"Thank you," said Mr. Bassett, but did not seat himself. He stood before the prisoner and gave his evidence; during which the prisoner's knees were seen to knock together with terror: he was a young man fit for folly, but not for felony.

Said Richard Bassett, "I have a cupboard containing family plate. It is valuable, and some years ago I passed a piece of catgut from the door through the ceiling to a bell at my bedside.

"Very late last night the bell sounded. I flung on my trousers, and went down with a pistol. I caught two burglars in the act of rifling the cupboard. I went to collar one; he struck me on the head with a crowbar—constable, show the crowbar—I staggered, but recovered myself, and fired at one of the burglars: he was just struggling through the window. He fell, and I thought he was dead, but he got away. I secured the other, and here he is—just as he was when I took him. Constable, search his pockets."

The constable did so, and produced therefrom several pieces of silver plate stamped with the Bassett arms.

"My servant here can confirm this," added Mr. Bassett.

"It is not necessary here," said Sir Charles. Then to the criminal, "Have you anything to say?"

"It was only a lark," quavered the poor wretch.

"I would not advise you to say that where you are going."

He then, while writing out the warrant, said, as a matter of course, "Remove his mask."

The constable lifted it, and started back with a shout of dismay and surprise: Jessie screamed.

Sir Charles looked up, and saw in the burglar he was committing for trial his first-born, the heir to his house and his lands.

The pen fell from Sir Charles's fingers, and he stared at the wan face, and wild, imploring eyes that stared at him.

He stared at the lad, and then put his hand to his heart, and that heart seemed to die within him.

There was a silence, and a horror fell on all. Even Richard Bassett quailed at what he had done.

"Ah! cruel man! cruel man!" moaned the broken father. "God judge you for this—as now I must judge my unhappy son. Mr. Bassett, it matters little to you what magistrate commits you, and I must keep my oath. I am—going—to set you an—example, by signing a warrant—"

"No, no, no!" cried a woman's voice, and Mary Meyrick rushed into the room.

Every person there thought he knew Mary Meyrick; yet she was like a stranger to them now. There was that in her heart at that awful moment which transfigured a handsome but vulgar woman into a superior being. Her cheek was pale, her black eyes large, and her mellow voice had a magic power. "You don't know what you are doing!" she cried. "Go no farther, or you will all curse the hand that harmed a hair of his head; you, most of all, Richard Bassett."

Sir Charles, in any other case, would have sent her out of the room; but, in his misery, he caught at the straw.

"Speak out, woman," he said, "and save the wretched boy, if you can. I see no way."

"There are things it is not fit to speak before all the world. Bid those men go, and I'll open your eyes that stay."

Then Richard Bassett foresaw another triumph, so he told the constable and his man they had better retire for a few minutes, "while," said he, with a sneer, "these wonderful revelations are being made."

When they were gone, Mary turned to Richard Bassett, and said "Why do you want him sent to prison?—to spite Sir Charles here, to stab his heart through his son."

Sir Charles groaned aloud.

The woman heard, and thought of many things. She flung herself on her knees, and seized his hand. "Don't you cry, my dear old master; mine is the only heart shall bleed. HE IS NOT YOUR SON."

"What!" cried Sir Charles, in a terrible voice.

"That is no news to me," said Richard. "He is more like the parson than Sir Charles Bassett."

"For shame! for shame!" cried Mary Meyrick. "Oh, it becomes you to give fathers to children when you don't know your own flesh and blood! He is YOUR SON, RICHARD BASSETT."



"My son!" roared Bassett, in utter amazement.

"Ay. I should know; FOR I AM HIS MOTHER."

This astounding statement was uttered with all the majesty of truth, and when she said "I am his mother," the voice turned tender all in a moment.

They were all paralyzed; and, absorbed in this strange revelation, did not hear a tottering footstep: a woman, pale as a corpse, and with eyes glaring large, stood among them, all in a moment, as if a ghost had risen from the earth.

It was Lady Bassett.

At sight of her, Sir Charles awoke from the confusion and amazement into which Mary had thrown him, and said, "Ah—! Bella, do you hear what she says, that he is not our son? What, then, have you agreed with your servant to deceive your husband?"

Lady Bassett gasped, and tried to speak; but before the words would come, the sight of her corpse-like face and miserable agony moved Mary Wells, and she snatched the words out of her mouth.

"What is the use of questioning her? She knows no more than you do. I done it all; and done it for the best. My lady's child died; I hid that from her; for I knew it would kill her, and keep you in a mad-house. I done for the best: I put my live child by her side, and she knew no better. As time went on, and the boy so dark, she suspected; but know it she couldn't till now. My lady, I am his mother, and there stands his cruel father; cruel to me, and cruel to him. But don't you dare to harm him; I've got all your letters, promising me marriage; I'll take them to your wife and daughter, and they shall know it is your own flesh and blood you are sending to prison. Oh, I am mad to threaten him! my darling, speak him fair; he is your father; he may have a bit of nature in his heart somewhere, though I could never find it."

The young man put his hands together, like an Oriental, and said, "Forgive me," then sank at Richard Bassett's knees.

Then Sir Charles, himself much shaken, took his wife's arm and led her, trembling like an aspen leaf, from the room.

Perhaps the prayers of Reginald and the tears of his mother would alone have sufficed to soften Richard Bassett, but the threat of exposure to his wife and daughter did no harm. The three soon came to terms.

Reginald to be liberated on condition of going to London by the next train, and never setting his foot in that parish again. His mother to go with him, and see him off to Australia. She solemnly pledged herself not to reveal the boy's real parentage to any other soul in the world.

This being settled, Richard Bassett called the constable in, and said the young gentleman had satisfied him that it was a practical joke, though a very dangerous one, and he withdrew the charge of felony.

The constable said he must have Sir Charles's authority for that.

A message was sent to Sir Charles. He came. The prisoner was released, and Mary Meyrick took his arm sharply, as much as to say, "Out of my hands you go no more."

Before they left the room, Sir Charles, who was now master of himself, said, with deep feeling, "My poor boy, you can never be a stranger to me. The affection of years cannot be untied in a moment. You see now how folly glides into crime, and crime into punishment. Take this to heart, and never again stray from the paths of honor. Lead an honorable life; and, if you do, write to me as if I was still your father."

They retired, but Richard Bassett lingered, and hung his head.

Sir Charles wondered what this inveterate foe could have to say now.

At last Richard said, half sullenly, yet with a touch of compunction, "Sir Charles, you have been more generous than I was. You have laid me under an obligation."

Sir Charles bowed loftily.

"You would double that obligation if you would prevail on Lady Bassett to keep that old folly of mine secret from my wife and daughter. I am truly ashamed of it; and, whatever my faults may have been, they love and respect me."

"Mr. Bassett," said Sir Charles, "my son Compton must be told that he is my heir; but no details injurious to you shall transpire: you may count on absolute secrecy from Lady Bassett and myself."

"Sir Charles," said Richard Bassett, faltering for a moment, "I am very much obliged to you, and I begin to be sorry we are enemies. Good-morning."

The agitation and terror of this scene nearly killed Lady Bassett on the spot. She lay all that day in a state of utter prostration.

Meantime Sir Charles put this and that together, but said nothing. He spoke cheerfully and philosophically to his wife—said it had been a fearful blow, terrible wrench: but it was all for the best; such a son as that would have broken his heart before long.

"Ah, but your wasted affections!" groaned Lady Bassett; and her tears streamed at the thought.

Sir Charles sighed; but said, after a while, "Is affection ever entirely wasted? My love for that young fool enlarged my heart. There was a time he did me a deal of good."

But next day, having only herself to think of now, Lady Bassett could live no longer under the load of deceit. She told Sir Charles Mary Meyrick had deceived him. "Read this," she said, "and see what your miserable wife has done, who loved you to madness and crime."

Sir Charles looked at her, and saw in her wasted form and her face that, if he did read it, he should kill her; so he played the man: he restrained himself by a mighty effort, and said, "My dear, excuse me; but on this matter I have more faith in Mary Meyrick's exactness than in yours. Besides, I know your heart, and don't care to be told of your errors in judgment, no, not even by yourself. Sorry to offend an authoress; but I decline to read your book, and, more than that, I forbid you the subject entirely for the next thirty years, at least. Let by-gones be by-gones."



That eventful morning Mr. Rutland called and proposed to Ruperta. She declined politely, but firmly.

She told Mrs. Bassett, and Mrs. Bassett told Richard in a nervous way, but his answer surprised her. He said he was very glad of it; Ruperta could do better.

Mrs. Bassett could not resist the pleasure of telling Lady Bassett. She went over on purpose, with her husband's consent.

Lady Bassett asked to see Ruperta. "By all means," said Richard Bassett, graciously.

On her return to Highmore, Ruperta asked leave to go to the Hall every day and nurse Lady Bassett. "They will let her die else," said she. Richard Bassett assented to that, too. Ruperta, for some weeks, almost lived at the Hall, and in this emergency revealed great qualities. As the malevolent small-pox, passing through the gentle cow, comes out the sovereign cow-pox, so, in this gracious nature, her father's vices turned to their kindred virtues; his obstinacy of purpose shone here a noble constancy; his audacity became candor, and his cunning wisdom. Her intelligence saw at once that Lady Bassett was pining to death, and a weak-minded nurse would be fatal: she was all smiles and brightness, and neglected no means to encourage the patient.

With this view, she promised to plight her faith to Compton the moment Lady Bassett should be restored to health; and so, with hopes and smiles, and the novelty of a daughter's love, she fought with death for Lady Bassett, and at last she won the desperate battle.

This did Richard Bassett's daughter for her father's late enemy.

The grateful husband wrote to Bassett, and now acknowledged his obligation.

A civil, mock-modest reply from Richard Bassett.

From this things went on step by step, till at last Compton and Ruperta, at eighteen years of age, were formally betrothed.

Thus the children's love wore out the father's hate.

That love, so troubled at the outset, left, by degrees, the region of romance, and rippled smoothly through green, flowery meadows.

Ruperta showed her lover one more phase of girlhood; she, who had been a precocious and forward child, and then a shy and silent girl, came out now a bright and witty young woman, full of vivacity, modesty, and sensibility. Time cured Compton of his one defect. Ruperta stopped growing at fifteen, but Compton went slowly on; caught her at seventeen, and at nineteen had passed her by a head. He won a scholarship at Oxford, he rowed in college races, and at last in the University race on the Thames.

Ruperta stood, in peerless beauty, dark blue from throat to feet, and saw his boat astern of his rival, saw it come up with, and creep ahead, amid the roars of the multitude. When she saw her lover, with bare corded arms, as brown as a berry, and set teeth, filling his glorious part in that manly struggle within eight yards of her, she confessed he was not a boy now.

But Lady Bassett accepted no such evidence: being pestered to let them marry at twenty years of age, she clogged her consent with one condition—they must live three years at Huntercombe as man and wife.

"No boy of twenty," said she, "can understand a young woman of that age. I must be in the house to prevent a single misunderstanding between my beloved children."

The young people, who both adored her, voted the condition reasonable. They were married, and a wing of the spacious building allotted to them.

For their sakes let us hope that their wedded life, now happily commenced, will furnish me no materials for another tale: the happiest lives are uneventful.

The foreign gent recovered his wound, but acquired rheumatism and a dislike for midnight expeditions.

Reginald galloped a year or two over seven hundred miles of colony, sowing his wild oats as he flew, but is now a prosperous squatter, very fond of sleeping in the open air. England was not big enough for the bold Bohemian. He does very well where he is.

Old Meyrick died, and left his wife a little estate in the next county. Drake asked her hand at the funeral. She married him in six months, and migrated to the estate in question; for Sir Charles refused her a lease of his farm, not choosing to have her near him.

Her new abode was in the next parish to her sister's.

La Marsh set herself to convert Mary, and often exhorted her to penitence; she bore this pretty well for some time, being overawed by old reminiscences of sisterly superiority: but at last her vanity rebelled. "Repent! and Repent!" cried she. "Why you be like a cuckoo, all in one song. One would think I had been and robbed a church. 'Tis all very well for you to repent, as led a fastish life at starting: but I never done nothing as I'm ashamed on."



Richard Bassett said one day to Wheeler, "Old fellow, there is not a worse poison than Hate. It has made me old before my time. And what does it all come to? We might just as well have kept quiet; for my grandson will inherit Huntercombe and Bassett, after all—"

"Thanks to the girl you would not ring the bells for."



Sir Charles and Lady Bassett lead a peaceful life after all their troubles, and renew their youth in their children, of whom Ruperta is one, and as dear as any.

Yet there is a pensive and humble air about Lady Bassett, which shows she still expiates her fault, though she knows it will always be ignored by him for whose sake she sinned.

In summing her up, it may be as well to compare this with the unmixed self-complacency of Mrs. Drake.

You men and women, who judge this Bella Bassett, be firm, and do not let her amiable qualities or her good intentions blind you in a plain matter of right and wrong: be charitable, and ask yourselves how often in your lives you have seen yourselves, or any other human being, resist a terrible temptation.

My experience is, that we resist other people's temptations nobly, and succumb to our own.

So let me end with a line of England's gentlest satirist—

"Heaven be merciful to us all, sinners as we be."

THE END