of them might, perhaps, prove to be of a far more serious kind
+than was apparent on the surface.
+
+She turned it over in her mind, not once, but a thousand times,
+considering it from every conceivable point of view; indeed, during
+those few days all other subjects, including the arrangements
+connected with her legacy, were subordinated to it. The temptation to
+carry it into effect appealed to her with an all but irresistible
+force, and at length she yielded to it so far as to say to herself:
+
+"I will sound Anna. I will put certain questions to her, and from her
+answers I shall be enabled to judge whether it will be safe to venture
+any farther, or wiser to draw back, and keep silence for evermore."
+
+When her cab stopped at the garden gate, Anna came flying down the
+pathway to greet her.
+
+"Well, you dear old thing, what luck have you had?" she cried, as soon
+as she had given her an affectionate hug. "Has the legacy taken to
+itself wings and vanished into thin air, or have you brought back a
+portmanteau stuffed with bank notes?"
+
+"Neither one nor the other. The legacy has not taken to itself wings,
+but I have not brought so much as a slice of it back with me. It is
+all safely invested, and I think I can't do better than let if remain
+where it is."
+
+"And you come back just the same as you went--not even an inch taller
+than you were five days ago! The same dowdy gown and old-fashioned
+bonnet. Where's the good of having twenty thousand pounds left you if
+you have nothing to show for it?"
+
+"That is a question easier to ask than answer. I was quite content,
+and as happy as I ever expect to be, before this money came. What more
+can I hope to be now?"
+
+"And you say that you never even saw this uncle of yours who has
+remembered you so handsomely in his will?" queried Anna, as soon as
+they were indoors.
+
+"Not so far as my memory serves me, although I believe he saw me when
+I was an infant. He emigrated when I was about three years old. My
+mother, who was his favorite sister, heard from him at long intervals
+for a period of seven or eight years. Then followed a silence which,
+so far as I am aware, was never broken, and at home the belief
+gradually grew up among us that he was dead."
+
+"Possibly, if your cousin had not seen the advertisement in the
+_Times_, you would never have known anything about your legacy?"
+
+"I think that very probable indeed. I was advertised for under my
+maiden name, and except my cousin (who, I believe, prides himself on
+the fact that nothing in the _Times_ escapes him), few, if any, of
+those now living who knew me before my marriage would be likely to see
+it, or, if they should see it, would know where to find me."
+
+Although Mrs. Jenwyn had made up her mind to a certain course, she
+seemed in no special hurry to carry her purpose into effect. Indeed,
+she was one of those women who never appear to hurry; she could always
+afford to bide her time.
+
+Besides, in the present case, a few days--or, for that matter, a few
+weeks or a few months--would make no difference. She told herself that
+she would not make an opportunity, but wait till one should come to
+her. Perhaps she was not without a lingering doubt as to the spirit in
+which Anna might receive her communication, and was not disinclined to
+let matters go on as they were for a little while longer.
+
+Of one thing she felt sure--that nothing could ever be quite the same
+as it had been when once her lips should have been unsealed and her
+secret have passed from her own keeping.
+
+Her opportunity, or what seemed such, came on a certain afternoon when
+the weather, would not admit of their going out, and she and Anna were
+seated by the window, one busy with her sewing, the other with her
+knitting.
+
+The maid had just been in to ask leave to go and visit her mother, who
+was said to be dying. The girl had been in deep distress.
+
+"I have sometimes wondered, Tetta," said Anna presently, "whether it
+is harder for a mother to lose her child or for a child to lose its
+mother. I am not referring to cases like Charlotte's, where the child
+is grown up; although, if tears are anything to go by, she seems
+extremely attached to her mother."
+
+"A great deal depends on circumstances. When a mother loses her only
+child, or one of two, it may reasonably be assumed that she feels the
+loss far more than she would do if she had other children left to
+comfort her. Again, where a child loses its mother while still at a
+tender age, it is not to be expected that the loss can seem such an
+irreparable one as it would do at a later period, when it is old
+enough not only to appreciate her love, but to reciprocate it in full
+measure."
+
+"It was my misfortune to lose my mother when I was at a very tender
+age," said Anna presently, in a low voice.
+
+"It was. You were barely five years old when she died. I suppose you
+remember very little about her?"
+
+"Not a great deal. I seem to see her nearly always as an invalid,
+lying either on a couch or in bed. I have an impression that she was
+very fond of me, but that I was told I must not make a noise when in
+her room, nor stay with her too long at a time."
+
+"I suppose it has been a source of never ending regret to you that you
+lost her at such an early age?" She was watching Anna keenly from
+between her narrowed lids.
+
+"Of never ending regret?"--with a little surprise in her tone. "No,
+Tetta, scarcely that, I think. How could it be? At that age our
+regrets are nearly as fleeting as our joys. I was too young to sound
+the depths of sorrow, or to allow of any loss touching me very deeply
+for longer than a few passing hours."
+
+"Still, you often thought of her--often do now, perhaps--and have felt
+that by her death a void was left in your life which nothing else
+could fill; and have longed to have her with you, that you might pour
+your troubles and confidences into her sympathetic ear, for, to a
+daughter, whose ear is like her mother's?"
+
+For a little while Anna went on stitching in silence. Her brows were
+knitted, her face wore an expression of dubiety.
+
+Presently she said: "Yes, I have often thought about my poor dead
+mother, and have sometimes wondered, if she had lived, how she and I
+would have got on together; perhaps not so well as you and I have,
+Tetta. But I can't say that I have ever felt about her as you seem to
+think I ought to have done. Was it wrong and wicked of me not to have
+those feelings? If it was, I cannot help it. I did not make myself."
+
+Again there was a space of silence which Mrs. Jenwyn did not break.
+All her attention was apparently being given to her work, but a close
+observer might have seen that her hands were trembling slightly, and
+that more than once she dropped her stitches.
+
+Presently Anna spoke again.
+
+"I think, Tetta, it must have been because I have had you by my side
+to love and cling to almost ever since I can remember, that I have
+missed my mother as little as I seem to have. You have filled her
+place to me. I have grown up under your hands, molded by you so far as
+it was possible for any one to mold me. You have been to me a warm and
+living reality; she nothing but a dim, sweet memory. How was it
+possible that she should be anything more to me?"
+
+Mrs. Jenwyn lifted her eyes from her knitting and looked fixedly at
+Anna. On her face was an expression which seemed to transfigure it.
+
+"Suppose, my dear one," she said, and the words came brokenly
+and with difficulty, as though she were feeling her way like one in
+doubt--"mind, I only say suppose--that things had so fallen out that
+not Mrs. Drelincourt, but I--I--were your mother--what would you have
+said and thought in that case?"
+
+Anna's eyes met hers with a great wonder shining in them, not
+unmingled with perplexity. She drew a long breath before she spoke.
+
+"What should I have said and thought in that case--or, rather, what
+should I say and think now? I should thank Heaven on my knees for
+having given me a living mother in the place of a dead one, and one
+whom I could love from the bottom of my heart, as I have loved you
+from childhood."
+
+Here she rose impulsively from her chair, and making three steps
+forward, she went down on her knees before Mrs. Jenwyn and laid her
+clasped hands on the other's lap.
+
+"But, oh, Tetta, what do you mean--what _do_ you mean by asking me
+such a question?" On her face was the radiance of a dawning hope.
+Expectation sat on her parted lips; her bosom rose and fell quickly.
+
+Mrs. Jenwyn bent forward and touched Anna's sunny hair with her lips.
+"Oh, my darling, cannot you guess?" she said, in a voice shaken with
+emotion. "I am your mother--I, and not another!"
+
+It was a quarter of an hour later when Mrs. Jenwyn began her
+confession--for nothing less than that could it be called. As a matter
+of course, certain things--not necessarily everything--must be told
+Anna in satisfaction of her legitimate curiosity, and there seemed no
+reason why the telling of them should not be got over and done with as
+speedily as possible.
+
+The two were seated side by side on a couch, and Anna held one of her
+mother's hands in hers as the latter proceeded with her narrative.
+
+"My father, the Rev. George Wynter, was a poor curate in a rural
+district, with little or no hope of preferment, and when, at the age
+of sixteen, I was offered the post of companion to Miss Lemoine, of
+Waterend, he was only too pleased that I should accept it, and so
+lighten the burden at home.
+
+"For me the next three years were very happy ones, I was not merely
+Clara Lemoine's companion, but her bosom friend. She was a
+warm-hearted girl of strong attachments, and I soon learned to love
+her very dearly. At the end of that time Mrs. Lemoine, who had been an
+invalid for years, died. The home was broken up, and Clara went out to
+Calcutta to join her father, who held a position in the Indian Civil
+Service. There, after a time, she met Colonel Drelincourt and married
+him, becoming his second wife.
+
+"After about a year the colonel, together with his regiment, returned
+to England, his wife, of course, accompanying him. Some three or four
+years later he was ordered out to Egypt at a few days' notice, and was
+under the necessity of leaving his young wife, to whom he was
+passionately attached, behind him. He had not been gone a month when
+she was prematurely confined at a London hotel, but the child, a girl,
+only lived three weeks.
+
+"By this time I had been a couple of years married, and you, my dear
+one, were born a fortnight before Mrs. Drelincourt's child. Clara,
+while in India, had written to me from time to time, and I had duly
+replied to her letters, so that the link between us had never been
+broken. She knew of my marriage, and of many, but not the whole, of
+the circumstances connected with it. She had called upon me at my
+house in the suburbs of London only a few days before the birth of her
+daughter. Within an hour of the child's death she sent me a telegram,
+asking me to go and see her without delay. This I did, and then it was
+that she went on her knees to me and implored me, with the most
+passionate entreaties, to give up my child to her, so that she might
+be enabled to pass it off to her husband in the place of the one that
+was dead.
+
+"It was a proposition to which, much as I loved Clara Lemoine, and
+willing though I was to make almost any sacrifice for her, I could not
+for some time persuade myself to accede. But she bore down my
+opposition by degrees. Colonel Drelincourt, who was not on good terms
+with his only son, was extremely desirous of having another child--a
+boy preferably, but better, far better, a girl than none at all.
+
+"He had been informed in due course of the birth of his daughter, and
+Clara dreaded the effect which the tidings of the child's death would
+have upon him--dreaded, or so she made out, that his love for her
+(there being no likelihood of her having any more children) might
+gradually fade into indifference, or even turn into positive dislike.
+'I will not face my husband without his child, or one he believes to
+be his, in my arms,' she said. 'If you refuse to give me yours, I will
+drown myself.' And in the mood in which she then was she was quite
+capable of doing so.
+
+"But, over and above all this, there were circumstances in my own life
+which, when I called them to mind, compelled me in my own despite to
+lend a more favorable ear to Mrs. Drelincourt's entreaties. My husband
+was a bad and cruel man. (It is better you should know the truth,
+however painful it may be.) He was both a drunkard and a spendthrift,
+and something worse than either. He had deserted me months before you
+were born, leaving me all but penniless.
+
+"I neither knew where he was nor when to expect him back; and it was
+his return I dreaded more than anything else in the world. Could I
+have been sure that I should never see him again, I should have felt
+comparatively happy. But I might hear his knock at the door at any
+hour of the day or night, and the fear of it turned my life into a
+perpetual nightmare. Oh, I had good cause for being afraid of him!
+
+"Not to weary you, it will be enough to say that I finally gave way
+and yielded to Mrs. Drelincourt's entreaties. Of what it cost me to do
+so I will say nothing.
+
+"When Mrs. Drelincourt was well enough to leave the London hotel, at
+which she was an entire stranger, it was to go down to Wyvern Towers.
+It was at a little country station, at which she made a stoppage for
+the purpose, that you were given over into her charge. Our faithful
+servant; since dead, with whose services it was impossible to
+dispense, was our sole confidant in the affair.
+
+"For the next four years I lived as companion to an invalid lady, to
+whom some portion of my history was known, and who did not object to
+my passing under a fictitious name--the one by which I have ever since
+been known. At the end of that time Mrs. Drelincourt sent for me.
+
+"She was in a consumption, and was quite aware that her recovery was
+hopeless. She had grown to care for you as if you were her own child,
+and her object in sending for me was not merely that I might nurse her
+through her last illness, but that after she was gone I might have the
+permanent charge of you, at any rate for several years to come; nor
+did she rest satisfied till she had extracted a promise from her
+husband that her wishes in this respect should be faithfully observed
+by him. Me, two days before she died, she bound by a solemn promise
+that only under the most extreme circumstances would I ever reveal the
+true story of your parentage."
+
+In view of the amazing confession just made by the elder woman, mother
+and daughter found no lack of subjects to talk about, but it was not
+till an hour later that a new and, to her, very surprising thought
+struck Anna.
+
+"If you are my mother," she said, "and of course you are, then Felix
+cannot be my half brother?"
+
+"That is very true," replied Mrs. Jenwyn, with a faint smile. She had
+been waiting for Anna to make the discovery.
+
+"Nor any relation at all. Oh, dear! I am very, very sorry for that. I
+always loved Felix--although, all the same, I used to stand a little
+bit in awe of him. And now, I suppose I've no right to love him any
+more. But perhaps you don't intend to tell him even a part of that
+which you have just told me. In that case, matters would go on as they
+have always done, and he would continue to think of me and to treat me
+as his sister."
+
+"And, knowing what you know now, would you be content to go on living
+on money to which you have no right?"
+
+Anna looked dumfounded.
+
+"I had not thought of that," she said. "No, I suppose I should not be
+content--indeed, I am quite sure I should not be. But what is to be
+done?"
+
+"There is only one way out of the difficulty, and that is, for Anna
+Drelincourt to die."
+
+"Good gracious, Tetta--I mean, mother dearest--you frighten me!"
+
+"I have thought it all out. Listen! In the course of a few days you
+shall write to Mr. Drelincourt, informing him that you purpose taking
+a voyage to Madeira for the good of your health, which has been
+anything but satisfactory of late. We will go and stay there a month;
+but while on the return voyage Anna Drelincourt shall die, and shall
+be buried at sea, and on landing it will be my painful duty to inform
+Mr. Drelincourt of her demise. I think you said that his last letter
+to you was dated from Bordighera."
+
+Her voice and manner were as dry and matter of fact as if she were
+explaining some detail of housekeeping, but when she had come to an
+end Anna sat and stared at her like one doubtful whether she had heard
+aright.
+
+"Why do you look at me so strangely?" asked her mother, after a
+minute's silence. "There is no other way open to us that I can see.
+Can you discern any other?"
+
+Anna shook her head. "No," she said faintly, "I cannot."
+
+"You do not know, you cannot comprehend," resumed Mrs. Jenwyn--and now
+there was a ring of genuine emotion in her voice--"what I have gone
+through in the course of the last few days, since I knew that this
+money was coming to me. On the one hand was my promise to Mrs.
+Drelincourt not to reveal the secret of your birth, except under very
+exceptional circumstances; on the other was a mother's heart hungering
+and crying out for her child. There is no one left alive to whom the
+death of Anna Drelincourt will be a matter of much moment. Mr. Felix
+Drelincourt will grieve about her for a little while, but her fortune
+will make a handsome addition to his income, and he may perhaps derive
+some consolation from that.
+
+"And so--and so at length I came to the determination to tell you
+everything. I wanted to claim you as my own--my very own. I wanted to
+break down the invisible barrier which has kept us apart for too many
+years. Oh, my darling, do not tell me that I have done wrong!"
+
+"Wrong, mother! How can you imagine such a thing?" cried Anna, as she
+burst into tears and flung her arms round Mrs. Jenwyn's neck. "In
+gaining you I have gained everything. All else is as nothing compared
+with that."
+
+The audacious scheme conceived by Mrs. Jenwyn was carried to a
+successful issue. To Felix Drelincourt in his Italian home came the
+tidings of his half sister's death on shipboard while on her way back
+from Madeira. He grieved sincerely for her loss, and wrote Mrs. Jenwyn
+a letter full of sympathy, regrets, and grateful acknowledgment of her
+services to the dead girl. Before leaving England Anna had made a
+will, in which she bequeathed all she possessed, with the exception of
+a few trinkets, to Drelincourt. This step was rendered necessary by
+the peculiar circumstances of the case.
+
+The money which thus accrued to him made a very welcome addition to
+Drelincourt's somewhat limited income. After the reading of the will
+he wrote to Mrs. Jenwyn, expressing his surprise and regret that,
+except so far as regarded the aforesaid trinkets, her name found no
+mention in it, and offering to continue to her for life the income his
+father had set aside for her so long as she and Anna should remain
+together. In reply, Mrs. Jenwyn informed him, with many thanks, that,
+by the death of a relative, she had recently succeeded to a legacy
+which would amply suffice to meet all her simple needs in time to
+come.
+
+And there matters between them came to an end forever, as they
+probably thought, neither of them foreseeing where and under what
+peculiar circumstances they should meet again, nor having any
+prevision of the underlying purpose for which fate had interwoven the
+threads of their destiny.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
+
+
+It is a lovely afternoon in early summer, and a pair of youthful
+lovers have the morning room at Fairlawn to themselves.
+
+And a very pleasant room it is, at once sunny and airy, with two long
+windows which open on a space of greenest lawn interspersed with
+flower beds of various quaint shapes and sizes, which as yet are
+hardly in their full summer beauty. At one end of the room is an
+archway shrouded by a portière, forming the entrance to the second
+Mrs. Drelincourt's boudoir.
+
+At a table between the windows a very charming girl, as fresh and
+sweet as a rosebud dipped in dew, is arranging some cut flowers in a
+Nankin jar. On a couch no great distance away, admiring her with all
+his eyes, lounges a rather jaded looking young man in flannels; jaded,
+be it understood, not from dissipation, but from overwork.
+
+"I only sat out two dances the whole evening, and it was my own fault
+I didn't dance those." It was Marian Drelincourt who spoke.
+
+"No doubt you fancied yourself the belle of the ball," rejoined the
+young man. "I dare say there were several other young ladies there who
+cherished the same pleasing delusion."
+
+"No such silly thought ever entered my head. But I will say this--that
+if there had been twice as many dances, I could have had partners for
+all of them."
+
+"You seem on particularly good terms with your young self this
+afternoon. I almost wonder how you escaped falling in love with one or
+other of your partners."
+
+"How do you know that I did escape? There were two or three who made
+themselves especially agreeable. But for anything that may have
+happened you have only yourself to blame. You ought to have been there
+to look after me, and keep me out of danger. Mrs. Delisle could easily
+have managed to get a ticket for you."
+
+"My dear Marian, as if I had not already explained to you how utterly
+impossible it was for me to start on my holidays till late yesterday
+afternoon! I took the first train after I was at liberty----"
+
+"And reached Fairlawn just as papa and mamma were sitting down to
+dinner. Although you professed to be so exceedingly delighted to see
+them, mamma told me that she never saw you pull such a dismal face as
+you did last evening. I wonder why?"
+
+"Then you may have the pleasure of wondering, because I shan't tell
+you why."
+
+"Amiable youth!"
+
+"But why didn't Mrs. Drelincourt take you to the ball herself, instead
+of leaving you to be chaperoned by Mrs. Delisle?"
+
+"Mamma rarely goes anywhere. In the first place, as you know, her
+health is very delicate, and, in the second, she wouldn't go anywhere
+without papa."
+
+"Is Mr. Drelincourt, now that he has come back to England, as much of
+a recluse as he was during the time he lived abroad?"
+
+"Just as much. His coming home has made no difference in his mode of
+life. We see no company, or next to none, and he and mamma visit
+nowhere."
+
+"It seems to me that it must be rather a dull sort of life to lead."
+
+"Not at all. You forget for how many years they led the same kind of
+life abroad. Wet or fine, papa goes out on horseback for a couple of
+hours every morning. Then, all forenoon he is busy in his laboratory.
+You may or may not know that he is a fellow of more than one learned
+society. In the afternoon he and mamma--sometimes taking me with
+them--drive or walk, and for the evening we have books, chess, and
+music."
+
+"You, at least, must find such an existence very, very quiet."
+
+"Quiet, yes; dull, no. Since I left school it is the only kind of life
+I have known, and I have never longed for any other. Besides"--with a
+demure glance at the young man--"have I not everything a girl could
+wish for to make me happy?"
+
+"Sweet one!" exclaimed Walter Deane,--as he sprang to his feet. That
+half veiled glance was more than flesh and blood could withstand.
+
+Another instant and his arms would have been about her. But Miss
+Drelincourt sprang back with a warning finger on her lips. "Hush! I
+think there's some one coming," she whispered. In point of fact, she
+thought nothing of the kind. But the pretense answered its purpose.
+Young Deane slunk back to his seat with rather a shamefaced air.
+
+Finding no one appeared, he made a mental note that he had been
+tricked, but deemed it best to postpone his revenge.
+
+"I don't think I ever saw two people so wholly devoted to each other
+as Mr. and Mrs. Drelincourt are," he presently remarked. "They are
+more like--well--like lovers than----"
+
+"Than two people who have been long enough married to have a daughter
+who will be eighteen on the second of next month. But they are always
+the same. They seem to live only for each other."
+
+"And for their daughter."
+
+"Oh, I am quite a secondary person, I assure you, especially with
+papa. Do you know, Wally, I believe he is sometimes actually jealous
+of me when he thinks I am paying mamma too many attentions. It almost
+seems as if he grudged me more than a tiny corner of her heart."
+
+"That seems rather a strange feeling for a father to entertain."
+
+"Somehow, papa seems different from other people. I can't explain how
+or in what way, only I feel that there is a difference."
+
+"There's a magnetism about Mr. Drelincourt which seems to draw people
+to him whether they wish it or no. Me he attracts more than any man I
+ever met."
+
+"You are not the only one by many who has experienced the same
+peculiar attraction. Can you wonder at mamma and I loving him so
+dearly?"
+
+Before there was time to say more the portière was drawn aside, and
+the second Mrs. Drelincourt advanced slowly into the room.
+
+Although she had left her fortieth birthday behind her, she was still
+a very beautiful woman, with a freshness and purity of complexion
+almost rivaling that of her daughter. Strangers seeing them together
+found it hard to realize that she was Marian's mother.
+
+"Mamma," exclaimed Marian, "I have here the very first Gloire de Dijon
+which has come into bloom. I've been watching it for days on purpose
+that you might have it. I've not forgotten that it's your favorite
+flower."
+
+"You are always thinking of me."
+
+"As if it were possible to think of you and love you half as much as
+you deserve!" said Marian, as she proceeded to fix the flower in her
+mother's dress.
+
+"That would indeed be an impossibility."
+
+Everybody started and turned their eyes in one direction. The speaker
+was Mr. Drelincourt. He was standing in the archway, holding the
+portière aside with one hand.
+
+"Have you not another rose for me, _petite?_" he asked, as he came
+forward:
+
+"It is the only one which is yet open, papa; but there will be a lot
+more in a day or two."
+
+"By which time they will have become common. _N'importe_. I must try
+to find existence endurable without one." Then, turning to his wife:
+"The postman has just brought me a letter which must have been delayed
+in transit, since it was evidently intended to reach me yesterday. It
+is dated from Paris a couple of days ago, and is written by my old
+friend, Colonel Winslow. In it he says that we may expect him at
+Fairlawn on Thursday--that's today--in time for dinner. He may arrive
+at any moment."
+
+"Was it not Colonel Winslow, papa, who stayed with us at Bordighera
+five or six years ago?"
+
+"That was the man."
+
+"I was in short frocks at the time, and I remember that I quite fell
+in love with him."
+
+"I should advise you not to repeat the process now," remarked young
+Deane in an aside to her.
+
+"And why not, pray?" she asked in the same tone. "Colonel Winslow, let
+me tell you, is a very charming man. I always did like elderly men
+better than boys. I think it very likely that I shall fall desperately
+in love with him."
+
+Without giving her lover time to reply, she picked up her hat, and
+swinging it by its ribbons, passed out through one of the long
+windows. Before she had time to cross the lawn and plunge into the
+shrubbery beyond, Walter was following her. Drelincourt and his wife
+stood watching them through the other window.
+
+The twenty years which had passed over Felix Drelincourt's head since
+his first wife's death had changed him very little to outward seeming.
+His black hair was turning gray about the temples, his long, thin face
+looked a trifle longer and thinner, a few crow's feet had gathered
+about his eyes, and there was a slight but perceptible stoop of his
+tall, lean figure. And that was all.
+
+"I hope that Colonel Winslow will make a long stay with us," remarked
+Mrs. Drelincourt, as she seated herself in a favorite easy chair.
+
+"Why do you hope so?"
+
+"Because the presence of your old friend will be such a pleasure to
+you; because he will cheer your loneliness, and----"
+
+"Mr. Ormsby," intoned the solemn voice of Wicks, the butler, before
+any one was aware that the door had been opened.
+
+Drelincourt turned on the instant, and confronted his visitor, one
+lean, muscular hand gripping the back of his wife's chair like a vise.
+
+Our old acquaintance, his silk, hat balanced carefully in his left
+hand, advanced with that air of self-consequence which was so much a
+part of him that he could no more have divested himself of it than he
+could-have unscrewed and laid aside one of his limbs. He never forgot
+that he was Mr. Ormsby, of Denham Lodge--not even when he repeated
+aloud the responses in church and avouched himself a miserable sinner.
+
+He was considerably stouter than when we saw him last, and more scant
+of breath. His cheeks, too, were fuller and rounder, and his double
+chin more noticeable than of yore. His complexion was no longer
+mottled, but of one uniform tint, and that the tint of a boiled
+lobster, while his once sandy hair had turned completely white. In
+other respects no change was discernible in him.
+
+"Drelincourt," he began at once, "you and I have not met for twenty
+years. I have called on you twice since your return, but both times
+was told you were not at home--a statement which, I tell you candidly,
+I did not credit. Today, however, I am more fortunate, and it is well
+I am so, seeing that I am the bearer of news which can scarcely fail
+to make even you--cold-blooded cynic though you always were--rejoice
+and feel glad. At last, Drelincourt, at last, and after all these
+years, the murder of my poor sister will be avenged."
+
+For the next few seconds his listeners might have been figures of wood
+or stone. They neither stirred nor spoke, but stood or sat in the
+particular position in which each of them had been arrested by
+Ormsby's ominous words.
+
+The silence was broken by Drelincourt's clear, level accents.
+
+"My dear Ormsby, you speak in enigmas."
+
+"Enigmas? Stuff! They are a sort of rubbish I never deal in; more in
+your line, by far. Man alive! I tell you we have got hold of the
+wretch, the double dyed villain who did the deed, and have laid him
+safely by the heels in Sunbridge jail. And, after all, Drelincourt,
+whom do you think the fellow turns out to be?"
+
+"Guessing riddles is not in my line."
+
+"Why, that scoundrel Gumley."
+
+"A--h!" It was more an indrawing of the breath than an exclamation.
+Never had Drelincourt's marvelous command over himself stood him in
+better stead. For a second or two there was a slight flickering of his
+eyelids, and that was all.
+
+"Yes, sir," resumed the other, "Gumley, the under gardener, the man
+who was arrested at the time on suspicion, but ultimately liberated.
+From the first I made no secret of my belief that he was the criminal.
+From that belief I have never swerved, and today facts have fully
+justified it."
+
+"May I inquire as to the nature of the facts in question?"
+
+"The most important of them is the fellow's own confession."
+
+There was a perceptible pause on Delincourt's part. Then "Gumley's own
+confession that----" Another pause.
+
+"That it was he who stole my sister's jewels."
+
+"So! And does his confession end there?"
+
+"It does. But surely no sane person can doubt that the hand which
+stole the jewels was guilty of the far graver crime!"
+
+"And yet there might be found people, whether sane or otherwise, to
+doubt the accuracy of such an assumption."
+
+A coldly malignant gleam shot from Ormsby's porcine eyes. "I have not
+forgotten, Drelincourt, how you stood up for the fellow twenty years
+ago. Had it not been for your evidence about the locket, in all
+probability he would have been convicted then. But stand up for him
+now, after his own confession! On my soul, Drelincourt, it almost
+looks as if you knew more about the affair than you choose to tell!"
+
+Mrs. Drelincourt let her soft cheek rest for a moment like a caress
+against her husband's hand, which was still grasping the back of her
+chair.
+
+"Ormsby, I am one of those men, too few in number, I am sorry to
+think, who decline to accept assumptions in lieu of facts. You say
+this fellow has confessed to the robbery. Well and good; let him be
+punished for it. But to assume that he is, therefore, and as if it
+were a matter of course, guilty of the more heinous crime seems to me
+monstrous in the extreme."
+
+"If you were a man of the world, Drelincourt, instead of being the
+student and recluse you are, you wouldn't talk such rot--for I can
+call it by no other name. So convinced are I and my brother
+magistrates of Gumley's guilt that we have unanimously made up our
+minds to commit him to the next assizes on the double charge of
+robbery and murder."
+
+"Iv that case, there's nothing more to be said," remarked Drelincourt
+with a shrug, as he turned away.
+
+"My errand is discharged; I will no longer intrude," said Ormsby.
+
+He made a sweeping, old fashioned bow, and then marched out, his nose
+in the air, and the color in his cheeks a shade deeper than when he
+had entered the room. Wicks shut the door behind him, and the next
+moment the first dinner bell sounded.
+
+"I will follow you in a few moments," said Drelincourt to his wife. "I
+have a note to write which must be despatched at once."
+
+He waited with a nonchalant air, a couple of fingers of each hand
+thrust into his waistcoat pockets, till she had gone, then he sank
+wearily into a chair.
+
+"At last the sword has fallen! For twenty long years it has been
+suspended over my head, and now the hair that held it has snapped.
+Fate guides our footsteps through a blind labyrinth, and brings us to
+the exit by ways we wot not of. But it may be that all is not yet
+lost. Some loophole of escape there may be still, though all is dark
+at present. Through what mischance has Gumley been caught in the toils
+after all these years? Why has he confessed to the robbery of the
+jewels? Why---- But these are idle questions. I must see Rodd and get
+him to fathom this mystery for me."
+
+Therewith he rang the bell. "Tell Mr. Marsh that I wish to see him at
+once in the library," he said to Wicks. Then to himself he added: "In
+all the world there is but one soul to whom I can freely talk and from
+whom I have no concealments."
+
+When he entered the library, three minutes later, he found Roden Marsh
+already there.
+
+"So--you have heard," he said, as he shut the door, and paused for a
+moment before advancing. "I can read your news in your face."
+
+"I wanted to be the first to tell it you, so that you might be
+prepared; but I could find no opportunity of seeing you alone."
+
+"My dear Rodd, night and day for twenty years I have never been
+otherwise than prepared. But tell me what it is you have heard. At
+present I am altogether in the dark. That Gumley has been arrested,
+and has confessed to the robbery of my first wife's jewels--so much I
+have been told, but beyond that I know nothing."
+
+"Yesterday morning Gumley, who has not been seen in this part of the
+country for a number of years, tried to pawn a lady's watch. The
+suspicions of the pawnbroker were aroused, the police were called in,
+Gumley's lodging was searched, and in it was found nearly the whole of
+Mrs. Drelincourt's stolen property. This morning I happened to be in
+Sunbridge on business when Gumley was brought up at the court house
+before Mr. Ormsby and two other magistrates. It was Draycot, the chief
+constable, who told me of the arrest, so, of course, I took care to be
+present at the hearing."
+
+"It seems strange, does it not, that the fellow should have kept his
+ill-gotten gains by him all these years?"
+
+"Not when you know the circumstances, as you shall hear."
+
+At this point Drelincourt sat down, and motioned Rodd to do the same.
+
+"To go back to the affair of twenty years ago," resumed the latter.
+"It seems Gumley's cupidity had been excited by the sight of the
+jewelry worn at different times by Mrs. Drelincourt, besides which he
+had sworn to be revenged on her for the horsewhipping she had
+administered to him a few days before the robbery. He obtained access
+to the dressing room through the window, by means of a ladder planted
+outside, purloined by him from one of the outhouses, and duly taken
+back when he had accomplished his purpose. He had chosen a time when
+he knew there was not much likelihood of his being interrupted,
+Lucille, Mrs. Drelincourt's maid, who slept next her mistress'
+dressing room, being out of the way on leave of absence. Having found
+the jewel casket, he emptied it of its contents, and got back to his
+own room at the east lodge by the way he had come. With the exception
+of the locket afterwards found on him----"
+
+"To account for his possession of which I perjured myself."
+
+"He hid away the whole of the stolen property in the thatch of the
+lodge, where the police failed to discover it. I ought here to mention
+that Gumley had a bed room at the east lodge, which he had not yet
+given up, although Mrs. Drelincourt had discharged him some days
+before. Well, finding it impossible, after his release from prison, to
+obtain possession of the jewelry, he left the neighborhood, only
+coming back to it about a week ago. At last his long waited for
+opportunity had arrived. As you know, a new lodge has just been built.
+The old one was untenanted and on the point of being pulled down. A
+night or two since Gumley forced his way into it, and there, under the
+thatch, he found the little parcel he had hidden twenty years ago.
+What followed is known to you."
+
+"And yet--fools that we are--how many of us are ready to affirm that
+blind chance alone is the arbiter of our destinies!" Drelincourt
+sighed heavily, then he rose and took a turn or two across the floor,
+after which he resumed his seat.
+
+"Ormsby tells me that he and his brother dunderheads have made up
+their minds to commit Gumley for trial on the capital charge."
+
+"There is little doubt but they will do so."
+
+"When do the assizes take place?"
+
+"Three weeks from now."
+
+"Should Gumley be committed tomorrow, as I suppose he will be, you
+must go up to London, and see a certain solicitor whose name and
+address I will give you. You will put Gumley's case into his hands,
+and instruct him to engage the best counsel. Expense must be no
+object; only, it must not be known from whence or whom the requisite
+funds will be forthcoming."
+
+"I understand. But suppose----"
+
+"My dear Rodd, let us have no suppositions, as thou lov'st me! They
+are hateful things. When you have carried out my instructions, you
+will have done all that can be done."
+
+Again he rose and in his restless fashion took a turn or two from end
+to end of the room. Then, as he laid a hand on Rodd's shoulder: "You
+have read how, during the First Revolution, when the guillotine was
+busy at work and the Conciérgerie was crammed with prisoners who had
+been tried and condemned, morning after morning the tumbrels used to
+come to the prison gate and the names used to be called out of those
+who were to be led off to execution--you have read all that?"
+
+"Certainly--and how gay the prisoners were, or made believe to be; and
+how they used to get up little dances among themselves, although they
+knew that for some of them the sun would rise next morning for the
+last time."
+
+"Rodd, I feel exactly as I can conceive those condemned prisoners used
+to feel, except that in my case the end is a little farther off,
+although none the less inevitable. Meanwhile, let us eat, drink, and
+be merry. Bring roses and garlands. Let us have in the hautboy and the
+flute. And as for the grim Shadow biding its time behind my chair--I
+can feel its presence there already--you and I alone have eyes to see
+it."
+
+Rodd regarded him with a troubled expression. "I fail to understand
+you," he said. "You don't mean to imply----"
+
+"Hush!"
+
+Marian was standing at the open door.
+
+"Ah! here comes my little girl," exclaimed Drelincourt, turning to her
+with his gayest smile.
+
+Rodd went slowly out of the room, with bowed head and heart as heavy
+as lead.
+
+"Yes, you tiresome old thing, and come to scold you. Mamma wants to
+know what is keeping you so long. If you don't come at once, you won't
+be able to finish dressing before the bell rings, and then everybody
+will be kept waiting."
+
+"That would, indeed, be a grave misdemeanor. By the way, you have not
+told me how you enjoyed the ball last night. When you got back you
+stole off to bed without my having seen you."
+
+"I saw a light in the laboratory, but was afraid of disturbing you.
+The ball? Oh, it was just lovely! And what do you think? I danced
+every dance but two!"
+
+"Greedy child! Then you did not fail to enjoy yourself, although a
+certain person was not there to keep you company."
+
+"It was my first ball, papa--think of that! I could scarcely fail to
+enjoy myself, could I? Of course I should have enjoyed myself far more
+if Wally had been there."
+
+"You seem very much in love with Wally, as you call him."
+
+"Of course I am, papa. Have not you yourself agreed that some day we
+are to be married?"
+
+"I suppose you won't care how soon that 'some day' comes?"
+
+"Indeed, then, I don't want it to come, oh, for ever so long! As if I
+were in a hurry to leave you and mamma! It is most unkind of you even
+to hint at such a thing, and I have a great mind to sulk with you for
+the rest of the day."
+
+"Such a threat is enough to make any one shake in his shoes. Do you
+know, _petite_, of what I have been thinking?"
+
+"How should I, papa?"
+
+"Why, now Walter and my old friend Winslow are both here, that we will
+try for a little while--say, for the next few weeks--to be as jolly as
+sandboys. Yes, we will be gay, we will be dissipated even (fancy poor
+mamma being dissipated, eh?), and our mottoes shall be 'Away with
+melancholy' and '_Vive la bagatelle!_'"
+
+"That will be awfully nice."
+
+"Awfully. Tomorrow, if the weather hold fine, we will drive as far as
+Beauchamp Chase and picnic there. Then mamma and you must arrange for
+a garden party, and possibly we may be able to get up a dance or
+two--and I know not what other frivolities." To himself he said: "What
+a mockery is all this!"
+
+"You darling papa! How happy we shall be! But come along, do, or mamma
+will say that you are making me as bad as yourself."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+WAITING FOR THE VERDICT.
+
+
+It was three weeks later, and the day of Gumley's trial.
+
+In the same pleasant room, with its French windows opening on the
+lawn, already known to us, Mrs. Drelincourt was reclining on a lounge,
+engaged in some kind of fine needlework. On a small occasional table
+within reach of her hand lay an open telegram. She was alone, and had
+been so for some time, but she did not on that account think herself
+neglected. Indeed, she was one of those women, few and far between,
+who love solitude for its own sake, and can taste to the full its
+subtle charm.
+
+Before long her reverie was broken by the entrance of Colonel Winslow.
+
+"It's close upon three o'clock, and yet Felix has not returned," he
+said. "It is not often that he prolongs his ride so far into the
+afternoon."
+
+"Very seldom indeed. I was becoming rather anxious about him when this
+came to hand." As she spoke, she handed him the telegram.
+
+The colonel took it and read it aloud:
+
+"'Drelincourt, Greystone Priors, to Mrs. Drelincourt, Fairlawn.--Selim
+has fallen lame. Shall leave him here, to be fetched by groom
+tomorrow, and return by train.' That fully accounts for his
+non-arrival," added the colonel, as he replaced the telegram on the
+table, and drew up a chair. "You have heard nothing yet, I presume, as
+to how Gumley's trial is progressing?"
+
+"Nothing whatever. Roden Marsh is in attendance at the sessions house,
+and will bring us the news at the earliest possible moment."
+
+"I am afraid the result is a foregone conclusion," remarked the
+colonel.
+
+The subject was one Mrs. Drelincourt did not care to pursue.
+
+"And must your visit really come to an end in the course of a few
+days?" she presently asked. "Cannot we persuade you to favor us with
+your company for a fortnight longer?"
+
+"I'm afraid I have no option in the matter. Weeks ago I promised my
+sister to be with her on the twelfth of this month, and were I to
+break my word, I should render myself liable to pains and penalties
+without number."
+
+"But we shall have you with us again later in the season?"
+
+"I certainly hope so. It won't be my fault if you don't."
+
+"I cannot tell you how grateful I feel for the change which your
+visit--for I can set it down to nothing else--has wrought in Felix.
+Not for years--nay, scarcely since our marriage--has he seemed so
+cheerful, so free from care, so little given to brooding over his
+experiments and shutting himself up among his books, as during the
+three weeks you have been with us."
+
+"Ah ha! I do take some little credit to myself for having coaxed our
+snail out of his shell, for having wheedled our bookworm out of his
+seclusion; and it must be your care after I'm gone, dear Mrs.
+Drelincourt, to see that he doesn't revert to his hermit-like ways."
+
+A little sigh escaped Mrs. Drelincourt.
+
+"I am greatly afraid that when your enlivening presence is no longer
+here, everything will go on precisely as it did before your arrival."
+
+"It is always wise to hope for the best. In any case, I won't fail to
+come and stir up Felix again in the course of the autumn."
+
+Before more could be said, Marian, closely followed by Walter, each of
+them carrying a croquet mallet, made their appearance at one of the
+long windows, which, this balmy afternoon, stood wide open.
+
+"Colonel Winslow," said the flushed and happy looking girl, "we want
+you to come and decide a point of the game for us about which we can't
+agree."
+
+Left alone, Mrs. Drelincourt resumed her needlework. Her thoughts were
+busy with what had just passed between the colonel and herself.
+
+"Yes, Felix has been a changed man from the day of his friend's
+arrival three weeks ago. And yet, there is something in the change
+which I fail to understand, and which, for that very reason, dulls the
+edge of my happiness. To me--but I may be fanciful--there seems
+something feverish and unreal about his gaiety. His mirth has an air
+of being assumed for the occasion; in his laughter there is an echo of
+mockery; it is as though he were laughing at himself for finding
+anything worth laughing about.
+
+"At times there comes into his eyes a strange, impersonal look, as
+though he were gazing at something invisible to any one but himself.
+And why is it that of late he cannot rest at night? Why does he
+rise and quit the house at daybreak, and not be seen again till
+breakfast time? There is something below the surface of which I know
+nothing--something he is hiding from me. He thinks to deceive me by
+his assumption of gaiety, whereas--Ah!"
+
+A slight noise had caused her to turn her head. There stood her
+husband, holding aside the portière and gazing smilingly at her. He
+had gone to the boudoir first in search of her. He now came forward,
+and having disposed of his hat and gloves on a side table, he bent
+over his wife and kissed her tenderly.
+
+"My telegram reached you in due course, I see. I was afraid you would
+be growing uneasy."
+
+"I had indeed grown very uneasy long before it arrived."
+
+"I had gone for a longer ride than usual, when all at once Selim fell
+lame. I was compelled to dismount and lead him at a snail's pace as
+far as Greystone Priors, where I had his legs bandaged, and have left
+him till tomorrow." Then, having drawn up a chair, he asked, but
+without any apparent eagerness: "Anything fresh? Any news?"
+
+"None whatever."
+
+"Then Rodd has not returned?"--consulting his watch as he put the
+question.
+
+"I have not seen anything of him. But the trial will scarcely be over
+as early as this, will it?"
+
+"That is more than I can say."
+
+Thrusting his hands into his pockets, and whistling under his breath a
+lively operatic air, he strolled to the garden window and stood gazing
+out for a little while. His wife followed him with her eyes. Now that
+his back was towards her, her face had grown suddenly aged and anxious
+looking.
+
+"He is playing a part, and he thinks I cannot see through the
+pretense," she whispered to herself. "But love has keen eyes. What it
+is that he is hiding from me I cannot so much as guess, but sure I am
+that some secret trouble is gnawing at his heartstrings."
+
+Presently Drelincourt turned from the window, and going to the piano,
+he sat down on the music stool and began to play a bar of the air he
+had been whistling.
+
+Suddenly Marian appeared at the window, and seeing her father in the
+room, she laid a finger on her lips as a caution to her mother. Then
+she ran lightly across the floor, and next moment her arms were round
+his neck and her lips pressed to his cheek.
+
+"You were gone this morning before I was down, so that I have not been
+able to thank you till now for your beautiful, beautiful present."
+
+"Nor I an opportunity of wishing my little girl--ought I not rather to
+say my bouncing big girl?--many, very many happy returns of the day,
+which I now do from the bottom of my heart."
+
+His arm was round her waist, and for the next few seconds she felt
+herself pressed close to him. Tears sprang to her eyes. "Dear papa!"
+she said to herself. "He loves me more than I thought he did."
+
+At this juncture the colonel and young Deane came in by way of the
+farther window.
+
+"And I have had other charming gifts," resumed Marian. "One from
+mamma, one from Wally, another from Colonel Winslow, and yet another
+from Roden Marsh. Am I not a fortunate girl? You must come and see
+them where they are laid out in mamma's dressing room."
+
+A little later in the afternoon Drelincourt and Walter Deane happened
+to be left alone in the morning room.
+
+Deane was turning over a book of engravings at one of the tables, but
+not without an eye for all that was going forward. Drelincourt was
+lounging against the framework of the farther window.
+
+"In this suspense there lurks a torture worthy of a grand inquisitor,"
+murmured the latter. "I wonder whether I or that poor devil awaiting
+sentence in the dock suffers the more on our invisible rack."
+
+Having glanced at his watch, he took to slowly pacing the room, his
+hands behind his back.
+
+"And yet, what need to wonder? He is but a clod, callous, brutalized,
+degraded; and though his life is doubtless as sweet to him as mine is
+to me, there are in me a thousand springs of feeling and emotion, each
+a separate source of torture, of which such as he can know nothing. In
+my case the stake is more, infinitely more, than is involved in the
+premature ending of a life by which I have never set any special
+store. There's the pity of it! If the issues of our actions affected
+ourselves alone, we could afford to suffer in silence, and bow our
+necks to the stroke with something like equanimity; but the Eumenides
+who wait on wrong doing ever contrive to stab us through the hearts of
+our dearest and our best."
+
+Young Deane's furtive glances followed Drelincourt every time the
+latter's back was turned on him.
+
+"I have never seen Mr. Drelincourt so restless as he seems this
+afternoon," he muttered to himself. "There's something on his
+mind--that's clear. Can it be that he's troubling himself about the
+result of the trial? Yet, why should he? It's not as if he were a
+vindictive man. However it may go, it can matter little to him."
+
+"That boy is eying me and wondering what the deuce is the matter," was
+Drelincourt's unspoken thought. "_Eh bien!_ Let us give him something
+else to think about."
+
+Drawing up a chair close to Deane, he seated himself astride it, and
+rested his crossed arms on its back.
+
+"While I was out this morning," he began, "I was told something which
+put me about more than I like to own."
+
+"Indeed, sir! I am very sorry to hear it," answered the young fellow,
+as he shut up the book of engravings and turned a sympathetic face
+toward the other.
+
+"If I tell my wife, she will be greatly distressed, because she is
+acquainted with the people concerned; and yet I feel that she ought to
+know. I'm rather at a loss what to do."
+
+Drelincourt paused to follow with his eyes the flight of a butterfly
+which had found its way into the room.
+
+Walter wondered what was coming next.
+
+"Some little while ago," resumed Drelincourt, "a friend of mine, whom
+I may be said to have known all my life, was charged on his own
+confession--a confession he need never have made had he not
+voluntarily chosen to do so--with the commission of what by the
+majority of persons would doubtless be regarded as a crime of a very
+heinous kind; although it is to be presumed that, had he thought well
+to do so, he could have alleged some justification at least of the
+crime of which he was guilty. But be that as it may, having made a
+clean breast of it, there seemed no course left open to him but
+suicide."
+
+"Suicide! Oh, Mr. Drelincourt!"
+
+"That touches him!" whispered the latter to himself. Then aloud: "Life
+had become too bitter to him; he could endure it no longer. Well, he
+had one child, a daughter, who was engaged to be married at the time
+of her father's death; but after that event, the man to whom she was
+betrothed broke off the affair on the plea that it was impossible for
+him to wed the daughter of a criminal and a suicide."
+
+"The mean scoundrel!"
+
+"The double blow--the loss at once of her father and her lover (not to
+speak of the social stigma which will inevitably cling to her in time
+to come) has all but broken poor Lucy's heart. On the other hand,
+there is, of course, much to be urged from young Melville's point of
+view, and I have no doubt the majority of men would be inclined to do
+as he has done. Who can estimate the harm it might have done his
+future career had he married the daughter of a man who, rather than
+face the consequences of his crime, had preferred to put an end to
+himself! Yes, on further reflection, I am inclined to think that he
+behaved with admirable prudence."
+
+"While I, if he were here, would brand him for the coward and
+despicable wretch he really is!" exclaimed Deane.
+
+His cheeks were flushed, a fine indignation shone in his eyes; there
+could be no doubt of the sincerity with which he spoke. Nothing of all
+this was lost on the elder man.
+
+"But the young lady is well rid of him," he went on. "If in the
+darkest hours of her life he thus abandons her, what he miscalled his
+love is not a thing either to covet or regret."
+
+"But consider," urged Drelincourt, "what the world would have said!
+Think of the shock to his friends!"
+
+"In his place I should have thought only of her I loved. If the world
+and my friends chose to disapprove, they would have been welcome to do
+so. Oh, Mr. Drelincourt, what a miserable hound this fellow must be!
+Not to one man in a thousand in these days is the chance afforded of
+proving what stuff he's really made of. In King Arthur's time men had
+to win their wives after a fashion which revealed the coward and the
+cad in their true colors. What a pity that some such test is not
+enforced nowadays!"
+
+Drelincourt smiled as he rose and pushed away his chair. "In that
+case, I'm afraid the number of compulsory bachelors would soon mount
+up to an alarming figure."
+
+Walter also rose and went and stood by one of the windows. He wore a
+preoccupied air, as of one debating some question with himself.
+
+Drelincourt's lips moved inaudibly.
+
+"As I told Winslow, I had my reasons for affording Marian and this
+young fellow an opportunity of falling in love with each other. I do
+not think--no, I do not think that I am mistaken in him!"
+
+Next moment a shadow darkened his face. Again he glanced at his watch.
+"The trial ought to be over by now. I thought I heard the sound of
+galloping hoofs." For a few seconds he stood in a listening attitude.
+"The sound was in my own brain only. So does expectation play the
+cheat with itself!"
+
+Presently Deane turned from the window and went up to Drelincourt, who
+was standing at the center table, examining an etching through a
+magnifying glass. His face was pale, but his lips were firmly set, and
+his eyes shone with resolution.
+
+"Mr. Drelincourt," he began, in a voice which had lost something of
+its customary assurance, "after what has just passed between us, I
+think it due to you to inform you that _I_ am the son of a man who
+committed suicide! Probably you will think that such a circumstance
+ought to have been brought to your knowledge long ago; and, indeed, I
+feel now that it was both cowardly and wrong on my part to keep it
+from you. The only excuse I can offer is that my father's memory is so
+dear to me that--that----"
+
+The words broke on his lips; a mist dimmed his eyes; he turned away
+while he recovered himself.
+
+Drelincourt laid a hand gently on his shoulder.
+
+"Not a word more is needed," he said in grave, kindly accents. "My
+boy, all the sad circumstances connected with your father's end are
+known to me already."
+
+"Mr. Drelincourt!"
+
+"As also how every penny of your legacy was devoted to the payment  of
+the debts he left behind him."
+
+"You know all this, and yet----"
+
+"Hush! Some one comes. Not another word."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+IN THE LAST RESORT.
+
+
+It was Marian, who came quickly forward, her cheeks aglow with
+pleasurable excitement.
+
+"Papa, what do think? There are a couple of Neapolitan _pifferari_ on
+the lawn, and I have told them to come round here. You should have
+seen how delighted they were when I spoke to them in Italian. I knew
+you would be pleased to hear them play a few of their simple airs. It
+will seem like old times come back again, will it not?"
+
+"Old times, forsooth!" exclaimed Drelincourt with his most riant air.
+"You talk, _mignonne_, as if this were your fiftieth birthday instead
+of your eighteenth. But where are these vagabonds of yours? I suppose
+I must submit to having my ears tortured, since you will it so." Then,
+as the girl turned away, the shadow swept over his face again, and
+under his breath he murmured: "Rodd--Rodd--whip and spur!--whip and
+spur!"
+
+Marian had flitted on to the lawn, and was beckoning to the
+_pifferari_, who presently came slouching along, and took up a
+position a little way removed from one of the long windows.
+
+"Poor fellows! Their clothes seem little more than tatters," remarked
+Marian, as she reëntered the room. "And yet how picturesque they
+look!"
+
+"And how very far from clean!" Added Walter in a low voice. "It would
+be a charity to make them a present of a bar of soap--if one could
+feel sure of their using it."
+
+Then they began to play. The air, although set to waltz time, was a
+wild and plaintive one, and not at all like conventional dance music.
+
+After listening for a couple of minutes, Marian clapped her hands and
+cried excitedly: "Papa, don't you remember?"
+
+"Remember what, my dear?"
+
+"The air they are playing. It's called '_La Strega_,' which"--with a
+glance at Walter--"being interpreted for the behoof of illiterate
+people, means 'The Sorceress.'"
+
+"So kind of you to enlighten my ignorance!" murmured the young man.
+
+Marian turned to her father.
+
+"It's the same tune two wandering minstrels played one day ever so
+long ago on the terrace at Bordighera. And that day you were so gay
+and light-hearted that you and I danced to it together. Oh, I have not
+forgotten! And now it's my birthday, and we will dance to it again."
+
+"_I_ dance! Madness!"
+
+"It's a very delightful kind of madness. Am I not queen today? Do you
+dare, sir, to dispute any of my behests?"
+
+"There's Walter."
+
+"It is you, papa, whom I am going to dance with, not that boy. I won't
+listen to another word. Come! Let us try for a little while to fancy
+ourselves back in Italy."
+
+"What it is to be a slave of a tyrant in petticoats!"
+
+He offered no further resistance, but slid an arm round his daughter's
+waist, and the pair began to waltz to the music. Walter stood looking
+on from the embrasure of one of the windows. Twice had they gyrated
+the length of the room and back, when Drelincourt caught sight of
+Roden Marsh's pale face peering at him through an opening in the
+portière. The latter had approached unseen and unheard by either of
+the young folk. For a couple of minutes longer the dancers kept
+revolving to the music, then, as they again drew near the window where
+Walter was lounging, Drelincourt beckoned to him to take his place,
+which the young man did, nothing loath. A second later Drelincourt had
+disappeared through the portière.
+
+"Your news?" said Drelincourt to Roden Marsh, the moment they were
+alone.
+
+"Found guilty and sentenced to death."
+
+"So now the curtain is rung up for the last act!"
+
+Rodd grasped one of his foster brother's hands in both his, and for a
+few moments the two stood looking into each other's eyes.
+
+Then Drelincourt said, "Come," and with that he led the way to his own
+room, where there was less likelihood of their being intruded upon.
+
+"And of course the judge held out no hope of mercy?" he recommenced,
+as soon as he had seated himself and motioned Rodd to another chair.
+
+"None whatever. The fact of Gumley having confessed to the robbery
+seemed to be accepted both by judge and jury as conclusive evidence
+that he must be guilty of the other crime."
+
+"His counsel----"
+
+"Urged every point in his favor that could be urged, but to no
+purpose.
+
+"Poor devil! What must his sensations have been when he heard his doom
+pronounced! But in a little while, as at the wave of a necromancer's
+wand, the weight of that dread sentence shall be lifted off his heart,
+and life shall once more taste sweet in his mouth."
+
+"Felix! What would you do?"
+
+"Can you ask? I thought it was long ago understood between us what my
+course was to be should the worst ever come to pass. The worst _has_
+come to pass--as I have felt all along it would surely do some
+day--and it has now, to be faced. Could anything be more simple?"
+
+"But consider, Felix, consider! This fellow who was sentenced today is
+a low, brutal, besotted wretch, who--as was proved against him by the
+police--has already served two terms of penal servitude for other
+crimes; who, as I have ascertained, has not a single tie to bind him
+to life, and of whom, when he dies--and the sooner the better--the
+world will be well rid. No sane man would seriously think of
+sacrificing himself for such a scoundrel. Let him hang! Such
+_canaille_ as he are fit fruit for the gallows."
+
+"My dear Rodd, how strangely you must have misread me all these years,
+if you think it possible that, deliberately and knowingly, I could
+allow this man to pay the penalty of a crime of which he is as
+innocent as you are! Granting him to be all that you say he
+is--assuming him to be the vilest wretch that crawls--his life is the
+one sacred thing he can call his own till he himself shall forfeit it,
+and all the unseen powers forbid that I should rob him of it! The
+thing done by me twenty years ago concerns me, and me only, and I
+swear that this man's blood shall not lie at my door!"
+
+Then, in a changed voice:
+
+"Rodd, you remember what we agreed upon long ago in case of emergency?
+Have you the vial still by you which I gave at that time into your
+keeping?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"That is well--that is very well. Fetch it me now--at once."
+
+A groan broke from Rodd's lips; too well he knew how futile any
+further remonstrance on his part would have been. There was that about
+Drelincourt which brooked no denial. All his life Rodd had done his
+foster brother's bidding, and he did it now.
+
+"How strangely calm I feel now that the suspense is over and I know
+the worst!" mused Drelincourt, when Rodd had left the room. "My pulse
+beats as evenly as an infant's. Tonight I shall sleep as I have not
+slept for weeks. Now that my doom stares me straight in the face, now
+that I hear a footstep on the threshold audible to myself alone, of
+what little consequence the world and its business have all at once
+become to me! Already life and the things which make life sweet have
+put on an altogether different aspect; already I find myself regarding
+them almost as impersonally as if I were a denizen of another plant,
+and had no part or parcel in them. It is a novel experience, and did
+time allow, I might endeavor to analyze it."
+
+His unspoken soliloquy was brought to an end by the return of Rodd.
+
+"Have you found the vial?" he asked, with restrained eagerness.
+
+"I have." He came slowly forward. "Felix, once more----"
+
+"Give it me. Not another word!" Drelincourt held out his hand, and
+Rodd had no choice save to do as he was told. Drelincourt's features
+were lighted up by a faint smile. "Why this childish puling?" he
+asked. "Why this sudden faint heartedness? You know well how it was
+agreed between us years ago that this should be my way of escape when
+none other was left me."
+
+Rodd resumed his seat without replying, and letting his elbows rest on
+the table, covered his face with his hands. Drelincourt held the vial
+up to the light.
+
+"Even in the tiny compass of this the Great Destroyer finds room to
+lurk. 'Swift and painless,' were the words of the Italian _savant_
+when he put it into my hands. Swift--and--painless. It is well. Now I
+am prepared."
+
+Rodd turned on him a face charged with tragic intensity.
+
+"You will not do this thing just yet--if it must be done at all?" he
+pleaded.
+
+"Not today certainly--nor yet tomorrow. I have much to see to first.
+Besides, this is my daughter's _festa_, and no faintest shadow of a
+cloud shall mar its brightness. In years to come, when she is a happy
+wife, and when the trouble which is now closing round her shall be
+nothing but a memory, I would fain have her be able to look back on
+this day as one of unclouded happiness."
+
+"And Mrs. Drelincourt?"
+
+"Ah! Now you stab me. Now you all but unman me. Why did you mention
+her name?"
+
+He got up abruptly, his hands clinched, his features working. Scarcely
+ever before had Rodd seen him so moved.
+
+"Leave me now," he went on, after a brief pause. "I must be alone for
+a little while. I will see you again later. But not a word to my wife
+about the verdict. Should she question you, tell her that the trial
+will not be finished till tomorrow. How strangely you look at me! Go,
+and fear nothing."
+
+Sadly and lingeringly Rodd left the room. "There is one door of escape
+for him, and it rests with me to open it," he said to himself as he
+went. "He saved my life when we were boys; why should I not make an
+effort to save his now? Felix--Felix--dearer to me than any brother
+could have been--had I a dozen lives I would willingly sacrifice them
+all to save yours!"
+
+Left alone, Drelincourt crossed to one of the windows which fronted
+the west, and flung wide the casement.
+
+"Yes, to leave her--my Madeline--will in very truth be to drain
+death's bitter cup to the lees. If she and I could but walk hand in
+hand into yonder sunset, and so vanish forever from mortal ken--that
+would indeed be well!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+ONE STEP NEARER.
+
+
+It was the early afternoon of the sixth day after Gumley's trial and
+conviction. In the library at Fairlawn, which just then he had all to
+himself, Mr. Wicks was planted with his back to the empty fireplace, a
+newspaper which had just arrived in one hand, and a paper knife in the
+other. As he stood thus he soliloquized aloud:
+
+"Well, of all the rummy goes I ever heard tell of, this licks the lot!
+To think of Mr. Roden Marsh going and giving himself up as being the
+murderer of the first Mrs. Drelincourt! But I must say that I never
+did altogether approve of Mr. Marsh and his goings on. Not that he was
+what one might call stuck up, because he wasn't. But, for all that, he
+had ways about him which I couldn't stummick."
+
+The turning of the door handle transformed him on the instant into a
+different being.
+
+It was Mrs. Drelincourt who now entered the room.
+
+"Has your master returned yet, Wicks?"
+
+"I have seen nothing of him, ma'am." He was standing at the center
+table, cutting the newspaper in readiness for Mr. Drelincourt.
+
+"Have _you_ heard anything of this dreadful rumor?"
+
+"Meaning about Mr. Marsh, ma'am? I can't deny, ma'am, but what I 'ave
+heard about it: It's in everybody's mouth, if I may make so bold as to
+say so."
+
+"When and by whom was the rumor brought?"
+
+"By a messenger from Sunbridge about a couple of hours ago. He brought
+a letter for master from Mr. Marsh, who, so the man said, is now in
+Sunbridge jail, having given hisself up to the police late yesterday
+evening."
+
+"Great Heaven! Can this be true? Where is the letter?"
+
+Wicks took it off the writing desk where he had laid it, and handed it
+to his mistress. "The messenger brought it, ma'am, when you were out
+in the pony carriage."
+
+"Yes, it is Roden's writing," said Mrs. Drelincourt to herself, as she
+glanced at the superscription. For a moment or two she pressed her
+hand to her heart; then, as she gave back the letter, she said: "But
+do you mean to imply that Mr. Marsh was away from home all last
+night?"
+
+"According to the chambermaid, ma'am, his bed had not been slep' in."
+The door was opened quickly, and Marian, followed by Walter, entered
+the room.
+
+"Mamma----" began the former, and then stopped at sight of Wicks.
+"That will do, Wicks," said Mrs. Drelincourt.
+
+The man bowed and left the room.
+
+Then Marian began afresh. "I can see by your face, mamma, that you
+have heard this terrible rumor; but surely, surely it cannot be true!"
+
+"As you say, dear, it surely cannot be true. And yet I know not what
+to think. That Roden is in prison seems an undoubted fact."
+
+"The report goes that he went into Sunbridge last evening, and gave
+himself up to the police." This from Walter.
+
+"As a murderer," said Marian with a shudder. "Oh, it seems
+incredible!"
+
+"Incredible, indeed," replied her mother. "If it be really true that
+he is guilty, the act must have been committed during a fit of mental
+aberration when he was not responsible for his actions. But we shall
+learn the truth when your papa returns."
+
+"Is not papa back?"
+
+"Not yet. It is quite fifteen miles to Dunford, where Colonel Winslow
+was to catch the Scotch express. But he cannot be long now."
+
+"How would it be," said Walter, "if I were to have the bay mare
+saddled and ride down the Dunford road and meet Mr. Drelincourt on his
+way back? I could then tell him all about the rumor, after which he
+might perhaps prefer to drive direct into Sunbridge and find out the
+particulars for himself before coming home."
+
+"An excellent idea, Walter," said Mrs. Drelincourt. "Go at once, and
+come to me the moment you return."
+
+As soon as he was gone she said to Marian: "Open one of the windows a
+little way, dear; I feel slightly faint." Then to herself she added:
+"My heart feels as if it were constricted by a band of steel."
+
+She was lying back in a capacious leathern easy chair. Marian having
+opened one of the windows, unceremoniously twisted up the outside
+sheet of the _Times_ and proceeded gently to fan her mother with it.
+
+Presently the latter looked up at her with a smile. "I am better now,
+darling," she said. "This sultry weather always tries me."
+
+Marian stooped and kissed her. Then she said: "Oh, mamma, what if it
+should prove that poor Roden is really out of his mind!"
+
+Mrs. Drelincourt sat up quickly in her chair. "How careless of me to
+forget!" she exclaimed. "There is a letter on the table from him
+addressed to your papa, which may possibly explain everything. Run and
+give it to Walter, and tell him----"
+
+"Here's papa, himself," broke in Marian, as the door opened to admit
+Drelincourt.
+
+"I am so glad you are come!" sighed his wife, as she turned to him
+with a quick lighting up of her spiritualized face. Then to her
+daughter: "Hurry after Walter. You will perhaps be in time to stop
+him."
+
+"And I am glad that you are glad," replied Drelincourt, regarding her
+from a little distance with a smile, as he proceeded in leisurely
+fashion to draw off his-driving gloves. "And yet, all things
+considered, I have not been long gone. We had quite a race, I must
+tell you, to catch the express."
+
+"Then you have heard nothing of this dreadful rumor which has put us
+all so much about?"
+
+"You mean some rumor in connection with Roden Marsh?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Old Tyson, the turnpike keeper, did mumble something to me while he
+was counting out my change."
+
+"Did he tell you that Roden gave himself up last night as being the
+murderer of--of you know whom?"
+
+"It was something to that effect I gathered from Tyson."
+
+"Oh, Felix, how coolly you take it! How can you--how can you?"
+
+"Because, my dearest and best, I am absolutely sure that in Rodd's
+self accusation there is not the slightest grain of truth."
+
+"Then you think that it is all a hallucination on his part? That he
+has brooded over the affair till at length he has come to believe that
+he himself is the criminal?"
+
+"There can be no doubt that such is the case."
+
+"What a weight you have lifted off my heart!"
+
+"I have noticed that he has been somewhat strange in his manner of
+late. More than once he has said things to me which I utterly failed
+to comprehend. Now, however, everything is explained."
+
+"Poor Rodd! Poor fellow! But I am forgetting. There is a letter from
+him for you which was brought here by a special messenger two or three
+hours ago."
+
+"So!"
+
+Mrs. Drelincourt rose from her chair, and crossing to the table, found
+the letter and handed it to her husband.
+
+"Most likely this will throw some further light on Roden's
+incomprehensible proceeding," she said. "I presume you will at once
+drive into Sunbridge and take whatever steps may be necessary in order
+to effect his release."
+
+"That is what I purpose doing--almost immediately. I shall lose no
+time in carrying out my intention in that regard. It must be done! In
+my hands rests the question of his freedom or execution, and there is
+but one course for me to pursue, that the gates of his prison may be
+opened, and Rodd again enjoy the liberty which is his by right--human
+and divine."
+
+"Then, for the present, I will leave you. But I shall see you again
+before you go?"
+
+"Undoubtedly."
+
+"Poor Roden! Most sincerely do I hope that you will be able to bring
+him back with you."
+
+"I hope so too. In any case, you need not fear but we shall soon have
+him released from durance vile."
+
+He opened the door for her, and as she was passing out, he stooped and
+touched her hair with his lips. She smiled up at him, and her lips
+softly breathed the word "Dearest!"
+
+Could she have seen the change which came over his face the moment the
+door was shut behind her, she would have been startled, indeed. The
+transformation was marvelous. The real man was alone with himself.
+
+"Poor Roden, indeed!" he murmured. "But what about poor Felix? And
+alas!--and alas! What about poor Madeline?"
+
+He was standing in the middle of the floor, turning over the letter
+absently between his fingers.
+
+"How little she dreams of the awful knowledge which a few short hours
+must inevitably bring her? For there must be no more delay. This mad
+act of Rodd's has served to bring matters to a climax a little sooner
+than I intended. Today is Thursday, and Saturday was the day I had
+fixed on in my mind as the one on which my long hidden secret should
+be laid bare to the world. But now that the end is so near, it matters
+not whether the revelation be made today or a few hours hence. Yes,
+after twenty years--the end!--just as the past with its dread secret
+was beginning to assume the vagueness of a half forgotten dream, and
+life was becoming sweeter to me than ever it had been before. If,
+perchance, I see tomorrow's sunrise, it will scarcely be from the
+windows of Fairlawn!"
+
+He crossed to the chair vacated by his wife, and sat down in it.
+
+"I may as well read what that foolish Rodd has to urge in defense of
+his insane action, although I know quite well beforehand the line of
+argument he will take."
+
+With that he opened the letter and began to read:
+
+
+Sunbridge Jail, Thursday, 6 A.M.
+
+My Dear Foster Brother:
+
+When we were lads together you saved my life at the imminent risk of
+your own. The time has now come when I can cancel the debt by saving
+yours.
+
+To me life is a concern of little moment. So far as I know, I have not
+a single relative living, and were I to die tomorrow, there is not a
+being in the world, with the exception, maybe, of yourself, to whom
+that event would cause one pang of regret.
+
+You, my dear Felix, are possessed of nearly everything which tends to
+make existence sweet to most persons. In your wife and daughter alone
+you have a double tie sufficient to cause a man to cling to this world
+with all his might.
+
+Let me, then, for their dear sakes, if not for your own, most
+earnestly beg and entreat of you to accept the payment hereby offered
+of that just debt which has been so long owing, and which, I swear as
+Heaven is above me, will be joyfully discharged by
+
+Your devoted and affectionate
+
+                             Roden Marsh.
+
+
+"Just as I thought," said Drelincourt, as he refolded the letter.
+"Dear, true hearted, simple minded old Rodd! And does he really dream
+for one moment that I either shall, can, or will accept the sacrifice
+he is so eager to consummate? Even after all these years, how little
+he knows me! No, my dear Rodd, neither you, nor Gumley, nor any one
+shall discharge that debt which is due from Felix Drelincourt alone.
+So, now to consider--to consider."
+
+He lay back in his chair and closed his eyes, still holding Rodd's
+letter in his hand. He had sat thus for a matter of five or six
+minutes when the door was opened by Wicks.
+
+"Sir John Musgrave and Mr. Ormsby to see you, sir."
+
+"So! Where are they?"
+
+"I have shown them into the morning room, sir."
+
+Mr. Drelincourt's eyebrows came together for a moment. "Better show
+them in here," he said. "Their coming is most opportune for my
+purpose," he continued aloud, as soon as he was alone. "It will spare
+me the necessity of a journey to Sunbridge." With that he put away the
+letter in the breast pocket of his coat, and stood up to receive his
+visitors. "Now to screw my courage to the sticking place! I could
+laugh, were this a time for laughter, at the thought of Ormsby
+aghast--dumfounded--his fat cheeks quivering like a jelly--when the
+truth is told him. And he was so sure Gumley was the man. Poor Ormsby!
+At last your thirst for vengeance shall be appeased."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+ON THE BRINK.
+
+
+"Sir John Musgrave and Mr. Ormsby," announced Wicks.
+
+Drelincourt advanced smilingly and took the baronet's proffered hand.
+
+"I think I can guess the nature of the business which has brought you,
+Sir John; but in any case you are welcome," he said. "Ormsby, how are
+you?"
+
+Sir John cleared his throat. "As I judge, then, you have heard of the
+singular freak--for at present I can look upon it as nothing more--of
+your secretary, or whatever he is, Roden Marsh?"
+
+"Who gave himself up last night at Sunbridge as being the murderer of
+my ever to be lamented sister." This from Mr. Ormsby.
+
+"I have been from home all morning, and the first I heard of the
+affair was half an hour ago. I was on the point of driving into
+Sunbridge when you were announced. But pray be seated."
+
+"I am glad to have saved you the journey," remarked Sir John, as he
+sat down. "My--our--object in coming to see you is to ascertain
+whether you can throw any light on this most extraordinary business,
+for, to tell you the truth, we are at a loss to know what steps we
+ought to take next with the view of either proving or disproving
+Marsh's statement."
+
+"And not feeling sure how the affair might turn out, nor what fresh
+light you might be able to throw on it, I ordered Draycot, the chief
+constable, to follow us, so as to be in readiness in case of
+emergency."
+
+"That was really very thoughtful on your part, Ormsby."
+
+"Hum--hum. Confound his sneering ways!" remarked Ormsby to himself,
+with a grunt.
+
+"One thing, gentlemen, I may tell you," went on Drelincourt, "which
+is, that one of the first steps you will have to take will be to set
+Mr. Marsh at liberty."
+
+"Then you are satisfied in your own mind," said Sir John, "that he is
+not really the criminal he seems so desirous of making himself out to
+be?"
+
+"On that point I am fully satisfied."
+
+"What, then, can be the fellow's motive for such an insane
+proceeding?" demanded Ormsby--reasonably enough. "Is he a madman, or
+merely a fool?"
+
+"He is very far from being either one or the other."
+
+"But this is such a terrible crime for any sane man to charge himself
+with?" interpolated Sir John.
+
+"You say, Drelincourt, that one of our first steps must be to set him
+at liberty," resumed Ormsby. "Now, I don't see that at all. He has
+seen fit to charge himself with the commission of a most heinous
+offense, and has put a lot of people to no end of worry and bother;
+consequently it will rest with him to thoroughly disprove his words
+before being allowed to regain his liberty. If I had my way, I would
+treat such pestilent fellows to a month on the treadmill."
+
+"It is possible that Mr. Drelincourt may be in a position to throw an
+unexpected light on the affair," remarked Sir John in his blandest
+tones.
+
+"In that case, of course----"
+
+"It will assume an altogether different complexion from the one it
+wears at present. That goes without saying." It was Drelincourt who
+completed the sentence.
+
+He drummed on the table for a few seconds with his finger tips. Then
+he resumed:
+
+"A few days ago an enlightened British jury declared the man Gumley to
+be guilty of murder because, having confessed to being a thief, they
+assumed that he must of necessity be the author of the greater crime.
+It was a verdict, my dear Ormsby, in which I have no doubt you fully
+concurred."
+
+"I did concur in it, and most fully. Twenty years ago I avowed my
+belief in Gumley's guilt, a belief which the result of the recent
+trial has fully justified, for of course I attach no credence to the
+so called confession of this hair brained Roden Marsh. No, sir, you
+may rely upon it that Gumley is the real criminal, and I shall receive
+with much satisfaction the news that he has been hanged."
+
+"And yet, I am afraid, my dear Ormsby, that for once your usual acumen
+has been at fault--a rare occurrence, I admit--seeing that I happen to
+be in a position to prove that yonder poor devil now lying under
+sentence of death had no more to do with the tragic end of my first
+wife than either of you."
+
+"God bless my soul!" ejaculated Ormsby.
+
+"Drelincourt, you astound me," exclaimed Sir John. "Are we really to
+understand that you are in a position to prove Gumley's innocence?"
+
+"I think what I said was clearly to that effect."
+
+"In that case, the question naturally follows: If you are prepared to
+prove Gumley's innocence, are you, further, in a position to bring the
+real criminal's guilt home to him?"
+
+"I am."
+
+Mr. Ormsby's lips moved, but no sound came from them.
+
+"You astonish me more and more," responded Sir John. "It is a
+fortunate thing that Ormsby and I took it into our heads to call upon
+you."
+
+"Had you not done so, I should have called upon you, Sir John, a
+little later in the day."
+
+"With the view of conveying to me the same information that you have
+just now imparted?"
+
+"With that view."
+
+"Then you had made up your mind before seeing us today to reveal what
+you know?"
+
+"Undoubtedly."
+
+"Of course, our meeting here today is altogether informal and _ex
+officio_; still, if I gather your intention aright, you will be
+prepared at another time and place--say tomorrow, at Sunbridge court
+house--to substantiate on oath what you have just told us?"
+
+"Most assuredly I shall."
+
+"Perhaps you would prefer not to reveal the name of the real criminal
+till the whole affair can be officially investigated?"
+
+Drelincourt did not answer for a moment or two. "Why wait till
+tomorrow?" he asked himself. "The time for further concealment is at
+an end." Then aloud: "Gentlemen, you see the real criminal, as you
+term him, before you!"
+
+Both the others started to their feet, and stared at him with an
+amazement which for a little while bereft them of speech.
+
+"God bless my soul!" gasped Ormsby at length, for the second time.
+
+"You! Oh, Drelincourt!" exclaimed Sir John, in a voice broken by
+emotion.
+
+"Yes, I, and I alone, am the man." He spoke in passionless, almost
+frigid tones, and as the words left his lips he, too, rose to his
+feet.
+
+"Drelincourt, never in the whole course of my life have I been shocked
+as you have just shocked me," said the baronet. "I am utterly at a
+loss for words. I--I know not what to say." His agitation and distress
+were unmistakable.
+
+"Then say nothing, Sir John, that will be the wisest course. Yes, I,
+and I alone, am the man," Drelincourt repeated. "But this I must
+add in self-justification--so far as such a deed is open to
+justification--that what I did was done when I could hardly be said to
+be answerable for my actions. From my youth I have been addicted to
+occasionally walking in my sleep, and it was in a fit of somnambulism
+that I killed my wife."
+
+The baronet's face brightened. "Have you any witnesses to prove that
+such was the case?" he eagerly asked.
+
+"Not one," replied Drelincourt, with a shrug. "As you may perhaps
+remember, my temporary quarters at the time were at a little shanty of
+mine called the Cot?" Sir John nodded assent. "On the fatal morning I
+rose in my sleep, dressed myself in my sleep, and, still asleep, I
+walked from the Cot to the Towers. But no eye saw me enter the
+house--which I did through a side door by means of my master key--no
+eye saw me do the deed, and no eye saw me quit the house after it was
+done."
+
+"And no judge and jury would credit such a cock and bull story for one
+moment," broke in Ormsby, with a brutal laugh.
+
+"For once, Ormsby, you and I are fully agreed," answered Drelincourt,
+with a thin smile. Then, turning again to the baronet: "And now, Sir
+John, I must ask you to allow me to have a quarter of an hour alone
+with my wife, after which I shall be entirely at your disposal."
+
+"Does she--does Mrs. Drelincourt know of this?"
+
+"With her the suspicion of such a thing is as far removed as Heaven is
+from hell."
+
+"Poor lady! Poor unhappy lady!"
+
+The words smote Drelincourt as an ice cold wind might have done. A
+shiver went through him from head to foot.
+
+Ormsby could no longer contain himself. "So, then, we have got the
+truth at last!" he burst out, a dull gleam of vindictive malice
+lighting up his little white lashed eyes. "At last the foul mystery
+which shrouded my poor sister's fate is dispelled, and the man who, in
+cold blood--for I tell you plainly that I attach not the slightest
+credit to your sleep walking rigmarole--slew the innocent being he had
+sworn to love and cherish through life stands revealed to the world as
+the miscreant he really is!"
+
+"Ormsby--for God's sake----" broke in Sir John.
+
+But Ormsby went on without heeding him.
+
+"For twenty years my sister's blood has cried aloud for vengeance,
+but, thank Heaven, it has not cried in vain! For twenty years the
+gallows has been waiting, and at length it shall be satisfied. The day
+you are hung, Drelincourt, shall be kept by me and mine as a holiday
+and festival, and so shall every anniversary of it be kept as long as
+I live."
+
+Drelincourt fixed him with two glittering eyes, but did not speak. He
+was standing with his back to the center table, and resting both hands
+upon it. It was a favorite attitude of his.
+
+Again Sir John felt compelled to protest.
+
+"Ormsby, I will not listen to this sort of thing any longer. It is
+shameful--shameful!"
+
+But the other had not done yet. He was determined to have his say out
+at every cost. The concentrated venom of years had at length found an
+outlet.
+
+"Somnambulism, indeed!" he sneered. "Tell that to the marines. Now we
+can understand why, twenty years ago, you were so anxious that Gumley
+should go scot free, and why you lied about the locket; for I have no
+doubt it was a lie. Now----"
+
+"Stop!" broke in Drelincourt, with uplifted right hand. "That is a
+point about which I have something to say. Knowing Gumley to be
+innocent of my wife's death, I did my best at the time to secure his
+acquittal; but bear in mind this--that had the verdict gone against
+him, I should most assuredly have given myself up then as I am giving
+myself up today. From the first I swore that, whatever else I might be
+guilty of, his death should not be laid to my charge. Sir John, a few
+moments, if you please."
+
+Out of the library there opened a much smaller room, where most of
+Roden Marsh's work was done. Towards this Drelincourt now led the way.
+
+"What can he have to say to Sir John that he doesn't want me to hear?"
+asked Ormsby of himself, as he stood staring after the others with a
+mingled expression of curiosity and distrust. "After all, what does it
+matter? It's enough for me that, of his own accord, Drelincourt has
+put the hangman's rope round his neck. Now that he has confessed, what
+a blind fool I feel myself to have been not to have suspected the
+truth long ago. A score of things occur to me, any one of which ought
+to have sufficed to give me an inkling of it. And yet, not even his
+wife has the ghost of a suspicion--or so he says! Then let me be the
+first to enlighten her! A score of years ago his hand stabbed my
+sister to the heart; but there are more ways of stabbing a person to
+the heart than one."
+
+A slow, cruel smile crept over his face. He nodded his head twice, as
+if in approval of what he had decided upon. Then, seating himself at
+the writing table, and having sought for and found the requisite
+materials, for the next three or four minutes he wrote busily. When he
+had done, he inclosed what he had written in an envelope, addressed
+the latter, and rang the bell.
+
+"Give this into Mrs. Drelincourt's own hands--and as soon as
+possible," he said to Wicks, as he handed him the letter.
+
+"Ah-ha I my dear Drelincourt, that will serve to go part way in
+payment of the thousand and one sneers with which you have favored me
+at various times," he muttered, rubbing his hands gleefully as he rose
+from the table: "Let those laugh who win! The chance won't be given
+him of indulging in them much longer. No doubt he will favor the
+hangman with one of his most cynical smiles as that functionary
+adjusts the rope, and will say to him in those bland tones of his,
+which always seem to veil a sneer, 'My good friend, I hope you won't
+bungle this simple little affair.' The fellow has the cool effrontery
+of the Foul Fiend himself."
+
+"You may rely upon me, Drelincourt. Everything shall be carried out as
+you wish." It was Sir John who was speaking, as the two men came back
+from the inner room.
+
+Ormsby's face darkened. "If Sir John chooses to forget that this man
+is a criminal, I don't," he said to himself. Then, aloud: "Ahem! I
+presume you are now prepared, Sir John, to make out and sign a warrant
+for the committal of Mr. Drelincourt to Sunbridge jail, on the charge
+of which he has just admitted himself to be guilty!"
+
+"I can't, Ormsby--I can't. I couldn't put pen to paper just now to
+save my life," replied the kind hearted baronet, whose distress at the
+position in which circumstances had placed him was self-evident.
+"Besides, where's the need for a warrant? Drelincourt is giving
+himself up voluntarily, and--and the charge against him can be taken
+down at the proper time and place."
+
+"Just as you please, of course. Then, if you have no objection, I will
+ring for Draycot and give him the requisite instructions and have him
+carry them out now."
+
+"Ormsby, one moment," said Drelincourt. "I have a few words to say to
+you on a topic which it is my wish never to have to refer to again. It
+is in reference to your sister's death. Seeing that I have never
+attempted to cozen my conscience by putting forward any plea of
+justification for what I did, other than that it was done while I was
+asleep, it is not likely that at this time of day I should care to
+urge anything in extenuation of it, either to you or to any one.
+Still, I think it well that you should be told, although to no one
+else will the fact ever pass my lips, that your sister won me for her
+husband by an act of treachery so base and heartless that I will spare
+you the pain of listening to any of its details. Believe me or not, as
+you please, but such is the simple truth. And now, Sir John, with your
+permission, I will say a few words to my wife, after which I shall be
+wholly at your disposal. I do not doubt but that you will allow me
+such a privilege."
+
+He bowed gravely to both gentlemen, then turned and went. As he shut
+the door behind him and walked into the room a deep sigh welled up
+from his heart.
+
+"And now for the bitterest ordeal of all!" he murmured under his
+breath.
+
+"Our business here is at an end, and the sooner we get away the
+better," remarked Sir John to Ormsby.
+
+"So say I. But it will be requisite to see Draycot for a minute before
+we go, as he must now take upon himself the responsibility of looking
+after Drelincourt. I suppose he will prefer being driven into
+Sunbridge in his brougham. Well, there's no harm in that. It's the
+last time he will ride in it."
+
+Sir John was already at the door. As Ormsby followed him out, he said
+to himself, half aloud: "Thank Heaven that I have lived to see this
+day. At last, my poor Kitty, at last you are avenged!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+LAST THINGS.
+
+
+The note given by Mr. Ormsby to Wicks was placed by that functionary
+on the table in Mrs. Drelincourt's boudoir. Although he had been told
+to deliver it at once, he took no notice of the request. His mistress
+was probably in her dressing room, and the note might wait till she
+came downstairs. He was not going to put himself out of the way to
+please Mr. Ormsby, whose imperative mode of addressing him had cut his
+superfine feelings to the quick.
+
+On entering the room a little later, Drelincourt failed to perceive
+the note. He sank into an easy chair, and supporting an elbow on
+either of its arms, he let his chin rest on his interlocked fingers.
+He was awaiting the coming of his wife.
+
+The boudoir was lighted by a large oriel window, the upper half of
+which contained a representation in stained glass of the coat of arms
+and device of the Drelincourts.
+
+After waiting a few minutes, Drelincourt rose in order to ring the
+bell. The sands in his hour glass were running quickly away. As he
+crossed the room, he caught sight of the letter, and he at once picked
+it up. The superscription was in a peculiar, crabbed hand, which, as
+he looked at it, seemed to grow familiar under his eyes. Then the
+truth flashed across him: the writing was James Ormsby's. He had seen
+more than one specimen of it in years gone by, and his memory was a
+tenacious one. He could not be mistaken.
+
+"Now, what can Ormsby have to write about to my wife?" he asked
+himself. "He owes me a grudge, or fancies he does, and now that, of my
+own accord, I have put myself beyond his reach, it would be just like
+him to vent the last drops of his spite on Madeline. She must not be
+allowed to read what he has written till I have thoroughly satisfied
+myself that it is fit for her to see."
+
+Without more ado, he tore open the note. Here is what he read:
+
+
+Madam:
+
+I consider it my duty to inform you that your husband has just
+confessed that he, and he alone, was the murderer of my sister, the
+first Mrs. Drelincourt.
+
+James Ormsby.
+
+
+"The caitiff!--the coward! To aim a final blow at me through
+Madeline." He groaned out the words between his teeth. His strong,
+lean fingers gripped the note, as they would have gripped Ormsby's
+throat had he been there.
+
+A tap at the door recalled him to himself. Next moment Wicks entered,
+carrying a letter on a salver.
+
+"Just brought by a mounted messenger, sir. The man is waiting in case
+there should be any answer."
+
+Not without surprise, Drelincourt saw that the address was in his
+wife's writing. He opened the envelope, extracted the contents, and
+read as follows:
+
+
+Dear Felix:
+
+Do not be more surprised than you can help when I tell you that I am
+writing this at the Dun Cow Inn, Overthwaite. The explanation is very
+simple.
+
+I was standing on the terrace when Sir John Musgrave and Mr. Ormsby
+drove up, but they seemed too much preoccupied to see me. After they
+had entered the house, I descended the steps and turned into the
+drive, which I find pleasantly shady these hot afternoons. Presently I
+saw a dog cart coming along at a rapid pace, the driver of which
+pulled up on reaching me, and asked whether I was Mrs. Drelincourt.
+When satisfied on the point, he told me that he had been sent by his
+master, the landlord of the Dun Cow, to inform us that Mr. Walter
+Deane had been thrown by his horse, and was lying with a broken ankle
+at the inn in question.
+
+I must tell you that a little while before you reached home this
+afternoon Wally set off on the bay mare, in the hope of meeting you on
+your road back, and imparting to you the news about Roden Marsh, so
+that, if you chose to do so, you could ride direct into Sunbridge
+before coming to Fairlawn. How you and he missed each other I cannot
+imagine.
+
+Well, when the man had told me his news, I did not wait to go back to
+the house in order to break it to you--I had no doubt you were engaged
+with your visitors--or to Marian, but climbed into the dog cart beside
+him, and was driven here its rapidly as possible. As you know,
+Overthwaite is not quite three miles from Fairlawn.
+
+I found poor Walter already in the doctor's hands. The fracture is a
+bad one, and, as a matter of course, he will be laid up for some weeks
+to come. He will remain overnight where he is, and I shall stay with
+him; but I hope, with the doctor's sanction, to have him transferred
+to Fairlawn in the course of tomorrow. Perhaps you can make it
+convenient to ride over after breakfast and ascertain how we are
+getting on.
+
+I leave you to tell Marian as much or as little as you may think best.
+
+Your loving wife,
+
+     Madeline.
+
+
+Wicks was still waiting. Drelincourt, after considering for a few
+moments, said to him: "Tell the messenger there is no answer."
+
+"It is well--it is better so," he continued half aloud, when the man
+had gone. "We are spared a parting, and I a confession, which would
+have racked the hearts of both. This will tell her all after I am gone
+that is needful for her to know." As he spoke, he took a sealed packet
+from his breast pocket and laid it on the table. It was addressed to
+his wife.
+
+"She, at least, will not condemn me," he resumed. "She sees with the
+large eyes of love and charity. She will read and understand. My image
+will not be deposed in her heart. My memory will be cherished by her
+while she has breath to speak my name."
+
+He took a slow turn or two from end to end of the room. Then he spoke
+again.
+
+"Not long will she stay after I am gone. The thread of her life is
+frail--very frail. She will make haste to follow me."
+
+A tap at the door was followed by the entrance of Marian. She paused
+with the open door in her hand.
+
+"I am looking for mamma," said the girl. "I can't find her anywhere.
+And Wally, who ought to have been back long ago, has not yet returned.
+What can have become of them?"
+
+"Shall I enlighten you? Yes? Well, then, at the present moment the
+pair of them may be found at the inn named Dun Cow, in the village of
+Overthwaite, a couple of miles away."
+
+"But, good gracious, papa, whatever are they doing there?"
+
+"Ah, that's a question you must not ask me, or, at any rate, one I
+must not answer. Perhaps I have divulged too much already. But shall I
+tell you what I should do in your place?"
+
+"If you please, papa."
+
+"I should ask Robert to drive me over in the pony chaise to the Dun
+Cow, and take the pair of them unawares. By so doing I fancy you will
+surprise them quite as much as they are plotting to surprise you."
+
+"That will be very jolly."
+
+"'Won't it?"
+
+"Are you aware, papa, that Mr. Draycot is pacing the entrance hall,
+waiting to see you?"
+
+"I shall be ready to see him in the course of a few minutes. By the
+way, you may as well give me your good night kiss before you go. I
+shall be engaged when you return, and shall not care to be disturbed."
+
+Marian flung her arms round his neck in impulsive fashion, and kissed
+him a number of times. Then he pressed her to his heart for a moment,
+and it seemed to her that she heard a whispered "Heaven bless you, my
+child!" She glanced up into his face with a momentary surprise, for he
+was not used to being demonstrative; but she read nothing there. The
+eyes that met hers were calm and shining, and on his features was the
+stamp of a great serenity.
+
+"You darling daddy!" exclaimed the girl, as she pulled his ear
+playfully. "You don't half know how much I love you."
+
+When she was gone and the door shut behind, her, he could hear her
+singing as she went. He stood without stirring till the sound had died
+away.
+
+Then a deep sigh welled up from his heart. "The last link is severed,"
+he said, as he turned away. "Winslow will act a father's part by her
+till she marries. In years to come, when she has a husband and
+children of her own, all this will seem like a dream of old, unhappy,
+far off things. So, now to bid the world a long goodby!"
+
+Taking out of his pocket the vial given him by Roden Marsh some days
+before, he held it up to the light. But at this moment there came
+another knock. Replacing the vial in his pocket, he went to the door,
+opened it and disclosed Draycot.
+
+"I am sorry to disturb you, Mr. Drelincourt," said the chief
+constable--"more sorry than I can say. But time is running on, and Mr.
+Ormsby's instructions were most imperative."
+
+"Five minutes, only five more minutes, Draycot, and then, my good
+fellow, you shall do with me as you will."
+
+"All right, Mr. Drelincourt. You'll excuse me, sir, I'm sure, but duty
+is duty." With that he shut the door, turned on his heel, and strode
+back to his post in the entrance hall.
+
+Drelincourt went back to the easy chair and seated himself on one of
+its low, broad arms. His features were tense and drawn, but his
+marvelous command over himself was in no wise shaken.
+
+"How the evening sun lights up that window and brings out the motto of
+my ancestors: _J'espère toujours. Tojours j'espère!_ Who shall dare to
+sound the depths of infinite compassion? Even for such as I there may
+be hope. 'Swift and painless' were the Italian doctor's words when he
+gave me this." He was gazing at the vial, which lay in the palm of his
+hand. "Now to find out whether he spoke the truth!"
+
+With that he stood up and put the unstoppered vial to his lips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+WITH ALL SPEED.
+
+
+On quitting Fairlawn, which they did together after their interview
+with Drelincourt, Sir John Musgrave and Mr. Ormsby parted at the park
+gates, each going his own way. The baronet took the road to Sunbridge,
+and, picking up a brother magistrate en route, drove with him direct
+to the jail. There Roden Marsh was at once summoned before them, and
+having been severely lectured for his insane act, was forthwith
+ordered to be set at liberty. Mr. Drelincourt's voluntary confession
+that he, and he alone, was the guilty person obviated all necessity
+for Rodd's further confinement.
+
+He left the jail fearing the worst, his heart tortured with anxiety of
+the most poignant kind. His proffered sacrifice had been contemned,
+and, so far as he could judge, had merely been the means of
+precipitating a catastrophe to avert which he would willingly have
+given his life's blood. His one burning desire just now was to reach
+Fairlawn with all possible speed.
+
+That his being there would avail to dissuade Felix from his rash
+purpose he greatly doubted, but not willingly would he throw away the
+faintest chance. Perhaps, even now, he might be too late!
+
+The jail at Sunbridge was little more than a stone's cast from the
+railway station, and no sooner was the grim portal shut behind him
+than he hurried off to the latter, with the intention of hiring a cab
+in which to be driven to Fairlawn. It was growing dark by this time,
+and the station lamps were being lighted one by one.
+
+A train had arrived a few minutes earlier, and every cab but one had
+been engaged. Towards this one he now made his way, but only reached
+it in time to see the door banged by the driver, and to find that it
+had already an occupant. With a muttered anathema, he glanced inside
+the cab, and then, not a little to his surprise, saw that the person
+about to be driven off in it was none other than Mrs. Jenwyn.
+
+The same instant it struck him that if her destination was Wyvern
+Towers, the one cab would serve the purpose of both. It appeared that
+the recognition had been mutual, and, in point of fact, Mrs. Jenwyn
+was the first to speak.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Marsh, is that you?" she began, addressing him through the
+cab window. "I am very glad to see you, because you can perhaps inform
+me whether I am likely to find Mr. Drelincourt at Fairlawn."
+
+"I have every reason to believe you will find him there. But--pardon
+the question--are you bound for Fairlawn?"
+
+"That is my destination. I have just arrived from London, where I have
+been staying for the last few days, and wish to see Mr. Drelincourt,
+and with as little delay as possible, about a matter of very special
+importance."
+
+"I, too, am bound for Fairlawn--and in a hurry," said Roden, hiding
+the surprise he could not help feeling. "So, as there is not another
+cab left on the stand, if you will kindly allow me to share yours, you
+will be rendering me a great service."
+
+"Why, certainly. I shall be very glad of your company, Mr. Marsh, and
+we can talk as we go along."
+
+So Roden, having given his orders to the driver, got inside, and away
+they rattled; but all talking was out of the question till they had
+left the paved streets of the town behind them, and were well out on
+the quiet country road.
+
+Then said Mrs. Jenwyn: "My errand to Fairlawn is a very singular one,
+as I have no doubt you will admit, Mr. Marsh, when I have explained to
+you what it is."
+
+"I am all curiosity," replied Roden, which was not far from being the
+truth.
+
+"It is the fact, is it not, that a man named Gumley is lying under
+sentence of death in Sunbridge jail as being the supposed murderer of
+the first Mrs. Drelincourt?"
+
+"The fact is as you state it. But why do you say as being the
+'supposed' murderer of Mrs. Drelincourt?"
+
+"Because I am in a position to prove that the man in question had
+nothing whatever to do with the crime for which he has been convicted,
+and it is with the view of laying my evidence to that effect before
+Mr. Drelincourt that I am now on my way to Fairlawn."
+
+For a little while sheer amazement held Rodd speechless. But presently
+came a question which, under the circumstances, was almost inevitable:
+"You have indeed surprised me, Mrs. Jenwyn; but if you are in a
+position to prove Gumley's innocence, you are, perhaps, equally in a
+position to bring the real criminal's guilt home to him?"
+
+"I am."
+
+Again Rodd's thoughts held him silent for a little while. Then he said
+tentatively: "Mr. Drelincourt----" and then he was silent.
+
+"What of him?"
+
+"You say that you are on your road to see him about this very matter
+of Gumley's?"
+
+"That is so."
+
+"Then you do not know, you cannot have heard, that this very
+afternoon, In order to save Gumley's life, Mr. Drelincourt gave
+himself up as the murderer of his wife!"
+
+"Mr. Drelincourt his wife's murderer? No! No!" The words were uttered
+almost in a shriek.
+
+"That is what he has confessed to being."
+
+"Then he has confessed to a falsehood. It is not true, I tell you. I
+can prove it. Mr. Drelincourt had no more hand in his wife's death
+than you or I had."
+
+Rodd pinched his arm as if to convince himself that he was really
+awake. Was Mrs. Jenwyn in her right mind? Was she not laboring under
+one of those strange hallucinations to which some persons seem
+constitutionally liable? Perhaps she would tell him, in addition, that
+she herself was really the criminal!
+
+Was there a word of truth in what she had just asseverated with such
+extraordinary emphasis? He greatly doubted it. And yet if there should
+be! The mere thought of such a thing turned him dizzy.
+
+A burning curiosity got the better of his discretion. "The real
+criminal was----" He paused for a moment, as if expecting Mrs. Jenwyn
+to fill up the hiatus.
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Marsh," she said, "but what I have to reveal must
+first of all be told Mr. Drelincourt. When that has been done, the
+affair will be out of my hands. But you, in your turn, can tell me
+something, provided there is no objection to your doing so. By what
+circumstances was Mr. Drelincourt influenced in coming to his strange
+determination to charge himself with the commission of a crime of
+which he is wholly guiltless?"
+
+Rodd told himself that, although she had not answered his question,
+there was no reason why he should not answer hers.
+
+"In early life Mr. Drelincourt was addicted to walking in his sleep,
+and it was while he was in one of his fits of somnambulism that he
+believed himself to have been guilty of the death of his wife. I need
+not trouble you with the details of the evidence which seemed to bring
+the crime irresistibly home to him; it will be enough to remark that
+both to him and me--for all the particulars of the affair have been
+known to me from the first--it appeared absolutely conclusive. And
+yet, Mrs. Jenwyn, you now assert, and in the most positive terms, that
+Mr. Drelincourt's belief had absolutely no foundation of fact!"
+
+"I do assert it, and at the proper time and place I shall be prepared
+to prove my words."
+
+Roden Marsh sank back in his seat with a great sigh of contentment.
+However amazing it might seem, he could no longer doubt that Mrs.
+Jenwyn was in a position to carry out all that she had undertaken to
+do. Her words and manner were convincing.
+
+About the details of the story she had come prepared to tell he cared
+little; it was enough for him to know that the dread burden which had
+weighed upon them for so many years would at length be lifted off the
+shoulders of his beloved foster brother, never to be reimposed. With
+the question of whose shoulders it was about to be transferred to he
+did not trouble himself at all.
+
+But a moment later he cried out: "Shall I get there in time? Shall I
+arrive before it is to late?" They were questions which lit a flame of
+torment within him.
+
+He took out his repeater and struck the hour. Then, protruding his
+head and half his body out of the cab window, he shouted to the man on
+the box: "Drive hard--drive fast! There will be a sovereign for you if
+you get there in a quarter of an hour."
+
+The driver gave a whoop and cracked his whip. Never had the old horse
+in the fly been driven at such a pace before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+THE SECRET OF WYVERN TOWERS.
+
+
+To return to Drelincourt. As has been said, he had the unstoppered
+vial to his lips, and was about to drain the contents, when the door
+was thrown open and Roden Marsh rushed into the room.
+
+With one sweep of his arm he dashed the bottle from Drelincourt's
+hand, crying out: "Thank God, I am not too late!"
+
+But Drelincourt gazed at him with reproachful eyes.
+
+"Why have you thwarted me, Rodd?" he said.
+
+"Because you would have made the most frightful mistake of your life;
+because there is no need of your sacrificing yourself for Gumley;
+because the real murderer has been discovered!"
+
+Rodd got out all this in a breath and then dropped into a chair,
+panting from the haste with which he had come and the excitement which
+possessed him.
+
+"The real murderer has been discovered!" Drelincourt gasped. "Then
+I----"
+
+"Had nothing whatever to do with it, as Mrs. Jenwyn will tell you. She
+is here now, waiting impatiently to see you."
+
+"But what has she----"
+
+"That she will tell you herself. I will bring her at once;" And Rodd
+started up.
+
+But Drelincourt laid a detaining hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Wait," he said. "Give me a few moments. I can scarcely realize yet
+that--that I am not in another world."
+
+It was ten minutes later that Mrs. Jenwyn and Drelincourt were left
+alone.
+
+They had shaken hands, and, at her host's request, she had seated
+herself on a chair opposite his own, on the other side of the hearth.
+
+Drelincourt lost no time in coming to the point.
+
+"Roden Marsh tells me that you are the bearer of some very remarkable
+news," he said, "and, in point of fact, that your visit here tonight
+was on purpose to make it known to me. Is that so, may I ask?"
+
+"It was that, and nothing else, which brought me to Fairlawn."
+
+"I am given to understand that the information you wish to impart to
+me is concerned with the death of my first wife."
+
+"That is so."
+
+"You know already from Roden Marsh that I have all along laid her
+death at my own door. I had every reason for believing that I had
+killed her while in a somnambulistic state, but Roden tells me you
+assert most positively that my belief was utterly baseless."
+
+"I do assert it, Mr. Drelincourt."
+
+"Such an assertion presupposes a knowledge on your part of the guilty
+person."
+
+Mrs. Jenwyn bowed.
+
+"Are you prepared to name the person in question?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+Mr. Drelincourt sat up in his chair. A hectic spot burned in either
+cheek. His whole frame was a-tingle with excitement.
+
+"The person to whom your first wife owed her death was none other than
+your half sister, Anna Drelincourt."
+
+Slowly, clearly, and unhesitatingly fell the words. Mrs. Jenwyn had
+come purposely to declare the truth, and the more simply she put it
+the better.
+
+"Great Heavens! You don't mean to say that!"
+
+"I have told you the simple truth."
+
+For a little while they sat in silence. Drelincourt seemed utterly
+overcome. Anna's name was the last he would have picked out with all
+the world to choose from. And yet----
+
+"Go on, please. Tell me all you know of the dreadful affair," he said,
+after a time.
+
+"Anna, poor girl, was no more mistress of her actions at the time it
+happened than you, Mr. Drelincourt, had reason to believe yourself to
+be master of yours. Just then she was laboring under one of her
+recurrent attacks of mania. At such times, as you are aware, in all
+her actions, thoughts, and habits, she became again as a child of ten.
+
+"But there were occasions when darker symptoms would betray
+themselves, when I caught little glimpses below the surface which
+caused even me who knew her so well and loved her so dearly to tremble
+and ask myself what still darker fate the future might have in store
+for her. Of such symptoms, however, I said nothing to any one. Where
+would have been the use of my doing so? No one could help her, nothing
+more could be done for her than had been already done. The future must
+be left to care for itself.
+
+"To come to the fatal morning.
+
+"Anna and I slept in separate rooms, with a door between, which, by
+her wish, was always kept open at night. I may add that it was my
+practice to sleep with my bunch of keys under my pillow. On the
+morning in question I awoke earlier than usual, and while the day was
+still very young. There was upon me an uneasy sense of something being
+wrong.
+
+"Instinctively I felt for my keys. They were gone. I was out of bed in
+an instant, and, crossing to Anna's room, I looked in. It was empty.
+Then I noticed that the outer door of my room, which opened into the
+anteroom, was slightly ajar. Only giving myself time to thrust my feet
+into a pair of slippers and to wrap a shawl round my shoulders, I
+started to look for Anna, dreading I knew not what.
+
+"The first thing I saw was my bunch of keys hanging from the lock of
+the baize covered door, one of which had been used to open it. From
+the anteroom I passed into the corridor, the doors opening into which
+were all shut, and so went swiftly forward till I reached the gallery
+at the head of the great staircase. Still there was no sign of Anna.
+
+"While hesitating what to do next, I perceived that the door of Mrs.
+Drelincourt's dressing room was partly open. It seemed to me a most
+unlikely thing that I should find Anna there, yet it was impossible to
+answer for her actions while she was as she was. Before descending to
+the lower parts of the house I would satisfy myself so far. (I knew
+that you, sir, were away at the Cot.) Pushing wider the dressing room
+door, I went in and then paused. A slight noise in the bedroom drew me
+forward; on the soft carpet my footsteps were inaudible.
+
+"Peeping cautiously through the divided portière, I beheld Anna
+standing by Mrs. Drelincourt's bed, still grasping the stiletto with
+which she had just accomplished her dreadful purpose. Her face was
+towards me, and the expression it wore just then I can never forget;
+my dreams were haunted by it for months afterwards. While gazing thus
+at her handiwork, a low maniacal laugh broke from her lips. A moment
+later she tossed the stiletto away, and made for the portière. I had
+barely time to shelter myself behind a screen before she passed me,
+going straight out of the room.
+
+"Scarcely had she disappeared before I was in the bed chamber. I
+quickly satisfied myself that Mrs. Drelincourt was dead. For her
+nothing could be done, and my one thought now was how I could best
+screen the culprit. When I got back to my rooms, I found her fast
+asleep in bed, a lovely color mantling her cheeks, and her lips parted
+with a childlike smile.
+
+"That morning, I remember, she slept a little later than usual, but
+when she awoke she was as gay and as full of innocent fun as, at such
+times, she nearly always was. She had slain Mrs. Drelincourt (whom, I
+have reason to know, she secretly hated) in a temporary access of
+homicidal mania, but her memory, on awaking, retained no recollection
+of it whatever."
+
+Mrs. Jenwyn ceased speaking, and Drelincourt was slow to break the
+silence which ensued.
+
+At length he said: "You have succeeded in astonishing me more, Mrs.
+Jenwyn, than I was ever astonished before. But that is a point on
+which I will not expatiate at present. May I take it that you never
+said anything to my poor sister about what you had witnessed in my
+wife's bed room?"
+
+"Not a hint nor a syllable about it ever passed my lips to her."
+
+"So that she lived and died in utter ignorance of that terrible
+morning's work?"
+
+Mrs. Jenwyn bowed affirmatively.
+
+"From the bottom of my heart, madam, I thank you for your wise
+reticence. While it would have benefited nobody to have revealed what
+you knew to Anna, it would have distressed her infinitely, and, in all
+probability, would have tended to shorten her life. For her sake I
+shall always hold myself your debtor. But tell me this, please. In
+case Gumley, after his arrest twenty years ago, had been brought to
+trial and found guilty, as he has been now, what action would have
+been taken by you? Or should you have taken any at all?"
+
+"I should have done at that time precisely what I have done today: I
+should have sought an interview with you, and have revealed to you
+everything that was known to me."
+
+It was evident to Drelincourt that Mrs. Jenwyn had been actuated by
+precisely the same motives that had prevailed with himself.
+
+To the widow it seemed that the time had now come when she might ask a
+question on her own account.
+
+"And now, sir, that I have told you all this," she said, "will you
+kindly inform me, in return, what step it will be needful for me to
+take."
+
+Mr. Drelincourt considered for a few moments. Then he said: "As it
+seems to me, the proper thing to do will be for both of us to put in
+an appearance in the morning before the Sunbridge magistrates, when
+you can depose on oath to the truth of what you have told me here
+tonight. What will happen after that I cannot tell. The joint wisdom
+of our friends on the bench will decide that point for us."
+
+After a little further conversation, the housekeeper was summoned, and
+Mrs. Jenwyn given into her charge. Breakfast would be on the table at
+nine, her host told her, and at ten the brougham would be in readiness
+to drive them into Sunbridge.
+
+The arrangement made by Drelincourt overnight was duly carried into
+effect next morning. The brougham conveyed Mrs. Jenwyn and him into
+Sunbridge, where they presented themselves before the bench of
+magistrates.
+
+At Drelincourt's request he was sworn first. To recapitulate his
+statement would be superfluous, what he had to tell being known to us
+already. Then came Mrs. Jenwyn's turn, the nature of whose evidence is
+equally known to us. After that the magistrates retired to their
+private room in order to consult together, with the result that the
+case was adjourned for a couple of days to allow of their taking legal
+opinion in the interim, bail being accepted for the reappearance of
+Drelincourt and Mrs. Jenwyn.
+
+At the adjourned inquiry no charge was preferred against the former,
+but the widow was committed for trial at the autumn assizes, on the
+count of being accessory after the fact to the murder of the first
+Mrs. Drelincourt. That such a charge, bearing in mind the peculiar
+character of the case, should involve any more severe penalty than a
+very limited term of imprisonment was what nobody believed or
+expected. Meanwhile, Mrs. Jenwyn was released on bail, the surety for
+her appearance at the assize bar being no other than Felix
+Drelincourt.
+
+Long before this the latter had told everything to his wife. With what
+passed between them on the occasion we have nothing to do. This,
+however, may be said; that, woman-like, Mrs. Drelincourt thought far
+more of the lack of confidence in her as a wife which her husband's
+confession revealed than she did of anything else he had to tell her.
+
+When the Sunbridge autumn assizes came on, Mrs. Jenwyn failed to put
+in an appearance, nor was she anywhere to be found. As a consequence,
+Mr. Drelincourt's bail was estreated, for which he was by no means
+sorry. He would rather have forfeited the amount twice over than have
+had the details of poor Anna's unhappy story related in a court of
+justice.
+
+Some time before this Gumley had been released under an order from the
+Home Office.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Secret of Wyvern Towers, by T. W. Speight
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57616 ***