"I can't stay; you'd keep me here all day: don't you see they are waiting for me?" he laughingly cried, extricating himself from the throng. "Why, Anne, my dear, is it you? How is it I did not see you before? Are you here alone?"

She had not long joined the crowd, having come up late from the Rectory, and had been standing outside, for she never put herself forward anywhere. Lord Hartledon drew her arm within his own for a moment and took her apart.

"Arthur came up with me: I don't know where he is now. Mamma was afraid to venture, fearing the grass might be damp."

"And the Rector of course would not countenance us by coming," said Lord Hartledon, with a laugh. "I remember his prejudices against boating of old."

"He is coming to dinner."

"As you all are; Arthur also to-day. I made the doctor promise that. A jolly banquet we'll have, too, and toast the winner. Anne, I just wanted to say this to you; Val is in an awful rage with me for letting that matter get to the ears of your father, and I am not pleased with him; so altogether we are just now treating each other to a dose of sullenness, and when we do speak it's to growl like two amiable bears; but it shall make no difference to what I said last week. All shall be made smooth, even to the satisfaction of your father. You may trust me."

He ran off from her, stepped into the skiff, and was taking the sculls, when he uttered a sudden exclamation, leaped out again, and began to run with all speed towards the house.

"What is it? Where are you going?" asked the O'Moore, who was the appointed steward.

"I have forgotten—" What, they did not catch; the word was lost on the air.

"It is bad luck to turn back," called out Maude. "You won't win."

He was already half-way to the house. A couple of minutes after entering it he reappeared again, and came flying down the slopes at full speed. Suddenly his foot slipped, and he fell to the ground. The only one who saw the accident was Mr. O'Moore; the general attention at that moment being concentrated upon the river. He hastened back. Hartledon was then gathering himself up, but slowly.

"No damage," said he; "only a bit of a wrench to the foot. Give me your arm for a minute, O'Moore. This ground must be slippery from yesterday's rain."

Mr. O'Moore held out his arm, and Hartledon took it. "The ground is not slippery, Hart; it's as dry as a bone."

"Then what caused me to slip?"

"The rate you were coming at. Had you not better give up the contest, and rest?"

"Nonsense! My foot will be all right in the skiff. Let us get on; they'll all be out of patience."

When it was seen that something was amiss with him, that he leaned rather heavily on the O'Moore, eager steps pressed round him. Lord Hartledon laughed, making light of it; he had been so clumsy as to stumble, and had twisted his ankle a little. It was nothing.

"Stay on shore and give it a rest," cried one, as he stepped once more into the little boat. "I am sure you are hurt."

"Not I. It will have rest in the boat. Anne," he said, looking up at her with his pleasant smile, "do you wear my colours still?"

She touched the knot on her bosom, and smiled back to him, her tone full of earnestness. "I would wear them always."

And the countess-dowager, in her bedecked flounces and crimson feather, looked as if she would like to throw the knot and its wearer into the river, in the wake of the wager boats. After one or two false starts, they got off at last.

"Do you think it seemly, this flirtation of yours with Lord Hartledon?"

Anne turned in amazement. The face of the old dowager was close to her; the snub nose and rouged cheeks and false flaxen front looked ready to eat her up.

"I have no flirtation with Lord Hartledon, Lady Kirton; or he with me. When I was a child, and he a great boy, years older, he loved me and petted me as a little sister: I think he does the same still."

"My daughter tells me you are counting upon one of the two. If I say to you, do not be too sanguine of either, I speak as a friend; as your mother might speak. Lord Hartledon is already appropriated; and Val Elster is not worth appropriating."

Was she mad? Anne Ashton looked at her, really doubting it. No, she was only vulgar-minded, and selfish, and utterly impervious to all sense of shame in her scheming. Instinctively Anne moved a pace further off.

"I do not think Lord Hartledon is appropriated yet," spoke Anne, in a little spirit of mischievous retaliation. "That some amongst his present guests would be glad to appropriate him may be likely enough; but what if he is not willing to be appropriated? He said to Mr. Elster, last week, that they were wasting their time."

"Who's Mr. Elster?" cried the angry dowager. "What right has he to be at Hartledon, poking his nose into everything that does not concern him?—what right has he, I ask?"

"The right of being Lord Hartledon's brother," carelessly replied Anne.

"It is a right he had best not presume upon," rejoined Lady Kirton. "Brothers are brothers as children; but the tie widens as they grow up and launch out into their different spheres. There's not a man of all Hartledon's guests but has more right to be here than Val Elster."

"Yet they are brothers still."

"Brothers! I'll take care that Val Elster presumes no more upon the tie when Maude reigns at—"

For once the countess-dowager caught up her words. She had said more than she had meant to say. Anne Ashton's calm sweet eyes were bent upon her, waiting for more.

"It is true," she said, giving a shake to the purple tails, and taking a sudden resolution, "Maude is to be his wife; but I ought not to have let it slip out. It was unintentional; and I throw myself on your honour, Miss Ashton."

"But it is not true?" asked Anne, somewhat perplexed.

"It is true. Hartledon has his own reasons for keeping it quiet at present; but—you'll see when the time comes. Should I take upon myself so much rule here, but that it is to be Maude's future home?"

"I don't believe it," cried Anne, as the old story-teller sailed off. "That she loves him, and that her mother is anxious to secure him, is evident; but he is truthful and open, and would never conceal it. No, no, Lady Maude! you are cherishing a false hope. You are very beautiful, but you are not worthy of him; and I should not like you for my sister-in-law at all. That dreadful old countess-dowager! How she dislikes Val, and how rude she is! I'll try not to come in her way again after to-day, as long as they are at Hartledon."

"What are you thinking of, Anne?"

"Oh, not much," she answered, with a soft blush, for the questioner was Mr. Elster. "Do you think your brother has hurt himself much, Val?"

"I didn't know he had hurt himself at all," returned Val rather coolly, who had been on the river at the time in somebody's skiff, and saw nothing of the occurrence. "What has he done?"

"He slipped down on the slopes and twisted his ankle. I suppose they will be coming back soon."

"I suppose they will," was the answer. Val seemed in an ungracious mood. He and Mr. O'Moore and young Carteret were the only three who had remained behind. Anne asked Val why he did not go and look on; and he answered, because he didn't want to.

It was getting on for five o'clock when the boats were discerned returning. How they clustered on the banks, watching the excited rowers, some pale with their exertions, others in a white heat! Captain Dawkes was first, and was doing all he could to keep so; but when only a boat's length from the winning-post another shot past him, and won by half a length. It was the young Oxonian, Mr. Shute—though indeed it does not much matter who it was, save that it was not Lord Hartledon.

"Strike your colours, ladies, you that sport the crimson and purple!" called out a laughing voice from one of the skiffs. "Oxford blue wins."

Lord Hartledon arrived last. He did not get up for some minutes after the rest were in. In short, he was distanced.

"Hart has hurt his arm as well as his foot," observed one of the others, as he came alongside. "That's why he got distanced."

"No, it was not," dissented Lord Hartledon, looking up from his skiff at the crowd of fair faces bent down upon him. "My arm is all right; it only gave me a few twinges when I first started. My oar fouled, and I could not get right again; so, finding I had lost too much ground, I gave up the contest. Anne, had I known I should disgrace my colours, I would not have given them to you."

"Miss Ashton loses, and Maude wins!" cried the countess-dowager, executing a little dance of triumph. "Maude is the only one who wears the Oxford blue."

It was true. The young Oxonian was a retiring and timid man, and none had voluntarily assumed his colours. But no one heeded the countess-dowager.

"You are like a child, Hartledon, denying that your arm's damaged!" exclaimed Captain Dawkes. "I know it is: I could see it by the way you struck your oar all along."

What feeling is it in man that prompts him to disclaim physical pain?—make light of personal injury? Lord Hartledon's ankle was swelling, at the bottom of the boat; and without the slightest doubt his arm was paining him, although perhaps at the moment not very considerably. But he maintained his own assertions, and protested his arm was as sound as the best arm present. "I could go over the work again with pleasure," cried he.

"Nonsense, Hart! You could not."

"And I will go over it," he added, warming with the opposition. "Who'll try his strength with me? There's plenty of time before dinner."

"I will," eagerly spoke young Carteret, who had been, as was remarked, one of those on land, and was wild to be handling the oars. "If Dawkes will let me have his skiff, I'll bet you ten to five you are distanced again, Hartledon."

Perhaps Lord Hartledon had not thought his challenge would be taken seriously. But when he saw the eager, joyous look of the boy Carteret—he was not yet nineteen—the flushed pleasure of the beardless face, he would not have retracted it for the world. He was just as good-natured as Percival Elster.

"Dawkes will let you have his skiff, Carteret."

Captain Dawkes was exceedingly glad to be rid of it. Good boatman though he was, he rarely cared to spend his strength superfluously, when nothing was to be gained by it, and had no fancy to row his skiff back to its moorings, as most of the others were already doing with theirs. He leaped out.

"Any one but you, Hartledon, would be glad to come out of that tilting thing, and enjoy a rest, and get your face cool," cried the countess-dowager.

"I dare say they might, ma'am. I'm afraid I am given to obstinacy; always was. Be quick, Carteret."

Mr. Carteret was hastily stripping himself of his coat, and any odds and ends of attire he deemed superfluous. "One moment, Hartledon; only one moment," came the joyous response.

"And you'll come home with your arm and your ankle like your colours, Hartledon—crimson and purple," screamed the dowager. "And you'll be laid up, and go on perhaps to locked jaw; and then you'll expect me to nurse you!"

"I shall expect nothing of the sort, ma'am, I pledge you my word; I'll nurse myself. All ready, Carteret?"

"All ready. Same point as before, Hart?"

"Same point: round the boat and home again."

"And it's ten sovs. to five, Hart?"

"All right. You'll lose, Carteret."

Carteret laughed. He saw the five sovereigns as surely in his possession as he saw the sculls in his hands. There was no trouble with the start this time, and they were off at once.

Lord Hartledon took the lead. He was spurring his strength to the uttermost: perhaps out of bravado; that he might show them nothing was the matter with his arm. But Mr. Carteret gained on him; and as they turned the point and went out of sight, the young man's boat was the foremost.

The race had been kept—as the sporting men amongst them styled it—dark. Not an inkling of it had been suffered to get abroad, or, as Lord Hartledon had observed, they should have the banks swarming. The consequence was, that not more than half-a-dozen curious idlers had assembled: those were on the opposite side, and had now gone down with the boats to Calne. No spectators, either on the river or the shore, attended this lesser contest: Lord Hartledon and Mr. Carteret had it all to themselves.

And meanwhile, during the time Lord Hartledon had remained at rest in his skiff under the winning flag, Percival Elster never addressed one word to him. There he stood, on the edge of the bank; but not a syllable spoke he, good, bad, or indifferent.

Miss Ashton was looking for her brother, and might just as well have looked for a needle in a bottle of hay. Arthur was off somewhere.

"You need not go home yet, Anne," said Val.

"I must. I have to dress for dinner. It is all to be very smart to-night, you know," she said, with a merry laugh.

"With Shute in the post of honour. Who'd have thought that awkward, quiet fellow would win? I will see you home, Anne, if you must go."

Miss Ashton coloured vividly with embarrassment. In the present state of affairs, she did not know whether that might be permitted: poor Val was out of favour at the Rectory. He detected the feeling, and it tended to vex him more and more.

"Nonsense, Anne! The veto has not yet been interposed, and they can't kill you for allowing my escort. Stay here if you like: if you go, I shall see you home."

It was quite imperative that she should go, for dinner at Hartledon was that evening fixed for seven o'clock, and there would be little enough time to dress and return again. They set out, walking side by side. Anne told him of what Lord Hartledon had said to her that day; and Val coloured with shame at the sullenness he had displayed, and his heart went into a glow of repentance. Had he met his brother then, he had clasped his hand, and poured forth his contrition.

He met some one else instead, almost immediately. It was Dr. Ashton, coming for Anne. Percival was not wanted now: was not invited to continue his escort. A cold, civil word or two passed, and Val struck across the grove into the high-road, and returned to Hartledon.

He was about to turn in at the lodge-gates with his usual greeting to Mrs. Capper when his attention was caught by a figure coming down the avenue. A man in a long coat, his face ornamented with red whiskers. It required no second glance for recognition. Whiskers and coat proclaimed their owner at once; and if ever Val Elster's heart leaped into his mouth, it certainly leaped then.

He went on, instead of turning in; quietly, as if he were only a stranger enjoying an evening stroll up the road; but the moment he was past the gates he set off at breakneck speed, not heeding where. That the man was there to arrest him, he felt as sure as he had ever felt of anything in this world; and in his perplexity he began accusing every one of treachery, Lord Hartledon and Pike in particular.

The river at the back in this part took a sweeping curve, the road kept straight; so that to arrive at a given point, the one would be more quickly traversed than the other. On and on went Val Elster; and as soon as an opening allowed, he struck into the brushwood on the right, intending to make his way back by the river to Hartledon.

But not yet. Not until the shades of night should fall on the earth: he would have a better chance of getting away from that shark in the darkness than by daylight. He propped his back against a tree and waited, hating himself all the time for his cowardice. With all his scrapes and dilemmas, he had never been reduced to this sort of hiding.

And his pursuer had struck into the wood after him, passed straight through it, though with some little doubt and difficulty, and was already by the river-side, getting there just as Lord Hartledon was passing in his skiff. Long as this may have seemed in telling, it took only a short time to accomplish; still Lord Hartledon had not made quick way, or he would have been further on his course in the race.

Would the sun ever set?—daylight ever pass? Val thought not, in his impatience; and he ventured out of his shelter very soon, and saw for his reward—the long coat and red whiskers by the river-side, their owner conversing with a man. Val went further away, keeping the direction of the stream: the brushwood might no longer be safe. He did not think they had seen him: the man he dreaded had his back to him, the other his face. And that other was Pike.



CHAPTER IX.

WAITING FOR DINNER.

Dinner at Hartledon had been ordered for seven o'clock. It was beyond that hour when Dr. Ashton arrived, for he had been detained—a clergyman's time is not always under his own control. Anne and Arthur were with him, but not Mrs. Ashton. He came in, ready with an apology for his tardiness, but found he need not offer it; neither Lord Hartledon nor his brother having yet appeared.

"Hartledon and that boy Carteret have not returned home yet," said the countess-dowager, in her fiercest tones, for she liked her dinner more than any other earthly thing, and could not brook being kept waiting for it. "And when they do come, they'll keep us another half-hour dressing."

"I beg your ladyship's pardon—they have come," interposed Captain Dawkes. "Carteret was going into his room as I came out of mine."

"Time they were," grumbled the dowager. "They were not in five minutes ago, for I sent to ask."

"Which of the two won the race?" inquired Lady Maude of Captain Dawkes.

"I don't think Carteret did," he replied, laughing. "He seemed as sulky as a bear, and growled out that there had been no race, for Hartledon had played him a trick."

"What did he mean?"

"Goodness knows."

"I hope Hartledon upset him," charitably interrupted the dowager. "A ducking would do that boy good; he is too forward by half."

There was more waiting. The countess-dowager flounced about in her pink satin gown; but it did not bring the loiterers any the sooner. Lady Maude—perverse still, but beautiful—talked in whispers to the hero of the day, Mr. Shute; wearing a blue-silk robe and a blue wreath in her hair. Anne, adhering to the colours of Lord Hartledon, though he had been defeated, was in a rich, glistening white silk, with natural flowers, red and purple, on its body, and the same in her hair. Her sweet face was sunny again, her eyes were sparkling: a word dropped by Dr. Ashton had given her a hope that, perhaps, Percival Elster might be forgiven sometime.

He was the first of the culprits to make his appearance. The dowager attacked him of course. What did he mean by keeping dinner waiting?

Val replied that he was late in coming home; he had been out. As to keeping dinner waiting, it seemed that Lord Hartledon was doing that: he didn't suppose they'd have waited for him.

He spoke tartly, as if not on good terms with himself or the world. Anne Ashton, near to whom he had drawn, looked up at him with a charming smile.

"Things may brighten, Percival," she softly breathed.

"It's to be hoped they will," gloomily returned Val. "They look dark enough just now."

"What have you done to your face?" she whispered.

"To my face? Nothing that I know of."

"The forehead is red, as if it had been bruised, or slightly grazed."

Val put his hand up to his forehead. "I did feel something when I washed just now," he remarked slowly, as though doubting whether anything was wrong or not. "It must have been done—when I—struck against that tree," he added, apparently taxing his recollection.

"How was that?"

"I was running in the dusk, and did not notice the branch of a tree in my way. It's nothing, Anne, and will soon go off."

Mr. Carteret came in, looking just as Val Elster had done—out of sorts. Questions were showered upon him as to the fate of the race; but the dowager's voice was heard above all.

"This is a pretty time to make your appearance, sir! Where's Lord Hartledon?"

"In his room, I suppose. Hartledon never came," he added in sulky tones, as he turned from her to the rest. "I rowed on, and on, thinking how nicely I was distancing him, and got down, the mischief knows where. Miles, nearly, I must have gone."

"But why did you pass the turning-point?" asked one.

"There was no turning-point," returned Mr. Carteret; "some confounded meddler must have unmoored the boat as soon as the first race was over, and I, like an idiot, rowed on, looking for it. All at once it came into my mind what a way I must have gone, and I turned and waited. And might have waited till now," he added, "for Hart never came."

"Then his arm must have failed him," exclaimed Captain Dawkes. "I thought it was all wrong."

"It wasn't right, for I soon shot past him," returned young Carteret. "But Hart knew the spot where the boat ought to have been, though I didn't; what he did, I suppose, was to clear round it just as though it had been there, and come in home again. It will be an awful shame if he takes an unfair advantage of it, and claims the race."

"Hartledon never took an unfair advantage in his life," spoke up Val Elster, in clear, decisive tones. "You need not be afraid, Carteret. I dare say his arm failed him."

"Well, he might have hallooed when he found it failing, and not have suffered me to row all that way for nothing," retorted young Carteret. "Not a trace could I see of him as I came back; he had hastened home, I expect, to shut himself up in his room with his damaged arm and foot."

"I'll see what he's doing there," said Val.

He went out; but returned immediately.

"We are all under a mistake," was his greeting. "Hartledon has not returned yet. His servant is in his room waiting for him."

"Then what do you mean by telling stories?" demanded the countess-dowager, turning sharply on Mr. Carteret.

"Good Heavens, ma'am! you need not begin upon me!" returned young Carteret. "I have told no stories. I said Hart let me go on, and never came on himself; if that's a story, I'll swallow Dawkes's skiff and the sculls too."

"You said he was in his room. You know you did."

"I said I supposed so. It's usual for a man to go there, I believe, to get ready for dinner," added young Carteret, always ripe for a wordy war, in his antipathy to the countess-dowager.

"You said he had come in;" and the angry woman faced round on Captain Dawkes. "You saw them going into their rooms, you said. Which was it—you did, or you didn't?"

"I did see Carteret make his appearance; and assumed that Lord Hartledon had gone on to his room," replied the captain, suppressing a laugh. "I am sorry to have misled your ladyship. I dare say Hart is about the house somewhere."

"Then why doesn't he appear?" stormed the dowager. "Pretty behaviour this, to keep us all waiting dinner. I shall tell him so. Val Elster, ring for Hedges."

Val rang the bell. "Has Lord Hartledon come in?" he asked, when the butler appeared.

"No, sir."

"And dinner's spoiling, isn't it, Hedges?" broke in the dowager.

"It won't be any the better for waiting, my lady."

"No. I must exercise my privilege and order it served. At once, Hedges, do you hear? If Hartledon grumbles, I shall tell him it serves him right."

"But where can Hartledon be?" cried Captain Dawkes.

"That's what I am wondering," said Val. "He can't be on the river all this time; Carteret would have seen him in coming home."

A strangely grave shade, looking almost like a prevision of evil, arose to Dr. Ashton's face. "I trust nothing has happened to him," he exclaimed. "Where did you part company with him, Mr. Carteret?"

"That's more than I can tell you, sir. You must have seen—at least—no, you were not there; but those looking on must have seen me get ahead of him within view of the starting-point; soon after that I lost sight of him. The river winds, you know; and of course I thought he was coming on behind me. Very daft of me, not to divine that the boat had been removed!"

"Do you think he passed the mill?"

"The mill?"

"That place where the river forms what might almost be called a miniature harbour. A mill is built there which the stream serves. You could not fail to see it."

"I remember now. Yes, I saw the mill. What of it?"

"Did Lord Hartledon pass it?"

"How should I know!" cried the boy. "I had lost sight of him ages before that."

"The current is extremely rapid there," observed Dr. Ashton. "If he found his arm failing, he might strike down to the mill and land there; and his ankle may be keeping him a prisoner."

"And that's what it is!" exclaimed Val.

They were crossing the hall to the dining-room. Without the slightest ceremony, the countess-dowager pushed herself foremost and advanced to the head of the table.

"I shall occupy this seat in my nephew's absence," said she. "Dr. Ashton, will you be so good as to take the foot? There's no one else."

"Nay, madam; though Lord Hartledon may not be here, Mr. Elster is."

She had actually forgotten Val; and would have liked to ignore him now that he was recalled to remembrance; but that might not be. As much contempt as could be expressed in her face was there, as she turned her snub nose and small round eyes defiantly upon that unoffending younger brother.

"I was going to request you to take it, sir," said Percival, in low tones, to Dr. Ashton. "I shall go off in the pony-carriage for Edward. He must think we are neglecting him."

"Very well. I hate these rowing matches," heartily added the Rector.

"What a curious old fish that parson must be!" ejaculated young Carteret to his next neighbour. "He says he doesn't like boating."

It happened to be Arthur Ashton, and the lad's brow lowered. "You are speaking of my father," he said. "But I'll tell you why he does not like it. He had a brother once, a good deal older than himself; they had no father, and Arthur—that was the elder—was very fond of him: there were only those two. He took him out in a boat one day, and there was an accident: the eldest was drowned, the little one saved. Do you wonder that my father has dreaded boating ever since? He seems to have the same sort of dread of it that a child who has been frightened by its nurse has of the dark."

"By Jove! that was a go, though!" was the sympathising comment of Mr. Carteret.

The doctor said grace, and dinner proceeded. It was not half over when Mr. Elster came in, in his light overcoat. Walking straight up to the table, he stood by it, his face wearing a blank, perplexed look. A momentary silence of expectation, and then many tongues spoke together.

"Where's your brother? Where's Lord Hartledon? Has he not come?"

"I don't know where he is," answered Val. "I was in hopes he had reached home before me, but I find he has not. I can't make it out at all."

"Did he land at the mill?" asked Dr. Ashton.

"Yes, he must have done so, for the skiff is moored there."

"Then he's all right," cried the doctor; and there was a strangely-marked sound of relief in his tones.

"Oh, he is all right," confidently asserted Percival. "The only question is, where he can be. The miller was out this afternoon, and left his place locked up; so that Hartledon could not get in, and had nothing for it but to start home with his lameness, or sit down on the bank until some one found him."

"He must have set off to walk."

"I should think so. But where has he walked to?" added Val. "I drove slowly home, looking on either side of the road, but could see nothing of him."

"What should bring him on the side of the road?" demanded the dowager. "Do you think he would turn tramp, and take his seat on a heap of stones? Where do you get your ideas from?"

"From common sense, ma'am. If he set out to walk, and his foot failed him half-way, there'd be nothing for it but to sit down and wait. But he is not on the road: that is the curious part of the business."

"Would he come the other way?"

"Hardly. It is so much further by the river than by the road."

"You may depend upon it that is what he has done," said Dr. Ashton. "He might think he should meet some of you that way, and get an arm to help him."

"I declare I never thought of that," exclaimed Val, his face brightening. "There he is, no doubt; perched somewhere between this and the mill, like patience on a monument, unable to put foot to the ground."

He turned away. Some of the men offered to accompany him: but he declined their help, and begged them to go on with their dinner, saying he would take sufficient servants with him, even though they had to carry Hartledon.

So Mr. Elster went, taking servants and lanterns; for in some parts of this road the trees overhung, and rendered it dark. But they could not find Lord Hartledon. They searched, and shouted, and waved their lanterns: all in vain. Very much perplexed indeed did Val Elster look when he got back again.

"Where in the world can he have gone to?" angrily questioned the countess-dowager; and she glared from her seat at the head of the table on the offender Val, as she asked it. "I must say all this is most unseemly, and Hartledon ought to be brought to his senses for causing it. I suppose he has taken himself off to a surgeon's."

It was possible, but unlikely, as none knew better than Val Elster. To get to the surgeon's he would have to pass his own house, and would be more likely to go in, and send for Mr. Hillary, than walk on with a disabled foot. Besides, if he had gone to the surgeon's, he would not stay there all this time. "I don't know what to do," said Percival Elster; and there was the same blank, perplexed look on his face that was observed the first time he came in. "I don't much like the appearance of things."

"Why, you don't think anything's wrong with him!" exclaimed young Carteret, starting-up with an alarmed face. "He's safe to turn up, isn't he?"

"Of course he will turn up," answered Val, in a dreamy tone. "Only this uncertainty, as to where to look for him, is not pleasant."

Dr. Ashton motioned Val to his side. "Are you fearing an accident?" he asked in low tones.

"No, sir."

"I am. That current by the mill is so fearfully strong; and if your brother had not the use of his one arm—and the boat was drawn onwards, beyond his control—and upset—"

Dr. Ashton paused. Val Elster looked rather surprised.

"How could it upset, sir? The skiffs are as safe as this floor. I don't fear that in the least: what I do fear is that Edward may be in some out-of-the-way nook, insensible from pain, and won't be found until daylight. Fancy, a whole night out of doors, in that state! He might be half-dead with cold by the morning."

Dr. Ashton shook his head in dissent. His dislike of boating seemed just now to be rising into horror.

"What are you going to do now, Elster?" inquired Captain Dawkes.

"Go to the mill again, I think, and find out if any one saw Hartledon leave the skiff, and which way he took. One of the servants can run down to Hillary's the while."

Dr. Ashton rose, bowing for permission to Lady Kirton; and the gentlemen with one accord rose with him, the same purpose in the mind of all—that of more effectually scouring the ground between the mill and Hartledon. The countess-dowager felt that she should like to box the ears of every one of them. The idea of danger in connection with Lord Hartledon had not yet penetrated to her brain.

At this moment, before they had left the room, there arose a strange wild sound from without—almost an unearthly sound—that seemed to come from several voices, and to be bearing round the house from the river-path. Mrs. O'Moore put down her knife and fork, and rose up with a startled cry.

"There's nothing to be alarmed at," said the dowager. "It is those Irish harvesters. I know their horrid voices, and dare say they are riotously drunk. Hartledon ought to put them in prison for it."

The sounds died away into silence. Mrs. O'Moore took her hands from her eyes, where they had been pressed. "Don't you know what it is, Lady Kirton? It is the Irish death-wail!"

It rose again, louder than before, for those from whom it came were nearing the house—a horribly wailing sound, ringing out in the silence of the night. Mrs. O'Moore crouched into her chair again, and hid her terrified face. She was not Irish, and had never heard that sound but once, and that was when her child died.

"She is right," cried her husband, the O'Moore; "that is the death-wail. Hark! it is for a chieftain; they mourn the loss of one high in the land. And—they are coming here! Oh, Elster! can DEATH have overtaken your brother?"

The gentlemen had stood spell-bound, listening to the sound, their faces a mixture of surprise and credulity. At the words they rushed out with one accord, and the women stole after them with trembling steps and blanched lips.

"If ever I saw such behaviour in all my existence!" irascibly spoke the countess-dowager, who was left alone in her glory. "The death-wail, indeed! The woman's a fool. I'll get those Irishmen transported, if I can."

In the hall the servants were gathered, cowering almost as the ladies did. Their master had flown down the hall-steps, and the labourers were coming steadily up to it, bearing something in procession. Dr. Ashton came back as quickly as he had gone out, extending his arms before him.

"Ladies, I pray you go in," he urged, in strange agitation. "You must not meet these—these Irishmen. Go back to the dining-room, I entreat you, and remain in it."

But the curiosity of women—who can suppress it? They were as though they heard not, and were pressing on to the door, when Val Elster dashed in with a white face.

"Back, all of you! You must not stay here. This is no place or sight for you. Anne," he added, seizing Miss Ashton's hand in peremptory entreaty, "you at least know how to be calm. Get them away, and keep them out of the hall."

"Tell me the worst," she implored. "I will indeed try to be calm. Who is it those men are bringing here?"

"My dear brother—my dead brother. Madam," he continued to the countess-dowager, who had now come out, dinner-napkin in hand, her curls all awry, "you must not come here. Go back to the dining-room, all of you."

"Not come here! Go back to the dining-room!" echoed the outraged dowager. "Don't take quite so much upon yourself, Val Elster. The house is Lord Hartledon's, and I am a free agent in it."

A shriek—an agonized shriek—broke from Lady Maude. In her suspense she had stolen out unperceived, and lifted the covering of the rude bier, now resting on the steps. The rays of the hall-lamp fell on the face, and Maude, in her anguish, with a succession of hysterical sobs, came shivering back to sink down at her mother's feet.

"Oh, my love—my love! Dead! dead!"

The only one who heard the words was Anne Ashton. The countess-dowager caught the last.

"Who is dead? What is this mystery?" she asked, unceremoniously lifting her satin dress, with the intention of going out to see, and her head began to nod—perhaps with apprehension—as if she had the palsy. "You want to force us away. No, thank you; not until I've come to the bottom of this."

"Let us tell them," cried young Carteret, in his boyish impulse, "and then perhaps they will go. An accident has happened to Lord Hartledon, ma'am, and these men have brought him home."

"He—he's not dead?" asked the old woman, in changed tones.

Alas! poor Lord Hartledon was indeed dead. The Irish labourers, in passing near the mill, had detected the body in the water; rescued it, and brought it home.

The countess-dowager's grief commenced rather turbulently. She talked and shrieked, and danced round, exactly as if she had been a wild Indian. It was so intensely ludicrous, that the occupants of the hall gazed in silence.

"Here to-day, and gone to-morrow!" she sobbed. "Oh—o—o—o—o—o—oh!"

"Nay," cried young Carteret, "here to-day, and gone now. Poor fellow! it is awful."

"And you have done it!" she cried, turning her grief upon the astonished boy. "You! What business had you to allure him off again in that miserable boat, once he had got home?"

"Don't trample me down, please," he indignantly returned; "I am as cut up as you can be. Hedges, hadn't you better get Lady Kirton's maid here? I think she is going mad."

"And now the house is without a master," she bemoaned, returning to her own griefs and troubles, "and I have all the arrangements thrown upon myself."

"The house is not without a master," said young Carteret, who seemed inclined to have the last word. "If one master has gone from it, poor fellow! there's another to replace him; and he is at your elbow now."

He at her elbow was Val Elster. Lady Kirton gathered in the sense of the words, and gave a cry; a prolonged cry of absolute dismay.

"He can't be its master."

"I should say he is, ma'am. At any rate he is now Lord Hartledon."

She looked from one to the other in helpless doubt. It was a contingency that had never so much as occurred to her. Had she wanted confirmation, the next moment brought it to her from the lips of the butler.

"Hedges," called out Percival sternly, in his embarrassment and grief, "open the dining-room door. We must get the hall cleared."

"The door is open, my lord."

"He Lord Hartledon!" shrieked the countess-dowager, "why, I was going to recommend his brother to ship him off to Canada for life."

It was altogether an unseemly scene at such a time. But almost everything the Countess-Dowager of Kirton did was unseemly.



CHAPTER X.

MR. PIKE'S VISIT.

Percival Elster was in truth Earl of Hartledon. By one of those unexpected calamities, which are often inexplicable—and which most certainly was so as yet in the present instance—a promising young life had been snapped asunder, and another reigned in his place. In one short hour Val Elster, who had scarcely cross or coin to call his own, had been going in danger of arrest from one moment to another, had become a peer of the realm and a man of wealth.

As they laid the body down in a small room opening from the hall, and his late companions and guests crowded around in awe-struck silence, there was one amidst them who could not control his grief and emotion. It was poor Val. Pushing aside the others, never heeding them in his bitter sorrow, he burst into passionate sobs as he leaned over the corpse. And none of them thought the worse of Val for it.

"Oh, Percival! how did it happen?"

The speaker was Dr. Ashton. Little less affected himself, he clasped the young man's hand in token of heartfelt sympathy.

"I cannot think how it could have happened," replied Percival, when able to control his feelings sufficiently to speak. "It seems awfully strange to me—mysteriously so."

"If he found himself going wrong, why didn't he shout out?" asked young Carteret, with a rueful face. "I couldn't have helped hearing him."

It was a question that was passing through the minds of all; was being whispered about. How could it have happened? The body presented the usual appearance of death from drowning; but close to the left temple was a wound, and the face was otherwise disfigured. It must have been done, they thought, by coming into contact with something or other in the water; perhaps the skiff itself. Arm and ankle were both much swollen.

Nothing was certainly known as yet of Lord Hartledon from the time Mr. Carteret parted company with him, to the time when the body was found. It appeared that these Irish labourers were going home from their work, singing as they went, their road lying past the mill, when they were spoken to by the miller's boy. He stood on the species of estrade which the miller had placed there for his own convenience, bending down as far as his young head and shoulders could reach, and peering into the water attentively. "I think I see some'at in the stream," quoth he, and the men stopped; and after a short time, proceeded to search. It proved to be the dead body of Lord Hartledon, caught amongst the reeds.

It was rather a curious coincidence that Percival Elster and his servants in the last search should have heard the voices of the labourers singing in the distance. But they were too far off on their return to Hartledon to be within hearing when the men found the body.

The news spread; people came up from far and near, and Hartledon was besieged. Mr. Hillary, the surgeon, gave it as his opinion that the wound on the temple, no doubt caused before death, had rendered Lord Hartledon insensible, and unable to extricate himself from the water. The mill and cottage were built on what might be called an arm of the river. Lord Hartledon had no business there at all; but the current was very strong; and if, as was too probable, he had become almost disabled, he might have drifted to it without being able to help himself; or he might have been making for it, intending to land and rest in the cottage until help could be summoned to convey him home. How he got into the water was not known. Once in the water, the blow was easy enough to receive; he might have struck against the estrade.

There is almost sure to be some miserable coincidence in these cases to render them doubly unfortunate. For three weeks past, as the miller testified—a respectable man named Floyd—his mill had not been deserted; some one, man, boy, or woman, had always been there. On this afternoon it was closed, mill and cottage too, and all were away. What might have been simply a slight accident, had help been at hand, had terminated in an awful death for the want of it.

It was eleven o'clock before anything like order was restored at Hartledon, and the house left in quiet. The last person to quit it was Dr. Ashton. Hedges, the butler, had been showing him out, and was standing for a minute on the steps looking after him, and perhaps to cool, with a little fresh air, his perplexed brow—for the man was a faithful retainer, and the affair had shocked him in no common degree—when he was accosted by Pike, who emerged stealthily from behind one of the outer pillars, where he seemed to have been sheltering.

"Why, what have you been doing there?" exclaimed the butler.

"Mr. Hedges, I've been waiting here—hiding, if you like to call it so," was the answer; and it should be observed that the man's manner, quite unlike his usual rough, devil-may-care tone, was characterized by singular respect and earnestness. To hear him, and not see him, you might think you were listening to some staid and respectable friend of the family. "I have been standing there this hour past, keeping behind the pillar while other folk went in and out, and waiting my time to speak to you."

"To me?" repeated Hedges.

"Yes, sir. I want you to grant me a favour; and I hope you'll pardon my boldness in asking it."

Hedges did not know what to make of this. It was the first time he had enjoyed the honour of a personal interview with Mr. Pike; and the contrast between that gentleman's popular reputation and his present tone and manner struck the butler as exceedingly singular. But that the butler was in a very softened mood, feeling full of subdued charity towards all the world, he might not have condescended to parley with the man.

"What is the favour?" he inquired.

"I want you to let me in to see the poor young earl—what's left of him."

"Let you in to see the earl!" echoed Hedges in surprise. "I never heard such a bold request."

"It is bold. I've already said so, and asked you to pardon it."

"What can you want that for? It can't be for nothing but curiosity; and—"

"It's not curiosity," interrupted Pike, with an emphasis that told upon his hearer. "I have a different motive, sir; and a good motive. If I were at liberty to tell it—which I'm not—you'd let me in without another word. Lots of people have been seeing him, I suppose."

"Indeed they have not. Why should they? It is a bold thing for you to come and ask it."

"Did he come by his death fairly?" whispered the man.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed the butler, stepping back aghast. "I don't think you know what you are talking about. Who would harm Lord Hartledon?"

"Let me see him," implored the man. "It can't hurt him or anybody else. Only just for a minute, sir, in your presence. And if it's ever in my power to do you a good turn, Mr. Hedges, I'll do it. It doesn't seem likely now; but the mouse gnawed the lion's net, you know, and set him free."

Whether it was the strange impressiveness with which the request was proffered, or that the softened mood of Hedges rendered him incapable of contention, certain it was that he granted it; and most likely would wonder at himself for it all his after-life. Crossing the hall with silent tread, and taking up a candle as he went, he led the way to the room; Mr. Pike stepping after him with a tread equally silent.

"Take your hat off," peremptorily whispered the butler; for that worthy had entered the room with it on. "Is that the way to—"

"Hedges!"

Hedges was struck with consternation at the call, for it was that of his new master. He had not bargained for this; supposing that he had gone to his room for the night. However he might have been foolishly won over to accede to the man's strange request, it was not to be supposed it would be approved of by Lord Hartledon. The butler hesitated. He did not care to betray Pike, neither did he care to leave Pike alone.

"Hedges!" came the call again, louder and quicker.

"Yes, sir—my lord?" and Hedges squeezed out at the door without opening it much—which was rather a difficulty, for he was a portly man, with a red, honest sort of face—leaving Pike and the light inside. Lord Hartledon—as we must unfortunately call him now—was standing in the hall.

"Has Dr. Ashton gone?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Did he leave that address?"

Hedges knew to what his master alluded: an address that was wanted in connection with certain official proceedings that must now take place. Hedges replied that Dr. Ashton had not left it with him.

"Then he must have forgotten it. He said he would write it down in pencil. Send over to the Rectory the first thing in the morning. And, Hedges—"

At this moment a slight noise was heard within the room like the sound of an extinguisher falling; as, in fact, it was. Lord Hartledon turned towards it.

"Who is there, Hedges?"

"I—it's no one in particular, sir—my lord."

What with the butler's bewilderment on the sudden change of masters, and what with his consciousness of the presence of his visitor, he was unusually confused. Lord Hartledon noticed it. It instantly occurred to him that one of the ladies, or perhaps one of the women-servants, had been admitted to the room; and he did not consider it a proper sight for any of them.

"Who is it?" he demanded, somewhat peremptorily.

So Hedges had to confess what had taken place, and that he had allowed the man to enter.

"Pike! Why, what can he want?" exclaimed Lord Hartledon in surprise. And he turned to the room.

The moment the butler left him alone Mr. Pike's first proceeding had been to cover his head again with his wide-awake, which he had evidently removed with reluctance, and might have refused to remove at all had it been consistent with policy; his second was to snatch up the candle, bend over the dead face, and examine it minutely both with eye and hand.

"There is a wound, then, and it's true what they are saying. I thought it might have been gossip," he muttered, as he pushed the soft dark hair from the temple. "Any more suspicious marks?" he resumed, taking a rapid view of the hands and head. "No; nothing but what he'd be likely to get in the water: but—I'll swear that might have been the blow of a human hand. 'Twould stun, if it wouldn't kill; and then, held under the water—"

At this moment Mr. Pike and his comments were interrupted, and he drew back from the table on which the body was lying; but not before Lord Hartledon had seen him touching the face of the dead.

"What are you doing?" came the stern demand.

"I wasn't harming him," was the answer; and Mr. Pike seemed to have suddenly returned to his roughness. "It's a nasty accident to have happened; and I don't like this."

He pointed to the temple as he spoke. Lord Hartledon's usually good-natured brow—at present a brow of deep sorrow—contracted with displeasure.

"It is an awful accident," he replied. "But I asked what you were doing here?"

"I thought I'd like to look upon him, sir; and the butler let me in. I wish I'd been a bit nearer the place at the time: I'd have saved him, or got drowned myself. Not much fear of that, though. I'm a rat for the water. Was that done fairly?" pointing again to the temple.

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Val.

"Well—it might be, or it might not. One who has led the roving life I have, and been in all sorts of scenes, bred in the slums of London too, looks on the suspicious side of these things. And there mostly is one in all of 'em."

Val was moved to anger. "How dare you hint at so infamous a suspicion, Pike? If—"

"No offence, my lord," interrupted Pike—"and it's my lord that you are now. Thoughts may be free in this room; but I am not going to spread suspicion outside. I say, though that might have been an accident, it might have been done by an enemy."

"Did you do it?" retorted Lord Hartledon in his displeasure.

Pike gave a short laugh.

"I did not. I had no cause to harm him. What I'm thinking was, whether anybody else had. He was mistaken for another yesterday," continued Pike, dropping his voice. "Some men in his lordship's place might have showed fight then: even blows."

Percival made no immediate rejoinder. He was gazing at Pike just as fixedly as the latter gazed at him. Did the man wish to insinuate that the unwelcome visitor had again mistaken the one brother for the other, and the result had been a struggle between them, ending in this? The idea rushed into his mind, and a dark flush overspread his face.

"You have no grounds for thinking that man—you know who I mean—attacked my brother a second time?"

"No, I have no grounds for it," shortly answered Pike.

"He was near to the spot at the time; I saw him there," continued Lord Hartledon, speaking apparently to himself; whilst the flush, painfully red and dark, was increasing rather than diminishing.

"I know you did," returned Pike.

The tone grated on Lord Hartledon's ear. It implied that the man might become familiar, if not checked; and, with all his good-natured affability, he was not one to permit it; besides, his position was changed, and he could not help feeling that it was. "Necessity makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows," says the very true proverb; and what might have been borne yesterday would not be borne to-day.

"Let me understand you," he said, and there was a stern decision in his tone and manner that surprised Pike. "Have you any reason whatever to suspect that man of having injured, or attempted to injure my brother?"

"I've not," answered Pike. "I never saw him nearer to the mill yesterday than he was when he looked at us. I don't think he went nearer. My lord, if I knew anything against the man, I'd tell it out, and be glad. I hate the whole tribe. He wouldn't make the mistake again," added Pike, half-contemptuously. "He knew which was his lordship fast enough to-day, and which wasn't."

"Then what did you mean by insinuating that the blow on the temple was the result of violence?"

"I didn't say it was: I said it might have been. I don't know a thing, as connected with this business, against a mortal soul. It's true, my lord."

"Perhaps, then, you will leave this room," said Lord Hartledon.

"I'm going. And many thanks to your lordship for not having turned me from it before, and for letting me have my say. Thanks to you, sir," he added, as he went out of the room and passed Hedges, who was waiting in the hall.

Hedges closed the door after him, and turned to receive a reprimand from his new master.

"Before you admit such men as that into the most sacred chamber the house at present contains, you will ask my permission, Hedges."

Hedges attempted to excuse himself. "He was so very earnest, my lord; he declared to me he had a good motive in wanting to come in. At these times, when one's heart is almost broken with a sudden blow, one is apt to be soft and yielding. What with that feeling upon me, and what with the fright he gave me—"

"What fright did he give you?" interrupted Val.

"Well, my lord, he—he asked me whether his lordship had come fairly by his death."

"How dare you repeat the insinuation?" broke forth Lord Hartledon, with more temper than Hedges had ever seen him display. "The very idea is absurd; it is wicked; it is unpardonable. My brother had not an enemy in the world. Take care not to repeat it again. Do you hear?"

He turned away from the astonished man, went into the room he had called sacred, and closed the door. Hedges wondered whether the hitherto sweet-tempered, easy-mannered younger brother had changed his nature with his inheritance.

As the days went on, few, if any, further particulars were elicited as to the cause of accident. That the unfortunate Lord Hartledon had become partly, if not wholly, disabled, so as to be incapable of managing even the little skiff, had been drifted by the current towards the mills, and there upset, was assumed by all to have been the true history of the case. There appeared no reason to doubt that it was so. The inquest was held on the Thursday.

And on that same morning the new Lord Hartledon received a proof of the kindness of his brother. A letter arrived from Messrs. Kedge and Reck, addressed to Edward Earl of Hartledon. By it Percival found—there was no one else to open it now—that his brother had written to them early on the Tuesday morning, taking the debt upon himself; and they now wrote to say they accepted his responsibility, and had withdrawn the officer from Calne. Alas! Val Elster could have dismissed him himself now.

He sat with bent head and drooping eyelids. None, save himself, knew how bitter were the feelings within him, or the remorse that was his portion for having behaved unkindly to his brother within the last few hours of life. He had rebelled at his state of debt becoming known to Dr. Ashton; he had feared to lose Anne: it seemed to him now, that he would live under the doctor's displeasure for ever, would never see Anne again, could he recall his brother. Oh, these unavailing regrets! Will they rise up to face us at the Last Day?

With a suppressed ejaculation that was like a cry of pain, as if he would throw from him these reflections and could not, Lord Hartledon drew a sheet of paper before him and wrote a note to the lawyers. He briefly stated what had taken place; that his brother was dead from an accident, and he had inherited, and should take speedy measures for the discharge of any liabilities there might be against him: and he requested, as a favour, that the letter written to them by his brother might be preserved and returned to him: he should wish to keep it as the last lines his hand had traced.



CHAPTER XI.

THE INQUEST.

On this day, Thursday, the inquest was held. Most of the gay crowd staying at Hartledon had taken flight; Mr. Carteret, and one or two more, whose testimony might be wished for, remaining. The coroner and jury assembled in the afternoon, in a large boarded apartment called the steward's room. Lord Hartledon was present with Dr. Ashton and other friends: they were naturally anxious to hear the evidence that could be collected, and gather any light that might be thrown upon the accident. The doors were not closed to the public, and a crowd, gentle and simple, pressed in.

The surgeon spoke to the supposed cause of death—drowning: the miller spoke to his house and mill having been that afternoon shut up. He and his wife went over in their spring-cart to Garchester, and left the place locked up, he said. The coroner asked whether it was his custom to lock up his place when he went out; he replied that it was, when they went out together; but that event rarely happened. Upon his return at dusk, he found the little skiff loose in the stream, and secured it. It was his servant-boy, David Ripper, who called his attention to it first of all. He saw nothing of Lord Hartledon, and had not very long secured the skiff when Mr. Percival Elster came up in the pony-carriage, asking if his brother was there. He looked at the skiff, and said it was the one his lordship had been in. Mr. Elster said he supposed his brother was walking home, and he should drive slowly back and look out for him. Later Mr. Elster returned: he had several servants with him then and lanterns; they had come out to look for Lord Hartledon, but could not find him. It was only just after they had gone away again that the Irish harvest-men came up and found the body.

This was the substance of the miller's evidence; it was all he knew: and the next witness called was the boy David Ripper, popularly styled in the neighbourhood young Rip, in contradistinction to his father, a day-labourer. He was an urchin of ten or twelve, with a red, round face; quite ludicrous from its present expression of terrified consternation. The coroner sharply inquired what he was frightened at; and the boy burst into a roar by way of answer. He didn't know nothing, and hadn't seen nothing, and it wasn't him that drowned his lordship; and he couldn't tell more if they hanged him for it.

The miller interposed. The boy was one of the idlest young vagabonds he had ever had the luck to be troubled with; and he thought it exceedingly likely he had been off that afternoon and not near the mill at all. He had ordered him to take two sacks into Calne; but when he reached home he found the sacks untouched, lying where he had placed them outside. Mr. Ripper had no doubt been playing truant on his own account.

"Where did you pass Tuesday afternoon during your master's absence?" sternly demanded the coroner. "Take your hands from your face and answer me, boy."

David Ripper obeyed in the best manner he was capable of, considering his agitation. "I dun know now where I was," he said. "I was about."

"About where?"

Mr. Ripper apparently could not say where. He thought he was "setting his bird-trap" in the stubble-field; and he see a partridge, and watched where it scudded to; but he wasn't nigh the mill the whole time.

"Did you see anything of Lord Hartledon when he was in the skiff?"

"I never saw him," he sobbed. "I wasn't nigh the mill at all, and never saw him nor the skiff."

"What time did you get back to the mill?" asked the coroner.

He didn't know what time it was; his master and missis had come home.

This was true, Mr. Floyd said. They had been back some little time before Ripper showed himself. The first intimation he received of that truant's presence was when he drew his attention to the loose skiff.

"How came you to see the skiff?" sharply asked the coroner.

Ripper spoke up with trembling lips. He was waiting outside after he came up, and afraid to go in lest his master should beat him for not taking the sacks, which went clean out of his mind, they did, and then he saw the little boat; upon which he called out and told his master.

"And it was also you who first saw the body in the water," observed the coroner, regarding the reluctant witness curiously. "How came you to see that? Were you looking for something of the sort?"

The witness shivered. He didn't know how he come to see it. He was on the strade, not looking for nothing, when he saw some'at dark among the reeds, and told the harvesters when they come by. They said it was a man, got him out, and then found it was his lordship.

There was only one peculiarity about the boy's evidence—his manner. All he said was feasible enough; indeed, what would be most likely to happen under the circumstances. But whence arose his terror? Had he been of a timid temperament, it might have been natural; but the miller had spoken the truth—he was audacious and hardy. Only upon one or two, however, did the manner leave any impression. Pike, who made one of the crowd in the inquest-room, was one of these. His experience of human nature was tolerably keen, and he felt sure the boy was keeping something behind that he did not dare to tell. The coroner and jury were not so clear-sighted, and dismissed him with the remark that he was a "little fool."

"Call George Gorton," said the coroner, looking at his notes.

Very much to Lord Hartledon's surprise—perhaps somewhat to his annoyance—the man answering to this name was the one who had originally come to Calne on a special mission to himself. Some feeling caused him to turn from the man whilst he gave his evidence, a thing easily done in the crowded room.

It appeared that amidst the stirring excitement in the neighbourhood on the Tuesday night when the death became known, this stranger happened to avow in the public-house which he made his quarters that he had seen Lord Hartledon in his skiff just before the event must have happened. The information was reported, and the man received a summons to appear before the coroner.

And it may be as well to remark now, that his second appearance was owing to a little cowardice on his own part. He had felt perfectly satisfied at the time with the promise given him by Lord Hartledon to see the debt paid—given also in the presence of the Rector—and took his departure in the train, just as Pike had subsequently told Mr. Elster. But ere he had gone two stages on his journey, he began to think he might have been too precipitate, and to ask himself whether his employers would not tell him so when he appeared before them, unbacked by any guarantee from Lord Hartledon; for this, by a strange oversight, he had omitted to ask for. He halted at once, and went back by the next return train. The following day, Tuesday, he spent looking after Lord Hartledon, but, as it happened, did not meet him.

The man—a dissipated young man, now that his hat was off—came forward in his long coat, his red hair and whiskers. But it seemed that he had really very little information to give. He was on the banks of the river when Lord Hartledon passed in the skiff, and noticed how strangely he was rowing, one arm apparently lying useless. What part of the river was this, the coroner asked; and the witness avowed that he could not describe it. He was a stranger, never there but that once; all he knew was, that it was higher up, beyond Hartledon House. What might he have been doing there, demanded the coroner. Only strolling about, was the answer. What was his business at Calne? came the next question; and as it was put, the witness caught the eye of the new Lord Hartledon through an opening in the crowd. His business, the witness replied to the coroner, was his own business, and did not concern the public, and he respectfully declined to state it. He presumed Calne was a free place like other places, where a stranger might spend a few days without question, if he pleased.

Pike chuckled at this: incipient resistance to authority cheered that lawless man's heart. He had stood throughout, in the shadow of the crowd, just within the door, attentively watching the witnesses as they gave their evidence: but he was not prepared for what was to come next.

Did the witness see any other spectators on the bank? continued the coroner. Only one, was the answer: a man called Pike, or some such name. Pike was watching the little boat on the river when he got up to him; he remarked to Pike that his lordship's arm seemed tired; and he and Pike had walked back to Calne together.

Pike would have got away had he been able, but the coroner whispered to an officer. For one single moment Mr. Pike seemed inclined to show fight; he began struggling, not gently, to reach the door; the next he gave it up, and resigned himself to his fate. There was a little hubbub, in the midst of which a slip of paper with a pencilled line from Lord Hartledon, was handed to the coroner.

"Press this point, whether they returned to Calne at once and together."

"George Gorton," cried the coroner, as he crushed the paper in his hand, "at what hour did you return to Calne?"

"I went at once. As soon as the little boat was out of sight."

"Went alone?"

"No, sir. I and the man Pike walked together. I've said so already."

"What made you go together?"

"Nothing in particular. We were both going back, I suppose, and strolled along talking."

It appeared to be all that the witness had to tell, and Mr. Pike came forward perforce. As he stood there, his elegant wide-awake bent in his hand, he looked more like the wild man of the woods he had been compared to, than a civilized being. Rough, rude, and abrupt were his tones as he spoke, and he bent his face and eyes downwards whilst he answered. It was in those eyes that lay the look which had struck Mr. Elster as being familiar to him. He persisted in giving his name as Tom, not Thomas.

But if the stranger in the long coat had little evidence to give, Pike had even less. He had been in the woods that afternoon and sauntered to the bank of the river just as Lord Hartledon passed in the skiff; but he had taken very little notice of him. It was only when the last witness, who came up at the moment, remarked upon the queer manner in which his lordship held his arm, that he saw it was lying idle.

Not a thing more could he or would he tell. It was all he knew, he said, and would swear it was all. He went back to Calne with the last witness, and never saw his lordship again alive.

It did appear to be all, just as it did in the matter of the other man. The coroner inquired whether he had seen any one else on the banks or near them, and Pike replied that he had not set eyes on another soul, which Percival knew to be false, for he had seen him. He was told to put his signature to his evidence, which the clerk had taken down, and affixed a cross.

"Can't you write?" asked the coroner.

Pike shook his head negatively. "Never learnt," he curtly said. And Percival believed that to be an untruth equally with the other. He could not help thinking that the avowal of their immediate return might also be false: it was just as possible that one or other, or both, had followed the course of the boat.

Mr. Carteret was examined. He could tell no more than he had already told. They started together, but he had soon got beyond his lordship, and had never seen him again alive. There was nothing more to be gleaned or gathered. Not the smallest suspicion of foul play, or of its being anything but a most unfortunate accident, was entertained for a moment by any one who heard the evidence, and the verdict of the jury was to that effect: Accidental Death.

As the crowd pressed out of the inquest-room, jostling one another in the gloom of the evening, and went their several ways, Lord Hartledon found himself close to Gorton, his coat flapping as he walked. The man was looking round for Pike: but Mr. Pike, the instant his forced evidence was given, had slunk away from the gaze of his fellow-men to ensconce himself in his solitary shed. To all appearance Lord Hartledon had overtaken Gorton by accident: the man turned aside in obedience to a signal, and halted. They could not see much of each other's faces in the twilight.

"I wish to ask you a question," said Percival in low, impressive, and not unkindly tones. "Did you speak with my brother, Lord Hartledon, at all on Tuesday?"

"No, my lord, I did not," was the ready answer. "I was trying to get to see his lordship, but did not."

"What did you want with him? What brought you back to Calne?"

"I wanted to get from him a guarantee for—for what your lordship knows of; which he had omitted to give, and I had not thought to ask for," civilly replied the man. "I was looking about for his lordship on the Tuesday morning, but did not get to see him. In the afternoon, when the boat-race was over, I made bold to call at Hartledon, but the servants said his lordship wasn't in. As I came away, I saw him, as I thought, pass the lodge and go up the road, and I cut after him, but couldn't overtake him, and at last lost sight of him. I struck into a tangled sort of pathway through the gorse, or whatever it's called down here, and it brought me out near the river. His lordship was just sculling down, and then I knew it was some one else had gone by the lodge, and not him. Perhaps it was your lordship?"

"You knew it was Lord Hartledon in the boat? I mean, you recognized him? You did not mistake him for me?"

"I knew him, my lord. If I'd been a bit nearer the lodge, I shouldn't have been likely to mistake even your lordship for him."

Lord Hartledon was gazing into the man's face still; never once had his eyes been removed from it.

"You did not see Lord Hartledon later?"

"I never saw him all day but that once when he passed in the skiff."

"You did not follow him, then?"

"Of what use?" debated the man. "I couldn't call out my business from the banks, and didn't know his lordship was going to land lower down. I went straight back to Calne, my lord, walking with that man Pike—who is a rum fellow, and has a history behind him, unless I'm mistaken; but it's no business of mine. I made my mind up to another night of it in Calne, thinking I'd get to Hartledon early next morning before his lordship had time to go out; and I was sitting comfortably with a pipe and a glass of beer, when news came of the accident."

Lord Hartledon believed the man to be telling the truth; and a weight—the source of which he did not stay to analyse—was lifted from his mind. But he asked another question.

"Why are you still in Calne?"

"I waited for orders. After his lordship died I couldn't go away without them—carrying with me nothing but the word of a dead man. The orders came this morning, safe enough; but I had the summons served on me then to attend the inquest, and had to stay for it. I'm going away now, my lord, by the first train."

Lord Hartledon was satisfied, and nodded his head. As he turned back he met Dr. Ashton.

"I was looking for you, Lord Hartledon. If you require any assistance or information in the various arrangements that now devolve upon you, I shall be happy to render both. There will be a good deal to do one way or another; more, I dare say, than your inexperience has the least idea of. You will have your solicitor at hand, of course; but if you want me, you know where to find me."

The Rector's words were courteous, but the tone was not warm, and the title "Lord Hartledon" grated on Val's ear. In his impulse he grasped the speaker's hand, pouring forth a heartfelt prayer.

"Oh, Dr. Ashton, will you not forgive me? The horrible trouble I brought upon myself is over now. I don't rejoice in it under the circumstances, Heaven knows; I only speak of the fact. Let me come to your house again! Forgive me for the past."

"In one sense the trouble is over, because the debts that were a formidable embarrassment to Mr. Elster are as nothing to Lord Hartledon," was the reply. "But let me assure you of one thing: that your being Lord Hartledon will not make the slightest difference to my decision not to give you my daughter, unless your line of conduct shall change."

"It is changed. Dr. Ashton, on my word of honour, I will never be guilty of carelessness again. One thing will be my safeguard, though all else should fail—the fact that I passed my word for this to my dear brother not many hours before his death. For my sake, for Anne's sake, you will forgive me!"

Was it possible to resist the persuasive tones, the earnestness of the honest, dark-blue eyes? If ever Percival Elster was to make an effort for good, and succeed, it must be now. The doctor knew it; and he knew that Anne's happiness was at stake. But he did not thaw immediately.

"You know, Lord Hartledon—"

"Call me Val, as you used to do," came the pleading interruption; and Dr. Ashton smiled in spite of himself.

"Percival, you know it is against my nature to be harsh or unforgiving; just as I believe it contrary to your nature to be guilty of deliberate wrong. If you will only be true to yourself, I would rather have you for my son-in-law than any other man in England; as I would have had when you were Val Elster. Do you note my words? true to yourself."

"As I will be from henceforth," whispered Val, earnest tears rising to his eyes.

And as he would have been but for his besetting sin.



CHAPTER XII.

LATER IN THE DAY.

It happened that Clerk Gum had business on hand the day of the inquest, which obliged him to go to Garchester. He reached home after dark; and the first thing he saw was his wife, in what he was pleased to call a state of semi-idiocy. The tea-things were laid on the table, and substantial refreshment in the shape of cold meat, and a plate of muffins ready for toasting, all for the clerk's regalement. But Mrs. Gum herself sat on a low chair by the fire, her eyes swollen with crying.

"What's the matter now?" was the clerk's first question.

"Oh, Gum, I told you you ought not to have gone off to-day. You might have stayed for the inquest."

"Much good I should do the inquest, or the inquest do me," retorted the clerk. "Has Becky gone?"

"Long ago. Gum, that dream's coming round. I said it would. I told you there was ill in store for Lord Hartledon; and that Pike was mixed up in it, and Mr. Elster also in some way. If you'd only listen to me—"

The clerk, who had been brushing his hat and shaking the dust from his outer coat—for he was a careful man with his clothes, and always well-dressed—brought down his hand upon the table with some temper.

"Just stop that. I've heard enough of that dream, and of all your dreams. Confounded folly! Haven't I trouble and worry enough upon my mind, without your worrying me every time I come in about your idiotic dreams?"

"Well," returned Mrs. Gum, "if the dream's nothing, I'd like to ask why they had Pike up to-day before them all?"

"Who had him up?" asked the clerk, after a pause. "Had him up where?"

"Before the people sitting on the body of Lord Hartledon. Lydia Jones brought me the news just now. 'They had Pike the poacher up,' says she. 'He was up before the jury, and had to confess to it.' 'Confess to what,' said I. 'Why, that he was about in the woods when my lord met his end,' said she; 'and it's to know how my lord did meet it, and whether the poacher mightn't have dealt that blow on his temple and robbed him after it.' Gum—"

"There's no suspicion of foul play, is there?" interrupted the clerk, in strangely subdued tones.

"Not that I know of, except in Lydia's temper," answered Mrs. Gum. "But I don't like to hear he was up there at all."

"Lydia Jones is a foul-tongued woman, capable of swearing away any man's life. Is Pike in custody?"

"Not yet. They've let him off for the present. Oh, Gum, often and often do I wish my days were ended!"

"Often and often do I wish I'd a quiet house to come to, and not be bothered with dreams," was the scornful retort. "Suppose you toast the muffins."

She gave a sigh or two, put her cap straight, smoothed her ragged hair, and meekly rose to obey. The clerk was carefully folding up the outer coat, for it was one he wore only on high-days, when he felt something in the pocket—a small parcel.

"I'd almost forgotten this," he exclaimed, taking it out. "Thanks to you, Nance! What with your dreams and other worryings I can't think of my proper business."

"What is it?" she asked.

"A deed Dr. Ashton's lawyer got me to bring and save his clerk a journey—if you must know. I'll take it over at once, while the tea's brewing."

As Jabez Gum passed through his own gate he looked towards Mr. Pike's dwelling; it was only natural he should do so after the recent conversation; and he saw that worthy gentleman come stealing across the waste ground, with his usual cautious step. Although not given to exchanging courtesies with his neighbour, the clerk walked briskly towards him now, and waited at the hurdles which divided the waste ground from the road.

"I hear you were prowling about the mill when Lord Hartledon met with his accident," began the clerk, in low, condemning tones.

"And what if I was," asked Pike, leaning his arms on the hurdles and facing the clerk. "Near the mill I wasn't; about the woods and river I was; and I saw him pass down in the sculling boat with his disabled arm. What of it, I ask?"

Pike's tone, though short, was civil enough. The forced appearance before the coroner and public had disturbed his equanimity in no slight degree, and taken for the present all insolence out of him.

"Should any doubt get afloat that his lordship's death might not have been accidental, your presence at the spot would tell against you."

"No, it wouldn't. I left the spot before the accident could have happened; and I came back to Calne with a witness. As to the death having been something worse than accident, not a soul in the place has dreamt of such a thing except me."

"Except you! What do you mean?"

Pike leaned more over the hurdles, so as to bring his disreputable face closer to Mr. Gum, who slightly recoiled as he caught the low whisper.

"I don't think the death was accidental. I believe his lordship was just put out of the way quietly."

"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed the shocked clerk. "By whom? By you?" he added, in his bewilderment.

"No," returned the man. "If I'd done it, I shouldn't talk about it."

"What do you mean?" cried Mr. Gum.

"I mean that I have my suspicions; and good suspicions they are. Many a man has been hung on less. I am not going to tell them; perhaps not ever. I shall wait and keep my eyes open, and bring them, if I can, to certainties. Time enough to talk then, or keep silent, as circumstances may dictate."

"And you tell me you were not near the place at the time of the accident?"

"I wasn't," replied Mr. Pike, with emphasis.

"Who was?"

"That's my secret. And as I've a little matter of business on hand to-night, I don't care to be further delayed, if it's all the same to you, neighbour. And instead of your accusing me of prowling about the mill again, perhaps you'll just give a thought occasionally to what I have now said, keeping it to yourself. I'm not afraid of your spreading it in Calne; for it might bring a hornets' nest about your head, and about some other heads that you wouldn't like to injure."

With the last words Mr. Pike crossed the hurdles and went off in the direction of Hartledon. It was a light night, and the clerk stood and stared after him. To say that Jabez Gum in his astonishment was uncertain whether he stood on his head or his heels, would be saying little; and how much of these assertions he might believe, and what mischief Mr. Pike might be going after to-night, he knew not. Drawing a long sigh, which did not sound very much like a sigh of relief, he at length turned off to Dr. Ashton's, and the man disappeared.

We must follow Pike. He went stealthily up the road past Hartledon, keeping in the shade of the hedge, and shrinking into it when he saw any one coming. Striking off when he neared the mill, he approached it cautiously, and halted amidst some trees, whence he had a view of the mill-door.

He was waiting for the boy, David Ripper. Fully convinced by the lad's manner at the inquest that he had not told all he knew, but was keeping something back in fear, Mr. Pike, for reasons of his own, resolved to come at it if he could. He knew that the boy would be at work later than usual that night, having been hindered in the afternoon.

Imagine yourself standing with your back to the river, reader, and take a view of the premises as they face you. The cottage is a square building, and has four good rooms on the ground floor. The miller's thrifty wife generally locked all these rooms up if she went out, and carried the keys away in her pocket. The parlour window was an ordinary sash-window, with outside shutters; the kitchen window a small casement, protected by a fixed net-work of strong wire. No one could get in or out, even when the casement was open, without tearing this wire away, which would not be a difficult matter to accomplish. On the left of the cottage, but to your right as you face it, stands the mill, to which you ascend by steps. It communicates inside with the upper floor of the cottage, which is used as a store-room for corn; and from this store-room a flight of stairs descends to the kitchen below. Another flight of stairs from this store-room communicated with the open passage leading from the back-door to the stable. This is all that need be said: and you may think it superfluous to have described it at all: but it is not so.

The boy Ripper at length came forth. With a shuddering avoidance of the water he came tearing along as one running from a ghost, and was darting past the trees, when he found himself detained by an arm of great strength. Mr. Pike clapped his other hand upon the boy's mouth, stifling a howl of terror.

"Do you see this, Rip?" cried he.

Rip did see it. It was a pistol held rather inconveniently close to the boy's breast. Rip dearly loved his life; but it nearly went out of him then with fear.

"Now," said Pike, "I've come up to know about this business of Lord Hartledon's, and I will know it, or leave you as dead as he is. And I'll have you took up for murder, into the bargain," he rather illogically continued, "as an accessory to the fact."

David Ripper was in a state of horror; all idea of concealment gone out of him. "I couldn't help it," he gasped. "I couldn't get out to him; I was locked up in the mill. Don't shoot me."

"I'll spare you on one condition," decided Pike. "Disclose the whole of this from first to last, and then we may part friends. But try to palm off one lie upon me, and I'll riddle you through. To begin with: what brought you locked up in the mill?"

It was a wicked tale of a wicked young jail-bird, as Mr. Pike (probably the worse jail-bird by far of the two) phrased it. Master Ripper had purposely caused himself to be locked in the mill, his object being to supply himself with as much corn as he could carry about him for the benefit of his rabbits and pigeons and other live stock at home. He had done it twice before, he avowed, in dread of the pistol, and had got away safe through the square hole in the passage at the foot of the back staircase, whence he had dropped to the ground. To his consternation on this occasion, however, he had found the door at the foot of the stairs bolted, as it never had been before, and he could not get to the passage. So he was a prisoner all the afternoon, and had exercised his legs between the store-room and kitchen, both of which were open to him.

If ever a man showed virtuous indignation at a sinner's confession, Mr. Pike showed it now. "That's how you were about in the stubble-field setting your traps, you young villain! I saw the coroner look at you. And now about Lord Hartledon. What did you see?"

Master Ripper rubbed the perspiration from his face as he went on with his tale. Pike listened with all the ears he possessed and said not a word, beyond sundry rough exclamations, until the tale was done.

"You awful young dog! You saw all that from the kitchen-window, and never tried to get out of it!"

"I couldn't get out of it," pleaded the boy. "It's got a wire-net before it, and I couldn't break that."

"You are strong enough to break it ten times over," retorted Pike.

"But then master would ha' known I'd been in the mill!" cried the boy, a gleam of cunning in his eyes.

"Ugh," grunted Pike. "And you saw exactly what you've told me?"

"I saw it and heard the cries."

"Did he see you?"

"No; I was afeard to show myself. When master come home, the first thing he did was t' unlock that there staircase door, and I got out without his seeing me—"

"Where did you hide the grain you were loaded with?" demanded Pike.

"I'd emptied it out again in the store-room," returned the boy. "I told master there were a loose skiff out there, and he come out and secured it. Them harvesters come up next and got him out of the water."

"Yes, you could see fast enough what you were looking for! Well, young Rip," continued Mr. Pike, consolingly, "you stand about as rich a chance of being hanged as ever you'll stand in all your born days. If you'd jumped through that wire you'd have saved my lord, and he'd have made it right for you with old Floyd. I'd advise you to keep a silent tongue in your head, if you want to save your neck."

"I was keeping it, till you come and made me tell with that there pistol," howled the boy. "You won't go and split on me?" he asked, with trembling lips.

"I won't split on you about the grain," graciously promised Pike. "It's no business of mine. As to the other matter—well, I'll not say anything about that; at any rate, yet awhile. You keep it a secret; so will I."

Without another word, Pike extended his hand as a signal that the culprit was at liberty to depart; and he did so as fast as his legs would carry him. Pike then returned the pistol to his pocket and took his way back to Calne in a thoughtful and particularly ungenial mood. There was a doubt within him whether the boy had disclosed the truth, even to him.

Perhaps on no one—with the exception of Percival—did the death of Lord Hartledon leave its effects as it did on Lady Kirton and her daughter Maude. To the one it brought embarrassment; to the other, what seemed very like a broken heart. The countess-dowager's tactics must change as by magic. She had to transfer the affection and consideration evinced for Edward Lord Hartledon to his brother; and to do it easily and naturally. She had to obliterate from the mind of the latter her overbearing dislike to him, cause her insults to be remembered no more. A difficult task, even for her, wily woman as she was.

How was it to be done? For three long hours the night after Lord Hartledon's death, she lay awake, thinking out her plans; perhaps for the first time in her life, for obtuse natures do not lie awake. The death had affected her only as regarded her own interests; she could feel for none and regret none in her utter selfishness. One was fallen, but another had risen up. "Le roi est mort: vive le roi!"