"Well, but," said he, "supposing you are right in all this, the 'entanglement,' as you call it, exists. How did he explain, or excuse it?"

Lydia smiled, a self-satisfied, contemptuous smile. She was not jealous of Madame Durski; she despised her. "He did not excuse it; he did not explain; he knows he has no severity to fear from me. All he needs is to induce me to acknowledge my affection for him, and then he will soon rid himself of all obstacles. Don't be afraid, Gordon; this is a great falling off from the ambitions I once cherished, the hopes I once formed; this is a very different kind of thing from Sir Oswald Eversleigh and Raynham Castle, but I have made up my mind to be content with it."

Lydia spoke with a kind of virtuous resignation and resolution, infinitely assuring to her brother. But he was getting tired of the discussion, and desirous to end it. Anxious as he was to be rid of his sister, and to effect the riddance on the best possible terms, he did not mean to be bored by her just then. So he spoke to the point at once.

"That's rather a queer mode of proceeding," he said. "You are to avow your affection for this fine gentleman, and then he is to throw over another lady in order to reward your devotion. There was a day when Miss Graham's pride would have been outraged by a proposition which certainly seems rather humiliating."

Lydia flushed crimson, and looked at her brother with angry eyes. She felt the sting of his malicious speech, and knew that it was intended to wound her.

"Pride and I have long parted company," she answered, bitterly. "I have learnt to endure degradation as placidly as you do when you condescend to become the toady and flatterer of richer men than yourself."

Captain Graham did not take the trouble to resent this remark. He smiled at his sister's anger, with the air of a man who is quite indifferent to the opinion of others.

"Well, my dear Lydia," he said, good-humouredly, "all I can say is, that if you have caught the brother of your late admirer, you are very lucky. The merest schoolboy knows enough arithmetic to be aware that ten thousand a year is twice as good as five. And it certainly is not every woman's fortune to be able to recover a chance which seemed so nearly lost as yours when we left Hallgrove. By all means nail him to his proposition, and let him throw over the lovely Paulina. What a fool the man must be not to know his mind a little better!"

"Madame Durski entrapped him into the engagement," said Lydia, scornfully.

"Ah, to be sure, women have a way of laying snares of the matrimonial kind, as you and I know, my dear Lydia. And now, good night. Go and think about your trousseau in the silence of your own apartment."

Lydia Graham fell asleep that night, secure in the certainty that the end and aim of her selfish life had been at last attained, and disposed to regard the interval as very brief that must elapse before Douglas Dale would come to throw himself at her feet.

For a day or two unwonted peace and serenity were observable in Lydia Graham's demeanour and countenance. She took even more than the ordinary pains with her dress; she arranged her little drawing-room more than ever effectively and with sedulous care, and she remained at home every afternoon, in spite of fine weather and an unusual number of invitations. But Douglas Dale made no sign, he did not come, he did not write, and all his enthusiastic declarations seemed to have ended in nothing. The truth was that Paulina Durski was ill, and in his anxiety and uneasiness, Douglas forgot even the existence of Lydia Graham.

A vague alarm began to fill Lydia's mind, and she felt as if the good establishment, the liberal allowance of pin-money, the equipages, the clever French maid, the diamonds, and all the other delightful things which she had looked upon almost as already her own, were suddenly vanishing away like a dream.

Miss Graham was in no very amiable humour when, after a week's watching and suspense, she descended to the dining-room, a small and shabbily furnished apartment, which bore upon it the stamp peculiar to London lodging-houses—an aspect which is just the reverse of everything we look for in a home.

Gordon Graham was already seated at the breakfast-table.

A letter for Miss Graham lay by the side of her breakfast-cup—a bulky document, with four stamps upon the envelope.

Lydia knew the hand too well. It was that of her French milliner, Mademoiselle Susanne, to whom she owed a sum which she knew never could be paid out of her own finances. The thought of this debt had been a perpetual nightmare to her. There was no such thing as bankruptcy for a lady of fashion in those days; and it was in the power of Mademoiselle Susanna to put her high-bred creditor into a common prison, and detain her there until she had passed the ordeal of the Insolvent Debtors' Court.

Lydia opened the packet with a sinking heart. There it was, the awful bill, with its records of elegant dresses—every one of which had been worn with the hope of conquest, and all of which had, so far, failed to attain the hoped-for victory. And at the end of that long list came the fearful total—close upon three hundred pounds!

"I can never pay it!" murmured Lydia; "never! never!"

Her involuntary exclamation sounded almost like a cry of despair.

Gordon Graham looked up from the newspaper in which he had been absorbed until this moment, and stared at his sister.

"What's the matter?" he exclaimed. "Oh, I see! it's a bill—Susanne's, I suppose? Well, well, you women will make yourselves handsome at any cost, and you must pay for it sooner or later. If you can secure Douglas Dale, a cheque from him will soon settle Mademoiselle Susanne, and make her your humble slave for the future. But what has gone wrong with you, my Lydia? Your brow wears a gloomy shade this morning. Have you received no tidings of your lover?"

"Gordon," said Lydia, passionately, "do not taunt me. I don't know what to think. But I have played a desperate game—I have risked all upon the hazard of this die—and if I have failed I must submit to my fate. I can struggle no longer; I am utterly weary of a life that has brought me nothing but disappointment and defeat."

* * * * *



CHAPTER XXXII.

A MEETING AND AN EXPLANATION.

For George Jernam's young wife, the days passed sadly enough in the pleasant village of Allanbay. Fair as the scene of her life was, to poor Rosamond it seemed as if the earth were overshadowed by dark clouds, through which no ray of sunlight could penetrate. The affection which had sprung up between her and Susan Jernam was deep and strong, and the only gleam of happiness which Rosamond experienced in her melancholy existence came from the affection of her husband's aunt.

If Rosamond's existence was not happy, it was, at least in all outward seeming, peaceful. But the heart of the deserted wife knew not peace. She was perpetually brooding over the strange circumstances of George's departure—perpetually asking herself why it was he had left her.

She could shape no answer to that constantly repeated question.

Had he ceased to love her? No! surely that could not be, for the change which arises in the most inconstant heart is, at least, gradual. George Jernam had changed in a day—in an hour.

Reason upon the subject as she might, the conviction at which Rosamond arrived at last was always the same. She believed that the mysterious change that had arisen in the husband she so fondly loved was a change in the mind itself—a sudden monomania, beyond the influence of the outer world—a wild hallucination of the brain, not to be cured by any ordinary physician.

Believing this, the wife's heart was tortured as she thought of the perils that surrounded her husband's life—perils that were doubly terrible for one whose mind had lost its even balance.

She watched every alteration in the atmosphere, every cloud in the sky, with unspeakable anxiety. As the autumn gave place to winter, as the winds blew loud above the broad expanse of ocean, as the foam-crests of the dark waves rose high, and gleamed white and silvery in the dim twilight, her heart sank with an awful fear for the absent wanderer.

Night and day her prayers arose to heaven—such prayers as only the loving heart of woman breathes for the object of all her thoughts.

While Rosamond occupied the abode which Captain Jernam had chosen for her, River View Cottage was abandoned entirely to the care of Mrs. Mugby and Susan Trott, and the trim house had a desolate look in the dismal autumn days, and the darkening winter twilights, carefully as it was kept by Mrs. Mugby, who aired the rooms, and dusted and polished the furniture every day, as industriously as if she had been certain of the captain's return before night-fall.

"He may come this night, or he may not come for a year," she said to Susan very often, when Miss Trott was a little disposed to neglect some of her duties, in the way of dusting and polishing; "but mark my words, Susan, when he does come, he'll come sudden, without so much as one line of warning, or notice enough to get a bit of dinner ready for him."

The day came at last when the housekeeper was gratified to find that all her dusting and polishing had not been thrown away. Captain Duncombe returned exactly as she had prophesied he would return, without sending either note or message to give warning of his arrival.

He rang the bell one day, and walked into the garden, and from the garden into the house, with the air of a man who had just come home from a morning's walk, much to the astonishment of Susan Trott, who admitted him, and who stared at him with eyes opened to their widest extent, as he strode hurriedly past her.

He went straight into the parlour he had been accustomed to sit in. A fire was burning brightly in the polished steel grate, and everything bore the appearance of extreme comfort.

The merchant-captain looked round the room with an air of satisfaction.

"There's nothing like a trip to the Indies for making a man appreciate the comforts of his own home," he exclaimed. "How cheery it all looks; and a man must be a fool who couldn't enjoy himself at home after tossing about in a hurricane off Gibraltar for a week at a stretch. But where's your mistress?" cried Joe Duncombe, suddenly, turning to the astonished Susan. "Where's Mrs. Jernam?—where's my daughter? Doesn't she hear her old father's gruff voice? Isn't she coming to bid me welcome after all I've gone through to earn more money for her?"

Before Susan could answer, Mrs. Mugby had heard the voice of her master, and came hurrying in to greet him.

"Thank you for your hearty welcome," said the captain, hurriedly; "but where's my daughter? Is she out of doors this cold winter day, gadding about London streets?—or how the deuce is it she doesn't come to give her old father a kiss, and bid him welcome home?"

"Lor', sir," cried Mrs. Mugby, "you don't mean to say as you haven't heard from Miss Rosa—begging your pardon, Mrs. Jernam—but the other do come so much more natural?"

"Heard from her!" exclaimed the captain. "Not I, I haven't had a line from her. But heaven have mercy on us! how the woman does stare! There isn't anything wrong with my daughter, is there? She's well—eh?"

The captain's honest face grew pale, as a sudden fear arose in his mind.

"Don't tell me my daughter is ill," he gasped; "or worse—"

"No, no, no, captain," cried Mrs. Mugby. "I heard from Mrs. Jernam only a week ago, and she was quite well; but she is residing down in Devonshire, where she removed with her husband last July; and I made sure you would have received a letter telling you of the change."

"What!" roared Joseph Duncombe; "did my daughter go and turn her back upon the comfortable little box her father built for her—the place he spent his hard-won earnings upon for her sake? So Rosy got tired of the cottage, did she? It wasn't good enough for her, I suppose. Well, well, that does seem rather hard somehow—it does seem hard."

The captain dropped heavily down into the chair nearest him. He was deeply wounded by the idea that his daughter had deserted the home which he had made for her.

"Begging your pardon, sir," interposed Mrs. Mugby, in her most insinuating tone, "which I am well aware it's not my place to interfere in family matters; but knowing as devotion itself is a word not strong enough to express Mrs. Jernam's feelings for her pa, I cannot stand by and see her misunderstood by that very pa. It was no doings of hers as she left River View, Captain Buncombe, for the place was very dear to her; but Captain Jernam, he took it into his head all of a sudden he'd set off for foreign parts in his ship the 'Albert's horse'; and before he went, he insisted on taking Mrs. Jernam down to Devonshire, which burying her alive would be too mild a word for such cruelty, I think."

"What! he deserted his post, did he?" exclaimed the captain. "Ran away from his pretty young wife, after promising to stop with her till I came back! Now, I don't call that an honest man's conduct," added the captain, indignantly.

"No more would any one, sir," answered the housekeeper. "A wild, roving life is all very well in its way, but if a man who is just married to a pretty young wife, that worships the very ground he walks on, can't stay at home quiet, I should like to know who can?"

"So he went to sea himself, and took his wife down to Devonshire before he sailed, eh?" said the captain. "Very fine goings on, upon my word! And did Miss Rosy consent to leave her father's home without a murmur?" he asked, angrily.

"Begging your pardon, sir," pleaded Mrs. Mugby, "Miss Rosamond was not the one to murmur before servants, whatever she might feel in her heart. I overheard her crying and sobbing dreadful one night, poor dear, when she little thought as there was any one to overhear her."

"Did she say anything to you before she left?"

"Not till the night before she went away, and then she came to me in my kitchen, and said, 'Mrs. Mugby, it's my husband's wish I should go down to Devonshire and live there, while he's away with his ship. Of course, I am very sorry to leave the house that my dear father made such a happy home for me, and in which he and I lived so peaceably together; but I am bound to obey my husband, let him ask what he will. I shall write to my dear father, and tell him how sorry I am to leave my home.'"

"Did she say that?" said the captain, evidently touched by this proof of his child's affection. "Then I won't belie her so much as to doubt her love for me. I never got her letter; and why George Jernam should kick up his heels directly I was gone, and be off with his ship goodness knows where, is more than I can tell. I begin to think the best sailor that ever roamed the seas is a bad bargain for a husband. I'm sorry I ever let my girl marry a rover. However, I'll just settle my business in London, and be off to Devonshire to see my poor little deserted Rosy. I suppose she's gone to live at that sea-coast village where Jernam's aunt lives?"

"Yes, sir, Allandale—or Allanbay—or some such name, I think, they call the place."

"Yes, Allanbay—I remember," answered the captain. "I'll try and get through the business I've got on hand to-night, and be off to Devonshire to-morrow."

Mrs. Mugby exerted herself to the uttermost in her endeavour to make the captain's first dinner at home a great culinary triumph, but the disappointment he had experienced that morning had quite taken away his appetite. He had anticipated such delight from his unannounced return to River View Cottage; he had pictured to himself his daughter's rapturous welcome; he had fancied her rushing to greet him at the first sound of his voice; and had almost felt her soft arm clasped around his neck, her kisses on his face.

Instead of the realization of this bright dream, he had found only disappointment.

Susan Trott placed the materials for the captain's favourite punch upon the table after she had removed the cloth; but Joseph Duncombe did not appear to see the cherry preparations for a comfortable evening. He rose hastily from his chair, put on his hat, and went out, much to the discomfiture of the worthy Mrs. Mugby.

"After what I went through with standing over that roaring furnace of a kitchen-range, it does seem hard to see my sole just turned over and played with, like, and my chicking not so much as touched," said the dame. "Oh, Miss Rosamond, Miss Rosamond, you've a deal to answer for!"

Captain Duncombe walked along the dark road between the cottage and Ratcliff Highway at a rapid pace. He soon reached the flaring lights of the sailors' quarter, through which he made his way as fast as he could to a respectable and comfortable little tavern near the Tower, much frequented by officers of the merchant service.

He had promised to meet an old shipmate at this house, and was very glad of an excuse for spending his evening away from home.

In the little parlour he found the friend he expected to see, and the two sailors took their glasses of grog together in a very friendly manner, and then parted, the captain's friend going away first, as he had a long distance to walk, in order to reach his suburban home.

The captain was sitting by the fire meditating, and sipping his last glass of grog, when the door was opened, and some one came into the room.

Joseph Duncombe looked up with a start as the new-comer entered, and, to his intense astonishment, recognized George Jernam.

"Jernam!" he cried; "you in London? Well, this is the greatest surprise of all."

"Indeed, Captain Duncombe," answered the other, coolly; "the 'Albatross' only entered the port of London this afternoon. This is the first place I have come to, and of all men on earth I least expected to meet you here."

"And from your tone, youngster, it seems as if the surprise were by no means a pleasant one," cried Joseph Duncombe. "May I ask how Rosamond Duncombe's husband comes to address his wife's father in the tone you have just used to me?"

"You are Rosamond's father," answered George; "that is sufficient reason that Valentine Jernam's brother should keep aloof from you."

"The man's mad," muttered Captain Duncombe; "undoubtedly mad."

"No," answered George Jernam, "I am not mad—I am only too acutely conscious of the misery of my position. I love your daughter, Joseph Duncombe; love her as fondly and truly as ever a man loved the wife of his choice. And yet here am I skulking in London, alone and miserable, at the hour when I should be hurrying back to the home of my darling. Dear though she is to me—truly as I love her—I dare not go back to her; for between her and me there rises the phantom of my murdered brother Valentine!"

"What on earth has my daughter Rosamond to do with the wretched fate of your brother?" asked the captain.

"In her own person, nothing; but it is her misfortune to be allied to one who was in league with the assassin, or assassins, of my unhappy brother."

"What, in heaven's name, do you mean?" asked the bewildered captain of the "Vixen."

"Do not press me for my meaning, Captain Duncombe," answered George, in a repellant tone; "you are my father-in-law. The knowledge which accident revealed to me of one dark secret in your life of seeming honesty came too late to prevent that tie between us. When the fatal truth revealed itself to me I was already your daughter's husband. That secures my silence. Do not force yourself upon me. I shall do my duty to your daughter as if you and your crime had never been upon this earth. But you and I can never meet again except as foes. The remembrance of my brother Valentine is part and parcel of my life, and a wrong done to him is twice a wrong to myself."

The captain of the "Vixen" had arisen from his chair. He stood before his son-in-law, breathless, crimson with passion.

"George Jernam," he cried, "do you want me to knock you down? Egad, my fine gentleman, you may consider yourself lucky that I have not done it before this. What do you mean by all that balderdash you've been talking? What does it all mean, I say? Are you drunk, or mad, or both?"

"Captain Duncombe," said George, calmly, "do you really wish me to speak plainly?"

"It will be very much the worse for you if you don't," retorted the infuriated captain.

"First, then, let me tell you that before I left River View Cottage last July, your daughter pressed me to avail myself of the contents of your desk one day when I was in want of foreign letter-paper."

"Well, what then?"

"Very much against my own inclination, I consented to open that desk with a key in Rosamond's possession. I did not pry into the secrets of its contents; but before me, in the tray intended for pens, I saw an object which could not fail to attract my attention—which riveted my gaze as surely as if I had 'lighted on a snake."

"What in the name of all that's bewildering could that object have been?" cried the captain. "I don't keep many curiosities in my writing- desk!"

"I will show you what I found that day," answered George. "The finding of it changed the whole current of my life, and sent me away from that once happy home a restless and miserable wanderer."

"The man's mad," muttered Captain Duncombe to himself; "he must be mad!"

George Jernam took from his waistcoat pocket a tiny parcel, and unfolding the paper covering, revealed a gold coin—the bent Brazilian coin—which he placed in the captain's hands.

"Why! heaven have mercy on us!" cried Joseph Duncombe, "if that isn't the ghost's money!"

There was astonishment plainly depicted on his countenance; but no look of guilt. George Jernam watched his face as he contemplated the token, and saw that it was not the face of a guilty man.

"Oh, captain, captain!" he exclaimed, remorsefully, "if I have suspected you all this time for nothing?"

"Suspected me of what?"

"Of being concerned, more or less, in my brother's murder. That piece of gold which you now hold in your hand was a farewell token, given by me to him; you may see my initials scratched upon it. I found it in your desk."

"And therefore suspected that I was the aider and abettor of thieves and murderers!" exclaimed the captain of the "Vixen." "George Jernam, I am ashamed of you."

There was a depth of reproach in the words, common-place though they were.

George Jernam covered his face with his hands, and sat with bent head before the man he had so cruelly wronged.

"If I was a proud man," said Joseph Duncombe, "I shouldn't stoop to make any explanation to you. But as I am not a proud man, and as you are my daughter's husband, I'll tell you how that bit of gold came into my keeping; and when I've told you my story, I'll bring witnesses to prove that it's true. Yes, George, I'll not ask you to believe my word; for how can you take the word of a man you have thought base enough to be the accomplice of a murderer? Oh, George, it was too cruel—too cruel!"

There was a brief silence; and then Captain Duncombe told the story of the appearance of old Screwton's ghost, and the coin found in the kitchen at River View Cottage after the departure of that apparition.

"I've faced many a danger in my lifetime, George Jernam," said Captain Duncombe; "and I don't think there's any man who ever walked the ship's deck beside me that would call me coward; and yet I'll confess to you I was frightened that night. Flesh and blood I'll face anywhere and anyhow; I'll stand up alone, and fight for my life, one against six— one against twenty, if needs be; but when it comes to a visit from the other world, Joseph Duncombe is done. He shuts up, sir, like an oyster."

"And do you really believe the man you saw that night was a visitant from the other world?"

"What else can I believe? I'd heard the description of old Screwton's ghost, and what I saw answered to the description as close as could be."

"Visitors from the other world do not leave substantial evidences of their presence behind them," answered George. "The man who dropped that gold coin was no ghost. We'll see into this business, Captain Duncombe; we'll fathom it, mysterious as it is. I expect Joyce Harker back from Ceylon in a month or so. He knows more of my brother's fate than any man living, except those who were concerned in the doing of the deed. He'll get to the bottom of this business, depend upon it, if any man can. And now, friend—father, can you find it in your heart to forgive me for the bitter wrong I have done you?"

"Well, George," answered Joseph Duncombe, gravely, "I'm not an unforgiving chap; but there are some things try the easiest of men rather hard, and this is one of them. However, for my little Rosy's sake, and out of remembrance of the long night-watches you and I have kept together out upon the lonesome sea, I forgive you. There's my hand and my heart with it."

George's eyes were full of tears as he grasped his old captain's strong hand.

"God bless you," he murmured; "and heaven be praised that I came into this room to-night! You don't know the weight you've lifted off my heart; you don't know what I've suffered."

"More fool you," cried Joe Duncombe; "and now say no more. We'll start for Devonshire together by the first coach that leaves London to-morrow morning."

* * * * *



CHAPTER XXXIII.

"TREASON HAS DONE HIS WORST."

Black Milsom, otherwise Mr. Maunders, kept a close watch on Raynham Castle, through the agency of his friend, James Harwood, whose visits he encouraged by the most liberal treatment, and for whom he was always ready to brew a steaming jorum of punch.

Mr. Maunders showed a great deal of curiosity concerning the details of life within the castle, and was particularly fond of leading Harwood to talk about the excessive care taken of the baby-heiress, and the precautions observed by Lady Eversleigh's orders. One day, when he had led the conversation in the accustomed direction, he said:

"One would think they were afraid somebody would try to steal the child."

"So you would, Mr. Maunders. But you see every situation in life has its trials, and a child can't be a great heiress for nothing. One day, when I was sitting in the rumble of the open carriage, I heard Captain Copplestone let drop in his conversation with Mrs. Morden as how the child has enemies—bitter enemies, he said, as might try to do her harm, if she wern't looked after sharp."

"I've known you a good long time now, Mr. Harwood, and you've partaken of many a glass of rum-punch in my parlour," said Black Milsom, otherwise Mr. Maunders, of the "Cat and Fiddle "; "and in all that time you've never once offered to introduce me to one of your fellow- servants, or asked me to take so much as a cup of tea in your servants'-hall."

"Begging your pardon, Mr. Maunders," said the groom, in an insinuating tone; "as to askin' a friend to take a cup of tea, or a little bit of supper, without leave from Mrs. Smithson, the housekeeper, is more than my place is worth."

"But you might get leave I should think, eh, James Harwood?" returned Milsom; "especially if your friend happened to be a respectable householder, and able to offer a comfortable glass to any of your fellow-servants."

"I'm sure if I had thought as you'd accept a invitation to the servants'-'all, I'd have asked leave before now," replied James Harwood; "but I'm sure I thought as you wouldn't demean yourself to take your glass of ale, or your cup of tea, any-wheres below the housekeeper's room—and she's a rare starched one is Mrs. Smithson."

"I'm not proud," said Mr. Milsom. "I like a convivial evening, whether it's in the housekeeper's room or the servants'-hall."

"Then I'll ask leave to-night," answered James Harwood.

He sent a little scrawl to Milsom next day, by the hands of a stable- boy, inviting that gentleman to a social rubber and a friendly supper in the servants'-hall that evening at seven o'clock.

To spend a few hours inside Raynham Castle was the privilege which Black Milsom most desired, and a triumphant grin broke out upon his face, as he deciphered James Harwood's clumsy scrawl.

"How easy it's done," he muttered to himself; "how easy it's done, if a man has only the patience to wait."

The servants'-hall was a pleasant place to live in, but if Mrs. Smithson, the housekeeper, was liberal in her ideas she was also strict, and on some points especially severe; and the chief of these was the precision with which she required the doors of the castle to be locked for the night at half-past ten o'clock.

On more than one occasion, lately, Mrs. Smithson had a suspicion that there was one offender against this rule. The offender in question was Matthew Brook, the head-coachman, a jovial, burly Briton, with convivial habits and a taste for politics, who preferred enjoying his pipe and glass and political discussion in the parlour of the "Hen and Chickens" public-house to spending his evenings in the servants'-hall at Raynham Castle.

He was rarely home before ten; sometimes not until half-past ten; and one never-to-be-forgotten night, Mrs. Smithson had heard him, with her own ears, enter the doors of the castle at the unholy hour of twenty minutes to eleven!

There was one appalling fact of which Mrs. Smithson was entirely ignorant. And that was the fact that Matthew Brook had entered the castle by a little half-glass door on several occasions, half an hour or more after the great oaken door leading into the servants'-hall had been bolted and barred with all due solemnity before the approving eyes of the housekeeper herself.

The little door in question opened into a small ground-floor bed-room, in which one of the footmen slept; and nothing was more easy than for this man to shelter the nightly misdoings of his fellow-servant by letting him slip quietly through his bedroom, unknown to any member of the household.

James Harwood, the groom was a confirmed gossip; and, of course, he had not failed to inform his friend, Mr. Maunders, otherwise Black Milsom, of Matthew Brook's little delinquencies. Mr. Maunders listened to the account with interest, as he did to everything relating to affairs in the household of which Harwood was a member.

It was some little time after this conversation that Mr. Milsom was invited to sup at the castle.

Several friendly rubbers were played by Mrs. Trimmer, the cook; Matthew Brook, the coachman; James Harwood, and Thomas Milsom, known to the company as Mr. Maunders. Honest Matthew and he were partners; and it was to be observed, by any one who had taken the trouble to watch the party, that Milsom paid more attention to his partner than to his cards, whereby he lost the opportunity of distinguishing himself as a good whist-player.

The whist-party broke up while the cloth was being laid on a large table for supper, and the men adjourned to the noble old stone quadrangle, on which the servant's-hall abutted. James Harwood, Brook, Milsom, and two of the footmen strolled up and down, smoking under a cold starlit sky. The apartments occupied by the family were all on the garden front, and the smoking of tobacco in the quadrangle was not forbidden.

Milsom, who had until this time devoted his attention exclusively to the coachman, now contrived to place himself next to James Harwood, as the party paced to and fro before the servants' quarters.

"Which is the little door Brook slips in at when he's past his time?" he asked, carelessly, of Harwood, taking care, however, to drop his voice to a whisper.

"We're just coming to it," answered the groom; "that little glass door on my right hand. Steph's a good-natured fellow, and always leaves his door unfastened when old Mat is out late. The room he sleeps in was once a lobby, and opens into the passage; so it comes very convenient to Brook. Everybody likes old Mat Brook, you see; and there isn't one amongst us would peach if he got into trouble."

"And a jolly old chap he is as ever lived," answered Black Milsom, who seemed to have taken a wonderful fancy to the convivial coachman.

"You come down to my place whenever you like, Mr. Brook," he said, presently, putting his arm through that of the coachman, in a very friendly manner. "You shall be free and welcome to everything I've got in my house. And I know how to brew a decent jorum of punch when I give my mind to it, don't I, Jim?"

Mr. James Harwood protested that no one else could brew such punch as that concocted by the landlord of the "Cat and Fiddle."

The supper was a very cheery banquet; ponderous slices of underdone roast beef disappeared as if by magic, and the consumption of pickles, from a physiological or sanitary point of view, positively appalling. After the beef and pickles came a Titanic cheese and a small stack of celery; while the brown beer pitcher went so often to the barrel that it is a matter of wonder that it escaped unbroken.

At a quarter past ten Mr. Maunders bade his new acquaintance good night; but before departing he begged, as a great favour, to be permitted one peep at the grand oak hall.

"You shall see it," cried good-natured Matthew Brook. "It's a sight worth coming many a mile to see. Step this way."

He led the way along a dark passage to a door that opened into the great entrance-hall. It was indeed a noble chamber. Black Milsom stood for some moments contemplating it in silence, with a reverential stare.

"And which may be the back staircase, leading to the little lady's rooms?" he asked, presently.

"That door opens on to the foot of it," replied the coachman. "Captain Coppletone sleeps in the room you come to first, on the first floor; and the little missy's rooms are inside his'n."

Gertrude Eversleigh, the heiress of Raynham, was one of those lovely and caressing children who win the hearts of all around them, and in whose presence there is a charm as sweet as that which lurks in the beauty of a flower or the song of a bird. Her mother idolized her, as we know, even though she could resign herself to a separation from this loved child, sacrificing affection to the all-absorbing purpose of her life. Before leaving Raynham Castle, Honoria had summoned the one only friend upon whom she could rely—Captain Copplestone—the man whose testimony alone had saved her from the hideous suspicion of murder—the man who had boldly declared his belief in her innocence.

She wrote to him, telling him that she had need of his friendship for the only child of his dead friend, Sir Oswald; and he came promptly in answer to her summons, pleased at the idea of seeing the child of his old comrade.

He had read the announcement of the child's birth in the newspapers, and had rejoiced to find that Providence had sent a consolation to the widow in her hour of desolation.

"She is like her father," he said, softly, after he had taken the child in his arms, and pressed his shaggy moustache to her pure young brow." Yes, the child is like my old comrade, Oswald Eversleigh. She has your beauty, too, Lady Eversleigh, your dark eyes—those wonderful eyes, which my friend loved to praise."

"I wish to heaven that he had never seen them!" exclaimed Honoria; "they brought him only evil fortune—anguish—untimely death."

"Come, come!" cried the captain, cheerily; "this won't do. If the workings of two villains brought about a breach between you and my poor friend, and resulted in his untimely end, the sin rests on their guilty heads, not on yours."

"And the sin shall not go unpunished even upon this earth!" exclaimed Honoria, with intensity of feeling. "I only live for one purpose, Captain Copplestone, and that is to strip the masks from the faces of the two hypocrites and traitors, who, between them, compassed my disgrace and my husband's death; and I implore you to aid me in the carrying out of my purpose."

"How can I do that?" cried the captain. "When I begged you to let me challenge that scoundrel, Carrington, and fight him—in spite of our cowardly modern fashion, which has exploded duelling—you implored me not to hazard my life. I was your only friend, you told me, and if my life were sacrificed you would be helpless and friendless. I gave way in order to satisfy you, though I should have liked to send a bullet through that French scoundrel's plotting brains."

"And I thank you for your goodness," answered Lady Eversleigh. "It is not by the bullet of a brave soldier that Victor Carrington should die. I will pursue the two villains silently, stealthily, as they pursued me; and when the hour of my triumph comes, it shall be a real triumph, not a defeat like that which ended their scheming. But if I stoop to wear a mask, I ask no such service from you, Captain Copplestone. I ask you only to take up your abode in this house, and to protect my child while I am away from home."

"You are really going to leave home?"

"For a considerable time."

"And you will tell me nothing about the nature of your schemes?"

"Nothing. I shall do no wrong; though I am about to deal with men so base that the common laws of honour can scarcely apply to any dealings with them."

"And your mind is set upon this strange scheme?"

"My mind is fixed. Nothing on earth can alter my resolution—not even my love for this child."

Captain Copplestone saw that her determination was not to be reasoned away, and he made no further attempt to shake her resolve. He promised that, during her absence from the castle, he would guard Sir Oswald's daughter, and cherish her as tenderly as if she had been his own child.

It was by the captain's advice that Mrs. Morden was engaged to act as governess to the young heiress during her mother's absence. She was the widow of one of his brother-officers—a highly accomplished woman, and a woman of conscientious feelings and high principle.

"Never had any creature more need of your protection than my child has," said Honoria. "This young life and mine are the sole obstacles that stand between Sir Reginald Eversleigh and fortune. You know what baseness and treachery he and his ally are capable of committing. You cannot, therefore, wonder if I imagine all kinds of dangers for my darling."

"No," replied the captain; "I can only wonder that you consent to leave her."

"Ah, you do not understand. Can you not see that, so long as those two men exist, their crimes undiscovered, their real nature unsuspected in the world in which they live, there is perpetual danger for my child? The task which I have set myself is the task of watching these two men; and I will do it without flinching. When the hour of retribution approaches, I may need your aid; but till then let me do my work alone, and in secret."

This was the utmost that Lady Eversleigh told Captain Copplestone respecting the motive of her absence from the castle. She placed her child in his care, trusting in him, under Providence, for the guardianship of that innocent life; and then she tore herself away.

Nothing could exceed the care which the veteran soldier bestowed upon his youthful charge.

It may be imagined, therefore, that nothing short of absolute necessity would have induced him to leave the neighbourhood of Raynham during the absence of Lady Eversleigh.

Unhappily this necessity arose. Within a fortnight after the night on which Black Milsom had been invited to supper in the servants'-hall, Captain Copplestone quitted Raynham Castle for an indefinite period, for the first time since Lady Eversleigh's departure.

He was seated at breakfast in the pretty sitting-room in the south wing, which he occupied in common with the heiress and her governess, when a letter was brought to him by one of the castle servants.

"Ben Simmons has just brought this up from the 'Hen and Chickens,' sir," said the man. "It came by the mail-coach that passes through Raynham at six o'clock in the morning."

Captain Copplestone gazed at the superscription of the letter with considerable surprise. The handwriting was that of Lady Eversleigh, and the letter was marked Immediate and important.

In those days there was no electric telegraph; and a letter conveyed thus had pretty much the same effect upon the captain's mind that a telegram would now-a-days exercise. It was something special—out of the common rule. He tore open the missive hastily. It contained only a few lines in Honoria's hand; but the hand was uncertain, and the letter scrawled and blotted, as if written in extreme haste and agitation of mind.

"Come to me at once, I entreat. I have immediate need of your help. Pray come, my dear friend. I shall not detain you long. Let the child remain in the castle during your absence. She will be safe with Mrs. Morden.

"Clarendon Hotel, London."

This, and the date, was all.

Captain Copplestone sat for some moments staring at this document with a look of unmitigated perplexity.

"I can't make it out," he muttered to himself.

Presently he said aloud to Mrs. Morden—

"What a pity it is you women all write so much alike that it's uncommonly difficult to swear to your writing. I'm perplexed by this letter. I can't quite understand being summoned away from my pet. I think you know Lady Eversleigh's hand?"

"Yes," answered the lady; "I received two letters from her before coming here. I could scarcely be mistaken in her handwriting."

"You think not? Very well, then, please tell me if that is her hand," said the captain showing Mrs. Morden the address of the missive he had just received.

"I should say decidedly, yes, that is her hand."

"Humph!" muttered the captain; "she said something about wanting me when the hour of retribution drew near. Perhaps she has succeeded in her schemes more rapidly than she expected, and the time is come."

The little girl had just quitted the room with her nurse, to be dressed for her morning run in the gardens. Mrs. Morden and the captain were alone.

"Lady Eversleigh asks me to go up to London," he said, at last; "and I suppose I must do what she wishes. But, upon my word, I've watched over little Gertrude so closely, and I've grown so foolishly fond of her, that I don't like the idea of leaving her, even for twenty-four hours, though, of course, I know I leave her in the best possible care."

"What danger can approach her here?"

"Ah; what danger, indeed!" returned the captain, thoughtfully. "Within these walls she must be secure."

"The child shall not leave the castle, nor shall she quit my sight during your absence," said Mrs. Morden. "But I hope you will not stay away long."

"Rely upon it that I shall not remain away an hour longer than necessary," answered the captain.

An hour afterwards he departed from Raynham in a post-chaise.

He left without having taken any farewell of Gertrude Eversleigh. He could not trust himself to see her.

This grim, weather-beaten old soldier had surrendered his heart entirely to the child of his dead friend. He travelled Londonwards as fast as continual relays of post-horses could convey him; and on the morning after he had received the letter from Lady Eversleigh, a post- chaise covered with the dust of the roads, rattled up to the Clarendon Hotel, and the traveller sprang out, after a sleepless night of impatience and anxiety.

"Show me to Lady Eversleigh's rooms at once," he said to one of the servants in the hall.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the man; "what name did you say?"

"Lady Eversleigh—Eversleigh—a widow-lady, staying in this house."

"There must be some mistake, sir. There is no one of that name at present staying in the hotel," answered the man.

The housekeeper had emerged from a little sitting-room, and had overheard this conversation.

"No, sir," she said, "we have no one here of that name."

Captain Copplestone's dark face grew deadly pale.

"A trap!" he muttered to himself; "a snare! That letter was a forgery!"

And without a word to the people of the house, he darted back to the street, sprang into the chaise, crying to the postillions,

"Don't lose a minute in getting a change of horses. I am going back to Yorkshire."

The intimacy with the household of Raynham Castle, begun by Mr. Maunders at the supper in the servants'-hall, strengthened as time went by, and there was no member of the castle household for whom Mr. Maunders entertained so warm a friendship as that which he felt for Matthew Brook, the coachman. Matthew began to divide his custom between the rival taverns of Raynham, spending an evening occasionally at the "Cat and Fiddle," and appearing to enjoy himself very much at that Inferior hostelry.

About a fortnight had elapsed after the comfortable supper-party at the castle, when Mr. Milsom took it into his head to make a formal return for the hospitalities he had received on that occasion.

It happened that the evening chosen for this humble but comfortable entertainment was the evening after Captain Copplestone's departure from the castle.

The supper was well cooked, and neatly placed on the table. A foaming tankard of ale flanked the large dish of hissing steaks; and the gentlemen from the castle set to work with a good will to do justice to Mr. Maunders's entertainment.

When the table had been cleared of all except a bowl of punch and a tray of glasses, it is scarcely a matter for wonder if the quartette had grown rather noisy, with a tendency to become still louder in its mirth with every glass of Mr. Milsom's excellent compound.

They were enjoying themselves as much as it is in the power of human nature to enjoy itself; they had proposed all manner of toasts, and had drunk them with cheers, and the mirth was at its loudest when the clock of the village church boomed out solemnly upon the stillness of night, and tolled the hour of ten.

The three men staggered hastily to their feet.

"We must be off, Maunders, old fellow," said the coachman, with a certain thickness of utterance.

"Right you are, Mat," answered Stephen. "You've had quite enough of that 'ere liquor, and so have we all. Good night, Mr. Maunders, and thank you kindly for a jolly evening. Come, Jim. Come, Mat, old boy— off we go!"

"No, no," cried Mr. Maunders, the hospitable; "I'm not a-going to let Matthew Brook leave my house at ten o'clock when he can stay as long as he likes. You and he beat me at whist, but I mean to be even with him at cribbage. We'll have a friendly hand and a friendly glass, and I'll see him as far as the gates afterwards. You'll let him in, Plumpton, come when he will, I know. If he can stay over his time at the other house, he can stay over his time with me. Come, Brook, you won't say no, will you, to a friend?" asked Milsom.

Matthew Brook looked at Mr. Milsom, and at his fellow-servants, in a stupid half-drunken manner, and rubbed his big head thoughtfully with his big hand.

"I'm blest if I know what to do," he said; "I've promised Stephen I wouldn't stay out after time again—and—"

"Not as a rule, perhaps," answered Mr. Milsom; "but once in a way can't make any difference, I'm sure, and Stephen Plumpton is the last to be ill-natured."

"That I am," replied the good-tempered footman. "Stay, if you like to stay, Mat. I'll leave my door unfastened, and welcome."

On this, the two other men took a friendly leave of their host and departed, walking through the village street with legs that were not by any means too steady.

There was a triumphant grin upon Mr. Milsom's face as he shut the door on these two departing guests.

"Good night, and a good riddance to you," he muttered; "and now for Matthew Brook. You'll sleep sound enough to-night, Stephen Plumpton, I'll warrant. So sound that if Old Nick himself went through your room you'd scarcely be much wiser."

He went back to the little parlour in which he had left his guest, the coachman. As he went, he slipped his forefinger and thumb into his waistcoat pocket, where they closed upon a tiny phial. It contained a pennyworth of laudanum, which he had purchased a week or so before from the Raynham chemist, as a remedy for the toothache.

Here he found Matthew Brook seated with his arms folded on the table, and his eyes fixed on the cribbage-board with that stolid, unseeing gaze peculiar to drunkenness.

"He's pretty far gone, as it is," Mr. Milsom thought to himself, as he looked at his guest; "it won't take much to send him further. Take another glass of punch before we begin, eh, Brook?" he asked, in that tone of jolly good-fellowship which had made him so agreeable to the castle servants.

"So I will," cried Matthew; "'nother glass—punish the punch—eh—old boy? We'll punish glass—'nother punch—hand cribbage—glorious evenin'—uproarious—happy—glorious—God save—'nother glass."

While Mr. Brook attempted to shuffle the cards, dropping them half under the table during the process, Black Milsom moved the bowl and glasses to a table behind the coachman's back.

Here he filled a glass for Mr. Brook, which the coachman emptied at a draught; but after having done so he made a wry face, and looked reproachfully at his host.

"What the deuce was that you gave me?" he asked, with some indignation.

"What should it be but rum-punch?" answered Milsom; "the same as you've been drinking all the evening."

"I'll be hanged if it is," answered Mr. Brook; "you've been playing off some of your publican's tricks upon me, Mr. Maunders, pouring the dregs of some stale porter into the bowl, or something of that kind. Don't you do it again. I'm a 'ver goo'-temper' chap, ber th' man tha' takes—hic—libert' with—hic—once don't take—hic—libert' with m' twice. So, don't y' do that 'gen!"

This was said with tipsy solemnity; and then Mr. Brook made another effort to shuffle the cards, and stooped a great many times to pick up some of those he had dropped, but seemed never to succeed in picking up all of them.

"I'll tell you what it is, Maunders," he said, at last; "I'm getting an old man; my sight isn't what it used to be. I'm bless' if—can tell a king from—queen."

Before he could complete the shuffling of the cards to his own satisfaction, Mr. Brook's eyelids began to droop over his watery eyes, and all at once his head fell forward on the table, amongst the scattered cards, his hair flopping against a fallen candlestick and smoking tallow candle.

Mr. Milsom's air of jolly good-fellowship disappeared: he sprang up suddenly, went to his friend, and shook him, rather roughly for such friendship.

Matthew snored a little louder, but slept on.

"He's fast as a rock," muttered Black Milsom; "but I must wait till it's likely Stephen Plumpton will be as sound asleep as this one."

Mr. Milsom went to his kitchen and ordered his only servant—a sturdy young native of the village—to go off to bed at once.

"I've got a friend in the parlour: but I'll see him out myself when he goes," said Mr. Milsom. "You pack off to bed as soon as you've put out the lights in the bar, and shut the back-door."

Mr. Milsom then returned to the apartment where his sleeping guest reposed.

The coachman's capacious overcoat hung on a chair near where its owner slept.

Mr. Milsom deliberately put on this coat, and the hat which Mr. Brook had worn with it. There was a thick woollen scarf of the coachman's lying on the floor near the chair, and this Black Milsom also put on, twisting it several times round his neck, so as to completely muffle the lower part of his face.

He was of about the same height as Matthew, and the thick coat gave him bulk.

Thus attired he might, in an uncertain light, have been very easily mistaken for the man whose clothes he wore.

Mr. Milsom gave one last scrutinizing look at the sleeping coachman, and then extinguished the candle.

The fire he had allowed to die out while he sat smoking: the room was, therefore, now in perfect darkness.

He paused by the door to look about him. All was alike still and lonely. The village street could have been no more silent and empty if the two rows of houses had been so many vaults in a cemetery.

Black Milsom walked rapidly up the village street, and entered the gardens of the castle by a little iron gate, of which Matthew Brook, the reprobate and offender, had a key. This key Black Milsom had often heard of, and knew that it was always carried by Brook in a small breast-pocket of his overcoat.

From the garden he made his way quickly, silently, to the quadrangle on which Stephen Plumpton's bed-chamber opened.

Here all was dark and silent.

Milsom went straight to the little half-glass door which served both as door and window for the small sleeping-chamber of Stephen Plumpton.

He opened this door with a cautious hand, and stepped softly into the room. Stephen lay with his head half covered with the bed-clothes, and his loud snoring resounded through the chamber.

"The rum-punch has done the trick for you, my friend," Mr. Milsom said to himself.

He crossed the room with slow and stealthy footsteps, opened the door communicating with the rest of the house, and went along the passage leading to the hall.

With cautious steps he groped his way to the door opening on the secondary staircase, and ascended the thickly carpeted staircase within.

Here a lamp was left dimly burning all night, and this lamp showed him another cloth-covered door at the top of the first flight of stairs.

Black Milsom tried this door, and found it also unfastened.

This door, which Black Milsom opened, communicated with the little passage that had been made across the room usually tenanted by Captain Copplestone. Within this room there was a still smaller chamber—little more, indeed, than a spacious closet—in which slept the faithful old servant, Solomon Grundy.

Both the doors were open, and Black Milsom heard the heavy breathing of the old man—the breathing of a sound sleeper.

Beyond the short passage was the door opening into the sitting-room used by the young heiress of Raynham.

Black Milsom had only to push it open. The intruder crept softly across the room, drew aside a curtain, and opened the massive oak door which divided the sitting-room from the bed-room.

Mr. Milsom had taken care to make himself familiar with the smallest details of the castle household, and he had even heard of Mrs. Morden's habit of sleeping within closely drawn curtains, from his general informant, James Harwood, the groom, who had received his information from one of the housemaids, in that temple of gossip—the servants' hall.

Gertrude Eversleigh slept in a white-curtained cot, by the side of Mrs. Morden's bed.

Black Milsom lifted the coverlet, threw it over the face of the sleeping child, and with one strong hand lifted her from her cot, her face still shrouded by the thick down coverlet, which must effectually prevent her cries. With the other hand he snatched up a blanket, and threw it round the struggling form, and then, bundled in coverlet and blanket, he carried the little girl away.

Only when his feet were on the turf, and the castle stood up black behind him, did he withdraw the coverlet from the mouth of the half- suffocated child.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

CAUGHT IN THE TOILS.

Captain Copplestone did not waste half an hour on the road between London and Raynham.

No words can paint his agony of terror, the torture of mind which he endured, as he sat in the post-chaise, watching every landmark of the journey, counting every minute of the tedious hours, and continually putting his head out of the front window, and urging the postillions to greater speed.

He hated himself for having been duped by that forged letter.

"I had no business to leave the child," he kept repeating to himself; "not even to obey her mother. My place was by little Gertrude, and I have been a fool to desert my post. If any harm has come to her in my absence, by the heaven above me, I think I shall be tempted to blow out my brains."

Once having decided that the letter, purporting to be written by Lady Eversleigh, was a forgery, he could not doubt that it formed part of some plot against the household of Raynham Castle.

To Captain Copplestone, who knew that the life of his friend had been sacrificed to the dark plottings of a traitor, this idea was terrible.

"I knew the wretches I had to deal with; I was forewarned that treachery and cunning would be on the watch to do that child wrong," he said to himself, during those hours of self-reproach; "and yet I allowed myself to be duped by the first trick of those hidden foes. Oh, great heaven! grant that I may reach Raynham before they can have taken any fatal advantage of my absence."

It was daybreak when the captain's post-chaise dashed into the village street of Raynham. He murmured a thanksgiving and a prayer, almost in the same breath, as he saw the castle-turrets dark against the chill gray sky.

The vehicle ascended the hill, and stopped before the arched entrance to the castle. An old woman, who acted as portress, opened the carved iron gates. He glanced at her, but did not stop to question her. One word from her would have put an end to all suspense; but in this last moment the soldier had not courage to utter the question which he so dreaded to have answered—Was Gertrude safe?

In another moment that question was answered for Captain Copplestone— answered completely, without the utterance of a word.

The principal door of the castle was open, and in the doorway stood two men.

One was Mr. Ashburne, the magistrate; the other was Christopher Dimond, the constable of Raynham.

The sight of these two men told Captain Copplestone that his fears were but too surely realized. Something had happened amiss—something of importance—or Gilbert Ashburne, the magistrate, would not be there.

"The child!" gasped the captain; "is she dead—murdered?"

"No, no, not dead," answered Mr. Ashburne.

"Not dead! Thank God!" exclaimed the soldier, in a devout whisper. "What then? What has happened?" he asked, scarcely able to command himself so far as to utter these few words with distinctness. "For pity's sake speak plainly. Can't you see that you are keeping me in torture? What has happened to the child?"

"She has disappeared."

"She has disappeared!" echoed the captain. "I left strict orders that she should not be permitted to stir beyond the castle walls. Who dared to disobey those orders?"

"No one," answered Mr. Ashburne. "Miss Eversleigh was not allowed to quit her own apartments. She disappeared in the night from her own cot, while that cot was in its usual place, beside Mrs. Morden's bed."

"But who could penetrate into that room in the night, when the castle doors are secured against every one? Where is Mrs. Morden? Let me see her; and let every servant of the house be assembled in the great dining-room."

Captain Copplestone gave this order to the butler, who had come out to the hall on hearing the arrival of the post-chaise. The man bowed, and departed on his errand.

"I fear you will gain nothing by questioning the household," said Mr. Ashburne. "I have already made all possible inquiries, assisted by Christopher Dimond here, but can obtain no information that throws the smallest ray of light upon this most mysterious business."

"I thank you," replied the captain; "I am sure you have done all that friendship could suggest; but I should like to question those people myself. This business is a matter of life and death for me."

He went into the great dining-room—the room in which the inquiry had been held respecting the cause of Sir Oswald's death. Mr. Ashburne and Christopher Dimond accompanied him, and the servants of the household came in quietly, two and three at a time, until the lower end of the room was full. Mrs. Morden was the last to come. She made no protestations of her grief—her self-reproach—for she never for a moment imagined that any one could doubt the intensity of her feelings. She stood before the captain, calm, collected, ready to answer his questions promptly and conscientiously.

He questioned the servants one by one, beginning with Mrs. Smithson, the housekeeper, who was ready to declare that no living creature, except the members of the household, could have been within the castle walls on the night of Gertrude Eversleigh's disappearance.

"That anybody could have come into this house and gone out of it in a night, unknown to me, is a moral impossibility," said the housekeeper; "the doors were locked at half-past ten, and the keys were brought in a basket to my room. So, you see it's quite impossible that any one could have come in or gone out before the doors were open in the morning."

"What time was the child's disappearance discovered?"

"At a quarter to five in the morning," answered Mrs. Morden; "before any one in the house was a-stir. My darling has always been in the habit of waking at that hour, to take a little milk, which is left in a glass by her bedside. I woke at the usual time, and rose, in order to give her the milk, and when I looked at her cot, I saw that it was empty. The child was gone. The silk coverlet and one blanket had disappeared with her. I gave the alarm immediately, and in a quarter of an hour the whole household was a-stir."

"And did you hear nothing during that night?" asked the captain, turning suddenly to address Solomon Grundy, who had entered amongst the rest of the servants.

"Nothing, captain."

"Humph," muttered the old soldier, "a sorry watch-dog."

"There is only one entrance to the castle which is at all weakly guarded," said the magistrate, presently; "and that is a small door belonging to the bed-room occupied by one of the footmen. But this man tells me that he was in his room that night at his usual hour, and that the door was locked and bolted in the usual way."

As he said this, the magistrate looked towards the end of the apartment, where Stephen Plumpton stood amongst his fellow servants. The young man had been weak enough, or guilty enough, to commit himself to a false statement; first, because he did not want to betray the misdoings of Matthew Brook, and secondly, because he feared to admit his own culpable carelessness.

"My telling the truth won't bring the child back," he argued with himself. "If it would, I'd speak out fast enough."

"You say that it is impossible that any one can have entered this house, and left it, during that night," said Captain Copplestone to the housekeeper; "and yet some one must have left the house, even if no one entered it, or Gertrude Eversleigh must be hidden within these walls. Has the castle been thoroughly searched? There are stories of children who have hidden themselves in sport, to find the sport end in terrible earnest."

"The castle has been searched from garret to cellar," answered Mrs. Morden. "Mrs. Smithson and I have gone together into every room, and opened every cupboard."

The captain dismissed the assembly, after having asked many questions without result. When this was done, he went alone to the library, where he shut himself in, and seated himself at the writing-table, with pen and ink before him, to meditate upon, the steps which should be first taken in the work that lay before him.

That work was no less painful a task than the writing of a letter to Lady Eversleigh, to inform her of the calamity which had taken place— of the terrible realization of her worst fears. Captain Copplestone's varied and adventurous life had never brought him a severer or more painful duty, but he was not the man to shirk or defer it, because it involved suffering to himself.

The letter was written, and despatched by the evening post, and then the captain shut himself up in his own room, and gave way to the bitterest grief he had ever experienced.

Who shall describe the agony which Lady Eversleigh suffered when Captain Copplestone's letter reached her? For the first half-hour after she read it, a blight seemed to fall upon her senses, and she sat still in her chair, stupefied; but when she rallied, her first impulse was to send for Andrew Larkspur, who was now nearly restored to his usual state of sound health.

She rang the bell, and summoned Jane Payland.

"There is a lawyer's clerk living in this house," she said; "Mr. Andrews. Go to him immediately, and ask him to favour me with an interview. I wish to consult him on a matter of business."

"Yes, ma'am," answered Miss Payland, looking inquisitively at the ashen face of her mistress. "There's something fresh this morning," she muttered to herself, as she tripped lightly up the stairs to do her bidding.

Mr. Larkspur—or Mr. Andrews—presented himself before Lady Eversleigh a few minutes after he received her message. He found her pacing the room in a fever of excitement.

"Good gracious me, ma'am!" he exclaimed; "is there anything amiss?"

"Yes," she answered, handing him the letter.

Mr. Larkspur read the letter to the end, and then read it again.

"This is a bad job," he said, calmly; "what's to be done now?"

"You must accompany me to Raynham Castle—you must help me to find my child!" cried Honoria, in wild excitement. "You are better now, Mr. Larkspur, you can bear the journey? For Heaven's sake, do not say you cannot aid me. You must come with me, Andrew Larkspur. I do not offer to bribe you—I say you must come! Bring me my darling safe to my arms, and you may name your own reward for that priceless service."

"No, no," said Mr. Larkspur; "I don't say that. I am well enough, so far as that goes, but how about our little schemes in London?"

"Never mind them—never think of them! What are they to me now?"

"Very well, my lady," answered Mr. Larkspur; "if it must be so, it must be. I must turn my back upon the neatest business that ever a Bow Street officer handled, just as it's getting most interesting to a well-regulated mind."

"And you'll come with me at once?"

"Give me one hour to make my plans, ma'am, and I'm your man," replied Mr. Larkspur. "I'll pack a carpet-bag, leave it down stairs, take a hackney coach to Bow Street, see my deputy, and arrange some matters for him, and be ready one hour from this time, when you'll be so kind as to call for me in a post-chaise—not forgetting to bring my carpet- bag with you in the boot, if you please. And now you be so good as to keep up your spirits, ma'am, like a Trojan—which I've heard the Trojans had an uncommon hard time of it in their day. If the child is to be found, Andrew Larkspur is the man to find her; and as to reward, we won't talk about that, if you please, my lady. I may be a hard- fisted one, but I'm not the individual to trade upon the feelings of a mother that has lost her only child."

Having said this, Mr. Larkspur departed, and in less than two hours he and Lady Eversleigh were seated in a post-chaise, behind four horses, tearing along the road between London and Barnet.

And thus additional security attended the schemes of Victor Carrington.



CHAPTER XXXV.

LARKSPUR TO THE RESCUE.

The journey of Lady Eversleigh and her companion, the Bow Street officer, was as rapid as the journey of Captain Copplestone. Along the same northern road as that which he had travelled a few days before flew the post-chaise containing the anguish-stricken mother and her strange ally. In this hour of agony and suspense, Honoria Eversleigh looked to the queer, wizened little police-officer, Andrew Larkspur, as the best friend she had on earth.

"You'll find my child for me?" she cried many times during the course of that long journey, appealing to Mr. Larkspur, with clasped hands and streaming eyes. "Oh, tell me that you'll find her for me. For pity's sake, give me some comfort—some hope."

"I'll give you plenty of comfort, and plenty of hope, too, mum, if you'll only cheer up and trust in me," answered the luminary of Bow Street, with that stolid calmness of manner which seemed as if it would scarcely have been disturbed by an earthquake. "You keep up your spirits, and don't give way. If the little lady is alive, I'll bring her back to you safe and sound. If—if—so be as she's—contrarywise," added Mr. Larkspur, alarmed by the wild look in his companion's eyes, as he was about to pronounce the terrible word she so much feared to hear, "why, in that case I'll find them as have done the deed, and they shall pay for it."

"Oh, give her back to me!" exclaimed Honoria; "give her back! Let me hold her in my arms once more. I abandon all thought of revenge upon those who have so basely wronged me. Let Providence alone deal with them and their crime. It may be this punishment has come to me, because I have sought to usurp the office of Providence. Let me have my darling once more, and I will banish from my heart every feeling which a Christian should abjure."

Bitter remorse was mingled with the agony which rent the mother's heart in those terrible hours. All at once her eyes were opened to the deep and dreadful guilt involved in those vengeful feelings she had so long nourished, to the exclusion of all tender emotions, all generous instincts.

Bitterly did the mother upbraid herself as she sat, with her hands clasped tightly together, her pale face turned to the window, her haggard eyes looking out at every object on the road, eager to behold any landmark that would tell her that she was so many miles nearer the end of her journey.

She had concluded that, as a matter of course, the disappearance of the child had been directly or indirectly the work of Sir Reginald Eversleigh; and she said as much to Mr. Larkspur. But, to her surprise, she found that he did not share her opinion upon this subject.

"If you ask me whether Sir Reginald is in it, I'll tell you candidly, no, my lady, I don't think he is. I don't need to tell you that I've had a deal of experience in my time; and, if that experience is worth a brass button, Sir Reginald hasn't any hand in this business down in Yorkshire."

"Not directly, perhaps, but indirectly," interrupted Honoria.

"Neither one nor the other," answered the great man of Bow Street. "I've had my eye upon the baronet ever since you put me up to watching him; and there's precious little he could do without my spotting him. I know what letters he has written, and I know more or less what has been in those letters. I know what people he has seen, and more or less what he has said to them; and I don't see that it's possible he could have carried on such a game as this abduction of Missy without my having an inkling of it."

"But what of his ally—his bosom-friend and confederate—Victor Carrington? May not his treacherous hand have struck this blow?"

"I think not, my lady," replied Mr. Larkspur. "I've had my eye upon that gentleman likewise, as per agreement; for when Andrew Larkspur guarantees to do a thing, he ain't the man to do it by halves. I've kept a close watch upon Mr. Carrington; and with the exception of his parleyvous francais-ing with that sharp-nosed, shabby-genteel lady- companion of Madame Durski's, there's very few of his goings-on I haven't been able to reckon up to a fraction. No, my lady, there's some one else in this business; and who that some one else is, it'll be my duty to find out. But I can't do anything till I get on the ground. When I get on the ground, and have had time to look about me, I shall be able to form an opinion."

Honoria was fain to be patient, to put her trust in heaven, and, beneath heaven, in this pragmatical little police-officer, who really felt as much compassion for her sorrow as it was possible for a man so steeped in the knowledge of crime and iniquity, and so hardened by contact with the worst side of the world, to feel for any human grief. She was compelled to be patient, or, at any rate, to assume that outward aspect of calmness which seems like patience, while the heart within her breast throbbed tumultuously as storm-driven waves.

At last the wearisome journey came to an end. She entered the arched gateway of Raynham Castle; and, as she looked out of the carriage window, she saw the big black letters, printed on a white broadside, offering a reward of three hundred pounds for the early restoration of the missing child.

Mr. Larkspur gave a scornful sniff as he perceived this bill.

"That won't bring her back," he muttered. "Those who've taken her away will play a deeper game than to bring her back for the first reward that's offered, or the second, or the third. She'll have to be found by those that are a match for the scoundrel that stole her from her home; and perhaps he will find his match before long, clever as he is."

The meeting between Honoria and Captain Copplestone was a very quiet one. She was far too noble, far too just to reproach the friend in whom she had trusted, even though he had failed in his trust.

He had heard the approach of the post-chaise, and he awaited her on the threshold of the door. He had gone forth to many a desperate encounter; but he had never felt so heart-piercing a pang as that which he endured this day when he went to meet Lady Eversleigh.

She held out her hand to him as she crossed the threshold. "I have done my duty," he said, in low, earnest tones, "as I am a man of honour and a soldier, Lady Eversleigh; I have done my duty, miserable as the result has been."

"I can believe that," answered Honoria, gravely. "Your face tells me there are no good tidings to greet me here. She is not found?"

The captain shook his head sadly.

"And there are no tidings of any kind?—no clue, no trace?"

"None. The constable of this place, and other men from the market-town, are doing their utmost; but as yet the result has been only new mystification—new conjecture."

"No; nor wouldn't be, if the constables were to have twenty years to do their work in, instead of three days," interrupted Mr. Larkspur. "Perhaps you don't know what country police-officers are? I do; and if you expect to find the little lady by their help, you may just as well look up to the sky yonder, and wait till she drops down from it, for of the two things that's by far the most likely. I can believe in miracles," added Mr. Larkspur, piously; "but I can't believe in rural police-constables."

The captain looked at the speaker with a bewildered expression, and Lady Eversleigh hastened to explain the presence of her ally.

"This is Mr. Larkspur, a well-known Bow Street officer," she said: "and I rely on his aid to find my precious one. Pray tell me all that has happened in connection with this event. He is very clever, and he may strike out some plan of action that will be better than anything which has yet been attempted."

They had passed into a small sitting-room, half ante-room, half study, leading out of the great hall, and here the police-officer seated himself, as much at home as if he had spent half his life within the walls of Raynham, and listened quietly while Captain Copplestone gave a circumstantial account of the child's disappearance, taking care not to omit the smallest detail connected with that event.

Mr. Larkspur made occasional pencil-notes in his memorandum-book; but he did not interrupt the captain's narration by a single remark.

When all was finished, Lady Eversleigh looked at him with anxious, inquiring eyes, as if from his lips she expected to receive the sentence of fate itself.

"Well?" she muttered, breathlessly, "is there any hope? Do you see any clue?"

"Half a dozen clues," answered the police-officer, "if they're properly handled. The first thing we've got to do is to offer a reward for that silk coverlet that was taken away with the little girl."

"Why offer a reward for the coverlet?" asked Captain Copplestone.

"Bless your innocent heart!" answered Mr. Larkspur, contemplating the soldier with a pitying smile; "don't you see that, if we find the coverlet, we're pretty sure to find the child? The man who took her away made a mistake when he carried off the coverlet with her, unless he was deep enough to destroy it before he had taken her far. If he didn't do that—if he left that silk coverlet behind him anywhere, I consider his game as good as up. That is just the kind of thing that a police-officer gets his clue from. There's been more murders and burglaries found out from an old coat, or a pair of old shoes, or a walking-stick, or such like, than you could count in a day. I shan't make any stir about the child just yet, my lady: but before forty-eight hours are over our heads, I'll have a handbill posted in every town in England, and an advertisement in every newspaper, offering five pounds reward for that dark blue silk coverlet you talk of, lined with crimson."

"There seems considerable wisdom in the idea," said the captain, thoughtfully. "It would never have occurred to me to advertise for the coverlet."

"I don't suppose it would," answered the great Larkspur, with a slight touch of sarcasm in his tone. "It has took me a matter of thirty years to learn my business; and it ain't to be supposed as my knowledge will come to other folks natural."

"You are right, Mr. Larkspur," replied the captain, smiling at the police-officer's air of offended dignity; "and since you seem to be thoroughly equal to the difficulties of the situation, I think we can scarcely do better than trust ourselves entirely to your discretion."

"I don't think you'll have any occasion to repent your confidence," said Mr. Larkspur. "And now, if I may make so bold as to mention it, I should be glad to get a morsel of dinner, and a glass of brandy-and- water, cold without; after which I'll take a turn in the village and look about me. There may be something to be picked up in that direction by a man who keeps his eyes and ears open."

Mr. Larkspur was consigned to the care of the butler, who conducted him at once to the housekeeper's room, where that very important person, Mrs. Smithson, received him with almost regal condescension.

Mrs. Smithson and the butler both would have been very glad to converse with Mr. Larkspur, and to find out from that gentleman's conversation who he was, and all about him; but Mr. Larkspur himself had no inclination to be communicative. He responded courteously, but briefly, to all Mrs. Smithson's civilities; and after eating the best part of a cold roast chicken, and a pound or so of ham, and drinking about half a pint of cognac, he left the housekeeper's room, and retired to an apartment to which the butler ushered him—a very comfortable little sitting-room, leading into a small bedchamber, which two rooms were to be occupied by Mr. Larkspur during his residence at the castle.

Here he employed himself until dark in writing short notes to the chief police-officers of all the principal towns in England, ordering the printing and posting of the handbills of which he had spoken to Lady Eversleigh and the captain. When this was done he put on his hat, and went out at the great arched gateway of the castle, whence he made his way to the village street. Here he spent the rest of the evening, and he made very excellent use of his time, though he passed the greater part of it in the parlour of the "Hen and Chickens," drinking very weak brandy-and-water, and listening to the conversation of the gentry who patronized that house of entertainment.

Among those gentry was the good-tempered, but somewhat weak-minded, Matthew Brook, the coachman.

"I'll tell you what it is, Mat Brook," said a stout, red-faced individual, who was butler at one of the mansions in the neighbourhood of Raynham, "you've not been yourself for the last week; not since little Missy was stolen from the castle yonder. You must have been uncommonly fond of that child."

"I was fond of her, bless her dear little heart," replied Matthew.

But though this assertion, so far as it went, was perfectly true, there was some slight hesitation in the coachman's manner of uttering it—a hesitation which Andrew Larkspur was not slow to perceive.

"And you've lost your new friend down at the 'Cat and Fiddle,' where you was beginning to spend more of your evenings than you spent here. What's become of that man Maunders—eh, Brook?" asked the butler. "That was a rather queer thing—his leaving Raynham so suddenly, leaving his house to take care of itself, or to be taken care of by a stupid country wench, who doesn't know her business any more than a cow. Do you know why he went, or where he's gone, Mat?"

"Not I," Mr. Brook answered, rather nervously, and reddening as he spoke.

The police-officer watched and listened even more intently than before. The conversation was becoming every moment more interesting for him.

"How should I know where Mr. Maunders has gone?" asked Matthew Brook, rather peevishly, as he paused from smoking to refill his honest clay pipe. "How should I know where he's gone, or how long he means to stay away? I know nothing of him, except that he seems a jolly, good-hearted sort of a chap in his own rough-and-ready way. James Harwood brought him up to the castle one night for a hand at whist and a bit of supper, and he seemed to take a regular fancy to some of us, and asked us to take a glass now and then down at his place, which we did; and that's all about it; and I don't mean to stand any more cross-questioning."

"Why, Brook," cried his friend, the butler, "what's come to you? It isn't like you to answer any man in that way, least of all such on old friend as me."

Mr. Brook took no notice of this reproach. He went on smoking silently.

"I say, Harris," said the butler, presently, when the landlord of the "Hen and Chickens" came into the room to attend upon his customers, "do you know whether the landlord of the 'Cat and Fiddle' has come back yet?"

"No, he ain't," answered Mr. Harris; "and folks complain sadly of being served by that awkward lass he's left in charge of the house. I've had a many of his old customers come up here for what they want."

"Does anybody know where he's gone?"

"That's as may be," answered Mr. Harris. "Anyhow, I don't. Some say he's gone to London for a fortnight's pleasure; but if he has, he's a very queer man of business; and it strikes me, when he comes back he will find his customers all left him."

"Do you think he's cut and run?"

"Well, you see, he might be in debt, and want to give his creditors the slip."

"But folks down the village say he didn't owe a five-pound note," returned the landlord, who was a great authority with regard to all local gossip. "It's rather a queer business altogether, that chap taking himself off without why or wherefore, and just about the time as the little girl disappeared from the castle."

"Why, you don't think he had anything to do with that, Joe Harris?" exclaimed the butler.

Andrew Larkspur took occasion to look at Matthew Brook at this moment; and he saw the coachman's honest face grow pallid, as if under the influence of some sudden terror.

"You don't believe as Maunders had a hand in stealing the child, eh, Joe Harris?" repeated the butler.

Joe Harris shook his head solemnly.

"I don't think nothing, and I don't believe nothing," he answered, with a mysterious air. "It ain't my place to give an opinion upon this here subjick. It might be said as I was jealous of the landlord of the 'Cat and Fiddle,' and owed him a grudge. All I says is this: it's a very queer circumstance as the landlord of the 'Cat and Fiddle' should disappear from the village directly after little Miss Eversleigh disappeared from the castle. You may put two and two together, and you may make 'em into four, if you like," added Mr. Harris, with profound solemnity; "or you may leave it alone. That's your business."

"I'll tell you what it is," said the butler; "I've had a chat with old Mother Smithson since the disappearance of the young lady; and from what I've heard, it's pretty clear to my mind that business wasn't managed by any one outside the castle. It couldn't be. There was some one inside had a hand in it. I wouldn't mind staking a twelvemonth's wages on that, Matthew and you musn't be offended if I seem to go against your fellow-servants."

"I ain't offended, and I ain't pleased," answered Matthew, testily; "all I can say is, as I don't like so much cross-questioning. There's a sort of a lawyer chap has come down to-day with my lady, I hear, though I ain't set eyes on him yet; and I suppose he'll find out all about it."

No more was said upon the subject of the lost heiress, or the landlord of the "Cat and Fiddle."

The subject was evidently, for some reason or other, unpleasant to Mr. Brook, the coachman; and as Matthew Brook was a general favourite, the subject was dropped. Mr. Larkspur devoted the next morning to a careful examination of all possible entrances to the castle. When he saw the half-glass door opening from the quadrangle into the little bedchamber occupied by Stephen Plumpton, the footman, he gave a long, low whistle, and smiled to himself, with the triumphant smile of a man who has found a clue to the mystery he wishes to solve.

Mrs. Smithson, the housekeeper, conducted Andrew Larkspur from room to room during this careful investigation of the premises; and she and Stephen Plumpton alone were present when he examined this half-glass door.

"Do you always bolt your door of a night?" Mr. Larkspur asked of the footman.

"A ways, sir."

The tone of the man's voice and the man's face combined to betray him to the skilled police-officer.

Andrew Larkspur knew that the man had told him a deliberate falsehood.

"Are you certain you bolted this door on that particular night?"

"Oh, quite certain, sir."

The police-officer examined the bolt. It was a very strong one; but it moved so stiffly as to betray the fact that it was very rarely used.

Mrs. Smithson did not notice this fact; but Mr. Larkspur did. It was his business to take note of small facts.

"Can you remember what you were doing on that particular night?" he asked, presently, turning again to the embarrassed Stephen.

"No, sir; I can't say I do remember exactly," faltered the footman.

"Were you at home that night?"

"Well, yes, sir, I think I was."

"You are not certain?"

"Well, yes, sir; perhaps I might venture to say as I'm certain," answered the miserable young man, who in his desire to screen his fellow-servant, found himself led on from one falsehood to another.

He knew that he could rely on the honourable silence of the servants; and that none among them would betray the secret of the party at the "Cat and Fiddle."

After completing the examination of the premises, Mr. Larkspur dined comfortably in the housekeeper's room, and then once more sallied forth to the village to finish his afternoon. But on this occasion it was to the "Cat and Fiddle," and not the "Hen and Chickens," that the police- officer betook himself. Here he found only a few bargemen and villagers, carousing upon the wooden benches of a tap-room, drinking their beer out of yellow earthenware mugs, and enjoying themselves in an atmosphere that was almost suffocating from the fumes of strong tobacco.

Mr. Larkspur did not trouble himself to listen to the conversation of these men; he looked into the room for a few minutes and then returned to the bar, where he ordered a glass of brandy-and-water from the girl who served Mr. Maunders's customers in the absence of that gentleman.