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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57755 ***
+
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+Transcriber's Notes:
+     1. Page scan source: Google Books
+        https://books.google.com/books?id=TxsCAAAAQAAJ
+        (Oxford University)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+MYSTERIES OF HERON DYKE.
+
+A Novel of Incident.
+
+
+
+By the Author of
+"In the Dead of Night," "Brought to Light," etc.
+
+
+
+
+IN THREE VOLUMES.
+VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+LONDON:
+RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,
+Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
+1880.
+[_All Rights Reserved_.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
+
+       I. GILBERT DENISON'S WILL.
+      II. MRS. CARLYON AT HOME.
+     III. CAPTAIN LENNOX STARTLED.
+      IV. HERON DYKE AND ITS INMATES.
+       V. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.
+      VI. ONE SNOWY NIGHT.
+     VII. COMING TO DINNER.
+    VIII. AT THE LILACS.
+      IX. THE DOCTOR'S VERDICT.
+       X. A DAY WITH PHILIP CLEEVE.
+      XI. A VISIT FROM MRS. CARLYON.
+     XII. FAREWELL.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+MYSTERIES OF HERON DYKE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+GILBERT DENISON'S WILL.
+
+
+The First Gentleman in Europe sat upon the throne of his fathers, and
+the Battle of Waterloo was a stupendous event that still dwelt freshly
+in men's memories, when one bright August evening, Gilbert Denison,
+gentleman, of Heron Dyke, Norfolk, lay dying in his lodgings in
+Bloomsbury Square, London.
+
+He was a man of sixty, and, but a few days before he had been full of
+life, health, and energy. As he was riding into town from Enfield,
+where he had been visiting some friends, his horse slipped, fell, and
+rolled heavily over its rider. All had been done for Gilbert Denison
+that surgical skill could do, but to no avail. His hours were
+numbered, and none knew that sad fact better than the dying man. But
+in that strong, rugged, resolute face could not be read any dread of
+the approaching end. He was a Denison, and no Denison had ever been
+known to fear anything.
+
+By the bedside sat his favourite nephew and heir, whose christian name
+was also Gilbert. He was a young man of three or four and twenty, with
+a face which, allowing for the difference in their years, was, both in
+character and features, singularly like that of his uncle. Gilbert the
+younger was not, and never had been, a handsome man; but his face was
+instinct with power: it expressed strength of will, and a sort of
+high, resolute defiance of Fortune in whatever guise she might present
+herself. This young man carried a riding-whip in his hand; on a table
+near lay a pair of buckskin gloves. He wore Hessian boots with
+tassels, and a bottle-green riding-coat much braided and befrogged.
+His vest was of striped nankin, and he carried two watches with a huge
+bunch of seals pendant from each of them; while over the velvet collar
+of his coat fell his long hair. His throat was swathed in voluminous
+folds of soft white muslin, tied in a huge bow, and fastened with a
+small brooch of brilliants. Our young gentleman evidently believed
+himself to be a diamond of the first water.
+
+The August sun shone warmly into the room; through the half-open
+windows came the hum of traffic in the streets; a vagrant breeze,
+playing at hide-and-seek among the heavy hangings of the bed, brought
+with it a faint odour of mignonette from the boxes on the broad
+window-sills outside. A hand of the dying man sought a hand of his
+nephew, found it, and clasped it. The latter had been expressing his
+sorrow at finding his uncle in so sad a state, and his hopes that he
+would yet get over the results of his accident.
+
+"There is no hope of that, boy," said Mr. Denison. "A few hours more,
+and all will be ended. But why should you be sorry? Is the heir ever
+really sorry when he sees the riches and power, which all his life he
+has been taught will one day be his, coming at last into his own
+grasp? Human nature's pretty much the same all the world over."
+
+"But I am indeed heartily sorry; believe me or not, uncle, as you
+like."
+
+"I will try to believe you, boy," said Mr. Denison with a faint smile,
+"and that, perhaps, will answer the same purpose."
+
+There was silence for a little while, then the sick man resumed.
+
+"Nephew, this is a sad, wild, reckless life that you have been leading
+in London these four years past."
+
+"It is all that, uncle."
+
+"Had I lived, what would the end of it have been?"
+
+"Upon my word I don't know. Utter beggary I suppose."
+
+"How much money are you possessed of?"
+
+"I won a hundred guineas the other night at faro. I am not aware that
+I possess much beyond that."
+
+"And your debts?"
+
+The young man mused a moment.
+
+"Really, I hardly know to a hundred or two. A thousand pounds would
+probably cover them, but I am not sure."
+
+"A thousand pounds! And I have paid your debts twice over within the
+last four years!"
+
+Gilbert the younger smiled.
+
+"You see, uncle, the schedule I sent you each time was not a complete
+one. I did not care to let you know every liability."
+
+"You did not expect me to assist you again?"
+
+"Certainly not, sir, after the last letter you wrote to me. I knew
+that when you wrote in that strain you meant what you said. I should
+never have troubled you again."
+
+"After your hundred guineas had gone--and they would last you but a
+very short time--what did you intend to do?"
+
+"I had hardly thought seriously about it. Perhaps the fickle goddess
+might have smiled on me again. If not, I should have done something or
+other. Probably enlisted."
+
+"Enlisted as a common soldier?"
+
+"As a common soldier. I don't know that I'm good for much else."
+
+"But all that is changed now. Or at least you suppose so."
+
+"I suppose nothing of the kind, sir," said the young man, hotly.
+
+"As the master of Heron Dyke, with an income of six thousand a year,
+you will be a very different personage from a needy young rake,
+haunting low gaming-tables, and trying to pick up a few guineas at
+faro from bigger simpletons than yourself."
+
+Gilbert the younger sprang to his feet, his lips white and quivering
+with passion.
+
+"Sir, you insult me," he said, "and with your permission I will
+retire."
+
+And he took up his hat and gloves.
+
+"Sit down, sir--sit down, I say," cried the elder man, sternly. "Don't
+imagine that I have done with you yet."
+
+"I have never been a frequenter of low gaming-houses; I have never
+cheated at cards in my life," said the young man, proudly.
+
+"You would not have been a Denison if you had cheated at cards. But
+again I tell you to sit down. I have much to say to you."
+
+Gilbert the younger did as he was told, but with something of an ill
+grace. In his eyes there was a cold, hard look that had not been there
+before.
+
+"Nephew, if you have not yet disgraced yourself--and I don't believe
+that you have--you are on the high-road to do so. Has it ever entered
+your head to think whither such mad doings as yours must inevitably
+land you?"
+
+"I suppose that other men before me have sown their wild oats," said
+Gilbert, sulkily. "I have heard it said that you yourself, sir----"
+
+"Never mind me. The question we have now to consider is that of your
+future. When you are master of Heron Dyke--if you ever do become its
+master--is it your intention to make ducks and drakes of the old
+property, as you have made ducks and drakes of the fortune left you by
+your father?"
+
+"Really, sir, that is a question that has never entered into my
+thoughts."
+
+"Then it is high time that it did enter them. I said just now 'If you
+ever do become the master of Heron Dyke.'"
+
+"Is that intended as a threat, sir?" asked Gilbert, a little fiercely.
+
+"Never mind what it is intended as, but listen to me. I presume you
+are quite aware that it is in my power to leave Heron Dyke to anyone
+whom I may choose to nominate as my heir--to the greatest stranger in
+England if I like to do so?"
+
+"I am of course aware that the property is not entailed," said the
+other, stiffly.
+
+"And never has been entailed," said Mr. Denison with emphasis. "It has
+come down from heir male to heir male, for six hundred years.
+Providence having blessed me with no children of my own, by the
+unwritten law of the family the property would descend in due sequence
+to you. But that unwritten law is one which I have full power to
+abrogate if I think well to do so. Such being the case, ask yourself
+this question, Gilbert Denison: 'Judging from my past life for the
+last four years, am I a fit and proper person to become the
+representative of one of the oldest families in Norfolk? And would my
+uncle, taking into account all that he knows of me, be really
+justified in putting me into that position?'"
+
+The elder man paused, the younger one hung his head.
+
+"I think, sir, that the best thing you can do will be to let me go
+headlong to ruin after my own fashion," was all that he said.
+
+"You will be good enough to remember that I have another nephew,"
+resumed the dying man. "There is another Gilbert Denison as well as
+yourself."
+
+"Aye! I'm not likely to forget him," said the other, savagely.
+
+"So! You have met, have you? Well, from all I have heard of my brother
+Henry's son, he is a clever, industrious, and well-conducted young
+man--one not given, as some people are, to wine-bibbing and all kinds
+of riotous living. Had you been killed in a brawl, which seems a by no
+means unlikely end for you to come to, he would have stood as the next
+heir to Heron Dyke."
+
+Young Gilbert writhed uneasily in his chair; the frown on his face
+grew darker as he listened.
+
+"And even as matters are," resumed his uncle, blandly, "even though
+you have not yet come to an untimely end, it is quite competent for me
+to pass you over and nominate your cousin as my heir."
+
+"Oh, sir, this is intolerable!" cried the young man, starting to his
+feet for the second time. "To see you as you are, uncle, grieves me to
+the bottom of my heart--believe me or not. But I did not come here to
+be preached at. No man knows my faults and follies so well as I know
+them myself. Leave your property as you may think well to do so; but I
+hope and pray, sir, that you will never mention the subject to me
+again."
+
+He turned to quit the room, and had reached the door, when he heard
+his uncle's voice call his name faintly. Looking back, he was startled
+to see the change which a few seconds had wrought in the dying man.
+His eyes were glassy, the pallor of his face had deepened to a
+deathlike whiteness. Gilbert was seriously frightened: he thought the
+end had come. There was some brandy in a decanter on the little table.
+It was the work of a moment to pour some into a glass. Then, with the
+aid of a teaspoon, he inserted a small portion of the spirit between
+the teeth of the unconscious man. This he did again and again, and in
+a little while he was gratified by seeing some signs of returning
+life. There was an Indian feather-fan on the chimney-piece. With this,
+having first flung the window wide open, he proceeded to fan his
+uncle's face. Presently Mr. Denison sighed deeply, and the light of
+consciousness flickered slowly back into his eyes. He stared at his
+nephew for a moment as though wondering whom he might be, smiled
+faintly, and pointed to a chair.
+
+Gilbert took one of his uncle's clammy hands in his, chafed it gently
+for a little while, and then pressed it to his lips. "You are better
+now, sir," he said.
+
+"Yes, I am better. 'Twas nothing but a little faintness. I shall not
+die before tomorrow night." He lay for a little while in silence,
+gazing up at the ceiling like one in deep thought. Then he said, "And
+now about the property, Berty."
+
+The young man thrilled at the word. His uncle had not called him by
+that name since he was quite a lad. "Oh, sir, do not trouble yourself
+any more about the property," he cried. "Whatever you have done, you
+have no doubt done for the best."
+
+"But I want to tell you what I have done, and why I have done it.
+To-morrow I may not have strength to do so." Young Gilbert moved
+uneasily in his chair. The sick man noticed it. "Impatient of control
+as ever," he said, with a smile. "Headstrong--wilful--obstinate; you
+are a true Denison. Measure me a dose out of that bottle on the
+chimney-piece. It will give me strength."
+
+Gilbert did as he was bidden, and then resumed his seat by the
+bedside.
+
+"It was not a likely thing, my boy, that I should leave the
+estate away from you," resumed Mr. Denison; and, despite all his
+self-control, a sudden light leapt into Gilbert's eyes as he heard the
+words. "Notwithstanding all your wild ways and outrageous carryings
+on, I have never ceased to love you. You have been to me as my own
+son; as your father was to me a true brother. As for Henry, although
+he is dead, there was no love lost between us. We quarrelled and
+parted in anger, as we should quarrel and part in anger again were he
+still alive. I do not want to think that a son of his will ever call
+Heron Dyke his home."
+
+Young Gilbert's face darkened again at the mention of his cousin's
+name. As between the two brothers years ago there had been a feud that
+nothing had ever healed, so between the two cousins there had arisen a
+deadly enmity which nothing in this world (so young Gilbert vowed a
+thousand times to himself) should ever bridge over. They were good
+haters, those Denisons, and never more so than when they had
+quarrelled with one of their own kith and kin.
+
+"No, the old roof-tree shall be yours, Gilbert, and all that pertains
+to it," continued Mr. Denison, "as you will find when my will comes to
+be read. You will find, too, a good balance to your credit at the
+bank, for I have not been an improvident man. At the same time I have
+had expenses and losses of which you know nothing. But--there is a
+'but' to everything in this world, you know--you will find in my will
+a certain proviso which I doubt not you will think a strange one, most
+probably a hard one, and which I feel sure you will at first resent
+almost as if I had done you a personal injury. It has not been without
+much thought and deliberation that the proviso I speak of has been
+embodied in the will, but I fully believe that twenty years hence,
+should you live as long, you will bless my memory for having so
+introduced it."
+
+Mr. Denison lay back for a moment or two to gather breath. His nephew
+spake no word, but sat with his eyes bent studiously on the floor.
+
+"Gilbert, as a rule we Denisons are a long-lived race," resumed the
+dying man, "and but for this unhappy accident, I have a fancy that I
+should have worn for another score years at the least. If you have
+ever been at the trouble to read the inscriptions on the tombs of your
+ancestors in Nullington Church, you must have noticed how many of them
+lived to be seventy-five, eighty, and in some cases ninety years of
+age. Now, what prospect or likelihood is there of your living to be
+even seventy years old? Your constitution is impaired already. That
+dark, sunken look about the eyes, those fine-drawn lines around the
+mouth, what business have they there at your age? I tell you, Gilbert
+Denison, that if you do not change your mode of life at once and for
+ever, you will not live to see your thirtieth birthday. And what
+probability is there that you will change it? That is the question
+that I have asked myself, not once, but a thousand times. If this wild
+and reckless mode of life has such fascinations for you, that it has
+induced you to dissipate the fortune left you by your father, to apply
+to me more than once to extricate you from your difficulties, to
+involve you deeply with the money-lenders, and to bring you at length
+to contemplate I know not what as a mode of escape from your troubles,
+what sort of hold will it have over you when you come into the
+uncontrolled possession of six thousand a year? That is a problem
+which I, for my part, cannot answer."
+
+Mr. Denison paused as though he expected a reply to his last question.
+There was silence for a little while, and then the nephew spoke in a
+low, constrained voice.
+
+"I can only repeat, sir, what I said before: that you had better let
+me go headlong to ruin my own way."
+
+"Not so. I have told you already that I have made you my heir. Heron
+Dyke, and all that pertains to it, will call you master in a few short
+hours. It----" but here he broke off for a moment to overcome some
+inward emotion. "I shall never see the old place again, and I had such
+schemes for the next dozen years! Well--well! we Denisons are not
+children that we should cry because our hopes are taken from us."
+
+"Sir, is not this excitement too much for you?" asked the nephew.
+
+But the other cleared his voice, and went on more firmly than before:
+
+"Yes, Gilbert, the old roof-tree and the broad acres shall all be
+yours, and long may you live to enjoy them. That is now the dearest
+wish left me on earth."
+
+"But the proviso, sir, of which you spoke just now?" said the young
+man, whose curiosity was all aflame.
+
+"The proviso is this: That should you not live to be seventy years of
+age, the estate, and all pertaining to it, shall pass away from you
+and yours at your death, and go to your cousin, the son of my brother
+Henry; or to his heirs, should he not be alive at the time. But should
+you overpass your seventieth birthday, though it be but by twelve
+short hours, the estate will remain yours, to will away to whom you
+please, or to dispose of as you may think best."
+
+Gilbert Denison stared into his uncle's face, with eyes which plainly
+said: "Are you crazy, or are you not?"
+
+"No, Gilbert, I am not mad, however much, at this first moment, you
+may be inclined to think me so," said Mr. Denison with a faint smile,
+as he laid his fingers caressingly on the young man's arm. "I told you
+before, that I had not done this thing without due thought and
+deliberation. It is the only mode I can think of to save you from
+yourself, to tear you away from this terrible life of dissipation, and
+to make a man of you, such as I and your father, were he now alive,
+would like you to become. I have given you something to live for; I
+have put before you the strongest inducement I can think of to reform
+your ways. Once on a time you had a splendid constitution, and seventy
+is not a great age for a Denison to reach. In due time you will
+probably marry and have a son. That son may be left little better off
+than a pauper should his father not live to see his seventieth
+birthday. If I cannot induce you to take care of your health for your
+own sake, I will try to induce you to do so for the sake of those who
+will come after you. Heaven only knows whether my plan will succeed.
+Our poor purblind schemes are but feeble makeshifts at the best."
+
+"In case I should fall in the hunting-field, sir, or----"
+
+"Or come to such an untimely end as I have come to, eh? Should you
+meet with your death by accident, and not by your own hand, the
+special stipulation in the will which I have just explained to you
+will become invalid, and of no effect. You will find this and other
+points duly provided for. Nothing has been forgotten."
+
+There ensued a silence. The sick man suddenly broke it.
+
+"Perhaps some scheme may enter your head, Gilbert, of trying to upset
+the will after I am dead? But you will find that a difficult matter to
+do."
+
+"Now, Heaven forbid, sir," cried the young man, vehemently, "that such
+a thought should find harbourage in my brain for a single moment! You
+think me worse than I am. You do not know me: you have never
+understood me."
+
+"Do we ever really understand one another in this world? We are so far
+removed from Heaven, that the lights burn dimly, and we see each other
+but as shadows walking in the dusk."
+
+At this moment there was a ring below stairs, then a knock at the
+chamber door, and in came the nurse. The doctor was waiting.
+
+"You had better go now, my boy," said Mr. Denison, pressing Gilbert's
+hand affectionately. "At ten tomorrow I shall expect to see you
+again."
+
+Gilbert Denison stood up and took the dying man's fingers within his
+strong grasp; he gazed with grave, resolute eyes into the dying man's
+face.
+
+"One moment, sir. As I said before--you do not know me. You have seen
+one side of me--the weak side--and that is all. If you think that,
+when I make up my mind to do so, I cannot throw off the trammels of my
+present life, almost as easily as I cast aside an old coat, then, sir,
+you are quite and entirely mistaken. That I have been weak and foolish
+I fully admit, but it is just possible, sir, that, young as I am, I
+may have had trials and temptations of which you know nothing. How
+many men before me have striven to find in reckless dissipation a
+Lethe for their troubles? Not that I wish to excuse myself: far from
+it. I only wish you to understand and believe, uncle, that there is a
+side to my character of which as yet you know nothing."
+
+"I am willing to believe it, Gilbert," was the answering murmur: and
+once more the young man pressed Mr. Denison's hand to his lips.
+
+When Gilbert Denison called in Bloomsbury Square the following morning
+he found his uncle much weaker and more exhausted. Mr. Denison was
+evidently sinking fast. Gilbert stayed with him till the end. A little
+while before that end came, he drew his nephew down to him and spoke
+in a whisper:
+
+"Never forget the motto of your family, my boy: 'What I have, I
+hold.'"
+
+And before the sun rose again, Gilbert Denison the younger was master
+of Heron Dyke, with an income of six thousand a year.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+MRS. CARLYON AT HOME.
+
+
+Forty-five years, with all their manifold changes, had come and gone
+since Squire Denison, of Heron Dyke, died in his lodgings in
+Bloomsbury Square, London.
+
+It was the height of the London season, and at Mrs. Carlyon's house at
+Bayswater a small party were assembled in honour of the twenty-first
+birthday of her niece, Miss Ella Winter. Mrs. Carlyon, who had been a
+widow for several years, was still a handsome woman, although she
+could count considerably more than forty summers. Her house was a good
+one, pleasantly situated, and well furnished. She kept her brougham
+and half-a-dozen servants, and nothing pleased her better than to see
+herself surrounded by young people. Most enjoyable to her were those
+times when Miss Winter was allowed by her great-uncle, the present
+Squire Denison, of Heron Dyke, to exchange for a few weeks the
+quietude of the country for the gaieties of Bayswater and the delights
+of the London season. Such visits, however, were few and far between,
+and were appreciated accordingly.
+
+To-day some ten or a dozen friends were dining with Mrs. Carlyon. One
+of them was little Freddy Bootle, with his little fluffy moustache,
+his eye-glass, and his short-cut flaxen hair parted down the middle.
+Freddy was universally acknowledged to be one of the best-hearted
+fellows in the world, and one of the most easily imposed upon. He was
+well connected, and was a junior partner in the great East-end brewery
+firm of Fownes, Bootle and Bootle. He was in love with Miss Winter,
+and had proposed to her a year ago. Although unsuccessful in his suit,
+his feelings remained unchanged, and he was not without hope that Ella
+would one day look on him with more favourable eyes. Ella and he
+remained the best of friends. That little episode of the declaration
+in the conservatory, which to him had been so momentous an affair, had
+been to her no more than a passing vexation.
+
+Another of the gentlemen whom it may be as well to introduce is Philip
+Cleeve, son of Lady Cleeve, of Homedale, near Nullington. He and Miss
+Winter are great friends. Philip is in love with Maria Kettle, the
+only daughter of the Vicar of Nullington. What a handsome fellow he
+is, with his brown curling hair, his laughing hazel eyes, and his
+ever-ready smile. Ella sometimes wonders how Maria Kettle can resist
+his pleasant manners and fascinating ways. There is no more general
+favourite anywhere than Philip Cleeve. The worst his friends could
+say of him was that he was given to be a little careless in money
+matters--and his purse was a very slender one. Between ourselves,
+Philip was sometimes hard up for pocket-money: though, perhaps, these
+same friends suspected it not.
+
+Dinner was over, and the ladies had returned to the drawing-room, when
+Mrs. Carlyon was called downstairs, and a couple of minutes later Ella
+was sent for. A gentleman had called, Captain Lennox, bringing with
+him a birthday gift for Ella, from Mr. Denison, of Heron Dyke. The
+Captain had accidentally met Mr. Denison the day previously, and
+happening to mention that he was about to run up to London on a flying
+visit, the latter had asked him to take charge of and deliver to his
+niece a certain little parcel which he did not feel quite easy about
+entrusting to the post. This parcel the Captain now delivered into
+Ella's hands. On being opened, the contents proved to be a pair of
+diamond and pearl ear-rings.
+
+Mrs. Carlyon at once gave Captain Lennox a cordial invitation to join
+the party upstairs, which he as cordially accepted. They had never met
+before; but Ella had some acquaintance with the Captain and his
+widowed sister, who lived with him in Norfolk. The Captain and his
+sister had come strangers to Nullington some six months previously,
+and finding the place to their liking, had, after a fortnight's
+sojourn at an hotel, taken The Lilacs, a pretty cottage ornée. Captain
+Lennox was a tall, thin, fair-haired man about forty years of age. He
+had clear-cut aquiline features, wore a moustache and long whiskers,
+and was always faultlessly dressed.
+
+"How was my uncle looking, Captain Lennox?" asked Ella, somewhat
+anxiously, when the ear-rings had been duly examined and admired.
+
+"Certainly quite as well as I ever saw him look."
+
+"I am glad of that. I had a letter from him three days ago, in which
+he said that he had not felt better for years. But that is a phrase he
+nearly always makes use of when he writes to me. He does it to satisfy
+me. When his health is in question, Uncle Gilbert's statements are
+sometimes to be taken with a grain of salt."
+
+"Now that Captain Lennox has assured you that your uncle is no worse
+than usual, you can afford to give me another week at Bayswater," said
+Mrs. Carlyon.
+
+Ella smiled and shook her head.
+
+"I must go back next Monday without fail."
+
+"You are as obstinate as the Squire himself," cried her aunt. "I have
+a great mind to write and tell him that he need not expect you before
+the twentieth."
+
+"He will expect me back on the thirteenth," said Ella. "And I would
+not disappoint him for a great deal."
+
+"Well, well, you must have your own way, I suppose. All the same, it
+is a great deprivation to me. But those good people upstairs will
+think that I am lost, so come along, both of you."
+
+At this juncture a fresh arrival was announced. It was Mr. Conroy,
+special artist and correspondent for _The Illustrated Globe_, whose
+vivid letters from the seat of war had been so widely read of late.
+Mrs. Carlyon received him with warmth.
+
+"I hope you have brought some of your sketches with you, as you so
+kindly promised," she said, when greetings were over.
+
+"My portfolio is in the hall," he replied. "But you must not expect to
+see anything very finished. In fact, my sketches are all in the rough,
+just as I jotted them down immediately after the events I have
+attempted to portray."
+
+"That will only serve to render them the more interesting. They will
+seem like veritable pulsations of that awful struggle," said Mrs.
+Carlyon, as she rang the bell and ordered the portfolio to be brought
+upstairs. Then she introduced Conroy to her niece, Miss Winter: and he
+gave a perceptible start.
+
+"They have met before," thought Captain Lennox to himself. He was
+looking on from his seat close by, and he watched narrowly for a gleam
+of recognition between them. But no such look came into the eyes of
+either. The Captain, who had a keen nose for anything not above board,
+turned the matter over in his mind. "That start had a meaning in it,"
+he mused. "There's more under the surface than shows itself at
+present."
+
+Conroy never forgot the picture that stamped itself on his memory the
+first moment he set eyes on Ella Winter. He saw before him a tall,
+slender girl, whose gait and movements were as free and stately as
+those of a queen. She had hair of the colour of chestnuts when at
+their ripest, and large luminous eyes of darkest blue. The eyebrows
+were thick and nearly straight, and darker in colour than her hair.
+Her face was a delightful one in the mingled expression of gravity and
+sweetness--the gravity was often near akin to melancholy--that
+habitually rested upon it. A forehead broad, but not very high; a
+straight, clear-cut nose with delicate nostrils; lips that were,
+perhaps, a trifle over-full, but that lacked nothing of purpose or
+decision; a firm, rounded chin with one dainty dimple in it: such was
+Ella Winter as first seen by Edward Conroy. This evening she wore a
+dress of rich but sober-tinted marone, relieved with lace of a creamy
+white.
+
+"I have often wished to see her," muttered Conroy to himself. "Now I
+have seen her, and I am satisfied."
+
+Mrs. Carlyon had the portfolio taken into her boudoir so as to be
+clear of the music and conversation in the larger room, and there a
+little group gathered round to examine and comment upon the sketches,
+and to listen to Conroy's few direct words of explanation whenever any
+such were needed.
+
+Ella stood and looked on, listening to Mr. Conroy's remarks and to the
+comments of those around her, and only giving utterance to a
+monosyllable now and then. "This man differs, somehow, from other
+men," was her unspoken thought. "He is a man carved out by hand; not
+one of a thousand turned out by lathe, and all so much alike that you
+cannot tell one from another. He has individuality. He interests me."
+
+She was taking but little apparent interest in what was going on
+before her; but, for all that, she lost no word that was said. She
+stood, fan in hand, her arms crossed before her, her fingers
+interknit, her eyes, with a look of grave, sweet inquiry in them, bent
+on Conroy's face. "Aunt shall ask him to leave his portfolio till
+tomorrow," she thought, "and after these people are gone I can have
+his sketches all to myself."
+
+Conroy was indeed of a different mould from those butterflies of
+fashion who ordinarily fluttered around Miss Winter. He was certainly
+not a handsome man, in the general acceptation of the term. His face
+was dark and somewhat rugged for a man still young, but lined with
+thought, and instinct with energy. He had seen his twenty-eighth
+birthday, but looked older. Edward Conroy had gone through much
+hardship and many dangers in the pursuit of his profession. Already
+his black hair was growing thin about the temples, and was streaked
+here and there with a fine line of grey. The predominant expression
+of his face was determination. He looked like a man not easily
+moved--whom, indeed, it would be almost impossible to move when once
+he had made up his mind to a certain course. And yet his face was one
+that women and children seemed to trust intuitively. At times a
+wonderful softness, an expression of almost feminine tenderness, would
+steal into his dark brown eyes. Tears had nothing to do with it: he
+was a man to whom tears were unknown. The sweetest springs are those
+which lie farthest from the surface and are the most difficult to
+reach. From the first, Ella felt that she had to contend against a
+will that was stronger than her own, From the first she could not help
+looking up to and deferring to Edward Conroy, as she had never
+deferred to any man but her uncle. Probably she liked him none the
+less for that.
+
+When Conroy's sketches had been looked at and commented upon, the
+majority of the company went back into the drawing-room. Dancing now
+began, and Ella found herself engaged to one partner after another.
+Conroy sat down in a corner of the boudoir next to old-fashioned,
+plain-looking Miss Wallace, whom nobody seemed to notice much, and was
+soon deep in conversation with her. Ella was annoyed two or three
+times at detecting herself looking round the room and wondering what
+had become of him. Somehow she seemed to pay less attention than usual
+to the small-talk of her partners. They found her indifferent and
+distrait.
+
+"She may be rich, and she may be handsome," remarked young Pawson of
+the Guards to one of his friends, "but she is not the kind of woman
+that I should care to marry. She has a way of freezing a fellow and
+making him feel small; and that's uncomfortable, to say the least of
+it."
+
+By-and-by Conroy strolled into the drawing-room, and Captain Lennox,
+who happened to be watching Ella at the time, saw the sudden light
+that leapt into her eyes the moment she caught sight of his form in
+the doorway.
+
+"She's interested in him already," muttered the Captain to himself.
+"This Mr. Conroy is playing some deep game, or I am very much
+mistaken. I wonder where he has met her before?"
+
+"How do you think my niece is looking?" asked Mrs. Carlyon of Captain
+Lennox, a little later on, as she glanced fondly at Ella.
+
+"Uncommonly well," replied the Captain. "She always does look well."
+
+"Ah no, not always. She was not looking well when she came to me."
+
+Captain Lennox considered. He also glanced across at Ella.
+
+"I have noticed one thing, Mrs. Carlyon--that she has at times a
+strangely grave look in her eyes for one so young. It is as if she had
+something or other in her thoughts that she finds difficult to
+forget."
+
+"That is just where the matter lies. How _can_ she forget? Since that
+strange affair that happened last February at Heron Dyke----"
+
+"Oh, that was a regular mystery," interrupted the Captain, aroused to
+eager interest. "It is one still."
+
+"And it has left its effects upon poor Ella. A mystery: yes, you are
+right in calling it so; sure never was a greater mystery enacted in
+melodrama. Ella's stay with me has, no doubt, benefited her in a
+degree, but I am sure it lies in her thoughts almost night and day."
+
+"Well, it was a most unaccountable thing. I fancy it troubles Mr.
+Denison."
+
+"It must trouble all who inhabit Heron Dyke. For myself, I do not
+think I could bear to live there. Were it my home I should leave it."
+
+Captain Lennox stroked his fair whiskers in surprise.
+
+"Leave it!" he exclaimed. "Leave Heron Dyke!"
+
+"_I_ should. I should be afraid to stay. But then I am a woman, and
+women are apt to be timorous. If--if Katherine----"
+
+Mrs. Carlyon broke off with a shiver. She rose from her seat and moved
+away, as though the subject were getting too much for her.
+
+A strange mystery it indeed was, as the reader will admit when he
+shall hear its particulars later. But it was not the greatest mystery
+enacted, or to be enacted, at Heron Dyke.
+
+"I have a favour to ask you, Mr. Conroy," began Ella, when they found
+themselves apart from the rest for a moment.
+
+"You have but to name it," he answered, a smile in his speaking eyes
+as they glanced into hers.
+
+"Will you let your portfolio remain here until tomorrow? I want to
+look at the sketches all by myself."
+
+"They interest you?"
+
+"Very much indeed. How I should like to have been in Paris during that
+terrible siege!"
+
+"You ought to be thankful that you were a hundred miles away from it."
+
+"But surely I might have been of some sort of use. I could have nursed
+among the wounded--or helped to distribute food to the starving--or
+read to the dying. I should have found something to do, and have done
+it."
+
+"Still, I cannot help saying that you were much better away. You can
+form but a faint idea of the terror and agony of that awful time."
+
+"But there were women who went through it all, and why should not I
+have done the same? My life seems so useless--so purposeless. I feel
+as if I had been sent into a world where there was nothing left for me
+to do."
+
+"So long as poverty and sickness, want and misery abound, there is
+surely enough to do for earnest workers of every kind."
+
+"But how to set about doing it? I feel as if my hands were tied, and
+as if I could not cut the cord that binds me."
+
+"And yet your life is not without its interests. Your uncle, for
+instance----"
+
+"You have heard about my uncle!" she said, in her quick way, looking
+at him with a little surprise.
+
+"Yes, I have heard of Mr. Denison, of Heron Dyke. There is nothing
+very strange in that."
+
+"Ah, yes, I think I am of some use to him," said Ella, softly. "I
+could not leave Uncle Gilbert for anything or anybody. And I have my
+school in the village, and two or three poor old people to look after.
+My life is not altogether an empty one; but what I do seems so small
+and trifling in comparison with what I think I should like to do.
+After all, these may be only the foolish longings of an ignorant girl
+who has seen little or nothing of the world."
+
+Mr. Bootle came up and claimed Ella's hand for the next dance. The
+special correspondent's face softened as he looked after her.
+
+"What a sweet creature she is!" he said to himself. "To-morrow I will
+try to sketch her face from memory."
+
+Philip Cleeve was one of the earliest to leave. He had complained of a
+severe headache for the last hour, and had scarcely danced at all. A
+little later Mr. Bootle and Captain Lennox went off arm-in-arm. They
+had never met before this evening, but they seemed to have taken a
+mutual liking to one another. When Conroy took his leave, Mrs. Carlyon
+invited him to call again: and he silently promised himself it should
+be before Ella Winter's departure for Norfolk. But, as circumstances
+fell out, it was a promise that he could not keep.
+
+Two o'clock was striking as Mrs. Carlyon sat down on her dressing-room
+sofa after the departure of her last guest. Taking out her ear-rings,
+she handed them to her maid, Higson.
+
+"I am glad things passed off nicely," she remarked to Ella, who had
+stepped in for a few moments' chat. "All the same, I am not sorry it's
+over," she added, with a sigh of weariness.
+
+"Neither am I," acknowledged Ella. "It would take me a long time to
+get used to your London hours, Aunt Gertrude."
+
+"That Captain Lennox seems a very pleasant man. Very stylish too; but
+he--Higson, what in the world are you fidgeting about?" Mrs. Carlyon
+broke off to ask.
+
+"I am looking for your jewel-case, ma'am," was the maid's rejoinder;
+"I can't see it anywhere. Perhaps you have put it away?" she added,
+turning to her mistress.
+
+"I have neither seen it nor touched it since I dressed for dinner,"
+said Mrs. Carlyon. "It was on the dressing-table then. I dare say you
+have put it somewhere yourself."
+
+Higson, the patient, knew that she had not, though she made no reply.
+She continued her search, Ella turning to help her. The maid's face
+gradually acquired a look of consternation.
+
+"It is certainly not here, aunt," cried Ella.
+
+"What's that, my dear?" asked Mrs. Carlyon, with a start, rousing
+herself from the half-doze into which she had fallen. "I say that
+Higson must have forgotten what she did with it."
+
+But Higson had not. She assured her mistress that the jewel-box was
+left on the dressing-table. At nine o'clock, when she went in to
+prepare the room for the night, she saw it there, safe and untouched.
+
+Without another word, Mrs. Carlyon set to work herself. The
+dressing-room had two doors, one of which opened into Mrs. Carlyon's
+bedroom, while the other opened into the boudoir where the little
+group had assembled to examine Mr. Conroy's sketches. After searching
+the dressing-room thoroughly, and convincing herself that the case was
+not there, the bedroom was submitted to a similar process with a like
+result.
+
+Mrs. Carlyon grew alarmed. The case had contained jewels of the value
+of more than three hundred pounds, besides certain souvenirs
+pertaining to dear ones whom she had lost, which no money could have
+bought. As a last resource the boudoir was searched, although it was
+difficult to imagine how the jewel-case could by any possibility have
+found its way there. Satisfied at length that further search, for the
+present at all events, was useless, Mrs. Carlyon sat down with despair
+at her heart and tears in her eyes.
+
+"Are the servants gone to bed yet?" she asked.
+
+Higson thought not. When she came up they were clearing away the
+refreshments.
+
+"Go and call them," said her mistress, rather sharply. "But don't say
+what for."
+
+"Higson seems very much put out," observed Ella, when the maid was
+gone.
+
+"Well she may be," said Mrs. Carlyon. "She is a faithful creature, and
+has been with me nearly a dozen years. _All_ my servants are faithful,
+and have lived with me more or less a prolonged time," she added
+emphatically. "I could never suspect one of them; but it is right they
+should be questioned. I could trust them with all I possess."
+
+The servants filed in, five or six of them, one after another; an
+expression on each face which seemed to ask, "Why are we wanted here
+at this uncanny hour?"
+
+In a few quiet sentences Mrs. Carlyon detailed her loss, and
+questioned each of them in turn as to whether they could throw any
+light on the affair. One and all denied all knowledge of it: as indeed
+their mistress had quite expected that they would do. No one save
+Higson had set foot either in the bedroom or dressing-room since ten
+o'clock the previous forenoon. There was nothing for it but to let
+them go back. Higson, who was crying by this time, was told a few
+minutes later that she too had better go: Mrs. Carlyon would to-night
+undress herself. The woman went out with her apron to her eyes.
+
+"I shan't get a wink of sleep all this blessed night," she cried with
+a sob. "Hanging would be too good, ma'am, for them that have robbed
+you."
+
+Mrs. Carlyon and Ella sat and looked at each other. The uncertainty
+was growing painfully oppressive. Had there been any strange waiters
+in the house, they might have been suspected: but, except on some very
+rare and grand occasion, Mrs. Carlyon employed only her own servants.
+And those servants were above suspicion.
+
+"Was the door that opens from the dressing-room into the boudoir
+locked, or otherwise?" asked Ella.
+
+"To my certain knowledge it was locked till past ten o'clock: and I
+will tell you how I happen to know it," replied Mrs. Carlyon. "Some
+time after the exhibition of Mr. Conroy's sketches I went into the
+boudoir and found it empty of everybody except Philip Cleeve; he was
+lying on the sofa with one of his bad headaches. Thinking that my
+salts might be of service to him, I came into the dressing-room to get
+them. I have a clear recollection of finding the door between the two
+rooms locked then. I unlocked it, and having found the salts, I went
+back and gave them to Philip; but whether I relocked the door after me
+is more than I can say. Probably I did not. After a few words to
+Philip I left him, still lying on the sofa, and did not go near the
+boudoir again."
+
+A pause ensued. It seemed as if there was nothing more to be said. Not
+the slightest shadow of suspicion could rest on Philip Cleeve; the
+idea was preposterous. Both the ladies had known him since he was a
+boy, and his mother, Lady Cleeve, was one of Mrs. Carlyon's oldest
+friends. And, that suspicion could attach itself to any of the guests,
+was equally out of the question. Still, the one strange fact remained,
+that the casket could not be found.
+
+"We had better go to bed, I think," said Mrs. Carlyon at last, in a
+fretful voice. "If we sit up all night the case won't come back to us
+of its own accord."
+
+"I am ready to say with Higson that I shan't get a wink of sleep,"
+remarked Ella, as she rose to obey. "One thing seems quite certain,
+Aunt Gertrude--that there must be a thief somewhere."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+CAPTAIN LENNOX STARTLED.
+
+
+There were other people beside Mrs. Carlyon who had cause to remember
+the night of Ella Winter's birthday party.
+
+As already stated, Captain Lennox and Mr. Bootle left the house
+together. They were walking along, arm-in-arm, smoking their cigars,
+when whom should they run against but Philip Cleeve, who had bid them
+goodnight half an hour before.
+
+"Why, Phil, my boy, what are you doing here?" cried Mr. Bootle. "I
+thought you were off to roost long ago."
+
+"I am taking a quiet stroll before turning in," answered Philip. "I
+thought the cool night air would do my head good, and I'm happy to say
+it has."
+
+"Then you can't do better than come along to my hotel with Mr.
+Bootle," said Lennox. "Let us have one last bottle of champagne
+together."
+
+Freddy seconded the proposition; and Philip, who seldom wanted much
+persuasion where pleasure was concerned, yielded after a minute's
+hesitation. He had come up to London for a few days' holiday, and
+there was no reason why he should not enjoy himself.
+
+A cab was called, and the three gentlemen presently found themselves
+at the Captain's rooms. There they sat chatting, and smoking, and
+drinking champagne, till the clock on the chimney-piece chimed the
+half hour past two. By this time they had all had more wine than was
+good for them, Mr. Bootle especially so, while Philip was, perhaps,
+the coolest of the three.
+
+"We'll see him into a hansom, and then we shall be sure that he will
+get home all right," whispered Lennox to Philip as they assisted
+Freddy downstairs.
+
+A hansom being quickly found, Mr. Bootle was safely stowed inside and
+the requisite instructions given to the driver. Then they all shook
+hands and bade each other goodnight with a promise to meet again next
+afternoon.
+
+
+It was near noon the next day, and Freddy Bootle was still in bed,
+when some one knocked at his door, and Captain Lennox entered the
+room, looking well, but lugubrious.
+
+"Not up yet!" he said, in anything but a cheerful voice. "I
+breakfasted three hours ago."
+
+"My head is like a lump of lead," moaned Freddy, "and my tongue is as
+dry as a parrot's."
+
+"Have you any soda; and where's your liqueur-case? I'll concoct you a
+dose that will soon put you right."
+
+"You'll find lots of things in the other room: but Lennox, how fresh
+you look. You might never have had a headache in your life."
+
+"You are not so well seasoned as I am," returned Captain Lennox.
+"What business do you suppose has brought me here?"
+
+"Not the remotest idea; unless it be to gaze on the wretched object
+before you."
+
+"Oh, you'll be well enough in an hour or two. Are you aware that I had
+my pocket picked of my purse while in your company last night--or,
+rather, early this morning?"
+
+Mr. Bootle stared at his friend in blank surprise, but said nothing.
+
+"It contained all the cash I had with me," continued the Captain; "and
+I must ask you to lend me a few pounds to pay my hotel bill and carry
+me home."
+
+"Was there much in it?"
+
+"A ten-pound note, and some gold and silver."
+
+Mr. Bootle was sitting up in bed by this time, his hands pressed to
+his head, his eyes fixed intently on the Captain. "By Jove!" he said,
+at last, and there was no mistaking his tone of utter surprise. "Do
+you know, Lennox, that your telling me about this brings back
+something to my mind that I had forgotten till now. I believe my
+pocket also was picked. I have a vague recollection of not being able
+to find my watch and chain when I got home this morning, but I tumbled
+into bed almost immediately, and thought nothing more of the matter
+till you spoke now. Just hand me my togs and let me have another
+search."
+
+Mr. Bootle examined his clothes thoroughly; but both watch and chain
+were gone. The two men looked at each other in dismay. "It was the
+governor's watch," said Freddy, dismally, "and I am uncommonly sorry
+it's gone. Bad luck to the scoundrel who took it!"
+
+"You had better get up and have some breakfast, and then we'll go down
+to Scotland Yard. The police may be able to trace it into the hands of
+some pawnbroker."
+
+"I shall never see the old watch again," said Mr. Bootle, with a
+melancholy shake of the head. "And as for breakfast--don't mention the
+word."
+
+At this juncture, Philip Cleeve came in, looking none the worse for
+last night's vigil. The story of the double loss was at once poured
+into his ears by Freddy. Captain Lennox noticed how genuinely
+surprised he looked.
+
+"_You_ lost nothing, I suppose?" asked the Captain, in a grumbling
+tone, as if he could not get over his own loss.
+
+"Why, no," said Philip, with a laugh. "I had nothing about me worth
+taking--only a little loose silver and this ancient turnip--a family
+relic, three or four generations old." As he spoke he drew from
+his pocket a large old-fashioned silver watch, of the kind our
+great-grandfathers used to carry, and held it up for inspection.
+"Almost big enough for a family clock, is it not?" he asked, with
+another laugh, as he put it away again.
+
+There was silence for a minute or two, Lennox seeming lost in a
+reverie. Then he turned to Bootle. "Do you recollect at what time
+during the evening you looked at your watch last?"
+
+"My memory as to what happened during the latter part of the evening
+is anything but clear," said Freddy. "I seem to have a hazy
+recollection of pulling out my watch and looking at it when the clock
+in your room chimed something or other."
+
+"That would be half-past two," interrupted Lennox.
+
+"But I can't be quite sure on the point. How about your
+purse?--portemonnaie, or whatever it was?"
+
+"As to that, I only know that I missed it first when I came to
+undress. I might have been relieved of it hours before, or only a few
+minutes."
+
+"Don't you remember two or three rough-looking fellows hustling past
+us," asked Philip, "as we stood talking for a minute or two at the
+street corner just before Bootle got into the cab?"
+
+Lennox shook his head. "I can't say that I recollect the circumstance
+you speak of," he answered.
+
+"But I recollect the affair quite well," said Philip, positively. "One
+of the men nearly hustled me into the gutter. Nasty low-looking
+fellows they were. I think it most likely that they were the
+pickpockets."
+
+The Captain shrugged his shoulders, remarking that all he knew was
+that his money was gone; he crossed the room, and began to stare out
+of the window. Freddy Bootle was looking dreadfully uncomfortable.
+
+"I am sorry that I can't join you fellows at dinner to-day," said
+Philip. "From a letter I received this morning I find I must get back
+home at once."
+
+"Oh, nonsense!" both of them interrupted. "That won't do, Cleeve."
+
+"It must do. My mother has written for me. She's ill."
+
+"You can go down the first thing tomorrow," said Captain Lennox.
+
+"A few hours can't make much difference," added Bootle.
+
+Philip shook his head. "When it comes to the mother writing and
+confessing she is ill--which she seldom will confess--I know she is
+ill, and that she expects me. Perhaps I'll look in again on my way to
+the train," added Philip, as he went out. "I have a call or two to
+make first."
+
+In the course of the day the Captain and Mr. Bootle went down to
+Scotland Yard and reported their losses: though they both seemed to
+feel that their doing so was little better than a farce. They dined
+together afterwards, and went to the theatre.
+
+Next day the Captain's brief visit came to an end, and he travelled
+back to Norfolk.
+
+The evening clock was striking nine as Captain Lennox reached
+Nullington station. He secured the solitary fly in waiting, and told
+the driver to take him to Heron Dyke. Late though it was, he thought
+he would tell the Squire that his gift had reached Miss Winter safely.
+What with this robbery and that, it behoved people to be cautious.
+Dismissing the fly when he reached the gates of Heron Dyke, Captain
+Lennox took out his cane and a small handbag, and rang at the door.
+
+Everything looked dark about the old house. There was not a glimmer of
+light anywhere. The shrill clang of the bell broke the deathlike
+silence rudely. Presently came the sound of footsteps, and then a
+man's voice could be heard as he grumbled and muttered to himself,
+while two or three heavy bolts were slowly, and, as it were,
+reluctantly withdrawn. "It's old Aaron Stone, and he's in a deuce of a
+temper, as he always is," said the Captain to himself. The great oaken
+door seemed to groan as it turned on its hinges. It was only opened to
+the extent of a few inches, and was still held by the heavy chain
+inside.
+
+"Who are you, and what do you mean by disturbing honest folk at this
+time o' night?" queried a harsh voice from within.
+
+"I am Captain Lennox. I have just returned from London, and I should
+like a few words with the Squire, if not too late."
+
+"The Squire never sees anybody at this time o' night. You had better
+come in the morning, Captain."
+
+"I cannot come in the morning. I have a message for Mr. Denison from
+his niece, Miss Winter."
+
+"Why couldn't you say so at first?" grumbled the old man. He seemed to
+hesitate for a moment or two; then he turned on his heel and went
+slowly away down the echoing corridor; a distant door was heard to
+shut, and after that all was silence again.
+
+Captain Lennox turned away and whistled a few bars under his breath.
+The night was cloudy, and few stars were visible. Here and there one
+of the huge clumps of evergreens, in front of the house, was dimly
+discernible; and against the background of clouded sky, the black
+outlines of the seven tall poplars, that stood on the opposite side of
+the lawn, were clearly defined. A brooding quiet seemed to rest over
+the whole place, except that every now and then, borne from afar, came
+the sound of a faint murmurous monotone, at once plaintive and
+soothing. It was the voice of the incoming tide, as it washed softly
+up the distant sands.
+
+Captain Lennox shivered, although the night was warm and oppressive.
+"What a dismal place!" was his thought. "I Would far sooner live in my
+own pretty little cottage than in this big, rambling, draughty,
+haunted old house--and it has a haunted look, if house ever had--and
+it _is_, if all tales are true. What was that?" he asked himself, with
+a start. It seemed to him that he had heard the sound of stealthy
+footsteps behind him. His fingers tightened on his cane, and he peered
+cautiously around: but nothing was to be seen or heard. Again came the
+noise of a far-off door, and again the sound of slow, heavy footsteps
+across the stone-floor of the hall. Next minute the chain was
+unloosed, and the great door opened a few inches wider. Then was the
+rugged face and bent form of old Aaron Stone discernible, as he
+cautiously held the door with one hand, while the other held a lighted
+lantern.
+
+"You may come in," he said, in ungracious accents. "As you have
+brought a message from Miss Ella, the Squire will see you; but it's
+gone nine o'clock, Captain, and he never likes to be kept up past his
+time--ten."
+
+Captain Lennox stepped inside, and the door behind him was rebolted
+and chained. The dim light from the lantern flung fantastic shadows on
+wall and ceiling as Aaron went slowly along, but left other things in
+semi-darkness. At the end of a passage leading from the opposite side
+of the hall was a door, which the old man opened with a pass-key, and
+they turned to the right along a narrower passage, into which several
+rooms opened. At one of these doors Aaron halted, opened it, and
+announced Captain Lennox.
+
+The room into which Lennox was ushered, after leaving his handbag and
+cane outside, was a large apartment, with a sort of sombre stateliness
+about it which might be imposing, but which was certainly anything but
+cheerful. Cheerful, indeed, on the brightest day in summer it was
+hardly possible that this room could be. Its panelled walls were black
+with age. Here and there a family portrait, dim and faded, and
+incrusted with the accumulated grime of generations, stared out at you
+with ghostly eyes from the more ghostly depths of blackness behind it.
+Whatever colour the ceiling might once have been, it was now one dull
+pervading hue of dingy brown. Two or three Indian rugs on the floor; a
+bureau carved with leaves and flowers, from the midst of which queer
+faces peeped out; two or three tables with twisted legs; an Oriental
+jar or two, and a few straight-backed chairs, formed, with two
+exceptions, the sole furniture of the room. The windows were high
+and narrow, and three in number. They were filled with small
+lozenge-shaped panes of thick greenish glass, set in lead; through
+which even the brightest summer sunlight penetrated with a chastened
+lustre, as though it were half afraid to venture inside. It was night
+now, and in the silver sconces over the chimney-piece, and in the
+silver candlesticks on one of the tables, some half-dozen wax-candles
+were alight; but in that big gloomy room their feeble flame seemed to
+do little more than make darkness visible. High up in the middle
+window was the family escutcheon in painted glass, and below it a
+scroll with the family motto: _What I have, I hold_.
+
+The two exceptions in question were these: a high screen of dark
+stamped leather, the figures on which, originally gilt, showed nothing
+more than a patch here and there of their whilom lustre; and a huge
+chair, which was also covered with the same dark leather. In this
+chair was seated the Master of Heron Dyke. The screen was drawn up
+behind him, and although the evening was close on midsummer, in the
+big open fireplace, in front of which he was sitting, the stump of a
+tree was slowly burning; crackling and sputtering noisily every now
+and then, as though defying till the last the flames that were
+gradually eating it away.
+
+Gilbert Denison sat in this huge leather chair, propped up with
+cushions, his legs and feet covered with a bear-skin. The reader at
+first might hardly have believed him to be the fine young fellow he
+saw in London, sitting by his uncle's death-bed, Gilbert the elder.
+But forty-five years suffice to change all of us. He was a very tall,
+lean, gaunt old man now: so lean, indeed, that there seemed to be
+little more of him than skin and bone. His head was covered with a
+black velvet skull-cap, underneath which his long white hair straggled
+almost on his shoulders. He had bold, clearly-cut features, and must,
+at one time, have been a man of striking appearance. His cheeks had
+now fallen in, and his long, straight nose looked pinched and sharp.
+His white eyebrows were thick and heavy, but the eyes below them
+gleamed out with a strange, keen, crafty sort of intelligence, that
+was hardly pleasant to see in one so old. He was clad, this evening,
+in a dressing-gown of thick grey duffel, from the sleeves of which
+protruded two bony hands, their long fingers just now clutching the
+arms of the easy-chair as though they never meant to loosen their
+hold again. Finally, on one lean, yellow finger gleamed a splendid
+cat's-eye ring, set with brilliants.
+
+Captain Lennox walked slowly forward till he stood close by the
+invalid's chair: for an invalid Mr. Denison was, and had been for
+years. The latter spoke first. "So--so! You have got back from town,
+eh, and brought me a message from my little girl?" said he, looking up
+at his visitor with sharp, crafty eyes. "I hope that the London smoke
+and London hours have not quite robbed her of her country roses? But
+sit down--sit down."
+
+"Miss Winter could hardly look better than when I saw her the day
+before yesterday," replied Captain Lennox. "She desired me to present
+her dearest love to you, and to tell you that she would not fail to be
+back at Heron Dyke on Monday evening next."
+
+"I knew she would be back to her time," chuckled the Squire. "Though,
+for that matter, she might have stayed another fortnight had she
+wanted to."
+
+He had a harsh, creaking, high-pitched voice, as though there were
+some hidden hinges somewhere that needed oiling; and it was curious to
+note that Aaron Stone's voice, probably from listening to that of his
+master for so many years, had acquired something of the same harsh,
+high-pitched tone, only with more of an inherent grumble in it. At a
+little distance, a person not in the habit of hearing either of them
+speak frequently, might readily have mistaken one voice for the other.
+
+"I fancy, sir," said the Captain, "that Miss Winter is never so happy
+as when at Heron Dyke. She strikes me as being one of those
+exceptional young ladies who care but little for the gaieties and
+distractions of London life."
+
+"Aye, the girl's been happy enough here, under the old roof-tree of
+her forefathers. She has been brought up on our wild east coast, and
+our cold sea winds have made her fresh and rosy. She is not one of
+your town-bred minxes, who find no happiness out of a ball-room or a
+boudoir. But she is a child no longer, and girls at her age have
+sometimes queer fancies and desires, that come and go beyond their own
+control. There have been times of late when I have fancied my pretty
+one has moped a little. Maybe, her wings begin to flutter, and to her
+young eyes the world seems wide and beautiful, and the old nest to
+grow duller and darker day by day."
+
+His voice softened wonderfully as he spoke thus of Ella. He sat and
+stared at the burning log, his chin resting on his breast. For the
+moment he had forgotten that he was not alone.
+
+Captain Lennox waited a minute and then coughed gently behind his
+hand. The Squire turned his head sharply. "Bodikins! I'd forgotten all
+about you," he said. "Well, I'm glad you've called to-night, Captain,
+though if you had come much later I should have been between the
+blankets. We are early birds at the Dyke. And she was looking well,
+was she!--forgetting a bit, maybe, the trouble here. You gave my
+little present safely into her hands, eh?"
+
+"I did not fail to deliver it speedily, as I had promised. Miss Winter
+will tell you herself how delighted she was with its contents."
+
+The Squire chuckled and rubbed his bony hands. "Ay, ay, she was
+pleased, was she? I shall have half a dozen kisses for it, I'll be
+bound."
+
+The Captain rose to go. "I thought you would like to hear of her
+welfare, Squire, or I should not have intruded on you before tomorrow.
+And also that I had carried your present to her in safety. London
+seems full of mysterious robberies just now."
+
+"It's always that; always that. I won't ask you to stay now," added
+the Squire; "you must drop in and see us another time. There's not
+much company comes to the Dyke nowadays. But at odd times a friend is
+welcome, eh? I've been thinking lately that perhaps my pretty one
+would be more lively if she saw more company: she finds it a bit
+drear, I fancy, since--since that matter in the winter. You, now, are
+young, but not too young; you have travelled, and seen the world, and
+you can talk. So you may call--once in a way, you know, eh--why not?"
+
+As soon as Captain Lennox had gone Aaron came in. One by one, he
+slowly and with much deliberation extinguished the candles in the
+sconces over the chimney-piece, but not those on the table. He then
+proceeded to close and bar the shutters of the three high, narrow
+windows. It was a whim of Mr. Denison to have the windows of whatever
+room he might be sitting in left uncurtained and unshuttered till the
+last moment before retiring for the night. "I hate to sit in a room
+with its eyes shut," he used to say: and he never would do so if he
+could help it.
+
+The clatter made by Aaron roused Mr. Denison from the reverie into
+which he had fallen. He lifted his head and watched Aaron bar the
+shutters of the last window. "As I drove home this afternoon, master,"
+said Aaron, "I saw two strangers loitering about the park gates. They
+crossed the stile into the Far Meadow when they saw me, and then they
+slipped away behind the hedges."
+
+"Ay, ay--spies--spies!" said the Squire. "They are at their old tricks
+again!--I've felt it for weeks. But we'll cheat them yet, Aaron--yes,
+we'll cheat them yet. Why, only an hour ago, when it was growing dark,
+just before you brought in the candles, as I sat looking out of the
+middle window, all at once I saw a man's face above the garden wall,
+staring straight into the room. I stared back at it, you may be sure.
+But at the end of two minutes or so, I could bear the thing no longer,
+so I up with my stick and shook it at the face, and next moment it was
+gone."
+
+"I should like to shoot them--and them that send them!" exclaimed
+Aaron, viciously.
+
+"They'll prowl about more than ever till the next eleven or twelve
+months have come and gone," said the Squire. "If they could see my
+coffin carried across the park to the old church, what a merry show
+that would be for them!--there'd be no more spying here then. That's
+ten o'clock striking. Put out the other candles and let us go."
+
+Captain Lennox left the hall, carrying his cane and his little bag,
+and set off homewards. It was a balmy June evening, and the walk
+through the park would be a pleasant one. As soon as the door was shut
+behind him he proceeded to light a cigar, and, after crossing the lawn
+and the old bridge over the moat, he turned to the left and struck
+into a narrow footpath through the park, which would prove a shorter
+cut to the high road than the winding carriage-drive. Darkness and
+silence were around him: the stars gave but little light. He seemed to
+follow the pathway by instinct rather than by sight. It was a thinner
+line of grass that wound like a ribbon through the thicker grass of
+the park. His own footsteps were all but inaudible to him as he
+walked.
+
+The pathway took a sudden turn round two gnarled thorn-trees, when all
+at once, and without a moment's warning, Captain Lennox found himself
+face to face with a dark-hooded figure--hooded and cloaked from head
+to foot--which might have sprung out of the ground, so silently and
+suddenly did it appear to his sight. The Captain, bold man though he
+was, felt startled, and an involuntary cry escaped his lips. The
+figure was startled too--it appeared to have been gazing intently at
+the windows of the house through the branches of the trees--and would
+have turned to run away. But Captain Lennox took a quiet step forward,
+and laid his hand upon its shoulder.
+
+"Who are you?--and what are you doing here?" he sternly demanded.
+
+The hood fell back, and in the dim starlight Captain Lennox could just
+make out the face of a woman, young and pale, her eyes cast pleadingly
+up to his own.
+
+"Oh, sir, don't hold me!--don't keep me!" was the answer, given in a
+tone of wailing entreaty, though the voice was one of singular
+sweetness. "Please let me go!"
+
+"What are you doing here?" he reiterated, still keeping his hold upon
+her. "What were you peeping at the house for?"
+
+"I am looking for Katherine," whispered the girl. "I come here often
+to look for her."
+
+"For Katherine!--and who is Katherine?" asked Captain Lennox. But the
+next moment he remembered the name, as being the one connected with
+that strange mystery that so puzzled Heron Dyke.
+
+"For my sister," softly repeated the girl. "I do no harm, sir, in
+coming here to look for her."
+
+"But, my good girl, she is not to be seen, you know; she never will be
+seen," he remonstrated, a shade of compassion in his tone.
+
+"But I do see her," answered the girl, her voice dropped to so low a
+pitch that he could scarcely hear it. "I have seen her once or twice,
+sir; at her own window."
+
+Perhaps Captain Lennox felt a little taken aback at the words. He did
+not answer.
+
+"People say she must be dead; I know that," went on the speaker, in
+the same hushed tone. "Even mother says that it must be Katherine's
+ghost I see. But I think it is herself, sir. I think she is somewhere
+inside Heron Dyke."
+
+If Captain Lennox felt a shade of something not agreeable creeping
+over him, he may be excused. The subject altogether bordered on the
+supernatural.
+
+"My poor girl, had you not better go home and go to bed?" he said,
+compassionately. "You can do no possible good by wandering about here
+at this time of night."
+
+"Oh, sir, I must wander; I must find out what has become of her," was
+the girl's pleading answer. "I can't rest night or day; mother knows I
+can't. When I go to sleep it is Katherine's voice that wakes me
+again."
+
+"But----"
+
+"Hark! what was that?" she suddenly cried out, laying her hand
+lightly, for protection, on the Captain's arm. And he started again,
+in spite of himself.
+
+"I heard nothing," he said, after listening a moment.
+
+"There it is again; a second scream. There were two screams, you know,
+sir--her screams--heard that snowy February night."
+
+"But, my good girl, there were no screams to be heard now. It is your
+imagination. The air is as still as death."
+
+Ere the words were well spoken, the girl was gone. She had vanished
+silently behind the thorn-trees. And Captain Lennox, after waiting a
+minute or two, and not feeling any the merrier for the encounter,
+pursued his walk across the park.
+
+Suddenly, however, as a thought struck him, he turned to look at the
+windows of the house. They lay in the shade, gloomy and grim, no
+living person, no light, to be seen in any one of them.
+
+"It is a curious fancy of hers, though," muttered the Captain to
+himself, as he wheeled round again and went on his way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+HERON DYKE AND ITS INMATES.
+
+
+The Denisons--or Denzons, as they used formerly to spell their
+name--were one of the oldest families in that part of Norfolk in which
+Heron Dyke was situated. They could trace back their descent in a
+direct line as far as the reign of Henry the Third, but beyond that
+their pedigree was lost in the mists of antiquity. Who was the first
+member of the family that settled at Heron Dyke, and how he came by
+the estate, were moot points which it was hardly likely would ever be
+satisfactorily cleared up after such a lapse of time. The Denisons had
+never been more than plain country squires. Several female members of
+the family had married people of title, but none of the males had ever
+held anything more than military rank. James the Second had offered a
+barony to the then head of the family, and the second George a
+baronetcy to the Squire of that day, but both offers had been
+respectfully declined.
+
+No family in the county was better known, either by name or
+reputation, than the Denisons--the "Mad Denisons," as they were often
+called, and had been called any time these three hundred years. Not
+that any of them had ever been charged with lunacy, or had been shut
+up in a madhouse; but they had always been known as an excitable,
+eccentric race, full of "queer notions," addicted to madcap pranks and
+daredevil feats, such as seldom failed to astonish and sometimes
+frighten their quiet neighbours, and had long ago earned for them the
+unenviable sobriquet mentioned above.
+
+A Gilbert Denison it was who, in the reign of William and Mary,
+wagered a hundred guineas that on a certain fifth of November he would
+have a bigger bonfire than his near friend and neighbour, Colonel
+Duxberry. A bigger bonfire he certainly had, for with his own hand he
+fired three of the largest hayricks on the farm, and so won the wager.
+
+A later Squire Denison it was who, when his father died and he should
+have come into the estate, was nowhere to be found, and did not turn
+up till two years afterwards. He had quarrelled with his parents and
+run away from home; and he was ultimately found earning his living as
+bare-back rider in a country circus. He it was who, when his friend
+the clown called upon him a year or two later to beg the loan of a
+sovereign, dressed the man up in one of his own suits and introduced
+him to his guests at table as a distinguished traveller just returned
+from the East. Old Lord Fosdyke, who sat next the clown at dinner and
+was much taken with him, made a terrible to-do when he was told of the
+hoax that had been played off upon him: ever afterwards he refused to
+speak or recognise Mr. Denison in any way.
+
+Two other heads of the family lost their lives in duels; one of them
+by the hand of his dearest friend, with whom he had had a difference
+respecting the colour of a lady's eyebrows: the other by a stranger,
+with whom he had chosen to pick a quarrel "just for the fun of the
+thing." There was an old distich well known to the country-folk for
+twenty miles round Heron Dyke, which sufficiently emphasised the
+popular notion of the family's peculiarities. It ran as under:
+
+
+     "Whate'er a Denzon choose to do,
+      Need ne'er surprise nor me nor you."
+
+
+The existing mansion at Heron Dyke was the third which was known to
+have been built on the same site, or in immediate proximity to it. The
+present house bore the date 1616, the one to which it was the
+successor having been destroyed by fire. There was a tradition in the
+family that the whilom lord of Heron Dyke set fire to the roof-tree of
+the old mansion with his own hand, hoping by such summary method to
+exorcise the ghost of a girl dressed in white and having a red spot on
+her breast, which would persist in rambling through the upper chambers
+of the house during that weird half-hour when the daylight is dying,
+and night has not yet come. He had lately brought home his bride, and
+the young wife vowed that she would go back to her mother unless the
+ghost were got rid of. It is to be presumed that the means adopted
+proved effectual, since there seems to be no further record of the
+girl in white ever having put in an appearance afterwards.
+
+The present mansion of Heron Dyke formed three sides of an oblong
+square. A low, broad, lichen-covered wall made up the fourth side,
+just outside of which ran the moat, a sluggish stream some ten or
+dozen feet broad, spanned by an old stone bridge grey with age. The
+house, which was but two stories high, was built of the black flints
+so common in that part of the country, set in some sort of cement
+which age had hardened to the consistency of stone. Here and there the
+dull uniformity of the thick walls was relieved by diaper-patterned
+pilasters of faded red brick. The high, narrow, lozenge-paned windows
+were set in quaintly carved mullions of reddish freestone, the once
+sharp outlines of which were now blurred with age. The steep,
+high-pitched roof was covered with blue-black tiles which at one time
+had been highly glazed, but the rains and snows of many winters had
+dimmed their brightness, while in summer many-coloured mosses found
+lodgment in their crevices and patched them here and there with
+beauty. The tall, twisted chimneys of deep-red brick lent their warmth
+and colouring to the picture.
+
+There were dormer windows in the roofs of the two wings, but none in
+the main building itself. The grand entrance was reached by a flight
+of broad, shallow steps, crowned with a portico that was supported by
+five Ionic columns: a somewhat incongruous addition to a house that
+otherwise was thoroughly English in all its aspects. In front of the
+house was a large oval lawn clumped with evergreens and surrounded by
+a carriage-drive. The stables and domestic offices were hidden away at
+the back of the house, where also were the kitchen-garden, the
+orchard, and a walled-in flower garden, into which looked the windows
+of Mr. Denison's favourite sitting-room. Just inside the low, broad
+wall, that bounded the moat, grew seven tall poplars, known to the
+cottagers and simple fisher-folk thereabouts, as "The Seven Maidens of
+Heron Dyke."
+
+The park was not of any great extent, the distance from the moat to
+the lodge-gates on the high-road to Nullington being little more than
+half a mile. But it was well wooded, and had nothing formal about it,
+and such as it was it seemed a fitting complement to the old house
+that looked across its pleasant glades. The house was built in a
+sheltered hollow not quite half a mile from the sea. It was protected
+on the north by a shelving cliff that was crowned with a lighthouse.
+Behind it the ground rose gradually and almost imperceptibly for a
+couple of miles, till the little town of Nullington was reached. Not
+far from the southern corner of the Hall, was an artificial hillock of
+considerable size and some fifty or sixty feet in height, which was
+thickly planted with larches. The park in front of the house swept
+softly upward to its outermost wall. Beyond that, was a protecting
+fringe of young larches and scrub-wood, then the ever-shifting
+sand-dunes, and, last of all, the cold grey waters of the North Sea.
+For miles southward the land was almost as flat as a billiard-table.
+The fields were divided by dykes which had been dug for drainage
+purposes, with here and there a fringe of pollard willows to break the
+dead level of monotony. The sea was invisible from the lower windows
+of the Hall, but there was a fine view of it from the dormer windows
+in the north wing; and here Ella Winter had had a room fitted up
+especially for herself. Had you ever slept at Heron Dyke on a winter
+night, when a strong landward breeze was blowing, you would have been
+hushed to rest by one of nature's most majestic monotones. When you
+lay down and when you arose, you would have had in your ears the
+thunderous beat of countless thousands of white-lipped angry waves on
+the long level reaches of sand, that stretched away southward for
+miles as far as the eye could reach.
+
+When Gilbert Denison, uncle to the present Squire of Heron Dyke, died
+from the results of an accident, at his lodgings in Bloomsbury Square,
+and when the strange nature of his will came to be noised abroad,
+there was no lack of ill-advisers, who did their best to induce the
+youthful heir to contest the validity of the dead man's last
+testament. But young Gilbert knew that his uncle had never been saner
+in his life than when he planned that particular proviso; besides
+which, he was far too proud of his family name to drag the will of a
+Denison through the mire of the law courts. His uncle, who had always
+been looked upon as a sober, thrifty, bucolic-minded sort of man, had
+not failed to redeem the family reputation for eccentricity at the
+last moment, and young Gilbert had an idea that it was just the sort
+of thing he himself would have been likely to do under similar
+circumstances.
+
+To the surprise of his boon companions, he quietly accepted the
+situation thus forced upon him, and determined to make the best of it.
+After giving a farewell symposium to the friends who had so kindly
+helped him to sow his wild oats, London saw him no more for several
+years. He settled down at Heron Dyke, and became as staid and sober a
+specimen of a country gentleman as a Denison was ever likely to
+become. His somewhat shattered constitution was now nursed with all
+due care and tenderness. If it were in the power of man to defeat that
+last hateful clause in his uncle's will, he was the man to do it.
+
+"He will be sure to choose a wife before long," said all the anxious
+matrons in the neighbourhood, who had eligible daughters waiting to be
+mated. But Gilbert Denison did nothing of the kind. Years went by. He
+became a middle-aged man, then an elderly man, and all hope of his
+ever changing his bachelor condition gradually died out. There was a
+constantly floating rumour in the neighbourhood of a romantic
+attachment and a disappointment when he was young; but it might be
+nothing more than an idle story. It was even said that the lady had
+jilted him in favour of his cousin, and that there would have been
+bloodshed between the two men had not the other Gilbert hurried away
+with his young wife to Italy.
+
+It was this other Gilbert, or his descendants, who would come in for
+the Heron Dyke estates, should the present Squire not live to see his
+seventieth birthday. There was no love lost between the senior and
+junior branches of the family. The estrangement begun in early life
+only widened with years. Its continuance, if not its origin, was
+probably due to the Squire's hard and unforgiving disposition. The
+other side had more than once made friendly overtures to the head of
+the house: but the Squire would have none of them. He hated the whole
+"vile crew," root and stump, he said; and if any one of them ever
+dared to darken his threshold, he vowed that he would shoot him
+without compunction. It was Squire Denison's firm and fixed belief
+that the spies sometimes seen around his house--for spies he declared
+them to be--were emissaries of his relatives, sent to see whether he
+was not likely to die before the all-important birthday.
+
+We made the Squire's acquaintance at his interview with Captain
+Lennox, after the return of the latter from London. His sixty-ninth
+birthday was just over. Could he but live eleven months more, all
+would be well. Ella Winter, in that case, would be heiress to all he
+had to leave, for he should will it to her; and his hated cousin, and
+his cousin's family, would be left out in the cold, as they deserved
+to be. As everybody knew, the Squire had been more or less of an
+invalid for many years; but latterly his complaint had assumed a
+rather alarming character, and there were weeks together when he never
+crossed the threshold of his own rooms. His disorder was a mortal
+one--one that would most certainly carry him off at no very distant
+date--but that was a fact known to himself and Dr. Spreckley alone.
+
+For the last twenty years the Squire had not kept up an establishment
+at the Hall in accordance with his income and position in the county.
+There was Aaron Stone, his faithful old body-servant and major-domo,
+and Aaron's wife, who was almost as old as he was. There was the old
+couple's handsome grandson, Hubert, who was the Squire's steward,
+bailiff, gamekeeper, and sometimes secretary and companion. There
+were the gardener and his wife at the lodge on the Nullington road.
+When to these were added a coachman, a stable-boy, and two or three
+women-servants, the whole of the establishment was told. Mr. Denison
+had not given a dinner-party for years; or, for the matter of that,
+gone to one. Now and then an old acquaintance--such as the vicar, or
+Sir Peter Dockwray, or Colonel Townson--would drop in unceremoniously,
+and take the chance of whatever there happened to be for dinner; but
+beyond such casual visitants, very little company was kept.
+
+Mr. Denison had been compelled to give up horse-exercise some few
+years ago. He took his airings in a lumbering, old-fashioned brougham,
+which might have been stylish and handsome once. Very often nothing
+occupied the shafts but a grey mare, that was nearly as lumbering as
+the vehicle itself. Old Aaron could get its best paces out of it when
+he drove it in the dog-cart to Nullington market and back. Ella Winter
+had a young chestnut filly for riding, powerful yet gentle, for which
+her uncle had given quite a fancy price. Another horse in the Squire's
+stables was a big, serviceable hack, which Hubert Stone looked upon as
+being for his sole use; indeed, no one but himself ever thought of
+mounting it. He rode it here and there when about the Squire's
+business; and sometimes, perhaps, when about his own. Better than all
+else he liked to accompany Ella when she went out riding. He would be
+dressed somewhat after the style of a gentleman farmer, in cut-away
+coat, buckskins, and top-boots. He did not ride by the side of Ella as
+an equal would have done, nor yet so far behind her as a groom. Many
+were the comments passed by the gossips of Nullington when they
+encountered Miss Winter and her handsome attendant cantering along the
+country roads, or quiet lanes that led to nowhere in particular.
+
+Mr. Denison was well seconded in his saving propensities by his old
+servant, Aaron Stone. Aaron was born on the Heron Dyke estate, as had
+been his ancestors before him for two hundred years. Thus it fell out
+that, at the age of nineteen, he was appointed by the late Squire to
+attend his nephew when he set out on the Grand Tour, and from that day
+to the present he had never left him. There were many points of
+similarity in the tempers and dispositions of master and man. Both of
+them were obstinate, cross-grained men, with strong wills of their
+own, and both of them were inclined to play the small tyrant as far as
+their opportunities would allow. They grumbled at each other from
+January till December, but were none the less true friends on that
+account. No other person dare say to the Squire a tithe of the things
+that Aaron said with impunity, and probably no other servant would
+have put up with Mr. Denison's wayward humours and variable temper as
+Aaron did. Twenty times a year the Squire threatened to discharge his
+old servant as being lazy, wasteful, and good-for-nothing; and a month
+seldom passed without Aaron vowing that he would pack up his old hair
+trunk, and never darken the doors of Heron Dyke again. But neither of
+them meant what he said.
+
+Aaron's wife, Dorothy, had been a Nullington girl, and had heard
+people talk about the Denisons of Heron Dyke ever since she could
+remember anything. She was now sixty-five years old: a little,
+withered, timid woman, slightly deaf, and very much in awe of her
+husband. She believed in dreams and omens, and was imbued with all
+sorts of superstitious fancies local to the neighbourhood and to the
+Hall. Perhaps her deafness had something to do with her reticence of
+speech, for she was certainly a woman of few words, who went about her
+duties in a silent, methodical way, and did not favour strangers.
+
+One son alone had blessed the union of Aaron and Dorothy. He proved to
+be something of a wild spark, and ran away from home before he was
+one-and-twenty. Subsequently he joined a set of strolling players, and
+a year or two later he married one of the company. The young lady whom
+he made his wife was reported to come of a good family, and, like
+himself, was said to have run away from home. Anyhow, they did not
+live long to enjoy their wedded happiness. Four years later the little
+boy, Hubert, fatherless and motherless, was brought to Heron Dyke, and
+then it was that Aaron Stone learnt for the first time that he had a
+grandson.
+
+The Squire was pleased with the lad's looks, and took pity on his
+forlorn condition. He was sent to Easterby, and brought up by one of
+the fishermen's wives, and when he was old enough he was put to a good
+school, Mr. Denison paying all expenses. He always spent his holidays
+at the Hall, and there it was, when he was about twelve years old,
+that he first saw Ella, who was his junior by two years. Children, as
+a rule, think little of the differences of social rank; at all events,
+Ella did not, and she and handsome, bright-eyed Hubert soon became
+great friends. Mr. Denison, if he noticed the intimacy, did not
+disapprove of it. They were but children, and no harm could come of
+it; and perhaps it was as well that Ella should have some one with her
+besides Nero, the big retriever, when she went for her lonely rambles
+along the shore, or gathering nuts and blackberries in the country
+lanes. This pleasant companionship--both pleasant and dangerous to
+Hubert, young though he still was--was renewed and kept up every
+holiday season till the boy was sixteen. Then all at once there came a
+great gap. Ella was sent abroad to finish her education, and although
+she saw her uncle several times in the interim, Hubert, as it
+happened, saw no more of her till she came home for good at nineteen
+years of age. But before this came about, Hubert's own career in life
+had been settled: at least, for some time to come. When the boy was
+seventeen the Squire decided that he had had enough schooling, and
+that it was time for him to set about earning his living. How he was
+to set about it was apparently a point that required some
+consideration; meanwhile, the boy stayed on at Heron Dyke. He was a
+bold rider and a good shot. He wrote an excellent hand, and was quick
+at figures. In fact, he was an intelligent, teachable young fellow,
+who had made good use of his opportunities at school: moreover, he
+could keep his temper well under control when it suited him to do so;
+and, little by little, the Squire began to find him useful in many
+ways. He himself was growing old, and Aaron got more stupid every year
+that he lived. By-and-by nothing more was said about Hubert having to
+earn a living elsewhere. He relieved the Squire of many duties that
+had become irksome to him; and when a man of his years has once
+dropped a burden he rarely cares to pick it up again. In short, by the
+time Hubert was twenty years old he had made himself thoroughly
+indispensable to the Squire.
+
+No one but Hubert himself ever knew with what a fever of unrest he
+awaited the coming home of Ella Winter. Had she forgotten him? Would
+she recognise him after all these years? How would she greet him? He
+tormented himself with a thousand vain questions. He knew now that he
+loved her with all the devotion of a deeply passionate heart.
+
+Miss Winter came at last. The moment her eyes rested on Hubert she
+recognised him, changed though he was. She came up to him at once, and
+held out her hand.
+
+"When I see so many faces about me that I remember, then I know that I
+am at home," she said, looking into his eyes with that sweetly serious
+look of hers.
+
+Hubert touched her hand, blushed, and stammered; although, as a
+rule, there were few young men more self-possessed than he was.
+At the same moment a chill ran through him. His heart seemed as
+if it must break. The Ella of his day-dreams--the bright-eyed,
+sunny-haired little maiden, who had treated him almost like a
+brother, who had grasped his wrist when she leaped across the
+runlets in the sands, who had imperiously ordered him to drag
+down the tall branches of the nut-trees till the fruit was within
+her reach--had vanished from his ken for ever. In her stead
+stood Miss Winter, a strangely-beautiful young lady, whose face
+was familiar and yet unfamiliar. As he saw and recognised this, he
+saw, too, and recognised for the first time, the impassable gulf that
+divided them. She was a lady, the daughter of an ancient house: he was
+not a gentleman, and nothing could ever make him one, at least in her
+eyes, or in the eyes of the world to which she belonged. He was a son
+of the soil. He was Gurth the swineherd, and she was the Lady Rowena.
+What folly, what madness, to love one so utterly beyond his reach!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.
+
+
+"You must go round to the side-door if you have any business here,"
+cried a shrill, angry, quavering voice, in answer to the loud knocking
+of a stranger at the main entrance of Heron Dyke.
+
+Edward Conroy--for he it was--could not at first make out where the
+voice came from, but when he stepped from under the portico and
+glanced upward, he saw a withered face protruded from one of the upper
+windows, and a skinny hand and arm pointing in the direction of a door
+which he now noticed for the first time in a corner of the right wing.
+For the first time, too, he saw that the grim old door at which he had
+been knocking looked as if it had not been opened for years, and that
+the knocker itself was rusty from disuse. Even the steps that led up
+to the portico were falling into disrepair, and through the cracks and
+crevices tiny tufts of grass and patches of velvety moss showed
+themselves here and there.
+
+Conroy descended the steps slowly, and then turned to take another
+look at the grey old house, which he had never seen before to-day. The
+first view of it, as he crossed the bridge over the moat, had not
+impressed him favourably. But now that he looked at it again, the
+quaint formality of its lines seemed to please him better. It might
+have few pretensions to architectural dignity; but, with the passage
+of years, there had come to it a certain harmoniousness such as it had
+never possessed when it was new. Summer sun and winter rain had not
+been without their effect upon it. They had toned down the hardness of
+its original outlines: its coldness seemed less cold, its formality
+not so formal, as they must once have seemed. It was slowly mellowing
+in the soft, sweet air of antiquity.
+
+He noticed, as he walked along the front of the house from the main
+entrance to the side-door, that the entire range of windows on the
+ground floor had their shutters fastened, and those of the upper floor
+their blinds drawn down. His heart chilled for a moment as the thought
+struck him that some one might perhaps be lying dead inside the house.
+But then he reflected that he should surely have heard such a thing
+spoken of at the village inn, where he had slept last night. Was it
+not, rather, that the house had always the same shut-up look that it
+wore to-day?
+
+Conroy knocked at the side-door, a heavy door also, and was answered
+by the loud barking of a dog. After waiting for what seemed an
+intolerable time, he heard footsteps in the distance, which slowly
+drew nearer. The door was unbolted, and opened as far as the chain
+inside would permit. Through this opening peered forth the crabbed,
+wizened face of an old man--of a man with a pointed chin, and a long
+nose, and eyes that were full of suspicion and ill-humour.
+
+"And what may be your business at Heron Dyke?" he demanded, in a
+harsh, querulous voice, after a look that took in the stranger from
+head to foot.
+
+"Be good enough to give this card to Mr. Denison, and if he can spare
+two minutes----"
+
+"He won't see any strangers without he knows their business first,"
+interrupted the old man brusquely, as he turned the card to the light
+that was streaming through the open doorway into the dim corridor in
+which he stood, and read the name printed on it. "Never heard of you
+before," he added. "Maybe you are a spy--a mean, dastardly spy," he
+continued, after a pause, still eyeing the young man suspiciously from
+under his thick white eyebrows.
+
+"A spy! No, I am not a spy. Have you any spies in these parts?"
+
+"Lots of them."
+
+"And what do they come to spy out?"
+
+"That's none of your business, sir, so long as you're not one--though
+that has to be proved," answered the crusty old man, as he went away
+with the card, leaving Conroy outside.
+
+He turned, and began to pace the gravelled pathway in front of the
+door.
+
+"Is my sweet princess here, I wonder, and shall I succeed in
+seeing her?" he said to himself. "Very like a wild-goose chase, this
+errand of mine. To see her once in London for a couple of hours--to
+fall in love with her then and there--to come racing down to this
+out-of-the-world spot, weeks afterwards, on the bare possibility of
+seeing her again--when she probably remembers no more of me than she
+does of any other indifferent stranger--what can that be but the act
+of a----"
+
+Light footsteps were coming swiftly down the stone corridor. Conroy's
+face flushed, and a strange eager light leapt into his eyes. There was
+a rustle of garments, then the heavy chain dropped, the door swung
+wide on its hinges, and Ella Winter stood revealed to Conroy's happy
+gaze.
+
+His card was in her hand. She glanced from it to his face, and, a
+momentary blush mounting to her cheek, she advanced a step or two, and
+held out her hand.
+
+"Mr. Conroy," she said, "I have not forgotten your sketches. Or you
+either," she added, as if by an after-thought, a smile playing round
+her lips by this time, coming and going like spring sunshine.
+
+She led the way in, and he followed. The long, flagged corridor, with
+its dim light, struck him with a chill, after coming out of the bright
+air. Ella entered a small, oak-panelled room, plainly and heavily
+furnished, and invited Mr. Conroy to sit down.
+
+"We live mostly at the back of the house," she observed. "My uncle
+prefers the rooms to those in front."
+
+"It is a grand old house," answered Conroy. "And what might it not be
+made!" he added to himself.
+
+"You received your portfolio of sketches back safely, Mr. Conroy, I
+hope. My aunt left them at your address that day when we went out for
+our drive."
+
+"Did you indeed leave them? Were you so good?"
+
+"Sketches such as those are too valuable to be trusted to the chance
+of loss," said Ella.
+
+"I was so very sorry not to call again on Mrs. Carlyon, as I had
+promised," he continued, "but the next day but one I had to leave
+town. I wonder what she thought of me?"
+
+"I don't think she thought at all," replied Ella, ingenuously--"though
+she would, I am sure, have been glad to see you. Aunt Gertrude was too
+full of her loss in those days to notice who visited her. On the
+evening of the party she lost her jewels."
+
+"Lost her jewels!" exclaimed Conroy. "Do you mean those she wore?"
+
+"No, no. Her casket of jewels was stolen from her dressing-room. Some
+of them were very valuable. The case was left on her dressing-table,
+and it disappeared during the evening."
+
+"Was the case itself stolen?"
+
+"We thought so that night, but the next morning, when the housemaids
+were sweeping her boudoir--the room in which we looked at your
+sketches, if you remember--they found the case on the floor,
+ingeniously hidden behind the window-curtain."
+
+"Empty?"
+
+"Oh, of course. The thief had taken the contents and left the case.
+Aunt Gertrude can hear nothing of them."
+
+"I hope and trust she will find them," was Mr. Conroy's warm answer.
+And then he went on, after a perceptible pause: "I think you know
+already, Miss Winter, that I am connected with the Press. The world
+being quiet just now, my employers, having nothing better for me to
+do, have found a very peaceful mission for me for the time being. They
+have sent me into this part of the country to take sketches of
+different old mansions and family seats, and I am here to-day to seek
+Mr. Denison's permission to make a couple of drawings of Heron Dyke."
+
+Ella hesitated for a moment or two, toying nervously with Conroy's
+card, which she still held. Then she spoke:
+
+"My uncle is a confirmed invalid, Mr. Conroy, and very much of a
+recluse. Strangers, or indeed acquaintances whom he has not met for a
+long time, are unwelcome to him, even when there is no need for him to
+see them personally. Whether he will see you, or grant you the
+permission you ask for, without seeing you, is more than I can tell. I
+will, however, try my best to induce him to do so."
+
+"Thank you very much," said Conroy. "I certainly should like to take
+some sketches of this old house: but, rather than put Mr. Denison out
+of the way, or cause the slightest annoyance in the matter, I will
+forego----"
+
+"Certainly not," Ella hastily interrupted: "at least, until I have
+spoken to my uncle. If he would but see you it might rouse him from
+the lethargy that seems to be gradually creeping over him, and would
+do him good. To receive more visitors would be so much better for him!
+You will excuse me for a few minutes, will you not?"
+
+"What a life for this fair young creature to lead!" Conroy said to
+himself as soon as she was gone. "To be shut up in this gloomy old
+house with a querulous hypochondriac who suspects an enemy in every
+stranger and dreads he knows not what; but it seems to me that women
+can endure things that would drive a man crazy. Would that I were the
+knight to rescue her from this wizard's grasp, and take her out into
+the sweet sunlight!"
+
+He stood gazing out of the window, tapping the panes lightly with his
+fingers and smiling to himself, lost in dreams.
+
+"My uncle will see you," said Ella, as she re-entered the room.
+
+"Thank you for your kind intervention."
+
+"He is in one of his more gracious moods to-day; but you must be
+careful not to contradict him if you wish to obtain his sanction to
+what you require. And now I will show you to his room."
+
+After traversing two or three flagged passages, Conroy was ushered
+into a room which might have been an enlarged copy of the one he had
+just left. It was the same room in which Captain Lennox's interview
+took place on the night of his return from London. Aaron Stone was
+coming out as Conroy went in. The old man greeted him with a queer,
+sour look, and some uncomplimentary remark, muttered to himself. Then
+he went out, and banged the heavy door noisily behind him.
+
+"S--s--s--s! That confounded door again!" exclaimed a rasping,
+high-pitched voice from behind the screen at the farther end of the
+room. "Will that old rapscallion never remember that I have nerves?
+Ah--ha! if I could but cuff him as I used to do!" added the Squire,
+breaking off with a fit of coughing.
+
+Ella held up a warning finger, and waited without moving till all was
+quiet again. She then glided across the polished, uncarpeted floor,
+and passed in front of the screen. Conroy waited in the background.
+
+"I have brought Mr. Conroy to see you, Uncle Gilbert--the gentleman
+who wants to take some sketches of the Hall," said Ella, in tones a
+little louder than ordinary.
+
+"And who gave you leave, young lady, to introduce any strangers here?
+You know--"
+
+"You yourself gave me leave, uncle, not many minutes ago," she quietly
+interposed. "You said that you would see Mr. Conroy."
+
+"Did I, child?"
+
+"Certainly you did."
+
+"Then my memory must be failing me faster than I thought it was." Here
+came a deep sigh, followed by a moment or two of silence. "You are
+right, Ella. I remember it now. Let us see what this bold intruder is
+like."
+
+Conroy stepped forward in front of the screen, and saw before him the
+Master of Heron Dyke. He looked to-day precisely as he had looked that
+evening, now several weeks ago, when Captain Lennox called at the
+Hall. It might be that his face was a little thinner and more worn,
+but that was the only difference.
+
+"So! You are the young jackanapes who wants to sketch my house--eh?"
+said Mr. Denison, as he peered into Conroy's face with eager,
+suspicious eyes. "How do I know that you are not a spy--a vile spy?"
+He ground out the last word from beneath his teeth, and craned his
+long neck forward so as to bring it closer to Conroy's face.
+
+"Do I look like a spy, sir?" asked Conroy calmly, as he went a pace
+nearer to the old man's chair.
+
+"What have looks to do with it? There's many a false heart beneath a
+fair-seeming face. Aye, many--many." He spoke the last words as if to
+himself, and when he had ended he sat staring out of the window like
+one who had become suddenly oblivious of everything around him. His
+lips moved, but no sound came from them.
+
+Mr. Denison's reverie was broken by the entrance of Aaron with letters
+and newspapers. Then the Squire turned to Conroy. "So you're not a
+spy, eh? Well, I don't know that you look like one. But pray what can
+there be about a musty tumble-down old house, like this, that you
+should want to make a sketch of it?"
+
+"The Denisons are one of the oldest families in Norfolk. Surely, sir,
+some account of the home of such a family would interest many people."
+
+"And how come you to know so much about the Denisons?" shrewdly asked
+the Squire. "But sit down. It worries me to see people standing at my
+elbow."
+
+"Such knowledge is a part of my stock-in-trade," said Conroy, as he
+took a chair. "I have not only to make the sketches, but to tell the
+public all about them. Both in Burke and the 'County History' I have
+found many interesting particulars of the old family whose home is at
+Heron Dyke."
+
+"So--so! And pray, young sir, what other houses in the county have you
+sketched before you found your way here?"
+
+"None; I have come to you, sir, before going anywhere else."
+
+"Well said, young man. The county can boast of finer houses by the
+score, but what are the families who live in them? Mushrooms--mere
+mushrooms in comparison with the Denisons. We might have been ennobled
+centuries ago had we chosen to accept a title. But the Denisons always
+thought themselves above such gewgaws."
+
+"Was it not to the same purport, sir, that Colonel Denison answered
+James the Second when his Majesty offered him a patent of nobility on
+the eve of the Battle of the Boyne?"
+
+"Ah--ha! your reading has been to some purpose," said the old man,
+with a dry chuckle. "That's the colonel's portrait over there in the
+left-hand corner. They used to tell me that I was something like him
+when I was a young spark."
+
+Evidently he was pleased. He rubbed his lean, chilly fingers together,
+and fell into another reverie. Conroy glanced round. Ella was sitting
+at her little work-table busy with her crewels. What a sweet picture
+she made in the young man's eyes as she sat there in her grey dress,
+with the rich coils of her chestnut hair bound closely round her head,
+and an agate locket set in gold suspended from her neck by a ribbon,
+in which was a portrait of her dead mother. Not knowing that Conroy
+was gazing at her, her eyes glanced up from her work and encountered
+his. Next moment the long lashes hid them again, but the sweet
+carnation in her cheeks betrayed that she had been taken unawares.
+
+Then Gilbert Denison spoke again. "There's something about you, young
+man," he said, "that seems to wake in my mind an echo of certain old
+memories which I thought were dead and buried for ever. Whether it's
+in your voice, or your eyes, or in the way you carry your head, or in
+all of them together, I don't know. Very likely what I mean exists
+only in my own imagination: I sometimes think I'm getting into my
+dotage. What do you say your name is?" he asked abruptly.
+
+"Conroy, sir. Edward Conroy."
+
+Mr. Denison shook his head. "I never knew any family of that name."
+
+"The Conroys have been settled in North Devon for the last three
+hundred years."
+
+"Never heard of 'em. But that's no matter. As I said before, there's
+something about you that comes home to me and that I like, though I'll
+be hanged if I know what it is, and I've no doubt I'm an old simpleton
+for telling you as much. Anyhow, you may take what sketches of the
+place you like. You have my free permission for that. And if you're
+not above dining off boiled mutton--we are plain folk here now--you
+may find your way back to this room at five sharp, and there will be a
+knife and fork ready for you. Why not?"
+
+The interview was over. Ella conducted Conroy into another room, and
+then rang the bell. "There must be some magic about you," she said,
+with a smile, "to have charmed my uncle as you have. You don't know
+what a rarity it is for him to see a fresh face at Heron Dyke."
+
+Aaron Stone answered the bell, Ella gave Conroy into his charge, with
+instructions to show him all that there was to be seen, and to allow
+him to sketch whatever he might choose. The old man received this with
+a bad grace. He had become so thoroughly imbued with the fear of spies
+and what they might do, that no courtesy was left in him. Growling
+something under his breath about strangers on a Friday always bringing
+ill-luck, he limped away to fetch his bunch of keys.
+
+"What a capital subject for an etching," thought Conroy, as he looked
+after the old man.
+
+When five o'clock struck, Conroy shut up his sketch-book and retraced
+his way to Mr. Denison's room. The dinner was almost as homely as the
+host had divined that it would be. But if the viands were plain, the
+wine was super-excellent, and as Conroy could see that he was expected
+to praise it, he did not fail to do so. A basin of soup, followed by a
+little jelly and a glass of Madeira, formed Mr. Denison's dinner. His
+bodily weakness was evidently very great. It seemed to Conroy that the
+man was upheld and sustained more by his indomitable energy of will
+than by any physical strength he might be possessed of. "Heron Dyke
+will want a new master before long," was Conroy's unspoken thought, as
+he looked at the long-drawn, cadaverous face before him.
+
+Ella would have left the room when the cloth was drawn, but her uncle
+bade her stay; for which Conroy thanked him inwardly. The young
+artist quickly found that if the evening were not to languish, perhaps
+end in failure, he must do the brunt of the talking himself. Mr.
+Denison was no great talker at the best of times, and Ella, from some
+cause or another, was more reserved than usual; so Conroy plunged off
+at a tangent, and did his best to interest his hearers with an account
+of his experiences in Paris during the disastrous days of the Commune.
+As Desdemona of old was thrilled by the story of Othello's adventures,
+so was Ella thrilled this evening. Even Mr. Denison grew interested,
+and for once let his mind wander for a little while from his own
+interests and his own concerns.
+
+As they sat thus, the September evening slowly darkened. The candles
+were never lighted till the last moment. Conroy sat facing the windows
+which opened into the private garden at the back of the Hall. The
+boundary of this garden was an ivy-covered wall about six feet high. A
+low-browed door in one corner gave access to the kitchen-garden,
+beyond which was the orchard, and last of all a wide stretch of park.
+There were flowers in the borders round the garden wall, but opposite
+the windows grew two large yews, whose sombre foliage clouded much of
+the light that would otherwise have crept in through the diamond-paned
+windows, and made more gloomy still an apartment which, even on the
+brightest of summer days, never looked anything but cheerless and
+cold. On this overcast September eve the yew-trees outside blackened
+slowly, and seemed to draw the darkness down from the sky. Aaron came
+in at last with candles, and while he was disposing them Conroy rose,
+crossed to one of the windows, and stood looking out into the garden.
+It was almost dark by this time. While looking thus, he suddenly saw
+the figure of a man emerge from behind one of the yews, stare intently
+into the room for a moment, and then vanish behind the other yew.
+Conroy was startled. Was there, then, really truth in the Squire's
+assertion that spies were continually hovering round the Hall? Somehow
+he had deemed it nothing more than the hallucination of a sick man's
+fancy.
+
+With what object could spies come to Heron Dyke? It was a mystery that
+puzzled Conroy. He crossed over to Ella and told her in a low voice
+what he had seen. She looked up with a startled expression in her
+eyes.
+
+"Don't say a word about it to my uncle," she whispered. "It would only
+worry him, and could do no good. Both he and Aaron often assert that
+they see strange people lurking about the house; but I myself have
+never seen anyone."
+
+The Squire began to talk again, and nothing more passed. When Conroy
+rose to take his leave, his host held his hand and spoke to him
+cordially.
+
+"You will be in the neighbourhood for some days, you tell us, Mr.
+Conroy. If you have nothing better to do on Tuesday than spend a few
+hours with a half-doited old man and a country lassie, try and find
+your way here again. Eh, now?"
+
+This, nothing loth, Conroy promised to do; the more so as Ella's
+needle was suspended in mid-air for a moment while she waited to hear
+his answer. Conroy's eyes met hers for an instant as she gave him her
+hand at parting, but she was on her guard this time, and nothing was
+to be read there.
+
+He had not gone many steps from the house when there was a rustle
+amidst the trees he was passing; and a young and well-dressed man, so
+far as Mr. Conroy could see, who had been apparently peering through
+an opening in the trees, walked quickly away.
+
+"He was watching the house," said Mr. Conroy to himself. "One of the
+spies, I suppose. What on earth is it that they want to find out?"
+
+Dull enough felt Ella after Conroy's departure.
+
+"I'll get a book," she said, shaking off her thoughts, which had
+turned on the man Conroy had seen behind the yew-tree: and she went to
+a distant room in search of one. Coming back with it, she saw the two
+housemaids, Martha and Ann, standing at the foot of the stairs which
+led up to the north wing. One of them held a candle, the other clung
+to her arm; both their faces were wearing an unmistakable look of
+terror.
+
+"What is the matter?" she asked, going towards them.
+
+"We've just heard something, Miss Ella," whispered Ann. "One of the
+bedroom-doors up there has just shut with a loud bang."
+
+"And it sounded like the door of _her_ room," spoke the other from her
+pale and frightened lips. "Miss Ella, I am _sure_ it was."
+
+"The door of whose room?" asked Miss Winter sharply, her own heart
+beating fast.
+
+"Of Katherine's," answered both the maids together.
+
+For a moment Ella could not command herself.
+
+"What business had you in this part of the house at all?" she
+questioned, after a pause.
+
+"Mrs. Stone sent us after her spectacles," explained Ann. "She left
+them in your sitting-room, ma'am, when she was up there seeing to the
+curtains this afternoon. She sent us, Miss Ella; she'd not go up
+herself at dark for the world."
+
+"Did she send both of you?" was the almost sarcastic question.
+
+"Ma'am, she knows neither one of us would dare to go alone."
+
+"You are a pair of silly, superstitious girls," rebuked Miss Winter.
+"What is there in the north wing to frighten you, more than in any
+other part of the house? I am surprised at you; at you, Ann,
+especially, knowing as I do how sensibly your mother brought you up."
+
+"I can't help the feeling, miss, though I do strive against it," said
+Ann, with a half sob. "I know it's wrong, but I can't help myself
+turning cold when I have to come into this part of the house after
+dark."
+
+"We hear noises in the north wing as we don't hear elsewhere," said
+Martha, shivering. "Miss Ella, it is true--if anything ever was true
+in this world. It was the door of her room we heard just now--loud
+enough too. Just as if the wind had blown it to, or as if somebody had
+shut it in a temper."
+
+"There is hardly enough wind this evening to stir a leaf," reproved
+their young mistress. "And you know that every door in the north wing
+is locked outside, except that of my sitting-room."
+
+"No, Miss Ella, there's not enough wind, and the doors is locked, as
+you say; but we heard one of 'em bang, for all that, and it sounded
+like her door," answered Martha, with respectful persistency.
+
+Ella looked at the young women. Could she cure them of this foolish
+fear, she asked herself--or, at least, soften it?
+
+"Come with me, both of you," she said, taking the candle into her
+hand, and leading the way up the great oaken staircase.
+
+Clinging to each other, the servants followed. This, the north wing,
+was the oldest part of the house. Here and there a stair creaked
+beneath their footsteps; at every corner there were fantastic shadows,
+that seemed to lie in wait and then spring suddenly out. The squeaking
+of a mouse and the pattering of light feet behind the wainscot made
+the girls start and tremble; but Ella held lightly on her way till the
+corridor that ran along the whole length of the upper floor of the
+wing was reached. Into this corridor some dozen rooms opened. Here
+Ella halted for a moment, and held the candle aloft.
+
+"You shall see for yourselves that it could not be any of these doors
+you heard. We will examine them one by one."
+
+One after another, the doors were tried by Miss Winter. Each door was
+found to be locked, its key on the outside. When she reached Number
+Nine, she drew in her breath, and paused for a moment before turning
+the handle: perhaps she did not like that room more than the girls
+did. It was the room they had called "her room." But Number Nine was
+locked as the others were locked, and Ella passed on.
+
+When all the doors had been tried, Ella turned to the servants.
+
+"You see now that you must have been mistaken," she said, speaking
+very gravely; but in their own minds neither Martha nor Ann would have
+admitted anything of the kind.
+
+Ella saw that they were not satisfied. Leading the way back to Number
+Nine, she turned the key, opened the door, and went in. The two girls
+ventured no farther than the threshold. The room contained the
+ordinary adjuncts of a bed-chamber, and of one apparently in use.
+Across a chair hung a servant's muslin apron, on the chest of drawers
+lay a servant's cap, a linen collar, and a lavender neck-ribbon.
+Simple articles all, yet the two housemaids shuddered when their eyes
+fell on them. In a little vase on the chimney-piece were a few
+withered flowers--violets and snowdrops. The oval looking-glass on the
+dressing-table was festooned with muslin, tied with bows of pink
+ribbon. But Ella, as she held the candle aloft and gazed round the
+room, saw something to-night that she had never noticed before. The
+bows of ribbon had been untied, and the muslin drawn across the face
+of the glass so as completely to cover it.
+
+Ella had been in the room some weeks ago, and she felt sure that the
+looking-glass was not covered then, It must have been done since; but
+by whom, and why? That none of the servants would enter the room of
+their own accord she knew quite well: yet whose fingers, save those of
+a servant, could have done it? Despite her resolution to be calm, her
+heart chilled as she asked herself these questions, and her eyes
+wandered involuntarily to the bed, as though half expecting to see
+there the dread outlines of a form that was still for ever. The same
+idea struck the two girls.
+
+"Look at that glass!" cried the one to the other, in a half-whisper.
+"It is covered up as if there had been a death in the room."
+
+Ella could bear no more. Motioning the servants from the room, she
+passed out herself and relocked the door. But this time she took the
+key with her instead of leaving it in the lock.
+
+"You see there is nothing to be afraid of," she said to the girls, as
+she gave them back the candle at the foot of the stairs. "Do not be so
+foolish again."
+
+But Ella Winter was herself more perplexed and shaken than she allowed
+to appear, or would have cared to admit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+ONE SNOWY NIGHT.
+
+
+One of the last houses that you passed before you began to climb the
+hill into Nullington was the vicarage; a substantial red-brick
+building of the Georgian era, standing a little way back from the road
+in a paved fore-court, access to which was obtained through a
+quaintly-wrought iron gateway. At the back of the house was a charming
+terraced-garden, with an extensive view, some prominent features of
+which were the twisted chimneys of Heron Dyke, and the seven tall
+poplars that overshadowed the moat. Here dwelt the Rev. Francis
+Kettle, vicar of Nullington-cum-Easterby, and his daughter Maria. The
+living was not a very lucrative one, being only of the annual value of
+six hundred pounds; but the vicar was a man who, if his income had
+been two thousand a year, would have lived up to the full extent of
+it. He was fond of choice fruits, and generous wines, and French
+side-dishes; while indoors he never did anything for himself that
+a servant could do for him. Out of doors, he would potter about in
+his garden by the hour together. He was sixty years old, a portly,
+easy-going, round-voiced man, who read prayers admirably, but whose
+sermons hardly afforded an equal amount of satisfaction to the more
+critical members of his congregation. To rich and poor alike Mr.
+Kettle was bland, genial, and courteous. No one ever saw him out of
+temper. A moment's petulance was all that he would exhibit, even when
+called from his warm fireside on a winter evening to go through the
+sloppy streets to pray by the bedside of some poor parishioner. No
+deserving case ever made a direct appeal to his pocket in vain,
+although the amount given might be trifling; but he was not a man who,
+even in his younger and more active days, had been in the habit of
+seeking out deserving cases for himself. Before all things, Mr. Kettle
+loved his own ease; ease of body and ease of mind. It was
+constitutional with him to do so, and he could not help it. He knew
+that there was much sin and misery in the world, but he preferred not
+to see them; he chose rather to shut his eyes and walk on the other
+side of the way. Not seeing the sin and misery, there was no occasion
+for him to trouble his mind or pain his heart about them. But if, by
+chance, some heartrending case, some pathetic tale of human
+wretchedness, did persist in obtruding itself on his notice, and would
+not be kept out of sight, then would all the vicar's finer feelings be
+on edge for the remainder of that day. He would be restless and
+unhappy, and unable to settle down satisfactorily to his ordinary
+avocations. He would be as much hurt and put out of the way morally,
+as he would have been hurt physically had he cut his finger. It was
+very thoughtless of people thus to disturb his equanimity, and cause
+him such an amount of needless suffering. Next morning, however, the
+vicar would be his old, genial, easy-going self again, and human sin
+and wretchedness, and all the dark problems of life, would, so far as
+he was concerned, have discreetly vanished into the background.
+
+Perhaps it was a fortunate thing for the vicar that he had a
+daughter--at least, such a daughter as Maria. Whatever shortcomings
+there might be on the father's part were more than compensated for on
+the daughter's. Maria Kettle was one of those women who cannot be
+happy unless they are striving and toiling for someone other than
+themselves. Her own individuality did not suffice for her: she lost
+herself in the wants and needs of others. No one knew the little
+weaknesses of her father's character better than herself, and no one
+could have striven more earnestly than she strove to cover them up
+from the eyes of the world. If he did not care to visit among the sick
+and necessitous of his flock, or to have his easy selfishness
+disturbed by listening to the story of their troubles, she made such
+amends as lay in her power. She did more, in fact, being a sympathetic
+and large-hearted woman, than it would have been possible for the
+vicar to have done, had his inclinations lain ever so much in that
+direction. In the back streets of Nullington, and among the alleys and
+courts where the labouring people herded together, no figure was
+better known than that of the vicar's daughter, with her homely
+features, her bright, speaking eyes, her dress of dark serge, her
+thick shoes, and her reticule. Little children who could scarcely talk
+were taught to lisp her name in their prayers, and the oldest of old
+people, as they basked outside their doors in the summer sunshine,
+blessed her as she passed that way.
+
+Early in the present year, the state of the vicar's health had caused
+alarm, and he was ordered to the South of France. Maria could not let
+him go alone, and for the time being the parish had to be abandoned to
+its fate, and to the ministrations of a temporary clergyman. Maria
+felt a prevision that she should find most things turned upside down
+when she got back to it--which proved to be the case. She and her
+father, the latter in good health, had now returned, and on the day
+following their arrival, Miss Winter, all eagerness to see them, set
+off to walk to the vicarage. She and Maria were close and dear
+friends.
+
+That she should be required to tell all about everything that had
+happened since their absence, Ella knew; it was only natural.
+
+More especially about that one sad, dark, and most unexplainable event
+which had taken place at the Hall in February last. She already shrank
+from the task in anticipation; for, in truth, it had shaken her
+terribly, and a haunting dread lay ever on her mind.
+
+About midway between Heron Dyke and the vicarage, lying a little back
+from the road, was a small inn, its sign, a somewhat curious one, "The
+Leaning Gate." Its landlord, John Keen, had died in it many years ago,
+since which time it had been kept by his widow, a very respectable and
+hard-working woman, who made her guests comfortable in a homely way,
+and who possessed the good-will of all the neighbours around. She had
+two daughters, Susan and Katherine, who were brought up industriously
+by the mother, and were both nice-looking, modest, and good girls.
+Susan was somewhat dull of intellect. Katherine was rather a superior
+girl in intelligence and manners, and very clever with her needle; she
+had been the favourite pupil in Miss Kettle's school, and later had
+helped to teach in it. Maria esteemed her greatly, and about fourteen
+months prior to the present time, when Miss Winter was wanting a maid,
+Maria said she could not do better than take Katherine. So Katherine
+Keen removed to the Hall, greatly to her mother's satisfaction, for
+she thought it a good opening for the young girl; but not so much to
+the satisfaction of Susan.
+
+The sisters were greatly attached to one another. Susan especially
+loved Katherine. It is sometimes noticeable that where the intellect
+is not bright the feelings are strong; and with an almost
+unreasonable, passionate tenderness Susan Keen loved her sister.
+Katherine's removal to Heron Dyke tried her. She could hardly exist
+without seeing her daily; and she would put her cloak on when the
+day's work was done--for Susan assisted her mother in the inn--and run
+up to the Hall to see Katherine. But Katherine and Mrs. Keen both told
+her she must not do this: her going so frequently might not be liked
+at the Hall, especially by ill-tempered Aaron Stone and his wife. Thus
+admonished, Susan put a restraint upon herself, so as not to trouble
+anybody too often; but many an evening she would steal up at dusk,
+walk round the Hall, and stand outside watching the windows, hoping to
+get just one distant glimpse of her beloved Katherine.
+
+The time went on to February in the present year, Katherine giving
+every satisfaction at Heron Dyke: even old Aaron would now and then
+afford her a good word. And it should be mentioned that the girl had
+made no fresh acquaintance, either of man or woman--she was thoroughly
+well-conducted in every way.
+
+Miss Winter's own sitting-room and her bedroom were in the north wing.
+She had chosen them there on account of the beautiful view of the sea
+from the windows. Katherine slept in a room near her. On the evening
+of the fifteenth of February they were both in the sitting-room at
+work; Ella was making garments for some poor children in the village
+and had called Katherine to assist. Katherine had a headache; it got
+worse; and at nine o'clock Ella told her she had better go to bed. The
+girl thanked her, lighted her candle and went; Ella, who went at the
+same time to her own room to get something she wanted, saw her enter
+her chamber and heard her lock herself in: and from that moment
+Katherine Keen was never seen, alive or dead. Before the night was
+over, Ella--as you will hear her tell presently--had occasion to go to
+Katherine's room; she found the door unlocked, and Katherine absent,
+the bed not having been slept in. Her apron, cap, collar, and
+neck-ribbon lay about, showing that she had begun to undress; but that
+was all. Of herself there was no trace; there never had been any since
+that night.
+
+That she had not left the house was a matter of absolute fact, for old
+Aaron had already locked and bolted all the doors, and there could be
+no egress from it. In short, it was a strange mystery, and puzzled
+everyone. Where was she? What could have become of her? The matter
+caused endless stir and commotion in the neighbourhood. Old Squire
+Denison, very much troubled at the extraordinary occurrence,
+instituted all kinds of inquiries, but to no purpose. Every nook and
+corner in the spacious house was searched again and again. Aaron
+Stone, cross enough with the girl oftentimes beforehand, seemed
+troubled with the rest; his wife declared openly, her eyes round with
+terror, that the girl must have been 'spirited' away. The grandson,
+Hubert, was in London at the time, and knew absolutely nothing
+whatever of the occurrence.
+
+But the sister, Susan, had a tale to tell, and it was a curious one.
+It appeared that that same morning she had met Katherine in the
+village, doing an errand for Miss Winter. Susan told her that a letter
+had come from their brother--a young man older than themselves, who
+had gone some years before to an uncle in Australia--and that she
+would bring it to the Hall that evening. However, when evening came,
+snow began to fall, and Mrs. Keen would not let Susan go out in it,
+for she had a cold. Presently the snow ceased, and Susan, wrapping her
+cloak about her, started with the letter. As she neared the Hall the
+clock struck nine--too late for Susan to attempt to call, for after
+that hour her visits were interdicted. She hovered about a short
+while, thinking that haply she might see one of the housemaids
+hastening home from some errand, and could send in the letter by her,
+or perhaps catch a glimpse of her darling sister at her window. The
+sky was clear then, the moon shining brilliantly on the snowy ground.
+As Susan stood there, a light appeared in Katherine's room. She
+fancied she saw the curtain pulled momentarily aside, but she saw no
+more. While thus watching, Susan was startled by a cry, or scream of
+terror; two screams, the last very faint, but following close upon the
+other. They appeared to come from inside the house, Susan thought from
+inside the room, and were in her sister's voice--of that Susan felt an
+absolute certainty. A little thing served to terrify her. She ran back
+home as she had never run before, and burst into her mother's kitchen
+in a pitiable state. Mrs. Keen and two or three people sitting in the
+inn took it for granted that the cry must have been that of some
+night-bird, and the terrified girl was got to bed.
+
+With the morning, news was brought to the inn of Katherine's strange
+disappearance; and, as already said, she had never been heard of from
+that day. Nothing could shake Susan's belief that it was her sister's
+screams she had heard; she declared she knew her voice too well to be
+mistaken. The event had a sad effect upon her mind: at times she
+seemed almost half-witted. She could not be persuaded but that
+Katherine was still in the house at Heron Dyke; and as often as she
+could escape her mother's vigilance, she would steal up in the dark
+and hover about outside, looking at the windows for Katherine--nay,
+more than once believing that she saw her appear at one of them.
+
+Such was the occurrence that had served to shake Miss Winter's nerves,
+and that she was on her way now to the vicarage to be (as she well
+knew) cross-questioned about.
+
+Mr. Kettle met her with a fatherly kiss, telling her she looked
+bonnier than ever, and that there was nothing to compare with an
+English rose-bud. Maria clasped her in her arms. Ella took her bonnet
+off and sat down with them in the bow-windowed parlour open to the
+summer breeze, and for some time it was hard to say whether she or
+Maria had the more questions to ask and answer. Then the vicar began,
+as a matter of course, about the shortcomings in the parish during his
+absence, especially about the churchwardens' difficulties with
+Pennithorne--the temporary parson. That gentleman had persisted in
+having two big candlesticks on the altar where no such articles had
+ever been seen before, and had attempted to establish a daily service,
+which had proved to be an ignominious failure, together with other
+changes and innovations that were more open to objection. Ella
+confirmed it all, and the vicar worked himself into a fume.
+
+"Confound the fellow!" he exclaimed, "I'd never have gone away had I
+known. Who was to suspect that meek-looking young jackanapes, with his
+gold-rimmed spectacles, had so much mischief in him? He looked as mild
+as new milk. And now, my dear, what about that strange affair
+concerning Katherine Keen?" resumed the vicar, after a pause. "Your
+letter to us, describing it, was hardly--hardly credible."
+
+"I can quite believe that it must have seemed so to you," replied
+Ella.
+
+"Well, child, just go over it now quietly."
+
+The light died out of Ella's eyes, and her face saddened. But she
+complied with the request, not dwelling very minutely upon the
+particulars. The vicar and Maria listened to her in silence.
+
+"It is the most unaccountable thing I ever heard of," cried the vicar,
+impulsively, when it was over. "Locked up in her room, and
+disappeared! Is there a trap-door in the floor?"
+
+Ella shook her head.
+
+"The waxed boards of the room are all sound and firm."
+
+"And she could not have come out of her room and got out of the house,
+you say?"
+
+"No. It was not possible. She had a bad headache, as I tell you, and I
+told her she had better go to bed; that was about nine o'clock. While
+she was folding up the child's petticoat she had been sewing at, Aaron
+came into the room to say that Uncle Gilbert was asking for me.
+Katherine lighted both the bed candles, which were on a tray outside,
+and we left the room together. I ran into my own room and caught up my
+prayer-book, for sometimes my uncle lets me read the evening psalms to
+him. Katherine was going into her room as I ran out; she wished me
+goodnight, went in, and locked the door."
+
+"Locked it!" exclaimed the vicar. "A bad habit to sleep with the door
+locked. Suppose a fire broke out!"
+
+"I used to tell her so, but she said she could not feel safe with it
+unlocked. She and Susan were once frightened in the night when they
+were little girls, and had locked their door ever since. I went down
+to Uncle Gilbert," continued Ella. "Aaron was then bolting and barring
+the house-door--and, considering that he always carries away the key
+in his own pocket, you will readily see that poor Katherine had no
+chance of getting out that way."
+
+"There was the backdoor," said the vicar, who, to use his own words,
+could not see daylight in this story. "Your great entrance-door is, I
+know, kept barred and locked always."
+
+"Yes. Aaron went straight to the backdoor from the front, fastened up
+that, and in like manner carried away the key. Believe me, dear Mr.
+Kettle, there was no _chance_ that Katherine could go out of the
+house. And why should she wish to do so?"
+
+"Well, go on, child. You found the room empty yourself in the middle
+of the night--was it not so?"
+
+"Yes--and that was a strange thing, very strange," replied Ella,
+musingly. "I went to bed as usual, and slept well; but at four o'clock
+in the morning I was suddenly awakened by hearing, as I thought, Uncle
+Gilbert calling me. I awoke in a _fright_, you must understand, and I
+don't know why: I have thought since that I must have had some
+disagreeable dream, though I did not remember it. I sat up in bed to
+listen, not really knowing whether Uncle Gilbert had called me, or
+whether I had only dreamt it----"
+
+"You could not hear your uncle calling all the way up in the north
+wing, Ella," interrupted Miss Kettle.
+
+"No; and I knew, if he had called, that he must have left his room and
+come to the stairs. I heard no more, but I was uneasy and felt that I
+ought to go and see. I put on my slippers and my warm dressing-gown,
+and lighted my candle; but--you will forgive me my foolishness, I
+hope--I felt too nervous to go down alone, though again I say I knew
+not why I should feel so, and I thought I would call Katherine to go
+with me. I opened her door and entered, not remembering until
+afterwards that I ought to have found it locked. The first thing I saw
+was her candle burnt down to the socket, its last sparks were just
+flickering, and that the bed had not been slept in. Katherine's apron
+and cap were lying there, but she was gone."
+
+"It is most strange," cried Mr. Kettle.
+
+"It is more than strange," returned Ella, with a half sob.
+
+"And, my dear, had your uncle called you?"
+
+"No. He had had a good night, and was sleeping still."
+
+"Well, I can't make it out. Was Katherine in bad spirits that last
+evening?"
+
+"Not at all. Her head pained her, but she was merry enough. I remember
+her laughing early in the evening. She drew aside the curtain by my
+direction to see what sort of a night it was, and exclaimed that it
+was snowing. Then she laughed, and said how poor Susan would be
+disappointed, for her mother would be sure not to let her come up
+through the snow. Susan was to have brought up a letter they had
+received from the brother."
+
+"And what is the tale about Susan coming up when the snow was over,
+and hearing screams? Did you hear them in the house?"
+
+"No; none of us heard anything of the kind."
+
+"But if, as I am told Susan says, it was her sister who screamed in
+the room, some of you must have heard it."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," replied Ella. "Uncle Gilbert's
+sitting-room--I had gone down to him then--is very remote from the
+north wing; and so are the shut-in kitchen apartments. Aaron ought to
+have heard down in the hall, but he says he did not."
+
+"Then, in point of fact, nobody heard these cries but Susan?"
+
+"Yes; Tom, the coachman's boy, heard them. Tom had been out of doors
+doing something for his father, and was close to the stables, going in
+again, when he heard two screams, the last one much fainter than the
+other. Tom says the cries had a sort of muffled sound, and for that
+reason he thought they were inside the house. So far, poor Susan's
+account is borne out."
+
+"And the house-doors were found still fastened in the morning?"
+
+"Bolted and barred and locked as usual, when old Aaron undid them.
+More snow had fallen in the night, covering the ground well. Katherine
+has never been heard of in any way since."
+
+Mr. Kettle sat revolving the tale. It was quite beyond his
+comprehension.
+
+"In point of fact, the girl disappeared," he said presently; "I can
+make nothing more of it than that."
+
+"That is the precise word for it--disappeared," assented Ella, in a
+low tone. "And so unaccountably that it seems just as if she had
+vanished into air. The feeling of discomfort it has left amongst us in
+Heron Dyke can never be described."
+
+"Do you still sleep in the north wing?" asked Maria, the thought
+occurring to her. "Oh no. I changed my room after that." Ella had told
+all she had to tell. But the theme was full of interest, and the vicar
+and Maria plied her with questions all through luncheon, to which meal
+they made her stay. She left when it was over; her uncle might want
+her; and Maria put on her bonnet to walk with her a portion of the
+way. Their road took them past the "Leaning Gate." Mrs. Keen was
+having the sign repainted--a swinging gate that hung aloft beside the
+inn. A girl, the one young servant kept, stood with her arms a-kimbo,
+looking up at the process. The landlady was a short, active, bustling
+woman, with a kind, motherly face and pleasant dark eyes.
+
+"How do you do, Mrs. Keen?" called out Maria, as they were passing.
+
+Mrs. Keen came running up, and took the offered hand into both of
+hers. "I heard you were back, Miss Maria, and glad enough we shall be
+of it. But--but----"
+
+She could not go on. The remembrance of what had happened overcame
+her, and she burst into tears.
+
+"Yes, young ladies, I know your kind sympathy, and I hope you'll
+forgive me," she said, after listening to the few words of consolation
+they both strove to speak--though, indeed, what consolation could
+there be for such a case as hers?
+
+"We had been gone away so short a time when it happened!" lamented
+Maria.
+
+"You left on the first of February, Miss Maria, and this was on the
+night of the fifteenth," said Mrs. Keen, wiping her eyes with her
+ample white apron. "Ah, it has been a dreadful thing! It is the
+uncertainty, the suspense, you see, ladies, that is so bad to bear.
+Sometimes I think I should be happy if I could only know she was dead
+and at rest."
+
+"How is Susan?" asked Maria.
+
+"Susan's getting almost silly with it," spoke the landlady, lowering
+her voice, as she glanced over her shoulder at the house. "She has all
+sorts of wild fancies in her head, poor girl; thinking--thinking----"
+
+Mrs. Keen glanced at Miss Winter, and broke off. The words she had
+been about to say were these: "Thinking that Katherine, dead or alive,
+is still at Heron Dyke."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+COMING TO DINNER.
+
+
+Miss Winter sat in her low chair by the window of her sitting-room in
+the north wing; for though she had abandoned her bedroom in that
+quarter, she still, on occasion, sat in that. A closed book lay on her
+lap, her chin was resting on the palm of one hand, and her eyes, to
+all appearance, were taking in for the thousandth time the features of
+the well-known scene before her. But in reality she saw nothing of it:
+her thoughts were elsewhere. This was Tuesday, the day fixed for
+Edward Conroy to dine at the Hall. How came it that his image--the
+image of a man whom she had seen but twice in her life--dwelt so
+persistently in her thoughts? She was vexed and annoyed with herself
+to find how often her mind went wandering off in a direction where--or
+so she thought--it had no right to go. She tried her hardest to keep
+it under control, to fill it with the occupations that had hitherto
+sufficed for its quiet contentment, but at the first unguarded moment
+it was away again, to bask in sunshine, as it were, till caught in the
+very act, and haled ignominiously back.
+
+"Why must I be for ever thinking about this man?" she asked herself
+petulantly, as she sat this morning by the window, and a warm flush
+thrilled her even while the question was on her lips. She was ashamed
+to remember that even at church on Sunday morning she could not get
+the face of Edward Conroy out of her thoughts. The good vicar's sermon
+had been more prosy and commonplace than usual, and do what she might,
+Ella could not fix her attention on it. She caught herself half a
+dozen times calling to mind what Conroy had said on Thursday, and
+wondering what he would say on Tuesday. She had no intention of
+falling in love, either with him or with any other man; on that point
+she was firmly resolved. She and Maria Kettle had long ago agreed that
+they could be of more use in the world, of greater service to the
+poor, the sick, and the forlorn among their fellow-creatures, as
+single women than as married ones; and Ella, for her part, had no
+intention of letting any man carry her heart by storm.
+
+Yet, after making all these brave resolutions, here she was, wondering
+and hesitating as to which dress she should wear, as she had never
+wondered or hesitated before; and when the clock struck eleven, she
+caught herself saying, "In six more hours he will be here." Then she
+jumped up quickly with a gesture of impatience. She was the slave of
+thoughts over which she seemed to have no control. It was a slavery
+that to her proud spirit was intolerable. She could not read this
+morning. Her piano appealed to her in vain. Her crewel-work seemed the
+tamest of tame occupations. She put on her hat and scarf, and, calling
+to Turco, set off at a quick pace across the park. Perhaps the fresh
+bracing air that blew over the sand-hills would cool the fever of
+unrest that was in her veins. Once she said to herself, "I wish he had
+never come to Heron Dyke!" But next moment a proud look came into her
+face, and she said, "Why should I fear him more than any other?"
+
+Ella Winter has hitherto been spoken of as though she were Mr.
+Denison's niece; she was in reality his grand-niece, being the
+grand-daughter of an only sister, who had died early in her married
+life, leaving one son behind her. This son, at the age of twenty-two,
+married a sister of Mrs. Carlyon, but his wedded life was of brief
+duration. Captain Winter and his wife both died of fever in the West
+Indies, leaving behind them Ella, their only child.
+
+Mrs. Carlyon, a widow and childless, would gladly have adopted the
+orphan niece who came to her under these sad circumstances, but Squire
+Denison would not hear of such a thing. He had a prior claim to the
+child, he said, and she must go to him and be brought up under his
+care. He had no children of his own, and never would have any: Ella
+was the youngest and last descendant of the elder branch of the
+family, and Heron Dyke and all that pertained to it should be hers in
+time to come, provided always that he, Gilbert Denison, should live to
+see his seventieth birthday. He had loved his sister Lavinia as much
+as it was in his nature to love anyone; and her son, had he lived,
+would, in the due course of things, have been his heir. But he was
+dead, leaving behind him only this one poor little girl. To Gilbert
+Denison it seemed that Providence had dealt very hardly by him in
+giving him no male heir to inherit the family honours. He himself
+would have married years ago had he anticipated such a result.
+
+For six hundred years the property had come down from male heir to
+male heir, but now at last the line of direct succession would be
+broken. "If Ella had only been a boy!" he sighed to himself a thousand
+times: but Ella was that much more pleasing article--except from the
+heir-at-law point of view--a beautiful young woman, and nothing could
+make her anything else.
+
+On the confines of the park, just as she was about to turn out of it,
+Ella met Captain Lennox, who was coming to call on the Squire. It was
+the first time Ella had seen him since her return from London, for the
+Captain had been again from home. He had aristocratic relatives, it
+was understood, in various parts of the kingdom, and was often away on
+visits to them for weeks together.
+
+"You are looking better than you were that night at Mrs. Carlyon's,"
+he remarked, as they stood talking.
+
+"Am I?" returned Ella, a rosy blush suffusing her face--for the idea
+somehow struck her that Mr. Conroy's presence in the neighbourhood
+might be making her look bright.
+
+"Very much so, I think. Mrs. Carlyon was not quite satisfied with your
+looks then. By-the-way," added the Captain, after a pause, "has she
+recovered her jewels, that were lost that night?"
+
+"No. She is quite in despair. I had a letter from her yesterday. You
+heard of the loss then, Captain Lennox?"
+
+"I heard of it the following day. Ill news travels fast," he added
+lightly, noting Ella's look of surprise.
+
+"How did you hear of it? I fancied you left London that day."
+
+"No, the next. I heard of it from young Cleeve. He called on Mrs.
+Carlyon that morning, and came back in time for me and Bootle to see
+him off. Cleeve told us of the loss on the way to the station. It was
+a time of losses, Miss Winter. I lost my purse, and poor Bootle his
+watch--one he valued--the same night."
+
+"Yes, Freddy told us of it later. He thought you were robbed in the
+street."
+
+"I know he thought so. I did at first. But our losses were nothing
+compared with Mrs. Carlyon's jewels," continued Captain Lennox
+rapidly, as though he would cover his last words. "And the jewel-case
+was found the next day; and the thief must have walked off with the
+trinkets in his pocket!"
+
+"Just so. And they were worth quite three hundred pounds."
+
+Captain Lennox opened his eyes.
+
+"Three hundred pounds! So much as that! I wonder how they were taken!
+By some light-handed fellow, I suppose, who contrived to find his way
+upstairs amid the general bustle of the house."
+
+"No, we think not. The servants say it was hardly possible for anyone
+to do that unnoticed; Aunt Gertrude thinks the same; And the servants
+are all trustworthy. It is a curious matter altogether."
+
+Captain Lennox looked at her.
+
+"Surely you cannot suspect any of the guests?"
+
+"It would be uncharitable to do that," was Ella's light answer. But
+the keen-witted Captain noticed that she did not deny it more
+emphatically.
+
+"What a pity that the jewels were not safely locked up!" he exclaimed.
+
+"The dressing-room, in which they were, was locked; at least, the key
+was turned--and who would be likely to intrude into it? Aunt Gertrude
+remembers that perfectly. She found Philip Cleeve lying on the sofa in
+her boudoir with a bad headache, and she went into the dressing-room
+to get her smelling-salts, unlocking the door to enter. Whether she
+relocked it is another matter."
+
+"Did Cleeve notice whether anybody else went in while he was lying
+there?"
+
+"He thinks not, but he can't say for certain--we asked him that
+question the next morning. He fancies that he fell asleep for a few
+minutes: his head was very bad. Anyway, the jewels are gone, and Aunt
+Gertrude can get no clue to the thief, so it is hopeless to talk of
+it," concluded Ella, somewhat wearily. "How is your sister?"
+
+"Quite well, thank you. Why don't you come and see her?"
+
+"I will; I have been very busy since I came home. And tell her,
+please, that I hope she will come to see me. Good-bye for the present,
+Captain Lennox: you are going on to my uncle; perhaps you will not be
+gone when I get back; I shall not be very long."
+
+Ella tripped lightly on, Turco striding gravely beside her. Captain
+Lennox stood for a minute to look after her.
+
+"I wonder," he muttered to himself, stroking his whiskers--a habit of
+his when he fell into a brown study--"whether it has crossed Mrs.
+Carlyon's mind to suspect Philip Cleeve?"
+
+After all her vacillation, Ella went down to dinner that evening in a
+simple white dress. She could hardly have chosen one to suit her
+better; at least, so thought Mr. Conroy, when he entered the room. The
+dinner was not homely, as on the first occasion of his dining there;
+Ella had ordered it otherwise. It was served on some of the grand old
+family plate, not often brought to light; and the table was decorated
+with flowers from the Vicar's charming garden.
+
+But what surprised Aaron more than anything else was to see his master
+dressed, and wearing a white cravat. He went about the house
+muttering, _sotto voce_, that there were no fools like old fools,
+and if these sort of extravagant doings were about to set in at the
+Hall--soups and fish and foreign kickshaws--it was time old-fashioned
+attendants went out of it. The Squire, in fact, had so thoroughly
+inoculated the old man with his own miserly ways, that for Aaron to
+see an extra shilling spent on what he considered unnecessary waste,
+was to set him grumbling for a day.
+
+Whether it was that Ella had a secret dread of passing another evening
+alone with Conroy, or whether her intention was to render the evening
+more attractive to him, she had, in any case, asked her uncle to allow
+her to invite the Vicar and Maria, Lady Cleeve and Philip, and Captain
+Lennox and his sister, to meet Mr. Conroy at dinner. But here the
+Squire proved obstinate. Not one of the people named would he invite,
+or indeed anyone else.
+
+"That young artist fellow is welcome to come and take pot-luck with
+us," he said, "but I'll have none of the rest. And why I asked him,
+I'm sure I don't know. There was something about him, I suppose, that
+took my fancy; though what right an invalid man like me has to have
+fancies, is more that I can tell."
+
+Conroy seemed quite content to find himself the solitary guest. Ella
+was more reserved and silent than he had hitherto seen her, but he
+strove to interest her and melt her reserve; and after a time he
+succeeded in doing so. Once or twice, at first, when she caught
+herself talking to him with animation, or even questioning him with
+regard to this or the other, she suddenly subsided into silence,
+blushing inwardly as she recognised how futile her resolves and
+intentions had proved themselves to be. Conroy seemed not to notice
+these abrupt changes, and in a little while Ella would again become
+interested, again her eyes would sparkle, and eager questions tremble
+on her lips. Then all at once an inward sting would prick her, her
+lips would harden into marble firmness and silence. But these
+alternations of mood could not last for ever, and by-and-by the charm
+and fascination of the situation proved too much for her. "After this
+evening I shall probably never see him again," she pleaded to herself,
+as if arguing with some inward monitor. "What harm can there be if I
+enjoy these few brief hours?"
+
+Mr. Denison was more than usually silent. Now and then, after dinner,
+he dozed for a few minutes in his huge leathern chair; and presently,
+as though he yearned to be alone, he suggested that Conroy and Ella
+should take a turn in the grounds.
+
+Ella wrapped a fleecy shawl round her white dress, and they set out.
+Traces of sunset splendour still lingered in the western sky, but from
+minute to minute the dying colours changed and deepened: saffron
+flecked with gold fading into sea-green, and that into a succession of
+soft opaline tints and pearly greys, edged here and there with
+delicate amber; while in mid-sky the drowsy wings of darkness were
+creeping slowly down.
+
+They walked on through the dewy twilight glades of the park. Conroy
+seemed all at once to have lost his speech. Neither of them had much
+to say, but to both the silence exhaled a subtle sweetness. There are
+moments when words seem a superfluity--almost on impertinence. To
+live, to breathe--to feel that beside you is the living, breathing
+presence of the one supremely loved, is all that you ask for. It is
+well, perhaps, that such sweetly dangerous moments come so seldom in a
+lifetime.
+
+They left the park by a wicket, took a winding footway through the
+plantation beyond, and reached the sand-hills, where they sat down for
+a few moments. Before them lay the sea, touched in mid-distance with
+faint broken bars of silvery light; for by this time the moon had
+risen, and all the vast spaces of the sky were growing brighter with
+her presence.
+
+"How this scene will dwell in my memory when I am far away!" exclaimed
+Conroy at length.
+
+"Are you going far away?" asked Ella, in a low voice.
+
+"I received a letter from head-quarters this morning, bidding me hold
+myself in readiness to start for Africa at a few hours' notice."
+
+"For Africa! That is indeed a long way off. Why should you be required
+to go to Africa?"
+
+"The King of Ashantee is growing troublesome. We are likely before
+long to get from words to blows. War may be declared at any moment."
+
+"And the moment war is declared you must be ready to start?"
+
+"Even so. Wherever I am sent, there I must go."
+
+"Yours is a dangerous vocation, Mr. Conroy. You run many risks."
+
+"A few--not many. As for danger, there is just enough of it to make
+the life a fascinating one."
+
+"Yes; if I were a man I don't think I could settle down into a quiet
+country gentleman. I should crave for a wider horizon, for a more
+adventurous life, for change, for----"
+
+She ended abruptly. Once again her enthusiasm was running away with
+her. There was a moment's silence, and then she went on, laughing:
+
+"But I am content to be as I am, and to leave such wild rovings to you
+gentlemen! And now we must go back to my uncle, or he will wonder what
+has become of us."
+
+Little was said during the walk back. Despite herself, Ella's heart
+sank at the thought of Conroy's going so far away. She asked, mentally
+and impatiently, what it could matter to her where he went. Had she
+not said twenty times that tomorrow all this would seem like a dream,
+and that in all likelihood she and Conroy would never meet again? What
+matter, then, so long as they did not see each other, whether they
+were separated by five miles or five thousand?
+
+"Body o' me! I thought you were lost," exclaimed the Squire, as they
+re-entered the room. "Been for a ramble, eh? seen the sea! Fine
+evening for it. And when do you come down into this part of the
+country again, Mr. Sketcher?"
+
+"That is more than I can say, sir. My movements are most erratic and
+uncertain."
+
+"Mr. Conroy thinks it not unlikely he may be sent to Africa--to
+Ashantee," said Ella, a little ring of pathos in her voice.
+
+"Ah--ah--nothing like plenty of change when you are young. Bad
+climate, though, Ashantee, isn't it? You'll have to be careful Yellow
+Jack doesn't lay you by the heels. He's a deuce of a fellow out there,
+from all I've heard. Eh?"
+
+"I must take my chance of that, sir, as other people have to do."
+
+"You talk like a lad of spirit. Snap your fingers in the face of
+Yellow Jack, and ten to one he'll glance at you and pass you by. It's
+the tremblers he lays hold of first."
+
+"Why should you be chosen, Mr. Conroy, for these posts of danger?"
+inquired Ella. "Cannot some one else share such duties?"
+
+"Is it not possible that I may prefer such duties to any other? They
+do not suit everyone. As it happens they suit me."
+
+"Have you no mother or sister--who may fear your running into
+unnecessary dangers?"
+
+"I have neither mother nor sister. I have a father; but he lets me do
+what seems right in my own eyes."
+
+Mr. Denison took what for him was a very cordial leave of Conroy.
+
+"If I am alive when you come back," he said, as he held the younger
+man's hand in his for a moment, "do not forget that there will be a
+welcome for you at Heron Dyke. If I am not alive--then it won't
+matter, so far as I am concerned."
+
+Ella took leave of Conroy at the door. Hardly more than a dozen words
+passed between them.
+
+"If you must go to Africa," she said, "I hope you will not run any
+needless risks."
+
+"I will not. I promise it."
+
+"We shall often think of you," she added, in a low voice.
+
+"And I of you, be you very sure."
+
+Her fingers were resting in his hand. He bent and pressed them to his
+lips, and--the next moment he was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+AT THE LILACS.
+
+
+Nullington was a sleepy little town, standing a mile, or more, from
+Heron Dyke, and boasted of some seven or eight thousand inhabitants.
+The extension of the railway to Nullington was supposed to have made a
+considerable addition to its liveliness and bustle: but that could
+only be appreciated by those who remembered a still more sleepy state
+of affairs, when the nearest railway station was twenty miles away,
+and when the Mermaid coach seemed one of those institutions which must
+of necessity last for ever.
+
+Nullington stood inland. Of late years a sort of suburb to the old
+town had sprung up with mushroom rapidity on the verge of the low
+sandy cliffs that overlooked the sea, to which the name of New
+Nullington had been given. Already New Nullington possessed terraces
+of lodging-houses, built to suit the requirements of visitors, and
+some good houses were springing up year by year. Several well-to-do
+families, who liked "the strong sweet air of the North Sea," had taken
+up their residence there _en permanence_.
+
+It was a pleasant walk from New Nullington along the footpath by the
+edge of the cliff, with the wheat-fields on one hand and the sea on
+the other. When you reached the lighthouse, the cliff began to fall
+away till it became merged in great reaches of shifting sand, which
+stretched southward as far as the eye could reach. Here, at the
+junction of cliff and sand, was the lifeboat station, while a few
+hundred yards inland, and partly sheltered from the colder winds by
+the sloping shoulder of the cliff, stood the little hamlet of
+Easterby. A few fishermen's cottages, a few labourers' huts--and they
+were little better than huts--an alehouse or two, a quaint old church
+which a congregation of fifty people sufficed to fill, and a few
+better-class houses scattered here and there, made up the whole of
+Easterby.
+
+Easterby and New Nullington might be taken as the two points of the
+base of a triangle, with the sea for their background, of which the
+old town formed the apex. The distance of the latter was very nearly
+the same from both places. About half-way between Easterby and the old
+town of Nullington, you came to the lodge which gave access to the
+grounds and Hall of Heron Dyke.
+
+On the other side of Nullington, on the London road, stood Homedale, a
+pretty modern-built villa, standing in its own grounds, the residence
+of Lady Cleeve and her son Philip.
+
+Lady Cleeve had not married until late in life, and Philip was her
+only child. She had been the second wife of Sir Gunton Cleeve, a
+baronet of good family but impoverished means. There was a son by the
+first marriage, who had inherited the title and such small amount of
+property as came to him by entail. The present Sir Gunton was in
+the diplomatic service at one of the foreign courts. He and his
+step-mother were on very good terms. Now and then he wrote her a
+cheery little note of a dozen lines, and at odd times there came a
+little present from him, just a token of remembrance, which was as
+much as could be expected from so poor a man.
+
+Lady Cleeve had brought her husband fifteen thousand pounds in all,
+the half of which only was settled on herself; and her present income
+was but three hundred and fifty pounds a year. The house, however, was
+her own. She kept two women-servants, and lived of necessity a plain
+and unostentatious life; saving ever where she could for Philip's
+sake. That young gentleman, now two-and-twenty years old, was not yet
+in a position to earn a guinea for himself; though it was needful that
+he should dress-well and have money to spend, for was he not the
+second son of Sir Gunton Cleeve?
+
+For the last two years Philip had been in the office of Mr. Tiplady,
+the one architect of whom Nullington could boast, and who really had
+an extensive and high-class practice. Mr. Tiplady had known and
+respected Lady Cleeve for a great number of years; and, being quite
+cognisant of her limited means, he had agreed to take Philip for a
+very small premium, but as yet did not pay him any salary. The opening
+was not an unpromising one, there being some prospect that Philip
+might one day succeed to the business, for the architect had neither
+chick nor child.
+
+Another prospect was also in store for Philip--that he should marry
+Maria Kettle. The Vicar and Lady Cleeve, old and firm friends, had
+somehow come to a tacit notion upon the point years ago, when the
+children were playfellows together; and Philip and Maria understood it
+perfectly--that they were some day to make a match of it. It was not
+distasteful to either of them. Philip thought himself in love with
+Maria; perhaps he was so after a fashion; and there could be little
+doubt that Maria loved Philip with all her heart. And though she could
+not see her way clear to leave the parish as long as her father was
+vicar of it, she did admit to herself in a half-conscious way that if,
+in the far, very far-off future, she could be brought to change her
+condition, it would be for the sake of Philip Cleeve.
+
+Midway between the old town and the new one, was The Lilacs, the
+pretty cottage ornée of which Captain Lennox and his sister, Mrs.
+Ducie, were the present tenants. The cottage was painted a creamy
+white, and had a verandah covered with trailing plants running round
+three sides of it. It was shut in from the high-road by a thick
+privet-hedge and several clumps of tall evergreens. Flower-borders
+surrounded the house, in which was shown the perfection of
+ribbon-gardening, and the well-kept lawn was big enough for Badminton
+or lawn-tennis. There was no view from the cottage beyond its own
+grounds. It lay rather low, and was perhaps a little too much shut in
+by trees and greenery: all the same, it was a charming little place.
+
+Here, on a certain evening in September, for the weeks have gone on, a
+pleasant little party had met to dine. There was the host, Captain
+Lennox. After him came Lord Camberley, a great magnate of the
+neighbourhood. The third was our old acquaintance, Mr. Bootle, with
+his eye-glass and his little fluffy moustache. Last of all came
+handsome Philip Cleeve, with his brown curly hair and his ever-ready
+smile. The only lady present was Mrs. Ducie.
+
+Teddy Bootle had run down on a short visit to Nullington, as he often
+did. He and Philip had found Captain Lennox and Lord Camberley in the
+billiard-room of the Rose and Crown Hotel--Master Philip being too
+fond of idling away his hours, and just now it was a very slack time
+at the office. Lennox at once introduced Mr. Bootle to his lordship,
+and he condescended to be gracious to the little man, whose income was
+popularly supposed to be of fabulous extent. Philip he knew to nod to;
+but the two were not much acquainted. The Captain proposed that they
+should all go home and dine with him at The Lilacs, and he at once
+scribbled a note to his sister, Mrs. Ducie, that she might be prepared
+for their arrival.
+
+Lord Camberley was a good-looking, slim-built, dark-complexioned man
+of eight-and-twenty. He had a small black moustache, his hair was
+cropped very short, and he was fond of sport as connected with the
+racecourse. By his father's death a few months ago he had come into a
+fortune of nine thousand a year. He lived, when in the country, at
+Camberley Park, a grand old Elizabethan mansion about five miles from
+Nullington, where his aunt, the Honourable Mrs. Featherstone, kept
+house for him.
+
+It was at the billiard-table that he and Lennox had first met. A
+billiard-table is like a sea voyage: it brings people together for a
+short time on a sort of common level, and acquaintanceships spring up
+which under other circumstances would never have had an existence. The
+advantage is that you can drop them again when the game is over, or
+the voyage at an end: though people do not always care to do that. In
+the dull little town of Nullington the occasional society of a man
+like Captain Lennox seemed to Lord Camberley an acquisition not to be
+despised. They had many tastes and sympathies in common. The Captain
+was always well posted up in the state of the odds; in fact, he made a
+little book of his own on most of the big events of the year. There
+were few better judges of the points of a horse or a dog than he. Then
+he could be familiar without being presuming: Lord Camberley, who
+never forgot that he was a lord, hated people who presumed. Lennox, in
+fact, was a "deuced nice fellow," as he more than once told his aunt.
+Meanwhile he cultivated his society a good deal: he could always drop
+him when he grew tired of him, and it was his lordship's way to grow
+tired of everybody before long.
+
+Five minutes after they had assembled Margaret Ducie entered the room.
+Lord Camberley had seen her several times previously, but to Bootle
+and Philip she was a stranger. Her brother introduced them. There was
+perhaps a shade more cordiality in the greeting she accorded to Bootle
+than in the one she vouchsafed to Philip. Camberley, the cynical, who
+was looking on, and who prided himself, with or without cause, on his
+knowledge of the sex, muttered under his breath, "She knows already
+which is the rich man and which the poor clerk. Lennox must have put
+her up to that."
+
+Mrs. Ducie was a brunette. She had a great quantity of jet-black silky
+hair, and large black liquid eyes. Her nose was thin, high-bred, and
+aquiline, and she rarely spoke without smiling. Her figure was tall
+and somewhat meagre in its outlines; but whether she sat, or stood, or
+walked, every movement and every pose was instinct with a sort of
+picturesque and unstudied grace. She dressed very quietly, and when
+abroad her almost invariable wear was a gown of some plain black
+material. But about that simple garment there was a style, a fit, a
+suspicion of something in cut or trimming, in the elaboration of a
+flounce here or the addition of a furbelow there, that to the
+observant mind hinted at the latest Parisian audacity, and of secrets
+which as yet were scarcely whispered beyond Mayfair. The ladies of
+Nullington and its neighbourhood could only envy and admire, and
+imitate afar off.
+
+Mrs. Ducie was one of those women whose age it is next to impossible
+to guess correctly. "She's thirty if she's a day," Lord Camberley had
+said to himself, within five minutes of his introduction to her. "She
+can't possibly be more than three-and-twenty," was Philip Cleeve's
+verdict to-day. The truth, in all probability, lay somewhere between
+the two.
+
+Whatever her age might be, Lord Camberley had a great admiration for
+Mrs. Ducie, but it was after a fashion of his own. He was thoroughly
+artificial himself, and rustic beauty, or simplicity eating bread and
+butter in a white frock, had no charms for him. He liked a woman who
+had seen and studied the world of "men and manners;" and that Mrs.
+Ducie had travelled much, and seen many phases of life, he was
+beginning by this time to discover. He was on his guard when he first
+made her acquaintance, lest he might be walking into a matrimonial
+trap, artfully baited by herself and her brother; for Lord Camberley
+was a mark for anxious mothers and daughters: not but that he felt
+himself quite capable of looking after his own interests on that
+point. Still, however wide-awake a man may believe himself to be, it
+is always best to be wary in this crafty world; and very wary he was
+the first three or four times he visited The Lilacs. He was not long,
+however, in perceiving that, whatever matrimonial designs Margaret
+Ducie might or might not have elsewhere, she was without any as far as
+he was concerned; and from that time he felt at ease in the cottage.
+
+Captain Lennox's little dinners were thoroughly French in style and
+cookery. They were good  without being over-elaborate. Camberley's
+idea was that the pretty widow, despite her white and delicate hands,
+was oftener in the kitchen than most people imagined. When dinner was
+over, the gentlemen adjourned to the verandah to smoke their cigars
+and sip their coffee; while in the drawing-room, the French windows of
+which were open to the garden lighted only by one shaded lamp,
+Margaret sat and played in a minor key such softly languishing airs,
+chiefly from the old masters, as accorded well with the September
+twilight and the _far niente_ feeling induced by a choice dinner.
+
+Philip Cleeve felt like a man who dreams and is yet awake. Never
+before had he been in the company of a woman like Mrs. Ducie. There
+was a seductive witchery about her such as he had no previous
+knowledge of. It was not that she took more notice of him than of
+anyone else--it maybe that she took less; but he fell under the
+influence of that subtle magnetism, so difficult to define, and yet so
+very evil in its effects, which some women exercise over some men,
+perhaps without any wish or intention on their part of doing so. In
+the case of Philip it was a sort of mental intoxication, delicious and
+yet with a hidden pain in it, and with a vague underlying sense of
+unrest and dissatisfaction for which he was altogether unable to
+account.
+
+After a time somebody proposed cards--probably it was Camberley--and
+as no one objected, they all went indoors.
+
+"What are we going to play?--whist?" queried Lennox, while the servant
+was arranging the table.
+
+"Nothing so slow as whist, I hope," said his lordship. "A quiet hand
+at 'Nap' would be more to my taste."
+
+"How say you, gentlemen? I suppose we all play that vulgar but
+fascinating game?" said the Captain.
+
+"I know a little of it," answered Bootle.
+
+"I have only played it once," said Philip.
+
+"If you have played once, it's as good as having played it a thousand
+times," said Camberley, dogmatically. "I'm not over-brilliant at cards
+myself, but I picked up Napoleon in ten minutes."
+
+"Shilling points, I suppose?" said Lennox.
+
+Camberley shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing, and they all sat
+down.
+
+There was an arched recess in the room, fitted with an ottoman. It was
+Mrs. Ducie's favourite seat. Here she sat now, engaged on some piece
+of delicate embroidery, looking on, and smiling, and giving utterance
+to an occasional word or two between the deals, but not interrupting
+them.
+
+Philip Cleeve, notwithstanding that he was less conversant with the
+game than his companions, and that the black eyes of Mrs. Ducie would
+persist in coming between him and his cards--he could see her from
+where he sat almost without a turn of his head--was very fortunate in
+the early part of the evening, carrying all before him. He found
+himself, at the end of an hour and a half's play, a winner of close on
+three sovereigns, which to a narrow pocket seems a considerable sum.
+
+"This is too sleepy!" cried Camberley at last. "Can't we pile up the
+agony a bit, eh, Lennox?"
+
+"I'm in your hands," said the Captain.
+
+"What say you, Mr. Bootle?" queried his lordship. "Shall we turn our
+shillings into half-crowns? That will afford a little more excitement,
+eh?"
+
+"Then a little more excitement let us have by all means," answered
+good-natured Freddy, who cared not whether he lost or won.
+
+But now Philip's luck seemed at once to desert him. What with the
+extra wine he had taken, and the glamour cast over him by the
+proximity of Mrs. Ducie, his judgment became entirely at fault. In
+half an hour he had lost back the whole of his winnings; a little
+later still, his pockets were empty. It is true he only had two
+sovereigns about him at starting, so that his loss was not a heavy
+one; but it was quite heavy enough for him. He was hesitating what he
+should do next--whether borrow of Bootle or Lennox--when all at once
+he remembered that he had money about him. In the course of the day he
+had collected an account amounting to twenty pounds, due to Mr.
+Tiplady, and it was still in his possession. He felt relieved at once.
+There was a chance of winning back what he had lost. With a hand that
+shook a little he poured out some wine and water at the side-table,
+and then sat down to resume his play.
+
+When the clock on the chimney-piece chimed eleven, Lord Camberley
+threw down his cards, saying he would play no more, and Philip Cleeve
+found himself with a solitary half-sovereign left in his pocket.
+
+He got up, feeling stunned and giddy, and stepped out through the
+French window into the verandah. Here he was presently joined by the
+rest. Lennox thrust a cigar into his hand, and they all lighted up.
+The night was sultry; but after the warmth of the drawing-room such
+fresh air as there was seemed welcome to all of them. They went slowly
+down the main walk of the garden towards the little fish-pond at the
+end, Camberley and Mrs. Ducie, for she had strolled out too, being a
+little behind the others.
+
+"I am going to drive my drag to the Agricultural Show at Norwich next
+Tuesday," said his lordship to her. "Lennox has promised to go. May I
+hope that you will honour me with your company on the box seat on the
+occasion?"
+
+"Who is going beside yourself and Ferdinand?" she asked.
+
+"Captain Maudesley, and Pierpoint. Sir John Fenn will probably pack
+himself inside with his gout."
+
+"But the other ladies--who are they?"
+
+"Um--well, to tell you the truth, I had not thought about asking any
+other lady."
+
+"Ah! Then, I'm not sure that I should care to go with you, Lord
+Camberley. Five gentlemen and one lady--that would never do."
+
+"Let me beg of you to reconsider----"
+
+"Pray do nothing of the kind. I would rather not."
+
+"I am awfully sorry," said his lordship, in something of a huff.
+"Confound this cigar! And confound such old-fashioned prudish
+notions!" he added to himself. "I'd not have thought it of her."
+
+She walked back, after saying a pleasant word or two, and fell into
+conversation with Philip Cleeve. He seemed distrait. She thought he
+had taken enough champagne, and felt rather sorry for the young
+fellow.
+
+"Do you never feel dull, Mrs. Ducie," he asked, "now that you have
+come to live among the sand-hills?"
+
+"Oh no. The people I have been introduced to here are all very nice
+and kind; and then I have my ponies, you know; and there's my music,
+and my box from Mudie's once a month; so that I have not much time for
+ennui. My tastes are neither very æsthetic nor very elevated, Mr.
+Cleeve."
+
+"They are at least agreeable ones," answered Philip.
+
+As Philip Cleeve walked home a war of feelings was at work within him,
+such as he had never experienced before. On the one hand there was the
+loss of Mr. Tiplady's twenty pounds; which must be made good tomorrow
+morning. He turned hot and cold when he thought of what he had done.
+He knew it was wrong, dishonourable--what you will. How he came to do
+it he could not tell--just as we all say when the apple's eaten and
+only the bitter taste left. He must ask his mother to make good the
+loss; but it would never do to tell her the real facts of the case. He
+should not like her to think him dishonourable--and she was not well,
+and it would vex her terribly. He must go to her with some sort of
+excuse--a poor one would do, so utterly unsuspicious was she. This was
+humiliation indeed. He was almost ready to take a vow never to touch a
+card again. Almost; but not quite.
+
+On the other hand, his thoughts would fly off to Margaret Ducie and
+her thousand nameless witcheries. There was quite a wild fever in his
+blood when he dwelt on her. It seemed a month since he had last seen
+and spoken with Maria Kettle--Maria, that sweet, pale abstraction, who
+seemed to him to-night so unsubstantial and far away. But he did not
+want to think of her just now. He wanted to forget that he was engaged
+to her, or as good as engaged. Though some innate voice of conscience
+whispered that, if he valued his own peace of mind, it would be well
+for him to keep out of the way of the beautiful ignis fatuus which had
+shone on his path to-night for the first time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+THE DOCTOR'S VERDICT.
+
+
+It was just about this time that Squire Denison, dining alone, was
+taken ill at the dinner-table. Very rarely indeed was Ella out at that
+hour, but it chanced that she had gone to spend a long evening with
+Lady Cleeve. The Squire's symptoms looked alarming to Aaron Stone and
+his wife; and the young man, Hubert, went off on horseback to
+Nullington, to summon Dr. Spreckley.
+
+The Doctor had practised in Nullington all his life. He was a man of
+sixty now, with a fine florid complexion; he was said to be a lover of
+good cheer and to have a weakness for the whisky bottle; though nobody
+ever saw him the worse for what he had taken. He had a cheerful,
+hearty way with him, that to many people was better than all his
+physic, seeming to think that most of the ills of life could be
+laughed away if his patients would only laugh heartily enough. Mr.
+Denison had great confidence in him; and no wonder, seeing that he had
+attended him for twenty years. Dr. Spreckley was not merely the
+Squire's medical attendant, but news-purveyor-in-general to him as
+well. Now that the Squire got out so little himself and saw so few
+visitors at the Hall, he looked to Spreckley to keep him _au courant_
+with all the gossip anent mutual acquaintances and all the local
+doings for a dozen miles round; and Spreckley was quite equal to the
+demands upon him. During the past year or two Mr. Denison had
+experienced several of the sudden attacks; but none of so violent a
+nature as was the one this evening. Dr. Spreckley's cheerful face
+changed when he saw the symptoms, and the look, momentary though it
+was, was not lost on the sick man.
+
+"Where's Miss Winter?" asked the Doctor, somewhat surprised at her
+absence.
+
+"Miss Ella's gone to Lady Cleeve's for the evening, sir," answered
+Mrs. Stone, who was in attendance.
+
+"And a good thing too," put in the Squire, rousing himself. "Look
+here--I won't have her told I've been ill. Do you hear--all of you? No
+good to worry the lassie."
+
+Dr. Spreckley administered certain remedies, saw the Squire safely
+into bed, and stayed with him for a couple of hours afterwards, Aaron
+supplying him with a small decanter of whisky. The symptoms were
+already disappearing, and Dr. Spreckley's face was hopeful.
+
+"You'll be all right, Squire, after a good night's rest," said he,
+with all his hearty cheerfulness. "I'll be over by ten o'clock in the
+morning."
+
+When Ella returned, as she did at nine o'clock, nothing was told her.
+"The master felt tired, and so went to bed betimes," was all Mrs.
+Stone said. And Ella suspected nothing.
+
+While she was breakfasting the next morning--her uncle sometimes took
+his alone in his room--Aaron came to her, and said the master wanted
+her. Ella hastened to him.
+
+"Why! are you in bed, uncle dear?" she exclaimed.
+
+"One of my lazy fits--that's all; thought I'd have breakfast before I
+got up. Why not? Got a mind for a walk this fine morning, dearie?"
+
+"Yes, uncle, if you wish me to go anywhere. It is a beautiful
+morning."
+
+"So, so! one should get out this fine weather when one can: wish my
+legs were as young to get over the ground as they used to be. I want
+you to go to the vicarage, child, and take a letter to Kettle that
+I've had here these few days. It's about the votes for the Incurables,
+and it's time it was attended to. Tell him he must see to it for me
+and fill it up. Mind you are with him before ten o'clock, and then
+he'll not be gone out."
+
+"Yes, uncle. I will be sure to go."
+
+"And look here, lassie," added the Squire; "if you like to stay the
+morning with Maria, you can. I shan't want you; I shall be pottering
+about here half the day."
+
+Having thus got rid of his niece, the coast was clear for Dr.
+Spreckley. True to his time, the Doctor drove up in his ramshackle old
+gig.
+
+"You are better this morning; considerably better," he said to his
+patient after a quiet examination. "That was a nasty attack, and I
+hope we shan't have any more of them for a long time to come."
+
+"I was worse, Doctor, than even you knew of," said Mr. Denison. "The
+wind of the grave blew colder on me yesterday evening than it has ever
+blown before. Another such bout, and out I shall go, like the snuff of
+a candle. Eh, now, come?"
+
+"We must hope that you won't have another such bout, Squire," was Dr.
+Spreckley's cheerful answer.
+
+"Is there nothing you can prescribe, or do, Doctor, that will
+guarantee me against another such attack?" asked Mr. Denison, with
+almost startling suddenness.
+
+Dr. Spreckley put down the phial he had taken in his hand, and faced
+his patient.
+
+"I should be a knave, Squire, to say that I could guarantee you
+against anything. We can only do our best and hope for the best."
+
+Mr. Denison was silent for a few moments, then he began again.
+
+"Look here, Spreckley; you know my age--on the twenty-fourth of next
+April I shall be seventy years old. You know, too, what interests are
+at stake, and how much depends upon my living to see that day."
+
+"I am not likely to forget," said the Doctor. "These are matters that
+we have talked over many a time."
+
+"Do you believe in your heart, Spreckley, that I shall live to see
+that day--the twenty-fourth of next April?"
+
+The question was put very solemnly, and the sick man craned his long
+neck forward and stared at the Doctor with wild hungry eyes, as though
+his salvation depended on the next few words.
+
+The physician's ruddy cheek lost somewhat of its colour as he
+hesitated. He fidgeted nervously with his feet, he coughed behind his
+hand, and then he turned and faced his patient. The signs had not been
+lost on the Squire.
+
+"Really, my dear sir, your question is a most awkward one," said
+Spreckley, slowly, "and one which I am far from feeling sure that I am
+in a position to answer with any degree of accuracy."
+
+"Words--words--words!" exclaimed the sick man, turning impatiently on
+his pillow. "Man alive! you can answer my question if you choose to do
+so. All I ask is, do you _believe_, do you think in your own secret
+heart, that I shall live to see the twenty-fourth of April? You can
+answer me that."
+
+"Are you in earnest in wishing for an answer, Mr. Denison?"
+
+"Most terribly in earnest. I tell you again that another turn like
+that of last night would finish me. At least, I believe it would. And
+I might have another attack any day or any hour, eh?"
+
+"You might. But--but," added the Doctor, striving to soften his words,
+"it might not be so severe, you know."
+
+"There are several things that I want to do before I go hence and am
+seen no more," spoke the Squire in a low tone. "You would not advise
+me to delay doing them?"
+
+"I would not advise you, or any man, to delay such matters."
+
+"You do not think in your heart that I shall live to see the
+twenty-fourth of April--come now, Spreckley!"
+
+The Doctor placed his hand gently on Mr. Denison's wrist, and bent
+forward.
+
+"If you must have the truth, you must."
+
+"Yes, yes," was the eager, impatient interposition. "The truth--the
+truth."
+
+"Well, then--these attacks of yours are increasing both in frequency
+and violence. Each one that comes diminishes your reserve of strength.
+One more sharp attack might, and probably would, prove fatal to you."
+
+"You must ward it off, Spreckley."
+
+"I don't know how to."
+
+The Squire lifted his hand slightly, and then let it drop on the
+coverlet again. Was it a gesture of resignation, or of despair? His
+chin drooped forward on his breast, and there was unbroken silence in
+the room for some moments.
+
+"Doctor," said Mr. Denison then, and his tones sounded strangely
+hollow, "I will give you five thousand pounds if you can keep me
+alive till the twenty-fifth of April. Five thousand, Spreckley!"
+
+"All the money in the world cannot prolong life by a single hour when
+our time has come," said the surgeon. "You know that as well as I, Mr.
+Denison. Whatever human skill can do for you shall be done; of that
+you may rest assured."
+
+"But still you think I can't last out--eh?"
+
+The Doctor took one of his patient's hands and pressed it gently
+between both of his. "My dear old friend, I think that nothing short
+of a miracle could prolong your life till then," and there was an
+unwonted tremor in his voice as he spoke.
+
+Nothing more was said. Dr. Spreckley turned to the door, remarking
+that he would come up again later in the day.
+
+"There's no necessity," said the Squire, with spirit, as if he took
+the fiat in dudgeon and did not believe it. "No occasion for you to
+come at all to-day. I am better; much better. I should not have stayed
+in bed this morning, only you ordered me."
+
+"Very well, Squire."
+
+Mr. Denison lay back on his pillow and shut his eyes as the door
+closed on his friend and physician. Aaron Stone, coming into the room
+a little later, thought his master was asleep, and went out without
+disturbing him. An hour later Mr. Denison's bell rang loudly and
+peremptorily. The Squire was sitting up in bed when Aaron entered the
+room, and the old man marvelled to see him look so much better in so
+short a time. "An hour since he was like a man half dead, and now he
+looks as well as he did a year ago," muttered Aaron to himself. There
+was, indeed, a brightness in his eyes and a faint colour in his
+cheeks, such as had not been seen there for a long time; and his voice
+had something of its old sharp and peremptory tone.
+
+"Aaron, what do you think Dr. Spreckley has been telling me this
+morning?" he suddenly asked.
+
+"I'm a bad hand at guessing, Squire, as you ought to know by this
+time," was the somewhat ungracious answer.
+
+"He tells me that I shall not live to see the twenty-fourth of next
+April."
+
+Aaron's rugged face turned as white as it was possible for it to turn;
+a small tray that he had in his hands fell with a crash to the ground.
+
+"Oh! master, don't say that--don't say that!" he groaned.
+
+"But I must say it: and what's more, I feel it may be true," returned
+the Squire.
+
+"I can't believe it; and I won't," stammered the old servant: who,
+whatever his faults of temper might have been, was passionately
+attached to his master. Aaron had never seriously thought the end was
+so near. The Squire had had these queer attacks, it was true: but did
+he not always rally from them and seem as well as ever? Why, look at
+him now!
+
+"Spreckley must be a fool, sir, to say such a thing as that! Had he
+been at the whisky bottle?"
+
+"I forced the truth from him," spoke the Squire. "It is always safest
+to get at the truth, however unpalatable it may be. Eh, now?"
+
+"I'm fairly dazed," said the old man. "But I don't believe it. When
+you go, master, it will be time for me to go too."
+
+"It's not that I'm afraid to go," said the Squire--"when did a Denison
+fear to die?--and Heaven knows my life has not been such a pleasant
+one of late years that I need greatly care to find the end near. It's
+the property, Aaron--this old roof-tree and all the broad acres--you
+know who will come in for them if I don't live to see next April."
+
+The old serving-man's mouth worked convulsively; he tried to speak but
+could not. Tears streamed down his rugged cheeks. Pretending to busy
+himself about the fireplace, he kept his back turned to the Squire.
+
+"If it were not for that, I should not care how soon my summons came,"
+continued Mr. Denison; "but it's hard to have the apple snatched from
+you at the moment of victory. I would give half that I'm possessed of
+to anyone who would insure my living to the end of next April. Why
+not?"
+
+"What's Spreckley but an old woman? he don't know," said Aaron. "Why
+don't you have some of the big doctors down from London, sir? Like
+enough they could pull you through when Spreckley can't."
+
+The Squire laughed, a little dismally.
+
+"You seem to forget that I had a couple of bigwigs down from London on
+the same errand some months ago. They and Spreckley had a
+consultation, and what was the result? They fully endorsed all that he
+had done, and said that they themselves could not have improved on his
+method of treatment. It would not be an atom of use, old comrade, to
+have them down again. That's my belief."
+
+It was not Aaron's. He had no particular opinion of Spreckley--and he
+was fearfully anxious.
+
+"Poor Ella! Poor lassie!" murmured the Squire, very gently. "I always
+hoped she would be the mistress of Heron Dyke when I was gone.
+But--but--but----" He broke off. He could not speak of it. Things just
+now seemed very bitter, grievously hard to bear.
+
+"Won't you get up, master?"
+
+"Not just now. You can come in by-and-by, Aaron," replied the Squire:
+and Aaron crept out of the room without another word.
+
+The sitting-room of Aaron Stone and his wife was a homely apartment,
+opening from the kitchen. To this he betook himself, shut the door
+behind him, and sat down in silence. Dorothy had her lap full of white
+paper, cutting it out in fringed rounds to cover some preserves that
+had been made. Happening to look at her husband, she saw the tears
+trickling fast down his withered cheeks.
+
+Dorothy's eyes and mouth alike opened. She gazed at him with a mixture
+of curiosity and alarm. Not for twenty years had she seen such a
+sight. Pushing back her silver hair under her neat white cap, she
+dropped the scissors and the paper, and sat staring.
+
+"What is it?" she asked in a faint voice, picturing all kinds of
+unheard-of evils. "Anything happened to the lad, Aaron?"
+
+"The lad" was Hubert, her grandson. He was very dear to Dorothy:
+perhaps not less so to Aaron. Aaron did not answer; could not: and, as
+if to relieve her fears, Hubert came in the next moment.
+
+"Why, grandfather, what on earth has come to you?" cried the young
+man, no less astonished than Dorothy.
+
+With a half sob, Aaron told what had come to them: the trouble had
+taken all his crusty ungraciousness out of him. The master was going
+to die. Spreckley said he could not keep him alive until next April.
+And Miss Ella would have to turn out of Heron Dyke to make way for
+those enemies, the other branch. And they should have to turn out too;
+and he and Dorothy, for all he knew, would die in the workhouse!
+
+An astounding revelation. No one spoke for a little while. Then
+Dorothy began with her superstitions.
+
+"I knew we should have a death in the house before long. There's been
+a winding-sheet in the candle twice this week; and on Sunday night as
+I came over the marshes three corpse-candles appeared there, and
+seemed to follow me all the way across. I didn't think it would be the
+Squire, though: I thought of Bolton's wife."
+
+Bolton was the coachman, and his wife was delicate.
+
+"Hush, granny!" reproved Hubert; "all that is nonsense, you know. Why
+does not the Squire call in further advice?" he added after a pause.
+"Spreckley's not good for much save a gossip."
+
+"I asked him why not," said Aaron; "but he seems to think his time is
+come. If they could only keep him alive till next April, he says:
+that's all he harps upon."
+
+"And I am sure there must be means of doing it," cried Hubert. "What
+one medical man can't do, another may. I have a great mind to call in
+Dr. Jago--saying nothing about it beforehand. He is wonderfully
+clever."
+
+"The master might not forgive you, Hubert."
+
+"But if the new man could prolong his life!" debated Hubert. "I'll
+think about it," he added, catching up his low-crowned hat.
+
+He walked across the yard in his well-made shooting-coat that a lord
+might wear, and whistled to one of the dogs. The two housemaids stood
+in what was called the keeping-room, ironing fine things at the table
+underneath the window. They looked after the young man with admiring
+eyes. He held himself aloof from them, as a master does from a
+servant, but the girls liked him, for in manner to them he was civil
+and kind.
+
+"Is he not handsome?" cried Ann. "And aren't both the old people proud
+of him?"
+
+"What do you think I saw last night?" said Martha in a low tone, as
+Hubert Stone disappeared through the green door leading to the
+shrubbery. "I was coming home from that errand to Nullington, when,
+out there in the park, hiding behind a tree and peering at our windows
+here, was a grey figure that one might have taken for a ghost--poor
+Susan Keen. She did give me a turn, though."
+
+"I wonder they don't stop her watching the house at night in the way
+she does," returned Ann, shaking out one of Mrs. Stone's muslin caps.
+"It gives one a creepy feeling to have her watching the windows like
+that--and to know what she's watching for."
+
+"You know what she says, Ann!"
+
+"Yes, I know; and a very uncomfortable thing it is," rejoined the
+younger servant. "If she sees Katherine at the window----"
+
+"She told me again last night that she does see her," interrupted the
+elder; "has seen her three times now, in all. She says that Katherine
+stands at the window of her old room, in the moonlight."
+
+Ann began to tremble; she was nearly as superstitious as old Dorothy.
+
+"Don't you see what it implies, Martha? If Katherine is seen at the
+window, she must be in the house, that's all. I wish they'd have that
+north wing barred up!"
+
+"You are ironing that net handkerchief all askew, Ann!"
+
+"One has not got one's proper wits, talking of these ghostly things,"
+was Ann's petulant answer, as she lifted the net off the blanket with
+a fling.
+
+Hubert, meanwhile, was going down to the shore. What he had learnt
+troubled him in no measured degree, and his busy brain was hard at
+work. If only this fiat, which threatened evil to all of them, might
+be averted!
+
+The tide was out, and he walked along the sands, flinging his stick
+now and again into the water for the dog to fetch out, as he recalled
+what he had heard about the almost miraculous skill of this Dr.
+Jago; who was said, nevertheless, to be an unscrupulous man in his
+remedies--kill or cure. Could he keep that life in Mr. Denison, which,
+as it appeared, Dr. Spreckley could not? These bold practitioners were
+often lucky ones. If Jago----
+
+Hubert Stone halted, both in steps and thought. There flashed into his
+mind, he knew not why, something he had read in an old French work,
+recently bought: for the young fellow was a good French scholar. It
+was a case analogous to Mr. Denison's--where a patient had been kept
+alive, in spite of nature--or almost in spite of it. The means tried
+then, which were minutely described, might answer now. Hubert's breath
+quickened as he thought of it. For two hours he slowly paced the
+sands, revolving this and that.
+
+A strange look of mingled excitement and determination sat on his face
+when he got back to the Hall. Mrs. Stone lamented to him that the
+dinner was over, meaning their dinner, and was all cold now. Hubert
+answered that he did not want dinner; but he wanted to see the Squire
+if he were alone. Yes, he was alone; and he seemed pretty well now.
+And not a word was to be breathed to Miss Ella about his illness:
+these were the strict orders issued.
+
+When Hubert went in he found the Squire seated in his easy-chair in
+front of the fire. He looked very worn and thin, but his eyes were as
+resolute and his lips as firmly set as they had ever been.
+
+"After what my grandfather told me this morning I could not help
+coming to see you, sir," said Hubert. "This is very sad news; but I
+hope that it is much exaggerated."
+
+"There's no exaggeration about it, boy. You see before you, I fear, a
+dying man. Come now!"
+
+"I am very, very sorry to hear it."
+
+"Ay--ay--good lad, good lad! Some of you will miss me a bit, eh?"
+
+"We shall all miss you very much, Squire: we shall never have such a
+master again. Of course, sir, I know that your great wish all along
+has been to live till your seventieth birthday had come and gone.
+Surely you will live to see that wish fulfilled!"
+
+"That's just what I shan't live to see, if Spreckley's right,"
+answered the Squire, and his face darkened as he spoke. "For my life I
+care little; it has been like a flickering candle these few years
+past. It's the knowledge that the estate will go away, from my pretty
+birdie, to a man whom I have hated all my life, that tries me. It is
+like the taste of Dead Sea apples in my mouth."
+
+Hubert drew his chair a little nearer--for he had been bidden to sit.
+
+"If you will pardon me, sir, for saying it, I do not think you ought
+to take what Dr. Spreckley says for granted. You should have better
+advice."
+
+"The London doctors have been down once--and they did me no good.
+They'd not do it now. And there'd be the trouble and expense incurred
+for nothing."
+
+"I was not thinking of London doctors, sir, but of one nearer
+home--Dr. Jago."
+
+"Pooh! They say he is a quack."
+
+Hubert Stone bent his head, and talked low and earnestly--describing
+what he had heard of Dr. Jago's wonderful skill.
+
+"I--I know a little of medicine myself, sir," he added; "sometimes I
+wish I had been brought up to it, for I believe I have a natural
+aptitude for the science, and I read medical books, and have been in
+hospitals; and--and I think, Squire, that a clever practitioner who
+knows his business could at least keep you alive until next April. Ay,
+and past it. I almost think _I_ could."
+
+Mr. Denison smiled. The idea of Hubert dabbling in such things tickled
+him.
+
+"Well, and how would you set about it?" he demanded in pleasant
+mockery.
+
+Hubert said a few words in a low tone; his voice seemed to grow lower
+as he continued. He looked strangely in earnest; his face was dark and
+eager.
+
+"The lad must be mad--to think he could keep me alive by those means!"
+interrupted the Squire, staring at Hubert from under his shaggy brows,
+as though he half thought he saw a lunatic before him.
+
+"If you would only let me finish, sir--only listen while I describe
+the treatment----"
+
+"Pray, did you ever witness the treatment you would describe--and see
+a life prolonged by it?"
+
+Without directly answering the question, Hubert resumed the
+argument in his low and eager tones. Gradually the Squire grew
+interested--perhaps almost unto belief.
+
+"And you could--could doctor me up in this manner, you think!" he
+exclaimed, lifting his hand and letting it drop again. "Boy, you
+almost take my breath away."
+
+"Perhaps I could not, sir. But I say Dr. Jago might."
+
+Squire Denison sat thinking, his head bent down.
+
+"Do you know this Dr. Jago?" he presently asked. "Have you met him?"
+
+"Once or twice, sir. And I was struck with an impression of his inward
+power."
+
+"Well, I--I will see him," decided the Squire. "And if he thinks he
+can--can keep life in me, I will make it worth his while. Why, lad,
+I'd give half my fortune, nearly, to be able to will away Heron Dyke
+out of the clutches of those harpies, who look to inherit it, and who
+have kept their spies about us here. You may bring this new doctor to
+me."
+
+A glad light came into Hubert's face: he was at least as anxious as
+his master that Heron Dyke should not pass to strangers.
+
+"Shall I bring him tomorrow, sir?"
+
+"Ay, tomorrow. Why not? Spreckley will be here at ten; let the other
+come at noon. But look you here, lad: not a word to him beforehand
+about this idea of yours, this new--new treatment. I'll see him
+first."
+
+
+The clock was striking twelve the following day when Dr. Jago rang at
+the door of the Hall. He was a little, dark-featured, foreign-looking
+man of thirty, with a black moustache and a pointed beard, and small
+restless eyes that seemed never to look stedfastly at anything or
+anybody, imparting an impression of being always on his guard. He had
+come to Nullington about a year ago, a stranger to everyone in it, and
+had started there in practice. His charges were low, and his patients
+chiefly those who could not afford to pay much in the shape of
+doctors' bills. But Dr. Spreckley was an elderly man, and Dr. Downes
+might be considered an old man, so there was no knowing what might
+happen in the course of a few years. Meanwhile Theophilus Jago
+possessed his soul in patience, and made ends meet as best he could.
+It was a great event in his life to be sent for by the Master of Heron
+Dyke.
+
+"You are Dr. Jago, I think?" began the Squire, who was again in bed;
+and the Doctor bowed assent.
+
+"I and my medical attendant, Dr. Spreckley, have had a slight
+difference of opinion. In all probability he will not visit me again,
+and I have sent for you in the hope that we may get on better together
+than Spreckley and I did."
+
+"I am flattered by your preference, sir. You may rely upon my doing my
+best to serve you in every way."
+
+"Probably you may have heard that I have been ill for a long
+time--people will talk--and, as a medical man, you most likely are
+aware of the nature of my complaint?"
+
+Dr. Jago admitted this.
+
+"I had a bad attack two days ago. Yesterday I asked Spreckley whether
+I should last over the twenty-fourth of next April. He told me that I
+could do so only by a miracle. He says I can't live, and I say that I
+must and will live over the date in question."
+
+"And you have sent for me to--to----?"
+
+"To keep me alive. Spreckley can't do it. You must. Now, don't say
+another word till you have examined me."
+
+Not another word did Dr. Jago utter for a quarter of an hour, beyond
+asking certain questions in connection with the malady. This over, he
+sat down by the bedside and drew a long breath.
+
+"Well, what's the verdict? Out with it," added the Squire grimly, the
+old hungry, wistful look rising in his eyes.
+
+"I suppose you want to hear the truth and nothing but the truth, Mr.
+Denison?" said Dr. Jago.
+
+"That is precisely what I do want to hear. Why not?"
+
+"Then, sir, I think it most probable that Dr. Spreckley is correct. I
+fear I can only confirm his opinion."
+
+There was a moment or two of silence.
+
+"Then you say, with him, that I shall not live to see the
+twenty-fourth of April?"
+
+"There is, of course, a possibility that you may do so," replied Dr.
+Jago, "but the probabilities are all the other way. I am very sorry,
+sir, to have to tell you this."
+
+"Keep your sorrow until you are asked for it," returned the Squire,
+drily. "Perhaps you will pour me out half a glass of that Madeira. I
+am not so strong as I should like to be."
+
+Dr. Jago did as he was requested, and then sat down and waited.
+Turning on him with startling suddenness, the sick man seized him by
+the wrist with a grip of iron, to pull him closer, and spoke with a
+grim earnestness.
+
+"Look here, Jago, it's not of any use your telling me, or a thousand
+other doctors, that I shall not live to see April. I must and will
+live till then, and you must see that I do: you must keep me in life.
+Man! you stare as if I were asking you to kill me, instead of to cure
+me."
+
+Dr. Jago tried to smile. He evidently doubted whether he had to deal
+with a lunatic.
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Denison," he said, "but in your condition you must
+avoid excitement. Perfect quiet is your greatest safeguard."
+
+The sick man shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Well, well, you are perhaps right. You know my young
+secretary--Hubert Stone?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"And I dare say you think him a shrewd, clever young fellow, eh! But
+he is more clever than you think for, and has dabbled in many a
+curious science; medicine for one. He--listen, Mr. Physician--he has
+suggested a mode of treatment by which he believes I may be kept
+alive. Come now."
+
+Dr. Jago's face expressed a mixture of surprise and incredulity not
+unmingled with sarcasm. Mr. Hubert Stone would indeed be a very clever
+gentleman if he could keep life in a dying man.
+
+"_I_ do not know of any such treatment, Mr. Denison."
+
+"Possibly not. But I suppose you are open to learn it?"
+
+"If it can be taught me."
+
+"Well, you go into the next room. Hubert is there, I believe, and will
+explain it to you better than I can. I never bothered my head about
+physics. When the conference is over come back to me."
+
+Half an hour had elapsed--quite that--and the Squire was growing
+impatient, when Dr. Jago returned. He was looking, very grave.
+
+"Will the treatment answer?" he cried out impatiently, before the
+Doctor could speak.
+
+"It might answer, Mr. Denison; I do not say it would not. But--it is
+dangerous."
+
+"And what if it is dangerous? I am willing to risk it--and I shall pay
+you well. What! you hesitate? Why, I have heard say that dangerous
+remedies are not unknown to you; that with you it is sometimes kill or
+cure."
+
+"In a desperate case possibly. Not otherwise."
+
+"And have you not just told me mine is desperate?"
+
+"True."
+
+"Then you will take me in hand. Bodikins!--if I were telling you to
+give me a dose of prussic acid as you stand there, you could but look
+as you are looking. See here. Listen. I will have these--these
+remedies tried, young man, and by you. I know your skill. I will give
+you five hundred pounds at once; and I will make it up to two thousand
+if you carry me over to the twenty-fifth of April."
+
+"I accept the terms," said Dr. Jago, awaking from a reverie, and
+speaking with prompt decision now his mind was made up. To a
+struggling practitioner the money looked like a mine of gold: and
+perhaps Squire Denison's imperative will influenced his. "And I hope
+and trust I _shall_ be able to carry you over the necessary period,"
+he added with intense earnestness. "My best endeavours shall be
+devoted to it."
+
+Outside the door Hubert Stone was waiting, anxiety in his eyes.
+
+"Yes, I have consented," said Dr. Jago, in answer to their silent
+questioning. "If we succeed--well. But I cannot forget the risk. And
+these hazardous risks, if they be discovered, are fatal to the
+reputation of a professional man."
+
+"Take the book home with you, and study the case well," said Hubert,
+putting a volume, in the Doctor's hand. "Some little risk there must
+of course be, but I think not much. It succeeded there: why should it
+not succeed with Squire Denison?"
+
+That evening Dr. Spreckley received a letter, written by Hubert Stone
+in his master's name, dismissing him from further attendance at Heron
+Dyke. The Squire added a kind message and enclosed a cheque; but he
+very unmistakably hinted that Dr. Spreckley was not expected to call
+again, even as a friend. Two doctors who held opposing views, and who
+pursued totally opposite modes of treatment, had better not come into
+contact with each other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+A DAY WITH PHILIP CLEEVE.
+
+
+When Philip Cleeve opened his eyes the morning after his visit to The
+Lilacs it took him a minute or two to collect his thoughts, and call
+to mind all that had happened during the previous evening. In the cold
+unsympathetic light of early morn his overheated fancies of the
+preceding night seemed to have little more substance in them than a
+dream. He could not quite forget Margaret Ducie's liquid black eyes,
+or the fascination of her smile; but the glamour was gone, and he
+thought of them as of something that could never trouble his peace of
+mind again. "It was that champagne," thought Philip. "I had more of it
+than was good for me."
+
+There was, however, one very tangible fact connected with the doings
+of the preceding night which would not allow itself to be forgotten.
+He had gambled away Mr. Tiplady's twenty pounds, and it would have to
+be his disagreeable duty this morning to ask his mother to make good
+the loss. Mentally and bodily he felt out of sorts, and out of humour
+with himself and the world. Very little breakfast did he eat. Lady
+Cleeve only came down when it was getting time for him to set out for
+the office. She asked a little about his visit of the previous
+evening, and also after Freddy Bootle, who was rather a favourite of
+hers.
+
+"Bootle has promised to dine here tomorrow," said Philip. "This
+evening I dine with him at the Rose and Crown." He left his seat and
+went to the window. The disagreeable moment could be put off no
+longer. Going behind Lady Cleeve's chair, he leaned over and kissed
+her. "Mother, I am going to ask you to do a most preposterous thing,"
+he said.
+
+"Not many times in your life, dear, have you done that," she answered.
+"But what is it?"
+
+"I want you to give me twenty-five pounds."
+
+"Twenty-five pounds is a large sum, Philip--that is, a large sum for
+me. But I suppose you would not ask me for it unless you really need
+it."
+
+"Certainly not, mother. I need it for a very special purpose indeed."
+
+"Can you tell me for what?"
+
+"No," said Philip, in a low tone. "It--it is for some one," he rather
+lamely added.
+
+"You are going to lend it! Well, Philip, if it is for some worthy
+friend who is in want, I will say nothing," said Lady Cleeve, who had
+implicit confidence in her son. "You shall have the money."
+
+Philip's face was burning. He turned to the window again.
+
+"Do you know that next Tuesday will be your birthday, Philip?" asked
+his mother. "You will be twenty-two. How the years fly as we grow old!
+Your asking for this money brings to my mind something which I did not
+intend to mention to you till your birthday was actually here; but,
+there is no reason why I should not tell you now. Can you guess,
+my dear boy, what amount I have saved up, and safely put away for
+you in Nullington Bank? But how should it be possible for you to
+guess?"--Philip had turned by this time, and was staring at his
+mother.
+
+"I have saved up twelve hundred pounds," continued Lady Cleeve. "Yes,
+Philip, twelve hundred pounds; and on the day you are twenty-two the
+amount in full will be transferred into your name, and will become
+your sole property."
+
+"Mother!" was all that the young man could say in that first moment of
+surprise. Then he took her hand and kissed it.
+
+She smiled, and stroked his curls fondly.
+
+"I need hardly tell you, Philip, that the hope I have had, all along,
+was that my savings might ultimately be of use in advancing your
+interests in whatever profession you might finally choose. You have
+now been two years with Mr. Tiplady, and I gather that you are quite
+satisfied to remain with him. I have had a little quiet chat with Mr.
+Tiplady: you know that he and I are very old friends. I named to him
+the amount I had lying by me in the bank, and hinted to him that he
+might do worse than take you into partnership. His reply was that he
+had never hitherto thought about a partner, but that the idea was
+worth consideration, more especially as he had some thought of
+retiring from business in the course of a few years. There the matter
+was left, and I have had no talk with him since, but I think the
+opening would be a most excellent one for you."
+
+"Twelve hundred pounds seems a lot of money to hand over to old
+Tiplady," said Philip, with rather a long face.
+
+"Why 'old' Tiplady, dear? He is younger than I am," said Lady Cleeve,
+with a faint smile. "His business is excellent and superior, as you
+know; one in which, if you join him, you may rise to eminence. Mr.
+Tiplady seemed to doubt whether twelve hundred pounds was a sufficient
+sum to induce him to take you into partnership. And of course it seems
+ridiculously small compared with the advantages. But I suppose he
+thinks your connections would go for something--and he is too well off
+for money to be an object with him. At first you would take but a
+small share."
+
+Philip shrugged his shoulders and whistled under his breath.
+
+"We can talk of that another time," he said. "How can I thank you
+enough, mother mine, for this wonderful gift? You are a veritable
+fairy queen."
+
+In truth, he could not think where so much money had come from. Twelve
+hundred pounds! He knew the extent of his mother's income and what
+proportion of it, of late years, had found its way into his own
+pocket; but he did not know that his mother, in view of some such
+contingency as the present one, had begun to save and pinch and put
+away a few pounds now and again even before her husband's death--many
+years before. The magic of compound interest had done the rest.
+
+Philip Cleeve carried a light heart with him that morning as he set
+out for the office, and the twenty-five pounds given him by his
+mother. He had not only got out of his present difficulty easily and
+without trouble, but in a few short days he would be a capitalist on
+his own account; he would be one of those favoured mortals, a man with
+a balance at his banker's, and a cheque-book of his own in his pocket.
+He could hardly believe in the reality of his good fortune. As for
+handing over _in toto_ to Mr. Tiplady the sum that was coming thus
+unexpectedly into his possession--it was a matter that required
+consideration, very grave consideration indeed. But he would have
+plenty of time to think about that afterwards.
+
+As he crossed the market-place, he stopped to look in the window of
+Thompson, the jeweller. There was a gold hunting-watch lying in it
+that he had often admired. In a few days, should he be so minded, he
+might make it his own. And that pretty signet ring. The price of it
+was only five guineas, a mere bagatelle to a man with twelve hundred
+pounds. Hitherto he had never worn a ring, but other young men wore
+such things, and there was no reason now why he should not do the
+same. A minute or two later he passed his tailor.
+
+"Good-morning, Dobson," he said with a smile. "I shall look you up in
+a day or two."
+
+Having to pass the Rose and Crown Hotel on his way to the office, he
+thought he might as well look up Freddy Bootle. But that gentleman was
+not yet downstairs, so Philip set out again. As he passed Welland's,
+the florist, he saw two magnificent bouquets in the window. All at
+once it struck him that it would not be amiss to pay a morning call at
+The Lilacs and present Mrs. Ducie with one of the bouquets. Without
+pausing to reflect, he entered the shop. He was waited on by pretty
+Mary Welland, the florist's lame daughter, by whose deft fingers the
+flowers had been arranged. After a little smiling chat, he and Mary
+being old acquaintances, he chose one of the bouquets and had it
+wrapped up in tissue paper. The price was half a guinea, but to
+Philip, in the mood in which he then was, half a guinea seemed a
+matter of little moment.
+
+Philip had started on his way again, when he encountered Maria Kettle.
+They both started as their eyes met, and a guilty flush mounted to
+Philip's brow. Maria at once held out her hand, and her glance fell on
+the bouquet in its envelope of tissue paper. All in a moment it
+flashed into Philip's mind that to-day was Maria's birthday. There was
+little more than the difference of a week between their ages.
+
+"Good-morning, Philip," began Maria. "Papa and I have been wondering
+what had become of you. You have only been to see us once since we got
+back."
+
+"The fact is," said Philip in a hesitating way, very unusual with him,
+"I have been much engaged--Bootle is here now, too, and he has taken
+up a good deal of my time. But I have not forgotten that this is your
+birthday, Maria, and----" here he paused and looked at the bouquet.
+"In fact, I was on my way to----" then he hesitated again and held out
+the bouquet.
+
+"You were on your way to the vicarage," said Maria, with a smile, "and
+these pretty flowers are for me. I know they are pretty before I look
+at them. It was indeed kind of you to remember my birthday."
+
+Philip felt immensely relieved.
+
+"Accept them with my love, Maria," he whispered, and at that moment he
+felt that he loved her very dearly. Then he pressed one of her hands
+in his, and spoke the good wishes customary on such occasions. A
+bright, glad look came into Maria's eyes, and her pale cheek flushed
+at Philip's words. He turned and walked a little way with her, and
+then they parted.
+
+Philip sighed as he turned away. What an air of quiet goodness there
+was about Maria! How sweet and saintly she looked in her dress of
+homely blue, with the sunlight shining on her!
+
+"If she had lived five hundred years ago, her face would have been
+painted as that of some mediæval saint," muttered Philip to himself.
+"She is far away too good to be the wife of such a shuffling,
+weak-minded fellow as I am."
+
+When he reached the florist's shop on his way back to the office, the
+remaining bouquet was still in the window. He hesitated a moment, and
+then went in.
+
+"I will take that other bouquet, if you please, Miss Welland," he
+said: but Mary noticed that there was no smile on his face this time,
+as she tied up the flowers. Philip set off in the direction of The
+Lilacs. He was dissatisfied with himself for what he had done, there
+was a sore feeling at work within him, and yet his steps seemed drawn
+irresistibly towards the roof that sheltered Margaret Ducie.
+
+He had got half-way to the cottage when he was overtaken by Captain
+Lennox in his dog-cart.
+
+"'Morning, Cleeve," called out the Captain; "where are you off to in
+such a hurry?"
+
+"I didn't know that I was in a hurry," said Philip as he faced round,
+while that wretched tell-tale flush, which he could not succeed in
+keeping down, mounted to his face. "The fact is, I was on my way to
+the cottage," he added. "I thought that I might venture to call on
+Mrs. Ducie and ask her acceptance of a few flowers."
+
+"And she will be very pleased to see you, I do not doubt," answered
+Lennox. "I am on the way home myself; so jump up and I will give you a
+lift."
+
+When they reached the cottage they found Mrs. Ducie practising some
+songs which she had just received from London. She wore a dress of
+some soft, creamy material embroidered with flowers, with ornamental
+silver pins in her hair and a silver snake round one of her wrists.
+She accepted Philip's flowers very graciously.
+
+"How charmingly they are arranged," she said; "and with what an eye
+for artistic effect. I must try to paint them before they begin to
+fade."
+
+Philip begged that he might not interrupt her singing; so she resumed
+her seat at the piano, and he stationed himself behind her and turned
+over the leaves of her music. Now that he was here and in her
+presence, and so near to her that he could have stooped and touched
+her hair with his lips, the infatuation of last night crept over him
+again with irresistible force. He was like a man bewitched, from whom
+all power of volition seems stolen away. She looked even more
+beautiful this morning in the soft cool twilight of the drawing-room
+than when seen by lamplight yesterday evening. Nowhere had he seen a
+woman like her, or one who exercised over him such a nameless but
+all-powerful charm. By-and-by she persuaded him to sing too.
+
+At last Philip remembered that he must go. The office was not pressed
+for work just now, and Mr. Tiplady had given him a partial holiday
+during Bootle's stay: but Philip felt that there was reason in all
+things. Moreover, Tiplady was away himself to-day.
+
+"When the cat's away," laughed Captain Lennox, upon Philip's saying
+this.
+
+"I can drive you into the town if you like, Mr. Cleeve," said Mrs.
+Ducie, who had just reappeared, dressed for going out. "My ponies are
+at the gate."
+
+Philip accepted the offer gladly.
+
+"I shall see you later in the day," were Lennox's last words to him as
+he was driven away.
+
+Mrs. Ducie was an accomplished whip, and had a thorough mastery over
+her high-spirited ponies. Very few minutes sufficed to bring the party
+to Nullington. They had slackened their pace a little while a load of
+timber drew out of the way, when Maria Kettle stepped out of a
+chemist's shop just as they were passing the door. She saw Mrs. Ducie
+and Philip, and at the same moment they recognised her. A look that
+was partly surprise and partly trouble came into her eyes; but she
+bowed gravely and passed on. Mrs. Ducie smiled and bowed; Philip,
+colouring furiously, greeted Maria with an awkward nod, and then
+turned away his head. How thoroughly ashamed of himself he felt!
+
+"What a charming young lady Miss Kettle is," said Mrs. Ducie, a minute
+later.
+
+Philip gave a keen look at his companion's face, but there was nothing
+to be read there.
+
+"I was not aware that you knew Miss Kettle," he said a little stiffly.
+
+"I have had the pleasure of meeting her three or four times since her
+return, and Ferdinand and I attend church regularly. I never met
+anyone who with so much goodness was so entirely unaffected."
+
+It was like heaping coals of fire on Philip's head for him to have to
+listen to these words. Nothing more was said till the carriage drew up
+for Philip to alight. Mrs. Ducie held out her hand.
+
+"I hope we shall see you at the cottage again soon, Mr. Cleeve," she
+graciously said. "I assure you that both to my brother and myself your
+visits will always be a pleasure."
+
+Philip replied suitably, and went his way. He was grievously annoyed
+at having been seen by Maria Kettle in the act of driving out with
+Mrs. Ducie; yet he could not forget how charming the latter was, and
+how kindly she had received his flowers.
+
+Scarcely had he at length entered the office when Freddy Bootle came
+in, asking him to take holiday for the rest of the day. The old clerk,
+Mr. Best, manager in Mr. Tiplady's absence, was agreeable to it.
+Philip was a favourite of his, and there was not much doing.
+
+Away went Philip and his friend gaily, arm-in-arm. Philip's heels were
+always light where pleasure was concerned. After eating some luncheon
+at the Rose and Crown, they adjourned to the billiard-room. Only then
+did it occur to Philip that the bank-notes his mother had given him in
+the morning were in his pocket still. He ought to have handed them
+over to Mr. Best: he had meant to do so, but other matters had put it
+out of his head.
+
+Lord Camberley and Captain Lennox came in to dinner, in answer to the
+invitation of Mr. Bootle. Afterwards they all sat talking, over their
+coffee and cigars. Captain Lennox, the thought striking him, inquired
+of Bootle whether his lost watch had turned up.
+
+"Not it," said Freddy. "It will never turn up, any more than your
+purse will. It was an odd thing, when one comes to think of it, that
+Mrs. Carlyon should have been robbed on the same night. Just as if the
+same thief had done it all!"
+
+Lord Camberley pricked up his ears.
+
+"How was it?" he asked. "What were the robberies?" And Mr. Bootle
+related them.
+
+"Pretty good cheek--to leave the case under the curtains and walk off
+with the baubles!" observed his lordship. "I suppose it was too big to
+carry away?"
+
+"Too big to carry away unobserved, and too big to be stowed away in a
+coat, I take it," said Captain Lennox. "How large was it, Cleeve?--you
+saw it, I think. The fellow must have disposed of the articles about
+his pockets."
+
+"How large?" repeated Philip, who was sitting with his chair tilted
+and his head thrown back, puffing forth volumes of smoke in silence,
+"oh--about _that_ large"--making a movement with his hand. "Just give
+me my coffee-cup, will you, Freddy?"
+
+Later, the party sat down to cards. They began by playing Napoleon, as
+on the previous evening; but this was changed for the still more
+dangerous game of Unlimited Loo. At neither one game nor the other was
+Philip Cleeve anything like a match for those experienced players,
+Camberley and Lennox, and he grew nervous and excitable. When the
+party broke up Philip had not only lost the twenty-five pounds given
+him in the morning by his mother, but fifteen pounds more, for which
+Lord Camberley held his IOU. As for Freddy Bootle, he did not much
+care for cards, and he played with a severe indifference to either the
+smiles or frowns of fortune: if he lost, it was a matter of little
+consequence to him; if he won, it was a few sovereigns more in the
+pocket of a man who had already more money than he knew what to do
+with.
+
+Philip rose from the table with haggard eyes, flushed face, and
+trembling hands.
+
+"I will redeem my scrap of paper in the morning," he remarked to his
+lordship.
+
+"All right, old man: you will find me in the billiard-room about four
+o'clock," answered Camberley. "Only look here, there's no need to be
+in such a desperate hurry, you know."
+
+He had a dim suspicion that Philip was not over well-off in money
+matters.
+
+"I shall be in the billiard-room at four," retorted Philip with some
+hauteur.
+
+He resented the implication in Camberley's words--that perhaps it
+might not be convenient to pay the fifteen pounds so quickly. His
+poverty was a matter that concerned no one but himself.
+
+As he walked home alone under the cold light of the stars, and went
+back in memory to the events of this evening and the last, they seemed
+to him nothing more than a wretched phantasmagoria, in which only the
+ghost of his real self had played a part. He was a loser to the extent
+of forty pounds. And where was he to raise the twenty-five pounds for
+Tiplady, or the fifteen for Camberley?
+
+There was only one way--by applying to his friend Bootle. It was a
+disagreeable necessity, but Philip saw no help for it. Bootle was rich
+and generous, and would lend him the money in a moment. It would only
+be needed for a few days. The very first cheque he drew, after coming
+into that twelve hundred pounds, should be one to repay Freddy.
+
+And, thus easily settling his difficulties, Mr. Philip finished up by
+vowing to himself that he would never touch a card again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+A VISIT FROM MRS. CARLYON.
+
+
+Dr. Spreckley felt like an angry man. When he read Squire Denison's
+curt note--curt as to the part of his dismissal--his first impulse was
+to go up to the Hall and demand an explanation from his old friend and
+patient. He had been forced into a corner as it were, had been driven
+into telling a certain disagreeable truth, and now he was discarded
+for having done so, and a young practitioner of less experience and no
+note, was taken on in his place! It was very unjust. But Dr. Spreckley
+never did anything in a hurry. He put the Squire's note away, saying,
+"I'll sleep upon it."
+
+On the morrow he found that Dr. Jago was really in attendance on the
+Squire. Dr. Spreckley met him on his way thither in a hired one-horse
+fly, and received a gracious wave of the hand by way of greeting.
+"I'll not interfere," exploded the old Doctor in the bitterness of his
+heart; "I'll never darken Denison's doors again. Unless he sends for
+me," he added a minute later. "And for all the good _he_ can do
+him"--with a contemptuous glance after Jago--"that won't be long
+first."
+
+Meanwhile, at the Hall, the Squire was soothing and explaining the
+change to Ella, who regarded it with dismay.
+
+"I don't like Dr. Jago, Uncle Gilbert. And Dr. Spreckley was our
+friend of many years."
+
+"And why don't you like Dr. Jago, lassie?"
+
+"I don't know. There's something about him that repels me; it lies in
+his eyes, I think. I never spoke to him but once."
+
+"When you know more of him, you will like him better," returned the
+Squire. "I am not sure that _I_ like him much, personally. But if he
+cures me--what shall you say then? Come now!"
+
+"I would say then that I should like him for ever," replied Ella,
+laughing.
+
+"Well, child, he is hoping to do it. And I think he will."
+
+"Is this true, Uncle Gilbert?"
+
+The Squire patted her cheek.
+
+"What a disbelieving little girl it is! Jago is a wonderfully clever
+man, Ella; there's no doubt of that: he has studied in foreign
+schools, and he is about to try an entirely new kind of treatment upon
+me. He thinks it will turn up trumps, and so do I!"
+
+Ella drew a long, relieved breath.
+
+"Oh, I am so glad, dear uncle! I will make him welcome whenever he
+comes."
+
+"It is a month to-day since I was outside the house," went on the
+Squire. "Jago tells me that he shall get me out again in three or four
+days. The man is a man of power; I see it--I feel it. Give him
+opportunity, and he will make a great name for himself. We will go
+about again as we used to, Ella; you and I. Why not?"
+
+Ella's heart leaped; she believed the good news. Her uncle had seemed
+very poorly indeed lately, but she did not suspect he had any
+incurable malady, or that he was in any danger.
+
+Dr. Jago came to Heron Dyke day after day. In a short while the Squire
+was walking about the grounds, leaning on Ella's arm or on Hubert
+Stone's; and he would be seen again driving through Nullington, his
+niece seated by his side. Ella had grown to think kindly of Dr. Jago;
+but that old vague feeling of dislike or distrust she could not quite
+get rid of. "There is a look in his eyes I never saw in the eyes of
+anyone else," she said to herself. "He interests me, and yet repels
+me."
+
+"The Squire will last out yet to will away his property; ay, and
+longer than that," cried the gossips of the neighbourhood, as they
+watched the improvement in him. "It will take more than two doctors to
+kill a Denzon."
+
+And thus October came in. About the middle of that month the Squire
+sent an invitation to Mrs. Carlyon. It was partly in answer to a
+letter received from her--in which she told them that a certain
+projected plan of hers, that of going abroad for the winter, was still
+in abeyance, for she did not much like the idea of going alone. Higson
+would attend her of course; but who was Higson?--what she needed was a
+friend.
+
+"She shall take you, Ella," said the Squire, after the letter of
+invitation was despatched.
+
+"Take me, uncle! Oh dear, no!"
+
+"And why not, pray, when I say yes?"
+
+"I could not leave you, Uncle Gilbert."
+
+"Oh, indeed! Could you not, lassie?"
+
+"Suppose you were to be taken ill--and I ever so many hundred miles
+away! Oh, uncle dear, how could you think of it!"
+
+"Well, I hope I am not likely now to be taken ill. Jago is doing me a
+marvellous deal of good. Don't fear that. I should like you to go
+abroad for the winter, lassie, and if Gertrude Carlyon goes, we--we
+will see about it."
+
+Mrs. Carlyon arrived in due course. It had previously been arranged
+that, if she did go abroad, she should come to them for a short visit
+first. It seemed to her that she saw a great change for the worse in
+Mr. Denison; but she was discreet enough to keep her thoughts on the
+matter to herself, and chose rather to congratulate him on looking so
+well.
+
+"Ay," said he, complacently, "the new doctor understands me."
+
+"And don't you think Dr. Spreckley did?" asked Mrs. Carlyon.
+
+"Not of late. Spreckley could not do for me what this man will do."
+
+On the second day of her visit, when they were alone, the Squire
+questioned Mrs. Carlyon about her plans for the winter.
+
+"Have you decided on them, Gertrude?" he asked.
+
+"Not quite," she said. "I suppose, though, I shall go abroad, probably
+to the South of France. This climate tried my chest severely last
+winter."
+
+"Ay, I remember. Best for you to go out of it for the next few
+months."
+
+"An old friend of mine, Mrs. Ord, had decided to accompany me, and now
+circumstances have intervened to prevent it. That is why I hesitate. I
+don't care to go so far without a companion."
+
+"You shall take Ella. Come now."
+
+Mrs. Carlyon looked up eagerly.
+
+"Take Ella! Are you in earnest?"
+
+"Never more so. Why not? I had meant to make you and London a present
+of her for the winter: if you go abroad, so much the better. It will
+be the greater change for her--and she needs change."
+
+"I shall certainly no longer hesitate if I may have Ella," spoke Mrs.
+Carlyon, gladly. "But--I should probably stay away four or five
+months."
+
+"If you stay away six months it would be all the better. To tell you
+the truth, Gertrude," he continued, seeing Mrs. Carlyon look
+surprised, "I do not intend my pretty one to be here during the dark
+months, and you must take her out of my hands. She has never been
+quite the same since that curious affair up yonder"--pointing over his
+shoulder in the direction of the north wing.
+
+Mrs. Carlyon began to understand.
+
+"You mean--about Katherine Keen?"
+
+"Ay. Since the girl disappeared----"
+
+"What a most extraordinary thing that was!" interrupted Mrs. Carlyon.
+"Can you in any way account for it, Squire?"
+
+"There's no way at all of accounting for it. Bodikins, no!"
+
+"I meant, have you any private theory of your own--as to what can have
+become of her?"
+
+"I know no more what could have become of her than _that_," returned
+the Squire, touching his stick, and then striking it on the ground to
+enforce emphasis. "It has troubled me above a bit, Gertrude, I can
+tell you. She was as nice and inoffensive a young girl as could be.
+Only the day before she disappeared she ran all across the garden to
+me to put my umbrella up, because a drop or two of rain began to fall.
+You can't think what a modest, kind, good little thing she was."
+
+"I always thought it," assented Mrs. Carlyon. "And I esteem her
+mother; she is so hard-working and respectable. What a trial it must
+have been for her, poor woman! I shall call and see her before I
+leave."
+
+"Ay. Why not? Well, it is altogether a very mysterious and unpleasant
+thing to have happened in this old house, and my pretty lassie, I see,
+does not forget it. She seems to mope, and to get a bit melancholy now
+and then. I fancy her eyes are not so bright as they used to be; she
+doesn't talk so much, or sing so much about the house. It's just as if
+there was always something hanging over her."
+
+"Of course she must have a change," spoke Mrs. Carlyon.
+
+"She was all the better for her visit to London in spring, but she was
+not long enough away," went on the Squire. "You know how lonely we are
+here. My health won't allow of my seeing much company, and Ella
+doesn't seem to care about extending her acquaintances. It will be
+horribly dull for her here this winter, with nobody in the house but a
+sick and cantankerous old man. I wish she could get right away out of
+England for six or eight months. She would come back to us next spring
+as merry as a blackbird. Why not, now?"
+
+"I need not say how glad I should be to take Ella with me," said Mrs.
+Carlyon. "But there's one question--would she go?--would she leave
+you?"
+
+"Odds bodikins!" cried the Squire, angrily, "is the child to set up
+her will against mine--and yours? It is for her good--and, go she
+must."
+
+"Do you think you are in a state to be left for a whole winter alone?"
+debated Mrs. Carlyon, remembering how greatly she at first thought him
+changed. "Will Ella think it?"
+
+"I! why I am twenty per cent, better than I was a month ago. There's
+no fear for me. And, if I became ill at any time, couldn't you be
+telegraphed to? I say that Ella must have a change for her own sake;
+and what I say I mean. Come now!"
+
+"Yes; it would no doubt be better for her," assented Mrs. Carlyon,
+slowly: but, Mr. Denison thought, dubiously.
+
+"Look here, Gertrude: for a woman you've got as sharp a share of sense
+as here and there one," cried he, lowering his tone as he bent forward
+towards her. "People have set up all kinds of superstitious notions
+about the affair; the women here hardly dare stir out of their
+kitchens after dusk. I find a notion prevails that Katherine is still
+in the house--is seen sometimes at her window at night. Now, as she
+can't be in the house alive, you--you must see what that means--folks
+are such fools, the uneducated ones. But, I put it to you,
+Gertrude--with this absurd nonsense being whispered about the house,
+whether it is fit the lassie should spend her winter in it? Eh, now,
+come!"
+
+He glanced keenly for a moment at Mrs. Carlyon, as if to see whether
+his words impressed her. And they certainly had.
+
+"No, it is not," she assented, speaking firmly, "and I will take her
+out of it. But--you speak of the young women-servants, I suppose,
+Gilbert? It is not at all seemly that they should be allowed to say
+such things. See Katherine at her window! How absurd! What next?"
+
+"And profess to hear weird sounds about the passages, whisperings, and
+such like," added the Squire, as if he had pleasure in repeating this.
+
+"What is Dorothy Stone about, to allow it?"
+
+"Dorothy is worse than they are: she always was the most superstitious
+woman I ever knew. Not a step dare she stir about the house now after
+dark. Old Aaron is in a rare rage with her; threatens to shake her
+sometimes," added the Squire with a grim smile.
+
+"There _can't_ be anything in it, you know, Gilbert."
+
+"I don't know," he answered: and Mrs. Carlyon stared at him. "After
+the disappearance of Katherine into--into air, as may be said, one may
+well believe any marvel. Eh, now?" continued the Squire. "At any rate,
+Gertrude, it seems to me that we may forgive these poor ignorant
+people who do believe. But, to go back to the question: Heron Dyke is
+getting an ill name for mystery, see you, and I do not choose that my
+innocent lassie shall pass the winter in it."
+
+"Quite right; I perceive all now, and I will take her out of it,
+Gilbert. At least for two or three of the dark months."
+
+"Two or three months won't do," cried the Squire, testily. "It would
+be of no use. She must not come back until the days are long and
+bright."
+
+"Well, well, I see how anxious you are for her," said Mrs. Carlyon;
+who, however, could hardly feel it right to let him be so long alone.
+"In any case, you would like her to be home before your birthday."
+
+The Squire did not answer. He seemed to be struggling with some inward
+emotion, and a curious spasm shot across his face. Mrs. Carlyon half
+rose from her chair, but sat down again.
+
+"Why before my birthday?" said he, at length. "It's no more to me than
+any other day. I never make a festival of it as some idiots do--as if
+it was something to rejoice over. She needn't come back for my
+birthday unless I send for her. I shall be sure to send if I want
+her."
+
+"If you became worse--or weaker--you would send?"
+
+"Ay, ay--why not? Don't we always want our dear ones with us in
+sickness? Not but, what with Jago's treatment, I seem to have taken a
+new lease of life. Look here: I should like the child to see Italy."
+
+"And so she shall. And she will enjoy it, I am sure, provided she can
+make her mind easy at leaving you. Ella is not like other girls; she
+is more reasonable," added Mrs. Carlyon. "Look at some flighty young
+things--thinking of nothing but of getting married."
+
+"Bodikins! the women are generally keen enough after that, nowadays.
+Ella never seems to care for the young fellows. Young Hanerly wanted
+her, came to me about it; but she'd have nothing to say to him.
+Whomsoever she marries, he will have to change his name to Denison.
+None but a Denison must inherit Heron Dyke."
+
+The thought occurred to Mrs. Carlyon--and it was on the tip of her
+tongue to say it--that Ella's husband might not inherit Heron Dyke. If
+the ailing man before her did not live to his next birthday, it must
+all pass away from Ella. But she kept silence.
+
+"I suppose you never by any chance hear from your cousin Gilbert?" she
+presently asked, the train of thought prompting the question.
+
+Mr. Denison's face darkened; a cold, hard look came into his eyes. He
+turned sharply round and faced his questioner, but she was directly
+regarding the smouldering logs on the hearth.
+
+"Hear from my cousin Gilbert!" he said in deep harsh tones. "And pray
+why should I want to hear from him? I would sooner receive a message
+from--from the commonest beggar. He would never have the impudence to
+write to me. Body o' me! Gilbert, forsooth! He has his spies round the
+place night and day, I know that; watching and waiting for the moment
+the breath will go out of me. But they will be deceived--they and
+their master: yes, Gertrude Carlyon, I tell you that they will be
+deceived! I am not dead yet, nor likely to die. I shall live to see my
+seventieth birthday--I know it, I feel it--and not one acre of the old
+estates shall go to that man!"
+
+He spoke with strange energy. It was evident that the old hatred
+towards his cousin still burned as fiercely in his heart as it had
+done forty years before.
+
+"I am afraid that son of his will prove no credit to the name he
+bears," Mrs. Carlyon remarked after a pause: and the Squire looked up
+but did not speak. "I am told that some time ago he had a terrible
+quarrel with his father. They separated in anger, and he has not been
+home since. He is supposed to have enlisted as a common soldier and
+gone out to India."
+
+Mr. Denison gave a sort of savage snarl.
+
+"Ay, ay, that's good news--rare news," he said. "I would give that boy
+a thousand pounds to keep him away from his father if I only knew
+where he was--two thousand to anyone who could point out his grave. An
+only son too. Ah, ah! Rare news!"
+
+At that moment Dr. Jago came in. When he saw the Squire's face, he
+looked anything but pleased.
+
+"Madam," said he to Mrs. Carlyon, "this must not be. If Mr. Denison is
+to get permanently better, he must be kept free from excitement. It
+might counteract all the good I am doing him."
+
+
+Mrs. Carlyon proposed a walk to Ella that lovely October afternoon,
+after making an inquiry or two in the household about the unpleasant
+topic touched on by the Squire. The air was mellow and gracious; and
+they took their way to the sands, seating themselves on the very spot
+where Ella had once sat with Edward Conroy. Never did she sit there
+but she thought of him; of what he had said; of his looks and tones.
+She wondered whether he was in Africa; she wondered when she should
+hear of him.
+
+It was low water, and where the vanished tide had been was now a tract
+of firm yellow sand with hardly a pebble in it; excellent to walk
+upon. Not till the solitude of the shore was about them did Mrs.
+Carlyon say a word to her companion on the subject that she had to
+break to her--their journeying together abroad.
+
+Ella was astonished, hurt; perhaps even a little indignant. Could her
+uncle really wish her to leave him and to go away for so long when he
+needed companionship and care? Mrs. Carlyon quietly soothed her,
+persuaded, reassured her; and finally told her that it was _best it
+should so be_.
+
+Allowing her niece to go in alone, Mrs. Carlyon turned her steps
+towards the little inn--the Leaning Gate. She had her curiosity about
+the doings of that past snowy night in February, just as other people
+had. The conversation with the Squire and with Dorothy Stone only
+served to whet it, to puzzle her more than ever, if that were
+possible; and to enhance her sympathy for poor Katherine's family.
+
+Mrs. Keen was waiting upon a customer who had halted at the inn for
+the day; Susan had taken her work into the garden. Mrs. Carlyon found
+her there seated on a rustic bench; she was hemming some new chamber
+towels. It was a large and pretty garden, filled with homely flowers
+in summer and with useful vegetables. A great bush of Michaelmas
+daisies was in blossom now, near the end of the bench. Susan sat
+without a bonnet, and the sunlight fell on her smooth brown hair, so
+soft and fine, just the same pretty hair that Katherine had: indeed,
+there had been a great resemblance between the sisters. She looked
+neat as usual--a small white apron on over her dark gown, a white
+collar at the neck. When she saw Mrs. Carlyon she got up to make her
+courtesy, and the tears filled her mournful grey eyes. That lady sat
+down by her and began to speak in a sympathising tone of the past
+trouble.
+
+"It is not past, ma'am," said Susan, in answer to a remark; "it never
+will be."
+
+"My good girl, I wanted to talk to you," said Mrs. Carlyon; "I came on
+purpose. What I have heard about you grieves me so much----"
+
+But here she stopped, for Mrs. Keen came running from the house to
+greet the visitor. The landlady was a comely woman with ample
+petticoats and a big white apron.
+
+Naturally, there could be only the one theme of conversation. The
+tears ran down Mrs. Keen's ruddy cheeks as they talked. Susan was
+pale, more delicate-looking than ever, and her eyes, dry now, had a
+far-off look in them. How greatly she put Mrs. Carlyon in mind of
+Katherine that lady did not choose to say.
+
+"I can understand all your distress, all your trouble," spoke she in a
+sympathising tone. "And the _uncertainty_ as to what became of her
+must be harder to bear than all else."
+
+"_Something_ must have interrupted her when she had just begun to
+undress; that seems to be evident, ma'am," said the mother. "She had
+taken off her cap and apron, her collar and ribbon--and all else that
+she had on disappeared with her. The question is, what that something
+could be. Susan thinks--but I'm afraid she thinks a great deal that is
+but idleness," broke off the mother, with a fond pitying glance at the
+girl.
+
+"What does Susan think?" asked Mrs. Carlyon.
+
+Susan lifted her white face to answer. The vacant look it mostly wore
+was very perceptible now; her tone became dull and monotonous.
+
+"Ma'am," she said, "I think that when Katherine had just got those few
+things off, somebody came to her door, and--and----"
+
+"And what?" said Mrs. Carlyon, for the girl had stopped.
+
+"I wish I knew what. I wish I could think what; but I can't. Some days
+I think he must have taken her out of the room, and some days I think
+he killed her in it. It fairly dazes me, ma'am."
+
+"Whom do you mean by 'he'?" again questioned Mrs. Carlyon, wondering
+whether the girl had anyone in particular in her mind.
+
+"It must have been some stranger, some wicked man that we don't
+know--or a woman," answered Susan, slowly. "Miss Winter had gone down
+then, and was out of hearing."
+
+"But there was no stranger at Heron Dyke that night, either man or
+woman," objected Mrs. Carlyon. "Only the women-servants, old Aaron,
+the Squire, and Miss Winter."
+
+"Somebody might have been hid in the house. She'd not go out of the
+room, ma'am, of her own accord."
+
+"Not unless she had something to go for," said Mrs. Carlyon; "though I
+do not see what it was likely to be," she slowly added. "Or, if she
+did go out, why did she not go back again?"
+
+"Ma'am," spoke the landlady, "against that theory there's the fact
+that she left the candle behind her. Miss Winter found it burnt down
+to the socket. If she had gone out of the room she would have taken
+the light with her."
+
+"It is a great mystery," mused Mrs. Carlyon. "What could have become
+of her? Where can she be?"
+
+"She was hurt in some way, or else frightened," said Susan. "Screams
+of terror, those two were, that I heard."
+
+"With regard to those screams," returned Mrs. Carlyon, "the singular
+thing is that no one else heard them; no one in the house."
+
+"Tom Barnet heard them, ma'am, the coachman's boy," interposed the
+mother, smoothing down the sleeve of her lilac cotton gown. "I can't
+think there's any doubt but that the screams came from Katherine. I'd
+give--I'd give all I'm worth to know where she is, dead or alive."
+
+"She is inside Heron Dyke!" cried Susan, her voice taking a sound of
+awe.
+
+"Nonsense," somewhat impatiently rebuked Mrs. Carlyon. "You ought to
+know that it cannot be, Susan."
+
+Susan lifted her patient face, a pleading kind of look on it.
+
+"Ma'am, she's there; she's there. I've seen her at the window of her
+room in the moonlight; it's three times now."
+
+"Run in, Susie; I thought I heard the gentleman's bell," spoke her
+mother, and Susan gathered up her work and went. But Mrs. Carlyon saw
+it was only a ruse to get rid of her.
+
+"She is growing almost silly upon the point, ma'am," Mrs. Keen began;
+"thinking she sees her sister at the window. I believe it's all fancy,
+for my part; nothing but the reflection of some tree branches cast on
+the window-blind by the moon."
+
+"Why don't you forbid her going up to Heron Dyke in the dark?"
+sensibly asked Mrs. Carlyon. "It cannot be good for her."
+
+"Because, ma'am, I'm feared that if I did, her mind would quite lose
+its balance," replied the mother. "I do stop her all I can; but I dare
+not do it quite always. The going up there to watch the windows for
+Katherine has become like meat and drink to her."
+
+Mrs. Carlyon sighed. Throughout the interview the landlady had never
+ceased to wipe her tears away; they rose in spite of her. It was
+altogether a very distressing case, and Mrs. Carlyon wished it had
+occurred anywhere rather than at Heron Dyke.
+
+"I suppose Katherine had no trouble? She was not in bad spirits?" she
+remarked.
+
+"She had no trouble in the world that I know of; there was none that
+she could have. Susan met her in Nullington the morning of the very
+day it happened, and she was as blithe as could be. Miss Winter was
+making some underthings for the poor little neglected Tysons, and
+found she had not got enough material to cut out the last, so she sent
+Katherine for another yard of it, charging her to make haste. Well,
+ma'am, Susan met her, as I tell you; and, as Katherine was going back
+to the Hall, she saw me standing at the door here. 'I hear you have
+heard from John, mother,' she called out; and her face was bright and
+her voice cheerful as a lark's; 'Susan says she will bring me up the
+letter this evening.' 'Come in for it now, child,' I answered her.
+'No,' she said, 'if I came in I should be sure to stop talking with
+you, and Miss Winter is waiting for what I've been to fetch. You'll
+let Susan bring it up this evening, mother.' 'If the weather holds
+up,' I answered, glancing at the skies, which seemed to threaten a
+fall of some sort; 'but her cold hangs about her, and I can't let her
+go out at night if rain comes on.' With that she nodded to me and ran
+on laughing; she used to think it a joke, the care I took of Susan.
+No, ma'am," concluded the mother, "my poor Katherine was in no trouble
+of mind."
+
+Mrs. Carlyon went back to the Hall full of thought. One thing she
+could not understand--how it was, if Katherine had screamed, that she
+should have been heard out of doors, and not indoors. And Mrs.
+Carlyon, that same evening, when she was dressing for dinner, sent
+Higson for Dorothy Stone, telling the maid she need not come back; and
+she put the question to Dorothy.
+
+Mrs. Stone went into a twitter forthwith. The least allusion to the
+subject invariably sent her into one. No, the cry had not been heard
+indoors, she answered. Neither by the master nor Miss Ella, who were
+shut up in the oak sitting-room, nor by her and the maids in the
+kitchen. But the north wing was ever so far off, and she did not think
+they could have heard it. The only one about the house was Aaron, and
+he ought to have heard it, if any scream had been screamed.
+
+"And he did not hear it?" spoke Mrs. Carlyon.
+
+"Aaron heard nothing, ma'am," replied the housekeeper. "The corridors
+and passages, above and below, were just as silent as they always are,
+inside this great lonely house at night; and that's as silent as the
+grave. Aaron was locking up, and could well have heard any scream in
+the north wing. He was longer than usual that night, as it chanced,
+for he got his oil, and was oiling the front-door lock, which had
+grown a bit rusty. Had there been any noise in the north wing,
+screaming, or what not, he could not have failed to hear it: and for
+that reason he holds to it to this day that there was none; that the
+screams Susan Keen professed to hear were just her flighty fancy."
+
+"And do you think so, Dorothy?"
+
+"Ma'am, I don't know what to say," answered the old woman, pushing
+back her grey hair, as she was apt to do when in a puzzle of thought.
+"I should think it was the girl's fancy but for Tom Barnet. Tom holds
+to it that the two screams were there, sure enough, just as Susan
+does; the last a good deal fainter than the first."
+
+"There's the dinner-gong!" exclaimed Mrs. Carlyon, as the sound boomed
+up from below. "And none of my ornaments on yet. Clasp this bracelet
+for me, will you, Dorothy. We will talk more of this another time. Dr.
+Jago dines here to-night, I hear: what a fancy the Squire seems to
+have taken to him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+FAREWELL.
+
+
+The day of departure was here, bringing with it Ella's last afternoon
+at Heron Dyke for several weeks, or it might be, for several months to
+come. Her uncle's will in the matter, combined with Mrs. Carlyon's,
+had conquered her own. Dr. Jago added his influence in the shape of a
+warning, that his patient must on no account be irritated by
+contradiction or he would not be answerable for the consequences.
+
+Ella felt that there was no other course open to her than to yield;
+but she cried many bitter tears in secret. She did not want to leave
+home at all just now, although ten days or a fortnight in Paris might
+have proved a pleasant change. But to go away for a whole winter, and
+so far away too, was certainly something that she had never
+contemplated. It was true that Mr. Denison seemed better in health,
+much better; but, for all that, she had a presentiment which she could
+not get rid of, that if she left him now she should never see him
+again in this world. Still, she had to obey her uncle's wishes.
+
+And now the last afternoon was here, and waning quickly. She had
+bidden farewell to Maria Kettle, to Lady Cleeve, and all other
+friends; she had taken her last walk along the shore, her last look at
+the garden and grounds, each familiar spot had been visited in turn;
+and it seemed to her as though she were bidding them farewell for
+ever. She and Mrs. Carlyon were going up to London by the evening
+train; they would spend a couple of days in town and then cross by the
+Dover boat.
+
+Through the leaden-paned windows of Mr. Denison's sitting-room the
+rays of the October sun shone wanly, lighting up a point of panelling
+here and there, or lending a momentary freshness, a forgotten grace,
+to one or other of the faded portraits on the walls. As the sick man
+sat there in his big leathern chair, his dim eyes wandered now and
+again to the motto of his family where, lighted by the sun, it shone
+out in colours blood-red and golden high up in the central window.
+There was a ring of worldly pride in the words, of the strength and
+the glory of possession. "What I have I hold." How much longer would
+he, the living head of the house, continue to hold anything of that
+which earth had given him? Already the cold airs of the grave blew
+about him: already he seemed to hear the dread words, "Ashes to
+ashes," while from the sexton's clay-stained fingers a little earth
+was crumbled on to his coffin lid. "What I have I hold." Vain mockery!
+when the grim Captain whispers in your ear, and bids you follow him.
+
+Ella sat on a low hassock at her uncle's knee. One of her hands was
+tightly grasped in his, while his other hand stroked her hair fondly.
+It was a gaunt and bony hand, and seemed all unfitted for such loving
+usages. They spoke to each other in low tones, with frequent pauses
+between. To any stranger there, who could have heard their voices but
+not their words, it would have seemed as if they were discussing some
+trivial topic of every-day life. But both Ella and the Squire had
+determined that they would keep a strict guard over their feelings.
+Neither of them would let the other see the emotions at work below,
+though each might guess at their existence. Dr. Jago had warned the
+young lady to make her parting as quiet a one as possible: excitement
+of any kind was hurtful to his patient. Mr. Denison's proud hard
+nature could not entirely change itself, even at a time like the
+present; besides which, he wanted to make the separation as little
+distressing to Ella as might be. It maybe that he felt that if she
+were to break down at the last moment and betray much emotion, his own
+veneer of stoicism might not prove of much avail.
+
+"I think, Uncle Gilbert, you understand clearly the arrangements made
+for our communicating with each other while I am away?" said Ella.
+
+"I think so, my pretty one. You can go over them again if you like."
+
+"I will write to you once a week, and send you a telegram as often as
+we leave one place for another. Hubert Stone will write to me in your
+name every Monday to save you from fatigue; and you must write
+sometimes yourself. Should your health change in the slightest degree
+for the worse, he will telegraph to me without a moment's delay."
+
+"That's it: I shan't forget," said Mr. Denison. "What with this
+telegraphing, and one thing or another, it will seem as if you were no
+farther away than the next village."
+
+"I shall feel that we are very far apart," said Ella. "You forget what
+a long time it takes to travel from Italy to Heron Dyke."
+
+"Nothing like the time it used to take when I was a young spark. I
+remember when I went the grand tour as it was called--but there,
+there, we have something else to talk about now. Anyhow, railroads are
+a wonderful invention."
+
+There were twenty things on Ella's tongue that she would have liked to
+speak of, but that it might be more wise to refrain from. Dr. Jago's
+warning words rarely left her thoughts.
+
+"Be sure to wrap yourself up warmly when you go out in the carriage,
+uncle."
+
+"Ay, ay, dearie, I won't forget."
+
+"I shall come back to you the first week in the new year. Two months
+will be quite long enough to be away from home."
+
+"We have agreed to see about that, you know, my lassie. I will send
+you word when I feel that I want you, and then you will come. Not
+before, I think--not before."
+
+It was a topic that Ella dared not pursue further. She kissed his hand
+with tears in her eyes. He patted her cheek lovingly.
+
+"Oh! why does he persist so strongly in sending me away?" she thought.
+"Hubert let fall a word--an inadvertent one, I think--the other night,
+that they feared I should be melancholy in this gloomy old house in
+the winter. It is gloomy now, but I could have put up with that very
+well."
+
+"If I get on as famously for the next month or two as I have for the
+last three weeks," said the Squire, "I shall be able to drive to the
+station and meet you when you come home. And then when the sun comes
+out warm next spring, I can take your arm, and we can walk again in
+the peach alley as we used to do. Why not?"
+
+Was there something wistful in his voice, as he spoke thus, that
+caused Ella to glance up quickly into his face.
+
+"Are you sure, uncle, that you are really as much stronger and better
+as you say you are?" she asked quickly, and with ill-concealed
+anxiety.
+
+One of his old suspicious flashes came into his eyes, but it died away
+next moment.
+
+"Am I sure, dearie? Why--why, what makes you ask that? You can
+see for yourself that I'm better. Yes, Jago's making another man of
+me--another man."
+
+"Tell me the truth, uncle," she exclaimed passionately, "_why_ is it
+that you are driving me away? I am sure there is some special reason
+for it."
+
+For a moment or two the Squire did not answer: his face was working
+with some inward excitement, his fingers, stroking the hand he held,
+trembled visibly.
+
+"The house is getting uncanny, child," he said at last, "and I won't
+suffer my pretty one to be in it through the dark months. Before
+another winter comes round, perhaps the mystery will be solved; I hope
+it will be. Any way, we shall by that time have become more reconciled
+to it."
+
+"But, uncle----"
+
+"No objection, my dear one. You have never made any to my will yet,
+and you must not begin now. Understand, child: I am sending you away
+for _the best_; the best for you and for me; and you must be guided by
+me implicitly, as you ever have been."
+
+Ella sighed--and would not let him see her tears.
+
+The yellow sunlight faded and vanished from the gloomy room, the old
+portraits on the walls shrank farther back into the twilight of their
+frames and were lost to view, the log on the hearth crackled and
+glowed more redly bright as darkness crept on apace, and still those
+two sat hand in hand, speaking a few words now and then, but mostly
+silent. At length the moment of departure came, the carriage was at
+the door, and Mrs. Carlyon entered, ready for travelling.
+
+The Squire grasped the back of his chair with one hand; he was
+trembling in every limb. Mrs. Carlyon bade him goodbye quietly and
+without fuss. He kissed her, and held her hand.
+
+"Gertrude," he said, "into your hands I commit my one earthly
+treasure. I charge you with the care of it. Never forget!"
+
+Ella clung to him, and laid her head upon his breast. His rugged
+features worked convulsively. He lifted her face tenderly between his
+hands and kissed her several times.
+
+"Let me stay with you, uncle. Why drive me away?" she said
+imploringly.
+
+For a moment there came into his eyes a gleam of agony terrible to
+see: it was a look which Ella never forgot.
+
+"No--no--it must not be: I am doing for the best," he repeated,
+in a hoarse whisper; "I tell it you. Farewell, my sweetest and
+best--farewell. Go now--go now," he whispered, as he sank into his
+chair and pointed to the door.
+
+Hubert Stone, looking every inch a gentleman, attended them to the
+station, sitting on the box with Barnet. Higson went inside with the
+ladies. At the station, Ella took Hubert aside for a private word.
+
+"You will be sure not to forget your instructions, Hubert?"
+
+"I shall not forget one of them, Miss Ella," was his answer. "You may
+rely upon that."
+
+"You must watch my uncle narrowly. Should you see the approach of any
+change in him, telegraph to me. Question your friend, Dr. Jago,
+continually of his state. Say nothing to my uncle. I will take the
+responsibility if you send for me. You will always know where we are,
+for I shall keep you well informed."
+
+The young man bowed. He was afraid to let his eyes meet hers: she
+might perhaps have fathomed the burning secret that lay half hidden
+there--his passionate love.
+
+"I trust you, Hubert; remember that: I have only you to trust to now
+at Heron Dyke. And now, goodbye."
+
+Hubert clasped the hand she extended to him. And the next moment he
+assisted her into the carriage.
+
+"Ah, if I might dare to think it would ever be!" he groaned, watching
+the train as it puffed out of the station. "And, I do think it may, I
+fear, more than is wholesome for me; for the hope is little short of
+madness."
+
+At that time the county of Norfolk had been startled from its
+propriety by the ill-judged action of a young lady belonging to the
+family of one of its magnates. She had married one of her father's
+men-servants. Hubert Stone lit his cigar, and quitted the station to
+return home, thinking of this. Strange to say, he saw in it some
+encouragement for himself.
+
+"If Miss G. can stoop to marry a low fellow like that, surely there's
+nothing so very outrageous in my aspiring to Ella Winter! I am well
+educated; I can behave as a gentleman; I am good-looking. There's
+nothing against me but birth--and fortune. She will have enough of the
+latter if she comes into Heron Dyke--and if Jago's clever, I expect
+she will. Any way her fortune will be a fair one, for the Squire must
+have saved hoards of money. She can well afford to dispense with money
+in whomsoever she may marry: and if she can only be brought to
+overlook the disadvantage of my birth----"
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Stone. And how's the Squire?"
+
+Hubert's dreams were thus cut short. He answered the question
+mechanically, and stopped to talk to the chance acquaintance who had
+accosted him.
+
+Meanwhile Ella and Mrs. Carlyon were speeding London-ward as fast as
+the Great Eastern Railway could carry them. At Cambridge there was a
+stoppage for two or three minutes. Suddenly Mrs. Carlyon uttered an
+exclamation of surprise.
+
+"Ella, look! Look there! that is surely Mr. Conroy. He is looking for
+a seat."
+
+Ella bent forward. The next moment Mr. Conroy recognised them. He
+advanced to the carriage window, and raised his hat.
+
+"Who, in the name of wonder, expected to see you here?" exclaimed Mrs.
+Carlyon, as she held out her hand. "I thought you were in Ashantee."
+
+"It is one of my privileges to turn up in unexpected places," he
+answered. Then he shook hands with Ella and inquired after Mr.
+Denison.
+
+"Were you looking for a place?--are you going to town?" asked Mrs.
+Carlyon. "If you don't mind travelling with unprotected females,
+there's plenty of room here."
+
+And, thanking her, into the carriage stepped Edward Conroy, with the
+frank look and smile that Ella remembered so well.
+
+"Well, if he is not a cool one!" thought the discerning Higson to
+herself. "I'd not mind answering for it that in some way he got to
+know Miss Ella would be here, and came down from town on purpose to
+meet her. I can read it in his eyes. There's no answering for what
+these venturesome young gents will do!"
+
+"And will you kindly explain to us, Mr. Conroy, what business you have
+to be in England when you ought to be sketching black people out in
+Africa?"
+
+"Within twenty-four hours of the time I was to have sailed, I received
+a telegram informing me that my father was dangerously ill. Under the
+circumstances, I could not sail; I had to go to him instead. I stayed
+some time with him, left him better, and then found that Dempster had
+been sent in my place."
+
+"And a very fortunate thing too."
+
+Conroy laughed.
+
+"You lack enterprise, Mrs. Carlyon. I am afraid that you would never
+do for a special correspondent. Do you expect to make a long stay in
+London this time?" he asked, turning to Ella.
+
+"We intend starting for the Continent the day after tomorrow,"
+answered Mrs. Carlyon. "You had better come and dine with us tomorrow
+evening: there will be no one but ourselves and Mr. Bootle."
+
+"I shall be very happy to do so," replied Conroy. "What place are you
+going to make your head-quarters while you are away?"
+
+"I had some thoughts of San Remo, but we shall probably be birds of
+passage and not stay long in any one place."
+
+Conroy saw that Ella was silent, and guessed the parting with her
+uncle had been a sad one. What he did not know was, how sweet his
+presence and company were to her. She had been thinking of him that
+very day--thinking of him sadly as of one whom she might never see
+again; and now he was here, sitting opposite to her. What rare chance
+had brought him?--She did not talk much, she was satisfied to hear his
+voice and see his face; at present she craved nothing more. The
+journey she so much dreaded had all at once been invested with a
+charm, with an unexpected sweetness, which she never tried to analyse:
+enough for her that it was there.
+
+Conroy saw the ladies into their carriage at the London terminus, and
+bade them goodbye till the following evening. Then he lighted a cigar
+and set out to walk to his rooms in the Adelphi. He was in a musing
+mood, debating some question with himself as he walked along.
+
+"Shall I tell Mrs. Carlyon a certain secret, or shall I not?" he
+thought. "Would she keep it to herself? No, no; better be on the safe
+side," he presently decided: "and the time is hardly ripe to tell it
+to anyone. What would Squire Denison say if it were whispered to him?"
+
+On this very evening, while these ladies were on their way to London,
+a strange thing happened at Heron Dyke.
+
+It was about eight o'clock. Fitch the saddler had come up from
+Nullington about some little matter of business, and Aaron Frost sent
+one of the housemaids to fetch him a certain whip that was hanging up
+in the hall. As Martha left the room with her candle she met her
+fellow-servant, Ann, and the latter turned to accompany her. The girls
+never cared to go about the big house singly after dark. They went
+along chattering merrily, and thinking of anything rather than
+unpleasant subjects. Martha was repeating a ludicrous story just told
+in the kitchen by the saddler, and could hardly tell it for laughing.
+
+As in many old mansions, round three sides of the entrance-hall there
+ran an oaken gallery, some twenty feet above the ground, from which
+various doors gave access to different parts of the house. This
+gallery was reached from the hall by a broad and shallow flight of
+stairs.
+
+"How cold this place always strikes one," exclaimed Ann, as they
+entered the hall.
+
+"It would want many a dozen of candles to light it up properly,"
+remarked Martha.
+
+Having found the whip, they turned to retrace their steps, when
+Martha, happening to glance up at the gallery, gave utterance to a low
+cry, and grasped her companion by the arm. Ann's eyes involuntarily
+followed the same direction, and a similar cry of intense terror burst
+from her lips.
+
+They saw the face of the missing girl--the face of Katherine Keen,
+gazing down upon them from the gallery. The face was very pale; white
+as that of the dead. The figure was leaning over the balustrade of the
+gallery, and its eyes gazed down into theirs with a sad, fixed, weary
+look. It seemed to be clothed in something dark, pulled partly over
+its head and grasped at the throat by the white, slender fingers. For
+fully half a minute, the two girls stood and stared up at the figure
+in sheer incapability, and the figure looked sadly down upon them. At
+length it moved--it turned--it took a step forward, and the servants,
+both of them, distinctly heard the sound of a faint far-away sigh.
+Could it be possible that the figure meant to come downstairs? The
+spell that had held the girls was broken; with low smothered cries of
+terror they turned and fled, clinging to each other.
+
+How the one dropped the whip and the other the candle, and how
+they at length gained the kitchen, and burst into it with their
+terror-stricken faces and their unhappy tale, they never knew. Fitch
+the saddler gazed in open-eyed amazement, as well he might; the deaf
+and stolid cook looked in from the cooking-kitchen--in which congenial
+place she preferred to sit, surrounded by her saucepans.
+
+The girls sobbed forth all the dismal story. Their mistress, Mrs.
+Stone, flung her apron over her head as she listened, and sank back in
+her chair in dismay equal to theirs. But old Aaron was so indignant,
+so scandalised, at what he called their senseless folly, that he lost
+his breath in a rage, and gave each of them a month's warning on the
+spot.
+
+
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+________________________________________________________
+BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS AND ELECTROTYPERS, GUILDFORD.
+
+_Y. S. & Sons_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mysteries of Heron Dyke, Volume I
+(of 3), by T. W. Speight
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57755 ***