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diff --git a/57815-0.txt b/57815-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c2934a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/57815-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5602 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57815 *** + + + + + + + + + + + + + +A SECRET OF THE SEA. + + + + + + +Transcriber's Notes (Volume 3): + 1. Page scan source: Web Archive + https://archive.org/details/secretofseanovel03spei + (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) + + + + + + +A SECRET OF THE SEA. + + +A Novel. + + +By T. W. SPEIGHT, +AUTHOR OF +"IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT," "UNDER LOCK AND KEY," ETC., ETC. + + +IN THREE VOLUMES. +VOL. III. + + + + +LONDON: +RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON. +1876. + +(_All Rights Reserved_.) + + + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOL. III. +CHAPTER + + I. ELEANOR'S RESOLVE. + II. POD'S STRATAGEM. + III. VAN DUREN'S DREAM. + IV. PRINGLE'S DISCOVERY. + V. A FOUND LETTER. + VI. VAN DUREN IN WALES. + VII. THE MESSAGE TO STAMMARS. + VIII. WINGED WORDS. + IX. VAN DUREN'S FLIGHT. + X. TOLD AT LAST. + XI. "AND YOU SHALL STILL BE LADY CLARE." + XII. THE STRONG-ROOM. + XIII. CONCLUSION. + + + + + + +A SECRET OF THE SEA. + + + +CHAPTER I. +ELEANOR'S RESOLVE. + + +"I'm in no particular hurry, doctor, to get back to London," Sir +Thomas Dudgeon had quietly hinted to his medical man. "I daresay the +House can get on without me quite as well as with me, so you needn't +hurry yourself to say I'm fit for harness again till you feel quite +sure in your own mind that I am so." + +Dr. Welstead was not slow to take the hint, and he kept on calling at +Stammars two or three times a week, and sending one innocuous draught +after another, which draughts Sir Thomas conscientiously poured into +the ash-pan when his wife was not looking, till the baronet's holiday +had extended itself to the beginning of May. But by this time Sir +Thomas looked so well and rosy, and was in possession of such a hearty +appetite, that a vague suspicion that she was being duped began to +haunt her ladyship's mind. She said nothing to her husband, but made +her preparations in silence. Then, one morning at the breakfast-table, +the shell exploded. + +"To-day is Wednesday, dear," she said, "and I have made all +arrangements for our going up to town on Saturday morning. Dr. +Welstead seems quite at a loss how to treat you: indeed, country +practitioners, as a rule, are not competent to deal with anything +beyond a simple case of measles; so on Saturday afternoon I will +myself drive you to see Sir Knox Timpany, and wait for you while you +consult that eminent authority, who, I doubt not, will make you as +well as ever you were, in the course of a very few days." + +Sir Thomas fumed and fretted, but her ladyship was inexorable. Go he +must; and when he saw there was no help for it, he made a merit of +necessity; but at the same time he registered a silent vow that not +all the wives in England should drag him to the door of Sir Knox +Timpany. + +At the last moment, however, the baronet and Gerald started for London +alone. Late on Friday, Lady Dudgeon received a telegram. Her only +sister was very ill, and it was needful that she should hurry off +without an hour's delay. "Considering all that I have done for +Caroline, it is really very ungrateful of her to be ill at a time like +this," she grumbled to her husband. "She knew how anxious I was to get +back to town, and she might have doctored herself up for another month +or two. I hope to goodness she won't die till the season is over. I +can't bear myself in mourning." + +"Your only sister, my dear," remarked Sir Thomas, soothingly. "I +wouldn't leave her, if I were you, while there's the least danger. +Your conscience might prick you afterwards, you know." + +"Stuff!" was her ladyship's rejoinder. "Of course, I shall do what is +proper; but if I were to die to-morrow, Caroline's first thought would +be how soon after that event she might begin to wear flounces again." + +Without wishing his sister-in-law any harm, Sir Thomas would not have +been sorry if her illness had kept his wife at her bedside for half a +year. The thought of having a few weeks, or even a few days, in +London, without being supervised by her ladyship, was to bring back +the feelings of his youth when school broke up for the summer +holidays. In fact, during the three weeks that elapsed before her +ladyship joined him in town, he was more like a schoolboy let loose +than the fancy sketch of him with which the _Pembridge Gazette_ one week +favoured its readers, wherein he was described as a senator, grave and +staid, whose trained and powerful intellect was perpetually engaged in +grappling with the most tremendous social and political problems of +the age. + +After a little dinner, quiet and early, at which Gerald generally sat +down with him, Sir Thomas would post off to the House. But an hour or +an hour and a half there was quite enough for him. Whist and a prime +cigar at his club were far preferable to prosy speeches by people whom +he did not know, and on subjects about which he did not care twopence. + +Since the day of his confession in the library, Gerald had seen very +little of Eleanor. If they met casually in passing from one room to +another, a bow and a faint smile was all the greeting that passed +between them. When they met at the dinner-table, no ordinary observer +would have noticed any difference in their demeanour towards each +other. Gerald talked as much as ever he had done: he knew that Sir +Thomas and his wife liked him to make talk for them: but fewer of his +observations were now addressed directly to Miss Lloyd than used to be +the case at one time. Sometimes he even turned over the music for +Eleanor when she played after dinner; but had Lady Dudgeon been the +most Argus-eyed of dowagers, instead of the most unsuspicious, she +could not possibly have found fault with his demeanour on such +occasions. He was Sir Thomas Dudgeon's secretary--and nothing more. + +Eleanor had received his confession in a spirit somewhat different +from what he had expected. He had thought that her pride would be more +deeply wounded by the deception he had practised on her than it +appeared to be. That it was wounded, he knew full well; but when he +parted from her at the close of the interview, he did not fail to +notice the quiver of her lip, and the longing, wistful look in her +eyes. In his previous thoughts of her, it was evident he had not +calculated sufficiently on the effect which his frank confession and +prayer for forgiveness would have on a generous and loving disposition +like that of Eleanor. It seemed by no means unlikely, as Gerald said +to himself afterwards, when thinking over the interview, that she had +indeed so far forgiven him as to make his reinstatement in her regards +the question merely of a little time and perseverance; and under other +circumstances he would not have allowed a day to pass without +attempting a renewal of his suit. But fixed as he was just then, he +could not bring his mind to the adoption of such a course. That he had +fallen somewhat in Eleanor's esteem, that he had sunk to a lower level +in her thoughts, he could not doubt; and however much she might feel +inclined to forgive him, it was questionable whether--had the +circumstances of the case really been such as she believed them to +be--she could ever have looked upon him with quite the same eyes as +before. Such a change as this Gerald did not care to face. He +preferred that, for a little while, she should think all was over +between them; that he had given up all thoughts of winning her for his +wife. He knew that before very long she would have to be told +everything, and till that time should come he would speak no word of +love to her again. The more hardly she thought of him now, the greater +would be the re-bound towards him when, from other lips than his, she +should hear the whole strange story that must soon be told her. + +About a fortnight after sending his first letter to Kelvin, Gerald +followed it up with another. But again came the same answer as before, +that Mr. Kelvin was still too ill to attend to business. Gerald was +debating in his own mind as to the advisability of going over to +Pembridge and seeking an interview with Kelvin, when the receipt of +certain news from Ambrose Murray decided him to wait a short time +longer. Murray told him the result of the inquiries in Wales, and how +he and Peter Byrne were going to start for Marhyddoc in the course of +a few days; and Gerald was entreated to follow them as quickly as +possible. Under these circumstances there seemed to Gerald no +necessity for troubling Kelvin any further at present. Should Ambrose +Murray find that which he was going to Wales to search for, then would +all necessity for concealment on his part be at an end. One of his +first acts would be to ask for the daughter who knew him not. Then +would come the time for Gerald to say who and what he was. His first +act after Eleanor knew that he was no longer John Pomeroy, the poor +secretary, but Gerald Warburton, the heir to Mr. Lloyd's wealth, would +be to tell her how truly he still loved her, and to ask her to become +his wife. Let her, for a week or two longer, think that he had yielded +her up without a struggle: in a very little while she should discover +that no power on earth could make him yield her up--nothing, save her +own deliberate dismissal of him, could do that. + +Thus it was that Gerald left Stammars without saying a word of +farewell to Eleanor; and she, sitting half heart-broken by the window +of her own room, saw him drive off to the station, and cried after +him, "Oh, my darling, why have you left me? Perhaps I shall never see +you again." + +Gerald had only done Eleanor simple justice when he said to himself +that she was ready to forgive and forget the past. "He has confessed +everything to me, and confession is atonement," she said to herself +"He need not have said a word to me, had he been so minded; but the +very fact of his telling me is proof sufficient that he is no longer +seeking to win me for my money, but for myself only." + +Day by day she had been expecting to receive some word, some look +even, from him which would tell her that his feelings were still +unchanged; but day passed after day, and neither word nor look was +vouchsafed her. She was chilled and hurt by Gerald's persistent +silence and evident avoidance of her. Could it be, she asked herself, +that he thought he had sinned past forgiveness? To prove that such was +not the case, she would be more gracious and complaisant towards him +than she had ever been before. She would endeavour to let him see, as +far as a modest maiden might do so, that he had nothing to fear; that +the past was forgiven, and that the future rested with himself alone. +But Gerald might have been made of marble, so cold and impassive did +he seem to the tender-hearted girl, who had only discovered of late +how fondly she loved him. + +Then her pride came to her aid, and she tried her best to emulate +Gerald's indifference. She laughed and talked, and seemed altogether +merrier than of old; but no one knew what she suffered in the solitude +of her own room. + +Now it was that she determined to put into execution a project that +had been more or less in her thoughts for a longtime. She was tired of +the empty, frivolous life that she had been leading for some time +past. It had seemed very pleasant to her while the freshness lasted, +but that had now worn off, and she had made up her mind that she would +have no more of it--or only a taste of it now and then as a relief +from more serious duties. What she wanted was some plain, earnest work +to do--some work that would benefit others as well as herself For a +long time she had seemed like one groping in the dark; but at last she +thought she saw a clear line of duty marked out for her footsteps, the +following of which might not be altogether without avail. + +And now her purpose grew firm within her. All was at an end between +her and Pomeroy. She had only herself to consult. In hard work she +might, perchance, find an anodyne for her wound. In any case, she +would try to do so. + +"I suppose, my dear, that you won't object to give me a month this +autumn?" said Lady Dudgeon to her husband, as they sat together one +morning, about a couple of days before their projected return to +London. + +"Oh, ho! it's come to that, has it?" answered the baronet. "Well, I +suppose you must have your own way in the matter, although you know +that I hate both the place and the class of people one meets there. I +suppose we can take Eleanor with us? It will be a treat to her, and +company for you." + +"Eleanor's a little fool!" + +"Possibly so; you know best, I dare say." + +"She tells me that she is going to leave us." + +"Eleanor going to leave us!" + +Sir Thomas looked quite dumbfounded. At this moment Eleanor entered +the room. + +"What is this I hear, little one?" he cried. "You are not going to +leave us, surely?" + +"For a little while, dear Sir Thomas. Perhaps not for long," answered +Eleanor. + +"I'm sorry for that--very sorry indeed. I had grown to like you almost +as much as if you were a daughter of my own." + +Tears came into Eleanor's eyes. She crossed the room, and taking Sir +Thomas's hand in both hers, pressed it to her lips. + +"My gratitude--my love, if you care for it--will always be yours! I +can never repay even a tithe of the kindness shown me by Lady Dudgeon +and yourself." + +"Eleanor, I have no patience with you!" cried Lady Dudgeon, dipping +her pen viciously in the inkstand. + +"But where is the girl going, and what is she going to do?" asked the +baronet. + +"Let her answer for herself." + +"You will think it very strange of me, I dare say," said Eleanor; "but +Miss Mulhouse, whose name is no doubt familiar to you, has offered to +find me a position in one of the Homes for Destitute Girls, which she +is trying to establish in different parts of London." + +"Heaven bless us!" exclaimed Sir Thomas. "You don't mean to say that +you are going to leave a place like Stammars on purpose to spend your +days in a back slum in the east end of London?" + +"I am going to try to find something to do," said Eleanor. "I am going +to try to make myself of some little use in the world." + +"A madcap scheme, my dear--I can call it nothing else," said the old +gentleman, with a melancholy shake of the head "If you feel charitably +disposed, a twenty-pound note at Christmas, judiciously laid out, will +go a long way--a very long way, indeed." + +"To give money alone does not seem to me enough. I want to work for +those poor helpless ones; to labour for them with head and hands; to +learn their histories and their wants; to win their sympathies, and to +make their lives a little less hard, if I can possibly do so." + +"My dear," said Sir Thomas, turning to his wife, "what a pity it is +that you have not found a husband for Miss Lloyd!" + +"Miss Lloyd has had three most eligible offers since she placed +herself under my care." + +"And she refused them?" + +"Every one." + +"Then her case must be a hopeless one indeed." + +"I have argued and reasoned with her, but all to no purpose," said her +ladyship. "She is determined to have her own headstrong way. But I +prophesy that before six months are over we shall have Miss Lloyd back +at Stammars, tired and disgusted with a task which may look very nice +in theory, but which must be excessively unpleasant when reduced to +practice." + +"She will always be welcome at Stammars whenever she likes to come +back to us." + +"You won't think me ungrateful for leaving you, will you, Sir Thomas?" +pleaded Eleanor. + +"That I won't, my dear. I'll never think anything but what's good of +you." + +Thus it was that Eleanor Lloyd, sitting in the window of her room, +watching Gerald Warburton drive away, cried to herself, "Perhaps I +shall never see him again!" + + + + +CHAPTER II. +PODS STRATAGEM. + + +Days and weeks passed away, but still Matthew Kelvin did not get +better. His condition fluctuated strangely. Sometimes for days +together there would be a slow but sure improvement. Appetite and +strength would alike increase, and his mother would grow glad at +heart, thinking that she should soon see him out and about again, and +as well as ever. But some morning, without the least warning, there +would come a terrible relapse, which, in the course of two or three +hours, would undo the improvement that it had taken days to effect, +flinging him helplessly back, as some strong wave flings back a +desperate swimmer the moment his foot touches the shore, leaving him, +buffeted and bruised, and with decreased strength, to struggle again +from the same point that he started from before. So it was with +Matthew Kelvin. There were times and seasons, after one of these +strange relapses, when to those about him he seemed on the very verge +of the grave--times and seasons when the patient himself prayed that +if there were to be no release from his sufferings but death, then +that death might come, and come quickly. Then would Dr. Druce be +summoned in hot haste by Mrs. Kelvin. Presently the old gentleman +would totter slowly into the room, smile blandly round at the anxious +faces about him, and, both by his manner and words, quietly pooh-pooh +their exaggerated alarm. + +"I told you from the first," he would cheerfully remark, "that the +case was an obstinate one, and you must not allow these apparent +relapses to alarm you. The dying struggles of disease are often the +most severe. The garrison will sometimes make its most desperate +sortie after it knows that in the course of a few days it will be +compelled to capitulate unconditionally. For the present the pain is +over. I will send a composing draught, which the patient must take at +once; and to-morrow I doubt not but we shall find ourselves much +stronger and better." + +Better next day Mr. Kelvin would undoubtedly be, but not stronger. +Each one of these mysterious relapses seemed to leave him a little +weaker than before, a little less able to cope with the enemy that +seemed bent on sapping away his life by slow degrees. But of this he +hinted nothing to his mother. Her anxiety on his account was deep +enough already; there was no need to add to her distress; so he kept +his own counsel, and put a cheerful face on the matter, and would +declare, on waking after one of the composing draughts, that he felt +stronger and better than he had felt for weeks. + +If any of Mrs. Kelvin's friends ever hinted to her that Dr. Druce was +very old and very infirm, and that it might perhaps be advisable to +seek some further advice, the old lady was up in arms in a moment, +"Because people are old and not quite so active as they may once have +been, I hope they are not necessarily fools!" she would tartly remark. +"If that is the case, I must be a great fool, indeed. Dr. Druce has +practised in Pembridge for fifty years, and if his experience is not +worth more than that of a man thirty years his junior, I should like +to know what is the good of experience at all. No, no; the older a +doctor grows the cleverer he must become, if he has any brains at +all." After such an outburst as this, there was nothing more to be +said, especially as the patient himself seemed to have every +confidence in Dr. Druce's skill and ability to cope with the strange +malady from which he was suffering. + +Nothing more was now said about Olive Deane's return to her duties at +Stammar. It was an understood thing that she could not possibly be +spared while her cousin's health remained as it was at present. Lady +Dudgeon had very kindly consented to keep the situation open for her +for a few weeks longer, in the hope that by that time Mr. Kelvin's +health might be so far restored as to allow of Olive's resumption of +her duties; but Olive, though she said nothing, had far different +objects in view. She laughed to herself when she read Lady Dudgeon's +note, and then tossed it contemptuously into the fire. + +She had, indeed, long before this time, contrived to render herself +indispensable both to her aunt and her cousin. She could not always be +in the sickroom. Many were the hours that she and her aunt sat +together alone. Such hours she did her best to brighten by means of +pleasant, genial talk and long readings from her aunt's favourite +books, and the old lady was proportionately grateful. + +"I often feel as if you had always lived with us," she would sometimes +say to Olive. "You seem altogether like one of ourselves, and however +we shall be able to let you go again, I can't tell. If Matthew were a +marrying man, he might do worse, my dear, than make you his wife. But +that is out of the question, for I don't suppose he will ever marry +now." + +Olive was not quite so sure on that point as her aunt seemed to be. +Her affectionate devotion to her cousin seemed as if it were about to +bear fruit at last. He could not bear to let any one but Olive wait +upon him or minister to his needs. + +Even to his mother he once or twice spoke with a slight tinge of +impatience; coming after Olive, her waiting upon him seemed slow and +bungling indeed. "If you would only sit down in that easy chair, +mother, and let Olive attend to me!" he would say. "I want you to tell +me all the gossip, and not to be bothering yourself and me about the +quality of my beef-tea." + +As for having any common paid nurse to wait upon him, that was +altogether out of the question now. + +As he sat in his easy-chair one day, propped up with pillows and +sipping at a cup of barley-water, while Olive sat on a low hassock +close by, waiting till he should be ready to give her the cup, he said +to her suddenly, after a long silence: "I believe, Olive, that if I +ever do get better--which I sometimes doubt--I shall owe my life far +more to your care and attention than to old Druce's filthy mixtures. I +shall never know how to repay you. I never knew that you had half the +splendid qualities in you that you have shown of late. But we men can +hardly ever see farther than our noses where a woman is concerned. I +am afraid I shall have to remain your debtor to the end of the +chapter." + +"You talk very great nonsense, Matthew," she said, in a voice that was +hardly louder than a whisper. "You my debtor, indeed!" + +One of her cousin's hands rested on the arm of his chair; by accident, +it may be, one of Olive's hands found its way to the same place. Their +fingers touched. Matthew put down his empty cup, and taking Olive's +hand in both his, drew her towards him. Then he put one arm round her +neck, and drawing her face close to his, he kissed her on the +forehead. They both looked round with a start. Mrs. Kelvin had quietly +opened the door, and was standing there with a smile on her face. + +"Two's company--three's none," said the old lady, pleasantly. "I'll go +back to my room for a little while, and next time I come I will be +discreet enough to cough before opening the door." + +"You dear old goose!" said Kelvin. "If cousins may not kiss, who may?" + +"Oh, don't think that I object to your kissing each other!" cried the +old lady. "That sort of medicine might do you more good than any +other." + +"By Jove, now, I never thought of that!" cried Kelvin, with a laugh. +"Only, in the present case, it was altogether a one-sided affair. It +was not Olive who was kissing me, but I who was kissing Olive." + +These were the last words that Olive heard, as, with face aflame, she +hurried from the room; but what had just happened was enough to fill +her with strange, rapturous thoughts, and to strengthen hopes that +were beginning to droop and grow faint for want of sustenance. Ce +n'est que le premier pas qui coûte. The ice was broken; the first step +was taken; everything else would follow in due course. + +No after allusion was made either by Matthew or his mother to the +scene just described, but Olive flattered herself by imagining that +there was a warmth, a significance, in her cousin's manner now, such +as she had never noticed before. If he would but speak; if he would +but breathe one word to which she could pin her faith--that she +could treasure up even as a half promise that he would make her his +wife--from that very day his illness should begin to leave him! But +atpresent she dare not falter in the course she had laid down for +herself. Were he to recover suddenly now, all thoughts of her and her +services would be quickly swept from his mind by the inrush of hopes, +cares, pleasures, and anxieties of everyday life, which the floodgates +of sickness had for a time partially shut out. Every additional day +that kept him helpless in her hands was so much gain to her hopes. +The more deeply he continued to feel the need of her and her services, +the more likely was his gratitude to lead him by imperceptible degrees +into the easy pathway of love. If he had not loved her a little he +would hardly have kissed her as he did. Let him but seal those kisses +with a word, and from that moment the breath of returning life should +fill his nostrils; while no man should ever have a wife more tender +and devoted than she would be to him. How bitterly it made her heart +ache to see him lying there in pain, which she alone could relieve but +dare not--to see him wasting day by day into a haggard, gaunt-eyed +skeleton of his former self--no one but herself could ever more than +faintly imagine. "If he were to die, I should poison myself an hour +after. But he won't do that. Suddenly, some day, the scales will fall +from his eyes, and he will know that he loves me and that I love him; +and that love shall bring him back to life and health from the verge +of the grave itself!" + +Pod Piper was a frequent visitor in his master's sickroom. Whenever +Mr. Kelvin felt himself a little better, he would send for Pod and +dictate sundry instructions, chiefly replies to some of his many +correspondents, which that young gentleman would take down in +shorthand, to be copied out afterwards in the office downstairs. Of +course, there were times when it was requisite that Mr. Bray, the +head-clerk, should see his employer in person; but as he happened to +be slightly afflicted with deafness, the labour of talking to him was +sometimes too much for Mr. Kelvin, so he dispensed as much as possible +with the necessity of seeing him. To Olive Deane it seemed far better +that if any one must see her cousin frequently on matters of business, +that person should be a simple country lad, the chief occupation of +whose mind probably was to wonder what he should have for dinner, +rather than that quietly observant Mr. Bray, who seemed to see so much +and to say so little. So to Pod she was always coldly gracious, and +when he had finished with Mr. Kelvin upstairs, he generally found a +piece of bread and jam, or a slice of cake, or an orange, on the hall +table, put there for him by Olive herself Whatever the article might +be, it made no difference to Pod: he treated them all with the strict +impartiality of a hungry lad: but his private opinion with regard to +Miss Deane was not modified one iota thereby. He could not forget the +scene between her and Mr. Pomeroy; he could not forget the base plot +of which he had overheard the details, and of which his favourite, +Miss Lloyd, was to be the victim. + +"She's a snake in the grass, if ever there was one," Pod would often +remark confidentially to himself, even while in the very act of +munching the bread and jam which Miss Deane had prepared for him. + +"Doesn't the governor seem to have got fond of her all of a sudden!" +remarked Pod, parenthetically to himself, one day, as he was marching +slowly downstairs from the sick man's room. "Nobody else must wait +upon him, or even be near him. It's disgusting!" + +There was a splendid orange waiting for him on the hall table this +morning. He took it with him to his den to enjoy in secret; but all +the time he was sucking the orange, his thoughts were with his master +and Miss Deane. "How close she sticks to him! Seems as if she couldn't +bear even the old lady to go near him. What a funny thing it is he +don't get better! I don't believe Dr. Druce, who's no better than an +old woman, knows a bit what's the matter with him. I've seen him two +or three times when he's had one of his bad attacks on him, and I'm +blessed if I don't have a jaw with Dr. Whitaker about it. _He's_ +something like a doctor." + +The Dr. Whitaker alluded to by Pod was a young practitioner who had +been settled in Pembridge some five or six years. Some professional +difference of opinion had arisen between him and Dr. Druce over a case +to which they had both been called in, and the older man no longer +recognized the younger when they passed each other in the street, or +even spoke of him otherwise than in a tone of polite contempt: all of +which in no wise troubled Dr. Whitaker, who plodded his way through +life with a kind word and a pleasant smile for everybody--even +including old Dr. Druce. + +Kelvin and he had met several times at the houses of mutual friends, +and had learned to know and like each other: and when the former was +taken ill, Dr. Whitaker was the man he would have liked to attend him; +but he knew that to have breathed such a wish to his mother would +almost have broken her heart, so firmly did she pin her faith to Dr. +Druce. + +If there was one thing that easy-going Dr. Whitaker detested more than +another, it was having to make out his own bills. In order to obviate +this disagreeable necessity, he had taken of late to employing Pod +Piper as his secretary. Pod wrote a capital hand for a youngster, and +was only too well pleased to be able to earn a few shillings now and +again by working after office-hours. Everybody in Pembridge knew of +Mr. Kelvin's illness by this time, and Dr. Whitaker seldom saw Pod +without inquiring after him. Thus it was that Pod saw his way to bring +under the notice of Dr. Whitaker easily, and as if in the course of +ordinary conversation, that which he was growing anxious to tell him. + +Accordingly, the next time Dr. Whitaker put his usual query, "How has +the governor been to day?" Pod was prepared to go more into detail +than he had ever done before. + +"Much the same as usual, sir, thank you," he answered. "But if I may +make so bold as to say so, my opinion is that Dr. Druce is no better +than an old woman. It's the liver, he says---nothing but the liver. If +that's all that's the matter, why don't he cure it? Now, if master +would only send for you, sir, I'm sure you would soon put him all +right again." + +"Piper," said Dr. Whitaker, as he leisurely proceeded to light a +cigar, "Dr. Druce is one of the antiquities of Pembridge, and +antiquities should always be respected. Oblige me by getting on with +your work." + +Dr. Whitaker went out, and was gone for upwards of an hour. When he +got back, Pod was putting away his papers for the night. "He was +dreadfully sick this morning when I was in the room," remarked Pod, +quietly, as if there had been no hiatus in the conversation. "In fact, +there's hardly a day passes that he isn't dreadfully sick. But of +course it's all the liver." + +"Ah, ah! he's often sick, is he?" And then Dr. Whitaker whistled a few +bars below his breath. "Is his sickness accompanied or followed by any +particular pain, or any peculiar sensation, do you know?" he said, in +a minute or two. + +It is not needful that Pod's answer should be set down here. It is +sufficient to say that whatever it was it put a sudden end to the +young doctor's careless mood. He lighted another cigar, and made Pod +sit down opposite to him, and questioned him closely and minutely for +upwards of half an hour; and when at last he let him go, it was with a +caution not to say a word to anyone about their interview. "Watch +closely, and tell me everything," he said. "To-day is Tuesday; you +will come to me at seven on Thursday evening. Contrive to be as much +with your master during the interval as you can be without exciting +suspicion, and note particularly those points which I have specified." + +Fortune favoured Pod next morning more than he would have dared to +expect. He was called up, as usual, to take down Mr. Kelvin's notes in +shorthand. Kelvin, this morning, seemed feebler than usual, and was +obliged to pause several times while dictating his instructions. He +had got about half-way through the morning's letters, when Miss Deane +came in with a cup of tea in her hand. "Take a little of this, +Matthew," she said. "It will help to revive you." + +He was sitting up in bed, propped up with pillows. He took the tea and +sipped at it. "It's a little too hot," he said. "I will drink it +presently." + +Olive was in the act of putting the cup and saucer on the little table +which stood close to her cousin's hand, when there came a hurried +knocking at the room door, and next moment the head of one of the +servants was intruded into the room. "Oh! if you please, miss," said +the girl, "Mrs. Kelvin has met with a little accident. She slipped +just now as she was coming downstairs. I don't think she's much hurt, +but she wants you to go at once." + +Leaving the cup and saucer on the little table, Olive hurried from the +room. + +"Send me up word, Olive, as soon as you can, whether anything serious +is the matter," her cousin said to her as she was going. + +He was evidently anxious. "We will leave the papers for a little +while, Piper," he said, presently. "We shall have some news from +downstairs before long." Then he took the tea and drank a little of +it. "I don't know how it is," he said, more as if speaking to himself +than addressing Pod, "but of late everything seems to have such a +queer taste." + +The cup was still in his fingers when Olive opened the door. + +"There's nothing to alarm you, Matthew," she said; "nothing serious +the matter. Aunt missed the bottom stair as she was coming down. She +is a little shaken--nothing worse. If you don't want me just now I +will go and sit with her for a little while." + +"Go, by all means. Piper and I have not quite finished," said Kelvin. +"I am very glad indeed that nothing more serious is the matter." + +Olive left the room, and Kelvin put the cup and saucer back on the +table. Then he took up a long letter which he had partly read before, +and Pod expected he was going to finish it; but, after reading a few +lines, he paused, as though considering some point in his mind. He was +still holding the letter, still evidently thinking about it, when, +by-and-by, he shut his eyes. Pod thought that he had shut them in order +to think out more clearly the case before him: perhaps he had. But in +the course of two or three minutes the hand that held the letter +relaxed its grasp, and Mr. Kelvin's low, regular breathing indicated +that he was asleep. + +Pod Piper had been sitting very quietly all this time, thinking +chiefly of what Dr. Whitaker had talked to him about last evening. Now +that his master was asleep, there was nothing to hinder him from +taking a long look at him, and tears came into the lad's eyes as he +gazed at the hollow-eyed, sunken-cheeked wreck before him. "If this is +her doing--If her hand has done this--she must be a daughter of the +devil him self!" muttered Pod. + +He never could tell afterwards what prompted the thought to enter his +mind, but all at once, while gazing at the sleeping man, his face +flushed, his eyes brightened, and he rose nervously from his chair. +Yes: the breakfast-cup was on the little table, and still three-parts +filled with tea. On another table near the door were a couple of empty +physic-bottles, put there for the servant to take away. Pod's mind was +made up in a moment. Another glance at the sleeper convinced him that +there was no present fear from that quarter. Stepping lightly and on +tiptoe, he went round the foot of the bed to the other side. Then he +took the cup of tea and crossed the room with it to the table on which +the empty bottles were standing. One of these bottles he uncorked, and +into it, with the loss of a few drops only, he dexterously contrived +to pour the tea. Then he recorked the bottle, hid it carefully away in +his pocket, and put back the cup on to the little table. That done, he +quietly resumed his seat by the sleeping man. + +Five minutes later, Miss Deane came into the room. Pod warned her by a +gesture that Mr. Kelvin was asleep. She stood gazing at him for a +moment, and then she glanced across at the tea-cup. "Did he drink his +tea before going to sleep?" she whispered to Pod. + +"Yes--every drop of it," answered Pod, without a moment's hesitation. + +She took up the cup and saucer and one or two other things, and moved +towards the door. Then she took up the empty bottle, and then she +looked round as if searching for the other one. Pod was furtively +watching her, and his heart came into his mouth. She stood for a +moment as if in doubt, but not being quite sure, apparently, whether +there had been one bottle or two, she made no remark, but went out of +the room as quietly as she had come in. + +In ten minutes she was back again. Kelvin was still asleep. "I think +there is no need for you to wait any longer," she whispered to Pod. +"Mr. Kelvin may sleep for an hour, or even longer. Should he want you +when he awakes, I will send for you." + +So Pod went, and very thankful he was to get away. When the +dinner-hour came, he rushed off at once to Dr. Whitaker's, and telling +that gentleman what he had done, left the bottle with him. + +Twenty-four hours later. Dr. Whitaker handed a sealed letter to Pod, +with instructions to give the same privately into the hands of Mr. +Kelvin at the first possible opportunity. That opportunity came next +morning, when Miss Deane left the room for a few minutes while her +cousin was dictating his letters to Pod. The moment the door was shut +behind her. Pod, who had been on the watch, passed the letter into the +hands of Mr. Kelvin. "You must read this in private, please, before +Miss Deane comes back into the room." + +Kelvin looked at the lad, but broke the seal without comment. Then, +glancing at the signature, "From Whitaker!" he said. "What on earth +can he have to write to me about?" + +Dr. Whitaker's letter ran as under-- + + + "My dear Kelvin,-- + + "I need not tell you that I have been truly grieved to hear of +your long illness, as I do not doubt that you would be grieved were I +in the same unfortunate predicament. As your clerk, young Piper, is +frequently employed by me of an evening in making out my accounts, I +have been enabled to question him pretty closely as to the progress +and symptoms of your complaint. As a professional man, such details +are never without interest for me, more especially where one of my +friends is concerned. Certain things which Piper has told me of late +(in answer to my questioning) have set me thinking very seriously. + +"I have a certain delicacy in writing to you as I am writing now. +Druce and I, as you are well aware, are by no means the best of +friends. He looks upon me as a juvenile who has hardly learnt the ABC +of his profession--as a believer in new-fangled notions such as the +world had never heard of when he was young; and, finally, he holds me +in most general contempt. He is quite welcome to his opinion of me. I +may have mine about him, only I keep it to myself. In such a state of +affairs, for me to interfere, either verbally or by writing, with one +of his patients, is a professional crime for which nothing less than +hanging, drawing, and quartering ought to be punishment sufficient. +Indeed, I may tell you, that unless the occasion had seemed to me a +very serious one indeed, no such interference on my part would have +taken place. But were I to go to Dr. Druce and tell him what I have +reason to think about your case, how should I be received? + +"As it happens, there is no need to answer this question. I am not +going to Druce. I am going to put him aside, and, breaking through all +the rules of professional etiquette, to communicate with you direct. + +"My dear Kelvin, I have heard enough from Piper about your case both +to puzzle and alarm me. Yours is certainly no ordinary liver +complaint. I may tell you that much at once. What else it may be, I am +hardly prepared as yet to say--or even to hint. But if you have any +regard for my words, or any belief in my knowledge, you will do what I +ask of you, and do it without hesitation or delay. + +"What I want you to do is this: To send to me by Piper, in a bottle +sealed by your own hand, about half a pint of what ever liquid may be +brought you to drink after you have read this letter--it matters +little whether it be tea, barley-water, toast-and-water, or anything +else. Do this unknown to anyone but Piper, who will at once bring me +the bottle and contents. Whisper no word to anyone as to what you have +done, and ask Piper no questions. He may be trusted implicitly, but of +the details he knows nothing. Till you hear from me again, which will +probably be to-morrow evening, take as little liquid as possible, +and eat nothing but plain biscuits and dry toast. A little weak +brandy-and-water will do you no harm, but either mix it yourself or see +it mixed. Be sure that I am not asking you to do all this without a +reason, and a very powerful one too. Above all things--_silence and +secrecy_. Burn this as soon as read, and believe me. + + "Your sincere friend, + + "Cyrus Whitaker." + + +"Burn this letter," said Kelvin to Pod, when he had read it through +twice. When he had seen it shrivelled into ashes, he lay back on his +pillows, thinking, and neither stirred nor spoke till Miss Deane came +into the room, some quarter o f an hour afterwards. + +"Olive," he said, but without turning his eyes towards her, "I feel +more thirsty than usual this morning. If you have any barley-water +ready-made, I should like you to get me some." + +She smiled, and went without a word. Five minutes later, she came back +with a small jug and a glass. + +"Will you take a little of it now?" she asked. + +"Yes, just a little, and then you can put the things on the table +within reach." After she had given him a little of the barley-water, +he said, "Piper and I have rather a heavy lot of papers to wade +through this morning, so, while we are finishing them, I wish you +would just step round to the library and get me that book of travels +we were talking about last night; or if that one is not at home, some +other: you know the sort I like." + +As soon as Olive had left the room, Kelvin turned to Pod. "You have +got a bottle in your pocket, I suppose?" he said. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Then pour that barley-water into it, and cork it up tightly." + +When this was done, Pod lighted a taper, and Kelvin sealed up the +bottle with his own trembling fingers, and stamped it with the +monogram of his ring. Then the bottle went back into Pod's pocket. + +"No more business to-day," said the sick man, wearily. "Take those +papers back to Mr. Bray, and tell him to do the best he can with them. +As for yourself, you will go at once to Dr. Whitaker, and give that +bottle into his own hands. I suppose I may rely upon your fidelity and +discretion in this matter, eh?" + +"You may do that, sir, with perfect confidence," said Pod, with much +earnestness. + +"Yes, I think you are true and honest," said Kelvin, slowly, with his +eyes fixed full on the boy's open face. Then, as Pod went out, he +added to himself: "That letter of Whitaker's has instilled such a +horrible suspicion into my mind, that I no longer know whom or what to +believe." + +Next morning. Pod smuggled another letter into the hands of his +master. It was very brief, but very much to the purpose. + + + "My Dear Kelvin, + + "I must see you as quickly as possible, and in _private_. Your +restoration to health, nay, your life itself, may depend on this. No +one must know of my visit except Piper; and you must let me know +through him when you can arrange to have me admitted to your room +without any of your household being aware of my visit. Not a word to +anyone. Burn this. + + "Yours ever, + + "C. W." + + +For fully half an hour Matthew Kelvin remained buried in thought after +reading this letter. Then he said to Pod: + +"Instead of Mr. Bray signing the letters this afternoon, you will +bring them upstairs to be signed by me." At five o'clock, up came Pod +with the letters. Kelvin was sitting up in his easy-chair by this +time, and it struck Pod that he looked brighter and better than he had +seen him look for some time past. When the letters were signed, and +Pod was about to go, Kelvin put into his hand a sealed envelope. "Give +this to Dr. Whitaker, and be sure that he has it to-night." + +Inside the envelope was a scrap of paper, on which were written these +words: + + +"To-morrow morning at half-past eleven. + + "M. K." + + + + +CHAPTER III. +VAN DUREN'S DREAM. + + +Max Van Duren's stay on the Continent, instead of lasting for four or +five days only, extended itself to a fortnight. During the whole of +that time, Jonas Pringle remained in charge of the premises in Spur +Alley. At any other time, the sudden departure of Byrne and his +daughter, taken in conjunction with what else Pringle either knew or +suspected, would have formed food sufficient for many an hour's +restless pondering, it being a matter of principle with Pringle to +suspect everybody and everything. But at present his own affairs were +quite enough to occupy his thoughts. He had been waiting patiently, +week after week, for an occasion to arise which should call Van Duren +from home, and so give him an opportunity of bringing to a climax a +certain hidden scheme at which he had been patiently working for +upwards of a year. The wished-for opportunity was now here, but the +advantage he had intended to derive from it seemed as utterly beyond +his reach as before. In other words, the key at which he had laboured +so long and so patiently, and which, he had fondly hoped, needed but a +few more touches of the file to bring it to perfection, still +refused--obstinately and maliciously refused--to open the lock of Van +Duren's safe. And rarely could there have been a more opportune time to +open it than the present. There were notes and gold in it to the amount +of two thousand pounds, as Pringle knew full well. If he could only +have obtained possession of these notes and this gold within a few +hours of Van Duren's departure for Paris, he would have had time to +change the notes and get three or four days' clear start before the +faintest suspicion that there was anything wrong could have got abroad. +It was for this that he had been biding his time so long; it was for +this that he had put up with Van Duren's hard words and starvation +salary. He had promised himself all along that he would have a day of +glorious revenge; that at one bold sweep he would make himself master +of enough, if judiciously invested, to secure for himself a comfortable +little income for life. But all his delicate manipulation with the +file, all his added touches, had hitherto proved ineffective and of no +avail. The wards of the lock that held the iron door stubbornly +refused to be coaxed; the Open Sesame was not yet found. Pringle was +terribly chagrined. Still he never allowed himself to altogether +despair. He felt that success was only a matter of time; but he would +not have cared for success to come at a moment when there might chance +to be little or nothing to reward his labours: he was anxious that it +should come now, when the reward would be great. But Van Duren could +not stay away for ever, and one afternoon brought the long-expected +telegram, announcing that he might be looked for in Spur Alley before +bed-time next night. + +"Curse him for coming back so soon!" said Pringle to himself, as he +tore the telegram to shreds. "If he had only stayed away another day +or two, I should have got my key to fit and open the lock. It may be +months before he goes out of town again. It may be months before +there's as much money in the safe again as there is now. But it's just +like my luck!" + +Mr. Van Duren reached home about ten o'clock next evening. Pringle was +there to receive him, and while Mrs. Bakewell was getting supper +ready, the two men went into the discussion of sundry business +details. But not more than ten minutes had passed before Van Duren, +changing the subject, suddenly said: "By-the-by, I have not made any +inquiry after my lodgers. How is Mr. Byrne?--Better, I hope. And Miss +Byrne, is she quite well?" + +There was a deep longing in his heart to see Miriam again. She had +promised to give him a definite yes or no immediately after his +return, and he flattered himself that if he read the signs aright, he +had little or nothing to fear. He had brought back with him several +expensive presents for her. Never in his life before had he bought +presents for anybody, his natural instincts being those of a miser; +and it was not without a sharp pang that he had brought himself, even +in the present instance, to part from his dearly-loved money. These +presents had been in his thoughts all the way coming home. He would +spread them out before Miriam, and watch her unfold them from their +wrappers one by one; and in imagination he saw the sparkle in her eyes +and the smile on her lips as she clasped the bracelet on her wrist, or +posed before the glass while trying the effect of her new ear-rings. +Then, before the freshness and surprise had time to evaporate, he +would take her hand and press it passionately to his lips, and implore +her to give him her answer once for all. If she condescended to accept +his presents, how could he doubt what that answer would be? They would +be married before summer was over; and when once Miriam was his wife, +he would know how to bend her will to his--know how to teach her what +was best for her comfort and his--from his own point of view. + +His first look from the cab, when he got in sight of the house, had +been to the windows of his lodgers' sitting-room. But all was dark +there, and his heart had chilled a little at the sight. It was almost +too early for them to have gone to bed: probably they had gone out +somewhere to spend the evening. He had secretly flattered himself that +Miriam would be there to welcome him--that the least she could do +would be to open the door of her sitting-room, ready to greet him with +a smile and a pressure of the hand as he went upstairs to his own part +of the house. But no Miriam was there to-night, evidently; and then +the thought struck him that perhaps no one had told her of his +expected return. This thought was not without its consolation; so, +hiding his impatience under his usual impassive demeanour, he went +indoors as if nothing were amiss, and not till he and Pringle had been +talking together for ten minutes did he seem to recollect the +existence of any such persons as Mr. Byrne and his daughter. + +Pringle had been expecting the question for some time, and was ready +with his answer. + +"Mr. Byrne and Miss Byrne went away together in a cab two or three +days after you left home." + +"Went away together in cab!" cried Van Duren. "But at least they left +word where they were going, and when they might be expected back?" + +"Miss Byrne said they were going to the seaside for the benefit of the +old gentleman's health; but there was nothing said about when they +might be expected back." + +"Strange--very strange!" muttered Van Duren. Some presage of coming +evil seemed to touch him already. He looked from side to side of the +ill-lighted room, and shuddered. Pringle was watching him narrowly. + +"Did they take much luggage with them?" he asked. + +"I heard Mrs. Bakewell say that there was nothing left in their rooms +but the bare furniture." + +"Have any letters been received here for them since they left?" + +"Not one, sir." + +"How was it you did not send me word, either by telegram or letter, +when you discovered that they were going away?" + +"Because I was under the impression that they had told you, before you +went out of town, that they were going away." + +This was not true, but it was necessary that Pringle should excuse +himself somehow. + +"But did nobody ask them when they might be expected back?" + +"Yes; Mrs. Bakewell did. Miss Byrne's answer was that everything +depended on the state of the old gentleman's health, and that they +might be away only a week, or they might be away a month." + +"I would give twenty pounds this very minute to know where they are +gone to!" cried Van Duren, emphatically, as he pushed away his chair, +and began to pace the room with restless strides. + +Pringle sat watching him for a minute or two. That Van Duren was +terribly chagrined, he could see plainly enough, and it pleased him to +see it. The question with him now was, should he, or should he not +tell Van Duren that he knew to what place his lodgers were gone? On +the one hand, to keep Van Duren in ignorance of what he, Pringle, +knew, would be a source of great gratification to him. But, on the +other hand, if he were to reveal what he knew, was there not a faint +probability that Van Duren might go in search of them--might leave him +alone in the house for a few days longer, and so afford him another +opportunity of making himself master of the treasure in the iron safe? +This latter thought decided him. + +"I can tell you where Mr. and Miss Byrne are gone to, sir," he said, +speaking very quietly, "and I won't charge you twenty pounds for the +information, either." + +"Where are they gone?" asked Van Duren, abruptly, as he brought his +walk to a sudden stand. + +"Their luggage was labelled for Marhyddoc, in North Wales." + +Jonas Pringle certainly never anticipated the effect which his words +would have on Max Van Duren. The latter seemed like a man suddenly +turned to stone. All the colour fled from his face, his lips turned +blue, while into his eyes there came an expression of unspeakable +terror. For a few minutes he stood like a man who neither knew where +he was nor what he was doing, who had no thought for anything in the +wide world but the terrible news he had just heard. Then he put out a +hand, and seemed to be feeling for a chair, without knowing what he +was about. Pringle took his arm and guided him to a seat. + +"A sudden spasm--nothing more," he said. "I shall be better +presently." + +"Shall I get you a glass of water?" asked Pringle. + +Van Duren shook his head. "I have been taken like this once or twice +lately," he stammered. "I must talk to my doctor about it." + +Mrs. Bakewell came in to lay the cloth for supper. This seemed to +rouse him. "I shall not want any supper; I've changed my mind. You +need not bring it in," he said. Then turning to Pringle, "To what +place did you say that Mr. Byrne and his daughter were gone?" he +asked. + +"To Marhyddoc, in North Wales." + +"Some little fishing or bathing place, I suppose--quiet and +salubrious, suitable for an old man like Mr. Byrne. Strange, though, +that they never told me they were going. You don't know, Pringle, do +you, what their particular reason might be for choosing Marhyddoc, out +of all places in the world?" + +"I don't know that, sir; they gave no hint on that point," said +Pringle. "But I know this for a fact, that old Mr. Byrne was no more +deaf than you or me, sir; that his long white hair was nothing but a +wig, and his hump nothing but a sham; and that when he liked he could +be as active on his feet as any gentleman of fifty or fifty-five can +be." + +Max Van Duren sat and stared at his clerk like a man thoroughly +stupefied. "How do you know all this?" he said, speaking in a low, +hoarse voice. + +"Because I've seen it with my own eyes," answered Pringle. Then he +told him all about the Euston Square episode. + +"But what possible object could Mr. Byrne have in disguising himself +in the way you mention? and what could be his motive in trying to +deceive me?" + +"Don't know, sir, I'm sure. But mightn't it all be a plant--a +try-on--to get something out of you, either money or information, or +something else?" + +"They got no money out of me--not a single penny," answered Van Duren. +"And as for information----" + +In a moment it flashed across his mind that Miriam Byrne had indeed +got certain information out of him, which information seemed to +connect itself, in some mysterious way, with the journey to Wales. +Would she and her father ever have gone to any such out-of-the-way +place as Marhyddoc, if he had not told Miriam the story of the +shipwreck? But even in that case, what possible object could be gained +by their visit to Marhyddoc? The key to the great secret of his life +lay there at the bottom of the sea, as far beyond their reach, even +supposing them to have known of its existence, as it was beyond his. +After all, it was perhaps nothing more than a singular coincidence +that had taken them to that particular spot in Wales. Could it be that +Miriam had grown to take so deep an interest in him that she wanted to +see the very place where he had been shipwrecked? This was a thought +that made his heartbeat wildly for a moment or two; but it was quickly +succeeded by a feeling of deadly apprehension. What Pringle had told +him about Byrne and his disguise, smote him with a sense of some +hidden danger which he could not overcome. Why had Miriam pressed him +so earnestly to give her all the details of the shipwreck? And why had +they said nothing to him of their contemplated journey before he left +home? + +He could not shake off the feeling that he was in the midst of some +great peril. It was quite out of the question, that he should sit +quietly down in Spur Alley, and have no knowledge of what was +happening in Wales. Even at that moment, what terrible events might be +taking place on which his fate might hang as on a thread! And yet +again, how was it possible that any harm could happen to him having +its origin in what he had told Miriam? He had simply told her that he +had lost a box containing the whole of his worldly possessions; but he +had given no hint as to the special contents of the box. How was she +or her father to connect the Max Van Duren of to-day with the Max +Jacoby of twenty years ago? And even granting that they knew his +secret so far, there would not, even in that case, be the slightest +link to connect him with the murder of Paul Stilling. But more than +all else was he rendered uneasy by the fact of Byrne's disguise. There +was something in that which he altogether failed to comprehend. He +questioned Pringle again and again as to what he had seen at Euston +Square, but with no other result than to add a more positive +confirmation to what he had been told at first. + +"Pringle, I shall go down to Marhyddoc by the next fast train." + +"There is one at ten in the morning, sir." + +"That will suit me. Mr. Byrne and I have sundry business transactions +together which necessitate my seeing him as soon as possible. I need +not tell you how annoyed I am to find that he has gone away without +leaving a message of any kind for me." + +He paused and looked at his watch. "I am terribly tired, and I must +try to get a few hours' sleep before starting. You are a light +sleeper, I know, and I will trust you to call me at six." + +"All right, sir." + +"You may also see Mrs. Bakewell for me, and arrange for breakfast at +eight. You had better sleep here to-night, and I will go through the +remaining letters with you during breakfast." + + +Then, without another word, he left the room and marched slowly +upstairs to bed. Van Duren had spoken no more than the truth when he +said that he was terribly tired. He had been travelling continuously +for eighteen hours, and was thoroughly worn out. The news told him by +Pringle had taken away whatever appetite he might otherwise have had, +while leaving the need of some refreshment strongly upon him. +He was never without cognac in his bedroom. Of this he now took a +powerful dose, and then flinging himself upon the bed, dressed as he +was, in three minutes he was fast asleep. + +While sleeping thus, he had a dream--a dream more strangely vivid, +more realistic in all its details, than any that he had ever had +before. + +In this dream he himself was as it were an impersonal being, the +spectator of a drama in which he was called upon to play no part. The +scene of the drama in question was the bottom of the sea. Through the +green and limpid twilight, the floor, covered with sand and shells, +and huge, smooth-washed boulders, could be seen stretching away on +every side till lost in the dim distance. Fishes of various kinds, +some such as are never seen by mortal eye, swam silently to and fro in +the liquid depths. The middle distance of the sea was filled up with a +huge mass of wreckage and broken timber. There was no need to tell the +dreamer of what good ship the wreck was now before him. Even in his +sleep, his lips murmured, "That is the _Albatross_." In and out of the +broken bulks, and rotting portholes, and shattered hatchways, strange +monsters of the sea, big and little, kept crawling continually. + +But presently there was a quick, frightened movement among the fishes, +and the dreamer beheld descending slowly from unknown heights a ladder +made of stout rope and weighted heavily at the bottom. In a little +while the weights touched the ground, and the ladder became stationary +and firm. Soon there could be seen, coming down slowly and heedfully, +a man in the full costume of a diver, and looking in it no unfit +companion for the strange creatures whose haunts he had for a little +while invaded. In a few minutes he was joined by another man similarly +attired. Together the two men bent their steps towards the wreck. +There was no need to tell the dreamer what they were there to look +for. Would they find it, or would they not? But in his impersonality +he had no further interest in having this question answered than a +spectator at a play might have; indeed, so slightly was he interested, +that he laughed aloud more than once as he watched the strange, +awkward movements of the two men as they clambered around and about +the wreck. + +Round and about, in and out, they moved without any apparent success. +Evidently, the object they had come in search of was not to be found. +At length, as if by mutual consent, they walked back to the ladder. +One of them had got his foot on the lowermost rung, when his mate +touched him on the shoulder and pointed back to the wreck. The +sleeper's eyes followed the direction of the man's finger, and saw +there--what? The spectral figure of a man standing on the broken +bulwarks of the ship, and pointing downwards with outstretched finger +to a heap of rotting timber and loose wreckage at its feet. The figure +was diaphanous; the broken stump of a mast in front of which it was +standing could be clearly seen through it. It seemed to have a +wavering motion, very slight, but still perceptible, like that of a +flame which quivers by the intensity of its own heat. Although its +finger pointed downwards, the face of the figure was bent full on the +face of the sleeping man--the same face that he had seen in the glass, +haggard, deathlike, with a thin line of black moustache; while its +black, inscrutable eyes gazed down through his eyes into his very +soul. There was no laughter, no cynicism left in the dreamer +now--nothing but an unspeakable horror that stirred his hair and +chilled the beating of his heart even while he slept. He could not turn +away his eyes from those other eyes that were staring into his; but for +all that he could see, as we do see in dreams, everything that was +going on around him. He could see the men moving slowly back towards +the wreck, in obedience to the invitation of the spectre, of whom they +seemed to have no dread. He could see them searching and turning over +the heap of mouldering débris at which the finger was so persistently +pointed, and presently he could see them drag from the midst of it a +small square oaken box, the silver clamps of which were all tarnished +and black with the action of the sea. How well he remembered that box! +what cause he had to remember it! + +Carrying the box carefully for fear lest it should fall to pieces, one +of the men brought it presently to the foot of the ladder, close to +which, let down from the heights above, hung a cord with a hook at the +end of it. To this hook the box was now fastened by one of the men, +then a tug was given to the cord, and next moment the box began slowly +to ascend, drawn up by unseen hands above. + +The finger of the spectre now pointed upward. Soon the box was lost to +view, and as it disappeared, the twilight of the scene seemed to +darken and deepen and the water to lose somewhat of its limpid +clearness. It was as though night were reaching down with its hand of +blackness to the bottom of the sea. Slowly but surely the whole scene +grew blurred and indistinct as though one filmy veil of darkness after +another were being drawn between it and the dreamer's eyes, till at +length the familiar walls of the dreamer's bedroom began to grow out +of the darkness, and Max Van Duren knew that he was awake, and that +the dawn of another day was beginning to broaden in the east. From +head to foot he was bathed in perspiration, and he was trembling in +every limb. He sat up on the bed and gazed timidly around, as half +expecting to see the eyes of the spectre staring at him from some dim +corner of the room; but presently he heard a welcome footstep on the +stairs outside, and then came the voice of Pringle, telling him that +it was time to get up. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +PRINGLE'S DISCOVERY. + + +Great was the glee of Jonas Pringle when he found himself left alone +once more in Spur Alley. When he saw Van Duren off in a cab for Euston +Square he mentally bade him good-bye for ever. + +So elated was he, so sure did he now feel that the moment of success +was at hand, that he went out and bought a tin of preserved lobster, +and a bottle of rum, and there and then held high festival with +Bakewell and his wife in their dungeon below stairs. He calculated +that, at the very soonest, Van Duren need not be expected back for +three or four days; and what might not be accomplished even in that +short time! He could not labour much during the day at perfecting his +duplicate key; he had too many interruptions; he was wanted too +frequently in the office by people who called to inquire after Van +Duren. But after business hours, when the hush of evening crept over +the busy city, then he could work away as long as he liked without +fear of interruption. And surely, after all that had gone before, a +few short hours only would now be needed to place the long-coveted +prize in his grasp. + +All that day he remained very restless and unsettled, and seemed +unable either to stay long in any one place, or to fix his mind on +anything for more than a few minutes at a time. + +Van Duren had left him several important letters to write, but after +getting as far as the date and "Dear Sir," or "Gentlemen," with one or +other of them, his ideas became so mixed up and confused that he could +no longer disentangle the subject of one letter from that of another +in his thoughts; so that at last he had to fling down his pen in +disgust, and rush off for a quarter of an hour to a favourite haunt +round the corner. Indeed, he seemed to be running in and out all day +long. + +Pringle made up his mind that, if requisite, he would work away at his +key all night. When Bakewell and his wife were safe in bed--and they +rarely sat up after ten o'clock--he would steal downstairs without his +shoes, turn on the gas, and shut himself up in the strong room; and +there, file in hand, and a fresh bottle of rum by his side, he could +work on in safety till five or six o'clock next morning. But perhaps +before that time the stubborn lock would yield and the great door fall +back on its hinges, and then!---- But such a possibility was almost +too much for calm consideration. + +Before beginning his work for the night, he would go down to a little +water-side tavern that he knew of, where the _Shipping Gazette_ could +always be found, together with sundry lists of vessels about to sail +from London and other ports. He had not yet decided on the spot to +which he should direct his flight, but he could make up his mind on +that important point to-night, and pick out the names and dates of +sailing of some half-dozen ships, so as to be ready for starting at +any minute. + +As it happened, however, the evening turned out so wet and stormy that +Pringle was obliged to put off his proposed visit to the river-side +tavern till another day. This altered his plans a little. Instead of +waiting till Bakewell and his wife were in bed, as soon as he had shut +the office and hurriedly swallowed a cup of tea, he went to his own +room and locked himself in, and set to work at once with his file. But +he was afraid to go on working too long at a time without trying the +key in the lock. At any moment his file might give the one last touch, +which, Pringle felt convinced, was all that his key now needed to make +him at once master of the situation. So, at intervals of half an hour +or so, he stole downstairs to the strong room to try his key once +more; and once more, on finding that the master-touch had not yet been +given, he stole back to his own room and set to work again with a +slow, quiet patience that would not know what it was to feel itself +beaten. + +To-night, for a wonder, it was nearly eleven before the Bakewells went +to bed. As soon as he felt sure that there was no longer anything to +fear from them, Pringle removed himself permanently downstairs for the +night. Seating himself on a pile of books close by the iron door, he +went quietly on with his work. At half-past eleven he tried the key in +the lock, but, for aught he could tell to the contrary, he might have +been no nearer success than he had been a month previously. He tried +again as the clocks were chiming the quarter before midnight, and the +wards of the lock yielded and fell back as readily and smoothly as +ever they had done before Van Duren's own key. The master touch had +been given at last. + +Pringle, sitting on his heap of books, stared at the open door as +though he could not believe the evidence of his senses. Was it, could +it be possible that the golden prize for which he had laboured so long +and so patiently was at last really within his grasp? His hands were +all a-tremble, his head was burning, his mouth parched up. All at once +it struck him that he felt very thirsty, and that it was close upon +twelve o'clock. There would be time for one, or even for two last +tumblers before the taverns closed. Where would he be before midnight +should strike again? Not in London, he said to himself, but miles out +at sea on his way to some far-off land. + +With some such thoughts as these flitting fitfully through his mind, +he mechanically lowered the gas, and then, leaving the safe-door still +open, but closing and locking the door of the room, he crept +cautiously up the stone staircase, with his shoes in his hand, and let +himself out at the front door with as little noise as possible. He had +made no attempt to examine the contents of the safe. A brief glance +into it had satisfied him for the time being. He knew for an undoubted +fact that the money he coveted was there, and he asked to know nothing +more. There was no fear that it would take to itself wings while he +went to have a final glass at his favourite tavern. + +The final glass was duly imbibed, and at five minutes past twelve +Jonas Pringle found himself in the streets again, and on his way back +to Spur Alley. He was nearly at home, when suddenly his eyes fell on +the figure of a woman who was standing full in the light of a street +lamp, and apparently counting some money. There was something in the +outline or attitude of the woman that sent a strange thrill to his +heart. With a half-inarticulate cry, he hurried forward. Startled by +his sudden movement, the woman looked up, and her haggard face became +clearly visible in the lamplight. + +"Jessie!--my daughter!" exclaimed Pringle, and he sprang forward as +though he would clutch her. + +"Father!" cried the woman, in a voice of shrill, sharp agony, as she +suddenly flung up her arms. Then, before he could touch her, she +turned and fled. + +"Jessie! Jessie! Don't run away from me!" cried Pringle, as he hurried +after her. + +But he was no match for the fleet-footed woman in front of him. By the +time he got to the corner of the street he was completely exhausted, +and Jessie was already out of sight. He leaned for a moment or two +against the wall, with a hand pressed to his side, while he gathered +breath. Then, with a bitter sigh, he retraced his way slowly towards +Spur Alley. + +"Found at last," he muttered to himself, as he stumbled painfully +along--"found at last, but only to lose her again at the moment of +finding! I would have forgiven everything--yes, everything, if she +would only have come back to me!" + +During the last few minutes, he had forgotten all about the safe and +its contents, and the treasure that lay ready to his hand; but now, as +he proceeded to open the street door with his latch-key, the whole +situation came back to his mind in a rush, but with a sense of +strangeness as though it were something done by some other man, or by +himself long years before. + +The house was as dark and silent as a tomb. He groped his way +downstairs, and presently he found himself in the strong-room again. +He sat down on the heap of books to think. To-night, of all nights in +his life, he had seen again the daughter for whom he had been +searching for years. He had seen her one moment, but only to lose her +the next. She had fled from him, desperately determined to avoid him; +and the chances were that, in that great wilderness of London, they +should never meet again. His heart yearned towards her as it had never +yearned before, but all her desire seemed to be to shun him. The +question with him now was, whether he should take this money which lay +ready to his hand, and go away for ever; or whether he should relock +the safe, leaving the money untouched, and go on living his old life +as if this dream of sudden wealth had never haunted his mind, and +devote all his spare hours, as he had done, years before, to searching +for his lost child, who, as to-night had proved, was so near to him +and yet so far away. The chances were that he should never see Jessie +again; and even if he should succeed in finding her, he had no proof +that she would not elude him again as she had done already. If only he +could have felt sure of finding her, and that she would stay with him +when found, not ten times the amount of money in Van Duren's safe +would have tempted him to leave London, and with it his last chance of +ever seeing her again. + +His thoughts were all in a maze of confusion. He could not make up his +mind what to do. Springing to his feet, he flung wide the door of the +safe. He would at least feast his eyes on this treasure for which he +had braved so much and laboured so long. There would still be time to +decide afterwards what he should finally do. + +There were several iron drawers in the safe, all of them unlocked. +These he opened one after another. One of them was full of small bags +of specie, each of which was neatly tied up and labelled, to show the +value of its contents. Another drawer contained bank-notes, drafts, +and bills of exchange. Other receptacles held promissory notes, bills +of sale, and various documents having a bearing on Van Duren's +business. Pringle paused for a moment or two while he made a rapid +calculation. In gold and notes alone, the safe held upwards of three +thousand pounds. His most sanguine hopes were more than realized. +Should he take this money and go, or should he not? At six o'clock +that very morning he could drop down the river in an outward-bound +ship, and all trace of him would be lost for ever. But to leave +Jessie! + +There was one last drawer still to open. He drew it slowly out. It +held neither gold, nor notes, nor bills of exchange. There was nothing +in it but a small cedar-wood box, which box was locked. Pringle took +it out of the drawer. It was very light, and not at all strong. What +could there be inside it? Why should the contents of this box be held +as of more account than the gold and notes that lay openly about? +Perhaps within that little casket lay hidden some dark secret of Van +Duren's life. With the aid of one of his files, which lay there on the +floor, Pringle could force open the lid in a couple of minutes, and +see with his own eyes what was shut up inside. No sooner thought than +done--done without pausing to ask himself whether such an act would +not shut him out from all possibility of retreat. So long as the box +remained intact, so long as the gold and notes remained untouched, all +that he had to do was to shut and relock the door of the safe, and Van +Duren need never know anything of what had happened to-night. + +But the lid of the box was forced even while this thought was floating +vaguely through his mind. He forced it, breaking it into two pieces as +he did so. To his intense disappointment, there was nothing inside but +a parcel of old letters. + +Yes, at the very bottom there was something more, and yet nothing of +any great consequence: only a woman's portrait. He took it up with a +sneer, and moved a few steps nearer the gaslight, so as to be able to +examine it more closely. + +For a full minute he stood staring at the portrait without moving a +muscle, with no more apparent life in him than a waxen effigy. Then he +let the portrait drop as suddenly as though it had burnt him, and +putting his hands to his face, he sank on his knees beside it on the +floor. But not long did he remain thus. With a low cry, he started to +his feet as though suddenly struck by some overwhelming thought, and +hurrying across the floor, he pulled out the drawer that held the +letters, and went back with it to the light. Holding the drawer under +one arm, he picked out a letter here and there, opened it, read a line +or two, glanced at the signature, and then put it back and took up +another. Last of all, he picked up the portrait, kissed it, laid it +atop of the letters, and put the drawer back into its place in the +safe. Then once more he sat down to think. + +What a strange and terrible discovery was that which he had just made! +The likeness was Jessie's likeness, and the letters were Jessie's +letters. Max Van Duren was the villain who had robbed him of his +child. + +Nineteen men out of twenty would have destroyed the letters of a girl +for whom they had ceased to care, and whom they had cast upon the +world without compunction, to starve, or die, or to live on in a way +that was worse than death. But here the letters were. They had been +written in the days when this man called Jessie his "wild rose," when +she believed him to be everything that was good and honourable; when, +at his persuasion, and for love of him, she ran away from the drunken, +disreputable father who seemed to value her so little, but who found +out how dear the motherless girl was to his heart when he had lost her +for ever. Yes; here were the letters, overflowing with sweet, girlish +confidence and outspoken love. Who could tell why Van Duren had kept +them? Not he himself, if any one had put the question to him. + +Jonas Pringle had need to think. He heard the City clocks strike one, +as he sat on the pile of ledgers by the open door of the safe, his +elbows on his knees, his face buried in his hands. He heard the City +clocks strike two, and still he sat like a man turned to stone. + +When, years before, he had first come to London, and had reason to +believe that his daughter was hidden somewhere in the same huge +wilderness, all his spare time for many weary months had been devoted +to looking for her. But that could not go on for ever: and although he +had long ago given up all active search for Jessie, the trick, +acquired at that time, of peering up into the face of every woman who +passed him in the streets, had never wholly left him. Thousands of +times had he dwelt in imagination on the meeting which, he felt +convinced, must one day take place between his daughter and +himself--how he would snatch her to his heart and tell her that all +the past was dead and forgiven. And now he had seen her, but only to +find that she shunned him as though he were stricken with the plague. +A thousand times had he sworn to himself that should he ever knowingly +cross the path of the man who had destroyed his child, no power in +heaven or on earth should baulk him of his revenge. And now that by a +strange chance he had crossed the path of that man, should his oaths +be all forgotten, and the revenge he had promised himself nothing but +an empty dream? Not so, not so. + +But what form should his vengeance take? Not the poor, paltry, +insignificant form of robbing this man of his gold. After what he had +learned to-night, rather than take a penny of his money, he would have +begged from door to door. What he wanted was not Van Duren's money, +but Van Duren's life. He would like to have seen him come home the +worse for wine, and in that condition have gone to bed, and then he +would have set fire to the house and have burnt him as he slept. He +would like to have treated him as some savage tribes treat their +prisoners--torturing them hour after hour, killing them by inches +through a long summer day. A death that would come quickly was too +good for him. Something slow and lingering, something that would make +him long for death as a prisoner longs for the order for his release, +would not be one whit more than he, and all such as he, deserved. + +At length he heard the clocks strike four, and he knew that the bright +May dawning was beginning to flood the streets with the grey and gold +of another day. Then he stood up, stiff, cold, and weary, but with an +intense fire burning at his heart that seemed to light him up from +head to foot, and had already transformed him into another man. He put +out the gas, and leaving the safe-door still unlocked, but locking the +outer door, he crept upstairs to bed. He had matured his plan; he had +thought out his scheme of vengeance; everything was clearly mapped out +in his mind: he could now afford to take a few hours' sleep. + +He came down at his usual hour, washed, shaven, and brushed more +carefully than common, and had breakfast with the Bakewells. He was +very chatty and affable over the meal, and entertained them with a +long and elaborate narrative of the latest murder, so that they all +enjoyed themselves greatly. An hour later, after the post letters had +arrived, he called Bakewell into the office. + +"I have just got a letter from the governor," said Pringle, "in which +he tells me that he shall not be back home for a fortnight, or even +longer. So, as you and your better half will have little or nothing to +do during that time, he thinks you may as well take advantage of his +absence and have a run out to the seaside, or down into the country, +for a couple of weeks. And what do you think he has done? He has +opened his heart as I never knew him to open it before, and has +actually asked me to give you five pounds towards paying your expenses +while you are away. Bakewell, what a lucky dog you are!" + +Bakewell was staggered by the news of his good fortune, as Pringle had +perhaps intended that he should be: nor was his wife less overcome +when told of it. However, they were nothing loth to go for a holiday +on such terms; and so well did Pringle work upon them, and hurry +forward their arrangements, that at six o'clock that evening he had +the satisfaction of seeing them drive away to the station, and of +finding himself left the sole inmate of the big, gloomy house in Spur +Alley. + +This was what he wanted. He wanted to wait there, all alone, for the +return of Van Duren. He went about his business as at ordinary times, +but he hardly tasted drink at all. Neither did he sleep much. Of an +evening he would sit all alone in Mrs. Bakewell's underground kitchen, +smoking a long clay pipe, moistening his mouth now and then with a +little cold tea, and now and then smashing a stray beetle. He would +sit thus, his feet perched on the chimney-piece, listening to the +clocks as they struck hour after hour, thinking his own dark thoughts, +and waiting for the coming of Max Van Duren. + + + + +CHAPTER V. +A FOUND LETTER. + + +It was evening--the evening of the day on which Matthew Kelvin had +sent his brief note to Dr. Whitaker, making an appointment with him +for half-past eleven next morning. He had desired to be left alone for +an hour, and during that time he had contrived, with several intervals +of rest, for his weakness was very great, to write a longer letter +than had come from his pen since the first day of his illness. This +letter, duly sealed and directed, now lay on the little table by his +bedside. The address on it was very short, being simply--"Miss Lloyd, +Stammars." + +By-and-by Mrs. Kelvin came into the room. As she did so, her son +quietly thrust the letter under his pillow. The old lady came to the +bedside, and beamed on him through her spectacles, as he lay there +with his arms crossed under his head. "Why, Matthew, my dear boy, I +have not seen you look so bright and well for many a long day as you +have looked during the last few hours! You have got the turn at last. +I feel sure you have. I knew that Dr. Druce would bring you round +again after a time." + +"Yes, mother, I think I have got the turn at last, as you say," +answered Kelvin, gravely. "We will never let any one say a word +against Dr. Druce again, will we?" + +"Ah, he's very, very clever," said the old lady. Then she stooped and +kissed him, and as she did so, Matthew's arm stole round her neck, and +pressed her head gently on his shoulder, and kept it there some +minutes. When he let her go, she saw that there were tears in his +eyes; but she was too wise to notice them, and she began at once to +talk as though his recovery now were merely the question of a few +days, or a week at the most. + +"But I shall not let you go back to business till you are quite +strong," she said. "Don't tell me that your not doing so will cost you +a great deal of money. I don't care if it costs a thousand pounds: +what is that in comparison with your health? You must have a month at +the seaside, at some cheerful place--Boulogne or Dieppe, where you +won't have time to grow melancholy. And if Olive and I go with you, we +shall not bore you overmuch with our society, but only be there to see +that you take proper care of yourself, and do not poison yourself with +those French dinners, of which you are so fond." + +"I'm sure Olive deserves a holiday as much as any one," resumed Mrs. +Kelvin, a moment or two later. "What I should have done without her +all this long time that you have been ill, I'm sure I don't know. She +must be very fond of you, Matthew, to have done what she has done. +Now, don't you think she is fond of you?" + +"Yes, I suppose she is fond of me--after a cousinly fashion," said +Matthew, coldly. + +"Ah, you men!" sighed the old lady. "Whatever sacrifices a woman may +make for you, in your own hearts you never think they are half as much +as you deserve." + +At this moment there came a tap at the door, and Olive entered the +room. She brought her cousin a basin of arrowroot, which he, +remembering his promise to Dr. Whitaker, resolved not to touch. +His eyes followed her curiously as she moved about the room. "I +cannot--no, I cannot believe it!" he murmured under his breath. "There +must be some damnable mistake somewhere." + +"I have just been telling Matthew that I have not seen him look so +well for weeks as he looks to-night," said Mrs. Kelvin to Olive. "We +shall soon have him all right again now." + +Olive started, and threw a quick, suspicious glance at the sick man. +He was looking at her very gravely but very kindly, as she thought. +"No: he suspects nothing, or he would not look at me in that way," she +said to herself. Then her black brows separated and her face broke +into a smile. "I really believe he is better," she said to her aunt. +"I believe he has only been shamming all this time, and now he is +getting tired of it. I should not be a bit surprised to see him come +down to breakfast to-morrow." + +"I'd almost stake my life that Whitaker is making some strange +blunder!" muttered Kelvin to himself. "However, I'll carry out his +instructions, and let to-morrow prove to him how wrong he is." + +Olive was anxious that he should drink his arrowroot. He just put a +spoonful to his lips, and then put it aside as being too hot. "Come in +again after my mother has gone," he contrived to whisper to her. Then +he lay back and shut his eyes, and presently both his mother and Olive +bade him good night, and left the room. + +As soon as Mrs. Kelvin was gone to her own room, Olive came quietly +back. She was on the tiptoe of expectation to know what her cousin +could have to say to her. He did not keep her long in doubt. + +"Olive," he said, "I have been writing a letter this evening--a letter +which I want you to deliver for me to-morrow morning." + +"Very well, Matthew. You know that I am entirely at your service. To +whom is the letter addressed?" + +"To Eleanor Lloyd." + +"Ah!--then you have made up your mind at last to tell her everything?" + +"I have made up my mind to tell her this: that I have discovered that +she is not the daughter of Jacob Lloyd, and, consequently, not +entitled to his property. But I have not made up my mind to tell her +that I've known this fact for more than six months, and have concealed +it purposely from her. I cannot tell her that." + +"But why do you wish me to take the letter? Why not send it through +the post?" + +"Because I am too weak at present to put down in writing more than the +barest outline of the facts, and I want you to supplement by word of +mouth what my letter fails to convey." + +"Why not wait till you are a little stronger--till you can tell her, +in person, all that it is necessary she should be told?" + +"Not one day longer will I wait. Eleanor Lloyd shall know the great +secret of her life before she is twenty-four hours older." + +"As you will. Perhaps you are right," said Olive, quietly. "There is +no reason why Miss Lloyd should be kept in ignorance any longer." + +"None whatever. I don't remember anything in my life that I have +regretted so bitterly as not having told Eleanor at first. But it is +useless to speak of the past. The future is all we can now deal with." + +"Then your feeling of resentment towards Miss Lloyd has an existence +no longer?" + +"It is wholly dead. A sick-bed alters one's views and feelings in many +ways. How can a man have room in his heart for any petty jealousies or +resentments when he sees the shades of death closing slowly round him? +To me all such feelings now seem as strange as though they were those +of another man, about which I had read somewhere, and had never been a +portion of my own inner life." + +Olive longed to ask him whether his love for Eleanor was dead equally +with his resentment, but she was afraid that the old wound might not +yet be altogether healed. + +"Then you wish me to go to Stammars to-morrow?" she said. + +"I do. Miss Lloyd is there at present. I had a letter from Sir Thomas +this morning, in which he casually mentions that fact. You had better +start early--not later than ten or half-past, by which means you will +get your business over by luncheon time. Of course, you will seek a +private interview with Miss Lloyd, and not say a word to either Sir +Thomas or Lady Dudgeon about your errand. Eleanor must be left to +break the news to them in her own way and at her own time." + +"It will be a bitter task to have to do so." + +"It will, indeed, poor girl! Cannot you understand, Olive, my chief +reason for wanting you to go to Stammars?" + +"You have told me already, have you not?" + +"I have told you one reason, but not the only one. You are a woman, +Olive, and I want you to break this news to Eleanor, to whom, in any +case, it must come as a terrible shock. You do not like her, I know--at +least, I judge so from what you have said at different times. But +this is not a question of likes or dislikes. It is a question of one +woman being overwhelmed by a great trouble, and of another woman +smoothing away the sharp edges of that trouble with a little sympathy +and kindness--articles which cost so little, but, at such seasons, +mean so much. This is all I ask you to do, Olive; this is my other +reason for sending you to Stammars. Am I asking more than you care to +perform?" + +"Certainly not, Matthew. It is not much that you ask me to do." + +"But it means a great deal." + +"How little men understand about us women!" thought Olive. "None of my +own sex, who knew the circumstances of the case, would ever have +dreamed of asking me to do what Matthew has asked me to do, and +believes I will do." + +"Think what a revelation my letter will be!" continued the lawyer. "At +one fell blow she will be robbed of name, wealth, and position. Think, +and pity her." + +He lay back, exhausted by the exertion of having spoken so much. + +"What can I give you?" asked Olive. "Will you not have your +arrowroot?" + +"No: I will take that later on. A little weak brandy-and-water is all +I need at present." + +"And now I must bid you good night," said Olive, as soon as he had +revived a little. + +He put the letter into her hand, and as he did so he drew her towards +him and kissed her. "I should like you to start about ten in the +morning," he said. She promised to be ready by that time, and then she +went. + +"Whitaker's suspicion is nothing but a horrible nightmare," he said to +himself, as Olive left the room. "He is wrong--utterly wrong." But for +all that, Matthew Kelvin hardly slept a wink all night. + +Olive took the letter to her room, locked the door, and then, after +deliberating for a few moments, she quietly tore open the envelope and +read what was inside. "If it be requisite to deliver the letter, I can +put it into another envelope, and no one will be any the wiser," she +said to herself. "If I decide not to deliver it, then another envelope +will not be needed." + +"A thoroughly business-like document," she said to herself, as she +folded up the letter, "and such as any lawyer might write to any lady. +If there is no resentment in it, neither is there any love. The +resentment is dead without a doubt, but is the love dead also? Query. +Well, I will take the letter with me: there will be no harm in doing +that: but it by no means follows that Miss Lloyd will ever read it. +How easy it will be to pretend that I have lost it, and then I can +tell the story my own way--with a sting in it, and before witnesses +too, if such a thing be anyhow possible. Oh! to see her humiliation! +that will pay for everything." + +She was up betimes next morning, and ready to start for Stammars soon +after ten o'clock. In answer to her anxious inquiries, her cousin +declared that he was much as usual--neither better nor worse. "You +will try your best to soften the blow, won't you, Olive?" were +Matthew's last words to her. + +"You know that I will do my best," she said, with one of her faint +smiles. She laid her thin fingers in his hand for a moment, and then +she went. + +By-and-by came Dr. Whitaker. Pod succeeded in smuggling him upstairs +unseen by anyone, and then took up a position in the corridor outside +to keep away any would-be intruders. Mrs. Kelvin, especially, was to +be kept out of the room. Were she to find out that her son was +closeted with Dr. Whitaker, she would imagine at once that there was a +conspiracy afoot to dispense with the services of her favourite. Dr. +Druce. Fortunately, she was busy downstairs just about that time, and +did not go near. Matthew had said that he fancied a certain sort of +pudding--an elaborate pudding, which Mrs. Kelvin was positive that no +one but herself could make properly--a pudding, as her son was quite +aware, that would require her undivided attention for at least a +couple of hours below stairs. + +Mr. Pod Piper, keeping watch and ward outside his master's door, had a +long corridor all to himself, up and down which he could march as +though he were a sentry on duty. After a time, from a door at the +extreme end, there issued a pert-looking damsel, who smiled sweetly on +Pod. In one hand she carried a broom, in the other a dust-pan. + +"Ah, Molly, and how are you this morning?" said Pod, with the air of a +duke addressing a dependent. "Blooming as ever, I see." + +"I'm quite well, Mr. Piper, and I hope you are the same," answered +Molly, with a little blush. Then she added, with a confidential air, +"I've got such a beautiful rose downstairs. You shall have it for your +button-hole, if you'll promise to wear it." + +"I'll wear it for your sake, Molly. But whose room is that that you +have just come out of?" + +"Oh, that's Miss Deane's room. I've just been tidying it up a bit +while she's out of the way." + +"You like her, of course? Everybody likes Miss Deane." + +"Then everybody's welcome to like her.--She's too sly for me.--But, +see, I found this letter when I was sweeping just now behind her +dressing-table. It must have slipped down without her knowing it. It's +been opened; but as it's got master's name on it, I hardly know +whether to leave it where I found it or to let master have it." + +"Allow me," said Pod, authoritatively, taking the letter from the +girl's hand. "You were quite right, Molly, to ask my advice." As Molly +had said, the letter was plainly addressed to Mr. Kelvin, and it had +evidently been opened. As two-thirds of the office correspondence was +seen by Pod in one form or another, and as this particular letter was +not marked "Private," he felt no compunction about opening it and +reading it. It was Gerald Warburton's first letter, in which he asked +whether it was true that Jacob Lloyd had died with out a will, and +that he was his uncle's heir. + +Pod's mind was made up in a moment. It seemed doubtful whether hi +master had ever seen the letter: in any case, he should see it now. +"You had better leave this in my hands, Molly," he said, still with his +ducal air. "It is only an ordinary business letter, which has been +given to Miss Deane for some purpose, and which she has evidently +mislaid. You may depend upon my making it all right, and there will be +no need for you to say a word about it." Then he kissed Molly and told +her not to forget the rose, and then he let her go. + +"Another of your little tricks, Miss Deane, or else I'm vastly +mistaken," said Mr. Piper to himself. "This letter has been cut open +with a pair of scissors. The governor never cut open a letter with a +pair of scissors in his life. Funny, very." + +Pod's watch came to an end in about an hour. He was summoned into the +room, and, much to his surprise, found his master dressed and sitting +in his easy-chair. How gaunt and hollow-eyed he looked! What a wreck +of his former self! How loosely his clothes hung about him! Tears came +into Pod's eyes as he looked at him. All Kelvin's sternness and +arbitrary ways were forgotten in pity for the plight in which he saw +him now. Dr. Whitaker, with his arms folded on the table, was +regarding him attentively. + +"Piper," said Mr. Kelvin, "I want you to let Dr. Whitaker out, and you +must contrive it so that my mother does not see him." + +"Yes, sir." + +"After that, you will come and help me to crawl downstairs as far as +my mother's sitting-room." + +"Yes, sir." + +Dr. Whitaker rose and took his hat. "Beg pardon, sir," said Pod to his +master, "but here's a letter which Molly the house-maid gave me just +now. She found it in Miss Deane's room while sweeping behind the +dressing-table. As the letter is addressed to you, I thought I had +better let you have it." + +Kelvin took the letter with hands that trembled a little, and looked +first of all at the direction, and then at the mode in which the +letter had been opened. Dr. Whitaker came forward to shake hands. +"Don't go for a minute or two," said Kelvin. "There is something else +I want to say to you." + +Dr. Whitaker sat down again, and Kelvin drew out the letter and +glanced first of all at the signature. He started when he saw the +name, and then he ran his eye quickly over the contents; last of all +he read the letter through, slowly and carefully. + +"This is dated nearly a month ago," he said, "and yet I have never +seen it till to-day. It has been kept purposely from me. By what a web +of treachery and deceit am I enmeshed! It is horrible--horrible!" He +sat for a little while in silence, holding the letter in his hand, his +eyes bent sadly on the floor. No one spoke. + +"Whitaker," he said at last, turning abruptly on the doctor, "I want +to go to Stammars." + +"To Stammars! When?" + +"Now--at once." + +"Impossible! I would not answer for the consequences of such a mad +act." + +"Whatever the consequences may be, I must go, and at once. Piper, run +to the 'King's Head,' and order a brougham to be here in ten minutes +from now." Pod was off like a shot. + +"Kelvin, you must be crazy to do this thing." + +"Perhaps so, my friend, but still, I shall do it. During the last +half-hour it seems as if the scales had fallen from my eyes. I seem +now to see that woman as she really is--not as I have always believed +her to be. I sent her to Stammars this morning with a message of the +utmost importance. How will she deliver that message? Not as I asked +her to deliver it, but----What a fool I must have been to send her on +such an errand! I tell you, Whitaker, that I must go after her: that +there is not a minute to lose." + +"If you must go, you must, but in that case I shall go with you." + +And in that way the matter was settled. Dr. Whitaker, finding that +further opposition was useless, yielded the point, but was determined +not to lose sight of Kelvin till he had seen him safely back in his +own room. A quarter of an hour later the brougham came round. Kelvin +managed to crawl downstairs, a step at a time, supported on each side +by Whitaker and Pod. Mrs. Kelvin, being still busy with her pudding in +the back part of the house, knew nothing of all this. Matthew sent her +a message by Mr. Bray, his chief clerk; but it was not to be given to +her till after the brougham had started. + +Then Pod climbed on to the box beside the driver, and away they went. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +VAN DUREN IN WALES. + + +In the dusk of a sweet May evening a man slipped quietly out of the +back door of the "Ring of Bells" tavern--a low public-house, +frequented chiefly by fishermen and labourers, in the village of +Marhyddoc, and shunning the more frequented neighbourhoods, found +himself presently in a pretty winding lane that seemed to lead to +nowhere in particular, and was quite given over to solitude. Here the +man sat down for a while on the trunk of a fallen tree. The house had +become intolerable to him: he could stay in it no longer; so he had +strolled out to this quiet nook, there to wait till dusk had deepened +into dark. Not without difficulty would even Jonas Pringle have +recognized in this man Max Van Duren. Hands and face had been stained +till they were the colour of a gipsy's, and his hair had been dyed jet +black. He had only been twelve hours in Marhyddoc, but he had already +found out a great deal that it behoved him to know. Fortunately for +Van Duren, the landlord of the "Ring of Bells" spoke English fluently, +and was very fond of airing his accomplishment, besides being +naturally of a garrulous turn of mind. As a consequence, Van Duren had +very soon extracted from him all that he had to tell--more than enough +to confirm his worst fears. + +In the portraits which the landlord drew of two of the strangers who +were staying at the big hotel on the cliff, he had no difficulty in +recognizing Byrne and Miriam. He could no longer doubt that he had +been duped by these two; that they had only hired his rooms, and +wormed themselves into his confidence, in order to extract from him a +secret which, up to that time, he could have sworn would never be +whispered by him in mortal ears. And they had succeeded but too well. +What a weak fool he had been! How easily that girl had twined him +round her finger! How well he could see the sneer that would curve her +beautiful lips when she spoke of him to her father! He hated her now +with as much intensity as he had loved her before. Had Miriam Byrne +come walking down that lane in the May twilight--had she and Max Van +Duren met face to face with no third person by, the chances that her +father would ever have seen his daughter alive again would have been +very problematical indeed. + +But with Byrne and his daughter at the hotel was another individual, +according to the landlord's account--an elderly gentleman, whom Van +Duren altogether failed to recognize. Not that he was greatly troubled +thereby: he had far more important matters to occupy his thoughts. + +For the landlord had other news--news that he was in no wise loth to +impart, that for Van Duren was full of intense significance. He knew +all about the divers and their strange apparatus and dresses. He told +his hearer how, in the first place, someone had come down to +Marhyddoc, and, after some difficulty, had found out the exact spot +where the schooner _Albatross_ had foundered twenty years before. The +place was then marked with a buoy, and soon after that the divers had +come. Everybody in the village had asked themselves what there was in +the cargo of the _Albatross_ that could be worth the trouble and expense +of recovery after having been for twenty years at the bottom of the +sea: and for a long time the question asked by everybody had remained +unanswered. But at last it had oozed out, nobody seemed to know +exactly how, that the particular object for which the divers were +instructed to search was a small oaken box, clamped with silver. The +box was said by some to contain certain documents and title-deeds of +immense value, for lack of which the rightful heir to a great property +had been kept out of his own for years. Others knew for a fact that +the box was full of sovereigns which were being sent out to America +to buy slaves with. Others there were who averred that inside the +silver-clamped box would be found the evidence of a terrible murder +that had remained undetected all this long time. + +"But of course they have not succeeded in finding the box?" Van Duren +had said to the landlord, burning with a terrible anxiety to know the +worst. + +"But they have. Yes, indeed," said the man with a chuckle. Van Duren, +on hearing this, got up abruptly and went to the window. His face was +ghastly; his mouth twitched nervously in a way that he could not +control; his staring eyes saw nothing that was before them. "The +divers had been down three times without success," continued the man. +"They went down again very early this morning, and in less than an +hour they found the box. I saw it with my own eyes when they came +ashore:--a small oak box, clamped at the corners, and with two letters +on the lid." + +Van Duren tried to speak, but he was like a man under the influence of +a nightmare. The words died away in his parched-up throat. Happily the +landlord took his listener's silence as a sign that his narrative was +interesting, and went on without noticing him. + +"When the box was brought ashore it was given into the custody of John +Williams, the policeman. Yes, indeed. John took it up to the hotel on +the cliff where the gentlemen are staying, and there he waited with +the box on his knees till Mr. Davies of St. Owens, who is a +magistrate, came, three hours later, and then they all went into a +room together, the divers and the gentlemen, and the door was locked, +and there the box was opened." + +Van Duren would have liked to say, "And what did they find in the box +when they opened it?" but not for the life of him could he have put +the question. He knew quite well--no one better--what would be found +in the box; but none the less did he hunger to hear every detail from +the landlord's lips. However, he had only to wait and say nothing; his +host's natural garrulity would do the rest. + +"Whether they found title-deeds in the box, or whether they found +sovereigns, or whether they found anything at all is more than I can +exactly say. John Williams, the policeman, for all he's my own +cousin's nephew, and I treated him to three glasses of brandy after he +came down from the hotel, only shook his head and wouldn't say a word, +though he knew very well that I wouldn't have whispered it to a soul. +No, indeed. But John Williams will have no more of my brandy without +paying for it like any other man." + +Such was the story told Max Van Duren in the little Welsh inn. His +worst fears were realized. The sea had given up its secret. Everything +was known. He was stunned by the blow, and seemed for the time being +to have lost all power of cool thought, all possibility of looking his +position steadily in the face and of deciding as to what steps it +behoved him to take next. + +But even through the midst of the vague, unreasoning terror that now +possessed him, through the ghastly dread that now held him as with a +hand of iron, he could not help wondering by what means, through what +special agencies, this unlooked for and terrible result had been +brought about. Who forged the first link of evidence tending to +implicate him in a crime committed so long ago that at times it almost +seemed as if no such deed had ever really been done--as if it were +nothing more than a distempered dream of his own imagining? What first +induced Byrne and Miriam to come to his house and worm themselves into +his confidence on purpose to elicit from him the particulars of the +shipwreck of the _Albatross?_ How did Byrne first come to connect him, +Max Van Duren, with the murder of Paul Stilling? And, which was more +mysterious still, whence and how did he derive the knowledge which +enabled him to connect the story of the shipwreck with that crime? +Never once during all the intervening years had Van Duren troubled +himself to make any inquiry after Ambrose Murray. He had never cared +to ascertain whether the man he had so foully wronged were alive or +dead, whether he had been pardoned and set at liberty, or whether he +was still shut up in his living tomb. But now, to-day, it did occur to +him to ask himself whether it was in anyway possible that it was the +hand of Ambrose Murray which had linked together the fatal chain of +evidence--a chain that would prove strong enough to hang him unless he +took particular care what he was about. But he scouted the idea almost +as soon as it came to him. If Ambrose Murray were still alive, it was +merely as a harmless lunatic--as a melancholy madman whom one might +perhaps afford to pity, but could certainly have no cause to fear. + +But it was certainly not the hand of a harmless lunatic that was at +the bottom of this plot to bring his long-hidden guilt home to him. It +was the hand, rather, of a man as strong, cunning, and unscrupulous as +himself--a hand that, so far, had won every point of the game against +him--a hand that would succeed in tying a halter firmly round his +neck, unless--unless what? he asked himself, with a mixture of terror +and despair. He did not know who his enemy was, where to look for him, +or how best to confront him. He had got a sort of vague notion in his +mind that Byrne was merely the puppet of a firmer will and a stronger +hand; that his real enemy was lurking out of sight in the background, +weaving round him, thread by thread, the meshes of a net from which in +the end he would find it impossible to escape. + +Not till dusk had fairly set in did Van Duren venture outside the inn +door. He seemed to have lost his appetite entirely; but he kept up his +strength, and in some small way his courage also, by repeated doses of +the inn's fiery spirits. When, at last, he did leave the house, he had +no settled intention in doing so. The place for hours had been full of +noisy, half-drunken company, all of whom, as he could not help hearing +through the thin lath-and-plaster wall that divided his room from the +tap-room, were loudly discussing some important topic in their native +Welsh. That topic, as the landlord took care to inform him more than +once, was neither more nor less than the finding of the long-sought-for +box by the divers. At last he felt that he must either leave the house +or go mad. So he wandered out into a quiet lane at the back of the +village, and there sat down on the trunk of a felled tree. + +What should he do? What ought his next step to be? His mind was all in +amaze of doubt and terror and perplexity. Should he hurry off to +London by the first train, secure all his available property, shut up +his house in Spur Alley, and drop quietly out of sight where no +possible search for him could be made? Or should he stay and brave out +everything? + +Presently he began to feel very lonely among the dim shadows of the +silent lane. He fancied that he heard voices whispering, and the faint +rustle of garments, as if someone were watching him stealthily through +the foliage at his back. He looked round with a shudder, and then he +rose and walked swiftly forward. In a little while the lane took him +to a rising ground that overlooked the village and the sea. On his +right, and no great distance away, rose the cliff on the summit of +which was built the hotel where Byrne and Miriam were staying. Several +of the windows were lighted up. Which were the windows of Miriam's +room, he wondered? In the midst of all his doubts and fears for his +own safety, he could not help thinking about the girl who had played +such a short but important part in the strange drama of his life. He +had no bitterer thought, even at this bitter hour, than the knowledge +that this girl, whom he had learnt to love so passionately, had not +only never cared for him, but had duped him from the very first; that +all her smiles and looks and words had been utterly false; that it was +her hand, and hers alone, that had struck him down; that but for +her no harm could have happened to him; that but for her, the +silver-clamped box, with its damning evidence, would have rested till +doomsday at the bottom of the sea. + +Without knowing or caring whither it might lead him, he had +unconsciously taken a footpath which brought him presently to a little +side wicket that opened into the grounds of the hotel. From the wicket +a winding path led upward through thick clumps of evergreens and +brushwood to the house. There was for him, in his present mood, a sort +of fascination, a grim satisfaction, in the thought of being so near +these cunning enemies of his, who seemed so thoroughly bent on hunting +him down, while all the time they believed him to be hundreds of miles +away. He had little or no sense of present fear upon him. His dread +lay in the unknown future. The next blow that would be struck at him +would not be struck here, but in London. So long as these people +stayed in Wales, he was safe. They had done their worst for a little +time to come. + +He passed through the wicket, but as soon as he found himself in the +grounds of the hotel, he diverged from the pathway on to the grass, +where his footsteps were inaudible, and where the evergreens would +shelter him from the view of any passer-by. But perfect quiet reigned +around; not a sign of life was anywhere visible. No portion of the +hotel could be seen from where he was now, but he knew in which +direction it lay; and without knowing or caring to think why he did +so, he kept pressing slowly forward and upward, till at length he +emerged from the shrubbery into a more open part of the grounds, and +therein the starlight he could see the big white building straight +before him. + +On one side, the hotel was built close up to the edge of the cliff, +which here sloped down to the beach, and the base of which was washed +by every tide. Huge boulders and jagged pieces of rock protruded here +and there from the face of the cliff; but these rugged features were +softened and harmonized by the numerous tufts of broom and dwarf +brushwood that grew among and around them, and by the soft, green +mosses and many-coloured lichens that nestled between them, and crept +lovingly over them, and made them beautiful with a beauty that was +other than their own. Up the face of this cliff a goat or a chamois +might probably have climbed by leaping from rock to rock, or from one +clump of brushwood to another; but no human foot had ever been known +to venture up or down it. + +It was now dark, and these more minute features of the scene were +invisible to Max Van Duren. All that he could discern was, that the +hotel was built close to the edge of the cliff, at the bottom of which +cliff the tide was now washing heavily in with the noise of low +thunder. + +Having satisfied himself that there was no one about, Van Duren left +the shelter of the shrubbery through which he had hitherto crept, and +swiftly crossing the intervening open space, he sought the shelter of +another fringe of shrubbery which grew between the gradually rising +edge of the cliff and the carriage-drive that led up to the main +entrance of the hotel. Keeping well within the shade of the +evergreens, and climbing higher step by step, a few minutes more +brought him close up to one corner of the house. It was now requisite +to move with extreme caution. Suddenly he heard the sound of voices, +and two or three loud goodnights. Some one was evidently leaving the +hotel, and would pass close by him in a few moments. It would never do +to be found there; so he plunged deeper into the shrubbery, and +presently found himself close to one of the lighted windows that he +had seen from the valley below. He hardly knew whether to advance or +retire. The question was. Who were the occupants of the room? If +strangers only, he would go quietly back by the way he had come; but +if there was a chance of seeing Miriam--well, to see her again, he was +prepared to risk much. He hated her, or fancied that he did, and yet +there was still a strange fascination for him in the thought that he +was close to her, that he was only separated from her by the thickness +of a wall. Had he met her there alone in the shrubbery, he would have +strangled her, but after that he would have kissed her and wept over +her, and would probably have ended all by jumping over the cliff. + +He crept close up to the window and peered through the Venetians. +Fortunately for his purpose, they were not very closely drawn, and he +could see into the room without difficulty. It was a large room, and +was lighted by another window opposite to that through which Van Duren +was now looking. This second window--a French one, by the way--was +wide open, for the evening was somewhat sultry. Beyond it was +small balcony, and then the cliff, and, a hundred feet below, the +white-lipped waves. Round a table in the middle of the room, four +gentlemen were seated in earnest conversation. Three of them Van Duren +had never seen before, but in the fourth he had no difficulty in +recognizing his quondam lodger, Mr. Peter Byrne. It is true that the +white locks, the hump, and the general air of feebleness and +decrepitude had all disappeared; but Byrne's strongly-marked features +could not be mistaken for those of any other man. But hardly had Van +Duren time to notice all this, before his eyes were drawn to and +concentrated on an object that was standing in the middle of the table. +He shuddered from head to foot, and turned suddenly sick as he looked. +He had recognized the object in a moment. It was the silver-clamped box +which the divers had brought up from the bottom of the sea: it was the +box for the sake of which Paul Stilling had been stabbed in his sleep. + +Was the box full or empty? The lid was open, but Van Duren could not +see inside. Anyhow, there was the box. What a host of terrible +memories the sight of it called up in his mind! Trifling +circumstances, all but forgotten, and that he had thrust persistently +from his memory years ago, came back now with the vivid clearness of a +photograph. Stilling's drunken laugh, the peculiar nervous twitching +of his left eye, the broken nail on one of his fingers, the very patch +on one of his boots, quizzically commented on by him as he was pulling +on his slippers in front of the fire--how they all came back to Van +Duren! As he stood there, it seemed to him but a few yesterdays, +instead of twenty long years, since---- + +He drew out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead, and shut out the +sight for a moment. When he looked again, Miriam was there. She was +bending over the back of her father's chair and saying something in +his ear. She had never looked sweeter, in Van Duren's eyes, than she +looked to-night, with her soft flowing grenadine dress, and her bows +of ribbon here and there, and a tea-rose in her hair. + +He would have given all he had in the world, everything save life +itself, to have called this girl his own and have won one smile of +real love from her beautiful lips. Presently she lifted up a face that +was radiant with smiles, then she pinched her father's ear playfully, +and turned and left the room. And that was the last time that Max Van +Duren ever set eyes on Miriam Byrne. + +A few minutes later the four gentlemen rose and left the room. They +left the box behind them, still standing wide open in the middle of +the table. From this Van Duren at once concluded that it must have +been emptied of its contents. Had it not, they would hardly have left +it there unguarded. Then all at once the thought struck Van Duren that +if he could only obtain possession of the box, if he could only steal +it away unknown to anyone, then would his enemies be deprived of the +strongest link in their evidence against him--perhaps the only link of +any value in a court of justice. The box could undoubtedly be sworn to +as being that which had at one time belonged to Paul Stilling; but +could the contents of the box, after twenty years' immersion in the +sea, be sworn to with equal certainty? To him that seemed very +doubtful indeed. In any case the chain of evidence against him would +certainly be weakened in a material degree should the box not be +producible by the prosecution. It would be worth risking much to +obtain it. There it was within a few yards of him, in an empty room; +why should he not take possession of it again, as he had done once +before, long years ago? Not a sound could anywhere be heard save the +low thunder of the incoming tide. But how was it possible for him to +get into the room, unseen and unheard? He tried the sash of the window +against which he was standing. Fortunately for his purpose, it proved +to be unfastened. All that he had to do was to push up the sash +sufficiently high, climb over the low windowsill, thrust aside the +Venetians, and the box would be within reach of his hand. Five minutes +would suffice for everything. If only he could make sure that no one +would enter the room for five short minutes! But of that he could by +no means make sure; he must run the risk of it. But even while these +thoughts were in his mind, his hands had been busy with the window, +and almost before he knew what had happened, he found that he had +pushed up the sash high enough to admit of his ingress to the room. + +A minute later, and his hand was on the box. Even at such a moment as +that it thrilled him strangely to touch it. He glanced into it: it was +empty, as he had felt sure that it would be. Then he shut down the +lid, and taking up the box, he placed it under his arm and turned to +go. But at this instant the door was quickly opened, and some one came +into the room. Van Duren turned instinctively, and as his eyes met +those of the man who had entered, he gave utterance to a low cry of +terror and surprise. + +There before him stood the man whom he had so terribly wronged--whom +he had consigned without remorse to a living tomb--who would have +become the hangman's prey had not his brain been too weak to bear the +burden of his doom. This man, then, it was--who he had fondly believed +in his heart must have died long ago--this man it was, who, like a +sleuth hound, was now on his track, determined to hunt him down +without mercy and without ruth. Ambrose Murray was but a wreck of his +former self, but Max Van Duren knew him again the moment his eyes fell +on him. + +Murray, in his turn, did not fail to recognise Van Duren. "Wretch! +what do you here?" he exclaimed, as he advanced into the room. His +right hand was buried in the breast of his frock-coat--an habitual +action with him; but Van Duren took it at once that his fingers were +grasping some hidden weapon, and as Murray advanced he fell back step +by step. + +He did not answer Murray's question. He seemed, indeed, as though he +had not heard it. His face worked with emotion. Surprise, and terror, +and anger seemed to glare out of his eyes in turn; but still he did +not speak. + +On first entering the room Murray had not missed the box; but now his +eyes travelled from Van Duren to the table, and then back again, and +he understood everything. + +"Villain! bloodthirsty villain!" he cried. "Would you steal that box a +second time?" and with that he took two or three rapid strides towards +Van Duren. + +But the other, still without answering, and still facing his enemy, +fell quickly back. Murray was now between him and the window by which +he had entered; but he seemed to remember that there was another +window behind him, and it was towards this that he was now making his +way. He still evidently suspected that Murray's hand held a pistol, +and that he might be fired at any moment. + +The latter continued to advance. "Max Jacoby, I have you at last, and +this time you shall not escape me!" he exclaimed, and therewith he +strode swiftly to the bell-rope and pulled it violently. + +But at the first sound of the bell, Van Duren turned quickly and made +for the open French window. Before Murray had time to utter a single +word of warning, he was on the balcony. Next moment his hand grasped +the railing, and with a loud, mocking laugh he vaulted over and +disappeared in the darkness below. He had either not known, or had +forgotten, that the balcony was built immediately over the edge of the +cliff. + +A few moments later Peter Byrne and two or three others hurried into +the room in response to the bell's imperative summons. Ambrose Murray +was lying senseless on the floor, and the silver-clamped box was no +longer there. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +THE MESSAGE TO STAMMARS. + + +It was on the forenoon of a certain Saturday in May that Olive Deane +found herself jogging slowly along the road that leads from Pembridge +to Stammars. The morning was sunny and the road pleasant, but Olive +had no eyes for anything: her own tortuous thoughts occupied her +fully. Should she break as gently as possible the news she had to +tell, and then give Eleanor the letter after having thus paved the +way? Should she put the letter into her hand without a word, and +simply wait to be questioned as to anything further that she might be +supposed to know? Or--and this was the course that approved itself +more fully to her--should she say nothing about the letter, but tell +the news her own way, with sting and venom, and before whatever +audience chance might give her an opportunity of assembling to hear +it? Over and over in her mind she kept revolving these different +courses, as the ramshackle old fly in which she was seated jolted and +creaked its way slowly along the quiet country roads. + +Lady Dudgeon, released at length from further attendance on her sick +sister, was panting to get back to London for the remainder of the +season. Sir Thomas, accompanied by his faithful Gerald, had come down +on the Friday to fetch her ladyship. They were to stay at Stammars +over the week end, but on the Monday morning the whole family would go +up to town. + +In due course. Miss Deane arrived at Stammars, only to find that Lady +Dudgeon, accompanied by Miss Lloyd, had gone shopping to Pembridge, +and that she must have passed them somewhere on the road. They would, +however, so she was assured, be back in time for luncheon, so she made +up her mind to await their return. Sir Thomas and Mr. Pomeroy were +somewhere about, so the servant told her; but them, at present, she +did not want to see. The young ladies, Sophy and Carry, had gone with +their mamma, so that Miss Deane was left perforce to the evil company +of her own thoughts. "Miss Lloyd, indeed!" muttered Olive, when the +servant had left the room. "This is the last day that she will have a +right to call herself by that name. What will her name be to-morrow? +Should her ladyship have occasion to go shopping to-morrow, will she +take this nameless pauper with her in her carriage? Not if Lady +Dudgeon is the woman I take her to be." + +After all, she had not long to wait--but little over an hour--before +she saw the Dudgeon equipage rolling solemnly up the main avenue of +the park. Her colourless cheeks flushed while she looked. Her heart +beat painfully. The moment so long looked forward to was close at +hand. + +She was still undecided as to the precise mode in which her +communication should be made to Eleanor. She found it impossible to +make up her mind. Circumstances at the last moment would probably +decide for her. + +From the place where she was standing she could see the entire length +of the avenue. She could see the two fat greys and the fat coachman, +as they came every moment, but not yet could she see who was in the +carriage behind--the carriage respecting which her ladyship had spoken +in such disparaging terms to her husband, but which was still deemed +good enough for country wear. Presently she saw Sir Thomas and Mr. +Pomeroy emerge from the shrubbery and go to meet the carriage. Then it +stopped, and Lady Dudgeon and Miss Lloyd alighted, and all four walked +slowly towards the house. Gerald and Eleanor lingered a little behind +the baronet and his wife, and to Olive's jaundiced eyes they seemed to +be deep in earnest and loving conversation. In fancy she heard +Pomeroy's low and tender tones and Eleanor's half-breathed replies. +She set her teeth, and her lips tightened as she looked. "Before they +are two hours older," she murmured under her breath, "he shall know +that she is a beggar, and she shall know that her hero is nothing +better than a vulgar adventurer!" And in the heat of her passion she +took Matthew Kelvin's letter out of her pocket and tore it in two. +"What has to be told I will tell in my own way. I have been a fool to +hesitate so long." + +But Olive was altogether mistaken in imagining that Pomeroy and Miss +Lloyd were whispering love's sweet nothings to each other as they +walked across the park. Gerald was merely giving, in animated terms, a +description of the last new opera, which he had been to see a few +nights previously. Eleanor hungered, but hungered in vain, for one +tone of affection, for one whispered word of love. He knew that she +was going away--going to leave Stammars, probably for ever--and yet he +made no sign. She had long ago forgiven the deception that he had +practised on her; he could hardly help seeing that she had forgiven +him; and yet he still maintained the reserved and impassive demeanour +that had marked him from the day of his confession in the library. +Perhaps, after all, his love for her had been nothing more than a +passing fancy. If such were indeed the case, if he felt that he had +been mistaken, if his affection for her was not of a texture +sufficiently strong to stand the wear and tear of a lifetime, then he +was right to draw back while there was yet time to do so. His doing so +proved one thing: that although, in the first instance, he had sought +her for her wealth, and although his confession had led her to believe +that he now loved her purely for herself, yet when he discovered that +he had over-rated the strength of his feelings, he had retired +honourably from the field, instead of staying to win her, as he might +so easily have done, and with her that money which had first tempted +him to follow her. To know this was only a poor sort of consolation, +but it was better than none. How strange it seemed to her that she +should have given her heart away to this man, given it beyond all +power of recall, and yet that he should have nothing to give her in +return! Was the romance of her life to have this poor and ignoble +ending? It seemed so, indeed, just now. She only knew that, despite +all the arguments urged by her pride, her love was still his as +thoroughly as ever it had been. He was chatting to her now, as they +walked up the avenue together, as any ordinary acquaintance might have +done, of the new opera and the new prima donna, and yet how happy she +felt to be walking by his side, how she had thrilled from head to foot +when she first caught sight of him standing there with Sir Thomas! +Yes, whether he loved her, or whether he hated her--her heart was +still his beyond all possibility of recall. + +If Eleanor had but known how much it cost Gerald to maintain this cold +and reserved demeanour towards her! If she had but known how he longed +to clasp her to his heart, and whisper in her ear how fondly he loved +her! He often felt that not much longer would his tongue keep silence; +that some moment, perhaps when he himself least intended it, the +pent-up words would burst from his lips, his arms would stretch +themselves forth and draw her to him, and in a few brief moments +everything would be told. The task he had imposed on himself was fast +becoming unbearable--would have become altogether unbearable, but that +happily there seemed at last a prospect of its coming to a speedy end. +He had had a letter from Marhyddoc, in which Ambrose Murray held out +strong hopes of his search being brought to a successful issue. Should +such really prove to be the case, then would Murray's first task be, +with the proofs of his innocence in his hands, to seek the daughter +whom he had hitherto refused to claim. Then would the necessity for +this odious concealment come to an end; then would everything be told +to Eleanor. Therefore did Gerald school himself to keep silence for a +little while longer, hoping and believing that the future would +compensate for everything. + +Miss Deane's eager eyes watched the party of four come slowly up the +avenue, and saw them at length ascend the steps and enter the house. +Inside the hall Sir Thomas and Pomeroy went off together to the +library, while Eleanor accompanied Lady Dudgeon to her sitting-room. +Five minutes later a servant came to tell Olive that her ladyship +would see her. The moment so intensely longed for had come at last. +Olive's pale face grew a shade paler as she followed the servant along +the passage. + +Lady Dudgeon was seated at her davenport as usual. Miss Lloyd was +sitting close by, finishing a sketch in water-colours. "Good morning. +Miss Deane; I am pleased to see you. I hope Mr. Kelvin is no worse," +said her ladyship, offering Olive two frigid fingers. + +"Mr. Kelvin is no worse, madam, than he has been all along. He is +still very ill--too ill to leave his room; and having something of +importance to communicate, and being still too weak to write down the +particulars, he has deputed me to come in his stead." + +"Something of importance to communicate to me or to Sir Thomas?" asked +her ladyship. Eleanor rose and was about to leave the room. + +"My errand is to Miss Lloyd. It concerns her more nearly than anyone +else." + +"Eleanor, my love, had you not better take Miss Deane to your own +room?" + +Eleanor flushed a little. In her heart she had never liked Olive. She +had always had a vague distrust and dread of her. How such a feeling +had originated she could not have told: none the less it was there. "I +have no secrets from you, Lady Dudgeon," said Eleanor. "Whatever Miss +Deane may have to communicate can just as well be told here as +elsewhere." + +"Are you sure that you would not prefer to see her alone?" + +"Quite sure." + +"Then Miss Deane may as well be seated." And her ladyship dipped her +pen in her inkstand, and made believe that she was about to go on with +her correspondence. + +Miss Deane drew a chair quietly forward and sat down. Eleanor, looking +distrustfully at her, caught a momentary glance out of her black eyes, +so full of malignant triumph that her heart sank within her, and a +presage of coming misfortune chilled her suddenly from head to foot. + +"When Mr. Jacob Lloyd died," began Olive in a low voice, ignoring +Eleanor, and addressing her remarks directly to Lady Dudgeon, "he left +behind him a large quantity of miscellaneous papers. Those papers were +taken possession of by my cousin, Mr. Kelvin, whose intention it was +to go through them, arrange them, and indorse them at his leisure. +This process was interrupted by his sudden illness. During the last +few days, however, feeling somewhat stronger, he has endeavoured to +occupy himself with them for an hour or two now and then. Yesterday he +came across a document in Mr. Lloyd's own writing of a very singular +nature indeed." + +She paused for a moment, as if to gather breath. Then she went on, +speaking more slowly and deliberately than before, so that each word +might go home to her hearers, and with her eyes still fixed on Lady +Dudgeon. + +"It is a document which would seem to prove conclusively that the +young lady hitherto known as Miss Eleanor Lloyd was not the daughter +of the late Mr. Jacob Lloyd--nor indeed any relative of his whatever, +but simply the child of some unknown parents, adopted by Mr. Lloyd and +his wife out of charity or compassion." + +Eleanor's face by this time was whiter than Olive's. She did not +speak, but sat staring "with wide-open eyes, as in a picture," and +with one hand grasping the back of a chair, as if to keep herself from +falling. + +"Good gracious me! whatever is the woman talking about?" cried her +ladyship, taking off her double eye-glass, as if to make sure that it +was really Olive Deane who was sitting there. + +"Mr. Lloyd, as your ladyship may remember," resumed Olive, without +heeding the interruption, "died very suddenly, and without making a +will. This young lady,"--indicating Eleanor by a slight inclination of +the head--"has, consequently, no claim whatever to a single sixpence +of Mr. Lloyd's property. She is, in fact, neither more nor less than a +pauper." + +At this word a little cry burst involuntarily from Eleanor. She ran to +Lady Dudgeon, and sinking on one knee, buried her face in the elder +lady's lap. + +"Miss Deane, you forget yourself!" said Lady Dudgeon, with severity. +"You forget that Miss Lloyd is my guest." + +"I ask your ladyship's pardon if I have committed any offence. I was +but making a simple statement of fact." + +"That has yet to be proved. But, in any case, the statement was most +offensively made." Then she patted Eleanor's cheek affectionately. +"Keep up your spirits, my dear. Don't get downhearted. There must be a +mistake somewhere. Miss Deane's story sounds far too romantic to be +true." + +"I believe your ladyship is sufficiently acquainted with Mr. Kelvin," +said Olive, not without a touch of sternness, "to be quite aware that +he is not a man who would be likely to send me to Stammars on such an +errand as this unless he were perfectly sure of the facts he had to go +upon. Had there been any doubt in the matter, I should not have been +here to-day." + +"Oh, Lady Dudgeon, it is not that I fear poverty!" cried Eleanor. +"Don't think that. You know that I have never really valued the riches +that were said to be mine." + +"That's true enough," murmured her ladyship. + +"It is the thought of having lost the dearest and kindest man that +ever breathed that wrings my heart. I have lost--my father!" + +"Hush, my dear--hush! Even if it should turn out that you are not Mr. +Lloyd's daughter in reality, you will always have the consolation of +knowing that he loved you as such. Nothing can deprive you of that." +Then turning to Olive, she added: "Since Mr. Kelvin has made this very +clever discovery--which, mind you, as I said before, has yet got to be +proved--he is, doubtless, clever enough to have found out the person +to whom Mr. Lloyd's property really does belong?" + +"The heir-at-law is a certain Mr. Gerald Warburton, a nephew of Mr. +Lloyd, but a person whom Mr. Kelvin has never seen." + +"But a person with whom he will at once place himself in +communication?" + +"Undoubtedly, madam." + +"Miss Lloyd's interests in this matter must not be allowed to suffer. +The case appears to be one that requires the most minute and strict +investigation, and I shall at once place it in the hands of Mr. +Barclay." + +Olive bowed. + +"Mr. Kelvin will no doubt either seek an interview with Miss Lloyd, or +write her full particulars, as soon as he is strong enough to do so." + +"I decline to let Miss Lloyd be troubled in the affair. She is going +up to town with me on Monday next. Mr. Kelvin had better communicate +direct with Mr. Barclay." + +Again Olive bowed. + +"I will not fail to deliver your ladyship's message." + +"Perhaps, after all, it's quite as well that you did not marry Captain +Dayrell," said Lady Dudgeon to Eleanor. "He would hardly have liked +having to give up your dowry." + +Eleanor rose to her feet, and stood for a few moments with her hands +pressed to her temples, as though striving to realize to herself the +strange tidings that had just been told her. "I have no name--no +home," she said, in a dreamy way, as if communing with herself. "I can +work for my living; I am not afraid of that. But--but I have lost my +father, and I have no name!" + +At this instant the door was opened, and in walked Sir Thomas. + +"Eh--what's this?--what's this?" he said, cheerfully. "Hope I'm not +intruding, as what's-his-name says in the play. Rehearsing a little +comedietta, or what?" + +"Run away to your room now, my dear," said Lady Dudgeon, as she rose +and kissed Eleanor. "Every cloud has its silver lining. Keep up your +spirits, and remember that you shall never want for a home as long as +Sir Thomas and I are on this side of the grave." + +Eleanor did not wait for another word, but hurried out by the opposite +door as Sir Thomas came forward. Then the baronet had to be told +everything, and it is needless to say how great was his surprise, +which he expressed in far more voluble terms than his wife had done. + +"If our Nelly ain't Jacob Lloyd's daughter, whose child is she?" he +said, after he had had time to calm down a little. "Kelvin found that +out, I suppose, at the same time that he found out the other." + +"At present he has no clue whatever to the parentage of Miss Lloyd." + +"Why, it's quite a romance! I must call and see Kelvin to-morrow, and +talk it over with him myself." + +"To-morrow is Sunday, Sir Thomas," said her ladyship, severely. "And +on Monday morning we start for town." + +"Ah, so we do," said the baronet, scratching his chin with an air of +perplexity. + +"I have decided to place Eleanor's interests in the hands of Mr. +Barclay, so that the less you interfere personally in the matter the +better." + +"Quite right, my dear, quite right. But what's to become of the poor +girl meanwhile?" + +"For the present she will stay with us, as usual. It is too early yet +to legislate for her future." + +Her ladyship said this with an air that seemed to forbid further +discussion. Her husband took the hint, and remarking that he had +several important letters to write, he trotted back to the library. + +"I am going to have a cup of chocolate in my dressing-room," said her +ladyship to Olive. "Unless you are in a hurry to get back home, you +may come and keep me company." + +Olive was in no hurry to get back; in fact, she had something for her +ladyship's private ear, and was glad of such an opportunity for +telling it. + +Lady Dudgeon, on her side, was actuated by a very natural desire to +elicit from Miss Deane some further particulars of the strange story +which she had just heard. She felt sure that there must be several +interesting details, which it might not be advisable that Eleanor +should be made acquainted with, but which Miss Deane could have no +object in keeping from her. It was certainly not her intention to +cross-question Olive--she was above doing that--a delicate hint to +Miss Deane that her ladyship was willing to listen to anything she +might feel disposed to tell her, ought to be sufficient to elicit any +details that might hitherto have been kept in the background. + +Notwithstanding the kind way in which she had spoken to Eleanor, Lady +Dudgeon felt very considerably annoyed in her own mind at the thought +that her pet protégée, whom she had taken everywhere and introduced to +everybody, lauding her to the skies as everything that was good and +beautiful, and who had, in a certain sense, as the presumed heiress of +twenty thousand pounds, shed a reflected lustre on her chaperon, +should turn out to be nobody knew whom, and without a sixpence to call +her own. Nothing could have been more mortifying. She had liked the +girl from a child, and would no doubt have continued to like her just +as much had Jacob Lloyd died a bankrupt, and would probably have made +a sort of humble companion of her, or would, in any case, have seen +that she was properly provided for; but to have introduced the girl to +all her fine friends and acquaintances on a footing of equality, and +now to discover that she had no claim to the status so given her--that +was indeed a bitter pill for her ladyship to swallow. + +She knew well--no one better--how censorious is that Society of which +she herself formed a component atom; how one of the chief conditions +of its existence is that it shall revenge itself without mercy on +every _faux pas_ of its votaries in which they may be found out. She +knew quite well the sort of remarks that people would make. They would +say that she had wilfully allowed herself to become a party to a +fraud. They would say that she had done her best to pass off a +portionless girl as an heiress, and, in the eyes of Society, what +crime could well be more heinous than that? + +It was very, very mortifying, and she could not help, in her secret +heart, visiting upon Eleanor some portion of blame for what had +happened. It seemed well-nigh incredible to her that the girl could +have lived all these years in utter ignorance that she was not Jacob +Lloyd's daughter. Of course, all these minor points would have to be +inquired into and thoroughly sifted later on. Much bitterness was yet +to come, but the foretaste she had of it already was very far from +being to her liking. + +Not a shadow of all this was discernible in her ladyship's manner as +Miss Deane followed her upstairs; but Olive had a poisoned arrow in +her quiver of which Lady Dudgeon knew nothing. + +A cup of chocolate was brought for each of them, and Lady Dudgeon, as +she sipped at hers, chatted away to her companion about Sophy and +Carry, and what girls they were for wearing out their boots; about the +late flower show; about Mrs. Diplock's last baby, and the state of Mr. +Kelvin's health--while waiting for an opportunity to work the +conversation round to the desired point. But Olive was in no mood for +such man[oe]uvring. She had something to say, and she was determined +to say it. A break in the flow of her ladyship's small-talk was caused +by the intrusion of a servant to ask a question, and Olive seized the +opportunity. + +"There is one circumstance that took place while I was at Stammars," +she began, "which I have sometimes thought since I ought to have +mentioned to your ladyship at the time. To-day I regret more than ever +that I omitted to do so." + +"To what circumstance do you allude, Miss Deane?" + +"Your ladyship must please to pardon the question, but did it never +strike you, did you never notice, that there was some hidden +understanding between Miss Lloyd and Mr. Pomeroy?" + +"Good gracious. Miss Deane, whatever do you mean?" + +Lady Dudgeon was surprised for the moment out of her assumed +equability. + +"To put the case in plain language, and it will perhaps be best to do +so," said Olive, "has your ladyship never had reason to suspect that +Miss Lloyd and Mr. Pomeroy were engaged to each other?" + +"Impossible! such a thing is utterly impossible!" was Lady Dudgeon's +emphatic reply. "I know Miss Lloyd too well to believe anything of the +kind. For once, Miss Deane, your surmises have led you altogether +astray." + +"Possibly so; I hope so," said Olive, resignedly. + +There was an awkward silence. Her ladyship fidgeted, but said nothing. +Singular to say, she seemed far more put out by what Olive had just +said to her than by the far more important disclosure that had been +made to her half an hour previously. + +"You--you mentioned some circumstance," she said at last, not without +a touch of irritation. She felt as though Olive were doing her a +personal injury. + +"Yes; a little circumstance of which I was the accidental witness. But +probably your ladyship will not think it worth while to listen to it." + +"Probably it is not worth listening to, but still there can be no harm +in your telling me." + +"One evening, some two or three weeks before my cousin was taken +ill," began Olive, "I was sitting in the bow-window of the back +drawing-room. The curtains were partly drawn, and when Miss Lloyd came +into the room she did not see me. She sat down at the piano and began +to play: and as there was no third person present, I saw no reason for +making my presence known. But after a time Mr. Pomeroy came in. He had +just returned from a journey, and was evidently in search of Miss +Lloyd. He hurried up to her, and, before I had time to say a word, he +had folded her in his arms. Then he called her his darling, and kissed +her several times." + +"How dreadful--how very dreadful!" exclaimed Lady Dudgeon, with a sort +of terror. + +"And then----Miss Lloyd kissed him back." + +Lady Dudgeon could only put down her cup of chocolate and groan. + +In saying that Eleanor kissed Gerald back, Olive told a lie, a +weakness that she was never guilty of unless she had some particular +end to serve. + +"And do you really mean to affirm, Miss Deane, that you saw +these--these shocking things with your own eyes?" Lady Dudgeon +contrived to say at last. + +"Certainly; exactly as I have told your ladyship." + +It was indeed dreadful. She had been hoodwinked and bamboozled under +her own roof, and by this girl for whom she had done and sacrificed so +much. Her feelings had been outraged in their tenderest point. Eleanor +Lloyd was deposed from her throne for ever. What could anyone do for a +person who could so far forget what was due both to herself and +others? + +Lady Dudgeon strove her hardest to hide from Olive the effect which +her words had upon her. "Well, well, young people will be young people +till the end of the chapter," she said at last, with a ghastly attempt +at cheerfulness. + +"Mr. Pomeroy will now have an opportunity of proving the +disinterestedness of his affection," said Olive, in her slow, incisive +way. "He can now let the world see that it was not Miss Lloyd's money, +but Miss Lloyd herself, that he fell in love with." + +"What a strange person you are, Miss Deane!" her ladyship could not +help saying. + +Olive smiled coldly, and then rose to go. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +WINGED WORDS. + + +It was not in the nature of things that Sir Thomas Dudgeon should long +keep to himself the news which had just been told him. He was bursting +to tell somebody, and as Gerald was to a certain extent one of the +family, it seemed only right that Gerald should know all. So into the +sympathetic ear of his secretary the whole story was volubly poured, +with many a comment, and many an expression of sympathy for poor +unfortunate Eleanor. "I feel as if I loved her better now than ever I +did before," the baronet finished up by saying. "She shall never want +for a home as long as I'm master at Stammars." + +"It has come at last, and I'm glad of it," said Gerald to himself, +"and has thereby saved me the necessity of telling a very disagreeable +story. I can't at all understand why Kelvin should have kept this +knowledge to himself for so long a time. There seems to me something +strangely underhand in his way of dealing with the affair. However, +better late than never--better that she should hear it from him than +from me. I must go and find her at once." + +Fortunately, Sir Thomas did not detain him long. The old gentleman was +anxious to have an hour or two with Cozzard, and to go round the farm +on Grey Dapple once again. He sighed to think that it would be his +last opportunity for doing so before his return to that hateful +London. On Monday morning they were all to go up to town, and then +farewell to the dear delights of the country for at least two months +to come. + +Gerald's puzzle was how to contrive an interview with Eleanor without +the knowledge of Lady Dudgeon. As it happened, he was on pretty good +terms with Tipper, the young person who, among her other duties, acted +as maid to Miss Lloyd. Her he now contrived to capture, and putting +half-a-crown into one of her hands, and a note into the other, he +found no difficulty in inducing her to do his bidding. All he said in +the note was-- + +"Pray do me the favour of meeting me for five minutes in the +conservatory as soon as possible." + +Ten minutes later Eleanor was there. + +A faint blush suffused her face as she came towards Gerald, but it was +easy to see that she had been crying. She took Gerald's extended hand +frankly, and then, before she knew how it happened, he had possession +of the other one also. + +"I have heard everything," he said, "and I could not rest till I had +seen you." + +She did not answer for a moment, but her eyes flushed with tears, and +Gerald felt her hands tremble within his like two frightened birds. + +"It is a very strange story," she said, "and I feel at present that I +cannot altogether realize it." + +"It is indeed a strange story--far too strange for Kelvin to lend +himself to unless he had satisfied himself that it was true." + +"The hardest--the bitterest part is to discover that he whom I loved +so dearly while he lived, and whose memory I have cherished so fondly +since I lost him, was not my father--was nothing but my benefactor. It +makes me feel as if there were no such thing as reality in the world, +as if life itself were nothing more substantial than a dream." She +sighed, and releasing her hands from Love's sweet custody, she went +and sat down on a garden-chair, and Gerald seated himself close by +her. + +"Nothing can change my love for him, or cause it to diminish by one +iota," she said. "If he was not my father in reality, he acted a +father's part by me, and he was my father in the sight of Heaven. God +bless him! God bless him for ever!" she said passionately, and then +she burst into sobs. + +Gerald thought it best to say nothing for a little while; but he took +her hand and pressed it softly to his lips, and was not repulsed. + +In four or five minutes Eleanor had recovered her calmness. "You asked +me to meet you here, Mr. Pomeroy," she said, "having something, I +presume, that you wish to say to me, and here am I monopolising your +time with my own selfish troubles. But you must forgive me this once, +and I will not offend again." + +"You are right. I have something to say to you," said Gerald, +earnestly. "Sir Thomas has told me everything. You are no longer the +heiress people believed you to be. You are poor like myself. Pray +pardon my frankness; but that very poverty it is that gives me courage +to speak." He paused for a moment, and in the pause they both heard +the plashing of a tiny fountain in the distance, and the crabbed voice +of old Sanderson crooning some old-world ballad to himself as he bent +over his work. + +"Several weeks ago, in a moment of forgetfulness," resumed Gerald, "I +said certain words to you which, bearing in mind the reason that first +brought me to Stammars, ought never to have been said by me. I +confessed my fault, and you forgave me. Since that time, whatever my +feelings may have been, I have so far schooled myself as not to offend +again. Now the case is different. No one can say now that I seek you +for your money. The reason which has kept me silent so long exists no +longer. To-day--here--now--I can tell you how dearly I love you--how +dearly I have loved you from the moment I first saw you! Here, to-day, +I ask you whether you can give me back love for love, heart for +heart--whether you can learn to care for me sufficiently to share your +poverty with my poverty and to become my wife?" + +Again he stooped and kissed her hand, but she would not let him keep +it. Her eyes were wet, her bosom heaving. Her colour came and went, +then left her altogether. Twice she tried to speak, but could not. + +"Oh, Mr. Pomeroy," she said at last, "your words have come upon me so +suddenly that indeed I know not how to answer them! Your pride would +not let you seek me when you believed me to be rich: my pride will not +let me give myself to you now that I am poor." + +"But supposing," said Gerald, "that I had come to you at eleven +o'clock this morning--supposing I had come to you five minutes before +Miss Deane delivered her message, and had asked you then to become my +wife, what would your answer have been?" + +This was a question that seemed to require consideration. + +"When you asked me to meet you here, I thought you had something to +tell me. I did not know that I was coming here to be catechised." + +"What I had to tell you I have told. To you, perhaps, it seems hardly +worth the hearing. To me it means everything." + +She turned her eyes for a moment on his. Their glance seemed to say, +"Pity my embarrassment, and don't say cruel things to me." + +"I must repeat my question," said Gerald. "If you were as rich to-day +as you believed yourself to be yesterday, and I were what I am, would +you in that case reject my suit as positively as you are doing now?" + +"I hardly know. Perhaps not," was the whispered answer. + +"Those words are enough. They tell me everything--they tell me all +that I want to know!" cried Gerald. "If you would not have rejected me +yesterday, you shall not reject me to-day!" and before Eleanor knew +what had happened, she was folded tightly in his arms, and a rain of +sweet kisses was falling on her forehead, her eyes, and her lips. + +It was fully half a minute before she could free herself. "You are the +most impetuous person I ever met with," she said. "And see how you +have crushed my collar, and disarranged my hair. It's--it's really +disgraceful." And with that she turned of her own accord, and shyly +hid her face on Gerald's shoulder. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +VAN DUREN'S FLIGHT. + + +When Max Van Duren came to his senses he found himself in darkness and +alone. A low damp wind was blowing in from the sea, sighing and +groaning as if burdened with messages from the dying to loved ones at +home. The tide had come to its height, and was now flowing out again, +with deep muttered undertones that lent solemnity to the darkness. Van +Duren's first thought was that he had died and was coming to life +again in another world. Presently he felt something trickling slowly +and softly down his face, and his finger, following the tiny stream to +its source, found that it proceeded from a huge gash in the side of +his head. Then in a flash the whole circumstances of the evening came +back to him--the scene in the room at the hotel, his attempt to steal +the casket, the sudden apparition of Ambrose Murray, the scene in the +balcony, and his own wild leap out into the darkness. Whither had that +leap landed him? He was now lying on his side, and he contrived to +raise himself on one elbow and look round, but only to fall back next +minute with a groan. He could see the sky and he could hear the sea, +and he could make out that his body seemed to be lying among some +large stones or pieces of rock, but beyond that he could tell nothing. +He lay very quiet for a little while, thinking with all his might. +What troubled him most of all--far more than his own present +condition--was the doubt as to whether the vision of Ambrose Murray, +which he had seen in the room was that of a real man or was merely a +spectre. He was no believer in ghosts--or he told himself that he was +not, despite his strange experience of the face in the glass--but for +all that, he was inclined to doubt the bodily existence of Murray. "I +was weak and ill and excited," he said to himself "I had eaten nothing +for four-and-twenty hours. My nerves were in a state of tension that +had become almost unbearable. I was just in a condition to see or +imagine anything. I had been thinking of Murray, and I imagined that I +saw him there bodily before me. If my brain had only been as cool then +as it is now, I should never have seen him. With the daylight these +silly fancies will vanish--but will it ever be daylight again?" + +Even while he was reasoning with himself, a thin streak of pallid grey +was beginning to lighten in the east, though he saw it not for a +little while. He was weak with long fasting and loss of blood. The +calmness of despair had settled down upon him. He neither knew where +he was nor cared greatly to know. Had anyone been there to whom he +could have given himself up, he would have yielded himself willingly. +"The game's played out and I have lost it," he muttered to himself +again and again. + +But little by little the dawn broadened, and the stars paled one by +one, and with the slow coming of the daylight there grew upon Van +Duren a restless desire to know what it was that had really befallen +him. His mood changed. The wish to live, to escape, began to grow +again within him. But first to ascertain where he was and what had +happened to him. Bit by bit, as the daylight deepened, and first one +object and then another shaped itself faintly out of the darkness, he +began to realize his position. There below him was the sea, there +above shone the white buildings of the hotel--there, in fact, was the +very balcony over which, in his fright, he had so madly leaped. He had +come down on his head and had at once been rendered insensible, and +his senseless body had begun to turn over and over in its rapid +progress down the steep face of the cliff to the wild waves lapping +at its feet, for at that time it was nearly high water. But about +two-thirds of the way down his body had been caught by two projecting +boulders, and there held, and there it was now. The box for which he +had risked so much had been dashed from his arms in the fall, and, +rolling down the cliff, had doubtless been carried far out to sea by +the refluent tide. + +Van Duren did not know--he never knew--that the people of the hotel, +urged on by Ambrose Murray after his return to consciousness, had come +out with lanterns to search for him, but without much expectation of +being able to find him. They knew well what a little chance of life +anyone would have who leaped over that balcony, either by day or +night. Had the tide been out, they would have gone down to the sands, +in the full expectation of finding the stranger's body at the foot of +the cliff. But the tide was up at the time, and, if not killed by the +fall, Van Duren would undoubtedly be drowned and his body carried out +to sea. It seemed useless to make any prolonged search, and they +quickly took themselves and their lanterns indoors. + +As daylight advanced, the necessity of getting away from so +dangerously prominent a position to some place of shelter and security +impressed itself with increasing force on Van Duren's attention. +Besides which, he was the prey to a burning thirst. When he began to +move, it seemed as if every bone in his body were bruised--but move he +must. There was now a broad stretch of brown sand at the foot of the +cliff. If he could only reach that, he could manage to crawl along it, +and so, in time, reach the inn where he had taken shelter yesterday. +He was dreadfully weak and ill, but the effort must be made. He got +down to the sands at last, but how he could not have told anyone--he +hardly knew himself; and so, by about half-past six, he found himself +once more in the shelter of the little inn. + +To the landlord, his statement that while walking in the dark he had +slipped over the edge of the cliff seemed by no means improbable. Such +slips had happened before to strangers, and in more cases than one +with fatal results. So his head was washed and strapped up, his +clothes well brushed, and some breakfast put before him. He tried to +eat but could not; he could only drink. But while thus left alone for +awhile he had to consider what his next step ought to be. It seemed by +no means improbable that his enemies might come to the conclusion that +he had lost his life through his mad leap from the balcony. In that +case they would probably trouble themselves no further about him. But +in so serious an affair it would not do to leave anything to chance. +Now that their business at Marhyddoc was at an end, they would hasten +back to London; and it was just as likely as not that one of the first +things they would do would be to obtain a warrant for his arrest, and +send some one to Spur Alley in search of him. In such a case his only +chance of safety lay in being beforehand with his enemies. If he could +only reach Spur Alley before them, he could possess himself of the +money in the safe, and then, leaving Pringle in charge of the +premises, seek some secure hiding place, and there await the progress +of events. Even with a start of one or two days only, there were a +good many things that he could turn into cash; and, if the worst came +to the worst, why there was that other world across the Atlantic, +where energy and talent never fail to attain their meed of reward. To +catch the next train back to London was evidently the first step that +it behoved him to take. An hour later he was at the station. + +As a slight measure of precaution, in case there should be any inquiry +made after him at Marhyddoc, he took a ticket as far as Crewe only. +Arrived at that station, it would be an easy matter for him to book to +any point he liked. He had not been in the train more than five +minutes before he fell into a deep sleep, and remembered nothing more +till he was roused to give up his ticket at Crewe. He got out of the +carriage giddy, dazed--staggering like a man the worse for drink. He +had evidently-lost a great quantity of blood while lying-exposed on +the cliff. A cup of coffee and cognac revived him in some degree. He +was determined to get forward to London at all risks, and he now +rebooked to Euston. He was fortunate enough this time to get a +compartment to himself. The giddiness in his head still continued, and +to this was now added a strange, surging noise in his ears. When +travelling in former days he had often amused himself by fancying +that, underlying the roar and rattle of the train, there was a kind of +rude articulate voice, and by trying to find out the words that the +voice said to him. To-day he heard this voice clearly enough, and +clearly enough he understood the two words that it said to him--that +it kept on repeating with a kind of rhythmic iteration, hundreds, nay, +thousands of times--two words only without change or variation: "Stop, +murderer!" At first it was a relief when the train halted for a minute +or two at a station; for a minute or two the voice ceased to stab him +with a repetition of its dull, passionless cry. But by-and-by, to his +previous torment there was added this other, that the moment the train +came to a standstill at a station he heard voices, at first far away +in the distance, then gradually coming nearer, the voices of men in +pursuit, eager, full of menace, always crying aloud the same two +words, "Stop, murderer!" He knew quite well, and it was a fact that he +kept repeating to himself as earnestly as though he were striving to +impress it upon some second person, that these voices were altogether +imaginary--a delusion of his own weakened brain. But that did not +prevent the illusion from growing on him to such an extent that, after +a time, he found himself getting quite excited lest the train should +not start again before the pursuing voices, growing momentarily +louder, should come yelling on to the platform itself, and proclaim +his terrible secret to the world at large. + +What an everlasting journey it seemed to the poor, haunted wretch! At +length Willesden was reached, and there Van Duren alighted. There was +some sort of vague idea floating in his brain that at every London +terminus there might already be some one on the look-out for him, and +he would not venture into Euston. He chose rather to make his way on +foot through the starlit lanes--for it was dark again by this time--as +far as Cricklewood. There he found a return cab, and into that he got +and was driven to town. + +In the streets of London, busy even at that late hour, there seemed +shelter and protection for him. Here he was only one atom among four +million others. What place could there be to hide in like London +itself? He still heard the voices in the distance, but the roar and +rattle of the streets partially drowned them. He discharged his cab at +the corner of Eastcheap, and made his way towards Spur Alley on foot. + +It was necessary to use most extreme caution in approaching his house. +For aught he knew to the contrary, there might have been some one set +to watch it already. For fully half an hour he lingered about it, +without daring to go too near to it. There was no light in it visible +from the street, except in Bakewell's underground kitchen. Everything +looked as quiet, dark, and secure as usual. Suddenly a happy thought +struck him. He knew the tavern that Pringle was in the habit of +frequenting. Perhaps Pringle was there now. It was worth while to go +and see. From his clerk he could at once learn whether any particular +inquiries had been made after him during his absence. + +Jonas Pringle, in the act of conveying a glass of hot rum-and-water to +his mouth, had never been more startled in his life than he was when +his eyes met those of Max Van Duren staring fixedly at him through the +glass door of the tavern. He put down his glass untasted, and for a +moment or two he thought that his master was dead, and that he had +seen his ghost. But presently the face appeared again, and beckoned +him to go out into the street. Then, when he had got outside under the +gaslight, he saw that it was indeed his master, but terribly changed. +Half a dozen eager questions satisfied Van Duren that no particular +inquiry had been made after him, and that Pringle knew nothing. It was +hardly likely, at so late an hour of the night, that anyone would come +and ask for him. He might utilise the next few hours in making his +preparations and getting clear away. So Pringle was sent first to open +the door, and then, two minutes later. Van Duren slid in like a +shadow, and heard, with a sigh of relief, the heavy door locked and +bolted behind him. For a few hours to come there would be rest and +safety. + +He said nothing to Pringle explanatory of his sudden appearance, or of +the condition in which he was--unshaven, haggard, and with a great +wound on one side of his head. He flung himself on to a couch, and +told Pringle to lower the gas and order some coffee. He hardly seemed +to hear his clerk's explanation that the Bakewells had gone out for a +holiday, but that he, Pringle, would make him some coffee. Five +minutes later, when Pringle came to ask him whether he would not like +some toast with his coffee, he was fast asleep on the sofa. + +Pringle went back to his coffee-making, chuckling to himself, "What a +fool he was to come in search of me, if he only knew! What a fool he +is to let me make his coffee for him! Why shouldn't I put a dose of +poison in it? That wouldn't be such a bad sort of revenge; and if I +hadn't decided on something different, I might perhaps have adopted +it. He looks half crazy to-night. Something queer has happened to him +while he's been away. How did he come by that gash in his head? But +all that matters nothing to me. It only matters to me that he's here, +under this roof, in my power. Better, far better for him had he never +set foot across this threshold again!" + +He was wide awake when Pringle took in the coffee. "This is kind of +you, Pringle," he said, and he began to drink it eagerly. + +"I find that I shall have to leave home again the first thing in the +morning," he said. "I shall sit up a great part of the night arranging +matters, as I may have to go away for some considerable time. You, +however, may go to bed. I will call you about six, and will then give +you all needful instructions before going away." + +Pringle nodded his usual careless goodnight, and went. But instead of +going upstairs to the room he usually occupied, he took off his shoes +and stole down to the basement floor. He had put out the kitchen gas +before taking up the coffee, but a few embers still glowed in the +grate. + +In the passage that led from the foot of the stairs to the strong-room +there was still a faint glimmer of gas, as there was in the strong-room +itself, in which the gas was seldom turned entirely off. The safe +was locked as usual, and seemed never to have been touched since Van +Duren left home. + +"He's nearly sure to come down here some time in the night, and here +I'll wait for him," muttered Pringle to himself. + +He groped about in the dark till he had found Bakewell's easy-chair, +in which he established himself comfortably in front of the fire, with +his feet on another chair, and there in the dark he waited. He could +hear Van Duren moving about occasionally, and two or three times he +seemed to pace the room for several minutes. The fire slowly burnt +itself out, the crickets chirped loudly in the silence, the city +clocks clanged out the hours one after one, some lightly and +carelessly as it seemed, others solemnly and slowly, as though warning +all who might hear them that they were another hour nearer eternity. +Still Jonas Pringle sat waiting, nor ever closed an eye. + +At length, about three o'clock of the early summer morning, he heard +footsteps slowly descending the stone stairs, and he knew that the +occasion for which he had waited so long had come at last. The kitchen +door was shut, but not latched, so that he could hear but not see +anything that might happen outside. The footsteps came slowly and +deliberately downstairs, and then went along the passage towards the +strong-room. Then Pringle, listening intently, heard the bolts of the +great iron door shoot back as the key was turned, and next moment he +knew that Max Van Duren had entered the strong-room. He was still +without his shoes, and rising from his seat he stepped noiselessly +across the floor, and opening the door a little way, looked out. There +was still the same faint glimmer of light in the passage, but the +brighter glare that issued through the open door of the strong-room +showed that Van Duren had turned up the gas inside. As quietly and +stealthily as a tiger creeps on its prey, Pringle stole along the +passage, and only paused when he reached the fringe of stronger light +that issued from the room. + +There, with his back towards him, stood Max Van Duren, peering into the +open safe, some of the contents of which were already scattered on the +floor. For a few seconds--while a clock might tick twenty times--he +stood watching him with a devilish sneer on his face. Suddenly Van +Duren turned, and his eyes met the eyes of Pringle. An exclamation of +surprise burst from his lips; but before he had time to stir from the +place where he was standing, Pringle had dashed forward, had seized +the handle of the door, had pulled it to with all his might, and had +turned the key. Max Van Duren was locked up in his own strong-room, +ten feet below the surface of the earth. + +"Caged at last!" muttered Pringle to himself, as he drew out the key +and put it in his pocket. "Past three o'clock: it will be broad +daylight soon. I think I could relish some breakfast. Pity old Mother +Bakewell isn't here to get it ready for me." Whistling a tune under +his breath, he went back into the kitchen, flung open the shutters, +and began to set about lighting a fire. "Shall I have those two eggs +boiled or poached?" he asked himself, as he prepared a foundation of +firewood and paper. "I think I'll have 'em poached, just for variety. +I'm sick of boiled eggs." + +Van Duren had not been silent all this time. "Pringle! what devil's +trick is this?" were his first words as he sprang at the closing door. +"Pringle, Pringle, I say, you have fastened me in! Open the door, you +fool, or it will be worse for you!" But Pringle was in the kitchen, +cutting the string of a bundle of firewood. + +"Come, now, Pringle, my good fellow, a joke's a joke, as everybody +knows, but I've had enough of this. If you only knew how important is +the business I've got to attend to, you wouldn't keep me here, I +know." Pringle by this time was down on his knees, blowing away at the +blaze like a pair of wheezy bellows. + +"What do you want of me? What's your grudge against me?" cried Van +Duren, behind the iron door. "Do you want an advance of salary? You +shall have it. Twenty pounds a year advance. Do you hear that? Twenty +pounds a year. If that's not enough--thirty. Only open the door, and I +promise you fifty. Think of that--fifty pounds a year advance!" Still +no answer, though he could plainly hear the rattle of crockery, as +Pringle proceeded to set out the breakfast-tray. "Come, now, Pringle, +we've had enough of this tomfoolery. I'd like to join you over +breakfast. I want to tell you my plans. I want to talk things over +with you before I go. Open the door, there's a good fellow." + +The only notice Pringle took of this appeal was to turn the gas three +parts off at the meter, the effect of which was to reduce the jet in +the strong-room to a mere point of flame, and so leave Van Duren in +almost total darkness. "One had need be economical in these days," +muttered Pringle to himself. "Gas is very expensive." + +For a few moments Van Duren was silent. It might be that he began to +despair, that he began to see how useless any further appeals would +be, that it began to dawn on his mind what Pringle's purpose really +was. But in a little while he spoke again. "Pringle, Pringle, I say, +where are you? What have I done to you that you should serve me like +this? Fiend--monster--bloodthirsty villain! If you want to get rid of +me, knock me on the head and have done with it. Don't leave me here to +starve. That is too horrible!" + +"These eggs are hardly as fresh as they might be, for all I gave +twopence each for 'em," muttered Pringle! "But that's the worst of +London eggs--you never can depend on 'em." Then he made himself some +toast, taking care not to spare the butter, and presently everything +was ready for him to begin. "I like my coffee made ally Frongsey," he +said, contemplatively. "It's certainly an improvement on the old +English style. Those Frenchmen don't know a great deal, but they do +know how to make coffee." + +When everything was ready for him to sit down to, he walked along the +passage to the iron door and rapped at it with his knuckles. "Max Van +Duren, are you there?" he said, simply and sternly. + +Van Duren, who had been silent for some little while, responded +eagerly. "Yes, yes, Pringle, I am here! I knew it was only one of your +queer practical jokes." + +"I am now going to get my breakfast, after which I shall smoke a pipe. +When I have finished my pipe, I will come and have some talk with you. +Till then you may as well be silent, and behave like a reasonable +being." With that he turned on his heel. + +"Pringle, my good fellow, don't leave me here all that time; don't +leave me here in the dark in this horrible den!" But Pringle was gone +already, and this time he shut behind him the wooden door at the foot +of the stairs that opened into the passage, and then he shut the +kitchen door, so as to ensure himself still further against being +disturbed; then he rubbed his hands with an air of enjoyment, and +proceeded to pour out his coffee. + +He took half an hour for his breakfast, and another half-hour for the +pipe that followed, and then he told himself that he was ready for +business. All this time the prisoner in the strong-room had maintained +the most perfect silence. + +Opening the outer door, Pringle traversed the passage, and, as before, +rapped with his knuckles on the inner door. As before, he said, "Max +Van Duren, are you there?" + +"I am here." + +"Then listen; come closer to the door and listen. You would doubtless +like to know why I have shut you up here. That is what I am going to +tell you. But first you must answer me one or two questions. Do you +know the village of Dunhope, in Berkshire?" + +No answer. + +Pringle repeated the question with more emphasis. "If you won't answer +my questions, I can't tell you what you are so anxious to know." + +"I did know a place of that name some years ago." + +"Just so. You knew it some years ago. If we were to say seven or eight +years ago, we should not be very wide of the mark. Knowing Dunhope so +well, you perhaps knew a young girl who lived there once on a time--a +girl whose name was Jessie Ember. Eh! am I right or wrong?" + +"You are right; I did know a girl of that name." + +"We are getting on famously. A little bird has whispered to me that +you made love to this girl, that you persuaded her to leave her +situation, and that, relying on your solemn promise to make her your +wife, you brought her to London; but that when you had once got her +here, you quite forgot your promise to marry her. Are these things +true, or are they not?" + +There was a long pause. Then came the answer, with a sort of groan-- + +"They are true." + +"Soon tiring of the girl, you turned her adrift to starve or die, +or--or to become one of earth's forlornest creatures; it mattered not +to you." + +He paused, overcome by an emotion that, despite all his efforts, would +not be wholly suppressed. + +"Am I not right?" he asked, a moment or two later. "Have you ever, +from that day to this, troubled yourself to make one single inquiry +after the girl whom you once swore that you loved better than life +itself? Do you even know whether she is dead or alive?" + +"Who are you that you talk to me in this way? By what right do you ask +me these questions?" + +"Who am I? I will tell you who I am. I am Jessie Ember's father! Who +has more right to question you than I?" + +"You her father! Oh, Heaven!" + +It was little more than a whisper, that seemed instinct with surprise, +terror, and anguish. + +"Scoundrel! unmitigated scoundrel!" began Pringle. Then he paused. +"But I only demean myself by calling you names. You are where you +are--and I am satisfied." + +"What do you want of me? I am rich, and----" + +"Singular, isn't it, that I should have been with you all this time, +and never have discovered till the other day that you are the man I +have been looking for for years? But things do come about strangely in +this world." + +"Unlock the door, and I will make you rich for life." + +"Ha! ha! I can be rich for life without unlocking the door." + +"How?" + +"By waiting till you are dead, and then constituting myself your heir. +No will required. No legacy duty to pay. Funeral expenses next to +nothing. I saw such a splendid grey rat leap from behind the old +ledgers the other day." + +"Villain! you would not murder me?" + +"Murder you! Ha! ha! Certainly not. What put that idea into your +head." + +"Then why don't you open the door?" + +"Now you are asking a leetle too much--just a leetle. I would do +anything in the world for you except open this door. You know you +robbed me of my child--you ruined her and deserted her. It was only +one of your little practical jokes. It's my turn now. This is one of +_my_ jokes. You don't object, I hope?" + +"Then you are going to leave me hereto starve--to die?" + +"Oh no, I'm not going to leave you. There you are mistaken. I shall +come a dozen times a day to see you. These little dialogues are +interesting. I'll bring my pipe after awhile, and come and keep you +company; but on this side the door, you know--on this side the door." + +"Have you no pity? Will nothing move you?" + +"It will be quite a little holiday for you. Nothing to do--absolutely +nothing to do. I will do all the business, attend to the letters, and +answer all inquiries. 'Has Mr. Van Duren got back home yet?' 'No, sir, +he is still in France, but I am expecting him every day.' Ha! ha! and +you here all the time! Won't it be a lark, Van, my boy, eh?" + +A deep groan was the only reply. + +"And now I'm just going round the corner in search of an early nip to +digest my breakfast. Don't get downhearted, because I shan't be long +away. No, no, I value you too much to stay away from you for very +long." + +And, turning on his heel, Jonas Pringle walked leisurely away, +whistling to himself as he went. + + + + +CHAPTER X. +TOLD AT LAST. + + +Olive Deane had taken her leave of Lady Dudgeon and was crossing the +hall towards the side door, close to which the fly that had brought +her from Pembridge was still waiting, when suddenly the doors at the +opposite side of the hall were opened, and, as they swung back on +their hinges, a sight met her eyes that for a moment or two seemed to +turn her to stone. + +Supported on one side by Dr. Whitaker, and resting his other arm on +the shoulder of Pod Piper, like a man newly risen from the tomb, +Matthew Kelvin stepped slowly and painfully across the threshold. His +thin, bent form, his long, bony fingers, the worn, hollow face, the +pinched nostrils, the deep-sunk eyes, and the grave-like pallor that +overspread his features, made up a figure that looked far more weird +and startling when seen thus in the full glare of day than in the +semi-obscurity and amid the appropriate surroundings of a sickroom. + +A strange, fierce light sprang to the sick man's eyes the moment he +saw who was standing there. Olive's cheek whitened as she looked, her +breath came more quickly, she pressed her hand involuntarily to her +heart, as though she were in pain; then she went two or three steps +nearer, and then she halted again, as though in doubt or fear. + +"Matthew! You here!" she said at last. + +"So you are not gone yet!" was the answer. "It is well. I have +something to say to you. Follow me." + +Then the ghastly procession began to move slowly forward again, and, +preceded by one of the baronet's servants, it crossed the hall and +went in the direction of the library. + +Olive stood aside to let it pass--stood aside with clasped hands, and +with her heart on her lips, as it were, longing, yearning for one +word, one look of kindness or recognition from her cousin, but in +vain. Matthew Kelvin's eyes were set straight before him, and he +looked neither to the right hand nor the left, till he reached the +library, where the servant at once wheeled forward a large easy chair, +into which he sank, breathless and exhausted. + +Olive, following silently behind, was the last to enter the room. She +shut the door behind her, and stood quietly in the background, +unheeded for the time by everyone. Vague, dark forebodings were at +work in her heart. What did it all mean? she asked herself again and +again. That strange look in her cousin's eyes, the way he spoke to +her, the presence of Dr. Whitaker--all signs and tokens of something +that boded no good to her. Had everything been discovered? She +shivered from head to foot as this question put itself to her. + +As soon as Mr. Kelvin was seated, the servant and Pod Piper left the +room. + +"Why, bless my heart! is that you or your ghost?" cried Sir Thomas, +starting up from his chair and rubbing his eyes. + +He had been taking forty winks surreptitiously--a little weakness in +which he indulged three or four times a day, without ever permitting +himself to acknowledge that he had been asleep. + +Gerald, in the act of reaching a book from one of the upper shelves, +turned with the volume in his hand as Kelvin and the others came into +the room. + +"He will be better in a little while," said Dr. Whitaker to the +baronet, who had crossed the room, and was now standing, with his +hands under his coat-tails and pursed-up lips, gazing down with +compassionate eyes at the half-conscious man before him. + +"What a wreck! What a terrible wreck!" murmured the baronet. "I--I +never dreamt that he was half as bad as this." + +Dr. Whitaker put something to the sick man's nostrils, which he +inhaled eagerly, and presently he began to revive. + +"I trust. Sir Thomas, that you will pardon my intrusion," he said, at +last, speaking in a strange, husky voice, that was little more than a +whisper, and was totally unlike the well-remembered voice--clear and +confident--of Matthew Kelvin. "That my business here is of a very +pressing kind you may well believe, when you see me thus and so +attended." + +"Whatever your business may be, Kelvin," said the baronet, kindly, "it +is almost a pity that you did not put it off till you were a little +stronger, or else that you did not send for me. I would have gone to +see you willingly. You know that." + +"Yes, yes; I know all you can say," said Kelvin, a little querulously. +"But it was necessary that I should come here in person, and without +an hour's delay." + +"You don't mean to say that there's going to be a dissolution of +Parliament?" cried Sir Thomas, eagerly. + +Kelvin, smiling faintly, shook his head. + +"Ah! I was afraid there was no such luck," said the baronet. + +"I am here on the same errand that brought Miss Deane here this +morning." + +"But Miss Deane has told us everything, and a queer story it is." + +"She has not told you everything, Sir Thomas." + +"Well, I hope there's not much more to tell. I hardly know already +whether I'm topsy-turvey or how." + +"You have, I presume, read the letter that I sent by Miss Deane?" + +"Miss Deane gave me no letter. She told me a long rigmarole about----" + +"Oh, Matthew! I lost the letter!" cried Olive, coming a step or two +nearer. "I lost the letter; but I knew what you had written, and I +delivered your message just the same." + +"You could not know what I had written, unless you had read my +letter," said Kelvin, coldly and sternly. + +"Oh, Matthew! Why do you say such cruel things of me?" cried Olive, +imploringly. "You know how I knew what the contents of your letter +would necessarily be." + +"Has the message which Miss Deane gave you been given also to Lady +Dudgeon and to Miss Lloyd?" asked Kelvin of the baronet. + +"Certainly--to both of them. They were told first of all." + +"I hope you will not think that I am asking too much if I ask you to +be kind enough to request the favour of Lady Dudgeon's and Miss +Lloyd's presence here for a few minutes." + +"We'll have them here in a brace of jiffeys," said Sir Thomas, +heartily. + +Gerald rang the bell, a servant came in, and a message was sent to +Lady Dudgeon and Miss Lloyd. + +"I felt sure there was some mistake in that queer story which Miss +Deane told us a couple of hours ago," said the baronet, cheerfully. +"Such things never happen in real life, you know. One sees them on the +stage sometimes, and laughs at them." + +Nobody answered him, and he began to whistle under his breath. +Dr. Whitaker was busy giving his patient a cordial, which he had taken +the precaution to bring with him in his pocket. + +A minute later, Lady Dudgeon and Miss Lloyd entered the room. + +"I suppose I ought to make myself scarce, but I shan't," said Gerald +to himself. "I shall not leave the room unless they tell me to go. The +climax is on us at last, and I think it will be found presently that +I've as much right here as anybody. Besides, my darling may want me to +back her up." + +He dropped quietly into a chair in the background. Only one person +there seemed to be aware of his presence. Who that person was need +hardly be said. + +Lady Dudgeon was genuinely shocked to see Mr. Kelvin looking so ill, +and chided him gently for venturing so far from home. Eleanor went up +to him, and shook hands with him. He saw the tears standing in her +eyes, and his own eyes fell before her. Love and remorse were busy in +his heart. + +"How bitterly I have wronged her!" he groaned to himself "What a +confession is this which I am here to make?" + +"The letter which I wrote this morning," began Mr. Kelvin, struggling +manfully with his weakness, "and which, by some strange mischance, +appears to have been lost, was addressed to Miss Lloyd. It would +appear, however, that my cousin, Olive Deane, who was certainly +cognisant of most of the circumstances of the case, has told you what +were the contents of the letter. There are certain other +circumstances, however, of which as yet you know nothing, and it is of +these that I am now here to speak." + +He paused for a moment or two to gather breath, and to moisten his +lips again with the cordial. + +"I presume Miss Deane has told you," he went on, "that while recently +wading through some of the late Mr. Lloyd's papers, I came across +certain documents which prove conclusively that Miss Lloyd is only +that gentleman's adopted daughter, and that, consequently, there being +no will, she is not the heiress to his property. Is not that, may I +ask, what Miss Deane has told you?" + +"That is precisely what Miss Deane told us," said Lady Dudgeon; "and I +hope, with all my heart, that you are now come to tell us that it's +all a mistake, and that our dear Eleanor is Miss Lloyd after all." + +"Hear, hear!" cried Sir Thomas, as if from the back benches of the +House. + +"I am sorry to say that what Miss Deane told you is perfectly true," +said Kelvin. "There is no possibility of mistake as to the main facts +of the case." + +"Dear, dear! what a pity--what a very great pity!" interposed the +baronet. + +"You may remember, Sir Thomas," resumed Kelvin, "that some little time +after Mr. Lloyd's death, I once or twice mentioned to you that amongst +his papers I had not been able to find any clue as to where Miss Lloyd +was either born or baptized. It was requisite, before taking out +letters of administration, that I should have some trustworthy +information on this point; but there being no particular hurry in the +matter, and I being busy at the time with other important work, one +week went on after another without my making any serious effort to +supply the necessary link. Still, when the discovery did come, it was +as great a surprise to me as it can possibly have been to any of you." + +"Then you think there is not the slightest possibility of there being +any mistake in the matter?" said her ladyship. + +"I have in my possession a document, written and signed by Jacob Lloyd +himself, in which he states that the young lady, supposed to be his +daughter, was merely adopted by himself and his wife in her infancy." + +"Is no clue given as to her real parentage?" + +"None whatever. But I have also in my possession a sealed packet which +I will presently give to Miss Lloyd--a packet addressed to her by Mr. +Lloyd himself, but with instructions that it should not be given to +her till after his death. Inside this packet I think it quite possible +that Miss Lloyd may find all the particulars she would like to know." + +"Does it not seem somewhat strange, Mr. Kelvin," said Lady Dudgeon, +"that after bringing up Eleanor as his own child, Mr. Lloyd should +have left her totally unprovided for?" + +"I think there can be no doubt, madam, as to Mr. Lloyd's intentions. +That he intended to provide handsomely for his adopted daughter, no +one who knew him could doubt. But he was a very dilatory man in many +ways, and he put off making his will from day to day and year to year, +till at length death surprised him suddenly, and no time was given him +to repair his fatal omission." + +There was a pause. Dr. Whitaker whispered something in his patient's +ear, but Kelvin only shook his head impatiently. + +"You remarked just now, Mr. Kelvin," said Lady Dudgeon, "that there +were some other circumstances connected with this remarkable case +which you thought it desirable that we should become acquainted with." + +"Precisely so, madam. It is for that purpose that I am here. The +revelation I am about to make is a very painful one--very painful and +humiliating to me. But I have made up my mind to make it, and I will +not shrink from doing so whatever may be the consequences to myself." + +Once more he paused and put the cordial to his lips. That he was +deeply moved, all there could plainly see, but Olive Deane alone was +in a position to guess the cause. + +"This is the confession that I have to make," he began at last. "The +news you have heard to-day respecting Miss Lloyd, has been in my +possession not for a few days only, as you probably imagine, but for +five long months." + +"Oh, Mr. Kelvin!" cried Eleanor. + +"Dear me, Mr. Kelvin, what a very strange person you must be!" cried +her ladyship. "Are we to understand that this secret has been in your +possession for five months, and that you have never spoken of it till +now?" + +"That is what I wish your ladyship to understand." + +"But what could your motive possibly be for keeping a piece of +information of that kind to yourself for so long a time?" + +"I will tell you what my motive was--tell you all. Eighteen months ago +I made Miss Lloyd an offer of marriage." + +"Bless my heart! now who would have thought that?" cried Sir Thomas. + +"Miss Lloyd rejected me. Six months later I tried my fortune again, +but with no better result. It seemed to me--but I may have been +mistaken--that in the second rejection there was an amount of disdain, +of--of contempt almost--that stung me to the quick, and I vowed that +if the opportunity were ever given me I would be revenged." + +"Oh, Mr. Kelvin, how you misunderstood me--misread me!" + +"To seek revenge on a woman because she rejected you! That was very +despicable, Mr. Kelvin." This from her ladyship. + +"I know it and feel it now. I did not know it or feel it at the time. +My mind must have been warped by its own bitterness. So when an +opportunity came, as I thought it had come when this secret respecting +Miss Lloyd found its way into my keeping, I did not fail to seize it." + +"And I certainly fail to see in what way the keeping to yourself of +this information respecting Miss Lloyd could avenge a fancied slight +in times gone by." + +"There stands the temptress"--pointing to Olive Deane--"who first +suggested the idea to me. She--she it was who said to me, 'By keeping +back the information that has come into your possession so strangely, +till Miss Lloyd has become accustomed to her new position, till a life +of ease and self-indulgence shall have become, as it were, a second +nature to her, till she has learned to love--perhaps till her wedding +morn itself--then will her fall from wealth to poverty seem infinitely +greater than it would do now: then will yours be a revenge worthy of +the name!'" + +All eyes were turned on Olive Deane, who was still standing in the +background not far from the door. Her eyes were bent on the carpet and +her face was deathly pale. Suddenly she lifted her eyes and flashed +back a look of scorn, that took in every one there except her cousin; +a bitter smile curled her thin lips for a moment, then she drew a +chair forward and sat down without a word. No one spoke. + +"I am telling you this," resumed Kelvin, "not as blaming my cousin for +her suggestion, but as a confession of my own weakness and wretched +folly. That my feelings were very bitter against Miss Lloyd, I need +hardly tell you, and yet how I despised myself for doing as I was +doing, no one but myself can ever know. Not once, but a hundred times, +did I vow to myself that I would write to Miss Lloyd and tell her +everything, and a hundred times the recollection of her look and her +words when she rejected me, came to my mind and held me back. Then +came my illness, which lasted so long that I began to fancy I should +never get better again, but all through it the wrong that I had done +Miss Lloyd lay with a terrible weight on my conscience, and the first +day that I was strong enough to hold a pen I wrote to her that letter +which she ought to have received this morning." + +"All this was very, very wrong of you, Mr. Kelvin," said Lady Dudgeon. +"Unfortunately, however, none of us can undo the past, and I am quite +sure that in this case your own conscience will be your severest +punishment. Miss Deane said something about a nephew of the late Mr. +Lloyd being the real heir." + +"Yes, a certain Mr. Gerald Warburton. Now that I have broken the news +to Miss Lloyd, it will be my duty at once to communicate with Mr. +Warburton--though, strange to say, I discovered for the first time +this morning that he had already written to me during my illness, but +that the letter had been purposely withheld from me." He looked +steadily at Olive as he said these words, but whatever her feelings +might be at learning that he had somehow discovered her treachery with +regard to Warburton's letters, she still kept her eyes fixed +stedfastly on the carpet, and gave him no answering look. + +"And now, Miss Lloyd," resumed the lawyer, "I will give into your +hands that packet which I ought to have placed there five months ago. +I dare not ask you to forgive me for the wrong I have done you. Such +forgiveness would be an excess of generosity such as I have no right +to expect." + +He took a small sealed packet from his pocket. Then he stood up and, +weak as he was, would have walked across the room to Eleanor, but she +crossed the floor hurriedly and took the packet from his hands. + +"Oh, Mr. Kelvin, I forgive you fully and willingly!" she said with +emotion. "Pray, pray do not let the thought of what is past ever +distress you again!" + +Then, when she saw that the packet was addressed to her in the +handwriting that she remembered so well, she kissed it with tears in +her eyes and went slowly back to her seat by Lady Dudgeon. + +"Unfortunately, Sir Thomas," resumed Kelvin, "my confessions are not +yet at an end, and I must crave your attention for a few minutes +longer." + +"No apologies are needed, Kelvin--none whatever," said Sir Thomas. "I +am entirely at your service." + +Kelvin bowed. + +"At my recommendation, Sir Thomas," he said, "you, a little while ago, +took into your service the gentleman who is now sitting there." + +"Pomeroy, you mean. To be sure--to be sure. And a very useful fellow +I've found him. I'm your debtor for recommending him to me, Kelvin." + +"When I asked you to take him into your service, sir, I did not know +one thing about him that I know now." + +"Ay--ay--what is that? Can't know anything bad of Pomeroy. Good +fellow, very." + +"My dear! such remarks may be a little premature," interposed her +ladyship gently. + +"From something that came to my knowledge only a few hours ago, I have +discovered that Mr. Pomeroy's chief motive in desiring to enter your +service, was that he might have an opportunity of being near Miss +Lloyd, and of thereby winning her affections and inducing her to +become his wife." + +"Bless my heart! I would never have believed that of Pomeroy--never!" + +Again Kelvin looked fixedly at Olive but she still kept her eyes +turned persistently from him. She was stupefied. How had all this +knowledge come to him--first the knowledge of Gerald Warburton's +letter, and now of the secret arrangement between Pomeroy and herself? +Had that still darker secret come to his knowledge likewise? + +"I can only apologise, Sir Thomas," resumed Kelvin, "for having +inadvertently been the means of introducing, under your roof, a person +whose designs were such as I have mentioned, and I trust----" + +"You are not to blame, Kelvin--not in the least," said the baronet. +"But this is very sad--very sad indeed. What have you to say, Pomeroy, +to all this?" + +"Only that what Mr. Kelvin has just stated is, to a certain extent, +true," said Gerald coolly. "My inducement in seeking to enter your +service was certainly the hope of being thereby brought into daily +contact with Miss Lloyd, with whom I was specially desirous of +becoming acquainted." + +"That is easily understood," said her ladyship. "Miss Lloyd at that +time was supposed to be worth twenty thousand pounds. Mr. Pomeroy's +audacious candour is quite refreshing." + +"I will be candid," said Gerald with an amused smile. "For me to see +and become acquainted with Miss Lloyd was to love her, and when that +fact became patent to me, it would not do to sail any longer under +false colours. I told Miss Lloyd that I loved her--the confession +slipped out one evening unawares--but the first time I met her +afterwards I confessed to her what my reasons had been for entering +this house, asking her at the same time to forgive the wrong I had +done her, and to forget the words I had said. From that day to this +Miss Lloyd and I have been good friends: nothing more." + +"Bless us all! what goings on under ones very nose, and I to know +nothing about them!" cried Sir Thomas. + +"But this morning altered the position of affairs entirely," went on +Gerald. "You, sir, a little while ago told me what Miss Deane had just +told you--that Miss Lloyd was Miss Lloyd no longer, and had nothing in +the world but her own sweet self that she could call her own. This +being the case, I at once sought Miss Lloyd--found her--told her that +my love was still unchanged, and would not leave her till I had won +from her a promise to become my wife. That promise I hold, and I shall +claim its fulfilment from her before she and I are many weeks older." + +"Well done, Pomeroy! That's manly--that's as it should be!" exclaimed +Sir Thomas. "I knew you would turn out a decent fellow at bottom." + +Her ladyship was slightly scandalised. "My dear!" she pleaded, "you +are too enthusiastic. You let your heart run away with your head." + +She drew her skirts round her, pushed back her chair a little, and +perching her double eye-glass on the bridge of her high nose, she +stared curiously at Eleanor. + +Lady Dudgeon's feelings just now were of a very mixed kind. Her +affection for the girl, the growth of long years, struggled with her +very natural vexation at finding how thoroughly she had been +hoodwinked, how completely she had been ignored in the matter by +everybody. On the other hand, there was a spice of romance about the +affair that appealed to some hidden feeling, of whose existence she +herself was hardly aware. + +"Child! child!" she said in an aside to Eleanor, "if you had but given +me your confidence! Two paupers! What are you to do? How are you to +live? It's dreadful to contemplate!" + +Kelvin's cheeks flushed as he listened to Gerald's words. He set his +teeth and glared savagely out of his hollow eyes at his successful +rival. Was it for this that he had humiliated himself by his recent +confession? What a fool he had been to acknowledge so much before all +these people! This mere adventurer had carried away the prize for +which he had striven so boldly and sacrificed so much. Bitter indeed +were his thoughts just then. The emotion was too much for his +strength, and he fainted. + +Olive was by his side in a moment, but Dr. Whitaker spoke sternly to +her. + +"Stand back, if you please," he said. "I will attend to Mr. Kelvin." + +She flashed a look of hate and defiance at him. Her overwrought +feelings could contain themselves no longer. + +"I will not stand back," she said, speaking in her clear incisive way. +"Who has more right by my cousin's side than I, who have nursed him +through his long illness?" + +Dr. Whitaker did not answer. He was trying to bring back his patient +to consciousness. Olive sank down at her cousin's knees, and took his +cold hand in hers and pressed it to her lips. + +In a little while Matthew Kelvin opened his eyes and looked feebly +round, as if striving to bring to memory where he was, and whose were +the faces that were bent over him. Last of all, his eyes met those of +Olive Deane, and with a flash, as it were, everything came back to +him. Then he saw whose hand it was that was holding his. With a look +of loathing and hate that almost killed the soul within her, he flung +Olive's hand from him, and, trembling in every limb, he staggered to +his feet. + +"Poisoner!--begone! Quit my sight for ever!" he cried; and then he +fell back into his chair. + +As it were an echo, came the word "Poisoner!" from the lips of every +one in the room. Olive, who had risen to her feet when her cousin +flung away her hand, staggered back as if suddenly smitten. + +Lady Dudgeon was the first to speak. "Surely, sir," she said, +addressing herself to Dr. Whitaker, "there must be some terrible +mistake in all this! The accusation just made by your patient can +hardly be that of a man in his proper senses." + +"I am afraid, madam," said Dr. Whitaker, very gravely, "that the +accusation made by Mr. Kelvin is but too well founded. We have it on +evidence which cannot be disputed that my patient has been the victim +of an elaborate system of slow poisoning. Suspicion points in one +direction, and in one only: in the direction indicated by my patient +himself." + +"It seems altogether incredible," urged her ladyship. "What possible +motive could Miss Deane have for attempting so dreadful a crime?" + +"Let Miss Deane answer you herself," said Olive. + +She was standing as she had stood from the moment when her cousin +hurled at her that terrible word. Everything was lost: she knew it but +too well, and she nerved herself for one last supreme effort. + +"Lady Dudgeon is curious to know my motive for doing that which I am +said to have done. Her curiosity shall be satisfied. My motive was my +love for Matthew Kelvin. He loved me once, or I dreamt that he did. A +passing fancy on his part, perhaps--soon forgotten by him, but never +by me. I have never ceased to love him, I would give my life for him +at this moment. When I found how persistently his heart was set on +Miss Lloyd, I thought--foolishly enough, no doubt--that if I could +have him all to myself--if I could see him daily, hourly--if he were +ill and I could nurse him--I might perhaps succeed in winning back the +love which I could not believe had ever been wholly lost to me. He was +taken ill, and I nursed him. But to think that I would have let him +die--the man whom I loved with my whole heart and soul--is utterly +absurd! I understood too well what I was about to fear any such +catastrophe. I could bear to see him suffer, simply because +I loved him so much, and wanted him so wholly and entirely to +myself. But I would not have let him die. Your ladyship looks +horrified. Be thankful, madam, that your affections move in a less +erratic orbit--that yours is a heart whose equable pulsations could +never be quickened as mine have been. But I--I was not born in the +frigid zone. Love to me is existence itself--for what is life without +love?" + +"What a dreadful person! We might all have been murdered in our beds!" +said Lady Dudgeon in a loud aside, as she felt in her pocket for her +smelling-salts. + +"Matthew!" said Olive, passionately, advancing a step nearer her +cousin, "you have bid me begone, and I know that there is nothing left +for me but to obey. All is over between us. I played for a heavy +stake, and I have lost it. I leave you now, never to see you again. I +go forth into the world--whither, I neither know nor care. Listen to +these my last words--listen, and believe. I would shed my heart's +blood for you. Had you died through me, I would have killed myself an +hour afterwards. I never loved you more than at this moment. That love +I shall carry with me. Nothing can deprive me of it. Time will soften +the hardness of your judgment. Then sometimes you may think of me with +a touch of the old kindness, and say to yourself, 'Her greatest fault +was that she loved me not wisely, but too well.'" + +Still keeping her eyes fixed on her cousin, but vouchsafing no glance +to any one else, she moved slowly towards the door. She reached the +threshold, and there for a moment she paused. + +"Farewell, Matthew! farewell for ever!" she said; and her voice had a +ring of pathos and despair in it that her hearers never forgot. Then +she drew her veil over her face, and the next moment she was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +"AND YOU SHALL STILL BE LADY CLARE." + + +On leaving the library after the scene with Olive Deane, Gerald had +whispered to Eleanor: "Don't open the sealed packet till you have seen +me again. I shall be in the conservatory half an hour after luncheon." + +To the conservatory Eleanor went at the time specified, taking the +sealed packet with her, and there she found Gerald awaiting her +arrival. There was a bright, happy look in his eyes, such as she had +not seen in them since that never-to-be-for-gotten evening when he +first took her in his arms and told her that he loved her. He came to +meet her as soon as she opened the door, took both her hands in his, +kissed her, and led her to a seat where they would be safe from +interruption. + +Eleanor did not feel at all like a young lady on whom fickle Fortune +had been playing one of her strangest practical jokes; she did not +feel a bit like the genteel pauper Lady Dudgeon had called her: she +felt very, very happy. It was wrong of her to feel so--very wrong; but +she could not help it. + +"I dare say you thought my request a very singular one," said Gerald, +as he sat down beside her, "but you will hear something still more +singular before the day is over." + +"This has been a day of surprises," answered Eleanor. "It seems like +twenty years since yesterday." + +"It will seem like twice twenty when you shall have heard all that I +have to tell you." + +He looked into her eyes, and in their shrinking depths he seemed to +read a question which she was afraid to put into words: "Are you going +to tell me that you love me no longer?" + +A kiss--or it may be half-a-dozen, for in such cases one soon loses +count--did something towards reassuring her. + +"I asked you not to open the sealed packet till you had seen me again, +because I thought it better that I should first tell you a certain +strange story, of which as yet you know nothing, and so prepare your +mind for what you will find there when you come to open it." + +"But--but how is it possible that you can know anything as to the +contents of the sealed packet?" + +"It is quite possible, as you shall presently hear," answered Gerald, +with a smile. "But before I go any further, I want you to promise me +one thing." + +"Only one! I think I may promise that. But tell me what it is." + +"Simply this. That nothing I may tell you this afternoon will be +allowed in any way to prejudice the promise which you gave me this +morning." + +"The promise which you stole, you mean." + +"Well, then, the promise which I stole. But since you put the case in +that way, I must change my request into a warning. Take notice, that +I, John Pomeroy, do hereby warn you, Eleanor Lloyd, that whatever I +may have to tell you to-day notwithstanding, I shall consider you +bound in honour to fulfil and carry out a certain promise which, +whether it was stolen from you or given of your own free will, is none +the less a promise, and binding on your conscience as such. I cannot +just now call to mind the particular Act of Parliament applicable in +such cases, but I have no doubt that there is one. Consider yourself, +therefore, as having been properly warned." + +"And now, sir, may I ask of what strange, eventful history all this +may be looked on as the prologue?" + +Her lip quivered a little as she asked this question. She was +beginning to fear she knew not what. Involuntarily her fingers +closed more tightly on the hand that was still holding hers. The +close contact seemed to give her strength. "What need I fear now +I know that he loves me?" she asked herself; and her heart whispered +back--"Nothing." + +"A strange, eventful history, indeed," said Gerald; "so strange, that +I hardly know how to begin it." + +His tone was grave enough now. He was, in truth, puzzled how and where +to begin his revelations. + +"Once on a time," he said, at last--"that is to say, some five or six +months ago--I was living very quietly in a little town in the south of +France, when, one fine morning, I was summoned post haste to London. A +certain lady, an old friend of yours. Miss Bellamy by name, was the +person whose imperative summons I felt bound to obey." + +"Do you know Miss Bellamy?" asked Eleanor, opening her eyes very wide +indeed. + +"Miss Bellamy used to buy me sweets when I was a very small shaver +indeed. In fact, there is a legend current that she assisted at the +cutting of my first tooth." + +"But why did she send for you all the way from France?" + +"Some seven weeks previously, she had sent through the post, to Mr. +Kelvin at Pembridge, the very sealed packet about which so much has +been said to-day. That packet had been placed by Mr. Lloyd in her +hands many years before, with a request that she would keep it +carefully by her till after his decease. When that event took place, +Miss Bellamy was at Guernsey, and six months elapsed before the packet +reached the hands of Mr. Kelvin. Immediately on receipt of it, his +duty was to communicate to you those facts of which you were allowed +to remain in ignorance till this morning. Finding, after a lapse of +several weeks, that Mr. Kelvin had done nothing in the affair, Miss +Bellamy sent for me, and asked me to go down to Pembridge, and +ascertain from Kelvin the reason of his unaccountable inaction. I went +down to Pembridge and saw Kelvin--whom I had once met years +previously; but, singular as it may seem, I said nothing to him of the +one particular object that had taken me there. At that time Olive +Deane was living with her cousin, and it was suggested by her that, as +Sir Thomas Dudgeon happened to be in want of a secretary, the place +might perhaps be one that would suit me. She suggested, too, that I, +being a poor man, might improve my fortunes by marrying an heiress, +the heiress in question being Miss Eleanor Lloyd. For reasons of my +own, I appeared to fall in with her views. The situation was procured +for me, and I made my appearance at Stammars. + +"One of my reasons for acting thus was my desire to see and be near +you. I had heard a great deal about you at different times, and I +wanted to make your acquaintance, and judge you for myself before +letting you know that I was in any way mixed up with your private +affairs. I wanted, in fact, to meet you as an utter stranger." + +"Before you go any further," said Eleanor, "I should like to ask you +one question. When you first came down to Pembridge, did you know that +I was not Mr. Lloyd's daughter, and, consequently, not entitled to his +property?" + +"I did know it." + +"Then it was very wrong of you to let me live on in ignorance of my +real position. You were making yourself the accomplice of Mr. Kelvin." + +"Granted. But I had very special reasons for acting as I did. I +suspected the existence of some plot or scheme against you which I was +desirous of fathoming. Besides, I could not find in my heart to be the +one to strike the cruel blow that would deprive you of name and +fortune, and shake the very foundations of your life." + +"The cruelty lay in not telling me. You did me a great injustice, and, +at the same time, you deeply wronged Mr. Warburton the real heir." + +"Oh, if Mr. Warburton's anything like a decent sort of fellow, he +won't mind a bit when it's all explained to him," said Gerald, with a +twinkle in his eye. + +Eleanor looked excessively pained. "You talk so strangely," she said +in a faltering voice, "that I hardly understand you." + +Gerald's arm went round her waist, and before she could offer any +resistance half a score kisses had been rained on her cheeks. + +"Oh! my darling," he cried, "cannot you see through it? Cannot you +understand it all? I--I am Gerald Warburton!" + +"You Gerald Warburton!" she said, as if repeating the words +mechanically after him, but without comprehending what they meant. She +put his arm aside, and stood up and stared into his face, as she might +have stared had she been walking in her sleep, and were now coming +back to consciousness. + +"You Gerald Warburton!" + +He drew her down gently on to the seat again, and made one of her +hands a prisoner in his. + +"It is even as I have told you," he said. + +"It was I who Miss Bellamy sent for when she became alarmed by +Kelvin's long silence. It was then, for the first time, that I heard +your real history. Up to that day I had always looked upon you as my +cousin. I came here under an assumed name, and I accepted the +secretaryship to Sir Thomas Dudgeon, simply that I might see you and +be near you, myself unknown. To see you and be near you was to love +you. I determined, if it were possible to do so, to win you in the +character of a poor man. Whether I have succeeded or failed, you know +best." + +"All this seems very hard to believe," said Eleanor at last. "And yet, +if you tell me it is true, I suppose it must be so." She sighed; and +then, in a low tone of voice, as if speaking to herself, she said: +"'Lord Ronald is heir of all my lands, and I am not the Lady Clare.'" + +"Yes; but what says his lordship in conclusion? 'We two will wed the +morrow morn, and you shall still be Lady Clare.'" + +She gazed at him sadly, wonderingly. + +"Don't forget your promise," he said. "With Heaven's help, this day +month we will be man and wife!" + +"Then you knew from the first that you were Gerald Warburton, the +heir, and that I was--nobody?" + +She seemed as if she wanted his further assurance before that fact +would impress itself with sufficient clearness on her mind. + +"I knew, dearest, what I have just told you. I heard it from Miss +Bellamy before I first came down to Pembridge." + +"You came to me as a poor man, and stole my heart away before I knew +what had happened--stole it away, perhaps, for mere amusement. But now +that you have thrown off your disguise, now that I know you for the +caliph himself, the amusement is at an end, and you had better give me +back a poor trifle for which you can now have no possible use." + +"As if that poor trifle, as you call it, were not the one treasure +which I hold as far more precious than aught else the world could +offer me. I have won you, and I mean to keep you, so you may as well +resign yourself to your fate." + +"Are we in a land of freedom, or are we not? + +"You are not in a land of freedom." + +"Then resistance is useless?" + +"Entirely so." + +Eleanor mused for a moment. + +"Tell me this," she said. "Why did you make that confession to me one +day in the library? Why did you accuse yourself of having been +actuated by mercenary motives?" + +"Because I had been told of the interview between young Piper and +yourself. I knew, after that, what your thoughts must be concerning +me, so that, all things considered, it seemed to me the best thing I +could do was to cry 'mea culpa,' even at the expense of lowering +myself for a time in your estimation." + +"But rather than do that, why not have confessed everything? Why not +have told me then what you have told me to-day?" + +"Because at that time my plans were not ripe for such a confession. +Because I could not then have taken you to your father." + +"My father, Gerald!" she cried, as she started to her feet. "Oh! say +those words again!" + +It was the first time she had called him by his real name, and it +thrilled him strangely to hear it from her lips. + +"Eleanor, your father--I do not speak of your adopted father this +time--is still alive--is waiting and longing to see you. I had a +telegram from him only a few hours ago. See, here it is." He took a +telegram from his pocket, opened it, and read aloud as follows: + +"Everything proved. Our task is at an end. Come at once, and bring my +daughter with you." + +These words, "my daughter," from a father whom she had never seen, +moved Eleanor strangely. Her heart beat so fast, that for a little +while she could not speak. + +"If I have a father," she stammered out at last, "why did he not send +for me before? Why have you kept me from him all this time?" + +"The story that I have now to tell you," answered Gerald, "is a very +painful one, but that it will have a happy ending there is proof +positive in the telegram which we have just read together. It is the +same story in substance as you will find told by Mr. Lloyd in the +sealed packet. I think it will be better that I should tell it to you +first, and leave you to read it afterwards." + +Eleanor was trembling a little. She could not help it. She seemed to +dread hearing what Gerald might yet have to tell her. He tried to +comfort her after the foolish fashion of people in love. Then drawing +her close to him, so that her head rested on his shoulder, he went on +with his narrative. + +"Many years ago, in a small provincial town more than two hundred +miles from this place, there lived four young ladies who had all been +schoolfellows together, and who, now that they were grown up, were +bosom friends. One of these young ladies married a gentleman, Ambrose +Murray by name, and a doctor by profession. You are their only child, +and your name is Eleanor Murray. Another of the young ladies married +Mr. Jacob Lloyd, and you were their adopted daughter. The third +married my father. The fourth remained unmarried, and is your friend +and mine--Miss Bellamy. + +"A few months after you were born, a terrible misfortune befel your +father. He was arrested on a false charge of murder, was tried, and +condemned to die." + +"Murder! Condemned to die!" gasped Eleanor. + +"The charge was a false one, dearest--don't forget that. But before +the day came that would have left you fatherless, his mind gave way +under the shock, and his sentence was commuted into one of +imprisonment for life. Your mother, frail of health and delicate from +a child, found the burden of life more than she could bear, and +Heaven, in its pity, took her to itself." + +Gerald paused, and as he did so he felt that Eleanor was sobbing +silently, with her head still resting on his shoulder. + +"Then it was, when you were left alone in the world, that Mr. Lloyd +and his wife took you to their hearts and home. They had no children +of their own, and they adopted you as their daughter, even to giving +you their name--for, as you must remember, your fathers innocence had +never been proved. The evidence at the trial had been terribly against +him, and the world still adjudged him to be guilty. + +"Shortly after their adoption of you, Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd removed to +Pembridge, where they were entire strangers, and, except Miss Bellamy, +no one ever knew that you were not their own child. + +"And so years went on till Mrs. Lloyd died. It was shortly after this +event that Mr. Lloyd, mindful, probably, of the uncertainty of life, +put into Miss Bellamy's hands the very sealed packet about which we +have heard so much of late. In case Miss Bellamy should survive him, +it was to be given over by her into the hands of Mr. Kelvin, who had +had the management of Mr. Lloyd's affairs for years. Mr. Lloyd himself +doubtless shrank from telling you the real facts of your history; but +as your father was still living, it was imperatively necessary that +you should be made aware of them whenever he--Mr. Lloyd--should die. +To Mr. Kelvin was delegated the task of breaking the news to you. In +what way he has fulfilled that task we have now seen. + +"All these long years Mr. Murray had been shut up in his living tomb. +In the course of time his senses had mercifully been given back to +him. Two or three times a year Miss Bellamy went to see him, and took +him tidings of you and of the outside world. He knew that you were +safe and well, and he would not let your young life be blighted by the +sad story of his wrongs and sufferings." + +"Oh, if some kind friend but told me!" exclaimed Eleanor. "It was +cruel, cruel to keep me in ignorance of what it was my simple right to +be told! It was my place, not Miss Bellamy's, to go to see him and +comfort him." + +"It was at Mr. Murray's own frequently-expressed desire that you were +left in ignorance." + +"All those years--all those summers and winters while I was growing up +a happy, careless girl, he--my father--was shut up between the +terrible walls of a prison. I--I cannot bear to think of it!" + +"But it is air over now, and in a few hours more you will be with +him." + +"And you know him, Gerald! You have seen him and talked with him! No +wonder some instinct of the heart bade me love you." + +Gerald kissed her again--whether for the twentieth or twenty-first +time in the short space of thirty minutes, matters nothing to nobody. +He felt that he had long arrears to make up. Then he went on with his +story. + +"The first time I ever saw Mr. Murray was in Miss Bellamy's +sitting-room a few nights after my arrival in London in answer to her +summons. Your father had escaped from prison, and had come to Miss +Bellamy, as the only person living whom he knew, for shelter." + +"Escaped! Oh! if I had only been there to receive him!" + +"He and I became friends at once when he knew that I was the son of +one whom his wife had known and loved so well. Fortunately, no very +extreme search was made after him, and I may so far relieve your mind +at once by telling you that he has never been re-captured. In making +his escape from prison, Mr. Murray's mind seemed to be possessed by +one idea, and one only. That idea was the possibility, or probability, +of being able to prove to the world his innocence of the dreadful +crime laid to his charge twenty long years ago. + +"How and by what means this great end has at last been accomplished, +it would take me too long to tell you in detail now. That may be left +for an after occasion. That he has succeeded completely and fully in +what for a long time seemed an utterly impossible task, this telegram +in his own words is ample proof. Not till he should have so succeeded +would he allow you to be communicated with, or even to be made aware +of his existence." + +"How very strange of him! If he had but trusted me!" + +"But the troubles of the past are over now. I propose to start for +London by the six o'clock train this evening, and to take you with me. +We shall find your father waiting at Miss Bellamy's to receive you." + +"This evening! See my father this very evening!" + +"Why not? Has he not sent for you?" + +"I shall have to speak to Lady Dudgeon, and--and----" + +"And you will be ready equipped for your start by 5.30. I will ask Sir +Thomas to let Fenton drive us to the station in the wagonette." + +Eleanor stood up and pressed both her hands to her head. "I am far +from sure that it's not all a dream," she said. + +Her eyes were still tear-stained, but a wan April smile was hovering +faintly round her lips. + +"Kiss me, and try to discover whether you are awake or asleep that +way." + +"Does my father know that you are acquainted with me?" she asked +suddenly. + +"Not till a few days ago was he made aware that I had ever seen you." + +"Then all the time you have been at Stammars you have known my father, +but without making him aware that you knew me, as you have known that +I was not Mr. Lloyd's daughter, and that you yourself were the heir to +his property." + +"It would be impossible to state the case more briefly and clearly." + +"Even now I hardly seem to see clearly the motives by which you were +actuated. But I have heard so many strange things to-day, that that is +hardly to be wondered at." + +"The two most powerful motives that actuated me were these: your +father's strongly-expressed wish that you should be left unaware of +his existence and of the terrible story of his life till he himself +was prepared to reveal everything; and secondly, my desire to win my +wife as a poor man wins his--for himself alone, and not for whatever +worldly goods fortune may have encumbered him with." + +"I am afraid," said Eleanor, still with a smile, "that you are a far +more enigmatical character than I took you to be--that I shall find +you far more difficult to understand than, in my simplicity, I ever +dreamt of." + +"You hold the key to my heart, and that unlocks everything. When you +come to know me better, as I hope you will do some day, you will find +that, like most of my fellows, I am very shallow when properly gauged. +Only, perhaps, I have the art of hiding it better than some. But now I +must leave you for a little while. Remember, I shall expect you to be +ready by half-past five. In fact, I have already telegraphed that we +shall leave for London by the six o'clock train." + +He pressed her hastily to his heart, and then she fled. + +It was half-past seven when Eleanor and Gerald alighted at King's +Cross Station. Miss Bellamy was there to meet them. Eleanor's arms +were round her neck in a moment. + +"Oh, my dear Miss Bellamy!" she exclaimed, half laughing and half +crying, "how happy it makes me to see you again! I thought you had run +away from me forever." + +"Only for a little while, love. I had some one else to look after of +late--someone who is anxiously waiting to see you." + +They all got into a cab. There was no opportunity for much +conversation as they rattled through the noisy streets; but just then +Eleanor did not want to talk. She sat holding Miss Bellamy's hand very +fast and inwardly trembling. + +It was a good hour's drive to Ormond Square, but to Eleanor it seemed +only a few minutes. Gerald, having handed the ladies out of the cab, +took his leave for a little while, promising to call again in an hour. +Eleanor, still like one in a maze, and still clinging tightly to Miss +Bellamy, found herself next moment indoors. + +"Take off your hat, love, but don't bother about anything else just +now," said Miss Bellamy. + +Then they went upstairs, and then a door was flung open, and there, +in the middle of the lighted room, Eleanor saw standing a tall, +frail-looking man, who seemed as though he were obliged to steady +himself by clinging to the back of a chair, and whose lips were +working with nervous excitement. + +"Eleanor Murray, there is your father!" said Miss Bellamy, in a voice +that was not without a touch of solemnity. + +Eleanor staggered forward into the room. Ambrose Murray met her +half-way, and caught her in his arms. She fell on his breast in a +passion of sobs. + +"Oh, papa, papa! why have you kept me from you all this time?" was all +she could say. + +Miss Bellamy came gently out and shut the door. + + + + +CHAPTER. XII. +THE STRONG-ROOM. + + +"No chance of anybody hearing him but the dead folk in the churchyard, +and they'll only grin to themselves and take no notice." So muttered +Pringle to himself as he stood at the foot of the stairs and listened +to Van Duren's cry for help. + +And he was right. So long as the doors were kept shut, Van Duren's +loudest cries would not penetrate beyond the basement-floor of the old +house. In the office above people might, and did, come and go on +business, but not the faintest echo of that terrible cry of despair, +that was so near and yet so far away, ever reached them. + +Pringle was there, as usual, to attend to the different callers, so +far as it was possible for him to do so in the absence of his chief. +Many were the inquiries during the day as to the probable date of Van +Duren's return. + +"He may be here at any time, or he may be away for another week. Most +uncertain in his movements," Pringle would say to the inquirers. And +as soon as they were gone he would rub his hands, and chuckle to +himself, and mutter: "Revenged at last! Every dog has his day, and +mine has come now." + +And so the day slowly wore itself through till evening came round +again. Pringle shut up the office at the usual time, and then, after a +hearty tea, he prepared to sally forth for the evening's enjoyment. He +told himself that he would take the entire round of the haunts where +he was known, indulging himself with a glass or two at each of them, +and have, altogether, a very pleasant time of it. + +Before starting he went to bid Van Duren good-bye. + +"If the postman comes while I'm out, you'll kindly take in the +letters, won't you?" he said, with a sneer. "There have been more +inquiries than usual for you to-day. What fun it was to send them +off--some with one excuse, and some with another--and you within a +dozen yards of them all the time! But I must go now. You are very +pleasant company, Mr. Van Duren, but I must leave you for a little +while." + +Thus saying, Pringle locked the outer door, and having made sure that +he had the latch-key in his pocket, he put down the kitchen gas, and +let himself out by way of the front door, which he clashed to after +him with a bang loud enough to wake every dismal echo that had its +lodgment in the dismal old house in the churchyard. + +It was close upon midnight when Jonas Pringle came picking his way +carefully along the silent streets in the direction of Spur Alley. +This care on his part was necessitated by the number and strength of +the potations in which he had indulged during the evening. He knew +quite well what he was about; he knew that he had taken more than was +good for him; he knew that his course along the streets was rather a +mazy one; he knew that his speech was a little thick, and that short +words were infinitely preferable to long ones; but for all that, it +was only his legs that were affected: his head was still as coldly +calculating as ever it had been. + +He had just turned the corner of Spur Alley, and was within a few +yards of the house, when suddenly a woman, who had been sitting in the +shadow of the steps, sprang to her feet, stood for a moment gazing +fixedly at him, and then took to her heels and quickly disappeared +round the opposite corner. A presentiment that it was his daughter +shot through Pringle's heart the moment he set eyes on her. He shouted +to her to stop, but she never even turned her head. He made an +abortive attempt to run after her, but that was equally unavailing. +Then he sat down on the steps where his daughter had been sitting--for +he felt sure that it was she--and began to cry. + +He was roused by the clocks striking the half-hour after midnight. He +got up, shivering from head to foot, and let himself in by means of +the latch-key. He did not go downstairs, but stumbled his way to his +own room, and, without undressing, flung himself on his pallet, and +slept unbrokenly till long after broad daylight. + +He lighted the kitchen fire and got his breakfast ready before going +near his prisoner. Last night's excitement and dissipation had left +him, if such a thing were possible, harder and more cruel than before. +Not one single grain of pity for his wretched victim made itself felt +in his heart when, after breakfast, he went and knocked at the door of +the strong-room. He was still convinced that it was his daughter whom +he had seen over-night, and the sight of her only served to freshen up +his wrongs, and to intensify a hatred that needed no additional fuel. + +"Max Van Duren, are you still alive?" The cried, rapping with his key +on the door. + +A deep groan was the only reply for a little while. + +Pringle kept on hammering at the door. "Why don't you answer me?" he +screamed. + +"For Heaven's sake, Pringle, give me a drop of water, or else leave me +to die in peace!" It was hardly to be recognized as the voice of Van +Duren, so faint and full of anguish was it. + +Pringle's only answer was a laugh. + +"Pringle, I am dying!" pleaded the imprisoned man. "The wound on my +head has opened afresh, and I am slowly bleeding to death. I am +too weak to stand. A few hours will end everything. Give me some +water--give me a pillow for my head--give me a little light--and then +you may leave me to die." + +"All very fine, Mr. Van, but you don't get over me with any of your +dodges. Once get the door open it would be all over with me." + +"Pringle, I swear to you that I am dying--that I have not strength to +walk across the floor." + +"Then die," cried Pringle. "It is all you are fit for. Ask for no pity +from me." And with that he strode away without waiting to hear another +word, and shut the outer door behind him. + +He stayed in the office as usual till evening; but he did not go near +Van Duren again all day. He had found a bottle of brandy upstairs in +Van Duren's room; this he appropriated, and his devotions were paid to +it so often during the day, that when evening came very little of it +was left. When he had closed the office, he sallied out, as on the +previous evening, but still without visiting his prisoner. He had no +appetite to-day; he could not eat. All he craved was more drink, and +so long as he had money in his pocket there was no difficulty in +getting that. Again he took what he called his rounds, and again it +was close on midnight when he found himself back in Spur Alley. + +He was fumbling with his latch-key, when a hand was laid lightly on +his shoulder. He had heard no sound of footsteps, and he turned with a +low cry of terror. He turned and saw that it was his daughter who had +touched him. + +"Why, Jessie--Jessie, my darling! is that you?" he exclaimed. + +"Yes, it is I," said the woman, bitterly. "What have you done with Max +Van Duren?" + +"Oh, never mind him just now. But why don't you kiss me, Jessie? Why +don't you kiss the foolish old man that has never ceased to love you, +and search for you, and long for you, day and night?" He was half +laughing and half crying as he spoke. + +She just put her lips to his cheek, but he was not satisfied till he +had drawn her to him and she had kissed him again and again. Then she +repeated her question: "Father, what have you done with Max Van +Duren?" + +"Oh, I've got the scoundrel in safe custody, never fear!" + +"In safe custody! What do you mean?" she asked, anxiously. + +"Come inside, and I'll tell you all about it." + +He had succeeded in opening the door by this time, and his daughter +followed him into the dark entrance-hall. + +"You needn't be afraid of meeting anything worse than black-beetles," +he said, with a chuckle. "Follow me, Jessie, and mind the stairs," he +added, when he had bolted the front door. "There's fifteen of 'em; +I've counted them many a time. We shall find a glimmer in the kitchen, +I dare say." + +They groped their way down, and entered the room. + +"Many a worse crib than this," said Pringle, as he turned the gas full +on. + +Then he stirred the fire, and drew a chair up for his daughter and +another for himself, and produced a bottle of brandy. + +"And now for a comfortable little confab," he said, gleefully. "I've +quite a lot to tell you, dear; and I dare say you have something to +tell me." + +"Suppose you tell me your news first," said the woman. +Neither in her manner towards him, nor in her mode of addressing him, +was there the slightest trace of tenderness, or any token by which a +stranger would have guessed that the man before her was her father, +whom she had not spoken to for several years. Her hard mouth and her +watchful eyes never for a moment relaxed their hardness or their +watchfulness. + +"Funny, wasn't it," began Pringle, rubbing his lean, yellow hands in +front of the fire, but with his eyes fixed on his daughter, "that I +should have been Van Duren's clerk for three years before finding out +who he was?" + +"And how did you find it out at last?" asked Jessie, without any +apparent emotion. + +"I was rooting about among his papers one day, when I found some of +your letters, my dear. It was the greatest surprise I've ever had in +my life." + +"He has kept my letters, has he?" said the woman, in an eager, +passionate way, breaking for a moment through the restraint she had +hitherto put upon herself. + +"He _has_ kept them; so much the worse for him, as things have turned +out," said Pringle, grimly. + +"What did you do next?" + +"I put back the letters where I had found them, and waited for him." + +"And waited for him?" cried the woman, wonderingly. + +"Yes; he was away from home at the time I discovered the letters, and +I waited till he came back." + +"And what did you do then?" + +"It was only the night before last that he got back home. I had made +up my mind from the first how to act. He was only here for the night. +He was going to start away again next morning; but I guessed he +wouldn't leave without visiting the safe in the strong-room. So +instead of going up to bed, I came down here and waited in the dark +for him. I seemed to have been waiting a month, but it was only a few +hours, when he came. He went forward into the strong-room, and turned +on the gas. Then I stole swiftly after him. He did not hear me--he did +not see me till the last moment; and then it was too late. Before he +could reach the iron door, I had shut it on him and turned the key." + +"You locked him in!" + +"I locked him in. I made him my prisoner; and there he is at this very +moment." + +The woman had changed colour and started to her feet when her father +made this disclosure. But another thought seemed to strike her, and +she sat down again, her ashy face turned full upon him, and a strange, +half-savage, half-defiant look in her eyes, which it was just as well +that the old man did not notice. + + +Pringle lighted his pipe. + +"There's nothing like taking things comfortably," he said. "What a +fanny girl you are," he added presently. "I thought when you heard how +I had bowled out the scoundrel who had blasted both your life and +mine, that the least you could say would be, 'Well done!' But there +you sit as cool as a cucumber, and as mum as a mouse--just as if I had +been telling you a bit of news out of yesterday's paper." + +"Your news has taken me so much by surprise, that I don't know what to +say," replied Jessie; "I want time to think it all over." + +"But aren't you glad, girl, that we've got the villain fast? Isn't it +sweet to you to feel that his turn has come at last? My wrongs are +deep, but yours are deeper. You ought to exult in what I've done!" + +"So I do, but I can hardly realize it yet. I keep on fancying it must +all be a dream." + +"It's an uncommon ugly reality as far as he's concerned," answered +Pringle. "I don't think he'll trouble us long. I think another day and +night will about finish him." + +Gradually the warmth of the fire, and the brandy he had taken and was +still taking, had a somnolent effect upon Pringle. He found his +eyelids closing involuntarily. + +"I don't think an hour or two's snooze would be a bad sort of thing," +he said. + +"Where is this strong-room that you talk about?" asked Jessie. + +"Why, close by here--on the bottom floor--just at the end of that +passage." + +"And the keys--who keeps them?" + +"Who should keep them but me? I've got them safe enough, never you +fear," and he tapped his pocket to verify the fact. + +He poured himself out some more brandy, and when he had drunk it she +assisted him to the sofa, lowered the gas a little, and then took up +her own position in the big easy-chair on the opposite side of the +fireplace. + +A few minutes later her father's deep, regular breathing told her that +he was fast asleep. + +Then she crossed noiselessly over to where he was lying, and began +to feel for the pocket that held his keys. She was not long in +finding what she wanted. Then she lighted a candle, and taking the +candle-stick in one hand and the two keys in the other (after giving +a last look at her father), she set out in search of the strong-room. + +The little Dutch clock in the kitchen was on the stroke of eight when +Jonas Pringle opened his eyes. He opened them, rubbed them, shut them, +and opened them again. He might well stare and ask himself whether he +had not taken leave of his senses. On a mattress in front of the +kitchen fire, a coverlid thrown over him, lay the form of Max Van +Duren. His eyes were shut and he was breathing heavily. Pringle was +still staring at this terrible object, and trying to pull his wits +together, when his attention was attracted by the noise of footsteps +descending the stairs, and next moment Jessie ushered into the room a +stranger, who at once crossed to where Van Duren was lying, and gazed +fixedly down on him. The stranger was, in fact, a doctor whom Jessie +had summoned by bribing a passing milk-boy to go and fetch him. + +Van Duren was an utter stranger to him. + +"Who are you, and what have you come for?" screamed Pringle. "Get out +of this, or it will be worse for you! I'll have no thieving quacks +here." + +"Who is this man?" asked the doctor. + +"My father." + +"Then the sooner you have him removed the better. He must be either +drunk or mad." + +Jessie took her father by the shoulders and pressed him down by main +force on to the sofa. + +"Speak another word at your peril," she said sternly. "Disturb this +gentleman again, and as sure as I am what I am, I'll have you locked +up in there--in there, do you understand?" and she pointed in the +direction of the strong-room. + +There was something in his daughter's face that cowed him--that +frightened him even. He had never seen such an expression on any other +face. He sat down without a word. + +The doctor was down on one knee by this time, examining the +unconscious man. + +"How did he come by this terrible wound on his head?" he asked +presently; "and why has he been allowed to sink so low? Some one ought +to have been called in two days ago." + +"It's only about two days since he got home," said the woman, "and he +brought the wound with him. How he came by it nobody knows but +himself. Then, he was accidentally"--with a glance at Her father--"shut +up in the room where he keeps his books and things, and couldn't help +himself, and there I found him about two o'clock this morning." + +"Was he conscious when you found him? Did he know you?" + + +"Yes." + +"Why did you not send for medical assistance as soon as you found +him?" + +"Because he wouldn't let me--he wouldn't hear of it." + +"More fool he," said the doctor brusquely. "What did you give him to +eat or drink?" + +"All that I could persuade him to take was a little brandy and water." + +"Well, I can do nothing for him till he wakes," said the doctor as he +rose to his feet. "I may tell you that he appears, so far as I can +judge at present, to be in about as bad a way as it is possible for a +man to be. I don't think it advisable to disturb him, and this sleep +may do him good. I will call again about ten o'clock. Should he awake +before then send me word, and till I arrive keep on giving him a +teaspoonful of brandy every few minutes." With that the doctor went. + +Jessie was kneeling by Van Duren's head, and she never moved to let +the doctor out. Pringle, with his red, watery eyes, and doubled-up +back, still sat on the sofa, his elbows resting on his knees, and his +chin in the palms of his hands, looking like a ghoul waiting for its +prey. Suddenly his daughter turned her head, and their eyes met. + +"Look on your work and be satisfied," she said. + +"I am looking, and I am satisfied," was the grim reply. + +"And now," said the woman, speaking quietly, but with the same look on +her face that had already cowed him, "you had better leave me, or +there'll be harm done. I know there will. If you hadn't been my father +I should have stabbed you to the heart before now for what you have +done here"--pointing to the dying man. "Go! go! or worse will come of +it." + +Pringle cowered before her, and muttering something to the effect that +a good wash would freshen him up, he slunk out of the room and +shuffled upstairs, coughing painfully as he went. + +Jessie resumed her watch by the unconscious man, bathing his brows now +and again with a little vinegar. Presently he opened his eyes and +gazed up wonderingly into her face. Then he tried to raise himself on +his elbow, but fell back with a groan. Jessie gave him a little +brandy, and that seemed to revive him. + +"Where am I; what has happened?" he murmured. + +"Hush! don't talk now," said Jessie. "The doctor will be here in a +little while, and give you something to revive you." + +"The doctor? The----Ah! everything comes back to me now. It was you +who opened my dungeon and helped me, bit by bit, to crawl here. What +good angel sent you to me, Jessie?" + +Then, before she could answer, he began to mutter to himself in +German, a language which he very rarely spoke, and evidently knew her +no longer. + +At this moment there came a sound of loud knocking at the front door. +At the noise Van Duren again turned his eyes on Jessie. + +He looked at her as he had never looked at her before: with a pathos +and tenderness indescribable. But he did not speak. + +Jessie's quick ears had heard her father open the door in answer to +the knocking, and now there was a sound of footsteps coming down the +stone stairs that led to the kitchen. Next minute the door was pushed +open, and three men came into the room. One of them was Peter Byrne, +and the other two were members of the police force in plain clothes. +Byrne was startled at the sight before him, but he did not lose his +presence of mind. + +"There, gentlemen, is the man you are in search of. This is Max Van +Duren, formerly known by the name of Max Jacoby." + +One of the officers advanced. "Max Jacoby, you are charged with being +the murderer of one Paul Stilling, at Tewkesbury, many years ago, and +I hold a warrant for your arrest." + +"A warrant for my arrest!" echoed Van Duren feebly. "You have come too +late, gentlemen--too late, I say! I am beyond your reach now. I am +going where you dare not follow me!" + +His eyes closed once more; he breathed three or four times, and then +not again. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. +CONCLUSION. + + +On the sands at Boulogne-sur-mer. Time, a sunny afternoon. The persons +are Mrs. Kelvin and her son. The lady is half sitting half reclining +in the Bath chair in which she has been wheeled down to the sands. +Matthew Kelvin is sitting on a camp stool close by his mother, smoking +a cigarette, and dividing his attention between the bathers and a lazy +skimming of the London papers, which have just come to hand. He is +looking infinitely better than when we saw him last, and his mother +thinks that if she can only persuade him to stay away from that odious +business for another month, he will become as strong and hearty as +ever he was. It is her fixed belief that Matthew cannot really be +happy out of his office, and it is a belief that he had never cared to +disturb. + +Mrs. Kelvin's attention, like that of her son, is half distracted from +the gay scene before her. The steamer has brought her several letters, +which she is reading intermittently, smiling to herself now and then +as she reads, and anon lifting her eyes to note the latest arrival on +the sands, or to watch for a moment the kaleidoscopic changes in the +ever-varying groups of loungers and bathers with which she is +surrounded. There is one letter, however, that she has kept till the +last. Her face clouds as she opens it. She glances at Matthew, and +sees that he is still busy with his newspapers. The letter does not +take her long to read, and, with a little sigh, she puts it back into +its envelope. The sigh rouses Matthew--he looks up. + +"What is it, mother?" he asks. "Have Mrs. Aylmer's preserves turned +out badly? or has Miss Rainbow's ancient tabby given up the ghost at +last?" He takes her hand, and squeezes it with a little affectionate +gesture. + +"Matthew," says the old lady very gravely, "I have had a letter this +morning from Olive Deane." + +He turns quickly round, and his face seems to harden as he turns. + +"And has she really dared to write to you?" he says, sternly. "Does +she think that the past can be so soon forgotten?" + +"My dear, you are not like you talk in that way," answers Mrs. Kelvin, +as she lays her hand caressingly on her son's shoulder. "I never +rightly understood the reason of that terrible quarrel between you and +Olive. You were too ill for me to question you much at the time, and +since you have been better the mere mention of Olive's name has seemed +so distasteful to you, that I have spoken of her as little as +possible. But to say that I should not like to know how it happened +that you fell out so strangely, would be to say that I am not a +woman." + +Under his breath Mr. Kelvin calls himself by a very strong name for +having spoken so hastily. He has carefully concealed from his mother +the fact of Olive Deane having been implicated in any way with regard +to his long illness. He has dreaded the effect such a revelation might +have upon her. He has allowed her to surmise and wonder as to the +origin of their sudden estrangement, but he has never really +enlightened her. + +"Olive went off to Stammars one morning with a letter from you," +resumes the old lady. "An hour later you rush off after her, although +you have not been out of your room for two months. You come back after +a time, but Olive does not. Next day she sends for her boxes, but from +the hour when she set out for Stammars till now, I have never set eyes +on Olive Deane." + +"Yes, it must have seemed strange to you," says Mr. Kelvin, after a +pause; "but the subject was such a very painful one that I always felt +reluctant to mention it." + +"You never thought, dear, how painful it must be to me to be left in +such a state of doubt and uncertainty." + +"I know that I ought to have told you long ago. I will tell you now." +He pauses while he looks at his watch and folds up his newspaper. "The +facts of the case can be told you in very few words," he says. "Olive +Deane, during the time that I was ill, suppressed a very important +private letter that had been sent to me through the post." + +"That was wrong, very wrong indeed," says the old lady, gravely. "Had +any other than you told me of it, I could not have believed them." +"That morning when she went to Stammars it was with a letter from me +addressed to Miss Lloyd. That letter she also suppressed, after +having, I presume, opened it and read it. I was very angry with +her indeed. I spoke my mind very strongly on the point, and we +parted--never, I hope, to meet again." + +Mrs. Kelvin does not speak, and Matthew, looking up, sees that her +eyes are full of tears. "How would she feel, and what would she say, +if she knew everything?" he asks himself. "But she must never be +told." + +"What you have just told me has pained me deeply," she says at last. +"But what a strange thing to do! What could her motive possibly be? I +believed in her as implicitly as if she had been my own child. And +then how kind and attentive she was during your illness!" Matthew +shudders. "She was simply invaluable to me at that time. And so fond +of you, too! And now you tell me these strange things about her. I--I +can't understand it at all." + +"The subject is a very painful one to both of us. Suppose we say +nothing more about it," says Matthew, speaking very gently. + +"I thought it strange that she never once mentions your name in her +letter," says Mrs. Kelvin, as she wipes her eyes. "It is just as well +to know that the girl is not without a home. She writes me that she +has accepted a situation with a family who are going out to the Hague +in a couple of months; so that she is not likely to trouble any of us +in time to come." + +At this moment, who should march gravely up, and raise his hat with +what he firmly believes to be an air of the most refined fashion, but +Mr. Pod Piper? Mr. Piper wears a wideawake and a fashionable tweed +suit. He has taken care to button up his coat two minutes ago, so as +to hide from Mr. Kelvin's eyes the elaborate filigree chain, of Palais +Royal workmanship, which is festooned across his waistcoat. But the +huge pin in his scarf cannot be so easily kept out of sight, and all +the time he is talking to Mr. Kelvin he feels--and the feeling gives +him what he calls the "tingles"--that that gentleman is critically +regarding it, and as he stands there he inwardly resolves that he will +make a present of it to his bosom friend, Bob Tacket, the very day he +gets back to Pembridge, and that he will never wear another pin in his +scarf as long as he lives. + +"Why, Piper, is that you?" says Mr. Kelvin, in his most pleasant +voice. "Got back safe and sound, eh? How have you enjoyed yourself?" + +"Oh, splendidly, sir!--thanks to you. Never had such a holiday before. +Paris is a wonderful place, sir!" + +"I suppose you speak French like a native by this time, eh?" + +"Not quite that, sir. I know about fifty words, and I've got along +famously. Fifty words are quite enough to go from one end of the +country to the other with: a smile and a shrug go such a long way with +the French." + +"I think you had better not cross till to-morrow morning," says Mr. +Kelvin. "You can then take over with you some papers for Mr. Bray. We +dine at six, and you must dine with us to-day." + +Pod stammers out something--he hardly knows what--and colours up to +the roots of his hair. Dine with the governor! What will they say at +Pembridge when he tells them? He feels himself grow an inch taller in +two minutes. After a few kind words from Mrs. Kelvin, he is dismissed +till six o'clock. + +Pod's trip to Paris is accounted for by the fact of his employer +having made him a present of a twenty-pound note and a week's holiday. +Ten pounds out of the twenty Pod has given to his mother. With the +remaining ten, and some previous savings, he has enjoyed himself for a +week in Paris. + +"You don't mean to say, Matthew, that that boy has been to Paris all +alone?" + +"I suppose he has. Why not?" + +"Consider his age. Consider the temptations of such a place." + +"Oh, I would trust Piper anywhere. He's got the head of a man of +thirty on those boy's shoulders of his." + +"He seems a shrewd boy, certainly. You appear to have taken a quite +uncommon interest in him of late, Matthew." + +"Yes, I do feel a great interest in him. It is not often I take a +fancy, but I've taken a fancy to Piper, and I mean to put him in the +way of making his fortune." + +"As how?" + +"By having him articled to a first-class legal firm, and afterwards by +purchasing a partnership for him, or else by setting him up on his own +account." + +"But that will cost a great deal of money." + +"Not so much, perhaps, as you imagine. But whatever the cost may be, I +have made up my mind to do it, and do it I will." + +Mrs. Kelvin knows nothing of the great service which Pod Piper has +rendered her son. She does not know that but for Pod's shrewd +thoughtfulness and presence of mind she might perhaps no longer have +had a son. But Matthew Kelvin knows, and does not forget. + +"But if you want to have young Piper articled, why not article him to +yourself, Matthew?" + +"Because I think we shall be better apart, and that it will be better +for him to leave Pembridge for a few years. Because, too----" + +"Because what, dear?" + +"Because I have some serious thoughts of retiring from business before +long." + +A pause. Mrs. Kelvin tries to adjust her spectacles, but cannot, her +hand trembles so much. + +"The business, Matthew, that was built up by your father and +grandfather, through so many years of industry and thrift?" + +"Yes, the business that was built up by my father and grandfather, and +that has been crowned by me with many years of quiet work. Mother, I +am rich enough to give it up. I shall never marry and have children, +and--I am ambitious.--Because my father and grandfather lived and died +two quiet country lawyers, that is no reason why I should be content +to do the same. To-day is not as yesterday. I have larger views and +different aims than theirs. I am sick and tired to death of the petty +drudgery necessitated by a business like mine. I want to get into +Parliament, I want to----" + +"Into Parliament, Matthew! How proud I should be to see you there!" + +"Would you? Then I hope you will see me there before this time next +year. I know for a fact that Sir Thomas means to give up his seat next +spring. Some of his chief supporters have been coquetting with me +already. But if I become M.P., I must give up my profession and devote +the whole of my time to my new duties. I hope to make my mark yet +before I die." + +"You are right, and I was wrong," says Mrs. Kelvin. "Business must be +given up. You have a career before you. After a time, perhaps, you +will marry, and then----" + +"Never, mother. I shall never marry," says Matthew very gravely. + +The tide has been coming in very quickly, and a bigger wave than +ordinary now comes creaming up nearly to their feet. They must move at +once. + +"It is time to go, the breeze is growing chilly," says Mrs. Kelvin. +"You must tell me more of your plans and thoughts to-morrow." + +As they turn the corner of the Etablissement, they meet and pass three +people--a lady and two gentlemen--who are on their way to the sands. + +"What a remarkably handsome woman!" says Mrs. Kelvin to her son. + +"Just my thought, mother. I wonder what country woman she is--not +English, certainly." + +But in saying this, Matthew Kelvin is mistaken. The lady who has +attracted the admiration of himself and his mother is, in fact, none +other than our old acquaintance, Miriam Byrne--now Mrs. James Baron. +The gentlemen with her are her father and her husband. + +Mr. Kelvin and Peter Byrne have never met, and are unaware of each +other's existence. They have both been prominent actors in that +strange drama which has had Eleanor Lloyd and Gerald Warburton for its +central figures--a drama which must of necessity have worked itself +out in an altogether different manner had neither of them, or only one +of them, played a part in it. Yet, to-day, they pass each other, +knowing nothing of all this, each going his own road, never to meet +again. So runs the world away. + +Mr. Byrne looks younger and more jaunty than ever. His new set of +teeth are marvels of dentistry and gleam whitely in the sun every time +he smiles--and to-day he seems to be one perpetual smile. There is a +fine bright colour on his cheeks, the origin of which it might not be +wise to inquire too curiously into. His blue frock-coat is tightly +buttoned, so as to show off the elegance of his figure. He wears +lemon-coloured gloves and carries the slimmest of umbrellas. + +Nearly everyone turns to look at Miriam. Various types of French and +English beauty are by no means uncommon on the sands at Boulogne, but +Miriam's peculiar style of face is very rarely seen in the north of +Europe, and it strikes the gay crowd with all the freshness of +novelty. + +Miriam is dressed in the latest fashion of seaside extravagance. She +is quite conscious of the sensation which she creates as she moves +slowly along, but she has been used to be stared at from the time that +she can remember at all. To be admired seems to her as natural as to +breathe: admiration is her birthright, and she accepts it with the +serene self-unconsciousness of a queen accepting the homage of her +subjects. + +Mr. James Baron is one of those fair-haired, blue-eyed young Saxons +who seem all to have been cast in the same mould, and of whom there is +little or nothing to be said. But he is Miriam's choice, and Miriam +loves him, and that is enough. + +The services rendered Ambrose Murray by Peter Byrne and his daughter +have been most liberally rewarded. But, in addition to this, some old +mining shares which Byrne had long looked upon as utterly worthless +have--to use his own phrase--"turned up trumps" at last, and the old +poverty-stricken days in Amelia Terrace are at an end for ever. +Through Gerald's influence, a capital situation has been found for +young Baron with a large wine firm at Bordeaux, so they are all +keeping holiday together for a little while before the young couple +set out for their new home. + +"Papa," says Miriam with a smile, "if anyone had told you, three +months ago, that you would be walking here with James and me, that you +would call James 'my dear boy' a hundred times a day, and that you +would have actually given me away--with your blessing--to the man +whose name you could not bear to hear me mention, what would you have +said?" + +"I should have recommended the immediate application of a strait +waistcoat. But circumstances alter cases, as we have all lived to +prove, and it's only your narrow-minded people who will never admit +that they are in the wrong." + +"Do you remember how shocked you were when I told you to what use I +should put Mr. Warburton's money if it ever came into my hands?" + +"Ah, my dear, you never really understood the secret of my opposition +to your little love affair. James, here, has a great deal to thank me +for. I knew your disposition, dear, better than you knew it yourself. +I knew that if your courtship were allowed to go on in a quiet, +conventional, hum-drum sort of way, without any parental opposition to +infuse a spice of romance and difficulty into the affair, you would +never learn to care quite so much for James, or to value him so highly +as you would do if your wishes were judiciously thwarted for a time. +You like your husband all the better because you have had a difficulty +in making him your husband. It is a sort of weakness by no means +uncommon with your sex. As I said before, James has much to thank me +for." + +Mr. Baron and his wife both burst into laughter. + +"Trust papa for never being without an excuse!" says Miriam. + +The scene changes. The accident ward in a London hospital. Time, eight +p.m. + +On a pallet in one corner of the ward, between which and the long row +of other pallets stands a big black screen, lies all that remains of +Jonas Pringle. He has breathed his last but a few minutes ago. +Kneeling on the floor, her face buried in her hands, is the dead man's +daughter. Run over in the streets when drunk, he has been brought here +early in the afternoon. He is just able to tell his daughter's +address, and then he lapses into unconsciousness. He never opens his +eyes or speaks again, but with his daughter's hand clasped in his, he +sleeps himself away as gently as though he were a little child hushed +on its mother's breast. + +Jessie is roused at last by a hand laid gently on her shoulder. She +looks up, and sees one of the visiting sisters of mercy. She rises to +her feet, and the sister, who has thought she was crying, is surprised +to see that her eyes are dry and tearless. + +"He was your father," says the sister, with a slight touch of surprise +in her voice. + +"Yes, he was my father," says Jessie, gently. + +Then she asks for a pair of scissors, and having cut off a lock of her +father's hair, she wraps it in a piece of paper, and places it inside +the bosom of her dress. Then, still with dry and tearless eyes, she +kisses the dead man's cold forehead. + +"I've got money at home," she says to the sister, who is standing +quietly by. "The parish mustn't lay a finger on him. I'll bury him +myself." + +Then, with a muttered good night, she turns and goes. She stands for a +moment at the hospital door, gazing up and down, the rainy, lamp-lit +street, and shudders as she gazes. Then she draws her scanty shawl +more closely round her, and stepping out into the rain, she hurries +away--whither? + + +Again the scene changes. The great drawing-room at Stammars. Time, +nine p.m. of a January evening. + +It is Miss Sophy's birthday, and there is a large gathering of young +people to celebrate the event. There are only five grown-up persons in +the room, and all of them are known to us. First and foremost come Sir +Thomas and Lady Dudgeon, looking exactly as they have looked any time +these ten years. That thin, dreamy-looking, white-haired gentleman in +the corner, with a very tiny young lady on his knee who is resting +from her romps for a few minutes, is Mr. Ambrose Murray. That dark, +foreign-looking gentleman, and that handsome lady, who are walking +through a quadrille with two partners of the mature age of twelve, are +Mr. and Mrs. Warburton. They two, together with Mr. Murray, having +eaten their Christmas dinner with dear, kind-hearted Miss Bellamy, +have come down for a month's visit to Stammars. + +Mr. Murray can now bear his own name, and is as free to come and go as +any one. Acting on the advice of friends, he went back to the asylum +from which he had escaped, and gave himself up. A case was then +prepared for the Home Secretary, and that high functionary, having +considered the same at his leisure, has been graciously pleased to +advise that Ambrose Murray be granted a free pardon, and that the +conviction recorded against him be considered null and void. + +Eleanor and Gerald have been married three months, and are as happy as +they deserve to be. This morning they walked through the lanes and +fields, as far as the little churchyard in which Jacob Lloyd sleeps his +last. Eleanor always feels as if she must have had two fathers--one +in the past and one in the present. With tears in her eyes, she +talks to her husband of the dear father who lies here, and she kisses +the wreath of everlastings she has brought with her before she lays it +gently on his grave. + +On their way back they call at the lodge to see "little Miss Waif," as +Gerald calls the child whom, a year ago, he found so strangely in the +hedge bottom. It has never been claimed, and probably never will be +now. Eleanor has had it christened after herself, and is very fond of +it. Gerald, too, has a sneaking sort of liking for the child. He +cannot forget that it was while he was holding it in his arms, and +blushing to the roots of his hair, that he first saw Eleanor, and +first spoke to her. Many a laugh have they had about that incident +since their marriage. That the child's future will be carefully looked +after we may safely assume. + +When ten o'clock strikes, the juveniles troop off to supper, and Sir +Thomas buttonholes Gerald, and takes him off to the smoking-room. +There is something on his mind which he is evidently bursting to +confide to Gerald. + +"Look here, Pomeroy," he says--he can't forget the old familiar +name--"I'm going to tell you something that I've not told to anybody, +and that I wouldn't have her ladyship know just yet for the world. What +do you think? I've made up my mind to resign my seat!" + +"You do indeed surprise me!" says Gerald. + +"I mention this to you because I think it would be a good chance for +you to try to get into parliament yourself. You know, Pomeroy, I +always said you were cut out for an M.P." + +"You flatter me, Sir Thomas. All the same, I'm greatly obliged to you +for honouring me with your confidence in this matter, although I shall +not be able to do what you have so kindly suggested. My wife and I +have made up our minds to travel for a couple of years before I settle +down to anything." + +"Ah, that's a pity now! because I could have given you such a lot of +support." + +"May I ask what your motives are for resigning your seat?" + +"I've found out, Pomeroy, that it was never intended by Nature that I +should write M.P. after my name. And then I hate London. I'm never +either well in health or happy in mind when I'm there. Give me, +instead, what my wife calls 'the dull pursuits of country life.' +Though why she should call them dull, I can't for the life of me see. +What can be more exciting, for instance, than a show of prize +bullocks, or a good ploughing match? And where is there anything in +all London half as pretty as a field of wheat on a midsummer morning, +especially when the crop's a good one, and the field happens to be +your own?" + +"It will be a great disappointment to her ladyship." + +"That's the deuce of it," says Sir Thomas, with a dismal shake of the +head. "Between you and me, I dread telling her. There will be an +explosion, my boy--an explosion. But I've made up my mind to go +through with it, and go through with it I will." + +He jingles the loose change in his pocket and whistles under his +breath, but is evidently far from easy in his mind. + +It need hardly be said that Eleanor stands higher in the favour of +Lady Dudgeon than ever she did before. If she is penniless herself, +has she not a husband who is worth twenty thousand pounds? Her +ladyship could afford to condone much in face of such a golden fact as +that. Not that there is anything to condone in the case of Eleanor, as +matters have turned out; but had it unhappily been the case that +Gerald was not his uncle's heir, it may be feared that Eleanor's +offences would have been altogether past condonation. + +The evening wears on, and one after another the young people take +their leave, till only a few are left, who are not going home till +morning. These, tired out at last with dancing and romping, gather +round Ambrose Murray, and beg of him to tell them a fairy tale. So he +tells them a tale in which there is a giant and a dwarf, and a castle +with walls of brass, and a magic horn that hangs by the gate, and a +beautiful princess who is shut up in a dungeon, and a brave knight who +has many wonderful adventures and hair-breadth escapes. + +When the tale is done, being a little weary, he bids the children a +kindly goodnight, then he shakes hands with Sir Thomas and Lady +Dudgeon, and asks them to excuse his retiring. Eleanor goes with him +to the foot of the stairs, where they kiss each other and say +goodnight. Eleanor stands and watches him as he goes slowly up the +wide staircase, looking very tired, she thinks. He turns when he +reaches the landing, and smiles, and waves his hand to her. She blows +him a last kiss. Next moment he is gone, and she hurries back to the +drawing-room. + +When Ambrose Murray reaches his room, he rakes the glowing embers +together, and puts out his candle. He often sits in the dark for +hours. Then he draws up one of the blinds, and looks out. The +atmosphere is very clear, and the sky is brilliant with stars. He +stands there for a long time, gazing up at the stars with rapt look on +his face. His thoughts are evidently far away--far away, it may be, +from earth and all its weariness and troubles. By-and-by he goes and +kneels down by the side of his bed, and clasps his hands. + +And there next morning they find him, still kneeling, still with +clasped hands, and with a look of ineffable peace on his white, worn +face--of that peace which passeth all understanding. + + + + +THE END. + + + +______________________________________________ +BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, SURREY. + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Secret of the Sea. Vol. 3 (of 3), by +T. W. Speight + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57815 *** |