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THE
MYSTERIES OF HERON DYKE.

A Novel of Incident.



By the Author of
"In the Dead of Night," "Brought to Light," etc.




IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.




LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
1880.
[_All Rights Reserved_.]






CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

CHAPTER

       I. WINTER AT HERON DYKE.
      II. DR. DOWNES' SNUFF-BOX.
     III. "PATCHWORK."
      IV. THE TWENTY-FOURTH OF APRIL.
       V. MR. CHARLES PLACKETT CALLS UPON THE SQUIRE.
      VI. SUDDEN TIDINGS.
     VII. THE MISTRESS OF HERON DYKE.
    VIII. WHAT DOROTHY SAW IN THE SHRUBBERY.
      IX. ON BOARD THE "SEAMEW."
       X. RESCUER AND RESCUED.
      XI. NOTHING VENTURE, NOTHING WIN.
     XII. HUBERT STONE'S RETURN.






THE
MYSTERIES OF HERON DYKE.




CHAPTER I.
WINTER AT HERON DYKE.


The mellow autumn months darkened and died slowly into winter. The
wild winds that are born in the bitter north blew in stronger and
fiercer gusts, and the majestic monotone of the sea grew louder and
more triumphant as the huge tides broke in white-lipped wrath against
the shuddering sands. There came tidings of fishing boats that never
found their way back home, of great ships in the offing that made
signals of distress, of dead bodies washed up here and there along the
shore. The Easterby lifeboat was ever ready to brave the fiercest
seas; while miles away across the seething waters, at once a signal of
warning and of hope, the ruddy beacon of Easterby lighthouse shone
clear and steady through the darkest night: it was like the eye of
Faith shining across the troubled waters of Life.

At Heron Dyke, to all outward seeming, the winter months brought
little or no change in the monotony of life within its four grey
walls. And yet there were some changes; all of which, unimportant as
they might seem if taken singly, had a distinct bearing on events to
come. The two housemaids, Martha and Ann, to whom Aaron Stone had
given warning in his anger at what he called their folly, were not
forgiven. They left the Hall at the expiration of the month's notice,
giving place to two strong young women who came all the way from
London; and who, never having been in the country before, were
supposed to be superior to the ordinary run of superstitious fancies,
which so powerfully affect the rural mind. Aaron took care that Martha
and Ann should be clear of the house before Phemie and Eliza arrived
at it: there should be no collusion with the new-comers if he could
prevent it.

All went well at first. Phemie and Eliza felt dull, but were
sufficiently comfortable. They had plenty to eat, and little to do.
Not having been told that the Hall was supposed to be haunted, to them
the north wing was the same as any other part of the house, and they
neither saw nor heard anything to frighten them. The deaf and stolid
cook kept herself, as usual, to herself, and said nothing. Indeed, it
may be concluded that she had nothing to say. Had a whole army of
apparitions placed themselves in a row before her at the "witching
hour o' night," it would not have affected her; she utterly despised
them, and the belief that could put faith in them.

Old Aaron chuckled at the success of his new arrangements.

"We shall be bothered with no more cock-and-bull stories about grisly
ghosts now," thought he.

But, though the new maids were safe enough from hearing gossip inside
the house, they were not out of it. Aaron, however good his will might
be, could not keep them within for ever: they must go to church, they
must go into the town; they claimed, although strangers in the place,
a half-holiday now and then. And the first half-holiday that Phemie
had, something came of it.

The girl made the best of her way to Nullington. Small though the town
was, it had its shops; and shops have a wonderful fascination for the
female heart. Into one and into another went Phemie, making
acquaintance with this vendor of wares and with that. Mysterious
things were talked of; and when she got back to the Hall at night, she
had a rare budget of strange news to tell Eliza.

The Hall was haunted. At least, the north wing of it was. A young
woman. Miss Winter's maid, had mysteriously disappeared in it one
night last winter, and had never been heard of since. The two previous
housemaids had been nearly terrified out of their wits afterwards.
They had heard doors clash after dark that were never shut by mortal
hands; they had heard a voice that sobbed and sighed along the
passages at midnight; and they had been once awakened by a strange
tapping at their bedroom door, as if some one were seeking to come in.
More dreadful than all, they had seen the deathlike face of the
missing girl staring down at them over the balusters of the gallery in
the great entrance-hall: and it was for being frightened at this, for
speaking of it, they were turned away!--which was shamefully unjust.
All this disquieting news, with the observations made on it, had
Mistress Phemie contrived to pick up in the course of one afternoon's
shopping, and to bring home to Eliza.

The two servants had now plenty to talk about in the privacy of their
own room, and talk they did; but they were wise enough at present to
keep their own counsel, and to wait with a sort of dread expectancy
for what time might bring forth. Would they hear strange sobbings and
sighings in the night? would a ghostly face stare suddenly out upon
them from behind some dark corner when they least expected it? The
dull depths of these girls' minds were stirred as they had never been
stirred before. They half hoped and wholly dreaded the happening of
something--they knew not what.

Meanwhile they began to go timorously about the house, to shun the
north wing most carefully after dark, and to keep together after
candles were lighted. Old Aaron, silently watching, was not slow to
mark these signs and tokens, though he took no outward notice. While
his wife Dorothy, watching also in her superstitious fear, drew in her
mind the conclusion that the girls were being disturbed as the other
two girls had been.

It fell out one afternoon, about three weeks after Phemie had brought
her strange tidings from Nullington, that Eliza was sent to the town
on an errand by her mistress, Mrs. Stone: for, to all intents and
purposes, Dorothy Stone acted as the women-servants' mistress, whether
Miss Winter might be in the house, or whether she was out of it. Eliza
was later in starting than she ought to have been, and she was longer
doing her errands--for she took the opportunity to make purchases on
her own account--and it was dusk before she turned back to Heron Dyke.
It was a pleasant evening, cold but dry, with the stars coming out one
after another, as she went quickly along the quiet country road,
thinking of her mother and sisters far away. She turned into the park
by the lodge on the Easterby road, stopping for a couple of minutes'
gossip with Mrs. Tilney, the gardener's wife. How pleasant and
homelike the little lodge looked, Eliza thought, full of ruddy
firelight, for Hannah Tilney would not light the lamp till her husband
should arrive. The elder girl was making toast for her father's tea,
the younger one was hushing her doll to sleep, while Mrs. Tilney
herself was setting out the tea-cups, and the kettle was singing on
the hob--all awaiting the return of the good husband and father.

Bidding the lodge goodnight, Eliza went on her way. It was quite dark
by this time, and although the hour was early she did not much like
her lonely walk through the park. She was not used to the country, and
the solitude frightened her a little; fancy whispering that a tramp
might be lurking behind every tree. She pictured to herself the light
and bustle of London streets, and was sorry she had left them. Leaving
the carriage-drive to the right when she got within two or three
hundred yards of the Hall, she turned into a shrubbery that led to the
servants' entrance. It did seem very lonely here, and she hurried on,
glancing timidly from right to left, her heart beating a little faster
than ordinary.

Suddenly a low scream burst from her lips. A dark figure, emerging
from behind a clump of evergreens, stood full in her path, and placed
its hand on her arm. Eliza stood still; she had no other choice; and
trembled as she had never trembled before. It was a woman: she could
see that much now.

"Won't you please let me speak with you?" cried a gentle voice, which
somehow served to reassure Eliza.

"My patience!" cried she, anger bubbling up in the reaction of
feeling, "how came you to frighten me like that? I was thinking
of--of--all kinds of startling things. What do you want?"

"You are one of the new maids at the Hall," rejoined the figure, in
low, beseeching accents, "and I have been trying for weeks to get to
speak to you."

"Who are you?--and what do you want with me?" demanded Eliza.

"I am Susan Keen."

"Susan Keen," repeated the servant, not remembering at the moment why
the name should seem familiar to her. "Well, I don't know you, if you
are."

"My sister lived at the Hall, Miss Winter's maid, and she disappeared
in her bedroom one night last winter," went on poor Susan, with a kind
of sob. "It was full of mystery. Even Mr. Kettle says that."

"Oh yes, to be sure," cordially replied Eliza, her sympathies aroused
now. "Poor Katherine Keen! Yes. What _did_ become of her?"

Susan shook her head. It was a question no one could answer.

"I want you to help me to find out," she whispered.

The avowal struck Eliza with a sort of alarm.

"Good gracious!" she cried.

"I want you to help me to find some traces of her--my poor lost
sister," continued Susan--"some clue to the mystery of her fate----"

"But what could _I_ do, even if I were willing?" interrupted the
housemaid.

"You are inside the house, I am outside," replied Susan, with a sob.
"Your chances are greater than mine. Oh, won't you help me? At any
moment, when least expected, some link might show itself; the merest
accident, as mother says, might put us on the right track. Have you no
pity for her?"

"I've a great deal of pity for her; I never heard so strange and
pitiful a tale in all my life," was the reply. "Phemie was told all
about it when she went into Nullington. But, you know, she may not be
dead."

"She is dead," shivered Susan. "Oh, believe that. I am as sure of it
as that we two are standing here. At first I didn't believe she was
dead; I couldn't: but now that the months have gone on, and on, I feel
that there's no hope. If she were alive she would not fail to let us
know it to ease our sorrow--all this while! Katherine was more loving
and thoughtful than you can tell."

"It's said she had no sweetheart: or else----" Eliza was beginning.
But the other went on, never hearing.

"If she were not dead, she would not come to me so often in my
dreams--and she's always dead in them. And, look here," added the
girl, in awed tones, drawing a step nearer, and gently pressing
against Eliza's arm: "I wish some one could tell me why her hair is
always wet when she appears. I can see water dripping from the ends of
it."

Eliza shuddered, and glanced involuntarily around.

"Sometimes she calls me as if from a distance, and then I awake,"
resumed Susan. "She wants me to find her--I know that; but I never
can, though I am looking for her continually."

"This poor thing must be crazed," thought the bewildered
woman-servant.

"And I've fancied that you might help me. I've come about here at
night, wanting to see you, and ask you, for ever so long. You can
watch, and look, and listen when you are going about your work in the
house, and perhaps you will come upon her, or some trace of her."

"Good mercy! You surely can't think she is _in_ the house!" exclaimed
Eliza.

"I am sure she's in it."

"What--dead?"

"She must be dead. She can't be alive--all these weary weeks and
months."

"I never heard of such a belief," cried Eliza. "What it is that's
thought--leastways, as it has been told to me and my fellow-servant,
Phemie--is, that it is her spirit that is in the house, and haunts
it."

"Her spirit does haunt it," affirmed poor Susan. "But she is there
too."

Eliza felt as if a rush of cold air were passing over her.

"Something wrong was done to her; she was killed in some way; and I'd
sooner think it was by a woman than a man," went on Susan, dreamily.
"It all happened in the north wing. And then they carried her away for
concealment to one of the dark unused rooms in it, and left her there,
shut up--perhaps for ever. That's how it must have been."

"Dear me!" gasped Eliza, hardly knowing, in her dismay, whether this
was theory or fact.

"And so if you could watch, and come upon any clue, and would kindly
bring it to us, me and mother, we'd be ever grateful. Perhaps you know
our inn--the 'Leaning Gate'--as you go from here to Nullington."

"Stay a moment," said Eliza, a thought striking her: "does your mother
think all this that you've been telling me?--does she want me to
watch?"

"Mother does not know I've come to you, or that I've ever had thought
of coming, else she might have stopped me," answered the girl
candidly, for poor Susan Keen was truth itself. "But she knows
Katherine must be in the house, dead or alive; she says that.
Good-evening, and thank you, and I'm sorry I startled you."

She walked away at a swift pace. Eliza looked after her for a moment,
and then ran home shivering, not daring to glance to the right or to
the left.


When the last fine days of autumn were over and the cold weather was
fairly set in, Squire Denison had ceased to drive out in his brougham,
and was seen no more beyond the suite of rooms that were set apart for
his personal use. Early in November, his lawyer, Mr. Daventry, was
sent for, and received certain final instructions respecting his will.

About the same time a fresh inmate came to Heron Dyke, and took up her
abode there for the time being. The person in question was a certain
Mrs. Dexter, a professional nurse, who had been sent for from London
by Dr. Jago's express desire. She was a plain-looking middle-aged
woman, whose manners and address were superior to her station in life.
A woman of few words, she seldom spoke except when some one put a
question to her. She went quietly and deftly about her duties, and
employed all her spare time in reading. A sitting-room was allotted
her next Mr. Denison's, and she never mixed with the servants. No one
at the Hall, unless it was Hubert Stone, knew that Mrs. Dexter was an
elder sister of Dr. Jago's wife. It might be that the treatment
pursued by that undoubtedly clever practitioner, and which at present
seemed to succeed, was of too hazardous a nature to be entrusted to,
or witnessed by, an ordinary nurse.

Then came another movement. Within a few days of Mrs. Dexter's arrival
at the Hall, the carpenter, Shalders, was sent for from Nullington.
Receiving his orders, he proceeded to put up two doors covered with
green baize, one in each of the corridors leading to Mr. Denison's
rooms. The household wondered much; the neighbourhood talked; for
Shalders had a tongue, and did not keep the measure a secret. It was
to ensure himself more quiet that the Squire had had it done, said
Shalders. Day and night these doors were kept locked. Four people
only, each of whom had a pass-key, were allowed to penetrate beyond
them: Dr. Jago, Mrs. Dexter, Aaron Stone, and Hubert. Anything that
took place on the other side of those mysterious doors was as little
known to the rest of the inmates of the Hall as if they had been a
hundred miles away. In Nullington, people could not cease wondering
about these baize-covered doors, and were generally of opinion that
Squire Denison was growing more crazy every day.

Ella never failed to write to her uncle once a week, and once a week
the Squire dictated to Hubert a few lines of reply. In these notes he
always told her his health was improving; that he grew better and
stronger. For weeks after he had ceased to leave his own rooms, he
wrote to Ella--in his unselfishness, let us suppose--about his drives
out, and how the fresh crisp winter air seemed to give him strength.
Ella expressed a strong desire to be back at home by New Year's Day;
but the Squire's answer to her request, while kind, was yet so
peremptory in tone that she was afraid to mention the subject again.
He told her she was not to make herself uneasy about him, and that,
now she was abroad, she had better enjoy herself, and see everything
that was worth seeing: when he wanted her back at the Hall he would
not fail to send for her, but till that time she had better continue
on her travels. If the body of the letter seemed hard to Ella, there
was no lack of loving messages at its end.

"You are always in my thoughts," he wrote. "I see your face in the
firelight; I hear the rustle of your dress behind my chair; half a
dozen times a day I could swear that I heard you singing in the next
room. When you come back to me in spring, my darling, I will never let
you go away again."

To Ella his letters would read almost like a contradiction. He could
write thus, evidently pining for her, and yet would not allow her to
return. She comforted herself with the reassurance that he must be
better. Not the faintest hint was given to her in any one of the
letters that Mrs. Dexter, a sick-nurse, had taken up her abode at
Heron Dyke.

Hubert Stone received several private notes from Ella, asking for full
and special information respecting the state of her uncle's health.
The writer of them little thought how they were treasured up and
covered with kisses. To each of them Hubert wrote a few guarded lines
of reply, confirming the general tenour of Mr. Denison's own letters.
Miss Winter, he said, had no cause for uneasiness: Mr. Denison was
certainly stronger than he had been for two years past. A few old
friends of the Squire called at the Hall occasionally and inquired
respecting his health. Now and again he would see one or other of them
for a few minutes, and talk away as if nothing were the matter with
him.

But after the middle of December no visitors of any kind were
admitted. They were told that the Squire was much as usual, but that
his medical man, Dr. Jago, enjoined perfect quiet as indispensable to
him. When Dr. Spreckley heard this, he differed completely.

"I always told Mr. Denison that he ought to see more company than he
did," said Spreckley. "He wanted rousing more out of himself. The
sight of a fresh face and a little lively conversation never failed to
do him good."

It was a marvel to Dr. Spreckley that the Squire still lived. He
wondered much what treatment was being pursued, not believing that any
treatment known to him could keep him in life; he marvelled at other
things.

"Hang it all!" cried the Doctor one day to himself. "I can't see
daylight in it. Shut up in his rooms from people's sight; green-baize
doors put up to keep out the household! what does it mean? Are they
treating him to a course of slow poisons? Upon my word, if it were not
that the object is to keep the Squire in life, I should think there
was a conspiracy to send him out of it, and that they don't want to be
watched at their work. But it is a strange thing that he yet lives."

That was, to Dr. Spreckley, the strangest thing of all. Morning after
morning, as he arose, did he expect to hear the news of the Squire's
death; but winter wore on, and the old year died out, and still the
tidings came not. Dr. Spreckley marvelled more and more; but he said
nothing to anybody.




CHAPTER III.
DR. DOWNE'S SNUFF-BOX.


That winter in Norfolk was an exceptionally severe one. Lady Cleeve,
whose health had been waning for some time past, felt the cold more
severely than she had ever done before, and was rarely out of her own
home. Trusting her son so thoroughly, the twelve hundred pounds had
now been transferred to him, as promised, and stood in his name in the
books of Nullington Bank. And to Philip life seemed to have become
well worth living. The fact that he could draw cheques now on his own
account--ay, and find them duly honoured--was a new and delightful
item in his experience. His sunny, debonair face might be seen
everywhere with a smile upon it: he had a kind look for this
neighbour, meeting him in the street: a pleasant word for that one. He
carried fascination with him; and, whatever might be his faults, it
was impossible to help liking Philip Cleeve.

"A thousand pounds will be quite enough for Tiplady," he decided,
after some mental debate, carried on at intervals. "If the old fellow
lets me join him at all, he'll take me for that: money's nothing to
him."

This, you perceive, would leave Mr. Philip two hundred pounds to play
with: a very desirable acquisition. But the partnership question
remained as yet in abeyance. Mr. Tiplady was very much engaged with
some troublesome private affairs of his own at this period, was often
from home; and for the time being seemed to have forgotten his talk
with Lady Cleeve about the partnership.

Philip was particularly careful not to refresh his memory. His mother
felt anxious now and then that no progress was being made: she spoke
to Philip about it, only to have her fears pooh-poohed, and be put off
in that young gentleman's laughing, easy-going style.

"A month or two more or less cannot make any possible difference,
mother," he said one day. "Besides, I don't think it would be wise to
bother Tiplady just now. It will be time enough to speak when he has
got through his law-suit with Jarvis."

It did not take Philip Cleeve very long to make a considerable hole in
the two hundred pounds: set aside in his own mind as a margin to be
used for whatever contingencies might arise. In the first place, his
IOU to Freddy Bootle for his losses at cards in October had to be
redeemed, Freddy having lent him the money to square up: although it
might have stood over for an indefinite period as far as Freddy was
concerned. This of itself ran away with a considerable sum. Then
Philip discovered that he had been in the habit of dressing less well
than was desirable, and so replenished his wardrobe throughout. After
that, chancing to be one day at the jeweller's, he took a fancy to a
gold hunting-watch and a couple of expensive rings. The latter
articles he would draw off and slip into his pocket when going into
his mother's presence; while of the existence of the watch she knew
nothing. Not for a great deal would he have had Lady Cleeve suspect
that he had touched a penny of the twelve hundred pounds. Yes, he was
not without faults, this Master Philip.

For some little time past, he had taken to be more from home than
usual, in the evening, and to return to it later. Lady Cleeve did not
grumble; she but thought he was at the Vicarage, or at the house of
some other friend. He was more often at The Lilacs than she was at all
aware of. Not that she would have objected: she rather liked Captain
Lennox; and she knew nothing of the high play carried on there, or of
the unearthly hours that it sometimes pleased Mr. Philip to come in.

It was not play, though, that made Philip's chief attraction at The
Lilacs. It was Mrs. Ducie. His pleasant evenings were those when cards
were not brought out, when the time was filled with conversation and
music. On such occasions Philip left at the sober hour of eleven
o'clock, and had nothing to reproach himself with next morning; unless
it were, perhaps, that when in the fascinating company of Mrs. Ducie,
he almost forgot the existence of Maria Kettle.

Yet it was impossible to say that Margaret Ducie gave him any special
encouragement, or led him on in any way. She was probably aware of his
admiration for her, but there was nothing that savoured of the
coquette in her mode of treating him. She was gracious and easy and
pleasant, and that was all that could be said: and she drew an
impalpable line between them which Philip felt that it would not be
wise on his part to attempt to overpass. Meanwhile life was rendered
none the less pleasant, in that he could now and then pass a few sunny
hours in her society.

Early in December, Mrs. Ducie went up to London to stay with some
friends, purposing to be away a month or two; and after her departure
Philip did not find himself at The Lilacs quite so often. One day,
however, he chanced to meet Captain Lennox in the street, who gave him
a cordial invitation for the evening, to meet some other men who would
be there.

"I expect Camberley and Lawlor and Furness," said Captain Lennox. "You
don't know Furness, I think? Married a wife with four thousand a year,
lucky dog! Come up in time for dinner."

Of course Philip accepted. Indeed, it was a rare thing for him to
decline an invitation of any kind. Company pleased him, gaiety made
his heart glad.

Play, that evening, began early and finished late. The stakes were
higher than usual; the champagne was plentiful. The clock struck five
as Philip stood at his own door, fumbling for his latch-key. He had
one of his splitting headaches, and his pockets were lighter by
seventy pounds than they had been eight hours previously. Seventy
pounds!

All that day he lay in bed ill, and was waited upon by his mother, who
had no suspicion as to the real state of affairs, or that he had been
abroad late. Her own poor health obliging her to retire early, rarely
later than ten, she supposed Philip came in at eleven, or thereabouts.
His headache went off towards dusk, but the feeling of utter
wretchedness that possessed him was still left. He was a prey to
self-remorse, not perhaps for the first time in his life, but it had
never stung him so bitterly as now. In the evening, when he had
dressed himself, he unlocked his desk and took out his bank-book. He
had not looked at it lately. After deducting, from the balance shown
there, the amount lost by him at cards the previous evening, together
with two or three other cheques which he had lately paid away, he
found that there now remained to his credit at the bank the sum of
nine hundred and thirty-five pounds. In something less than three
months he had contrived to get through two hundred and sixty-five
pounds of his mother's gift--of the gift which had cost her long years
of patient pinching and hoarding to scrape together. At the same rate
how long would it take him to squander the whole of it? As he asked
himself this question he shut up his bank-book with a groan, and felt
the hot tears of shame and mortification rush into his eyes.

He was still sitting thus when a letter was brought him. It proved to
be a note of invitation from Maria Kettle, written in the Vicar's
name, asking Philip to dinner on the 12th of January, her father's
birthday. A similar note had come for Lady Cleeve. The Vicar always
kept his birthday as a little festival, at which a dozen or more of
his oldest friends were welcome. The sight of Maria's writing touched
and affected Philip as it might not have done at another time. His
heart to-night was full of vague longings and vain regrets, and
perhaps equally vain resolves. He would give up going to The Lilacs,
he would never touch a card again, he would cease to seek the society
of Margaret Ducie--and, he would ask Maria to promise to be his wife.
At this very Vicarage dinner, opportunity being afforded, he would ask
her.

He was very quiet and subdued in manner during the next few days,
spending all his leisure time at home. Some two years previously he
had taken a fancy to teach himself German, but had grown tired of it
in a couple of months, as he had grown tired of so many other hobbies
in his time. He now hunted out his books again, and began to brush up
his half-forgotten knowledge. His mother was delighted at the new
industry: it gave her so much more of him at home.

The evening of the twelfth arrived, and Lady Cleeve and Philip drove
over to the Vicarage in a fly. The brougham of fat, good natured Dr.
Downes was just turning from the door after setting down its master.
Lady Cleeve went into a room to take off her warm coverings, and
Philip waited for her in the little hall.

"What, you here!" he exclaimed, as Captain Lennox entered. "Ay. Why
not?"

"I should have fancied this house would be too quiet for you,"
returned Philip. "There will be no Camberley--no high play here."

Captain Lennox stroked his fair moustache, and looked at Philip with
an amused smile.

"My good sir, do you suppose I must live ever in a racket? Mr. Kettle
was good enough to invite me, and I had pleasure in accepting. As to
Camberley--his play goes a little further at times than I care for."

A pretty flush mounted to Maria's cheek as she met Philip; his
laughing hazel eyes seemed to have a meaning in them, the pressure of
his hand was more emphatic than usual. They had not seen much of each
other lately. No direct words of love had yet passed between them, but
there was a sort of tacit understanding on both sides that one day
they would in all probability become man and wife; needing no
assurance in set phrases that they would be true to each other and
wait till circumstances should be propitious. Of late, however,
Philip's visits to the Vicarage had been few and far between. Rumours
had reached Maria of evenings spent in the billiard-room of the Rose
and Crown, and of his frequent presence at The Lilacs. When Maria
thought of Margaret Ducie's attractions, her heart grew sad.

The dinner guests numbered a dozen--all pleasant people. One or two
handsome girls were there, but Philip had eyes for Maria only.

"How nice she looks!" he thought; "how pure, how candid! What is it
that constitutes her nameless charm? It cannot be her beauty."

No, for Maria had not very much of that. It was the goodness that
shone from every line of her countenance.

Dinner over, the Vicar and a few of his guests retired to his study
for a sober hand at whist, leaving the drawing-room free for music and
conversation: and so the evening passed on.

Ten o'clock struck, and Philip's momentous words to Maria were still
unspoken. At last the watched-for opportunity came. In her search for
some particular piece of music, Maria went downstairs to what she
still called her schoolroom, and Philip followed. A single jet of gas
was lighted, and she was stooping over an old canterbury when he put
his arm round her waist. She had not heard his footsteps, and rose up
startled.

"Oh, Philip!" she cried, and sought to push his hand away.

"Do not repulse me, Maria," he whispered, a strange earnestness in his
generally laughing eyes. "I am here to tell you how truly and tenderly
I love you. I am here to ask you to be my wife."

"Oh, Philip!" was all that poor Maria could reiterate in that first
moment of surprise.

"You must have known all along that I loved you, and I ought perhaps
to have spoken before," he continued. "But I cannot be silent longer.
Tell me, my dearest, that you will be mine--my own sweet wife for
ever!"

Maria's face was covered with blushes. Her eyes met Philip's in one
brief loving glance, but no word did she speak. He drew her to him and
kissed her tenderly twice. His arms were round her, her head rested on
his shoulder, when there came a sound of footsteps outside the door.
An instant later, Philip was alone. How brief a time had sufficed to
seal the fate of two persons for weal or woe!

Philip felt intensely happy now that the ordeal was over--although he
had never anticipated a refusal from Maria. No more gambling, no more
dangerous visits to The Lilacs, or evenings in the billiard-room; life
would be full of other and sweeter interests now. His mother would
rejoice in his good fortune, and all would be _couleur de rose_ in
time to come.

'Twas a pity that an unwelcome thought should intrude to mar the
brightness. Somehow Philip began to think of the money he had drawn
from the bank.

"What a fool I was to break into the thousand pounds!" he exclaimed,
his mood changing to bitterness. "I might have confined myself to the
extra two hundred. That would not have so much mattered, while the
thousand was enough for Tiplady. But to have lessened _that_ by--how
much is it--sixty or seventy pounds! If I could but replace it! If we
had but gold-fields over here as they have yonder," nodding his head
in some vague direction, "where a man may dig up to-day what will last
him to-morrow. No such luck for me. _I_ can't pick any up."

A bustle in the hall--and Philip left the room. Lady Cleeve was
passing out to her fly, which waited for her, escorted to it by good
Dr. Downes. She had already stayed beyond her time: Philip would walk
home later. He helped to place his mother in it, wished her goodnight,
and returned to the rooms with the old Doctor.

At eleven o'clock the party broke up: late hours were not in fashion
at the Vicarage. As Philip wished Maria goodnight, he whispered that
he should be with her on the morrow: and the warm pressure of his hand
and the love-light that sat in his eyes were more eloquent than any
words.

Dr. Downes was fumbling with the sleeves and buttons of his overcoat
in the hall: his own man generally did these things for him.

"Let me help you, Doctor," said Philip: and buttoned the coat deftly.

"Thank you, lad," returned the Doctor. "Would you like a lift as far
as I go?"

Philip thought he would, and got into the roomy old brougham, and
chatted soberly with the old physician on the way. He got out of it
when they came to the side-turning that led to the Doctor's house,
said goodnight, and strode onwards.

Dr. Downes took snuff. A bad habit, perhaps, and one less general now
than in the years gone by. He took it out of a gold box, one of great
value, presented to him by a grateful patient, Lord Lytham: and this
box, being rather proud of it, the old Doctor was fond of exhibiting
in company. The first thing he did, arrived at his own fireside, his
coat and comforter off, was to put his hand in his pocket for his
snuffbox.

It was not there!

Had the Doctor found himself not to be there, he could hardly have
felt more surprise. That he had not dropped it in the carriage, he
knew, for he had never at all unbuttoned his overcoat: still he sent
out and had it searched; and made assurance doubly sure.

"Well, this is a strange thing!" ejaculated the Doctor.

"When did you have it last, sir?" asked Granby, his faithful servant
of many years.

"A few minutes before I left the Vicarage," said Dr. Downes, after
pausing to think. "The Vicar took a pinch with me; we were standing
before the fire; and I distinctly recollect putting the box back into
my pocket. After that, I shook hands with one or two people, and came
away."

"Suppose I send Mark to the Vicarage, sir?" suggested Granby. "He'd
run there in no time: they'll not be gone to bed."

"It is sure not to be there," said the Doctor testily, as Granby came
back from despatching the boy. "How could it leave my pocket after I
had put it there?"

"Perhaps it did, sir--when you were getting on your coat to come away.
Who knows? You are not clever at putting on that coat, sir--if you'll
forgive my saying so--and turn and twist about like anything over it."

"Young Cleeve helped me. And the coat's tight and awkward. I
suppose--I suppose," added Dr. Downes, slowly and thoughtfully, "that
Cleeve did not take the snuffbox to play me a trick?"

"Well, sir, I should not think he would play such a trick as that,
though he is a gay and careless young spark."

"Oh, you think him so, do you, Granby?"

"I'm sure he is, sir," amended Granby. "He's more than that, too--a
regular young spendthrift: and it's a pity to have to say it of Lady
Cleeve's son. Half his time he is at the Rose and Crown playing
billiards, and the t'other half he is playing cards for high stakes at
Captain Lennox's, with my Lord Camberley and other rich folk."

"Why, Granby, how the deuce do you know all this?"

"Why, sir, all the town knows it. Leastways about the time he spends
in the billiard-room. And Captain Lennox's man happens to be an old
acquaintance of mine, so we often have a chat together. It's James
Knight, sir, who once lived with Sir Gunton Cleeve, and perhaps you
may remember him."

"But--billiards, and cards, and high stakes--how does young Cleeve
find the money for it all?" debated the Doctor.

"Ay, sir, that's the puzzle of it. Lady Cleeve can't give it him.
Anyway, he has it, and sits at the Captain's card-table with a heap of
gold and silver piled up before him."

Dr. Downes fell into a rather unpleasant reverie. He knew nothing of
the money that Lady Cleeve had placed to her son's account in the
bank, and he wondered where Philip's means could come from.

"Camberley and Lennox, and those rich fellows, may stake ten-pound
notes if they choose to be so idiotic," cogitated the Doctor. "But
such recklessness in Philip means ruin. What possesses the lad? Takes
after his father, I'm afraid: _he_ rushed into folly in his young
days. But he pulled himself up in time."

Mark came back from the Vicarage, bringing no news of the gold
snuffbox. The Vicar, much concerned, searched in the hall himself; he
spoke of the pinch he had taken from the box, and he saw Dr. Downes
return the box to his pocket. Dr. Downes sat looking uneasily into the
dying embers of his fire as he revolved the news.

"Is it possible," he presently asked himself, "is it possible that
Philip can have _stolen_ the box? Stolen it to make money of for his
cards and billiards?"




CHAPTER III.
"PATCHWORK."


The Reverend Francis Kettle and his daughter Maria sat down to their
breakfast-table somewhat later than usual: the dinner-party of the
previous evening had made the servants busy. The thoughts of each were
preoccupied: the Vicar's with the strange loss of Dr. Downes' gold
snuffbox, of which he spoke from time to time; Maria's with the
proposal of marriage made to her by Philip Cleeve: the most momentous
proposal a young girl can receive. Presently Mr. Kettle found leisure
to take up a letter, which had been lying by his plate unopened.

"Oh," said he, "it is from Mrs. Page."

Maria glanced up with a smile. "In trouble as usual, papa, with her
servants?"

"Of course. And with herself, too," added the Vicar, as he read the
short letter. "She wants you to go to her, Maria."

Mrs. Page was the one rich relation of the Kettle family: first cousin
to the late Mrs. Kettle. She lived in Leamington, in a handsome house
of her own, and with a good establishment; and she might have been as
happy there as any wealthy and popular widow lady ever was yet. But,
though good at heart, Mrs. Page was intensely capricious and exacting;
she lived in almost perpetual hot water with her servants, and changed
them every two or three months. This week, for instance, she would be
rich in domestics, not lacking one in any capacity; the next week the
whole lot would depart in a body, turned away, or turning themselves
away, and Mrs. Page be reduced to a couple of charwomen. But her
goodness of heart was undeniable; and many a Christmas Day had Mr.
Kettle received from her a fifty-pound note, to be distributed by
himself and Maria amongst their poor.

Every now and then she would send a peremptory summons for Maria; and
the Vicar never allowed it to be disobeyed.

"She is getting old now, Maria, she is nearly the only relative left
of your poor mother's, and I cannot permit you to neglect her," he
would say. But he did not choose to append to this another reason,
which, perhaps, weighed greatly with himself, and add, "She is rich,
and will probably remember you in her will if you do not offend her."

"The servants all went off the day before yesterday, Maria; and she
says that she is feeling very ill, and she wants you to go to her as
soon as convenient," said Mr. Kettle, passing the letter to his
daughter.

"But I cannot go, papa."

"Not go!"

"I do not see that I can. There is so much work at home just now."

"What work?"

"With the parish----"

"Oh, hang the parish!" put in the Vicar impulsively, and then coughed
down his words. "The parish cannot expect to have you always, child."

"It is a hard winter, papa, as to work; many of the men are out of it
entirely, as you know; and that entails poverty and sickness on the
wives and children. I have not told you how very many are sick."

"Some of the ladies will see to them. You cannot be neglecting your
own duties always for their sakes."

"Once I get to Leamington, papa, there is no knowing when I may be
allowed to return. Mrs. Page kept me six months once; I well remember
that."

"And if she wishes now to keep you for twelve months, twelve you must
stay."

"Oh, papa!"

"You are taking a lesson from Ella Winter's book," said the Vicar.
"She did not want to leave home in the autumn; but it was all the
better for her that she should. Her case, however, was different from
yours, and I do not say she was wrong in wishing to remain with her
uncle, so old and sick. I am not old, and I am not sick."

But Maria thought her father was sick, though not of course with the
mortal sickness of the Squire; ay, and that, if not old, he was yet
ageing. His health certainly seemed breaking a little, his eyesight
was failing him; now and then his memory misled him. He displayed less
interest than ever he had done in parish work, leaving nearly
everything to the curate, Mr. Plympton, and Maria. His liking for old
port was growing upon him and he would sit all the evening with the
bottle at his elbow, and was roused with difficulty when bedtime
came. Altogether Maria would a vast deal rather not leave home; but
she saw she should have to do it. Perhaps, in her heart, she shrank
also from being away from Philip.

"I'm sure, papa, I can't think how things in the parish will get on
without me," she said, as she laid down the letter. "Think what a
state they were in when we returned in the summer."

The Vicar felt half offended.

"Get on?" said he. "Why, bless me, shan't I and Plympton be here? As
to the state they fell into during our stay abroad, was not I away
myself? One would think, Maria, you were parson and clerk and
everything."

Maria smiled her sweet smile. She knew her father set little store by
her work in the parish, not in fact seeing the half she did, and she
was glad it should be so.

"And I should not, child, let you neglect Mrs. Page in her need--your
mother's own cousin--for all the parishes in the diocese. So you can
write to her this morning, or I will write if you are busy, and fix a
day to go to her."

Barely had they finished breakfast when Dr. Downes came in. The loss
of his snuffbox grieved and annoyed him. Not so much for its value,
not so much that it was the gift of a long-esteemed friend and patron,
but for the uncertainty and suspicion attending the loss. That the box
must have been cleverly filched out of his pocket he felt entirely
convinced of; it could not have got out of itself. All night long,
between his snatches of sleep, had he been pondering the matter in his
mind; and he had come to the uneasy conclusion that Philip Cleeve had
taken it--either to play him a foolish trick, or to convert the box
into money for his own use. But this latter doubt the Doctor would
keep to himself and guard carefully. Mr. Kettle met the Doctor with
open hand. It was not the Vicar's way to put himself out over things;
but he was very considerably put out by this loss.

"I met that young blade, Philip Cleeve, in walking over here,"
observed the Doctor, as they were all three once more examining
minutely every corner of the little hall--for, in a loss of this kind,
we are apt to search a suspected spot over and over again. "I took the
liberty of asking him whether he had purloined the box in joke when he
was helping me on with my great-coat last night. It must have been
then, as I take it, that it left my pocket."

Maria was rather struck with the Doctor's tone; unpleasantly so: it
bore a resentful ring. "Philip would not play such a joke as that, Dr.
Downes," she rejoined. "What did he say?"

"He said nothing at first; only stared at me, and asked me what I
meant. So I told him what I meant: that my gold snuffbox had left my
pocket last night in a mysterious and unaccountable manner, and I had
been hoping that he had, perhaps, taken it, to play me a trick. He
blushed red with that silly blush of his, assured me that he would not
play so unjustifiable a trick on me, or on anyone else, and walked
off, saying he had to catch a train. So there I was, as wise as
before.--And the box is not here; and it seems not to be anywhere."

"Shall you have it cried?" asked Mr. Kettle, as they returned to the
breakfast-room.

"Why, yes, I shall. Not that I expect any good will come of it. Rely
upon it, that box has not been dropped in the road; it could not have
been. It has been stolen; and the thief will send it up to London with
speedy despatch, and make money of it. My only hope was, and that a
slight one, that Philip Cleeve had got it for a lark."

"But why Philip Cleeve?" said the Vicar, hardly understanding. "Why
not any other young fellow?"

"Because Philip Cleeve put my coat on for me, here, in your hall; that
is, helped me to put it on. I am sure the box was in my pocket then;
it must have been; and when I unbuttoned the coat at home, the box was
gone."

"You did not leave it in the carriage?"

"I did not touch the box in the carriage: I never unbuttoned my
overcoat, I tell you. Philip Cleeve knows that too: he went with me as
far as Market Row."

"It really does look as though Philip Cleeve had taken it--for a
jest," spoke the Vicar.

"No, no, papa," said Maria. "Philip is honourable."

"Not quite so honourable, perhaps, as folks think him," quickly
rejoined Dr. Downes. "Not that I say he did or would do this. Philip
Cleeve has his faults, I fear; he must take care they don't get ahead
of him, or they may land him in shoals and quicksands. And a certain
young lady of my acquaintance had better not listen to his whispering
until he has proved himself worthy to be listened to," added he, as
the Vicar passed temporarily into the next room, "and--and has got
some better prospect of a home in view than he has at present. Take an
old man's advice for once, my dear."

The stout old Doctor had turned to Maria, and was stroking her hair
fondly. In his apparently jesting tone there ran an earnest warning;
and Maria blushed deeply as she listened to it.

If the past night had been an uneasy one to Dr. Downes, it had also
been one to Maria Kettle. Not from the same cause. Divest herself of a
doubtful feeling with regard to Philip she could not. That he had not
stability, that he was led away by any folly that crossed his path,
and that--as Dr. Downes had but now put it--he had at present little
prospect of making himself a home--a home to which he could take a
wife--Maria was only too conscious of. _She_ had a vast amount of
common, sober sense; and in that respect was a very contrast to
Philip.

Maria herself would have waited for Philip for ever and a day, and
never lost hope; but she, after this sleepless night was passed, had
very nearly concluded that there ought to be no engagement between
them; that it might be better for Philip's own sake he should not be
hampered. It was rather singular that these words should have been
spoken by Dr. Downes so soon afterwards as if to confirm her in her
resolution.

In the afternoon, between three and four o'clock, when the Vicar had
gone up to Heron Dyke, Philip made his appearance at the Vicarage. He
had been sent away on business for the office early in the day, and
had but now got back. Maria met him with a pretty blush, and held out
her hand, as the servant closed the door; but Philip drew her to him
and kissed her, sat down by her side on the sofa, and stole his arm
round her waist. Maria gently put it away.

"Philip," she said, "we were both, I fear, thoughtlessly rash last
night."

"In what way?" asked Philip, possessing himself of her hand, as it
seemed he was not to have her waist.

"Oh--you know. In what you said and I--I listened to. I think we must
wait a little, Philip: another year or so. It will be best."

"Wait for what? What is running in your head, Maria?"

"Until our prospects shall be a little more assured. Forgive me,
Philip, but I mean it; I am quite serious. In a year's time from this,
if you so will it, we can speak of it again."

"Do you mean to say there must be no engagement between us?" fired
Philip.

"There had better not be. Neither of us at present has any chance of
carrying it out."

"Oh," commented Philip, who was getting angry. "Perhaps you will point
out what you do mean, Maria. I can see no meaning in it."

The tears rose to Maria's eyes. "Philip dear, don't be vexed with me:
I speak for your sake more than for my own. At present you have no
home to take a wife to, no expectation of making one----"

"But I have," interrupted Philip. "Old Tiplady intends to take me into
partnership."

"Well--I hope he will: but still that lies in the future. Your mother,
I feel sure, would not like to see you hamper yourself with a wife
until you are quite justified in doing it. And then, on my side--how
can I marry? It is scarcely possible for me to leave papa. And
all the parish duties that I have made mine; the visiting and the
schools----" Maria broke down with a sob.

"That young fop, Plympton, ought to take these duties," returned
Philip, with a touch of petulance. "What's he good for?
Garden-parties, and croquet, and flirting with the ladies. That's what
he thinks of, rather than of looking after the poor wretches who live
and die in the back lanes and alleys of the town."

"He is young," said Maria, gently. "Wisdom will come with years."

"One would think that you were _old_, to hear you talk, Maria."

"I think I am; old in experience. And so, Philip," sighed Maria,
returning to the point, "let it be understood that there shall be no
actual engagement between us. I shall be the same to you that I have
been; the same always; and when things look brighter for you and for
me----"

His ill-humour had passed away like mist in the sunshine, and he
sealed the bargain with a kiss.

"Be assured of one thing, my darling," he whispered: "we shall not
have to wait long if it depends on me. I will spare no pains, no
exertion to get on, to offer you a home that all the world might
approve, and to be in every respect what you would have me be."

Maria told him then of the probability that she should have to go to
Leamington for an indefinite period, should have to depart in the
course of a very few days. Philip did not receive the news graciously,
and relieved his mind by calling Mrs. Page selfish.

"I can't stay longer," he said, getting up. "That precious office
claims me; old Best does not know I am back yet.----Here's a visitor
for you in my stead, Maria," he broke off, as they heard some one
being admitted.

It was Captain Lennox: who was calling to inquire about the health of
the Vicar and Maria after the previous evening's dissipation. Philip
was going, and they all three stood together in the drawing-room for a
minute or two.

"By the way, talking of last night, what is this tale about old Dr.
Downes losing his gold snuffbox?" asked Captain Lennox. "The people
at the library told me they had heard it cried, as I came by just
now."

"So he has lost it," said Philip. "That is, he thinks he has. I dare
say he has put it in some place or other himself, and will find it
before the day's over."

"Did he miss it here?"

"No; not till he got home. And he had the impudence to ask me this
morning whether I had _taken_ it, because I helped to button his
coat," added Philip.

Captain Lennox looked at Philip, then at Maria, then at Philip again.

"He asked you whether you had taken it!" exclaimed the Captain.

"Taken it for a lark. As if I would do such a thing! It's true I
buttoned his coat for him, but I never saw or felt the box."

"I do not quite understand yet," said Captain Lennox.

"It seems that old Downes, just before he left, had his box out,
handing it about for people to take pinches out of it. The Vicar took
a pinch."

"I saw that," interrupted Captain Lennox. "They were standing by the
fire. Two or three of us were round them. Old Miss Parraway was, for
one, I remember; I was talking with her."

"Well," rather ungraciously went on Philip, impatient at the
interruption, "the Doctor took his leave close upon that. I took mine,
and I found him in the hall here, awkwardly fumbling with his
overcoat. I helped him to get it on, and he gave me a lift in his
brougham as far as my way went."

"And when he got home he missed the box," added Maria, concluding the
story, as Philip stopped. "It is a sad loss--and so very strange where
the box can be, and how it can have gone."

"Yes, it is strange--but I did not thank him for asking me whether I
had taken it; there was a tone in his voice which seemed to imply a
suspicion that I had--and not as a joke."

"And did you?" said Captain Lennox.

Philip, who had been turning to the door after his last speech,
wheeled round to face the Captain.

"Did I _what?_

"Take it for a joke?"

"No, of course I did not. Good-bye, Maria."

"Here, you need not be so hasty, old fellow," laughed Captain Lennox,
following Philip out. "You are as cranky as can be to-day. Of course
you did not steal the box, Cleeve; and of course I am not likely to
think it. If I did, I should say so to your face," added the Captain,
his light laugh deepening. "But--I say--do you know what this put me
in mind of?"

"No. What?"

"Of Mrs. Carlyon's jewels. They disappeared in the same mysterious
way."

Philip had the outer door open, when at this moment the Vicar turned
in at the entrance-gate. He shook hands cordially with them both.

"I have been up to Heron Dyke," spoke he; "and have met with the usual
luck--non-admittance to the Squire. I must say I think they might let
him see me."

"It seems to me, sir, that they let him see nobody; for my part, I
have grown tired of calling," said the Captain. "Still, in your
favour, his spiritual adviser, an exception might well be made."

"I ventured to say as much to surly old Aaron this afternoon,"
returned Mr. Kettle "He refused at first point-blank, saying it was
one of his master's bad days, and he was sure he would not see me. I
persevered; bidding him take a message for me to the Squire; so he
showed me into one of the dull old rooms--all the blinds down--while
he took it in."

"And were you admitted, sir?" interposed impatient Philip, interested
in the story, yet anxious to be gone.

"No, I was not, Philip. Aaron came back in a few minutes, bringing me
the Squire's message of refusal. He would have liked to see me very
much; very much; but he was in truth too poorly for it to-day; it was
one of his weak days, and Jago had absolutely forbidden him to speak
even to the attendants--and he sent his affectionate regards to me. So
I came away: having made a fruitless errand, as usual."

"If Jago's grand curative treatment consists in shutting up the Squire
from the sight of all his friends, the less he boasts of it the
better," cried Philip, as he marched away. "Tiplady remarked to me the
other day that he thought there must be something very queer going on
up there," concluded he, turning round at the gate to say it.


Maria Kettle departed for Leamington, and the time passed on. Philip
Cleeve attended well to his duties, seeming anxious to make up for
past escapades. So far as The Lilacs went, no temptations assailed
him, for the place was empty, Captain Lennox having joined his sister
in London. No tidings could be heard of the gold snuffbox. Dr. Downes
had had it cried and advertised: but without result. It might be that
he had his own opinion about the loss; or it might be that he had not.
During a little private conversation with Lady Cleeve, touching her
state of health, she chanced to mention that she hoped Philip's future
was pretty well assured. Mr. Tiplady meant to take him into
partnership, and she had herself placed twelve hundred pounds to
Philip's account at the bank.

"That's where the young scapegrace has drawn his money from, then, for
his cards and his dice, and what not," quoth the Doctor to himself. "I
hope with all my heart I was mistaken--but where the dickens can the
box have gone to?"

The Doctor was fain to give the box up as a bad job. He told all his
friends that he should never find it again, and the less said about it
the better.

In February Philip had a pleasant change. Mr. Tiplady despatched him
to Norwich, to superintend certain improvements in one of its public
buildings. Philip, before starting, spoke a word to the architect of
the anticipated partnership; but Mr. Tiplady cut him short with a
single sentence. "Time enough to talk of that, young sir."

When Philip returned from Norwich, after his few weeks' stay there,
during which he had done his best and had given unlimited
satisfaction, he heard that Captain Lennox and Mrs. Ducie were at The
Lilacs--and to Philip the town seemed to look all the brighter for
their presence.

In spite of his former good resolution, he went over to call on Mrs.
Ducie, went twice, neither of the times finding her at home. About
this time Philip was surprised and gratified by receiving a note of
invitation from Lord Camberley to attend a concert and ball at
Camberley Park. Philip took the note to his mother. "My dear boy, you
must go by all means," said Lady Cleeve. "This is an invitation which
may lead to--to pleasant things. I am glad to find that they have not
forgotten you are the son of Sir Gunton Cleeve. You have as good blood
in your veins as anyone who will be there. What a pity, for your sake,
dear, that we cannot live in the style we ought--to which you were
born."

So Philip went to the concert and ball. Lord Camberley vouchsafed him
a couple of fingers and "how d'ye do," and introduced him to his aunt,
the Hon. Mrs. Featherstone. Philip sat through the concert without
speaking to anybody. He was glad when it came to an end, and then he
made his way to the ball-room. There he met several people with whom
he was, more or less, acquainted. Presently his eye caught that of
Mrs. Ducie, who was sitting somewhat apart from the general crush. She
beckoned him to her side, and held out her hand with a frank smile.

"What a truant you are. What have you been doing with yourself all
this long time?" as she made room for him to sit beside her.

Philip told her, his laughing eyes bending in admiration on her face,
that he had been staying for some weeks at Norwich, and that he had
twice called at The Lilacs since his return, but had not found her at
home. She listened in her pretty, engaging, attentive manner.

"Do you dance?" she asked him, as another set was forming.

"I do not care to--unless you will stand up with me," he replied.

"I shall not dance to-night. Lord Camberley came up to ask me, but I
said no: I told him I had sprained my foot. I do not much like Lord
Camberley," she added, confidentially--and Philip felt wonderfully
flattered at the confidence. "He often talks at random--and he is so
fond of playing for high stakes at cards. I told Ferdinand the other
day that I should object, were I in his place; but, as he said, it
does not often happen. Ferdinand, with his income, can afford a loss
occasionally; but everybody is not so fortunate."

It seemed to Philip that she looked at him with a kindly meaning as
she spoke. Could it be that she felt an especial interest in him? A
blush, bright and ingenuous as a schoolgirl's, rose to his face.

He sat by Mrs. Ducie a great part of the evening, and took her down to
supper. Captain Lennox came up several times, and they both invited
him for the following Friday evening.

When Friday evening came, and Philip found himself again at The
Lilacs, and knocked at the well-remembered door, it seemed to him as
if the intervening weeks and all that had happened to him since his
last visit were nothing more substantial than a dream.

Two or three gentlemen were at the cottage this evening whom he had
not met before, but to whom he was now introduced. After a light and
elegantly served supper came cards and champagne. To-night, however,
Philip did not play. He read poetry to Mrs. Ducie in a little boudoir
that opened out of the drawing-room. So were woven again the bonds
which at one time he believed were broken for ever. There was a
strange, subtle fascination about this woman which held him almost as
it were against his will. She was gracious and frank towards him, but
that was all. She was gracious and frank to every gentleman who
visited at the cottage. There was nothing in her manner towards Philip
which would allow of his flattering himself that he was a greater
favourite than anyone else whom he met there: though at moments it did
seem as if she had a special interest in him. He certainly did not
love her--his heart was given to Maria--but Margaret Ducie held him by
an invisible chain which he was too weak to break.

That Friday evening was but the precursor of many other evenings at
The Lilacs: for all the old glamour had come back over Philip. Maria
was away, and the cottage was a very pleasant place. Sometimes he
played cards, sometimes he did not; sometimes he won a little money,
not unfrequently he lost what for him was a considerable sum. Now and
then it almost seemed as if Mrs. Ducie, compassionating his youth and
inexperience, drew him away of set purpose from the card-table. Be
that as it may, when April came in, and Philip looked into the state
of his banking account, he found to his dismay that in the course of
the past few weeks he had lost upwards of a hundred pounds. How could
he redeem it?

"Now's your time if you want to make a cool hundred or two," said
Lennox to him a day or two later.

Philip pricked up his ears.

"Who does not want to make a cool hundred or two? Only show me how."

"The thing lies in a nutshell. Back Patchwork."

"Eh?" queried Philip, who knew little more about racing and sporting
matters than he did of the mysteries of Eleusis.

"Back Patchwork," reiterated the Captain, with emphasis. "I am quite
aware that he is not a general favourite: the odds were ten to one
against him last night: there's Trumpeter and Clansman, and one or two
other horses that stand before him in public estimation. But take no
notice of that. Camberley and I have got the tip, no matter how, and
you may rely upon it that we know pretty well what we are about. Both
of us are going to lay heavily on the horse, and if you have a few
spare sovereigns you can't do better than follow our example."

The Captain spoke of an early Spring Meeting at Newmarket; and this
particular race in it was exciting some interest at Nullington, for
reasons which need not be detailed here. Philip, desperately anxious
to replenish his diminished coffers, took the bait, though in a
cautious manner, and betted twenty pounds on Patchwork. If the horse
won, and Philip gained the odds, he would pocket two hundred pounds.

He grew anxious. Everybody said that either Trumpeter or Clansman
would win; Patchwork was scoffed at as an outsider. Philip began to
think of his twenty pounds as so much good money thrown away.

At length the day of the race arrived, and Philip awaited the result
with a feverish anxiety to which his young life had hitherto been a
stranger. It is true, if he lost, twenty pounds would not ruin him;
but, if he won, two hundred would set him up.

At length the looked-for news reached Nullington by telegram, and a
slip of paper was pasted to the window of the Rose and Crown, on which
was written in large characters:--Patchwork 1.--Clansman 2.--Trumpeter
3.

Philip Cleeve fell back out of the crowd gathered there, with a great
gasp of relief.

Three days later Captain Lennox placed in his hands two hundred pounds
in crisp Bank of England notes.

"If you had only taken my advice," he said, "and ventured fifty pounds
instead of twenty, what a much richer man you would have been to-day!"




CHAPTER IV.
THE TWENTY-FOURTH OF APRIL.

The twenty-fourth of April was here, and with it Gilbert Denison's
seventieth birthday.

The long winter had come to an end at last. It was a lovely spring
morning, fresh and sweet. The air was full of the melody of birds;
faint delicious odours stole in and out among the garden-paths; a warm
sun shone over all. But we must for the moment leave Heron Dyke.

In the breakfast-room at Nunham Priors, a charming house among the
Sussex Hills, sat Gilbert Denison--that Gilbert Denison who was cousin
to the Master of Heron Dyke, and between whom there had been such a
long and bitter feud--and Frank, his only son.

Gilbert Denison of Nunham Priors bore little likeness to him of Heron
Dyke. He was a lean, finical old gentleman, a little younger than his
cousin, wearing a brown wig and a long, buttoned-up, bottle-green coat
that reached nearly to his heels. His whimsical but good-natured face
was full of lines and puckers and creases, and he had an odd quaint
way of screwing up his lips while waiting for an answer to a question
that many a low comedian might have envied. Living much by himself,
his establishment was a small one; his wife was dead, his son Frank
chose to be often away from home, and the old man had no love of show
or ostentation. He liked his gardens and hothouses to be well looked
after, and everything around him to be cosy and comfortable, but
beyond that he cared little. He kept one old-fashioned carriage in
which he drove to and from the station on the occasions of his
frequent journeys to town. An hour's ride by railway took him to
Charing Cross, and after that it was but a short walk to one or
another of the great auction-rooms where so large a portion of his
leisure time was passed: for Mr. Denison was a great bibliophile and
noted collector of curiosities. Nothing came amiss to him that was
recommended by its rarity. From the skull of a Carib chief to an
etching by Rembrandt, from an illuminated missal to a suppressed
number of _La Lanterne_, or a bit of Roman pavement dug up in the
City, his tastes were omnivorous enough for all. Nunham Priors itself
was a very museum of curios. Some half-dozen or more of its rooms were
entirely filled with a miscellaneous assortment of articles purchased
by him from time to time at different auctions. Next to the
acquisition of a bargain, Mr. Denison's greatest pleasure was in
dusting his treasures and re-arranging them in different ways, or in
displaying them and descanting on their rare qualities to some
appreciative visitor.

"And what better way than this could I have found of investing my
surplus income?" he would sometimes say to his son. "Nearly all you
see I picked up as bargains, and in twenty years they will sell for a
hundred per cent, more than I gave for them. No fear here of broken
banks or shares at zero."

The breakfast this morning was the first meal father and son had
partaken of together for some months. Mr. Frank had lingered
unconscionably long away on his rovings, and the old gentleman was
testy over it.

"I do wish, Frank, you would leave off gallivanting about the world,"
said he, as he cracked an egg. "It is high time you settled down. Why
don't you marry?"

The words sent Frank into a laugh. There was not much likelihood of
his marrying yet, he answered.

"It's no laughing matter, sir, I can tell you."

"Matrimony? No, I suppose not."

"Tush! you know what I mean," retorted the old gentleman. "You ought
to be looking out for a wife. What do you suppose I was thinking the
other day, Frank? that it might be a good thing if you and that young
lady at Heron Dyke made a match of it. It would heal the family feud,
and--and bring all the money on both sides into one bag."

Frank looked at his father in some surprise. "The young lady at Heron
Dyke?" repeated he.

"Why, yes," said the old gentleman, testily. "That half-cousin of
yours, Miss Ella Winter."

"Did you ever see her, sir?" asked Frank.

"No: how should I? I might as well ask for a sight of the man in the
moon."

"I confess that I should like to see Miss Winter," said Frank.

"Zounds! man, why don't you do so, then?"

Frank shook his head. "My respected kinsman would not like to catch me
prowling about his preserves at Heron Dyke."

"The young men nowadays are nothing better than a set of
molly-coddles," grumbled Mr. Denison with a tinge of contempt. "When I
was a young spark--but where's the use of talking?" he abruptly broke
off; and Frank laughed again.

"Do you know what day this is, Frank?" presently resumed Mr. Denison.

"I am not likely to forget it, father. It is the twenty-fourth of
April: and Squire Denison of Heron Dyke is now seventy years old."

"Yes--if he is alive," said Mr. Denison, grimly.

The tone was significant, and Frank stared across the table at his
father.

"Have you any reason, sir, for thinking that he is not alive?"

"I have reason to know that he was given up months ago by his medical
attendant, and that he has never once crossed his own threshold since
last December. I have reason to know, moreover, that there is
something very inexplicable going on inside the Hall: and, remembering
what sort of man my cousin Gilbert is, I feel sure that he would stick
at nothing to keep me and mine out of the estate."

Frank was silent for a moment or two.

"How did you come by this information, father?"

"Oh, I put Charles Plackett on the matter a couple of years ago; not
but that he knew for himself what a wily fellow my cousin Gilbert was;
and Plackett has been following the scent ever since. He has employed
an agent at Nullington, one Nixon, to keep his eyes open on Heron
Dyke; and Nixon has done it, so far as outside vigilance goes, for he
cannot get inside; and has sent up his reports to Charles Plackett
from time to time. Perhaps you'd like to hear what he says?"

"Why yes, I should, very much indeed," replied Frank.

Charles Plackett--of the firm of Plackett, Plackett and Rex--was the
family solicitor. Mr. Denison had the breakfast things taken away, and
then produced a case of papers.

"They date from a good while back," he observed; "but I will just read
you two or three extracts from the past few months."

Frank rose and shut the door. And Mr. Denison, rubbing his spectacles,
put them on, and began.

"'October 14th. Dr. Jago was suddenly sent for by the Squire, _vice_
Dr. Spreckley, superseded. As Dr. S. has been the Squire's medical
attendant for twenty years, there must be some very special reason for
so sudden a change.

"'October 22nd. Dr. Jago goes daily to the Hall. Have got an inkling
at last of the reason of Dr. Spreckley's sudden dismissal. Dr. S.
himself very cautious and reticent: does not say much about it to
anybody. Dr. Jago, over his hot grog of an evening in the smoking-room
of the Pied Bull, sometimes lets his tongue wag a bit. The man is
naturally something of a braggart. From what I can make out, Dr. S.
was incautious enough to tell the Squire that he could not live
through the winter. Thereupon the other man was sent for. He calls S.
an old woman, and says openly that the Squire will live till next
midsummer, if not longer. Something rather queer about that, seeing
that Dr. S. has had twenty times the experience that he has had.

"'October 29th. Mrs. Carlyon has been staying at the Hall for the last
few days. She and Miss Winter left by rail yesterday morning with a
lot of luggage. The servants report that they are going abroad for
several months. This does not look as if the Squire felt himself to be
in any immediate danger. If he did think so he would hardly let his
niece leave him for so long. The neighbourhood, however, teems with
silly reports--that the Hall is haunted by a ghost, and Miss Winter
could not bear to stay in it during the dark days of winter.

"'November 8th. Met the Squire to-day as he was being driven out in
his brougham. Had not seen him for two months. Could not help noticing
the change in him since that time--a great change. He looks woefully
ill and haggard; not fit to be out of his bed.

"'November 12th. Shalders the carpenter has been employed up at the
Hall for the last few days. He told me all about it after a couple of
glasses of toddy, in answer to my cautious questioning--not that he
has been told to keep silence. He has been shutting in the Squire's
rooms from the rest of the house with two baize-covered doors. No one
can reach Mr. Denison now except through those doors. The doors in
question can only be opened by a patent key, of which key Shalders has
supplied four duplicates. Why should the Squire wish to isolate
himself thus? Shalders is as much at a loss to guess the meaning of it
as I am. They say at the Hall it is to insure quiet to the Squire: but
he could be insured that without two protecting doors.

"'November 28th. A piece of good fortune to-day. I tracked a young
woman, a discharged housemaid from the Hall, to the railway station,
and had a long confab with her while she was waiting for a train. It
seems that the Squire is really shut up behind the green baize
doors--whether with or without his consent, who shall say?--and that
only four persons are allowed to have access to him. They are, Dr.
Jago, Aaron Stone and his grandson Hubert, and a certain Mrs. Dexter,
a middle-aged nurse from London, hired by Dr. Jago, of whose presence
there I confess that I was previously unaware. The doors are always
kept locked--no other inmate of the Hall ever sees or hears anything
of the Squire, unless it be on those rare occasions when he drives out
for an hour. Very mysterious, to say the least of it. The girl had got
that rubbish into her head about the house being haunted, and would
have liked to talk of nothing else--and she looked disposed to be
offended because I laughed at it.

"'December 19th. The Squire has only been outside the baize doors
twice during the last month, and then only for half an hour's drive in
the park.

"'January 1st. The Squire has never been seen outside the house since
early in December.

"'January 7th. Dr. Jago goes up to the Hall every morning. He told a
friend of mine the other day that Mr. Denison was no worse than usual,
and that he was only kept indoors by the cold winds.

"'February 3rd. Nothing seen of the Squire since my last report, and
yet we have had a fortnight of beautiful open weather for the time of
year. Jago daily visits the Hall as usual. I've made acquaintance with
one Hannah Tilney, the gardener's wife at the lodge. Creeping in there
one fine morning, my hand to my side, I begged to be allowed to sit
for five minutes, telling her a thumping story about a weak heart. She
is a decent woman, but fond of gossip, as they all are, and she had a
queer thing to talk of. She said that ever since early in December the
shutters of Mr. Denison's sitting-room had been closed and barred at
dusk, although it was a well-known fact that all his life the Squire
hated to sit in a room of which the shutters were closed or the blinds
pulled down. I do not see much in this myself: old people's fancies
change: but the woman seemed to think it very strange, a matter for
speculation, and said that she and her husband could not understand it
at all. Speculation of what, you will ask, and in truth I can't say:
but an air of mystery seems to overhang the doings in the Hall.

"'March 1st. No news of the Squire. He is pretty well, it is said, but
he has not been seen out of doors since the 17th of December. Nothing
fresh at all to report, except that I have ascertained that every week
there passes through Nullington Post Office a letter from abroad
addressed to Mr. Denison in a lady's handwriting. Is this letter from
Miss Winter? If so, can she be aware how matters are going on at Heron
Dyke?

"'April 8th. Nothing fresh. Jago daily at the Hall. The Squire still
invisible to the outer world. No visitors have been admitted for a
long while.'"


Mr. Denison, having come to the last extract he deemed it needful to
read, shut up his case, and looked at his son.

"Like the agent Nixon, I must say that I do not see much in all this
myself," observed Frank.

"Don't you!" retorted his father. "I do, then. To me it looks
remarkably unaccountable. There is a mystery about it that I can't
fathom, and Charles Plackett has my instructions to go down to Heron
Dyke."

"What to do, sir?"

"To see my cousin Gilbert, and satisfy himself by ocular demonstration
that he is still alive, and--and mentally sane. You look surprised,
Frank; let me tell you what perhaps you never knew before--that there
is a clause in old Uncle Gilbert's will which empowers me to take the
step in question."

"Is there! How curious that he should have made it."

"A great deal that he did was curious. But, for my part, I think some
prevision was upon him that such a clause might be needed. I tell you,
Frank," concluded the old gentleman, "that I am strangely curious
myself, just now, as to what may be doing at Heron Dyke."


On this warm and sunny morning of the twenty-fourth of April, the
bells of Nullington parish church rang forth a merry peal. They
continued to do so at intervals throughout the day. The Vicar of
Nullington, who had given the orders, was rejoiced to think that his
old friend, Squire Denison, had lived to reach, what might be called,
the crowning day of his life.

Throughout the length and breadth of Nullington the stagnation of
every-day life seemed stirred by a ripple of excitement. People came
to their doors to listen to the bells, groups in earnest conversation
might be seen at the corner of almost every street, neighbour looked
in upon neighbour, customers lingered longer than usual in the shops,
bar-parlours held their knots of eager gossipers. Not an inhabitant of
the little town but knew that this was the twenty-fourth of April, and
if the Master of Heron Dyke should live to hear the clocks strike
noon, houses and land and all that pertained thereto would become his
own irrevocable property, and the great battle of his life would end
in his remaining the victor.

Mr. Denison was a man who had never laid himself out for personal
popularity, and of late years he had been very little seen abroad.
Still the neighbourhood felt that he was one of them. For forty years
he had made his home at Heron Dyke, not spending half his time in
London or in foreign countries, as so many other great people did, and
they would have been sorry to see his place usurped by a strange
branch of the family of whom nobody knew anything, except that the
head of it was said to be a half-demented gentleman who had much more
of the furniture broker about him than the county magnate. Should
Squire Denison live through to-day, all he might die possessed of
would go to his niece Miss Winter, a young lady beloved by all, rich
and poor, and one quite worthy to be the Hall's mistress.

There was one inhabitant of Nullington, however, who did not feel
quite so elated as the rest. He was too much puzzled for that. It was
Dr. Spreckley. He stood at his window in the morning sun, listening to
the cheery bells. Mr. Denison had lived to see his coveted birthday,
and the bells were ringing for it; but Dr. Spreckley felt as if he
were in a fog, and should never distinguish anything clearly in
medical practice again. Knowing Mr. Denison's constitution so
thoroughly, and the malady he had been long suffering from, he did not
see how it was _possible_ for him to be still alive.

Night and day of late had the good physician brooded over the mystery.
For to him it seemed a mystery; but a mystery beyond his
comprehension. So far as his own skill and experience went, and that
of eminent authorities in London to whom he wrote minutely of the
case, it had seemed to him not only improbable but impossible that
Gilbert Denison could have lasted to see Christmas. Yet here he
was alive, and, as reported from Heron Dyke, fairly well, on the
twenty-fourth of April!

Dr. Spreckley was yet at his window when his successful rival
practitioner, Dr. Jago, came driving past in his gig, a high-stepping
mare in the shafts, which he had recently bought. He was on his way to
Heron Dyke, and he was going this morning half an hour earlier than
usual. In honour of the occasion, he had dressed himself in a new suit
of black, with a white cravat and a fashionable overcoat. He glanced
up at the window as he passed, and Dr. Spreckley felt sure that there
was a smile of insolent triumph on his face which he now did not
conceal. As Spreckley turned away, his heart was very bitter within
him.

The Heron Dyke post-bag this morning bore a letter addressed to the
Squire, dated from Florence. Ella Winter had written and posted it so
that it should reach him on the twenty-fourth. After numerous
congratulations and loving wishes came these words: "I cannot tell you
how greatly I have longed to be at home for your birthday. But it was
not to be. Now, however, that my six months' extradition are at an
end, cannot you name a time for my return to Heron Dyke? We have been
slowly making our way homeward, as you are aware, lingering here and
there, and continually hoping to receive a summons that we were wanted
back in the old nest at home. But even my aunt has grown tired at last
of these perpetual journeyings from place to place, and at the present
moment would, I verily believe, gladly exchange all the churches and
picture galleries of Florence for the dear delights of an afternoon's
shopping in Regent Street; and to her house in Bayswater we are
returning. Do then, my dear uncle, in your next letter, name the day
when you will expect to see me once again under the old roof-tree; and
be assured that neither wind nor weather will keep me from your side
an hour beyond it."

An answer to this letter was sent from Heron Dyke the following day,
which reached Miss Winter in due course.

It has been said that Mr. Denison's letters to Ella were written for
him by Hubert Stone from Mr. Denison's dictation, but each of them
bore at the foot the Squire's own peculiar and crabbed signature,
which anyone would have found it difficult even passably to imitate,
and the present letter was no exception to this rule. In it occurred
these passages: "I begin to be as anxious to see your young face
again as you are to be back at home. But, as I have said all
along--patience, patience. Enjoy yourself while you can, and, now that
you _are_ abroad, see all that you can. Strive to enrich your mind in
every possible way, and to lay up stores of pleasant memories for days
to come. You will not soon get away again from the sound of the sea
when once you are back, I promise you. I am as well and hearty as I
was two years ago, so that you need not be troubled on the score of my
health. That Jago is a wonderful fellow. A fortnight with your aunt at
Bayswater would be a pleasant finish to your travels; it would please
Mrs. Carlyon to have you with her for a time, and we must not be
ungracious to her, lassie. Let us put it, then, that I shall look to
see my pretty one back at Heron Dyke on the first of June, not to part
again for a long, long time."

Hubert Stone had also donned a new suit of gentlemanly attire this
morning, and even old Aaron wore his best clothes and a particularly
well-starched cravat. The Squire's long-wished-for birthday must be
observed appropriately. The maids were gladdened by new gowns and
muslin aprons trimmed with ribbons, Dorothy Stone by a cap of rich old
lace. Dorothy, however, did not seem to find much pleasure in the day;
she sat by the fire in her room, complaining of neuralgia, with a
frightened expression of face, and a dazed look in her eyes.

The grand old entrance-doors were flung open to-day. A cheerful fire
burnt in the hall, where no fire had been known to burn for years. A
Turkey carpet covered the middle of the floor, on which stood a carved
table of black oak: on the table was an antique silver salver for the
reception of callers' cards. Tubs containing orange-trees and shrubs
from the conservatory stood in each corner of the hall.

Nothing, however, could put Aaron into a good temper when he chose to
be in a bad one. He wandered about like a restless ghost, peering into
this place and that, scolding the maids, grumbling at his nephew, and
eyeing Dr. Jago askance as though he were some malign wizard.

Shortly after noon the carriage of the first caller drove up--that of
the Vicar, the Reverend Francis Kettle. His daughter would have been
with him but that she was from home. He was received in the hall by
Dr. Jago and Hubert Stone. A few words passed, and then Mr. Kettle
expressed his strong desire to see once more, once more to shake by
the hand, his dear old friend the Squire. Dr. Jago was blandly sorry,
but refused. The fact was, he said, that the Squire had passed a very
restless and uneasy night, having hardly slept at all. An hour ago he
had fallen into a refreshing sleep, which it was to be hoped would
last for several hours, and be of great benefit to him. Still, if the
Vicar pressed it, Mr. Denison should be awakened, and----

"Not for worlds," interrupted the Vicar, hastily. "I would not have
him awakened on any account. You will not fail to offer him my
congratulations, and to say how greatly I hope to see him. Perhaps
another day he may be able to receive a short visit from an old
friend."

"No doubt he will be," returned Dr. Jago, quite warmly. "He had been
saving himself up for to-day, you must understand, sir, intending to
see just one or two esteemed friends; and--and now this wretched past
night has marred it."

Other carriages drove up in quick succession after the Vicar's
departure, till nearly every person of consideration in the
neighbourhood had either called or left cards. To all inquiries the
same reply was given: Mr. Denison had hoped to receive a friend or two
to-day, but he had passed a restless and uneasy night, and had lately
fallen into a deep and refreshing sleep, which it would be undesirable
to disturb.

One caller, especially full of regret at not being able to see the
Squire, was Lady Maria Skeffington. Maria Kettle was her goddaughter,
and had been named after her. She was a withered-up maiden of
sixty-five. Lady Maria gazed round the entrance-hall with a sigh, and
recalled the time when she had felt so sure that she should one day be
mistress of Heron Dyke. Some forty years previously Mr. Denison had
danced with her several times at the county balls, and had paid her
other little attentions when they met; and she, following the fashion
of young maidens, had taken it for granted that he meant to ask her to
be his wife. But the longed-for declaration never came, and hope
gradually died out of her heart. Still, as Lady Maria often told
herself, she had never been so near matrimony before or after, and she
yet cherished a half-tender recollection of the handsome young Squire.
They had remained good friends: and to-day, a white-haired old woman,
Lady Maria felt an intense longing in her heart to see him once again
before he should go hence. When told that it might not be, she dropped
her veil and went back to her carriage, crying softly to herself.

About five o'clock a message reached the Hall from Mr. Toomes, the
leader of the Nullington string band. Mr. Toomes wished to know
whether the band might be permitted to pay their respects to the
Squire on his birthday, by playing a few select pieces at the Hall
during the evening.

Old Aaron took the message into the Squire's room with an ill grace;
he would have liked to refuse had he dared; and he came back in a few
minutes with the Squire's gracious answer--he would be very much
pleased to receive the band at half-past eight.

The band came at the appointed hour: two violins, a violoncello, a
harp, and a couple of clarinets, the musicians being all small
tradesmen of the town. They were met at the postern which opened into
the private garden by Hubert Stone, who now wore a fashionable
overcoat, and was smoking a cigar. Hubert marshalled the players on to
the sward directly opposite to, but a few yards away from, the windows
of Mr. Denison's sitting-room. The Squire was but weak, he said, and
it was desirable not to have the sounds too near. John Tilney, the
gardener, and his wife crept in behind the musicians, and stood a
little in the background. Had Mr. Hubert Stone noticed the movement,
he might have ordered them away, for he had a great notion of keeping
servants in their places.

The shutters of Mr. Denison's sitting-room had not been closed this
evening. A bright wood-fire was burning on the hearth, and two lighted
wax candles stood on a table in the middle of the room. The tall gaunt
figure of the Squire as he sat in his great leathern chair, muffled up
in his long dressing-robe, was plainly visible to the group on the
lawn. His head looked partially shrunken between his shoulders as he
sat leaning forward a little, staring intently into the fire, his bony
hands clasped over the knob of the massive cane which for a long time
past he had made use of to help him from room to room. The firelight
flickered on the diamonds in his ring; it made the hollows of his
wasted cheeks seem deeper still, and brought into prominent relief the
contrast between his black velvet skull-cap and the long white locks
which straggled from under it. He sat there, the solitary living
figure in a picture that otherwise was instinct with gloom, and that
was not wanting in a sort of weird solemnity of its own.

At a signal from their leader, the band struck up the old English air,
"Welcome to thy Native Vale." As the first note struck his ear, the
Squire lifted his head quickly, changed the position of his stick, and
put on the air of a man who listens intently.

The first piece at an end, there ensued a minute's pause, and then the
band struck up again. This in turn was followed by two other pieces.
When the last strains of the fourth air had died away, the Squire was
seen to rise slowly and painfully to his feet. With the help of his
cane, and drawing the folds of his dressing-gown around him, he
tottered feebly forward till he came near the window. Standing there,
and changing his cane to the left hand, he gravely bent his head to
the (to him) invisible onlookers in the garden, and waved his right
hand two or three times in token of thanks and greeting. Turning then,
he tottered back to his chair.

Three hearty cheers were raised for the old Squire; and the musicians
filed out of the private garden, Hubert locking the door of it. A
plentiful meal was set out for them in the smaller servants' hall, to
which they did not fail to do ample justice.

Old Aaron, grumpy as usual, did not choose to preside at it, though
his grandson had told him in the hearing of the household, earlier in
the evening, that it was what he ought to do. Barely did he condescend
to show himself at all, for this visit of the musicians had not met
with his approval. He came stalking through the room while they were
at supper, looking at them in his surly way, and muttering to himself
about "ruin" and "extravagance," and "dying in the workhouse." But the
ale was strong, and the company did not mind. They knew old Aaron
before, and they burst into a laugh as he shut the door behind him.




CHAPTER V.
MR. CHARLES PLACKETT CALLS UPON THE SQUIRE.


By the afternoon post on the twenty-fifth of April, a letter was
delivered at Heron Dyke for Mr. Denison. It was written by the firm of
Plackett, Plackett and Rex; and it informed the Squire in courteous
terms--that is, in as courteous terms as lawyers can bring themselves
to use--that, in accordance with the wishes of their esteemed client,
Mr. Denison of Nunham Priors, Mr. Charles Plackett would present
himself at the Hall at eleven o'clock on the morning of the
twenty-sixth instant, with the view to satisfying himself (as a mere
matter of form) that the Master of Heron Dyke had lived over his
seventieth birthday. If it were not convenient to Mr. Denison of Heron
Dyke to give a personal interview to Mr. Plackett at that hour, he
would be good enough to name a later hour in the same day. The letter
said nothing of that clause in the will of the late Gilbert Denison
which gave the younger cousin power to command such an interview, for
of that clause Squire Denison must himself be perfectly aware.

Whether this letter put out the Squire, or not, did not appear; but it
very considerably put out Aaron Stone. Aaron had not recovered his
temper of the day before; the congratulatory visits to his master had
annoyed him, more especially that one crowning visit of the musicians
in the evening. The intimation of this additional visit from the
London lawyer pretty nearly wound up Aaron.

Hubert, who opened all letters in the Squire's room, came forth
presently, letter in hand, leaving Dr. Jago behind him. That astute
physician, while never omitting his daily visit to Heron Dyke, made it
at uncertain hours, earlier or later, according to his own
convenience. Old Aaron and his wife were seated at tea in their
parlour; one of the maids, Eliza, having been called in to make a
fresh piece of toast. She knelt before the fire with the small
toasting-fork.

"The Squire says you may read this," said Hubert, entering, and
putting the letter in his grandfather's hands. "The people must be
received, of course."

Aaron shuffled on his spectacles, and went to the window for the
better light, holding the letter close to the panes. When he had
mastered the contents, he burst into a perfect storm of fury. Mrs.
Stone started in her chair; Eliza looked round; Hubert only laughed.

"A set of spies and sneaks!" he called out, bringing down his hand
upon the table with such emphasis that the cups and saucers rattled.
"They shall never set their prying feet inside this house; I'll bar
the door first, I can tell 'em that. Lawyers indeed! No, no."

"Now, grandfather, why do you go on at this foolish rate?"
remonstrated Hubert. "The lawyers will not damage you. Anyway, the
Squire means to see them--he has no choice."

"_No choice!_" spluttered Aaron.

"No, none. And if you'll go to his room presently, maybe he will tell
you why. Why should he not see them--if he is well enough?" added
Hubert.

"You talk like an idiot," growled old Aaron.

Hubert laughed again; these violent outbreaks of temper afforded him
only amusement. Aaron sat down, his hands trembling, to finish his
tea. Eliza had the slice of toast on the table then, and was buttering
it.

"Look here, grandfather," said Hubert. "The Squire chooses to admit
this lawyer from London, and you cannot set up your will against his;
but if you have so great an objection to the visit, why not be away
while it takes place. For this week past you have been talking of
going into Nullington to buy some hay and clover; go in to-morrow
morning and buy it then."

Aaron, who had a great notion of keeping his grandson in order, stared
wrathfully at this.

"And who is going to listen to the advice of a young jackanapes like
you?" he demanded--which caused Eliza, still buttering the toast, to
hide a laugh. "The world's coming to a pretty pass, young man, when
such as you must command your elders and betters!"

"Nay, I don't seek to command; you'd not let me if I did," returned
Hubert. "And if I advise, it is only for the general tranquillity. The
Squire intends to receive these lawyers--I dare say there will be two
of them--and it won't do for you to make a disturbance when they come.
You seem to forget how weak and ill the master is; how often Jago has
told you that freedom from worry is his best chance. Therefore I say,
go off to Nullington after breakfast, grandfather, and let the visit
take place in your absence."

Aaron growled for a minute or two.

"It's a shame!" he burst forth again; "a cruel shame. Here's all the
work of the birthday got over, and now this bother springs up! Hasn't
the master got to be kept quiet, I'd ask you? Who can answer for it
that this interview with a pack of rascally lawyers won't--won't----"

"Do him harm, you were about to say," put in Hubert quickly, at the
sudden stoppage. "Well, we can guard against that. Jago must, of
course, be present to take care of his pulse. You go off in the
morning to Nullington, and leave the house to peace and quietness,"
concluded Hubert, as he took up the letter, and turned to quit the
room.

"Be you not going to sit down and have your tea, Hubert dear?" called
out the old lady, who had not dared to interfere before.

"Tea? Oh, I shall take that by-and-by."

In one of the passages, on his way to the Squire's rooms, Hubert met
Jago.

"What are you laughing at?" asked the Doctor, noting the more than
smile on the young man's lips.

"At old granddad. You never saw him in such a tantrum. Left to
himself, he'd be for pitching water on the head of this lawyer when he
comes to the door; ay, and upon my word, I'm not sure but he would do
even more than that. Finely he went on, to the edification of one of
the house-wenches. I advised him to betake himself to Nullington in
the morning to buy his corn and clover."

Dr. Jago made no particular reply.

"This lawyer who is coming," said he, "is he well acquainted with the
Squire?"

"I believe they met once or twice a few years ago," replied Hubert.

Apparently Aaron saw the expediency of taking his grandson's advice,
for in the morning he made himself ready for the visit to Nullington.
Hubert chanced to pass through the kitchen when the old man was having
his gaiters buttoned by Phemie, Eliza standing by.

"I wonder you did not take the dog-cart, sir," said Hubert.

"What do I want with the dog-cart?" contended the old man, in an irate
tone. "Do you think I've not got strength enough left in me to walk
into Nullington?--There, there, girl, that will do," he added, "giving
a stamp or two to his umbrella, as Phemie came to the last button.

"As you please," said Hubert, who never allowed himself to be put out
of temper by the old man. "And if you chance to call at the saddler's,
tell him I find the new stirrups a great success."

His umbrella in one hand, his thick walking-stick in the other, Aaron
set out. Hubert put on his hat, and walked with him through the
shrubbery at the back of the house. The clocks were striking ten. The
clouds were gathering, as if for rain.

At eleven o'clock Charles Plackett and his managing clerk, Mr. Foxey,
drove up to Heron Dyke, and stopped at the main entrance. They were
admitted by one of the housemaids, and found Hubert Stone waiting
to receive them. Mr. Charles Plackett was a short rubicund man of
fifty-five, with a quick eye, a ready smile, and a chirruping voice.
He had far more the look of a gentleman-farmer than of a busy London
lawyer. Young Mr. Foxey was a placid-faced individual in spectacles
and a suit of unimpeachable black.

"Mr. Charles Plackett, I believe?" said Hubert, as he came forward.

"Yes, I am Charles Plackett; and this is my managing clerk, Mr. Foxey.
I have the pleasure of speaking to----"

"My name is Hubert Stone. I am Mr. Denison's secretary, and have the
general control of all his business affairs."

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Stone. I presume you are
aware of the purport of my visit--the cause which brings me here?"

"I am perfectly aware of it," replied Hubert. "Mr. Denison has no
secrets from me."

"I suppose there is no objection to my seeing Mr. Denison at once?"

"None whatever. He is quite ready to receive you. But before going to
his room, it would be as well if you exchanged a few words with his
medical attendant, who is waiting to see you."

"As you please about that," responded Charles Plackett. "My interview
with Mr. Denison need not necessarily last more than a very few
minutes."

Chairs were placed for the visitors in the large drawing-room, and
they sat down. Hubert touched a hand-bell, and Dr. Jago entered. As
Hubert introduced him, he drew up a chair by the side of the lawyer.

"I am sorry to say that my patient is in a very low way this morning,"
began the Doctor. "I must therefore press most earnestly upon you the
necessity of making your visit as brief a one as possible."

"I have already remarked that I shall only require to see Mr. Denison
for a few minutes," replied Mr. Plackett, stiffly. There was something
about this little black-bearded, foreign-looking doctor which
impressed him unfavourably.

"You will pardon me for intimating that I only speak in the interests
of my patient," responded Jago, in his blandest accents. "Anything
that excites Mr. Denison is a source of danger to him in his present
condition. He is, and has been for some time now, so very weak, that
his lasting so long has somewhat surprised his friends; and he is so
very----"

"Very much surprised them indeed, I fancy," interrupted the lawyer:
and Dr. Jago took a glance at him with his keen eyes.

"And so very self-willed, I was about to add," went on the Doctor,
with a smile. "It is a difficult matter to manage him at times."

Mr. Charles Plackett rose.

"If Squire Denison is ready to receive us, sir, it seems to me that
the sooner we get the interview over, the better."

"I am quite of your opinion, sir," returned the Doctor, his tones as
bland as the lawyer's were curt. "Mr. Denison is quite ready and
waiting. I believe you have met Mr. Denison before?" added Dr. Jago,
as they were quitting the room.

"We have met twice," responded Mr. Charles Plackett. "It was in
London, about five or six years ago."

"So long ago as that!" exclaimed Hubert Stone. "Dear me! You will find
him greatly altered, sir."

"I expect that. But I should know him, however much he may be
changed," pursued the lawyer. "Is Mr. Denison able to sit up?"

"Some days he is--but never so early as this. You will have to see him
in bed."

The Squire's bedroom was next to his sitting-room. As they passed
through the green baize doors, both thrown wide open to-day, Charles
Plackett noticed them.

"These look new," remarked he. "Put up to keep out the draughts?"

"Not so much that as to keep out noise," remarked Dr. Jago.

"One would think you had not much noise at the Hall here."

"Pardon me. Visitors are pretty frequent, and it annoys the Squire to
hear them when he cannot receive them. His ears are quick."

Dr. Jago halted at the bedroom door as he spoke. "Wait just an
instant," he whispered; "I'll go in and see that he has not dropped
asleep."

So they waited outside, the two visitors and Hubert. "It is quite
right," said Dr. Jago, reappearing. "He is awake and ready to see
you."

Opening wide the door he stepped back; Mr. Plackett and his clerk
entered. Hubert went in last and closed the door gently.

The weather this morning was heavy and overcast--very different from
the bright morning of the twenty-fourth--and what light might
otherwise have found its way into the room was still further toned
down by the heavy curtains which festooned the two windows, and by
the blinds which were drawn only half-way up. Still there was ample
light to see the heavy, old-fashioned, four-post bedstead, and the
haggard-faced man that lay upon it, supported by some half-dozen
pillows. His grey duffel dressing-robe was thrown loosely over his
shoulders, his black velvet skull cap was on his head, and his long
grey locks, as they straggled from under it, looked as if they needed
some woman's hand to comb them gently out. His cane lay on the
coverlet within reach, so as to enable him to strike a small gong with
it, which stood close by, when he wanted to summon his nurse from the
next room. Finally, his cat's-eye ring gleamed on the second finger of
his left hand, as it had gleamed there for forty years. In the grate a
small fire was burning, while on a table close to the bed stood
bottles containing medicines and cordials of various kinds.

Mr. Charles Plackett walked up to the foot of the bed, and took a long
steady gaze at the sick man.--"Good-morning, Mr. Denison," he said. "I
suppose you know the object that has brought me here to-day?"

"Aye, I know, I know," said the Squire wearily, in a low voice that
had lost something of its harsh strident tones, and had acquired
instead the hollowness that comes with protracted illness. "And now
that you have seen me, much good may the sight do you!" he added, with
a touch of his old grim irony. "Not that I intend any discourtesy to
you, sir, so much as to them that have sent you."

Mr. Plackett was not usually at a loss for words, but he evidently
felt the awkwardness of his position this morning. He coughed softly
behind his hand, and looked round at Dr. Jago, who responded by
drawing up a couple of chairs and motioning the visitors into them.

"I had the pleasure of meeting you once or twice in London some years
ago, Mr. Denison," spoke the lawyer, by way of a lame beginning.

"It may have been a pleasure to you, though I doubt it," retorted the
Squire. "I can't say that it was much of a pleasure to me, knowing
whom you represented. Come, now."

Mr. Plackett gave vent to a dry little chuckle. It was a way he had in
business when anything particularly disagreeable had been said to him.
"Well, well, it is perhaps the wisest plan to let bygones be bygones,"
he said, "though, if I remember rightly, you had the better of me at
those interviews.--Your cousin, Mr. Denison, of Nunham Priors----"

"Titly-tutly, man alive!" broke in the Squire. "If you came here to
talk to me about that viper--I say that viper, d'ye hear?--the sooner
you pack yourself off the better.--You have seen me, and you have
talked with me--what more do you want?"

The sick man, with his white face and gleaming eyes, looked so fierce,
and his tone was one of such extreme exasperation, that Mr. Foxey
involuntarily pushed back his chair in momentary alarm.

"Believe me, Squire, I had no intention of starting a topic that would
be in the slightest degree offensive to you," said Mr. Plackett, in
his most conciliatory tone.

The sick man turned away impatiently, and pointed to a cup on the
table that contained beef-tea.--Jago stepped forward and put the cup
into his fingers. He lifted it to his lips, tasted a little of the
tea, and next moment dashed the cup and its contents violently into
the grate. "Cold--cold!" he cried with savage energy. "You are all
alike," staring at Jago. "You are all in a league to hurry me into the
churchyard!" And with that he sank back exhausted on his pillows, and
began to catch his breath in quick gasps.

Mr. Foxey was so startled that his spectacles fell to the ground.
Charles Plackett rose and pushed back his chair: he, too, was alarmed.
Jago, taken aback like the rest, as might be seen from his
countenance, motioned the visitors from the room. "Indeed, indeed, I
won't answer for the consequences if you stay," he earnestly
whispered. Hubert Stone was holding the door open.

"Cross-grained as ever," muttered the lawyer as he went out.

Hubert reconducted them to the drawing-room, and ordered in biscuits
and sherry, which Eliza brought. Presently Dr. Jago joined them.

"He is coming round again," said the Doctor. "All his life, as I hear,
Squire Denison has been subject to these little gusts of temper:
but----"

"Little, you call them!" put in Mr. Plackett, sipping his wine.

The Doctor smiled faintly. "They are what we are most afraid of, I was
about to say; and they are fearfully exhausting to him in his present
condition."

"Rather an uncomfortable kind of man to live with," said Mr. Plackett,
with a shrug.

"He certainly is a little trying at times," assented Hubert, with an
emphatic nod. "But then, we are used to him."

"I suppose the Squire's niece, Miss Winter, looks carefully after his
comforts?" observed the lawyer.

"Miss Winter is on the Continent: she has not been at home since last
October," answered Hubert, with a brighter sparkle in his dark eyes.

"Indeed!" returned Mr. Plackett, in as surprised a tone as though it
were news to him. "Rather strange, is it not, that Miss Winter should
stay away from him--in his present precarious condition?"

"The Squire appeared to be well when Miss Winter left England;
and--and he will not have her recalled. I believe she is expected
shortly."

"One would have thought she would like to be near him."

"I dare say she would," interposed Dr. Jago; "but we think--_I_
think--she is just as well away. It is so very essential to keep him
free from excitement. We have a most excellent nurse--and he has every
possible care and attention. That I can assure you."

"Oh, I don't doubt that," returned the lawyer, as he put down his
glass, and rose to depart with his clerk. The Doctor wished them
good-morning there; Hubert Stone attended them to the outer door, and
saw them drive away.

"There's something about that Dr. Jago which I don't like," remarked
Mr. Plackett to his companion as they bowled along through the park.
"I've been used to studying character for a number of years, and that
fellow seems to me to be double-faced. Did you notice what a dark,
sinister smile he had?--nothing English or open about it." And Mr.
Foxey assented, for he had not at all relished the events of the
visit.

"Fine property this, and no mistake," continued the lawyer, glancing
from side to side as he drove along rapidly. "I was in hopes that
_our_ Mr. Denison would have succeeded to it. A good thing that he is
a philosopher: he don't mind it much."

"With our client's income I think that even I could afford to be a
philosopher," said the clerk, drily.

"Aye, but there's an old proverb: 'Much would have more.' However, our
side has lost the day, and it's no use crying over spilt milk. I
cannot understand how it is that Miss Winter can be away at a time
like this," he went on after a pause. "In fact, coupling what I've
seen and heard to-day with that fellow Nixon's reports, I may go so
far as to observe that there's something about the whole business
which puzzles me, and which I don't half like."

"But you have nothing tangible on which to ground your suspicions,
have you, sir?"

"No, that's the dickens of it!" acknowledged Mr. Charles Plackett. "It
is something tangible that I want. At present I am fighting with
shadows."


Aaron Stone appeared to have recovered his temper in Nullington, for
when he got back, in the course of the afternoon, he was in quite a
blithe humour. Marching straight into the large kitchen, with his
stick and umbrella, he called the two maids about him to unbutton his
gaiters, and both stooped down to the task.

"I saw them scoundrels o' lawyers a-driving through the town in their
gig!" he cried, though he rarely condescended to address the girls,
unless it was to scold. "Two of 'em sat in it. Nice rascals they
looked--and a fine pace they went at!"

Encouraged by this affability, Phemie responded in kind--telling him
that the Squire had gone into such a passion while talking to the
lawyers as to dash his beef-tea into the grate, cup and all--Hubert
having mentioned this little episode to the gardener in the hearing of
the servants; and the news so tickled old Aaron that he chuckled for
half an hour.

"I'd ha' done it myself--I'd ha' done it myself," he reiterated. "The
Squire has got some proper spirit left in him yet."




CHAPTER VI.
SUDDEN TIDINGS.


Mrs. Carlyon and Miss Winter reached Paris, on their way home, on the
18th of May. There was no especial need for them to hurry. They had
received a letter from Mr. Denison--written, as usual, by Hubert
Stone, but signed with the Squire's inimitable autograph--a few days
previously, in which the 1st of June was named as the date when Ella
would be looked for at Heron Dyke; and it was further intimated that
the Squire would like to see Mrs. Carlyon at the same time. Under
these circumstances, Mrs. Carlyon decided that a week could not be
more pleasantly spent than in Paris, after which they could still
afford two or three days in London before going down to Norfolk.

On the morning of the 20th the ladies went out shopping, and when they
got back to their hotel, Ella found a telegram awaiting her. It was
from Hubert Stone:

"I deeply regret to inform you that Mr. Denison died very suddenly
last evening, about midnight. Please telegraph back any arrangements
you may wish to have carried out; also say when you may be expected at
the Hall."

To Ella the shock was sudden and terrible. Having lost both father and
mother when she was very young, all the affection of her heart, which
would have been theirs, had they lived, was lavished on her uncle. It
was as though she had been orphaned at one blow. Her anguish was made
more bitter by the fact of her not having been with her uncle at the
last. Why had he sent her away when he was so ill? Why had he so
persistently refused to allow her to return earlier? And now she
should never see him more!

Mrs. Carlyon took all needful travelling and business arrangements on
herself, and left Ella to nurse her grief undisturbed. They found
themselves in London within twenty-four hours of the receipt of the
telegram. Here they were compelled to stay all night, and after
ordering their mourning, they started next day for Norfolk--leaving
Higson behind, who had latterly been far from well. "A little rest
will do her good," said Mrs. Carlyon. The close carriage, attended by
Hubert Stone, met them at the station on their arrival, and they were
at once driven to the Hall.

A short while given to her natural grief and emotion, and Ella
summoned Aaron Stone to her presence in one of the smaller
sitting-rooms. The blinds were down; the room looked dark and dreary.

Aaron came in, creeping and trembling, his head down. He was a crusty
man, but faithful, and his master had been very dear to him. Ella felt
for his grief. She advanced a few steps impulsively, and took one of
his rugged hands into her soft palms.

"Oh, Aaron, old friend--you were his friend, and you are my friend--if
you could have sent me word!" she sobbed. "If I could but have seen
him once more before he was lost to me for ever!"

"There was no time to do anything--there wasn't really, Miss Ella,"
whispered the old man, his gnarled features working convulsively.
"Nobody knew, nobody thought, what was going to happen, all suddenly,
in the night."

"Sit down, Aaron," drawing a chair near her, "and tell me all that
there is to be told. Oh for one look from his kind eyes!--for one word
from those lips that will never speak to me again!"

It was an easy-chair she had given to Aaron; he sat in it, gazing at
the fire, his chin resting on his hand. The weather was very chilly
still, though June was near; and the large old Hall never seemed hot
even in the sultry days of summer.

"It seems to me very strange, Aaron," began Ella, for the old man did
not attempt to speak, "that there should be no signs observable, no
apparent intimations that Uncle Gilbert was so near his end. What has
the Doctor--Jago--to say about it?"

"I never saw a man more dumbfounded than Dr. Jago was," replied Aaron.
"Says he, looking down at the poor Squire, 'I made sure that he would
last for months yet'--maybe, you see, Miss Ella, he thought his
treatment had put a new lease of life into him."

"What _was_ the treatment?"

The old man glanced suspiciously up for a moment, and then dropped his
eyes again, "As if I could tell what it was in particular, Miss Ella!
I'm no doctor. Jago can tell--if he will. It seemed to do the master
good; to put a deal of strength into him."

"Did Dr. Jago come daily?"

"That he did. No medical man could be more attentive than he has been.
He never once missed a day, week-days or Sundays."

"Then he saw him the day he died."

"Ay. He was here that day at mid-day, ma'am; and the Squire died at
midnight in the evening."

"And he saw no change in my uncle that day; no symptoms of danger?"

"None at all; none. I met him as he came out of the room that very
morning. 'And how do we find ourselves to-day, Doctor?' says I.
'Pretty much as usual,' says he. 'If anything, a bit brighter and more
lively. He's doing very nicely, indeed, only you must not encourage
him to talk too much; mind that. He is just as fond of a bit of gossip
as ever he was.' With that, Dr. Jago bids me good-morning, and goes
off, whistling softly to himself. No, no," muttered the old man, "he
saw no signs of danger."

"And what does Dr. Jago say was the immediate cause of death?" sighed
Ella.

"It's a long queer word he made use of," said Aaron.
"Par---- something."

"Paralysis?" suggested Ella.

"It means that, I take it. Paralysis of the heart, Miss Ella. Hubert
said syncope--but he is not a doctor. There was no suffering; none. He
went off as quietly as one sinks to sleep."

"I can't help wishing that my uncle had never sent for Dr. Jago,"
mused Ella. "I had far more confidence in Dr. Spreckley, who had
studied his constitution for years."

"The Squire used to say," cried Aaron, "that he should never have been
alive so long, if it hadn't been for Dr. Jago."

"It may be so. Who now can tell? But I was deeply grieved when Dr.
Spreckley ceased to attend him. I thought--some instinct seemed to
warn me--that it might not be for the best."

Aaron made no reply, and they sat a little while in silence. Then Ella
spoke--in a softer tone.

"Did Uncle Gilbert often talk about me, Aaron? Did I seem to be much
in his thoughts?"

"I don't think a day ever passed but what he mentioned you, Miss
Ella," warmly replied the old man. "When he used to sit in his
easy-chair, staring hard into the fire, I've said to myself many a
time, 'He's thinking of one that is far away.'"

"Oh! that he had but sent for me!--How was it, Aaron, that he did not
let me come home in time for his birthday? Could not _you_ have
suggested to him that I ought to be here?"

The old man coughed uneasily. "I did speak to him about it, Miss Ella.
I told him that you would be fretting your heart out at being so long
away. But there! you know the kind of man he was--taking his own will
and listening to nobody."

"It has seemed to me at times as though--as though you were all in a
conspiracy to keep me away," returned Ella, dreamily. "I have said so
to Mrs. Carlyon."

"All who?" asked Aaron.

"You--and Dr. Jago--and your nephew," replied Ella, fearlessly. "I was
sent away by my uncle for the winter--for the dark days. They have
long been over, yet still I was not allowed to return. Aaron, I cannot
understand it."

"Maybe he wanted to grow still better before you saw him," cried the
old man, shuffling in his chair. "He was always headstrong; you know
that, Miss Ella; he wouldn't be driven by living creature. If one
tried to make him turn one way, he'd turn the other. No chance, Miss
Ella, if he didn't want you to come home, that we could make him send
for you."

"Was he conscious when he died?--who talked with him last?"

"I did," answered the old man promptly. "He had been as cheerful as
could be all day; less mopy than usual. At six o'clock he said he'd go
to bed, feeling tired; and did go. At nine o'clock I took in his
beef-tea, and stood by while he drank it; after that, I made up the
fire. Then he talked with me for ten minutes or so about one thing and
another. He hoped we were going to have a fine hot summer: hot weather
always suited him best. Then he said that his lassie--meaning you,
Miss Ella--would be on her way home by this time, and how glad he
should be to see your bonnie face again. Next, he said that he had
been thinking of having the garden done up, and should get some pretty
furniture from London put in your rooms, and that he would have more
company at the Hall, and try to make the old place a bit more cheerful
for you."

"As if I was not always the happiest when he and I were by ourselves!"
said Ella, hardly able to speak for her tears.

"Then I gave him a glass of port wine," resumed Aaron--"you won't have
forgotten that he liked a glass the last thing at bedtime--and he took
it up to the last. After that, I lighted the one wax candle that he
always kept burning all night. He would have the candle put so that as
he laid in bed he could see the likeness of that beautiful young lady,
which has hung over his bedroom chimney-piece as long as I can
remember: who she was, he never told me. Then he held out his hand to
me, as he always did at night of late--except maybe at any odd time
when he was a bit put out. 'Goodnight, old friend,' he said; 'I shan't
want anything more till morning.' They were the last words anyone
heard him speak."

Ella turned and buried her face in the padded arm-chair.

"I had just got out of the room, and was shutting the door behind me,"
continued Aaron, "when I thought I heard a queer sort of noise. I
couldn't make out whether it was a groan or a cry, or what it was.
However, I went back into the room. The Squire seemed lying just as I
had left him, but he didn't speak. Not feeling satisfied, I took up
the candle and looked at his face. There I saw something that made my
heart quake as it had never quaked before. I called Hubert; and five
minutes later his horse was in the dog-cart, and he was off to fetch
the Doctor. It wasn't long before Dr. Jago was here, but the moment he
clapped eyes on the Squire he saw there was no hope. My poor dear
master couldn't speak, but we seemed to see in his eyes that he knew
us. By-and-by he appeared to go to sleep. We could only watch by his
bedside: and he died just as the clocks were striking twelve."

"Oh! my dear one--my dear one!" wailed the weeping girl.

"There was one queer thing, Miss Ella, that happened that same night,"
resumed the old man, in a lowered voice. "We got to bed between two
and three o'clock. I was the last to leave the room, locking the door
behind me. I was the first person to enter the room in the morning;
and--what do you think I found there?"

Ella looked at him in silence.

"I found the picture of that beautiful young lady lying face downwards
upon the hearth. The nail that had held it for so many years had given
way in the night, and there it lay. I have not hung it up again. You,
Miss Ella, can do as you like about that. What I say to myself at odd
times is this--Why should it fall down the very night the master
died?"

Ella Winter felt that she could hear no more just now, and rose from
her seat. "I want to see him, Aaron; I will go now. You go on first
and bring me word whether anyone is in the room."

"You want to see him!" repeated Aaron, faintly and timidly, as a
strangely troubled look took possession of his eyes.

"Yes, of course I do. I will go in now. If my sad eyes could not look
upon his face living, they----"

"Oh! my dear Miss Ella," interrupted the old man, "no one's eyes will
ever rest on his face again."

Ella stared at him. "What do you mean?" she asked, in a voice that was
hardly more than a whisper.

"Oh! cannot you guess? They brought his last coffin yesterday,
and--and--I needn't tell you the rest."

"No--no--it cannot be!" cried Ella. "He died on Monday night, and this
is only Thursday. By whose orders was this cruel thing done?"

"By Dr. Jago's orders."

"What right had Dr. Jago----?"

"He said it was better so: he said it must be so. Indeed, it was
obliged to be."

Ella sank back on a sofa, and hid her face behind her hands. It seemed
to her that she was baffled at all points. And Aaron took the
opportunity to steal noiselessly from the room, as if he had been
doing something wrong in it, muttering as he went:

"Now Heaven forgive me for a deceitful villain!"


The funeral was fixed for the following Monday, Hubert Stone making
all the arrangements, under the directions of Mrs. Carlyon, who wished
to spare Ella as much as possible. Mrs. Carlyon was greatly taken with
Hubert, of whom she had not seen much on her previous visits to Heron
Dyke. "What an extremely handsome young man he is," she remarked to
herself more than once. "So gentlemanly, too, in manners and
appearance. Who would ever take him to be the grandson of a servant?"

Hubert's manner towards Mrs. Carlyon was full of deference, which was
far from being disagreeable to that lady. But what in Hubert was put
down to respectful sympathy might, in the case of a more commonplace
and less good-looking man, have been looked upon as an impertinence
from one in his position. Clever woman of the world though Mrs.
Carlyon was, she had not the slightest suspicion of the flame that was
scorching the heart of Hubert Stone, and making his days and nights at
once a delight and a torment to him.

One of Ella's first inquiries on reaching the Hall was, by whose wish
and for what purpose the green-baize doors had been put up which shut
in her uncle's rooms from the rest of the house. It was to Hubert the
question was put. All he could tell her was that the doors had been
put up by the Squire's own express desire; merely to satisfy some whim
he had taken on the score of being kept quiet. Ella, who knew how odd
and whimsical her uncle had been in many ways, accepted the
explanation.

Was it due to an oversight, or because the circumstance was not deemed
worth mentioning, that Miss Winter and her aunt were not made aware of
the presence of any nurse in the house during the last few months of
Mr. Denison's illness? The name of Nurse Dexter was certainly never
mentioned to them, nor was Ella yet aware of the existence of any such
person. Within a dozen hours of the Squire's demise, Mrs. Dexter had
packed up her trunks and was gone. She could be of no further use at
the Hall, she remarked to one of the maids, as she tied on her neat
black bonnet, and, as her services were urgently wanted elsewhere, she
thought that the sooner she got away the better.


Monday morning came. At nine o'clock Ella went to her uncle's room,
and stayed there for an hour, alone with all that was left on earth of
one whom she had so dearly loved. After that she went to her own room,
and was seen no more by anyone but her aunt till after the last sad
rites were over. Maria Kettle was still from home. She was the one
friend whom Ella missed in her affliction.

Mr. Daventry, the family lawyer, arrived early at the Hall. With him
he brought the Squire's last will and testament. Sir Peter Dockwray
and Colonel Townson, the executors, together with a few other old
personal friends of Mr. Denison whom it is needless to specify by
name, arrived later on. The procession was joined in the park by some
thirty or forty carriages belonging to the gentry of the
neighbourhood, a few, but only a few, of which were empty. Dr. Jago,
as a matter of course, was there, in a brougham hired for the
occasion. A special invitation had been sent to Dr. Spreckley, whom
Ella could not help regarding in the light of a wronged man. He was
touched by a proof of regard so unexpected, but his pride would not
let him accept it. He watched the procession from behind the lace
curtains of a friend's window with feelings that were half regretful
and half bitter.

The service was read by the Vicar, the Rev. Francis Kettle. In the
church, and afterwards round the grave, in addition to those who had
followed the body, was assembled a crowd of quite two hundred people.
"He's gone at last, poor old man," was the general comment of these
outsiders, "but he lived long enough to get the better of those who
would have robbed him of his property."

Everyone there knew the stake for which he had played, and everyone
was glad that he had won it.

And so to their last resting-place, with all due honour and respect,
were committed the mortal remains of Gilbert Denison, late master of
Heron Dyke.


Ella would fain have foregone the, to her, painful ordeal of having to
listen to the reading of her uncle's will after the return from the
funeral, but Mrs. Carlyon and Mr. Daventry both told her that she
ought to be present. And so the company assembled in the great
drawing-room, with a few of the upper servants.

"We are short of one person," remarked Mr. Daventry, as he glanced
round the room.

"Whom may that be?" asked Sir Peter Dockwray.

"Dr. Spreckley. We will give him five minutes' grace. If he is not
here then, we must proceed without him."

No one could have been more surprised than Dr. Spreckley was when,
upon returning home, after watching the funeral, a note was put into
his hands, requesting his presence at Heron Dyke to attend the reading
of Mr. Denison's will. What could his presence be wanted for? he asked
himself again and again. He had refused to attend the funeral, yet now
he was asked to attend the reading of the will! He could not make it
out at all: but he went.

"Here comes the straggler," said Mr. Daventry, as Dr. Spreckley was
ushered into the room.

Ella rose and shook hands with him warmly, and Hubert placed a chair
for him. Then Mr. Daventry settled his spectacles on his nose, and
spread open the will.

The will itself was dated some three years previously, but had been
added to and altered by various codicils from time to time.

The last codicil was dated November 10th of the previous year, and was
witnessed by Mr. Daventry's clerk, and by Phemie Hargrave, at that
time housemaid at the Hall. A brief summary of the various items
comprised in the will and its codicils is all that need be given here.

To his kinswoman, Gertrude Carlyon, as a token of affection and
esteem, and in recognition of her kindness to his niece, Ella Winter,
the testator bequeathed the sum of two thousand guineas.

To his old friend and medical attendant, Dr. Spreckley, as a token of
sincere liking and esteem, was bequeathed the sum of five hundred
guineas. This legacy was included in a codicil which bore date after
Dr. Spreckley had ceased to be the Squire's medical attendant.

To his old, tried, and faithful servant, Aaron Stone, the testator
bequeathed an immediate legacy of two hundred guineas, together with
an annuity of two hundred pounds per annum for life, the annuity to be
continued to his wife for her life, should Aaron die first.

To Hubert Stone, for services faithfully rendered, was bequeathed the
sum of seven hundred guineas. In this case the sum originally named in
the will was three hundred guineas, but had been increased to seven
hundred in the last codicil.

To John Tilney, the gardener, the sum of one hundred guineas.

To Edward Conroy, "a young fellow whom I like, I can't tell why," the
sum of one hundred guineas. A smaller legacy to the coachman, and to
one or two others of the dependents, completed this part of the will.

Ella started at the name of Conroy; in spite of herself her cheeks
flushed rosy red. She turned her face away to hide its colour.

"I don't know this young fellow," observed Mr. Daventry, alluding to
Conroy. "Neither himself nor his address."

The reading was soon over. Everything, save what was taken up by these
legacies, was bequeathed to Ella Winter--houses, lands, money, all
unconditionally--in a few brief loving terms which set the girl's
tears flowing afresh. In the last lines of the will was expressed a
wish of the testator--it was not made an absolute condition--that in
case of his niece, Ella Winter, ever getting married, her husband
should change his name to Denison--in order, as it was expressed, that
"the old name might not be forgotten in the land."

Mr. Daventry folded up the will, and took off his spectacles. The
visitors began to disperse, some partaking of refreshment, which was
laid out in another room, some declining it; and at length the old
house and its inmates were left to themselves, Mr. Daventry alone
remaining. General matters of business had to be spoken of; the
afternoon waned, and Ella asked him to dine with them.

The old lawyer accepted the offer, but left as soon as the meal was
over. It had been served in a cosy panelled room, not far from the
entrance-hall. It was a more cheerful room than many of the larger
ones, and Ella and Mrs. Carlyon had sat mostly in it these few days
since their return.

They sat together now, in the pleasant May twilight, talking in
undertones of many things past and to come. By-and-by one of the
housemaids brought in candles, and Mrs. Carlyon, who was a great
reader, went in search of a certain book which she knew to be
somewhere in her bedroom, without being exactly sure where. Some last
faint traces of twilight still lingered in the sky, and she went up
without a light.

Crossing the entrance-hall, Mrs. Carlyon ascended the great staircase,
and traversed the gallery until she reached the corridor into which
the door of her room opened. In searching for the book she threw down
a tray from her dressing-table, containing sundry small articles; and
she wished she had brought a light as she stooped to feel for them and
pick them up. It was accomplished at last, and the book was found; but
all this had taken some little time, and the dusk had deepened in the
corridors, and the gallery as Mrs. Carlyon went out. In fact, coming
from the light afforded by the windows of her room, they looked quite
dark.

"Let me see--this is the way, I think," said Mrs. Carlyon to herself,
hesitating as to the turning she ought to take in the gallery; and
finally she took the wrong one.

Three or four minutes later she rushed into the sitting-room with a
white face and startled eyes, and sank into a chair, thoroughly
overcome.

Ella rose up in alarm. "Good gracious, aunt," she cried, "what is the
matter? Has anything happened?"

"Oh, child, I--I think I must be very foolish--but I have just had a
terrible fright."

And the fright was upon her still, to judge by the trembling voice and
hands.

"But what has frightened you?" asked Ella.

"That's the strangest part of it; that I don't know what--or who,"
spoke Mrs. Carlyon, after a pause and an effort to collect herself. "I
went up for my book, you know, Ella, and I was rather long finding it;
and when I got into the corridors and gallery again it was dark, and I
missed my way, I suppose. At all events, instead of coming to the
staircase as I expected, I presently found myself in a part of the
house quite strange to me--at least, it seemed so in the dusk----"

"Was it the north wing?" involuntarily interrupted Ella.

"I don't know; it may have been. Seeing a window, through which a
little dim light came in, I halted at it to consider what was to be
done, and how I should best find my way down. While thus standing a
something black--I cannot tell you what it was--brushed swiftly and
silently past me, and disappeared in the deeper darkness beyond."

"Something black!" repeated Ella, feeling an awe she could scarcely
account for.

"Ay. The figure--it was human, I conclude, but whether male or female
I can scarcely tell, though I think the latter, because the skirts of
the garment it wore touched my gown in passing--the figure, I say,
just showed itself to me, and was gone."

"Did you hear no footsteps, Aunt Gertrude?"

"None whatever. I was so startled that, for a few moments, I could not
stir or think. Then I rushed along the corridors, haphazard, and came
straight upon a staircase. Instinct comes to our aid in these moments
of perplexity more often than we think," broke off Mrs. Carlyon.

"Aunt, it must have been one of the servant-girls," spoke Ella,
finding relief in the idea.

"No, no, no," emphatically pronounced Mrs. Carlyon. "Not so, child. I
ran down the staircase, not knowing or caring whither it might lead
me," she continued, "and along the passage at its foot, and found
myself close to the large kitchen. Aaron sat smoking his pipe over the
fire; within the open door of another room I saw the two maids seated
at work by candlelight, old Dorothy inspecting its progress through
her spectacles. How I managed not to run into them with my fear, I can
hardly tell; but I controlled it, and came on to you. Now you know
all, Ella."

Miss Winter felt both puzzled and annoyed. She knew not what to think.
Had it been a servant who told the story, she would have said at once
that the girl had been the victim of her own foolish fancies; but in
the case of a woman like Mrs. Carlyon no such belief was possible. Who
and what could it have been? Had it anything to do with the strange
disappearance of Katherine Keen--and with the superstitious reports
that arose afterwards?

"This had better not be spoken of, aunt," said Ella.

"No, indeed," quickly assented Mrs. Carlyon. "But you won't find me
going upstairs alone, at dusk again. All the wealth of the Indies
would not tempt me to live through a winter in this dreadful old
house."




CHAPTER VII.
THE MISTRESS OF HERON DYKE.


Although many of the county families and leading people of the
neighbourhood were away in London or abroad when Miss Winter took
possession of her inheritance, a goodly number still remained who were
not long in making their way to Heron Dyke to pay their respects to
its mistress. More carriages passed through the lodge-gates during the
first few weeks after Squire Denison's death than had been seen there
for a dozen years before. Everybody was anxious to court the heiress;
some, who did not know her previously, to make her acquaintance. Ella
had not bargained to have her privacy thus speedily invaded by a mob
of fine people; but Mrs. Carlyon told her with a smile that she was
now one of the magnates of the county, and that having accepted the
position she must take the responsibilities with it.

"You can make your escape whenever you please, by coming to me in
London, you know, Ella," she said: and said it rather frequently.

The world seemed to take it for granted that Miss Winter would marry.
As yet there was no rumour of her being engaged, but as there were
several eligible men, bachelors, in the neighbourhood, speculators
were much exercised in their minds as to the chances of this, that, or
the other one becoming the favoured individual. They all fervently
hoped that Mrs. Carlyon would not drag her niece away to London, as
she seemed to wish to do, or else there would be no knowing what might
become of her. It would be dreadful for such a prize to fall to the
lot of a stranger.

Ella bore quietly on her way, never dreaming of the social
machinations of which she was the central figure. At present she
scarcely went anywhere; her loss was too recent; and she thought she
might be spared a little time before plunging into the vortex of that
social power, called Society.

Meanwhile the grand old house began to put on a different appearance.
Whether Ella would have entered on desirable improvements so soon,
cannot be told, but Mrs. Carlyon urged it. Painters and paperhangers
took possession. Rooms were unlocked and thrown open to the daylight
that had been shut up for years. Not the north wing. Some feeling, of
which she did not speak, caused Ella to leave that untouched. New
furniture, sober in look and in keeping with the old mansion, but very
handsome withal, was ordered down from London. Inside and out, the
Hall was renovated and put in thorough repair. The green baize doors,
that had caused so much speculation, were taken away. The garden-paths
were regravelled, and new flower-beds laid out. John Tilney was more
busy than he had ever been before, although he had two men under him
now. Two or three servants were added to those indoors, much to the
indignation of Aaron Stone, and also of his wife, Dorothy, who could
only think with and be led by her husband. They would have preferred
that the old state of things should go on for ever; Aaron, in his
mind, resenting it as a personal insult that they did not.

"It's all along o' that Mrs. Carline!" he grumbled to his wife. "Miss
Ella, bless her, would never have made changes of her own accord. I
don't like it, mark you, and I wish she was gone."

"Miss Ella would be but lonely without her aunt just now," Dorothy
ventured to answer deprecatingly.

"Waste and extravagance!--them's the words," burst out Aaron. "More
servants here indoors; more on 'em out; and a spick-and-span new
carriage from London. The old Squire's hair would stand on end if he
could put his head out of his coffin and take a quiet look round."

But if Aaron did not like "Mrs. Carline"--as he chose to call her in
domestic privacy--neither did she like him; and it was the old man's
hair that might have stood on end, instead of the Squire's, had he
heard the advice that lady one day gave her niece. There was something
about Aaron himself that Mrs. Carlyon had always disliked, and his
sour temper and general crustiness of manner did not tend to soften
her impression.

"My dear Ella, I suppose you will now pension off old Aaron Stone and
his wife?"

Ella looked up in surprise.

"I have not thought of doing anything of the kind. I have never
thought about it at all."

"It is time you did. They are growing old and infirm; they belong to
the past. Quite anomalies, they seem, in a modern establishment."

"No one could be a more faithful servant than Aaron was to my uncle.
They were together for nearly fifty years. I could not think of
parting from him, Aunt Gertrude," added Ella, with a heightened
colour.

"As you please, of course, child. He is a most cross-grained old man;
everybody must admit that. He lords it over the other servants as if
he were master of the house. They cannot like it: and it is hardly the
thing, I think, for you to oblige them to put up with it. It might
have been all very right in your uncle's time; but that is over."

"It is Aaron's manner only that is in fault, Aunt Gertrude; we are all
used to that, and nobody minds it. He bears a heart of gold under that
rugged exterior."

Mrs. Carlyon shrugged her shoulders. Ella smiled.

"You don't seem to believe in the gold, then!"

"No, I do not, Ella. That he was a truly faithful servant to your
uncle I admit--all praise to him for it!--but whether he is as
faithful to others, I cannot say. There is a curious secretiveness of
manner about him now that I don't like, and don't pretend to account
for. However, we will leave all that and go to another phase of the
question. Has it never struck you, my dear, that the old couple may
wish to retire from service, and would think it only proper and kind
on your part to suggest it to them? They may be hoping and waiting for
you to make such a proposal--of course, accompanied by a promise of
your countenance for their remaining days."

Ella paused, revolving the suggestion.

"You have put the case in a new light, certainly, aunt," she said,
"one that I confess I never glanced at. I do not believe Aaron has any
wish to leave me, any thought of it; or Dorothy either: all the same,
it is a point that must be inquired into."

Ella lost no time. That same day, upon Aaron's coming into the room
where she sat alone, she bade him wait--she had something to say to
him. Very considerately she spoke: nevertheless, it seemed to strike
the old man dumb. His hands shook. His lips quavered.

"You don't want to get rid of me sure-ly, Miss Ella!" he cried when
she had finished. "It can't be. I know I'm old; and old folks be not
counted of much use, nowadays; but--but the Squire would never have
driven me away from the old home. I'll go to the workhouse to-morrow,
if you wish it, ma'am--and no place else will I go to if I leave
here--and I'll never come out of it again. No, never, till they bring
me out feet foremost."

Ella felt quite sorry for him; sorry for having spoken. She began to
speak of what she had meant to do, but he interrupted her:

"I'll be nobody's pensioner; not even yours, Miss Winter. Many a time
I've told the Squire I'd not be his. While I'm able to work I will
work; and I mean to work on for you, ma'am, my strength permitting it.
Time enough for me to leave you when that's gone--but I hope it's my
life that will go first. I was faithful to my master, Miss Ella, and
I'll be faithful to my mistress."

Ella held out her hand to him.

"Do you suppose I do not know that you are, my good old Aaron! But you
should not talk of the workhouse. The Squire left you an annuity; he
left you also some money. I shall add to it----"

"No, ma'am. Do you suppose I wanted the bit o' money his will gave to
me? Not I. I have settled it on the boy--Hubert--every penny of it: as
well as the few pounds I and my wife have saved. As to the annuity, I
won't touch it."

Ella smiled, and did not contradict him. And so the question of the
old servant's going was set at rest. But Aaron was not himself for
days afterwards.

Hubert Stone's services were retained, at any rate for the present. He
had had the management of the farm property and other matters for so
long, that Miss Winter could not well have done without him. Neither
had she any wish to dismiss him; he was an efficient steward, and she
of course had no suspicion of his attachment to herself. She put him
on a different footing, assigning to him a handsome salary, and
decreeing that he should live away from the Hall, though a room in it
would still be occupied by him as an office for his account-books and
papers. It was supposed that he would take suitable apartments at
Nullington; he might have had the best there; or perhaps set up a
pretty home for himself with a man and maid to wait on him. Hubert did
neither. To the intense surprise of the community he made an
arrangement with John Tilney to enter on his spare bedroom and
sitting-room--for the lodge was a commodious dwelling--and took up his
abode there, Mrs. Tilney waiting on him as on any other gentleman.

Hubert had to see his young mistress almost daily about one matter of
business or another, but he was careful to maintain towards her a
suitable reserve. Nothing could be better than his manner. It would
never do to betray the smallest sign of the volcano of passion that
was surging within him.

Very little had been said between Ella and her aunt respecting the
fright the latter got on the night of the Squire's funeral. The topic
was an unpleasant one; and they ignored it by mutual consent. The only
person spoken to about it was Dr. Spreckley: and it may be said that
that arose from inadvertence.

A week or two subsequent to the Squire's death, one of the maids,
Eliza, took a sore throat; it threatened to be a bad one, and Miss
Winter sent for the good old doctor. Dr. Jago's attendance at the Hall
had ceased with the Squire's death. Dr. Spreckley got the message late
in the day, and it was evening when he started for Heron Dyke, glad
and proud enough to be once more summoned there in his medical
capacity.

Leaving his gig in the yard, he entered the house by the side-door,
ignoring ceremony as of old, and went at once to Miss Winter. She and
Mrs. Carlyon had just finished dinner, and were sitting at dessert.
Hearing what was the matter the Doctor went off to see Eliza,
promising to return to them and report.

"It is rather severe," said he, when he came back, "but there's
nothing dangerous about it. I'll come up again in the morning."

"Sit down, Doctor," said Ella, "and take a glass of wine."

He drew a chair to the fire; the evening was damp and chilly, and a
fire had been lighted for dinner. Ella and Mrs. Carlyon turned from
the table to sit with him, and they talked of this and that as he
sipped the wine.

"As you are here, Dr. Spreckley, I think I will ask you to give me a
little medicine; an alterative, or something of that kind," observed
Mrs. Carlyon presently, in a pause of the conversation.

"Ah!" cried the Doctor. "What's amiss?"

"My liver is out of order, I fancy. I had a severe bilious attack
after that fright, and I am not right yet."

Dr. Spreckley turned his head to her rather sharply. "What fright?" he
asked.

Mrs. Carlyon glanced across at Ella. She had spoken without thought.

"I really see no reason why we should not tell you," she resumed,
after a minute's consideration. "In fact, I have observed to Ella once
or twice that it might be better if we did mention it to some discreet
friend. Not that anything can be done."

And Mrs. Carlyon forthwith related the whole story of her fright in
the dusky corridor. Dr. Spreckley listened attentively.

"What it was I know not, Doctor: whether man or woman, ghost or
goblin. A silent shadowy form glided past me, imparting to me the most
intense terror, and vanishing almost as soon as it had passed."

"One of the young servants, ma'am," emphatically spoke the Doctor.

"No. Every inmate of the house was in the kitchen, or about it, as I
have told you. I saw them all when I ran down. Whoever or whatever it
was, it was not a servant."

"Could it have been young Stone? Had he gone upstairs for any
purpose?"

"No, no, no. Hubert Stone would not have been gliding about the
corridors in that silent, stealthy manner. Hubert Stone was not at
home that evening; he was spending it with Dr. Jago."

"True," nodded the Doctor. He remembered that Hubert had gone out with
Jago after the reading of the will, the same mourning coach conveying
them to the latter's residence.

"Was this in the north wing?" he asked.

"I do not know," answered Mrs. Carlyon. "Ella thinks it was. I took
the wrong turning in the dark and lost myself, and goodness knows
where I got to."

"It must have been the north wing," interposed Ella. "The stairs my
aunt ran down lead direct from it."

"Ah," said the Doctor, "that north wing has managed to get up a weird
name for itself, and the minute any of you get into it, your common
sense leaves you. I am not speaking of you, ma'am," he added to Mrs.
Carlyon, "but of the house in general;" and, dropping the subject, he
proceeded to question her about her ailments.

"One of the wenches got up there; 'twas nothing else," thought the
Doctor, as he left the ladies and went away. "Were I Miss Winter, I'd
have that wing turned inside out."

Walking round to the stable-yard, his way led him past the kitchen
windows. It was growing dusk then, but the fire lighted up the room.
He saw Dorothy Stone bending over the fire, stirring something in a
saucepan. Dr. Spreckley walked straight into the kitchen.

"Oh, sir, how you frightened me!" cried Dorothy, turning round with a
start.

"You are easily frightened," retorted the Doctor. "Are you mulling
wine there?"

"Law, sir! Wine! I be making Eliza a drop o' thin arrowroot; she
thought she could sup a spoonful or two. She has had nothing all day,
poor thing! and you said she was to be kept up."

"Keep her up by all means. Put a little brandy in the arrowroot. Look
here, Mrs. Stone: you remember the evening of the Squire's funeral?"

The question startled Mrs. Stone more than his entrance had done. She
clapped the saucepan upon the top of the oven, stepped backwards, and
looked at Dr. Spreckley.

"Whatever do you ask me that for, sir?"

"Do you remember it?--the evening of the day the Squire was buried?"

"Indeed and I do, sir. It's not so long ago."

"Was anyone of the servants up in the north wing that evening at dusk,
walking about the passages there?"

"Mercy be good to us!" ejaculated the old woman, sinking on a chair.

"Now do be sensible!" cried the Doctor, testily. "I ask you a simple
question: can't you answer it? Was either of the girls--say Eliza, or
that other one--what's her name?--Phemie--was either of them in the
north wing that evening, prancing about it?--What in the world are you
twittering at?"

"I can't hear that wing spoke of without going into a twitter," said
Dorothy, with a half sob. "As to the girls being up there--no, sir,
you may rely on that. Not one of them would go up there at dusk to
save her life: nor alone by daylight either. Was anything seen there
that night, sir, or heard?"

"Never you mind that now: if there was, it's over and done with. Then,
so far as you know, none of the household went up?"

"That I could answer with my life."

"Well, good-evening, Mrs. Stone; there's nothing to be afraid of. Take
a drop of brandy yourself," he kindly added.

"There's more to be afraid of in this house than the world knows of,
Dr. Spreckley--and has been for some time past. It's an uncanny
place--though I dare not say as much before my husband. As to that
north wing"--she broke off with a shiver. "The other housemaids left
because of what they saw and heard there: and these are getting as
frightened as they were."

Down sat Dorothy as the surgeon went out, and flung her apron over her
face in a kind of despair. Naturally superstitious, the events in the
Hall had but rendered her more so. She lived a life of fear and
trembling, believing that if by ill-luck the ghost--Katherine
Keen's--appeared to herself some unlucky night, she should die of it.
How greatly these questions of Dr. Spreckley had augmented her
terrified discomfort, she would not have liked to confess.

Mrs. Carlyon did not feel much more comfortable than Dorothy in the
lonely old house on the Norfolk coast. Ever since the night of the
Squire's funeral she had wished to get away from it to a more cheerful
place; but she could not yet attempt to leave Ella.

It was when the bright summer weather began to give place to a
suspicion of autumn, that Mrs. Carlyon found she must really go;
matters in London at her own home needed her. She told Ella that she
could not leave her alone, and proposed a chaperon. Ella, who had
independent opinions of her own, demurred: she was quite old enough to
take care of herself, and quite capable of doing it. But her aunt was
inflexible; the proprieties and usages of society must on no account
be ignored. Ella perforce yielded, and a suitable lady was sought for.

It was just at this time that Mr. Conroy once more made his appearance
at Heron Dyke. After the reading of the Squire's will, Mr. Daventry,
the Nullington lawyer, had despatched a letter to the office of the
"Illustrated Globe," apprising Mr. Conroy of the legacy bequeathed
him. For some cause or other the young man had not been able to attend
to it until now. He came to Nullington, saw Mr. Daventry, and thence
walked to Heron Dyke to pay his respects to its mistress.

It was well that Mrs. Carlyon chanced to be looking out of the window
when the servant announced Conroy's name. Had she seen Ella's face at
that moment, it is probable that a certain vague suspicion, which some
time ago had taken root in her mind, would have been turned into a
certainty. As it happened, she saw nothing.

Conroy stayed but an hour with them; the ladies were engaged out for
the latter part of the day. They invited him to spend the morrow at
the Hall.

He came accordingly, in time for luncheon. Afterwards the carriage was
brought round, and they started to visit the ruins of a certain famous
castle some dozen miles away. Hubert Stone, looking from his office
window, himself unseen, watched them set out. A raging fever of
jealousy and unrest was burning in his veins. This Conroy was the one
man whom he feared and hated; and yet, if he had been asked to state
his reasons for feeling thus towards him, he would have found it
difficult to do so. He could only have said that he had dreaded and
disliked him from the first. It was Hubert's white face and jealous
eyes that Conroy had seen peering from behind the yews into the
Squire's sitting-room that first evening he spent at the Hall. It was
Hubert himself, peering in, whom the Squire had more than once taken
for a spy. Jealousy often lends insight to love, pricking it on to
finer issues than it would ever attain to without such stimulus, and
this it was that had enabled Hubert Stone to divine that these two
people loved each other almost before they were themselves conscious
of it. Yes, he hated and feared Edward Conroy. No sooner had the
carriage started to-day than he put away his books and papers and
wandered out into the park, a moody and miserable man. He strolled
about for some hours, neither knowing nor caring whither. At length
the sound of a distant clock, striking five, warned him that the party
from the Hall might be expected back before long. He knew by which
road they would return, and he made his way to an overhanging bank,
screened by trees and a thick hedge, close to which they must pass. He
wanted to see them again, although he knew well that the sight would
only add to his wretchedness.

At length the landau appeared in sight. Hubert parted the boughs
carefully and peered through his leafy screen. Miss Winter and Mrs.
Carlyon sat together, with Conroy on the opposite seat. Hubert's eyes
devoured them. Conroy was leaning forward and talking to Ella, on
whose face rested a brightness and animation such as Hubert had not
seen there since her uncle's death. A minute later, and a turn of the
road hid them from view. Hubert paced about in his rage, and at length
walked back to the Hall, a still more miserable man than he had left
it. His heart was a prey to the direst thoughts. Love, hatred,
jealousy, and despair swayed him by turns, one mood alternating
swiftly with another. Had it been a moonless midnight instead of an
August evening, and had Edward Conroy and he met by chance in some
lonely spot, one of the two would never have left that spot alive.

Lights blazed from the windows of one of the smaller drawing-rooms now
generally made use of, which had been re-furnished. It was yet empty,
dinner not being over. Two gentlemen had been invited to meet Mr.
Conroy--the Vicar and Philip Cleeve.

Into this lighted drawing-room went Hubert: he knew not why. He felt
like a man who was being urged forward by some unseen power towards a
goal of which as yet he was but dimly conscious, but from which no
exercise of his own will could turn his footsteps aside.

Lost in a reverie, he did not hear the ladies approach until it was
too late to escape. On the impulse of the moment he hid himself behind
the folds of the heavy velvet curtains that shrouded the deep
embrasures of the windows. The guests soon followed them. Mrs. Carlyon
and the Vicar settled down to a game of backgammon, Philip amused
himself with a book of photographs and a magnifying glass, and Ella,
at Conroy's request, sat down at the piano, he hovering round her the
while and turning over her music.

From his hiding-place Hubert could see nothing, but nearly all the
conversation, especially that which took place at the piano, was
audible to him, and this latter was all that he cared to hear. At
times Conroy was so close to him that by stretching out his hand he
could have touched him. He stood there as immovable as if cut in
stone, with white face and passion-charged eyes, listening to the soft
words of his rival, and to the still softer accents that responded to
them. Yet the words themselves were commonplace enough; it was the
hidden something in their tone that lent them their sweet
significance. If Hubert Stone had expected to overhear any lover-like
confidences, in which people who are trembling on the verge of the
great confession are sometimes wont to indulge, he was mistaken.

"Mrs. Carlyon tells me that you have promised to spend a week or two
in London with her a little later on," said Conroy.

"Yes, I have," answered Ella.

"You will find London deserted, I fear."

"So much the better. I never care for a crowd."

"Mrs. Carlyon has been so good as to give me a general invitation to
call upon her. I hope I shall see you during your stay."

All Ella's heart leapt into her face at these words. She turned away
her head under the pretence of looking at the others.

"It is quite a treat to watch the Vicar play backgammon: he seems to
give his whole mind to the game," she said, and then she turned to
Conroy again. "You have the fortune to be a great favourite with my
aunt, Mr. Conroy," she went on. "I am sure she will be very pleased to
see you in town, and--so shall I. If you will look in the canterbury,
and find me that piece by Schubert which you said you liked so much
when you were here last, I will play it for you again this evening."

The piece was played, and then they fell to talking again. Conroy
asked Ella whether she really meant to inhabit the Hall during the
winter.

"Yes; why not?" was the answer. "I love the old place. It is my home,
and that means everything."

"Very true, Miss Winter--I should think as you do. May I ask," added
Conroy, speaking on the impulse of the moment, and without due
thought, "whether any light has been thrown on the fate of that
missing girl, who--who was so mysteriously lost here?"

"None whatever," answered Ella sadly, the gladness dying out of her
eyes. "A mystery it is, and a mystery it seems likely to remain. I
need scarcely say that it is a great trouble to me. The worst is, the
poor sister, Susan, who is not very bright in intellect, is still
beset by the hallucination, for I can term it nothing else, that on
moonlight nights her sister may sometimes be seen gazing out of her
bedroom window; and she comes up to, as she fancies, look at her.
Nothing can shake her fixed belief that Katherine, either alive or
dead, is still hidden somewhere in the Hall."

"It is strange how the girl's mind should have become so thoroughly
imbued with such an idea."

Ella could not repress a shudder. Might there not, after all, be some
foundation for poor Susan's wild fancies? Whose hands had covered up
the looking-glass in Katherine's bedroom? Whence had come and whither
had vanished that figure which the two housemaids had seen gazing down
upon them from the gallery? How account by any reasonable theory for
the fright undergone by Mrs. Carlyon? It was a mystery that weighed
upon Ella day and night; a burden from which her mind could never
entirely free itself. Many people under like circumstances would have
shut up the old house and made a home elsewhere, but to Ella it seemed
that if the fate of the missing girl were ever to be cleared up it
must be cleared up on the spot; and on the spot she determined to
remain.

Something was said about a picture in the adjoining room--Philip
Cleeve declaring that one of the photographs resembled it. The three
younger members of the party went into the room to solve the question,
leaving Mrs. Carlyon and the Vicar at their game. Hubert Stone saw his
chance; he made a bold stroke, emerged from his hiding-place, silently
crossed the room, and quitted it.

"Who on earth was that?" exclaimed the Vicar.

"Who was what?" asked Mrs. Carlyon, who sat with her back to the
windows and saw nothing.

"Some tall young fellow crossed the room from the window. How did he
come in? It looked like Hubert Stone. Yes; I am sure it was he."

"Oh, then he had probably come in to ask some question or other of his
mistress; and seeing visitors here, went out again," decided Mrs.
Carlyon with composure. "A well-mannered young man, very, that; might
be taken by anyone for a gentleman."

And so the evening came to an end, and Mr. Conroy departed again.

The next departure was that of Mrs. Carlyon. But not before a chaperon
had been fixed upon for the young mistress of Heron Dyke.

Their choice fell upon a Mrs. Toynbee; who was engaged, and arrived at
the Hall. She was a slender, sedate-looking lady of fifty, the widow
of a certain Major Toynbee. Her credentials were unexceptionable, and
her terms high. Ella did not much like her; but, as she said to
herself, we can't have everything just as we like it in this life. She
was kind and gracious to Mrs. Toynbee, as she was to everyone, and
that lady soon made herself at home.

Meanwhile Mr. Hubert Stone was having, as the schoolboys say, rather a
bad time of it. That Conroy was in love with Miss Winter and she with
him, seemed to him clear as the light of day. Could he frustrate this
love? he would ask himself as he paced restlessly the solitary glades
of the park. He knew something which was unknown to them: a great
secret, which neither of them so much as dreamt of. Could he make use
of this knowledge, dangerous though it might be, to part them? He
believed he might. Anyway, it was a thing to be thought of.




CHAPTER VIII.
WHAT DOROTHY SAW IN THE SHRUBBERY.


Ella Winter felt dull after her aunt's departure; the Hall seemed more
lonely than ever. Although that estimable lady, Mrs. Toynbee, might do
very well to fill the position of chaperon and housekeeper-in-chief,
she could never be anything more to Miss Winter. Now it was that she
missed the presence of Maria Kettle: who was still at Leamington with
Mrs. Page. She heard from Maria often, but that was not like seeing
her. One thing Ella could do, and did; she took an active interest in
the welfare of Maria's school, and of the poor old people at whose
cottages Maria was so frequent a visitor when at home. Ella did more
than that, she instructed Philip Cleeve to draw up plans of a new wing
for the school which she determined to build at her own expense, and
as a welcome surprise for Maria when she should return.

Ella's thoughts often dwelt upon that promised visit to London which
she was to pay Mrs. Carlyon. Previously to Conroy's visit to the Hall
she had not looked forward to the visit with any particular pleasure.
_Now_ she counted the number of days that intervened before she should
start, and so see Conroy again. Though the time was not quite fixed,
each morning when she awoke she said to herself, with a little shiver
of happiness, "Another day nearer." Conroy had never spoken one word
of love to her, yet in her heart lay a dim, blissful consciousness
that she was dearer to him than all the world beside.

One day there came an invitation for herself and Mrs. Toynbee to dine
at Homedale. Lady Cleeve did not choose that Philip should be dining
here, there, and everywhere, and make no return for it. So she invited
a few friends, taking the opportunity of Freddy Bootle's being at
Nullington, that he might make one. Captain Lennox and his sister were
included. Lady Cleeve knew little or nothing of them, but she knew how
hospitable they were to Philip: and the Vicar of course was one of the
party. Old Dr. Downes was laid up with the gout, and Mr. Tiplady was
away: but Dr. Spreckley was there. It was a pleasant, informal
gathering, and all felt at ease.

It was only necessary to bring Freddy Bootle into the presence of Ella
for his old flame of love to leap suddenly into life again. This
evening he could do little beyond sigh and look miserable, and polish
his eyeglass perpetually. His usual flow of harmless small talk was as
dried up as a mountain stream at midsummer.

"She's too completely lovely," he whispered to Philip more than once;
while to Lennox he turned and said, "I've such a longing to-night to be
able to write verses. Never had the feeling before. Only they would be
awful rubbish, you know"--which very probably they would have been.

Lady Cleeve took quite a liking for Mrs. Ducie: who indeed charmed all
without conscious effort. She was a great favourite with the Vicar,
and after dinner he sat by her side for an hour. Philip's eyes were
turned towards her very frequently, but his attentions to her were not
more marked than those he paid to any other of his mother's guests.

"A pity poor old Downes could not be here!" remarked Captain Lennox to
Miss Winter, in the course of the evening. "That gout is sure to
attack one at an unseasonable time."

Ella smiled at the last sentence, as she made room for the Captain on
the sofa. "I hope Dr. Downes is not breaking," she said, "but he has
not looked well lately."

"Oh, he is all right: it was only this fit of gout coming on. The last
time I saw him he broke into a lamentation over the loss of his gold
snuffbox: it's not often he speaks of it. That was a curious thing,
by the way."

"Very," assented Ella. "I was away at the time, but I heard about it
on my return. It put me in mind of the loss of my aunt's jewels."

"Why, that's what it put me in mind of; very forcibly, too," returned
Captain Lennox. "I said so to Philip Cleeve."

Both of them turned their eyes on Philip as the Captain spoke. To Ella
it seemed that Philip was strangely restless and excited to-night. His
eyes sparkled and his face looked flushed. "Foolish boy! he has been
drinking too much wine," was her thought; and Mr. Bootle was evidently
of the same opinion.

But they were mistaken. Philip had been in the same restless and
excited mood yesterday, and would be again to-morrow. Captain Lennox
was probably the only person present who could have guessed at the
real cause of it.

"I wonder," resumed Ella, "whether the Doctor will ever find his
snuffbox again?"

"Ah, that's doubtful," said the Captain, gravely shaking his head.
"Not if it was taken by an ordinary thief."

"What do you mean, Captain Lennox?"

"If a common thief stole the box, it would probably be melted down as
soon afterwards as might be. If--if anybody else took it, he would no
doubt sell it for what he could get for it; and the box, in that case,
may some day or other turn up again."

"But why should one not an ordinary thief take it?"

A smile crossed the Captain's lips at the question, as he looked down
at Miss Winter.

"To make money of it, of course," he said, dropping his voice. "A
gentleman hard-up has done as much before, and may do as much again."

Ella looked at the speaker: his tone was peculiar, and she thought he
meant it to be. But he moved away, and said no more.

The party broke up early, remembering Lady Cleeve's delicate health.
Miss Winter offered a seat in her carriage to the Vicar, for whom a
fly was waiting. He preferred the carriage, and dismissed the fly.
After his return home, he nodded a little while in his study over his
cosey bit of fire; but he felt dead sleepy, and soon went up to bed.

The Reverend Francis Kettle had a methodical habit of emptying his
pockets before he began to undress, and laying out their contents on a
low chest of drawers that stood by his bedside. This he proceeded to
do as usual. His card-case, his pencil-case, his gold toothpick,
and his bunch of keys were all put down in due order, but when he came
to feel for the most important item of all, his purse, or small
money-case, made of Russian leather, it was nowhere to be found.
In something of a quandary the Vicar took his candle and went
downstairs. Could he have left it on his study-table in a fit of
absent-mindedness, or had it fallen out of his pocket while he dropped
into that half-doze in his easy-chair?

Very little time sufficed to convince him that the case was nowhere in
the study, and he went back upstairs more nonplussed than ever. The
loss of its contents would not ruin him: it had contained a few
sovereigns and some silver: all the same, he was much put about by its
unaccountable disappearance. He had given the flyman a shilling for
himself on getting out at Lady Cleeve's, and that was the last time he
had had occasion to open the case. However, it was certainly gone now;
and he had as certainly not lost it through any carelessness.

"What in the world is coming to us all?" cried he, testily. "This is a
second edition of Downes's snuffbox. Have we in truth got a black
sheep among us? If so, who is he?"

And it is to be hoped that these repeated losses will not weary the
reader. Events can but be related as they occurred.

The Vicar's roomy, easy-fitting clothes and capacious pockets would
present few difficulties to any clever member of the light-fingered
craft. But, then, he had not been where any light-fingered gentry
could possibly be supposed to be. He had been in the society of his
friends and neighbours: there had not been a single individual at
Homedale that evening whom he did not know. It was a most
unaccountable affair, and the Vicar's sleep that night was by no means
so sound as usual.


We must go for a short space of time to Heron Dyke, preceding Miss
Winter and her companion's return to it that evening. The reader does
not forget that one of the maids had been attacked with sore throat.
Dr. Spreckley soon cured her; but since then a few other cases had
appeared in the neighbourhood of the Hall from time to time. Not
sufficient to constitute an epidemic; though some of the cases were
rather grave, and one individual had died.

On this evening, quite late, Hannah Tilney, the gardener's wife at the
lodge, came up to the Hall. It was past nine o'clock. Her errand was
to ask Mrs. Stone for a small pot of blackcurrant jelly. And Dorothy
Stone was very much put about when she heard that this jelly was
intended for her grandson, Hubert.

"He has got one of them sore throats come on," said Hannah. "It began
yesterday, I know, though he said naught about it, but it's rare and
bad to-day; and not a morsel has he ate."

"He said naught about it here to-day," crustily interposed old Aaron,
echoing some of her words. "He was up here at his books as usual. It
can't be very bad: you women be so easily frightened."

"Well, sir, I know it is bad," persisted Hannah. "He won't take
anything for it, but I thought if I put a bit o' jelly by his bedside
he might suck a spoonful or two in the night. It eases the throat
wonderful, do blackcurrant jelly. And if he should be took worse, I've
not a soul in the house that could run to Nullington for Dr. Jago,
John being at Norwich!"

"Don't hurry away for a minute," cried Dorothy, as Mrs. Tilney was
going off with the jelly. "Aaron," she added in a timid sort of way,
"I should like to go down to the lodge and see him. He may be real
bad: and he's one that would never complain if he was dying."

"You'd think him real bad if he cut his finger, you would," growled
Aaron.

"You must please let me go," pleaded Dorothy, beginning to twitter.

"And who's to sit up for you?" demanded Aaron. "I shan't. It's a'most
ten o'clock now."

"Nobody need sit up," returned Dorothy, trying to be brave, her
fears all alert for her beloved grandson. "I'll take the key of the
side-door, and let myself in. Please mind you don't bolt and bar it."

She put on her bonnet and shawl, took the key, and departed with Mrs.
Tilney. When they reached the lodge, Hubert was not there. He must
have gone out during Hannah Tilney's absence. The children were long
ago abed and asleep.

"He goes out a deal at night," Hannah remarked, "and walks about the
park. My husband sees him pacing away there as swift as a windmill. We
think he does it by way of exercise, sitting so much over his accounts
in the day."

"But he oughtn't to go out when he has got a sore throat," said
Dorothy, untying her bonnet as she sat down in the kitchen to wait.
"He was always venturesome."

Meanwhile Miss Winter and Mrs. Toynbee returned home, and were
admitted by Aaron. He said nothing about his wife's being out.

"You can all go to bed," Miss Winter said to him. "We shall want
nothing more to-night."

And accordingly the household did go, Aaron included. Miss Winter's
maid had retired early in the evening. She had a very bad cold, and
was ordered by her mistress not to sit up.

Taking off their fleecy wraps, the two ladies drew up to the fire in
the sitting-room, and prepared for a cosey half-hour's chat. Neither
felt sleepy, or in the least inclined for bed. Falling into an
animated discussion of present matters and future plans, the time
passed swiftly and unheedingly.

More swiftly than it did for Dorothy at the lodge. Hubert did not come
in: the hands of the clock, ticking over the kitchen mantelpiece, drew
gradually very near to midnight.

"Where can the lad be--and what has become of him?" bewailed Mrs.
Stone.

"He's never as late as this--unless he is at Dr. Jago's, and has to
walk home from Nullington. And I'll tell you what, ma'am," added
Hannah, briskly, the idea occurring to her, "I'd not wonder but that's
where he is gone to-night: and the Doctor, seeing his throat's bad,
won't let him come away again till the morning."

"Maybe it is so," considered Dorothy. "Anyway, I dare not stay any
longer. If my husband's sitting up, though he said he shouldn't, he'll
be fine and cross."

Tying her bonnet and drawing her shawl round her, Dorothy Stone set
off on her lonely walk. She would rather have walked twenty miles in
broad daylight than that short course at midnight. All sorts of fears
and ghostly fancies were in her mind. It was not a dark night, the
stars being well out. Hurrying along with her face down, she had
nearly gained the shrubbery, when the great stable clock struck out
the hour--twelve.

That increased her superstitious fears: and why or wherefore she knew
not, but the night seemed to turn icy cold. She looked back, as by
some subtle instinct, wondering whether anything was following her.
All around seemed as silent as the grave.

Suddenly, as she looked, she thought she saw something stirring at a
distance behind. Something black, which had not been there a moment
ago, and seemed as if it must have risen out of the ground.
Fascinated, she peered out at it, unable to withdraw her gaze, her
face turning white and cold, her heart standing still.

She saw what appeared to be a black hearse, drawn by four headless
horses and driven by a headless coachman. It was coming towards her
pretty swiftly. But that she drew aside amidst the grass, it would
have driven over her. More dead than alive, Dorothy gazed out at it as
it passed noiselessly, without sound of any kind, and she watched it
till it vanished in the distance. It seemed to drive straight against
the wall at the end, where the road took a turn, to go right into the
wall and so disappear.

"The Lord be good to me!" she aspirated. "It wanted but this. I've
never seen the sight myself, though I have heard tell of it by those
who have."

It must be here explained that a belief in the apparition of a black
coach, or hearse, with four headless horses and a headless driver, is
common to many parts of Norfolk, and is not confined to any one
locality. It is supposed to foreshadow the death of some near friend
or relative of the individual who is so unlucky as to see it.

The striking of the midnight hour disturbed Miss Winter and Mrs.
Toynbee. Neither had any idea it was so late. Starting up, Mrs.
Toynbee lighted the bed-candles.

"You go on," said Ella, as she wished Mrs. Toynbee goodnight. "I want
to gather up my work first: I forgot to take it upstairs this
afternoon."

It took her a minute or two to do this. As she was crossing the hall,
candle and other things in hand, she was startled by hearing a noise
in the household regions. It sounded like the back-door being
unlocked. Yes! and now it was burst open with a bang, and a voice that
was certainly old Dorothy's gave vent to a fearful cry. Believing that
everybody was in bed, Miss Winter felt considerable surprise. Dropping
the odds and ends of work, she ran with her candle and found Dorothy
gasping in a chair before the embers of the kitchen fire.

With many moans and sobs, Dorothy related what she had seen.

"But that I sprang aside from its path, Miss Ella, it would have gone
right over me," she reiterated, her teeth chattering; "it made as if
it wanted to. Straight, straight on it came, turning neither to the
right nor the left. Oh, it was an awful sight!"

In spite of herself, Ella could not repress a shudder. The story of
the apparition of the black coach and its headless horses was not
unknown to her.

"And now, Miss Ella, there'll be a death in the house before long,"
shivered the woman. "It is a safe and sure warning of it--and oh,
which of us is it to be?"

To attempt to combat this, would have been a hopeless task: Dorothy
had believed in it as long as she had believed in anything. Miss
Winter contented herself with soothing her in the best way she could,
and, when the old woman had in some measure recovered from her fright,
in obtaining a promise from her not to speak to anyone of what she had
seen that night.

But that was probably too much to expect of Dorothy.




CHAPTER IX.
ON BOARD THE "SEAMEW."


With September the lovely weather suddenly broke up, and a few days
later there was a great storm along the eastern seaboard. One morning
news came to Heron Dyke that during the night a brig of some three
hundred tons burden, the _Seamew_, bound from Dantzic to London, had
struck on the Creffel Bank, and lay there a helpless wreck. Two of the
crew had been washed overboard; the rest, including the master, were
rescued by the Easterby lifeboat. The Creffel Bank was known as one of
the most dangerous spots on that part of the coast, and many a gallant
craft had gone to pieces on its shifting and treacherous shoals.

Miss Winter at once sent Hubert Stone into the village with
instructions to aid the shipwrecked men in whatever way might seem
best. All of them, except the captain, expressed a desire to be
forwarded to London, and were accordingly packed off by rail, their
fares being paid by Hubert. As the brig did not at once break up, when
the storm abated several boats went out to her, and in the course of a
couple of days succeeded in landing that portion of her cargo which
remained unspoiled, and most of her loose fittings; but the little
_Seamew_ herself was so deeply imbedded in the sand that it was
impossible to get her off, and the next gale would doubtless break her
up entirely.

One sunny afternoon, Ella took her sketchbook to the sands, and was
dutifully accompanied by Mrs. Toynbee with a novel. But Ella was not
long in discovering that she was in no mood for sketching, that she
was rather in a mood which inclined to day-dreaming, and to vague
golden visions of some far-off future. Could it be that the recent
visit of Edward Conroy had anything to do with these idle fancies?

At length she shut up her book with a little gesture of impatience,
and strolled slowly down to the farther shore. Mrs. Toynbee sighed and
followed meekly. Her seat had been a comfortable one, and she was in
the middle of an interesting chapter; but duty is duty, however
unpleasant it may be.

The tide was beginning to ebb, and, as the two ladies paced the sands
a little above high-water mark, they presently saw a boat propelled by
a single rower making for the shore. The rower was Hubert Stone, and
the boat belonged to him. He was fond of the water, and often went out
for hours at a time, alone or accompanied by some friend. Ella stood
and watched the boat coming in. It seemed to be making for the spot
where she stood. Hubert's strong and regular strokes propelled it
swiftly through the water, and in a little while it shot gently up the
sands. Putting down his oars, the young man stood up and raised his
straw hat to Miss Winter. How handsome he looked as he stood there in
the afternoon sunshine, with his coat thrown carelessly across his
arm!

"Have you been far?" asked Ella, when he stepped ashore.

"Only as far as New Nullington and back," answered Hubert.

"It must be very pleasant on the water to-day."

"Very pleasant indeed. There is quite a refreshing breeze when you get
a little way out. What do you say, Miss Ella, to letting me pull you
and Mrs. Toynbee as far as the _Seamew_ and back?"

Miss Winter looked at Mrs. Toynbee.

"Oh, that would be very charming, I think," said the latter lady: and
they did not observe that she spoke half ironically.

"Who is on board the brig?" asked Ella.

"George Petherton is there now," said Hubert. "If the weather holds up
fine, they hope to be able to save some more of the cargo; meanwhile
George remains there in charge."

"Then let us go. We shall get back in time for dinner."

She knew George Petherton well. He was one of the oldest and steadiest
boatmen round Easterby.

Without more ado, Ella stepped lightly into the boat and sat down.
Hubert held out his hand to Mrs. Toynbee. But, at the last moment,
that lady's heart failed her; in fact her bravery had been but put on.
Involuntarily she drew back a step or two.

"There is not the slightest cause for alarm, ma'am," said Hubert.

But the boat was a very small one, and looked dreadfully unsafe, she
thought. Then the wreck was more than two miles away, and what was it
that Mr. Stone had just said about there being a pleasant breeze when
you got away from shore? How could any breeze be pleasant at sea?

"I--I don't feel very well, and I think, my dear, I must ask you to
excuse me," she said to Ella, with a little quaver of the voice.

"You are not afraid, are you?" asked Ella, with a smile. "The breeze
when we get out will do you good."

Mrs. Toynbee shuddered.

"Really, my dear, I should feel pleased if you would excuse me," she
said. "I am not at all myself this afternoon: and I am apt to be so
very ill upon the water. Do excuse me--and I will wait for you here."

"Well, I should like to go," responded Ella. "I should like to see the
wreck, and I shall not be long away. You can watch me skimming over
the water."

"I will," assented Mrs. Toynbee, with an air of relief. "I wish you
_bon voyage_, and a safe return."

Hubert waited for no more. He pushed the boat into deeper water, then
got in and took up his oars. He wanted no Mrs. Toynbee in it, not he,
and was glad matters had turned out so. That lady stood on the sands
waving her handkerchief till they were quite a quarter of a mile away
from shore, and then sat down to continue her novel.

But--it may as well be at once mentioned--the expedition took longer
than Mrs. Toynbee had expected. She grew tired of waiting, felt rather
chilly, for she had but a thin gauze shawl on, and she got up at
length and went back to the Hall.

Hubert Stone rowed on with strong steady strokes, feeling like a
man who cannot be sure whether he is dreaming or awake. Could it be
true, he asked himself, that he and his sweet mistress were alone
together--alone on the waste of waters where no living soul could come
between them? Together, yes; but in reality as far as the poles
asunder. Still, to be so near her, to have her as it were all to
himself, though only for one short hour, was both a pleasure and a
pain unspeakable. If they could but have gone on thus for ever,
sailing away into infinity, and never touching land again, unless it
were some desert island untrodden by any footsteps save their own!
Wild, foolish longings! In an hour their little voyage would be at an
end, and never again, in all human probability, would Ella and he be
in a boat together; never alone, as they were to-day. He needed no
prophet to tell him that. Never again!

By-and-by Ella roused herself from her reverie: for she too had fallen
into one. They were nearing the wreck. It lay low on its sandy bed,
slightly heeled over to starboard. There was little more of it left
than the bare hull. Masts and bowsprit had been unshipped and carried
away.

"How quiet and deserted it looks!" she exclaimed. "I don't see George
Petherton."

"We shall have a splendid sunset," remarked Hubert, as he rested for a
moment on his oars, and taking no notice of her words. "See there,
Miss Winter!"

"Yes, many of those cloud-effects are very lovely!"

A few more minutes brought them close to the wreck. Ella was looking
at it steadfastly.

"I do not see George Petherton," she again remarked.

"He is probably below deck, smoking his pipe, or trying to fish up
some more of the cargo. George is not the sort of man to care for
sunset-effects." Hubert said this with a short, hard laugh, which
Ella, preoccupied, took little notice of. It was well perhaps that she
did not see the expression of his face. It had changed strangely
during the last few minutes. His mouth was hard-set, and in his eyes
there sat a look which might have been set down as compounded of
despair, burning passion, and desperate resolve.

Hubert shipped his oars, and made a trumpet of his hands to sing out.
"Hillo there! Petherton--Petherton, I say, where are you?" But there
came no answer; there was no sign of life whatever on board the wreck.

"Can he have gone ashore?" exclaimed Ella, quickly.

"Not likely," returned Hubert. "He is shut in below, smoking his pipe,
and cannot hear: perhaps has dropped asleep. I will go and arouse him.
But let me help you on board first, Miss Winter.--Hark! yes, George is
there, safe enough. I hear him."

He brought the boat up under the lee of the wreck, made her fast with
a rope, sprang lightly on the _Seamew's_ deck, and turned to assist
Miss Winter.

But Ella held back. "Go and tell him to come and help you to get me
up," she said laughingly.

Hubert disappeared down the cabin stairs. He did not come back
immediately. Left alone in the boat, Ella began to feel anxious,
vaguely uneasy. Could she but have divined his treachery! He knew
perfectly well that George Petherton was not on board, that he had
gone ashore at mid-day.

Hubert made his way aft into a little room, not much bigger than a
rabbit-hutch, but which was in reality the captain's cabin. Here he
found a keg of hollands, still about one-third full; near it was a
horn drinking-cup. Twice in quick succession he filled the cup with
neat spirits and drank it off. He was very pale, and there lay still
that same strange lurid light in his eyes.

After drinking the spirits, he stood rigid as a statue, his hands
clenched, his eyes fixed on the ground. "His or mine--his or mine?" he
muttered under his breath. "Not his--not his! Death before that."

Once again he filled the cup and drank its contents. Then he pressed
his hand to his heart for a moment, as though to still some wild
commotion there; and then, as if afraid to hesitate any longer, he
made his way quickly back on deck.

Ella was watching anxiously for him. The moment she saw his white set
face, she became filled with alarm. "What is amiss?" she cried, her
fears flying to the boatman. "Is Petherton ill? Has anything happened
to him?"

"Yes," shortly replied Hubert; "not much. You had better come on
board, Miss Winter."

Ella did not hesitate another moment. She had known George Petherton
all her life, and liked him greatly. A thought came over her that the
man might have fallen and hurt himself amidst the damaged cordage and
rigging.

"Put one foot there and the other here, and give me your hand," said
Hubert. Miss Winter, active and fearless, did as she was bidden. Next
moment she was standing on the deck.

"You will find him aft in the captain's cabin, if you go down," said
Hubert.

Thinking only of the poor old boatman, Ella went slowly down the
little staircase, and was presently lost to view. When Hubert could no
longer see her, he gave a great gasp, and, sinking on one knee, he
laid his head against the bulwarks of the brig. "What have I done?
What have I done?" he cried. "It is too late now to turn back. Too
late!"

He rose slowly when he heard the young lady's returning footsteps. She
came up looking about her.

"I can't find George Petherton," she said. "He is not below. I thought
you told me----"

"I told you a lie, Miss Winter. Petherton went ashore hours ago."

Ella gazed at him in amazement.

"Then why did you say he was on board? What does all this mean?"

"Oh, are you blind?--cannot you guess?" he burst forth, unfolding his
arms and drawing a step nearer to her.

Ella, on her part, stepped back: she was becoming frightened at the
matter altogether, and at the fierce, dreadful look in his eyes.

"I brought you here, knowing we should be alone and beyond the reach
of men, to tell you a secret, Miss Winter. I brought you here because
I love you," he added, flinging himself on his knees before her;
"because I cannot live another day without telling you! I have you to
myself here, and none can interfere."

"Get up instantly," she indignantly cried, with all the bravery she
could command. "Never let me hear another word of this folly. Help me
into the boat again: I will return to the shore." Her heart was
beating very fast and all the colour had left her lips, but there was
a fine fire of anger in her eyes.

"Folly! yes, that is the word for it," answered Hubert, as he rose to
his feet. "Not until you have listened to the whole tale of folly do
you leave this spot."

"You would not dare to detain me?" said Ella, proudly.

"Indeed, but I would: I do. Being in the mood, I would dare much more
than that," boasted Hubert. The spirit he had taken was beginning to
take effect upon him. "Oh, my sweet mistress!" he resumed, his manner
changing to softness, "why do you scorn me thus? How was it possible
for me daily to see you and not love you? Do you think I have
willingly brought this misery on myself? You have blighted my life,
but what of that?--it has been one long worship of you. I have loved
you ever since the days when we used to gather blackberries in the
lanes with your nurse, and dig for pretty shells in the sand."

He paused with emotion. Ella felt more scared with every word.

"Why did not Fate make me your equal instead of your servant? Surely
the force of my love would have drawn yours in return. I have hands to
work for you, I have a brain to plan for you, I have love that would
never grow cold. I am not without manners or education; but, despite
all these things, the world does not count me--a gentleman. I am but a
son of the soil, and I must not dare to look up to any lady with the
eyes of love."

His tone, full of anguish--almost of despair, was respectful now.
Despite Ella's indignation, she felt some compassion for him.

"You must forget all this," she said, with gentle gravity: "and I will
try to forget that you have spoken as you have to-day. You have an
honourable career before you if you choose to follow it, and you may
rely upon my doing all that is in my power to further your interests.
But never must you address me in this strain again; recollect that.
And now I shall be glad if you will row me ashore."

What a revelation his words had been to her! A thousand little tokens,
never noticed before, flashed across her memory.

But Hubert made no movement towards the boat.

"Forget all this! never speak of it again!" he exclaimed with renewed
bitterness. "What easy words to say! There is one thing I should like
to remind you of, Miss Ella; it may lessen my seeming presumption. My
mother was a lady born; but she left friends, station, everything, to
follow my father's humble fortunes. Other gentlewomen there are, who
have sacrificed all for love, and deemed the world well lost."

This persistence annoyed Ella while it frightened her. She had never
seen the expression on his face that it wore this afternoon, and she
shuddered while she looked. Surely this could not be the Hubert Stone
she had known for so many years! It was the spirit of some demon which
had got possession of him and was looking out of his eyes. She had
seen that other kind of spirit below, and rightly deemed that he had
been making free with it. It might not answer to be too severe with
him.

"Will you not let me go? I am tired," she said, pleasantly. "You are
not like yourself, Hubert. I hardly know you this afternoon."

"Faith, I hardly know myself," he answered, with a strange, jarring
laugh. "It is all your fault: you have ruined me, body and soul."

Ella cast an imploring glance towards the distant shore. She was
growing desperately frightened. Again his mood changed to tenderness.

"Oh, my sweet mistress, is there no hope for me?" he wailed. "Is there
none, none? No man else could love you as I love; no heart could be as
faithful as mine would be."

"Hubert Stone, enough of this," cried Ella, her fears merged in her
indignation. "Once and for all, understand that you could never be
anything to me in the way you speak of. If you have the slightest
spark of honour, you will not persecute me further."

There was scorn in her voice and indignation in her eyes, but never
had he seen her look more beautiful than at that moment.

"I wish the lightning of your eyes could strike me dead at your feet,"
he exclaimed. "It would be better both for you and me. I know it is
useless to ask for that which it is not in your power to give. Your
secret is known to me, Miss Winter, well hidden though it be. You love
another, and you believe that he loves you in return."

She opened her lips to answer, but closed them again. A lovely colour
flushed the alabaster of her cheeks.

Close to the bulwarks she had drawn now, and could get no farther
away. He stepped nearer, and laid one finger lightly on her arm.

"I heard all that passed between you and him the other evening," he
said, staring straight into her eyes.

"All that passed between _whom?_" gasped Ella.

"Between you and that man--that Mr. Conroy--your lover. I heard his
low-voiced questions and all your soft replies. You gave no scorn or
contempt to him: yet am I not as good as he, and do I not love you a
thousand times better?"

"Let me pass, sir, this moment! How dare you insult me thus!" she
cried, brought to bay. "If I could but strike him to the ground!" was
her unspoken thought.

"You shall go when I am ready to let you go, and not one minute
before," answered Hubert. "You love this man: I know it from the
way you speak to him, from the way you look at him. And he loves
you--apparently. But--I beg you listen to me, Miss Winter. I have
something I must say. That man is wise in his generation. He waited
until your uncle was dead, and Heron Dyke yours, and then--not before,
mark you--he comes with his low, honeyed words to steal away your
heart. But now--are you listening?"

What could she do but listen?

"Dare to wed that man," he went on, "and, on the day you do so, the
secret I have kept for your sake shall be a secret no longer. The
world shall ring with it."

"A secret for my sake!" she exclaimed in her surprise.

"It would be a grand thing for this adventurer, this journalist--this
newspaper hack, to become the master of Heron Dyke, would it not? _He_
thinks so. But that he shall never be."

"Be silent, sir. You know not what you are saying."

"Unfortunately, I know too well. Should he marry you, he will not find
you the heiress he expects. He will find too late that his wife has no
more title to the estates of Heron Dyke than I have; that what she
holds, she holds by _fraud_. By fraud alone."

"By fraud!" Anxious though she was to get away, Hubert's words
startled her. "What do you mean?"

"I mean this, Miss Winter. A dozen words from me, and Heron Dyke would
know you as its mistress no more."

"Then speak those words," said Ella, bravely. "It is your bounden duty
to do so. I have no wish to keep what belongs to another."

Her tone was clear and decided. She believed there was something in
this: that he meant what he said.

"Why should I speak them--and injure you? No. Give up this man, who
cares only for your money, and my lips shall be sealed for ever."

"Do your duty, that is all I ask. I have no other word to say to you."

"Will you promise to give up this man?"

"No."

"Beware! You are driving me to desperation."

"I cannot help that."

"You have not a better word to say to me?"

"Not one."

"So be it. You have driven me to do it. Remember that."

"What would you do?" she asked, a little faintly.

"You shall see."

He crossed to where the boat that had brought them was tied to the
wreck. He unfastened the rope that held it, and let it drop into the
water. Then he took up a broken spar and pushed the boat away. The
tide was still on the ebb, and the boat floated slowly out to sea.

Ella sprang forward.

"You would not murder me!" she exclaimed.

"No, I will not murder you," he answered, quietly. "But since the
Fates have willed that we shall not live together, we can at least die
together."

Ella sank back faint and dizzy. Could it be that the only link between
themselves and the shore was really broken? There was no other boat
near, and two miles of water intervened between the wreck and the
land. It was terrible to think of the doom to which this madman had
possibly condemned her.

Madman! Was it not likely that he was one in reality? It flashed
across Ella's mind that, long years before, she had heard that Hubert
Stone's mother had died insane. Had he inherited the awful malady, and
had this day's agitation brought it suddenly out? In terrible fear she
glanced across at him.

He was standing on the opposite side of the deck, lighting a cigar.
His hat was off, and the breeze ruffled his black, silky hair. Could
anything but madness account for his actions this afternoon? Ella
shuddered and hid her eyes, and tried to think. The pulses of life
beat strongly within her. It was hard to realise that the end--and
such an end--was so near.

Presently Hubert came a little nearer. He was puffing quietly at his
cigar. All traces of his previous excitement had disappeared.

"The barometer has been going down all day," he observed, "and the
wind is beginning to rise. It will blow a gale during the night, the
wreck will break up, and when daylight comes, the _Seamew_ will have
disappeared for ever."

Miss Winter made no answer.

"A few days hence," he resumed slowly, "two bodies will be washed
ashore--those of a man and a woman; and the woman will be so closely
locked in the arms of the man that people will not be able to separate
them. They will be buried together, and she who would not be his bride
in life shall be his bride for ever in the grave."

"That shall never be," said Ella to herself, with a shudder. But she
spoke no word aloud.

"Meanwhile, Miss Winter, you have nothing to fear. We have still some
hours before us."

By this time the boat looked a mere speck in the distance. Sunset
splendours flooded the western sky. In mid heaven, borne swiftly away
by some upper current, were ragged shreds and fragments of cloud,
looking like crimson fleeces that had been roughly torn asunder; but
in the north and north-east an ominous-looking bank of sullen sky was
climbing out of the sea, and creeping slowly up towards the zenith.
There was not much wind, but what there was blew in fitful puffs that
went as suddenly as they came, hurrying away to whisper elsewhere of
the coming storm. The tide had begun to turn, and was bringing with it
a heavier swell. Now and then the timbers of the ship creaked and
strained; it was as though the brave old brig knew that its end was
near, and could not repress its groans. In another hour darkness would
reign over land and sea.

Hubert went on smoking in silence, lighting a second cigar when the
first one was finished, and--what could Ella say? Even if she were to
appeal to him to save her life, and he listened to her appeal, it
would be useless. The boat was gone beyond recovery, and with it their
last chance of reaching the shore. A few short hours, and then would
come the bitter end; one brief struggle, and that coil of joys,
sorrows, and perplexities which we call Life would have snapped like a
broken dream, and the unknown awful dawn of Eternity would be shining
in her eyes.

She was sitting crouched up against the bulwarks, her face hidden in
her hands. Never had the wheels of thought moved more swiftly, she had
so many things to think of, and so little time to give to them! She
thought of Mrs. Toynbee sitting placidly reading her novel in the
drawing-room at Heron Dyke--for that she had gone home ere this, Ella
did not doubt--looking at her watch occasionally, and wondering what
had become of the runaway, but otherwise quietly enjoying herself.

Next her thoughts flew off to Edward Conroy. Where was he at that
moment, and what was he doing? Oh! if he only knew the bitter strait
she was in! Ella no longer attempted to disguise from herself the fact
that she loved him. Would she ever see him again on earth? A blinding
rush of tears filled her eyes, and for a little while she felt as if
the bitterness of death were already upon her. But before long she
grew calmer, silently praying that help and strength might be given
her; and she did not pray in vain.

"Are you not cold, Miss Ella?" asked Hubert, by-and-by. "Is there
nothing I can do for you?"

"I am not cold, and all my wish is to be left alone," she answered.

He turned away with a groan, and muttered something under his breath.

"I would give my heart's blood for you," he cried passionately. "But
you shall never be the wife of that man. I have sworn it, and I will
keep my oath. We will die together."

Striding off, he gave a look round at the weather, and went below.
Probably in search of more hollands.

Ella rose to her feet as he disappeared. She felt cramped and chilled,
and everything seemed to swim before her. She strained her eyes across
the darkling waters, and, while she was looking, the lamps of Easterby
lighthouse flashed suddenly out. The sight made her heart beat more
quickly. With help so near, it was hard to realise that there was no
help for her. The great bank of cloud was still creeping slowly up,
and the wind was beginning to pipe more shrilly. What was that madman
doing below? If he would but stay there, and not come on deck again!

But--while she was looking and listening--a strange, wild idea, born
of despair, flashed across her mind as suddenly and clearly as the
rays from the lighthouse lamps had flashed across her sight. For a
moment she stood with her fingers pressed to her temples, asking
herself whether she should do this thing or not. Yes! In it lay her
only hope of rescue. The staircase which Hubert had gone down could be
shut up in bad weather, by means of a hinged door, which at present
stood wide open. It was the work of a moment for Ella to shut this
door and shoot the bolt into the staple. Her enemy was a prisoner.

Broken boxes and other wreckage lumbered the deck. There was also a
small tub containing a quantity of tar. Ella quickly made a pile of
these boxes, and poured the tar over them. Then she tore a number of
leaves out of her sketchbook and put them under the boxes. Hubert's
fusee-box lay close by, where he had left it. After some little
difficulty, she succeeded in setting light to the paper, the tar
caught fire, and in a little while a bright sheet of flame was leaping
toward the sky.

This was effected just as Hubert found out that he was imprisoned. He
shook the door and flung himself against it with all his strength. To
no purpose. He found a heavy piece of wood, and began battering the
door with all his might. The blows filled Ella's soul with affright.
Surely, surely, she said to herself, her signal would be seen from
shore, and help would come--sent by God. But--would it come in time?
would it come before that caged madman succeeded in breaking loose?
She was partly crouching, partly kneeling, a little way off the fire.

Suddenly, the faint sound of what seemed a far-off shout fell upon her
straining ears. Even while she asked herself whether it was only
fancy, it grew more distinct. Help must be approaching. The revelation
was too much for her. Hubert's blows grew fainter in her ears, and she
fell on the deck bereft of sense and feeling.




CHAPTER X.
RESCUER AND RESCUED.


It seemed to be a perilous situation: lying on the brig there, alone
and insensible, without certainty of rescue. But help had come: and
when Miss Winter opened her eyes to consciousness, the first sight she
awoke to was the face of Edward Conroy, bent tenderly over her.
Kneeling on one knee, he was chafing her hands gently; and at a little
distance stood two of the Easterby boatmen.

"You are better now?" said Mr. Conroy. "Yes, I am better now," Ella
replied mechanically. Her mind just yet only recognised one fact, that
Conroy was by her side. He assisted her to rise. When she stood up and
looked round, all the events of the afternoon flashed across her mind
in a moment. What happy accident had brought Conroy, of all people in
the world, to her rescue? But it was not a time to ask questions: that
could be done afterwards.

"The sooner we get ashore the better," said Conroy. "Are you well
enough to venture?"

"Quite well enough," answered Ella, with a rush of tears. "A little
while ago I thought I should never set foot on shore again."

"But what became of the boat that brought you to the wreck?--and what
has become of Mr. Stone?"

"The rope that held the boat became unfastened, and the tide carried
it away," she slowly answered, after a long pause.

But Hubert Stone, she mentally asked herself--what could have become
of him: was he below still? Conroy repeated the question. He had heard
from Mrs. Toynbee that it was Stone who had rowed Ella to the wreck.

"He--he went into the cabin," said Ella, shrinking from speaking too
openly. "He went down first of all to look for George Petherton, and
found he was not on board. He was below when I fainted."

"We'll soon see after him. You can be getting into the boat again," he
added to the men.

The cabin door had been broken open: by Stone, of course. Conroy only
supposed it had been done in the wreck, and descended the stairs.
Presently he returned.

"Stone is not below. He is certainly not on board. I have looked
everywhere."

"But he must be on board," said Ella, who did not wish to leave him to
his fate, although he had behaved so ill to her. "He had no means of
getting away. The little boat was gone."

"Unless he swam on shore," suggested Conroy. "A good swimmer could do
it."

One of the men looked up to speak.

"Hubert Stone is one of the best swimmers we have, sir. The young lady
knows it. He must ha' swum after the boat."

"Look here," interposed the other man: "as we were nearing the brig
here, I saw something moving through the water a goodish distance off;
but whether it was a man, or what it was, I couldn't make out."

"It must have been Stone that you saw," said Mr. Conroy. "In any case,
he is not here. He must have gone to get help for you," he added to
Ella: "a brave fellow!--though he had the tide all in his favour."

That it was Stone the man had seen there could be little doubt of.
Conroy helped Ella into the boat, and the men rowed away.

It was almost dusk now. The great black bank of cloud was still
climbing slowly up from the sea, and had shut out half the sky. The
wind had risen considerably during the last half-hour, and the tide
was rolling in in huge sullen masses of blue-green water, with here
and there a white-topped wave.

"We shall have plenty of dirty weather before morning," remarked one
boatman to the other.

Ella and Conroy sat in the stern of the boat. He had wrapped his
ulster round her to protect her from the wind. Also, he had taken
possession of one of her hands, and she made no attempt to withdraw
it. When he had her heart already, why should she refuse him
possession of her hand?

Ella shut her eyes and tried to realise her happiness. Oh, the
difference that one short half-hour had made! She could hardly believe
this, the sitting there, to be more than a blissful dream.

"What strange chance was it that brought you here to-day?" she said to
him at last. "Did you drop down from the sky? How else did you come?"

"I came by a very slow train that was an hour longer on the road than
it might have been," answered Conroy. "My employers ordered me abroad
yesterday. Not very far this time. Only to Spain."

"For long?"

"I may be away three months, or I may be away six. It was impossible
for me to start until I had seen you again."

There was something in his tone, as he spoke these words, that
thrilled Ella's heart, and made her cheeks flush rosy-red. She was
glad that it was too dark for him to see her face.

"I walked from the station direct to the Hall," resumed Conroy, after
a pause. "Mrs. Toynbee told me where you had gone. She was beginning
to be a little uneasy at your long stay on board. Not much so, only in
her placid way. 'Miss Winter's movements cannot always be calculated
beforehand,' she said to me."

Conroy spoke in imitation of Mrs. Toynbee's mincing way of speaking.
Ella laughed.

"I believe she sets me down in her own mind as the most erratic and
eccentric young woman it has ever been her fortune to live with."

"What a pity you are not more commonplace. She would like you so very
much better," said Conroy. "However, though Mrs. Toynbee might be
satisfied to account for your absence after her easy fashion, it did
not satisfy me. I walked down to the village, and inquired among the
boatmen whether any of them had seen you return. Several of them had
seen you go out to the wreck, but no one had seen you come back, and
they could not think what was keeping you. Then I hesitated no longer.
I hired a boat, and got these two worthy fellows to accompany me. When
we were about half a mile from shore we saw a bright tongue of flame
leap suddenly up on the wreck: we knew that you must be in distress,
and the men redoubled their efforts at the oars. The rest you know."

Conroy felt the hand that he was holding press his fingers softly.

"I had given up all hope of rescue," said Ella. "It must have been the
special hand of Providence that brought you down to-day!"

"All the same, it was excessively careless of Hubert Stone not to make
sure that the boat was fast; unpardonably so. In his place I should
never forgive myself."

Ella made no response. Conroy judged from her silence that the matter
had too thoroughly frightened her to be a pleasant topic of
conversation: so he did not again allude to it. Stone had no doubt
done his best to remedy his neglect by swimming off to get succour,
and so for the present nothing more was said.

What a thankful heart was Ella's when she stepped out of the boat on
to the sandy beach! She had been mercifully snatched from what at one
time seemed certain death, and she was profoundly grateful to Him
"whose mercy endureth for ever."

The villagers had seen the signal on the wreck, and men, women, and
children hurried down to the shore. They crowded round Ella when she
stepped out of the boat, and greeted her and Conroy with heartfelt
cheers. Then Ella broke down. Her tears came hot and fast, and for a
little while she could not say a word to any of them. A fly was soon
obtained from the inn, and she was driven to the Hall. As they neared
it, she looked at Conroy, who sat opposite to her.

"Please not to say anything to Mrs. Toynbee about what has occurred,"
she said, "or that you had to fetch me from the wreck. She will hear
it to-morrow, of course; but really I feel that I could not bear
questioning to-night."

And most adroitly did Conroy parry Mrs. Toynbee's remarks. The row on
the sea had been longer than Miss Winter had expected, he said, and
she was very tired.

Little sleep did Ella get that night. However tired she might be, her
mind was intensely awake and excited; and the cold grey dawn was
stealing into her room before she closed her eyes in forgetfulness.
All through the night the wind blew in great gusts round the old
house, the rain smote like whips on window and casement, and the
thunderous beat of the sea on the low, sandy beach grew louder and
more loud as the dark hours slowly dragged themselves away. It was a
great storm: and one inmate of the Hall at any rate, apart from Miss
Winter, had her rest broken by it.

This was a stranger, named Betsy Tucker, who had entered the Hall as
an additional servant a week or two before, the place having been
procured for her by Mrs. Keen. The mother of this young woman had once
lived at Nullington; she had recently died, and the daughter wrote to
Mrs. Keen, who had been a companion of her mother in early life, to
ask if she could find her a good situation; upon which the landlady
spoke for her to Miss Winter, hearing that a third housemaid was
needed at the Hall.

The girl, who knew nothing of the superstitious reports rife at Heron
Dyke, slept in a room by herself. On this night she could not get to
sleep for the noise of the wind; suddenly, during its pauses, she
heard, or thought she heard, footsteps pacing the corridor outside her
door. Much startled, the girl held her breath, and became convinced
she was not mistaken: she heard them distinctly. They came and went
several times, once or twice they were accompanied by a low moan.
Betsy lay working herself into a fever.

She could bear this in the dark no longer; so she struck a match and
lighted her candle. Then, as she was sitting up in bed listening to
the footsteps, she heard them stop close to her door, and saw the
handle of the door move; some one was turning it from the outside. For
the moment she forgot that she had locked it; she screamed aloud; and,
throwing her arms out of bed in her terror, upset the candle, and was
left in darkness.

"You may be sure there was no more sleep for me all night," said
Betsy, when relating this to her fellow-servants the following
morning. "But now--who could have been there? I heard the steps, and I
heard the moans, and I saw the handle of the door turn: it's as true
as that I am here to tell you."

Such was the story she whispered. Her awe-struck listeners thought of
Katherine Keen, but not one of them mentioned the name. Betsy slept
alone, and they would not frighten her unnecessarily.

Early in the day came tidings that the _Seamew_ was no longer to be
seen. As predicted, the brig had gone to pieces during the gale. Ella
shuddered when the news was told her: could it be that Hubert Stone
was still on board? Several planks and some broken spars were washed
ashore in the course of the following tide.

The moment Ella had awakened that morning, the warning spoken by
Hubert rang in her ears: "What you hold, you hold by fraud: a dozen
words from me, and Heron Dyke would know you as its mistress no more."
Surely, she reasoned, they could be the words of no other than a
madman!

Nevertheless, they haunted her. What--she could not help asking
herself--what if they were true?--what then?--was there any hidden
secret--any fraud connected with her succession to the property? She
could not think it possible. Still, do what she might, she did not get
them out of her mind. Last night, in the joy of her deliverance from a
cruel death, and under the glad influence of Conroy's presence, she
had thought but little of them; but this morning, when her mind was
fresh and clear, they were branded on her memory as if with a red-hot
iron.

Nothing was seen of Hubert at the Hall that day, and Miss Winter made
no inquiry respecting him. She thought it not unlikely, after what had
passed between them, that he would have the grace to absent himself
for a little time. Conroy had spoken of the keg of spirits and the
horn drinking-cup he saw below--in fact, she had seen them herself;
she felt little doubt that Hubert had imbibed some, which in a degree
might account for his ill-behaviour, and that he was now ashamed of
himself. It would be impossible to retain him as steward at the Hall,
but Miss Winter could recommend him elsewhere. Meanwhile she did not
intend to speak of what had passed, but to bury it in oblivion. It was
not a pleasant thing in any way, either to speak or to think of.

Mr. Conroy was at Heron Dyke betimes on the morning after the visit to
the wreck. He was anxious to hear that Ella had suffered in no way
from her adventure: at least, that was what he told Mrs. Toynbee, for
Miss Winter was not yet downstairs when he reached the Hall; but there
may have been some other motive in his mind of which he did not choose
to speak. What a glad light leapt into Ella's eyes when she walked
into the room and saw who was there! Conroy's earnest face brightened
as if with a sudden burst of sunshine, while he took her hand for a
moment and inquired after her health. Truth to tell, Ella had a slight
headache this morning, but not for worlds would she have owned to it.
They sat and talked about the gale and other matters, but never
alluded to the adventure on the wreck, Mrs. Toynbee interposing one of
her little commonplaces now and again; and so the time wore on till
luncheon.

"Won't you go out for a short walk with me, Miss Winter?" asked
Conroy, as they rose from the meal. "You have no idea how delightful
the park is after last night's rain."

"Delightful!" exclaimed Mrs. Toynbee. "Why, the footpaths must be in a
complete puddle."

"So they are, madam. But, none the less, I maintain that the park this
morning is delightful."

"And there's still enough wind to almost carry you away; and the rain
may recommence at any moment! persisted the lady.

"Those are facts it would be useless to dispute," rejoined Conroy,
equably.

"On such a day I am sure Miss Winter would be far better indoors."

"Nay, I think it just the day to be out," said Ella, with a blush and
a smile; "and I have thick boots, you know, Mrs. Toynbee. A little
wind, a little sunshine, and the possibility of a shower: what more
could any reasonable creature wish for? Mr. Conroy, I shall be ready
in three minutes."

Mrs. Toynbee shrugged her shoulders in mild protest, but she said no
more.

The paths in the park were certainly very sloppy, and the wind when
they faced it almost took away their breath; but what cared those two
for such trifles? they but served to enhance the charms of their walk.
Conroy took a turning that led to the shore. "Not that way, please,"
said Ella, with a slight shudder. She did not care to look upon the
sea again at present; so they turned their faces another way, finding
a dry and sheltered walk, where they were free from the impertinences
of the wind, by the edge of the plantation of young larches which
covered a piece of rising ground to the left of the Hall. Here they
paced backwards and forwards for upwards of an hour.

The rain last night had washed the atmosphere so that even the most
distant objects looked sharp and clearly defined. Away over the sea,
the sun streamed down through a rift in the grey, low-hanging clouds,
that widened out one minute till a glimpse of blue sky could be seen
beyond it, and the next contracted its fleecy walls again till nothing
was left save a thin shaft of blinding light that smote the water like
a golden spear. Faint resinous odours were wafted fitfully from the
plantation; in the hollows of the footpaths tiny pools of rain-water
shivered in the cool September wind.

Ella seemed in a peculiarly happy mood. Why she should be so she could
not have explained even to herself, for had not Conroy told her that
he was about to go away for an indefinite length of time, and was not
the echo of Hubert Stone's mysterious words ringing in her memory? But
so it was. She could no more account for her gladness than a child can
for its fondness for play. Had she any faintest premonition, had her
heart secretly warned her that a momentous instant was at hand? Be
that as it may, Ella found fifty different things to talk about, and
seemed nervously anxious not to let the conversation flag for a
moment. She had all sorts of questions to ask about Spain, the country
and the people, as though she had never read a book about it in her
life. She hoped that Conroy would not run into any unnecessary danger,
and now and then at intervals he must send her a little sketch of some
place that he had visited, just to prove to her that he was still
alive. She had often had an idea that she should like to learn
Spanish, and had been told that it was nearly as musical as Italian.
She would buy a grammar and dictionary at once; it would be a capital
occupation for the long evenings of the coming winter; and when Mr.
Conroy should return in spring she should doubtless be able to greet
him in the choicest Castilian.

Suddenly Ella paused in her talk to stand still. The clock over the
Hall stables was striking the hour. "I did not suppose it was so
late," she exclaimed. "I should have thought that the old clock was an
hour fast, but that I know how painfully accurate it always is. We had
better return. After what happened yesterday, Mrs. Toynbee may be
sending the bellman round the village to cry me as lost."

"Give me ten minutes more, and then we will go," said the young man.
"Who can tell when we shall see each other again?"

Ella tacitly assented, and they took a turn or two in silence. All her
high spirits seemed suddenly to have deserted her.

"Before leaving you I have a few words to say to you: it was to say
them that I have come all the way from London,"--and Conroy took one
of her hands in his as he spoke thus, even as he had taken it last
evening in the boat. Ella's heart gave a great bound, she drew in her
breath with a half sigh and trembled from head to foot.

"Ella--may I dare to call you so?--I could not go away without telling
you how I love you, without telling you that I have loved you from the
moment I first set eyes on you that evening last year at Mrs.
Carlyon's, and that I can never cease to love you while I live! I
could not go away--Ella, I _could_ not--without asking you whether I
may come and claim you as my wife when I return."

He held both her hands by this time, and was gazing down fondly into
her face. She had turned very pale when he first began to speak, but
by the time he had done two blush-roses burned in her cheeks. Tremors
of love, and joy, and happiness unspeakable thrilled her heart. She
was standing with downcast eyes, and she stood thus for a little while
after he had ceased speaking. Her breath came and went quickly, the
tears were rising. Another moment and she had lifted her glance to
his. Her lips were quivering with emotion, but from her eyes,
love--love not to be mistaken for anything else--looked out at Conroy
through a mist of tears. Not one word did she say; there was no
necessity to say it. That one look told Conroy all he cared to know.
He folded her in his arms, he pressed his lips to hers, he whispered
words in her ears sacred to her alone.

As they were walking slowly back arm in arm through the park, Conroy
broke the thrilling silence. "Do you know, cara mia, what the world
will call me? It will brand me as a fortune-hunter, and say that I
should never have sought you for my wife had you not been the mistress
of Heron Dyke."

The words sent a shock through her, like a dart. Was she the mistress
of Heron Dyke? She was not, if there were truth in what Hubert Stone
had declared to her. Her lover's constancy might be put to the test
before long in a way he little dreamed of now. "You can afford to
smile at anything the world may choose to say," she answered. "So can
I so long as I have vanity enough to think that you care for me for
myself alone."

"But that I had the fear of your broad acres before my eyes I should
have spoken to you long ere this," he answered. "Had your uncle been a
poor man, or you not his heiress, I should have asked you at his hands
last autumn."

How sweet the words sounded to her--how true was their ring!--and
after what that other man had said!

"Suppose that when you return from Spain, you should find that I am no
longer mistress of Heron Dyke!" she cried impulsively. "Suppose you
should find that, by some mischance or other, I am poor instead of
rich? What would you say then to your intended wife?"

"I should say, 'What seems to you a loss has made me one of the
happiest fellows alive.' I should say, 'Let us marry at once, however
humble our home may be.' I should say, 'I am glad that your riches
have taken to themselves wings; it is only fit and proper that a man
should work for his wife.' I don't think," he added, "that I could
love you more than I do now, but somehow you might perhaps seem closer
to me if you came to me as the beggar-maid went to King Cophetua."

Ella sighed. It was happiness to hear him talk thus; and yet his words
brought to her a sting of pain. How glad she would be to endow him
with every worldly good--and who seemed so fit to be the master of
Heron Dyke? And yet, perhaps--who could say?--he might love her all
the better if she went to him in a cotton gown, with a simple flower
in her hair.

"But what makes you talk as if Heron Dyke and you were about to part
company?" he presently asked.

"Perhaps we may be: I cannot tell," she answered, a cloud as of
trouble passing over her face.

Conroy saw it, and looked perplexed. He bit his lip.

"Pardon me, Ella, but I do not see how anything of that kind could
come to pass. Your uncle was too shrewd a man not to take every proper
precaution in a matter so gravely important."

Ella did not answer for a few moments, and when she spoke it was with
hesitation. "Might there not be such a thing as a flaw in the title?"

Conroy started slightly. "In his title, do you mean? I cannot think of
anything more improbable. Have you any reason for suggesting this?"

"Here we are at home," said Ella hurriedly, for they had reached it.
"I cannot tell you anything more, and you must please not ask me to.
In any case, whatever happens, I trust that I shall be enabled to do
my duty."

"That I am sure you will always do," responded Conroy, warmly.
"Remember," he added in a low tone, "that in good fortune or evil
fortune my love for you can never change."

They were standing under the porch, not yet having rung. She looked up
with a shy sweet smile as he spoke. The opportunity was too tempting
to be resisted; he might not have another one for ever so long. He was
an audacious man in many ways, and before Ella was aware, his arms
were round her and his lips pressed to hers.




CHAPTER XI.
NOTHING VENTURE, NOTHING WIN.


Maria Kettle returned from Leamington in mourning. Mrs. Page was dead,
and had left Maria two thousand pounds. "Better than nothing of
course," grumbled the Vicar; "but she might just as well have made it
three or four thousand while she was about it." He had always thought
she would. Maria was truly glad to get back home again, and she told
nobody about her little fortune. She and Ella met like sisters who had
been long parted. What a number of things they had to say to each
other, yet each shrank from speaking of that which lay closest to
their hearts. Maria said nothing about her semi-engagement to Philip
Cleeve, while Ella did not mention Edward Conroy. It seemed such a
little while ago since they were mutually affirming that they would
never marry--or at least not for many years to come; and yet, after
all their grand resolutions, when put to the test, they had proved no
stronger minded than the rest of their sex. Each felt slightly ashamed
to think of all this; yet, strange to say, neither of them would have
exchanged her present bondage for that past freedom. But a great blow
was about to fall on Maria.

The more the Reverend Mr. Kettle puzzled over the loss of his purse,
the more inclined he was to connect Philip Cleeve with it in some way.
He did not absolutely say to himself that Philip had taken the purse,
but it was strange how the young man's image always came into his mind
in connection with the loss. It may be that he owed this feeling to
Dr. Downes.

He and Dr. Downes, being fellow-sufferers, for the Doctor had never
heard more of his gold snuffbox, had got into the habit of talking
with one another. Talking begets talking, and perhaps the old Doctor
said more than he had meant to say. Anyway, one day the Vicar heard
for the first time about Philip's frequent visits to the billiard-room
of the Rose and Crown, and about the high play with Lord Camberley and
others that went on at The Lilacs.

"What a young idiot he must be!" exclaimed the indignant Vicar: and
Dr. Downes nodded assent.

"And if there's anything between Cleeve and your daughter, as I fancy
there is," added the old man,  "I should put my veto on it--at least
for the present. Master Philip has fallen into bad ways, that's quite
evident; and even if these ugly suspicions about him should turn out
to have no foundation in fact, he ought to alter very much before he
is fit to marry so nice a girl as Maria."

The Vicar ruffled his white hair with his fingers, and could not help
admitting that the Doctor's view was the right one. There had been a
sort of tacit agreement between himself and Lady Cleeve that one day
the two young people should marry, provided they cared sufficiently
for each other: and--and he believed they did care. It grieved him to
see his old friend's son going so far astray; but his duty to his
daughter was paramount, and other considerations must give way to it.

After Maria's return from Leamington, the Vicar spoke to her, entering
upon the subject abruptly.

"Maria, I hope there is no foolish engagement between you and Philip
Cleeve?"

Maria's heart began to beat. "There is no engagement, papa."

"But something has passed between you, has it not? He has said
something to you, eh?"

"Philip certainly spoke to me before I went to Leamington; but, papa,
there is not an engagement."

"Should he speak to you again you must give him no encouragement; none
whatever. Understand that, Maria."

Her poor heart was throbbing fitfully. "But--but why, papa?"

The Vicar told her why. Of the billiards at the Rose and Crown, and
the high play at The Lilacs. "There were other things," he added,
"which he should not speak of--meaning, of course, the Doctor's gold
snuffbox, and his own purse.

"It seems to me that he must be becoming a practised gambler, Maria,"
wound up Mr. Kettle, "playing as he does with rich men like Camberley
and Lennox. They can afford it; Philip can't. Putting all that aside,
he is not progressing in his profession; so what likelihood is there
of his making a home to take a wife to?"

"Mr. Tiplady has some intention of taking him into partnership; Philip
told me so."

"I take it that Tiplady is far too shrewd a man to do anything of the
kind."

Maria sighed. "We may be misjudging him, papa."

"We are not misjudging him. Don't I tell you there are other reasons
why you should have nothing more to do with Philip?--matters which I
do not choose to speak of openly."

"It seems rather hard, papa, that I should be asked to condemn Philip
without knowing what he has done."

"Good gracious, Maria! have I not given you reasons enough? Could he
become your husband without a radical alteration in his mode of life?
As for the other matters I hinted at, the less said about them, at
present, the better. I hope with all my heart that things may not turn
out so bad as they seem."

"Then all Philip's promises to me before I went away have proved of no
avail," mourned Maria to herself. "He still goes to The Lilacs, he
still frequents the billiard-room. Why has he not more strength of
mind? And what are those mysterious hints which papa threw out of
something still worse? Oh, Philip, Philip!"

That there must be some weighty cause, apart from what she knew, to
make her easy and tolerant father speak so severely, Maria felt
assured of. She never thought to rebel at the mandate; but it seemed
to her that Philip grew all the dearer to her heart.

She had a speedy proof that the Vicar was very much in earnest. He
gave orders in the household that whenever Mr. Cleeve called he was
not to be admitted. Philip did call; again and again; and at last he
understood that the door was closed to him. It made Philip very angry,
and he set himself to waylay Maria out of doors.

One morning he met her suddenly in a pretty, green lane just outside
the town, and had accosted her before Maria well knew he was there.

"Good-morning, Maria," he said, stopping her and holding out his hand.
What could she do but put out hers in return?

"Good-morning," she rejoined.

"I was sorry to hear about Mrs. Page's death; it must have been a
mournful time for you. You have been back a week, have you not?"

"About that."

"And I have called at the Vicarage nearly every day, only to be denied
to you. Mr. Kettle is not to be seen, and Miss Kettle is not to be
seen, are the answers I get. Of course I can only conclude that I am
no longer welcome. Now, Maria, what is the meaning of it?"

Maria was thoroughly distressed. She knew not what to say. How dear he
was to her! How his very voice thrilled her as he spoke! If there was
anger in his eyes there was love as well, and her own eyes fell before
his ardent gaze.

"Papa thought it best that you should not come to the Vicarage for a
little while," she murmured--and the words seemed nearly to choke her.

"But why? What have I done? Why am I to be tabooed in this way?"

"Papa has heard--has heard things," stammered Maria. "He says you are
frequently to be seen at the billiard-table; he has heard that you are
addicted to high play with men like Lord Camberley and Captain Lennox.
And--and he says they may be able to afford it, but you cannot--which,
of course, is true. Oh, Philip! have you forgotten the promises you
made to me before I went to Leamington?"

Philip changed colour, and bit his lip. He began tracing some
hieroglyphic on the gravel with his cane.

"Papa asked me whether there was any engagement between us," continued
Maria. "I told him that there was not, but that you had spoken to me
before I went away. He then said that everything between us must be
broken off, at least for the present; you best know why, yourself,
Philip."

"That I have been weak and foolish, Maria, no one knows better than
myself," he candidly answered. "But I don't think I have deserved to
be treated quite so harshly."

It was on the tip of Maria's tongue to say, "Papa seems to have
something against you more than I have mentioned, though he would not
tell me what:" but after a moment's thought she stopped herself.

"Papa is not in the habit of treating anyone with undue harshness,"
she remarked aloud.

"I think he is harsh to me. Why, Maria--but perhaps I had better see
your father himself, and have this matter out with him," he broke off
in his usual impulsive style.

Maria shook her head: she knew that his seeing her father would bring
forth nothing--except unpleasantness.

"It would be of no use, Philip," she answered, sadly. "Papa would only
say to you what I have said--putting it perhaps in stronger terms."

Philip went into a passion. "What right has Mr. Kettle to set himself
up as a censor of my morals and conduct?" asked he, with a heightened
colour.

"No right at all, I suppose, in one sense of the word, nor does he
profess to do so," was Maria's grave reply. "But one thing he has a
right to do: to think of me and of my welfare. Don't you see that,
Philip?"

Philip fumed and frowned, and slashed at an unoffending nettle with
his cane. They had been walking slowly onward in this unfrequented
lane, where they were free to talk without observation.

"Am I to consider our engagement at an end?" demanded Philip, after a
few moments' silence.

"There has been no engagement, as you are well aware," returned Maria
in a low voice.

"_You_ know quite well what I mean. Am I to look upon it that all is
at an end between us?"

"Papa says so. He thinks it will be best so."

"And you, Maria?"

A moment's pause; then in a very low voice: "I think as papa thinks.
You know I _must_, Philip."

Again they walked slowly on, without speaking. Presently Philip
resumed:

"That I have been thoughtless and foolish, I have already admitted to
you, Maria; but I verily believe that matters would never have gone so
far with me had there been an engagement between us. I should then
have had something definite to look forward to--some hopeful end to
work for. As it was, what you said to me at our last interview seemed
to take the heart out of me: it did, Maria. You would not even let me
write to you. I seemed to lose my anchorage altogether."

"But oh, Philip--is not that a very weak confession to make?"

"It is. I grant it."

"And after all your promises."

"I have not forgotten them. The truth is, Maria," he burst out
passionately, "you are the only person in the world who can save me
from myself. When I am with you I am strong; when I am away from you I
am as unstable as water. Were you my wife, you could mould me as you
would: were you even my promised wife, I should be a very different
man."

Maria had no words at command, but she gave him a glance out of her
tearful eyes which conveyed a world of love and tenderness.

"I will make no more promises," continued Philip, with a bitter laugh.
"In my case they only recoil on my own head. I will abide by your
father's behest for the present, and keep at a distance. But only for
the present, mind. I shall still look upon you as my future wife.
Nobody can deny me that much."

Maria sighed. She felt that he was not meeting this trouble quite
right, on the whole.

"Wait a little while, Maria, and you shall see what you shall see. I
hope to be able to prove both to you and your father that--but, no, I
said that I would make no more promises," he abruptly broke off again,
"and I will not."

They were at the end of the lane. Before them was a gate, with a
stile, leading into some fields and high grounds that overlooked the
town. Maria stopped. "I must go back. I have come too far already,"
she said. Philip took both her hands and gazed fondly into her eyes.
Then, before she was aware of his intention, or had time to offer any
resistance, his arms were round her, she was pressed to his heart, and
one burning kiss was left upon her lips. Next moment, without a word,
he was gone, vaulting lightly over the stile and away into the meadows
beyond. With hot cheeks and a beating heart, Maria retraced her steps
to the town.

"What was it that she would see by waiting a little while?" she
presently began to ask herself. Philip had spoken with significant
meaning.

The two hundred pounds won by Philip Cleeve on Patchwork, at the
Newmarket Spring Meeting, had to a great extent recouped him for his
gambling losses. But some months had passed away since then, and his
capital had again been dipped into pretty deeply. For one thing, he
was less frugal in his habits than of old. His mother's allowance no
longer sufficed to find him in clothes and pocket-money. His tailor's
and bootmaker's bills were twice as heavy as they used to be, and of
late there was no more fashionably dressed young man in Nullington
than Philip Cleeve. At one time he had been content to play billiards
for sixpence a game, but nothing less than half-a-crown a game would
do for him now. He went to The Lilacs once a week, sometimes oftener,
and although he no longer joined the card-table so frequently as in
those earlier days, preferring to talk with Mrs. Ducie or turn over
her music, yet he could not keep aloof from play altogether, and it
was no unfrequent thing for him to find himself minus ten or fifteen
sovereigns when he reached home. In short, by the beginning of
September his capital had again shown a very serious deficit. More
than once Captain Lennox said to him: "What a pity it is that you did
not lay every sovereign you could scrape together on Patchwork. You
will never have such a chance again." And Philip agreed with the
Captain that it was a pity.

One day at The Lilacs, a little while previously to this present time,
Philip found a printed paper on the table, which, for want of
something better to do, he took up and glanced over. It proved to be a
prospectus of the Hermandad Silver Mining Company, Colorado. Philip
was surprised to see the name of his host, Captain Lennox, among the
list of directors. "Why, Lennox," he said, "I was not aware that you
went in for anything of this kind."

"It helps to kill time and gives me an excuse for running up to town
now and then," answered Lennox. "Besides, these things bring one in
contact with a lot of men who may prove useful some day or other."

"I presume that the Hermandad Mining Company is a prosperous concern?"

"My dear fellow, as yet it is in its babyhood: it has only been
launched a few weeks. That it will prove a very prosperous thing, I
never for one moment doubted; otherwise I should not have allowed my
name to appear to it, nor should I have invested in it so much of my
spare capital."

"Colorado seems a long way to send one's spare capital to," remarked
Philip.

"A long way in this era of telegraphy? Pooh! There's no such thing as
distance nowadays. Besides, the board has its own expert out there--a
very clever young mining engineer--and his reports may be thoroughly
relied upon. We know pretty well what we are about."

Philip was of opinion that the Captain knew pretty well what he was
about in most of the concerns of life. "I suppose that every now and
then one of these silver mines really does turn out to be a gold mine
in one sense of the phrase," he observed.

"Now and then!" said Lennox, with a lifting of his eyebrows, "All I
know is that there are two mines within a little distance of ours
which are paying their lucky proprietors between thirty and forty per
cent., and I know of no reason why the Hermandad should be poorer than
its neighbours. All we want is more capital for its proper working;
and that we are now about to raise. There will be no difficulty in
doing _that!_"

Mrs. Ducie came in, and nothing more was said. But Philip's dreams
that night were all about the Hermandad mine; and it ran far more in
his thoughts next day at the office than did his duties.

Two days later Philip saw Lennox again. "By-the-bye, about those
Hermandad shares?" he said. "What are they each? I don't see them
quoted in the Money Article."

Captain Lennox smiled. "No, you don't see them in the market--at least
so far as the general public is concerned; they are too choice a
commodity to be there. We--I and my co-directors--intend to keep them
for ourselves and our friends."

"What are they?" repeated Philip.

"Twenty pounds each. Five pounds payable on allotment, and another
five pounds in two months' time."

"Leaving ten pounds to be called up later on."

"There will be no further calls: the first and second will amply
suffice for all expenses. Our profits will begin almost from the very
day the machinery gets into working order."

Metaphorically speaking, Philip's mouth was watering. Thirty per
cent.! The words had rung like sweet music in his memory ever since he
heard them. "I suppose that even if an outsider were desirous of
investing a little spare cash in your precious shares, there would be
no chance of his being able to do so?" he said.

"Um--well--I dare say there are still a few left. Are you speaking for
yourself?"

"I've got that two hundred by me that I won on Patchwork," answered
Philip. "I might venture to speculate with that."

"To be sure you might," nodded Lennox. "I am going up to town the day
after to-morrow: if you like, I will see what I can do for you. Just as
you please, you know, Cleeve: I have no interest in your decision one
way or the other."

"I am aware of that. It is very good of you. Let me see: twenty shares
at five pounds a share would be a hundred pounds. That would leave me
the other hundred to pay the second call with."

The Captain laughed--a little contemptuously, Philip thought.

"You are indeed a timid speculator," he said. "In these matters my
motto is, 'Nothing venture, nothing win.' In your place I should
invest the two hundred pounds right off. But of course you know your
own business best."

Philip coloured and stammered. "You are certain that there is no
likelihood of a third call being made, Lennox?"

"As certain as I am of anything in this uncertain world," was the
answer. "And then, you have always the option of getting out of your
bargain by selling."

"Well, I will think of it," decided Philip, "and see you again before
you go."

He did think of it, and the thought dazzled him. The end of it was
that he put a cheque for two hundred pounds in Lennox's hands half an
hour before that gentleman started for London.

An anxious and feverish time for Philip was that which followed. His
sunny, easy-going disposition led him to look on the bright side of
most things, but there were times and seasons, generally during the
lonely hours of darkness, when he thought with a dread sinking of the
heart of what he had done. The second call would go a long way towards
exhausting his remaining capital, and should the mine, after all, turn
out a failure, he would be a ruined man.

But more often his thoughts flowed in a brighter channel. The
Hermandad shares would go up--up; as he had heard of other mining
shares going up. At the proper moment he would sell out and realise
his capital. Then with a swelling heart he would go to the Vicar and
say to him: "I have come to ask your daughter's hand in marriage. I am
about to become Tiplady's partner, and I have a home to take my wife
to, equal to the one she is leaving." What a sweet revenge it would be
after all Mr. Kettle's harshness!




CHAPTER XII.
HUBERT STONE'S RETURN.


Mr. Conroy departed for London immediately after that momentous walk
with Ella Winter, which would never be forgotten by either of them.
There was a last pressure of the hands, a last look into each other's
eyes, and he was gone. She wished their engagement not to be spoken of
at present, and he willingly complied.

The days wore on. When three had passed, and there came no tidings of
Hubert Stone, old Aaron grew somewhat perplexed. What could he mean by
absenting himself? That so good a swimmer and strong a man, as Hubert
was, had failed to reach the shore, no one who knew him entertained
any fear. Where was he, then?

On the fourth day Aaron presented himself before his mistress, who was
alone in her own sitting-room.

"No news yet of that scapegrace lad, ma'am!" he said, a quaver of
trouble in his voice. "He must have swum off to get succour for you,
Miss Ella, as it was his duty to do; but Heaven alone knows where he's
got to."

Ella smiled. She believed Hubert to be perfectly safe and quite able
to take care of himself, but she wished to set the old retainer's
doubts at rest.

"Be at ease, Aaron. After a feat like that your nephew would naturally
need some recreation; I dare say he has gone away for a few days'
holiday. We shall see him back again shortly."

"What I can't get out of my head is this: that he might have been left
on board. And oh, my dear young mistress, that night the wreck went to
pieces in the gale!"

"He was not left on board, Aaron; rely upon that: and one of the
boatmen, you know, saw him swimming towards the shore. It must have
been he; nobody else was out. Believe me," impressively added Miss
Winter, "there is not, so far as I believe, the slightest cause for
alarm. Hubert is gone away, perhaps on business, combining that at
least with pleasure, and you will soon have him at home again. Such is
my opinion, and I have good grounds for it."

Aaron felt reassured. He acknowledged that it might be so.

"Not but what the careless young jackanapes ought to have told me
before he went, Miss Ella!" he urged.

"Or have written to you," replied Ella.

But as more days passed on and Hubert neither came nor sent, other
people as well as Aaron began to wonder; and the question, What could
have become of him? made the chief topic of the neighbourhood. That he
had undertaken this bout of swimming to obtain succour for Miss
Winter, none disputed, and Ella did not undeceive them. The real
facts, there could be little doubt, were these. Upon Hubert's forcing
the closed door and finding Miss Winter senseless on the deck, he must
at the same time have seen the little boat coming to her rescue.
Fearful that her first words might be to denounce him, and probably
feeling heartily ashamed of himself, he must have plunged into the sea
to swim ashore, not choosing to stay and face the result.

But on what part of the shore had he landed, and where could he be
staying? What, in fact, had become of him? Aaron and his wife grew
strangely uneasy: if anything were detaining him, business or
pleasure, surely he would write, they said to one another.

"He has not got so much as a clean shirt with him--or a collar,"
lamented Dorothy. "What _can_ he do without them?"

"Oh, drat the shirts and collars!" retorted Aaron, not less crusty and
contradictory than usual. "As if he couldn't buy himself things o'
that sort!"

There came a relief to their fears. Dr. Jago, hearing that the old
people were becoming seriously alarmed, avowed that Hubert Stone had
got safely to land that night, after his swimming-feat, and had made
his way at once to his house. Here he had put on dry clothes, some
things of the young man's happening to be at the Doctor's, had
borrowed a little money of him, and had gone away again, saying he had
business at a distance.

"And why couldn't you have told this afore, sir?" grumbled Aaron, when
he had heard Dr. Jago's narrative.

"Because Hubert asked me not to mention it until he was back again,"
replied the little Doctor. "But I thought it might be better to do so
now, as he stays away so long and you seem to be getting into a fever
over it."

"Do you know where he went to, sir?"

"No; I do not. He is all right, depend upon it, Aaron; he'll be
turning up one of these fine days."

"All the same, he might have writ to me just a line," contended the
old man.

Miss Winter was nearly as anxious as Aaron for the return of Hubert.
She had determined to question him further upon that strange assertion
he had made--that she had no right to Heron Dyke--and to insist upon a
full and explicit answer. A thought crossed her mind sometimes that
possibly Hubert might be fearing this very questioning, and was
staying away in consequence.

And the time again rolled on. Three weeks came and went, and Hubert
Stone remained to them all as one dead.

"He does not return, Miss Ella," cried Aaron to his mistress one
morning; and there was a worn, pitiful look on his face that she had
never seen before. "Dorothy's fretting frightfully: she will have it,
something dreadful has happened to him, and that we shall never set
eyes on him again."

Involuntarily there came into Ella's memory what Dorothy had told her
about the dread apparition seen by her that midnight in the shrubbery.
She herself had no faith in such superstitious fancies, but she could
quite understand the hold they would have over the mind of a woman
like Dorothy Stone.

"It is strange," she replied, "I grant that; and, as you say, he might
have written. Still, had any harm befallen him you would surely have
heard of it from one source or another. I have felt no fear since I
heard the report of Dr. Jago."

"But he stays so long, ma'am."

"We can only go on hoping for the best. Young men have sometimes
strange fancies for roving, and they do not always think of those to
whom their absence or silence may cause grief."

"He's gone to London, mayhap, that wild place, and won't come back
till he's parted with his last shilling," suggested Aaron, anxious to
snatch a morsel of comfort anyhow. "I'd once a fling of that sort
myself, ma'am, when I was a young fellow, only I got no further than
Norwich. They thought I had drowned myself; and father, he had
Wippenham Pond dragged for me."

"Let us hope that Hubert's freak may prove no worse than yours," said
Ella, cheeringly. "Wait a moment; don't go; I want to speak to you."

Failing Hubert, Miss Winter had made up her mind to question Aaron as
to whether he knew anything or not, for her suspense was becoming
intolerable.

"Aaron," she began very gravely, "when your grandson Hubert was on
board the wreck with me that afternoon, now three weeks ago, he told
me something which made a very great impression upon me at the time,
and which I cannot forget since. It is in my mind every hour of the
day--a source of annoyance. As he does not return, I must question
you."

Aaron gazed at his mistress. She thought he looked uneasy.

"What he said was this: 'A dozen words from me, and Heron Dyke would
know you as its mistress no more. What you hold, you hold by fraud.'
Now, Aaron Stone, I ask you, as my uncle's old and faithful servant,
to tell me what meaning was hidden in your grandson's words, when he
spoke to me thus."

Aaron's face was turning livid; he stood a picture of abject terror.
Twice he essayed to speak, and twice no sound came from his dry lips.
Miss Winter noted the emotion.

"What he knows--if there is anything to know--I think you must know;
and I ask you, Aaron, what he meant."

"I know no more than the dead what he meant," gasped the old man in a
husky whisper. "He must have been mad--mad!"

"Can you attach no meaning to his words?"

"None, ma'am; none whatever. He must have been quite mad."

"No, he was not mad, I think. He spoke those words as a truthful man
speaks. It seemed to me then, it seems to me still, that there was
truth in them: though I don't know how much."

"Miss Ella," cried the old man eagerly, "you know what has been
said--that a keg o' spirits was on board below. Hubert must have got
to it."

That this was to a certain extent true, she believed; but not that he
had taken sufficient to induce him to invent such a thing.

"His mother died in an asylum, poor thing," resumed Aaron, catching up
his labouring breath; "and at times--only at times, you know, ma'am--I
have not been able to rightly make him out, and I've fancied that he
might have a touch of her complaint, and wasn't altogether his own
master. It must have been so that afternoon."

Aaron's hands trembled like those of a man afflicted with palsy, and
the muscles of his face twitched convulsively as he spoke. His
mistress could scarcely find in her heart to question him further.

"And yet it was a very strange assertion for Hubert to make," she
said, speaking gently. "He stated distinctly that I held Heron Dyke by
fraud. Now, were such the case, Aaron, you, as my uncle's confidential
servant, must surely be aware of it. Hubert would not know what you do
not, especially of a grave secret."

"That he'd not," affirmed the old man. "I knew more of the Squire's
secrets, Miss Ella, than any man living. Were he alive this moment
he'd tell you so."

"Then there was--there is--no fraud, as far as you are aware?"

"Certainly not, ma'am. How would it be possible?"

"That I cannot guess."

"Look here now, Miss Ella, there _couldn't be_. The Squire's will was
drawn up by Lawyer Daventry, and signed by himself in the presence of
witnesses. Everything but a few legacies was to come to you, as he had
meant it to all his life. Fraud, ma'am! if he had left it away from
you one might talk of fraud; not as it is. No, no! That wretched
lad--and won't I give it him!--was in one of his wild fits when he
said such words, not rightly accountable."

Could Miss Winter say more? She asked Aaron no further questions, but
let him go. Still, in her own mind she could not feel satisfied. What
brought that look of terror into Aaron's face when she repeated to him
Hubert's words? Why had he trembled to that strange excess? and why
had his emotion been so great?

And the more Miss Winter strove to assure herself that there was no
cause to fear things were not honest and straightforward, the less she
thought them so, and she resolved to speak to her uncle's lawyer, Mr.
Daventry. Walking into Nullington, she found him at his office, and
saw him alone.

"I have come to seek your advice on what seems to me a very important
matter," she began, when she was seated. "I could not rest without
coming to you."

"I need hardly say, my dear Miss Winter, that I am entirely at your
service," he replied.

"It has been intimated to me that fraud of some kind has been at work
in connection with my inheritance of Heron Dyke," she continued,
having previously determined to avoid if possible the mention of
Hubert's name. "I am precluded from telling you in what way this
information reached me; but it was declared to me, in unmistakable
terms, that I had no more right to the property than you have."

Lawyer Daventry's eyebrows went up in utter surprise. He drew his
chair a little closer to that of Miss Winter, and began to bite his
quill pen meditatively, as he waited to hear more.

"You, Mr. Daventry, had the management of all my uncle's most
important affairs. You drew up his will; you were, I believe, present
when he signed it; and you, I am sure, would not lend yourself to
deceit of any kind; tell me then what, in your opinion, this
information can mean."

"My opinion, Miss Winter, is that there is not an iota of truth in it.
The chances are that it will turn out to be nothing more than an
attempt to extort money."

"It will certainly not prove to be that," replied Ella, decisively.
"On that point I can speak with confidence."

"You will not tell me who it was who gave you this information?"

"I would rather not; at least, at present. It was--I think I may say,"
she added somewhat hesitatingly--"an old friend."

"A very queer friend, it seems to me. He must have had a motive: what
was it?"

"Pardon me," she rejoined, "but that is not the question. Let us
assume, if you like, that the motive is not altogether unknown to me.
What then? We are still no nearer what I want to know: whether it is
possible that there can be any truth in the allegation."

"But the motive might be a malicious one. In which case----"

"Pardon me again, but the point is this," she interposed. "Is there
anything within your knowledge of my uncle's affairs which would lead
you to believe that the slightest possibility of fraud, in connection
with my inheritance of his property, can exist?"

"No. It does not appear to me that the slightest possibility can exist
of anything of the kind," continued Mr. Daventry. "I drew up your
uncle's will in accordance with his instructions and his well-known
wishes, and the will was duly signed and witnessed. Had he died before
his seventieth birthday, the will would have been worthless, so far as
the estate went, which would have lapsed to the other Gilbert Denison.
Your uncle's savings you would still inherit, but not Heron Dyke. On
the other hand, if he lived over his birthday, the property would be
yours beyond possibility of dispute."

"And, as you can testify, he did live over it," returned Ella, feeling
relieved.

Mr. Daventry smiled. "My dear young lady, I could not testify to
anything of the kind. We lawyers are cautious men. As I did not see
your uncle subsequently to his birthday, I could not testify to it."

"But others saw him! Others know that he lived over it!" cried Ella
with a kind of gasp.

"Undoubtedly. I spoke only of my own personal knowledge."

"When did you see him last?--how long before his death? Perhaps you
don't remember?"

"I remember perfectly well. It was on the 24th of November, the day he
signed his will. I went to the Hall by appointment, with one of my
clerks, and I was struck by the change I saw in the Squire. To me he
looked like a dying man."

"But surely you saw him after that?" cried Ella, in surprise.

"No, I did not. I went up to call once or twice, but did not get to
see him. That doctor, Jago, would admit nobody; and the last time the
Squire sent out a curt message to the effect that when he wanted me he
would send for me. On the 28th of April, early in the morning, a
peremptory message came for me----"

"Then you did see him after his birthday," interrupted Ella.

"A moment yet, please. I did not see him: I had gone to London the day
before, and was not back. This answer was despatched to the Squire. He
would not wait; Webb must go if I could not, came back the mandate;
and by ten o'clock in the morning, Webb was at the Hall. He is my
managing clerk, as you are aware, himself a qualified solicitor. He
knew nothing much of the Squire's business, not having then long
joined me."

"Did he see my uncle?"

"Oh, of course. The Squire was in bed; frightfully feeble, as it
seemed to Webb. He wanted his will read over to him, and a short
codicil added--which was done, and signed.

"Did Mr. Webb think him much changed?"

"Webb had never seen him before. He thought he looked curiously ill
and feeble, so far as he could see of him in the darkened room. The
Squire lay on the pillow, his black velvet skull-cap on, and his long
white hair straggling on each side his shrunken face. Webb, describing
this to me when I reached home at night, said he looked like a fine
old picture. His voice had sunk to little more than a whisper; but his
mind was clear nay, vigorous."

The tears rose to Ella's eyes. She could see, in imagination, her poor
uncle lying there.

"No, my dear young lady, rely upon it, there's no flaw in your
succession to Heron Dyke," concluded the experienced lawyer. "My
advice to you is, think no more of the affair. There's nothing in it,
save, as Shakespeare says, 'A pure invention of the enemy.' Set your
mind at rest."

Ella, somewhat reassured, though not wholly, went on her way. She
could not forget the intense truth that had shone forth in Hubert
Stone's countenance and tones. That _he_ believed what he had asserted
had been to her mind clearly apparent.


It was a few days subsequent to this visit to Mr. Daventry, that Miss
Winter was engaged to take afternoon tea at The Lilacs. Some ladies
were forming themselves into a committee for the purpose of
ameliorating the condition of the poor of Nullington during the
ensuing winter, and they were to meet that afternoon, Thursday, at
Mrs. Ducie's. However, Miss Winter could not go, some friends having
come to the Hall, unexpectedly, from a distance, and she sent Mrs.
Toynbee to represent her.

So the new carriage from London, that had been so great an eyesore to
old Aaron, conveyed her thither in state. Mrs. Toynbee enjoyed her
afternoon immensely: she met Lady Cleeve, Maria Kettle, and other
ladies with whom she had a slight acquaintance, who were already
there. As Miss Winter's representative she found herself and her
opinions deferred to, which was what she liked. Moreover, Mrs. Toynbee
had some extraordinary news to tell, and was bursting with its
importance.

Not until quite the last did she get a suitable opportunity; so much
close discussion of the business in hand had taken place. Philip
Cleeve had come in then; his mother had asked him to call for her. He
was the only gentleman present, Captain Lennox having gone to Norwich.
A remark made by some one gave the opportunity to Mrs. Toynbee.

"We had a most startling adventure at the Hall this morning," began
she: and at the word "startling," the whole company fell into silence,
and looked up. "Several rooms at the Hall, as I am given to
understand, have been shut up for a great number of years; it was the
late Mr. Denison's pleasure to keep them so----"

"Is Katherine Keen found?" interrupted one of the listeners, in
excitement.

"Katherine Keen! oh dear, no," returned Mrs. Toynbee, stiffly. "In one
of these unused rooms there stood a curiously carved escritoire, or
bureau, of polished black oak, a family heirloom, the panels of which
bear the date of 1714. Miss Winter took a fancy to examine this relic,
for so I may term it; she had it removed to her morning-room, and
to-day, after breakfast, she set to work to examine its contents,
calling me to her aid. They proved to be nothing more valuable than a
number of expired leases, and other papers connected with the farm
property. But while thus engaged we made a very curious discovery. By
some means or other, probably from the accidental touching of a hidden
spring, a secret recess at the back of the escritoire was suddenly
exposed to view."

"Oh dear, how delightful! A secret recess!"

"We were, as you may imagine, on the tiptoe of curiosity in a moment.
I was, and I could see that Miss Winter was: she had seemed to me to
be searching for some particular document, by the way she examined all
the old papers."

"But what did you find in the recess?"

"What we found, hidden away from the light for it is hard to guess how
many years, was a large parcel of jewels," replied Mrs. Toynbee in
slow and important tones.

"Jewels! good gracious!"

"Beautiful jewels. Rings, brooches, necklets, earrings, and lockets;
nearly all set with precious stones of great apparent value. Of course
their setting is sadly old-fashioned; but that can easily be altered
by-and-by."

The ladies went into fresh excitement; one and all declaring how much
they should like to see the jewels.

"What have you done with them, Mrs. Toynbee?"

"Miss Winter has put them back into the cabinet. At the lowest
estimation, the stones alone must be worth a thousand pounds."

"Articles of that value ought to be at the bankers'," remarked Philip
Cleeve. He was standing by the mantelpiece, a little apart from the
circle. An anxiety bordering on restlessness sat in his countenance,
sufficiently apparent to one of those around him--Maria Kettle; and
his hand, which had met hers on his entrance, felt dry and feverish.

"I dare say Miss Winter will send them to the bankers' in a few days'
time," said Mrs. Toynbee in answer to the remark. "But she wants Mr.
Daventry to see them first, and he is not at home. She----"

"Daventry is in London," interrupted Philip. "He won't be back till
the beginning of next week--Monday or Tuesday."

"True," assented Mrs. Toynbee. "I called at the office as I drove in,
and found that only Mr. Webb was there. Miss Winter--really she is
ultra-scrupulous in many things--does not feel sure whether the jewels
rightly belong to her; she will do nothing with them before she gets
Mr. Daventry's opinion. Until then they will remain where they are,
untouched."

"I hope they will be safe," laughed Philip.

"Safe!" echoed Mrs. Toynbee: "why should they not be safe? They are
where they have been lying hidden all these years. None of the
servants have been told of the discovery; not even old Aaron and his
wife."

"By the way," cried Margaret Ducie, lifting her head from the
pencilled notes she had been making of the suggested plans for the
relief of the poor, "has that relative of theirs, young Stone, turned
up yet?"

"Not yet," said Mrs. Toynbee. "Nobody can imagine where he is staying.
We think he must be unavoidably detained somewhere--though it is
strange he does not write to say so."


The meeting and conversation recorded above took place on Thursday
afternoon. On the following Monday morning old Aaron Stone proceeded,
as usual, to open the doors and windows of the Hall--for he would not
allow that duty to be performed by anybody but himself. At an
unearthly hour, as the maids considered it, whom he obliged to be also
up in readiness for their work, old Aaron would be on the move. As he
was on this day; there was only just light enough yet for him to see
his way about.

After unbolting the outer doors, he first turned into Miss Winter's
morning-room, as it was called, which opened from the large hall. The
moment he entered it, he saw that some one had been there before him.
The lower sash of the window was thrown up, one of the shutters had
been forced open, while sundry papers scattered about the floor
betrayed that the escritoire had been visited. Aaron knew nothing
about the jewels that had been found and left there; but the evidence
of robbery was enough for him. Hurrying up to Miss Winter's chamber,
he aroused her from sleep with his news. She partly dressed herself
and followed him down.

Her first thought was of the jewels, and she proceeded to examine the
secret recess. Yes, it stood open. The jewels had disappeared; they
were stolen. But not another article in the room, save the bureau, had
been touched.

Whilst his mistress was slowly gathering in these particulars, Aaron
opened the other shutter, and stepped over the low sill into the
garden. The hard gravelled path came close up to the window, so that
he had little hope of finding any footmarks which might serve as a
clue to the thief or thieves. But Aaron, glancing keenly about, saw
something lying under a holly-bush, a little distance away, that for
the moment caused his heart to stand still. To his old eyes it almost
looked like Hubert; Hubert lying on his back.

The sleepy maids were beginning to come downstairs then. One of
them--it was Betsy Tucker--entered the morning-room, and stood
half-dazed at what she saw. The window open, papers scattered on the
carpet, her mistress, partially dressed, standing before the bureau,
and Aaron hastening down the gravel path outside.

A low cry, growing into an agonised shriek, burst upon the girl's ear
and that of her mistress. It came from the old man. He had dropped on
one knee, and was trying to lift what was lying there: Hubert Stone.
Ah, never more, never more would he be lifted in life. His wide-open
eyes, staring upwards, saw nothing, his form was rigid, his hair wet
with the night's dews. He had been dead some hours, stabbed by some
villain through the heart.




END OF VOL. II.



________________________________________________________
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS AND ELECTROTYPERS, GUILDFORD.

_S. & Sons_.