CHAPTER I.

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errors is found at the end (before the advertisments from the original

book).

THE DANVERS JEWELS

AND

SIR CHARLES DANVERS

by

Mary Cholmondeley

NEW YORK

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE

1890

* * * * *

TO MY SISTER

"DI"

I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE THE STORY

WHICH SHE HELPED ME

TO WRITE

* * * * *

CONTENTS.

THE DANVERS JEWELS 9

THE SEQUEL.

SIR CHARLES DANVERS 93

* * * * *

THE DANVERS JEWELS.

CHAPTER I.

I was on the point of leaving India and returning to England when he

sent for me. At least, to be accurate--and I am always accurate--I was

not quite on the point, but nearly, for I was going to start by the mail

on the following day. I had been up to Government House to take my leave

a few days before, but Sir John had been too ill to see me, or at least

he had said he was. And now he was much worse--dying, it seemed, from

all accounts; and he had sent down a native servant in the noon-day heat

with a note, written in his shaking old hand, begging me to come up as

soon as it became cooler. He said he had a commission which he was

anxious I should do for him in England.

Of course I went. It was not very convenient, because I had to borrow

one of our fellows' traps, as I had sold my own, and none of them had

the confidence in my driving which I had myself. I was also obliged to

leave the packing of my collection of Malay _krises_ and Indian

_kookeries_ to my bearer.

I wondered as I drove along why Sir John had sent for me. Worse, was he?

Dying? And without a friend. Poor old man! He had done pretty well in

this world, but I was afraid he would not be up to much once he was out

of it; and now it seemed he was going. I felt sorry for him. I felt more

sorry when I saw him--when the tall, long-faced A.D.C. took me into his

room and left us. Yes, Sir John was certainly going. There was no

mistake about it. It was written in every line of his drawn fever-worn

face, and in his wide fever-lit eyes, and in the clutch of his long

yellow hands upon his tussore silk dressing-gown. He looked a very sick

bad old man as he lay there on his low couch, placed so as to court the

air from without, cooled by its passage through damped grass screens,

and to receive the full strength of the punka, pulled by an invisible

hand outside.

"You go to England to-morrow?" he asked, sharply.

It was written even in the change of his voice, which was harsh, as of

old, but with all the strength gone out of it.

"By to-morrow's mail," I said. I should have liked to say something

more--something sympathetic about his being ill and not likely to get

better; but he had always treated me discourteously when he was well,

and I could not open out all at once now that he was ill.

"Look here, Middleton," he went on; "I am dying, and I know it. I don't

suppose you imagined I had sent for you to bid you a last farewell

before departing to my long home. I am not in such a hurry to depart as

all that, I can tell you; but there is something I want done--that I

want you to do for me. I meant to have done it myself, but I am down

now, and I must trust somebody. I know better than to trust a clever

man. An honest fool--But I am digressing from the case in point. I have

never trusted anybody all my life, so you may feel honored. I have a

small parcel which I want you to take to England for me. Here it is."

His long lean hands went searching in his dressing-gown, and presently

produced an old brown bag, held together at the neck by a string.

"See here!" he said; and he pushed the glasses and papers aside from the

table near him and undid the string. Then he craned forward to look

about him, laying a spasmodic clutch on the bag. "I'm watched! I know

I'm watched!" he said in a whisper, his pale eyes turning slowly in

their sockets. "I shall be killed for them if I keep them much longer,

and I won't be hurried into my grave. I'll take my own time."

"There is no one here," I said, "and no one in sight except Cathcart,

smoking in the veranda, and I can only see his legs, so he can't see

us."

He seemed to recover himself, and laughed. I had never liked his laugh,

especially when, as had often happened, it had been directed against

myself; but I liked it still less now.

"See here!" he repeated, chuckling; and he turned the bag inside out

upon the table.

Such jewels I had never seen. They fell like cut flame upon the marble

table--green and red and burning white. A large diamond rolled and fell

upon the floor. I picked it up and put it back among the confused blaze

of precious stones, too much astonished for a moment to speak.

"Beautiful! aren't they?" the old man chuckled, passing his wasted hands

over them. "You won't match that necklace in any jeweller's in England.

I tore it off an old she-devil of a Rhanee's neck after the Mutiny, and

got a bite in the arm for my trouble. But she'll tell no tales. He! he!

he! I don't mind saying now how I got them. I am a humble Christian, now

I am so near heaven--eh, Middleton? He! he! You don't like to contradict

me. Look at those emeralds. The hasp is broken, but it makes a pretty

bracelet. I don't think I'll tell you how the hasp got broken--little

accident as the lady who wore it gave it to me. Rather brown, isn't it,

on one side? but it will come off. No, you need not be afraid of

touching it, it isn't wet. He! he! And this crescent. Look at those

diamonds. A duchess would be proud of them. I had them from a private

soldier. I gave him two rupees for them. Dear me! how the sight of them

brings back old times. But I won't leave them out any longer. We must

put them away--put them away." And the glittering mass was gathered up

and shovelled back into the old brown bag. He looked into it once with

hungry eyes, and then he pulled the string and pushed it over to me.

"Take it," he said. "Put it away now. Put it away," he repeated, as I

hesitated.

I put the bag into my pocket. He gave a long sigh as he watched it

disappear.

"Now what you have got to do with that bag," he said, a moment

afterwards, "is to take it to Ralph Danvers, the second son of Sir

George Danvers, of Stoke Moreton, in D----shire. Sir George has got two

sons. I have never seen him or his sons, but I don't mean the eldest to

have them. He is a spendthrift. They are all for Ralph, who is a steady

fellow, and going to marry a nice girl--at least, I suppose she is a

nice girl. Girls who are going to be married always _are_ nice. Those

jewels will sweeten matrimony for Mr. Ralph, and if she is like other

women it will need sweetening. There, now you have got them, and that is

what you have got to do with them. There is the address written on this

card. With my compliments, you perceive. He! he! I don't suppose they

will remember who I am."

"Have you no relations?" I asked; for I am always strongly of opinion

that property should be bequeathed to relatives, especially near

relatives, rather than to entire strangers.

"None," he replied, "not even poor relations. I have no deserving

nephew or Scotch cousin. If I had, they would be here at this moment

smoothing the pillow of the departing saint, and wondering how much they

would get. You may make your mind easy on that score."

"Then who is this Ralph whom you have never seen, and to whom you are

leaving so much?" I asked, with my usual desire for information.

He glared at me for a moment, and then he turned his face away.

"D----n it! What does it matter, now I'm dying?" he said. And then he

added, hoarsely, "I knew his mother."

I could not speak, but involuntarily I put out my hand and took his

leaden one and held it. He scowled at me, and then the words came out,

as if in spite of himself--

"She--if she had married me, who knows what might--But she married

Danvers. She called her second son Ralph. My first name is Ralph." Then,

with a sudden change of tone, pulling away his hand, "There! now you

know all about it! Edifying, isn't it? These death-bed scenes always

have an element of interest, haven't they? _Good_-evening"--ringing the

bell at his elbow--"I can't say I hope we shall meet again. It would be

impolite. No, don't let me keep you. Good-bye again."

"Good-bye, Sir John," I said, taking his impatient hand and shaking it

gently; "God bless you."

"Thankee," grinned the old man, with a sardonic chuckle; "if anything

could do me good that will, I'm sure. Good-bye."

* * * * *

As I breakfasted next morning, previously to my departure, I could not

help reflecting on the different position in which I was now returning

to England, as a colonel on long leave, to that in which I had left it

many--I do not care to think how many--years ago, the youngest ensign in

the regiment.

It was curious to remember that in my youth I had always been considered

the fool of the family; most unjustly so considered when I look back at

my quick promotion owing to casualties, and at my long and prosperous

career in India, which I cannot but regard as the result of high

principles and abilities, to say the least of it, of not the meanest

order. On the point of returning to England, the trust Sir John had with

his usual shrewdness reposed in me was an additional proof, if proof

were needed, of the confidence I had inspired in him--a confidence which

seemed to have ripened suddenly at the end of his life, after many years

of hardly concealed mockery and derision. Just as I was finishing my

reflections and my breakfast, Dickson, one of the last joined

subalterns, came in.

"This is very awful," he said, so gravely that I turned to look at him.

"What is awful?"

"Don't you know?" he replied. "Haven't you heard about--Sir John--last

night?"

"Dead?" I asked.

He nodded; and then he said--

"Murdered in the night! Cathcart heard a noise and went in, and stumbled

over him on the floor. As he came in he saw the lamp knocked over, and a

figure rush out through the veranda. The moon was bright, and he saw a

man run across a clear space in the moonlight--a tall, slightly built

man in native dress, but not a native, Cathcart said; that he would take

his oath on, by his build. He roused the house, but the man got clean

off, of course."

"And Sir John?"

"Sir John was quite dead when Cathcart got back to him. He found him

lying on his face. His arms were spread out, and his dressing-gown was

torn, as if he had struggled hard. His pockets had been turned inside

out, his writing-table drawers forced open, the whole room had been

ransacked; yet the old man's gold watch had not been touched, and some

money in one of the drawers had not been taken. What on earth is the

meaning of it all?" said young Dickson, below his breath. "What was the

thief after?"

In a moment the truth flashed across my brain. I put two and two

together as quickly as most men, I fancy. _The jewels!_ Some one had got

wind of the jewels, which at that moment were reposing on my own person

in their old brown bag. Sir John had been only just in time.

"What was he looking for?" continued Dickson, walking up and down. "The

old man must have had some paper or other about him that he wanted to

get hold of. But what? Cathcart says that nothing whatever has been

taken, as far as he can see at present."

I was perfectly silent. It is not every man who would have been so in my

place, but I was. I know when to hold my tongue, thank Heaven!

Presently the others came in, all full of the same subject, and then

suddenly I remembered that it was getting late; and there was a bustle

and a leave-taking, and I had to post off before I could hear more. Not,

however, that there was much more to hear, for everything seemed to be

in the greatest confusion, and every species of conjecture was afloat as

to the real criminal, and the motive for the crime. I had not much time

to think of anything during the first day on board; yet, busy as I was

in arranging and rearranging my things, poor old Sir John never seemed

quite absent from my mind. His image, as I had last seen him, constantly

rose before me, and the hoarse whisper was forever sounding in my ears,

"I'm watched! I know I'm watched!" I could not get him out of my head. I

was unable to sleep the first night I was on board, and, as the long

hours wore on, I always seemed to see the pale searching eyes of the

dead man; and above the manifold noises of the steamer, and the

perpetual lapping of the calm water against my ear, came the whisper,

"I'm watched! I know I'm watched!"

CHAPTER II.

I was all right next day. I suppose I had had what women call _nerves_.

I never knew what nerves meant before, because no two women I ever met

seemed to have the same kind. If it is slamming a door that upsets one

woman's nerves, it may be coming in on tiptoe that will upset another's.

You never can tell. But I am sure it was nerves with me that first

night; I know I have never felt so queer since. Oh yes I have,

though--once. I was forgetting; but I have not come to that yet.

We had a splendid passage home. Most of the passengers were in good

spirits at the thought of seeing England again, and even the children

were not so troublesome as I have known them. I soon made friends with

some of the nicest people, for I generally make friends easily. I do not

know how I do it, but I always seem to know what people really are at

first sight. I always was rather a judge of character.

There was one man on board whom I took a great fancy to from the first.

He was a young American, travelling about, as Americans do, to see the

world. I forget where he had come from--though I believe he told me--or

why he was going to London; but a nicer young fellow I never met. He was

rather simple and unsophisticated, and with less knowledge of the world

than any man I ever knew; but he did not mind owning to it, and was as

grateful as possible for any little hints which, as an older man who had

not gone through life with his eyes shut, I was of course able to give

him. He was of a shy disposition I could see, and wanted drawing out;

but he soon took to me, and in a surprisingly short time we became

friends. He was in the next cabin to mine, and evidently wished so much

to have been with me, that I tried to get another man to exchange; but

he was grumpy about it, and I had to give it up, much to young Carr's

disappointment. Indeed, he was quite silent and morose for a whole day

about it, poor fellow. He was a tall handsome young man, slightly built,

with the kind of sallow complexion that women admire, and I wondered at

his preferring my company to that of the womankind on board, who were

certainly very civil to him. One evening when I was rallying him on the

subject, as we were leaning over the side (for though it was December it

was hot enough in the Red Sea to lounge on deck), he told me that he was

engaged to be married to a beautiful young American girl. I forget her

name, but I remember he told it me--Dulcima Something--but it is of no

consequence. I quite understood then. I always can enter into the

feelings of others so entirely. I know when I was engaged myself once,

long ago, I did not seem to care to talk to any one but her. She did not

feel the same about it, which perhaps accounted for her marrying some

one else, which was quite a blow to me at the time. But still I could

fully enter into young Carr's feelings, especially when he went on to

expatiate on her perfections. Nothing, he averred, was too good for her.

At last he dropped his voice, and, after looking about him in the dusk,

to make sure he was not overheard, he said:

"I have picked up a few stones for her on my travels; a few sapphires of

considerable value. I don't care to have it generally known that I have

jewels about me, but I don't mind telling _you_."

"My dear fellow," I replied, laying my hand on his shoulder, and sinking

my voice to a whisper, "not a soul on board this vessel suspects it, but

so have I."

It was too dark for me see his face, but I felt that he was much

impressed by what I had told him.

"Then _you_ will know where I had better keep mine," he said, a moment

later, with his impulsive boyish confidence. "How fortunate I told you

about them. Some are of considerable value, and--and I don't know where

to put them that they will be absolutely safe. I never carried about

jewels with me before, and I am nervous about _losing_ them, you

understand." And he nodded significantly at me. "Now where would you

advise me to keep them?"

"On you," I said, significantly.

"But where?"

He was simpler than even I could have believed.

"My dear boy," I said, hardly able to refrain from laughing, "do as I

do; put them in a bag with a string to it. Put the string round your

neck, and wear that bag under your clothes night and day."

"At night as well?" he asked, anxiously.

"Of course. You are just as likely to _lose_ them, as you call it, in

the night as in the day."

"I'm very much obliged to you," he replied. "I will take your advice

this very night. I say," he added, suddenly, "you would not care to see

them, would you? I would not have any one else catch sight of them for a

good deal, but I would show you them in a moment. Every one else is on

deck just now, if you would like to come down into my cabin."

I hardly know one stone from another, and never could tell a diamond

from paste; but he seemed so anxious to show me what he had, that I did

not like to refuse.

"By all means," I said. And we went below.

It was very dark in Carr's cabin, and after he had let me in he locked

the door carefully before he struck a light. He looked quite pale in the

light of the lamp after the red dusk of the warm evening on deck.

"I don't want to have other fellows coming in," he said in a whisper,

nodding at the door.

He stood looking at me for a moment as if irresolute, and then he

suddenly seemed to arrive at some decision, for he pulled a small parcel

out of his pocket and began to open it.

They really were not much to look at, though I would not have told him

so for worlds. There were a few sapphires--one of a considerable size,

but uncut--and some handsome turquoises, but not of perfect color. He

turned them over with evident admiration.

"They will look lovely, set in gold, as a bracelet on _her_ arm," he

said, softly. He was very much in love, poor fellow! And then he added,

humbly, "But I dare say they are nothing to yours."

I chuckled to myself at the thought of his astonishment when he should

actually behold them; but I only said, "Would you like to see them, and

judge for yourself?"

"Oh! if it is not giving you too much trouble," he exclaimed,

gratefully, with shining eyes. "It's very kind of you. I did not like to

ask. Have you got them with you?"

I nodded, and proceeded to unbutton my coat.

At that moment a voice was heard shouting down the companion-ladder:

"Carr! I say, Carr, you are wanted!" and in another moment some one was

hammering on the door.

Carr sprang to his feet, looking positively savage.

"Carr!" shouted the voice again. "Come out, I say; you are wanted!"

"Button up your coat," he whispered, scowling suddenly; and with an oath

he opened the door.

Poor Carr! He was quite put out, I could see, though he recovered

himself in a moment, and went off laughing with the man, who had been

sent for him to take his part in a rehearsal which had been suddenly

resolved on; for theatricals had been brewing for some time, and he had

promised to act in them. I had not been asked to join, so I saw no more

of him that night. The following morning, as I was taking an early turn

on the deck, he joined me, and said, with a smile, as he linked his arm

in mine, "I was put out last night, wasn't I?"

"But you got over it in a moment," I replied. "I quite admired you; and,

after all, you know--some other time."

"No," he said, smiling still, "not some other time. I don't think I will

see them--thanks all the same. They might put me out of conceit with

what I have picked up for my little girl, which are the best I can

afford."

He seemed to have lost all interest in the subject, for he began to talk

of England, and of London, about which he appeared to have that kind of

vague half-and-half knowledge which so often proves misleading to young

men newly launched into town life. When he found out, as he soon did,

that I was, to a certain extent, familiar with the metropolis, he began

to question me minutely, and ended by making me promise to dine with him

at the Criterion, of which he had actually never heard, and go with him

afterwards to the best of the theatres the day after we arrived in

London.

He wanted me to go with him the very evening we arrived, but on that

point I was firm. My sister Jane, who was living with a hen canary

(called Bob, after me, before its sex was known) in a small house in

Kensington, would naturally be hurt if I did not spend my first evening

in England with her, after an absence of so many years.

Carr was much interested to hear that I had a sister, and asked

innumerable questions about her. Was she young and lovely, or was she

getting on? Did she live all by herself, and was I going to stay with

her for long? Was not Kensington--was that the name of the

street?--rather out of the world? etc.

I was pleased with the interest he took in any particulars about myself

and my relations. People so seldom care to hear about the concerns of

others. Indeed, I have noticed, as I advance in life, such a general

want of interest on the part of my acquaintance in the minutiæ of my

personal affairs that of late I have almost ceased to speak of them at

any length. Carr, however, who was of what I should call a truly

domestic turn of character, showed such genuine pleasure in hearing

about myself and my relations, that I asked him to call in London in

order to make Jane's acquaintance, and accordingly gave him her address,

which he took down at once in his note-book with evident satisfaction.

Our passage was long, but it proved most uneventful; and except for an

occasional dance, and the theatricals before-mentioned, it would have

been dull in the extreme. The theatricals certainly were a great

success, mainly owing to the splendid acting of young Carr, who became

afterwards a more special object of favor even than he was before. It

was bitterly cold when we landed early in January at Southampton, and my

native land seemed to have retired from view behind a thick veil of fog.

We had a wretched journey up to London, packed as tight as sardines in a

tin, much to the disgust of Carr, who accompanied me to town, and who,

with his usual thoughtfulness, had in vain endeavored to keep the

carriage to ourselves, by liberal tips to guards and porters. When we at

last arrived in London he insisted on getting me a cab and seeing my

luggage onto it, before he looked after his own at all. It was only when

I had given the cabman my sister's address that he finally took his

leave, and disappeared among the throng of people who were jostling each

other near the luggage-vans.

Curiously enough, when I arrived at my destination an odd thing

happened. I got out at the green door of 23, Suburban Residences, and

when the maid opened it, walked straight past her into the drawing-room.

"Well, Jane!" I cried.

A pale middle-aged woman rose as I came in, and I stood aghast. It was

not my sister. It was soon explained. She was a little pettish about it,

poor woman! It seemed my sister had quite recently changed her house,

and the present occupant had been put to some slight inconvenience

before by people calling and leaving parcels after her departure. She

gave me Jane's new address, which was only in the next street, and I

apologized and made my bow at once. My going to the wrong house was such

a slight occurrence that I almost forgot it at the time, until I was

reminded of it by a very sad event which happened afterwards.

Jane was delighted to see me. It seemed she had written to inform me of

her change of address, but the letter did not reach me before I started

for England with the Danvers jewels, about which I have been asked to

write this account. Considering this _is_ an account of the jewels, it

is wonderful how seldom I have had occasion to mention them so far; but

you may rest assured that all this time they were safe in their bag

under my waiscoat; and knowing I had them there all right, I did not

trouble my head much about them. I never was a person to worry about

things.

Still I had no wish to be inconvenienced by a hard packet of little

knobs against my chest any longer than was necessary, and I wrote the

same evening to Sir George Danvers, stating the bare facts of the case,

and asking what steps he or his second son wished me to take to put the

legacy in the possession of its owner. I had no notion of trusting a

packet of such immense value to the newly organized Parcels Post. With

jewels I consider you cannot be too cautious. Indeed, I told Jane so at

the time, and she quite agreed with me.

CHAPTER III.

I did not much like the arrangement of Jane's new house when I came to

stay in it. The way the two bedrooms, hers and mine, were shut off from

the rest of the house by a door, barred and locked at night for fear of

burglars, was, I thought, unpleasant, especially as, once in my room for

the night, there was no possibility of getting out of it, the key of the

door of the passage not being even allowed to remain in the lock, but

retiring with Jane, the canary cage, and other valuables, into her own

apartment. I remonstrated, but I soon found that Jane had not remained

unmarried for nothing. She was decided on the point. The outer door

would be locked as usual, and the key would be deposited under the

pin-cushion in her room, as usual; and it was so.

The next morning, as Jane and I went out for a stroll before luncheon,

we had to pass the house to which I had driven by mistake the day

before. To our astonishment, there was a crowd before the door, and a

policeman with his back to it was guarding the entrance. The blinds were

all drawn down. The image of the pale lonely woman, sitting by her

little fire, whom I had disturbed the day before, came suddenly back to

me with a strange qualm.

"What is it?" I hurriedly asked a baker's boy, who was standing at an

area railing, rubbing his chin against the loaf he was waiting to

deliver. The boy grinned.

"It's murder!" he said, with relish. "Burgilars in the night. I've

supplied her reg'lar these two months. One quartern best white, one

half-quartern brown every morning, French rolls occasional; but it's all

up now." And he went off whistling a tune which all bakers' boys

whistled about that time, called "My Grandfather's Timepiece," or

something similar.

A second policeman came up the street at this moment, and from him I

learned all the little there was to know. The poor lady had not been

murdered, it seemed, but, being subject to heart complaint, had died in

the night of an acute attack, evidently brought on by fright. The maid,

the only other person in the house, sleeping as maids-of-all-work only

can, had heard nothing, and awoke in the morning to find her mistress

dead in her bed, with the window and door open. "Strangely enough," the

policeman added, "although nothing in the house had been touched, the

lock of an unused bedroom had been forced, and the room evidently

searched."

Poor Jane was quite overcome. She seemed convinced that it was only by a

special intervention of Providence that she had changed her house, and

that her successor had been sacrificed instead of herself.

"It might have been me!" she said over and over again that afternoon.

Wishing to give a turn to her thoughts, I began to talk about Sir John's

legacy, in which she had evinced the greatest interest the night before,

and, greatly to her delight, showed her the jewels. I had not looked at

them since Sir John had given them to me, and I was myself astonished at

their magnificence, as I spread them out on the table under the

gas-lamp. Jane exhausted herself in admiration; but as I was putting

them away again, saying it was time for me to be dressing and going to

meet Carr, who was to join me at the Criterion, she begged me on no

account to take them with me, affirming that it would be much safer to

leave them at home. I was firm, but she was firmer; and in the end I

allowed her to lock them up in the tea-caddy, where her small stock of

ready money reposed.

I met Carr as we had arranged, and we had a very pleasant evening. Poor

Carr, who had seen the papers, had hardly expected that I should turn

up, knowing the catastrophe of the previous night had taken place at the

house I was going to, and was much relieved to hear that my sister had

moved, and had thus been spared all the horror of the event.

The dinner was good, the play better. I should have come home feeling

that I had enjoyed myself thoroughly, if it had not been for a little

adventure with our cab-driver that very nearly proved serious. We got a

hansom directly we came out of the theatre, but instead of taking us to

the direction we gave him, after we had driven for some distance I began

to make out that the cabman was going wrong, and Carr shouted to him to

stop; but thereupon he lashed up his horse, and away we went like the

wind, up one street, and down another, till I had lost all idea where we

were. Carr, who was young and active, did all he could; but the cabman,

who, I am afraid, must have been intoxicated, took not the slightest

notice, and continued driving madly, Heaven knows where. At last, after

getting into a very dingy neighborhood, we turned up a crooked dark

street, unlit by any lamp, a street so narrow that I thought every

moment the cab would be overturned. In another moment I saw two men rush

out of a door-way. One seized the horse, which was much blown by this

time, and brought it violently to a stand-still, while the other flew at

the cab, and catching Carr by the collar, proceeded to drag him out by

main force. I suppose Carr did his best, but being only an American, he

certainly made a very poor fight of it; and while I was laying into the

man who had got hold of him, I was suddenly caught by the legs myself

from the other side of the cab. I turned on my assailant, saw a heavy

stick levelled at me, caught at it, missed it, beheld a series of

fireworks, and remembered nothing more.

* * * * *

The first thing I heard on beginning to come to myself was a series of

subdued but evidently heart-felt oaths; and I became sensible of an airy

feeling, unpleasant in the extreme, proceeding from an open condition of

coat and waistcoat quite unsuited to the time of year. A low chorus of

muffled whispering was going on round me. As I groaned, involuntarily,

it stopped.

"He's coming to!" I heard Carr say. "Go and fetch some brandy." And I

felt myself turned right side uppermost, and my hands were rubbed,

while Carr, in a voice of the greatest anxiety, asked me how I felt. I

was soon able to sit up, and to become aware that I had a splitting

headache, and was staring at a tallow-candle stuck in a bottle. Having

got so far I got a little farther, and on looking round found myself

reclining on a sack in a corner of a disreputable-looking room, dingy

with dirt, and faithful to the memory of bad tobacco. Then I suddenly

remembered what had occurred. Carr saw that I did so, and instantly

poured forth an account of how we had been rescued from a condition of

great peril by the man to whom the house we were in belonged, to whom he

hardly knew how to express his gratitude, and who was now gone for some

brandy for me. He told me a great deal about it, but I was so dizzy that

I forgot most of what he said, and it was not until our deliverer

returned with the brandy that I became thoroughly aware of what was

going forward. I could not help thinking, as I thanked the honest fellow

who had come to our assistance, how easily one may be deceived by

appearances, for a more forbidding-looking face, under its fur cap, I

never saw. That of his son, who presently returned with a four-wheeler

which Carr had sent for, was not more prepossessing. In fact, they were

two as villanous-looking men as I had ever seen. After recompensing both

with all our spare cash, we got ourselves hoisted stiffly into the cab,

and Carr good-naturedly insisted on seeing me home, though he owned to

feeling, as he put it, "rather knocked up by his knocking down." We were

both far too exhausted to speak much, until Carr gave a start and a gasp

and said, "By Jove!"

"What?" I inquired.

"They are gone!" he said, tremulously--"my sapphires. They are gone!

Stolen! I had them in a bag round my neck, as you told me. They must

have been taken from me when I was knocked down. I say," he added,

quickly, "how about yours? Have you got them all right?"

Involuntarily I raised my hand to my throat. A horrid qualm passed over

me.

"Thank Heaven!" I replied, with a sigh of relief. "They are safe at home

with Jane. What a mercy! I might have lost them."

"_Might!_" said Carr. "You would have lost them to a dead certainty;

mine _are_ gone!" And he stamped, and clinched his fists, and looked

positively furious.

Poor Carr! I felt for him. He took the loss of his stones so to heart;

and I am sure it was only natural. I parted from him at my own door, and

was glad on going in to find Jane had stayed up for me. I soon figured

in her eyes as the hero of a thrilling adventure, while her clever hands

applied sticking-plaster _ad libitum_. We were both so full of the

events of the evening, and the letter which I was to write to the

_Times_ about it the next day, that it never entered the heads of either

of us, on retiring to bed, to remove Sir John's jewels from the

tea-caddy into which they had been temporarily popped in the afternoon.

CHAPTER IV.

I really think adventures, like misfortunes, never come single. Would

you believe it? Our house was broken into that very night. Nothing

serious came of it, wonderful to relate, owing to Jane's extraordinary

presence of mind. She had been unable to sleep after my thrilling

account of the cab accident, and had consoled herself by reading

Baxter's "Saint's Rest" by her night-light, for the canary became

restless and liable to sudden bursts of song if a candle were lighted.

While so engaged she became aware of a subdued grating sound, which had

continued for some time before she began to speculate upon it. While she

was speculating it ceased, and after a short interval she distinctly

heard a stealthy step upon the stair, and the handle of the passage door

before-mentioned was gently, very gently turned.

Jane has some of that quickness of perception which has been of such use

to myself through life. In a moment she had grasped the situation. Some

one was in the house. In another moment she was hanging out of her

bedroom window, springing the policeman's rattle which she had had by

her for years with a view to an emergency of this kind, and at the same

time--for she was a capable woman--blowing a piercing strain on a

cabman's whistle.

To make a long story short, her extraordinary presence of mind was the

saving of us. With her own eyes she saw two dark figures fly up our area

steps and disappear round the corner, and when a policeman appeared on

the scene half an hour later, he confirmed the fact that the house had

been broken into, by showing us how an entrance had been effected

through the kitchen window.

There was of course no more sleep for us that night, and the remainder

of it was passed by Jane in examining the house from top to bottom every

half hour or so, owing to a rooted conviction on her part that a

burglar might still be lurking on the premises, concealed in the

cellaret, or the jam cupboard, or behind the drawing-room curtains.

By that morning's post I heard, as I expected I should do, from Sir

George Danvers, but the contents of the letter surprised me. He wrote

most cordially, thanking me for my kindness in undertaking such a heavy

responsibility (I am sure I never felt it to be so) for an entire

stranger, and ended by sending me a pressing invitation to come down

to Stoke Moreton that very day, that he and his son, whose future wife

was also staying with them, might have the pleasure of making the

acquaintance of one to whom they were so much indebted. He added that

his eldest son Charles was also going down from London by a certain

train that day, and that he had told him to be on the lookout for me at

the station in case I was able to come at such short notice. I made up

my mind to go, sent Sir George a telegram to that effect, and proceeded

to fish up the jewels out of the tea-caddy.

Jane, who had never ceased for one instant to comment on the event of

the night, positively shrieked when she saw me shaking the bag free from

tea-leaves.

"Good gracious! the burglars," she exclaimed. "Why, they might have

taken them if they had only known."

Of course they had _not_ known, as I had been particularly secret about

them; but I wished all the same that I had not left them there all

night, as Jane would insist, and continue insisting, that they had been

exposed to great danger. I argued the matter with her at first; but

women, I find, are impervious as a rule to masculine argument, and it is

a mistake to reason with them. It is, in fact, putting the sexes for the

moment on an equality to which the weaker one is unaccustomed, and

consequently unsuited.

A few hours later I was rolling swiftly towards Stoke Moreton in a

comfortable smoking carriage, only occupied by myself and Mr. Charles

Danvers, a handsome young fellow with a pale face and that peculiar

tired manner which (though, as I soon found, natural to him) is so often

affected by the young men of the day.

"And so Ralph has come in for a legacy in diamonds," he said,

listlessly, when we had exchanged the usual civilities, and had become,

to a certain degree, acquainted. "Dear me! how these good steady young

men prosper in the world. When last I heard from him he had prevailed

upon the one perfect woman in the universe to consent to marry him, and

his aunt (by-the-way, you will meet her there, too--Lady Mary

Cunningham) had murmured something vague but gratifying about

testamentary intentions. A week later Providence fills his brimming cup

with a legacy of jewels, estimated at----" Charles opened his light

sleepy eyes wide and looked inquiringly at me. "What are they estimated

at?" he asked, as I did not answer.

I really had no idea, but I shrugged my shoulders and looked wise.

"Estimated at a fabulous sum," he said, closing his eyes again. "Ah! had

they been mine, with what joyful alacrity should I have ascertained

their exact money value. And mine they ought to have been, if the sacred

law of primogeniture (that special Providence which watches over the

interests of eldest sons) had been duly observed. Sir John had not the

pleasure of my acquaintance, but I fear he must have heard some

reports--no doubt entirely without foundation--respecting my career,

which had induced him to pass me over in this manner. What a moral! My

father and my aunt Mary are always delicately pointing out the

difference between Ralph and myself. I wish I were a good young man,

like Ralph. It seems to pay best in the long-run; but I may as well

inform you, Colonel Middleton, of the painful fact that I am the black

sheep of the family."

"Oh, come, come!" I remarked, uneasily.

"I should not have alluded to the subject if you were not likely to

become fully aware of it on your arrival, so I will be beforehand with

my relations. I was brought up in the way I should go," he continued,

with the utmost unconcern, as if commenting on something that did not

affect him in the least; "but I did not walk in it, partly owing to the

uncongenial companionship that it involved, especially that of my aunt

Mary, who took up so much room herself in the narrow path that she

effectually kept me out of it. From my earliest youth, also, I took

extreme interest in the parable of the Prodigal, and as soon as it

became possible I exemplified it myself. I may even say that I acted the

part in a manner that did credit to a beginner; but the wind-up was

ruined by the lamentable inability of others, who shall be nameless, to

throw themselves into the spirit of the piece. At various intervals," he

continued, always as if speaking of some one else, "I have returned

home, but I regret to say that on each occasion my reception was not in

any way what I could have wished. The flavor of a fatted calf is

absolutely unknown to me; and so far from meeting me half-way, I have in

extreme cases, when impelled homeward by urgent pecuniary

considerations, found myself obliged to walk up from the station."

"Dear me! I hope it is not far," I said.

"A mere matter of three miles or so uphill," he resumed; "nothing to a

healthy Christian, though trying to the trembling legs of the ungodly

after a long course of husks. There, now I think you are quite _au fait_

as to our family history. I always pity a stranger who comes to a house

ignorant of little domestic details of this kind; he is apt to make

mistakes." "Oh, pray don't mention it,"--as I murmured some words of

thanks--"no trouble, I assure you; trouble is a thing I don't take.

By-the-way, are you aware we are going straight into a nest of private

theatricals at Stoke Moreton? To-night is the last rehearsal; perhaps I

had better look over my part. I took it once years ago, but I don't

remember a word of it." And after much rummaging in a magnificent

silver-mounted travelling-bag, the Prodigal pulled out a paper book and

carelessly turned over the leaves.

I did not interrupt his studies, save by a few passing comments on the

weather, the state of the country, and my own health, which, I am sorry

to say, is not what it was; but as I only received monosyllabic answers,

we had no more conversation worth mentioning till we reached Stoke

Moreton.

CHAPTER V.

Stoke Moreton is a fine old Elizabethan house standing on rising ground.

As we drove up the straight wide approach between two rows of ancient

fantastically clipped hollies, I was impressed by the stately dignity of

the place, which was not lessened as we drew up before a great arched

door-way, and were ushered into a long hall supported by massive pillars

of carved white stone. A roaring log-fire in the immense fireplace threw

a ruddy glow over the long array of armor and gleaming weapons which

lined the walls, and made the pale winter twilight outside look bleak

indeed. Charles, emerging slim and graceful out of an exquisite ulster,

sauntered up to the fire, and asked where Sir George Danvers was. As he

stood inside the wide fireplace, leaning against one of the pillars

which supported the towering white stone chimney-piece, covered with

heraldic designs and coats of arms, he looked a worthier representative

of an ancient race than I fear he really was.

"So they have put the stage at that end, in front of the pillars," he

remarked, nodding at a wooden erection. "Quite right. I could not have

placed it better myself. What, Brown? Sir George is in the drawing-room,

is he? and tea, as I perceive, is going in at this moment. Come, Colonel

Middleton." And we followed the butler to the drawing-room.

I am not a person who easily becomes confused, but I must own I did get

confused with the large party into the midst of which we were now

ushered. I soon made out Sir George Danvers, a delicate, but

irascible-looking old gentleman, who received me with dignified

cordiality, but returned Charles's greeting with a certain formality and

coldness which I was pained to see, family affection being, in my

opinion, the chief blessing of a truly happy home. Charles I already

knew, and with the second son, Ralph, a ruddy, smiling young man with

any amount of white teeth, I had no difficulty; but after that I became

hopelessly involved. I was introduced to an elderly lady whom I

addressed for the rest of the evening as Lady Danvers, until Charles

casually mentioned that his mother was dead, and that, until the

Deceased Wife's Sister Bill was passed, he did not anticipate that his

aunt Mary would take upon herself the position of step-mother to her

orphaned nephews. The severe elderly lady, then, who beamed so sweetly

upon Ralph, and regarded Charles with such manifest coldness, was their

aunt Lady Mary Cunningham. She had known Sir John slightly in her youth,

she said, as she graciously made room for me on her sofa, and she

expressed a very proper degree of regret at his sudden death,

considering that he had not been a personal friend in any way.

"We all have our faults, Colonel Middleton," said Lady Mary, with a

gentle sigh, which dislodged a little colony of crumbs from the front of

her dress. "Sir John, like the rest of us, was not exempt, though I have

no doubt the softening influence of age would have done much, since I

knew him, to smooth acerbities of character which were unfortunately

strongly marked in his early life."

She had evidently not known Sir John in his later years.

As she continued to talk in this strain I endeavored to make out which

of the young ladies present was the one to whom Ralph was engaged. I was

undecided as to which it was of the two to whom I had already been

introduced. Girls always seem to me so very much alike, especially

pretty girls; and these were both of them pretty. I do not mean that

they resembled each other in the least, for one was dark and one was

fair; but which was Miss Aurelia Grant, Ralph's _fiancée_, and which was

Miss Evelyn Derrick, a cousin of the family, I could not make out until

later in the evening, when I distinctly saw Ralph kiss the fair one in

the picture-gallery, and I instantly came to the conclusion that she was

the one to whom he was engaged.

I asked Charles if I were not right, as we stood in front of the

hall-fire before the rest of the party had assembled for dinner, and he

told me that I had indeed hit the nail on the head in this instance,

though for his own part he never laid much stress himself on such an

occurrence, having found it prove misleading in the extreme to draw any

conclusion from it. He further informed me that Miss Derrick was the

young lady with dark hair who had poured out tea, and whom he had

favored with some of his conversation afterwards.

I admired Ralph's taste, as did Charles, who had never seen his future

sister-in-law before. Aurelia Grant was a charming little creature, with

a curly head and a dimple, and a pink-and-white complexion, and a

suspicion of an Irish accent when she became excited.

Charles said he admired her complexion most because it was so thoroughly

well done, and the coloring was so true to nature.

I did not quite catch his meaning, but it certainly was a beautiful

complexion; and then she was so bright and lively, and showed such

pretty little teeth when she smiled! She was quite delightful. I did not

wonder at Ralph's being so much in love with her, and Charles agreed

with me.

"There is nothing like a good complexion," he remarked, gravely. "One

may be led away to like a pale girl with a mind for a time, but for

permanent domestic happiness give me a good complexion, and--a dimple,"

he added, as if it were an after-thought. "I feel I could not bestow my

best affections on a woman without a dimple. Yes, indeed! Ralph has

chosen well."

Now I do not agree with Charles there, as I have always considered that

a woman _should_ have a certain amount of mind; just enough, in fact, to

enable her to appreciate a superior one. I said as much to Charles; but

he only laughed, and said it was a subject on which opinion had always

varied.

"How did he meet her?" I inquired.

"On the Rigi, last summer," said Charles. "I am thinking of going there

myself next year. Lovely orphan sat by Lady Mary at _table d'hôte_. Read

tracts presented by Lady Mary. Made acquaintance. Lovely orphan's

travelling companion or governess discovered to be live sister of

defunct travelling companion or governess of Lady Mary. Result, warm

friendship. Ralph, like a dutiful nephew, appears on the scene.

Fortnight of fine weather. Interesting expeditions. Romantic attachment,

cemented by diamond and pearl ring from Hunt & Roskell's. There is the

whole story for you."

Evelyn Derrick joined us as he finished speaking. She was a tall

graceful girl, gentle and dignified in manner, with a pale refined face.

She was pretty in a way, but not to compare to Aurelia. Evelyn had an

anxious look about her, too. Now I do not approve of a girl looking

grave; she ought to be bright and happy, with a smile for every one. It

is all very well for us men, who have the work of the world to do, to

look grave at times, but with women it is different; and a woman always

looks her best when she smiles--at least, I think so.

Then Aurelia came down, perfectly dazzling in white satin; then Sir

George, then Ralph, giving an arm to Lady Mary, who suffered from

rheumatism in her foot. Then came the gong, and there was a rustle down

of more people, young and old, friends of the family who had come to

act, or to see their sons and daughters act. As I never could get even

their names right, I shall not attempt to give any account of them,

especially as they are not of importance in any way.

After dinner, on entering the drawing-room, I found that great

excitement prevailed among the ladies respecting Sir John's jewels.

About his sad fate and costly legacy they all seemed fully informed. I

had myself almost forgotten the reason of my visit in my interest in my

new surroundings, not having even as yet given up the jewels to Sir

George Danvers or Ralph; but, at the urgent request of all the ladies at

once, Ralph begged me to bring them down, to be seen and admired then

and there, before the rehearsal began.

"They will all be yours, you know," Ralph said to Aurelia. "You shall

wear them on your wedding-day."

"You are always talking about being married," said Aurelia, with a

little pout. "I wish you would try and think of something else to say. I

was quite looking forward to it myself until I came here, and now I am

quite, _quite_ tired of it beforehand."

Ralph laughed delightedly, and Sir George reminding me that every one

was dying of anxiety, himself included, I ran up-stairs to take the

brown bag from around my neck, and in a few minutes returned with it in

my hand. They were all waiting for me, Lady Mary drawn up in an

arm-chair beside an ebony table, on which a small space near her had

been cleared, Charles alone holding rather aloof, sipping his coffee

with his back to the fire.

"Don't jostle," he said, as they all crowded round me. "Evelyn, let me

beg of you not to elbow forward in that unbecoming manner. Observe how

Aunt Mary restrains herself. Take time, Middleton! your coffee is

getting cold. Won't you drink it first?"

As he finished speaking I turned the contents of the bag upon the table.

The jewels in the bright lamp-light seemed to blaze and burn into the

ebony of the table. There was a general gasp, a silence, and then a

chorus of admiration. Charles came up behind me and looked over my

shoulder.

"Good gracious!" said Lady Mary, solemnly. "Ralph, you are a rich man.

Why, mine are nothing to them!" and she touched a diamond and emerald

necklace on her own neck. "I never knew poor Sir John had so much good

in him."

"Oh, Ralph, Ralph!" cried Aurelia, clasping her little hands with a deep

sigh. "And will they really be my very own?"

Ralph assured her that they would, and that she should act in them the

following night if she liked.

I think there was not a woman present who did not envy Aurelia as Ralph

took up a flashing diamond crescent and held it against her fair hair. I

saw Evelyn turn away and begin to tear up a small piece of paper in her

hand. Women are very jealous of each other, especially the nice, by

which I mean the pretty, ones. I was sorry to see jealousy so plainly

marked in such a charming looking girl as Evelyn; but women are all the

same about jewels. Aurelia blushed and sparkled, and pouted when the

clasp caught in her hair, and shook her little head impatiently, and was

altogether enchanting.

After the first burst of admiration had subsided, General Marston, an

old Indian officer, who had been somewhat in the rear, came up, and

looked long at the glittering mass upon the table.

"Are you aware," he said at last to Ralph, pointing to the crescent,

"that those diamonds are of enormous value? I have not seen such stones

in any shop in London. I dare not say what that one crescent alone is

worth, or that emerald bracelet. Jewels of such value as this are a

grave responsibility." He stood, shaking his head a little and turning

the crescent in his hand. "Wonderful!" he said. "Wonderful! Do not tear

up that piece of rice-paper, Miss Derrick," he added, taking it from

her. "The crescent was wrapped in it, and I will put it round it again.

All these stones want polishing, and many of them resetting. They ought

not to be tumbled together in this way in a bag, with nothing to

prevent them scratching each other. See, Ralph, here is a clasp broken;

and here are some loose stones; and this star has no clasp at all. You

must take them up to some trustworthy jeweller, and have them thoroughly

looked over."

"I suppose the second son was specially mentioned, Middleton?" said

Charles, as I drew back to let the rest handle and admire.

"Of course!" said Lady Mary, sharply; "and a very fortunate thing, too."

"Very--for Ralph," he replied. "It is really providential that I am what

I am. Why, I might have ruined the dear boy's prospects if I had paid my

tailor's bill, and lived in the country among the buttercups and

daisies. Ah! my dear aunt, I see you are about to remark how all things

here below work together for good!"

"I was not going to remark anything of the kind," retorted Lady Mary,

drawing herself up; "but," she added, spitefully, "I do not feel the

less rejoiced at Ralph's good fortune and prosperity when I see, as I so

often do, the ungodly flourishing like a green bay-tree."

"Of course," said Charles, shaking his head, "if that is your own

experience, I bow before it; but for my own part, I must confess I have

not found it so. Flourish like a green bay-tree! No, Aunt Mary, it is a

fallacy; they don't: I am sure I only wish they did. But I see the

rehearsal is beginning. May I give you an arm to the hall?"

The offer was entirely disregarded, and it was with the help of mine

that Lady Mary retired from an unequal combat, which she never seemed

able to resist provoking anew, and in which she was invariably worsted,

causing her, as I could see, to regard Charles with the concentrated

bitterness of which a severely good woman alone is capable.

I soon perceived that Charles was on the same amicable terms with his

father; that they rarely spoke, and that it was evidently only with a

view to keeping up appearances that he was ever invited to the paternal

roof at all. Between the brothers, however, in spite of so much to

estrange them, a certain kindliness of feeling seemed to exist, which

was hardly to have been expected under the circumstances.

The rehearsal now began, and Sir George Danvers, who had remained behind

to put by the jewels, and lock them up in his strong-box among his

papers, came and sat down by me, again thanking me for taking charge of

them, though I assured him it had been very little trouble.

"Not much trouble, perhaps, but a great responsibility," he said,

courteously.

"A soldier, Sir George," I replied, with a slight smile, "becomes early

inured to the gravest responsibility. It is the air we breathe; it is

taken as a matter of course."

He looked keenly at me, and was silent, as if considering

something--perhaps what I had said.

I was delighted to find the play was one of those which I had seen acted

during our passage home. There is nothing I like so much as knowing a

play beforehand, because then one can always whisper to one's companion

what is coming next. The stage, with all its adjustments, had been

carefully arranged, the foot-lights were lighted, the piece began. All

went well till nearly the end of the first act, when there was a cry

behind the scenes of "Mr. Denis!" Mr. Denis should have rushed on, but

Mr. Denis did not rush on. The play stopped. Mr. Denis was not in the

library, the improvised greenroom; Mr. Denis did not appear when his

name was called in stentorian tones by Ralph, or in pathetic falsetto by

Charles. In short, Mr. Denis was not forthcoming. A rush up-stairs on

the part of most of the young men brought to light the awful fact that

Mr. Denis had retired to his chamber, a prey to sudden and acute

indisposition.

"Dear me!" said Charles to Lady Mary, with a dismal shake of his head,

"how precarious is life! Here to-day, and in bed to-morrow. Support your

aunt Mary, my dear Evelyn; she wishes to retire to rest. Indeed, we may

as well all go to bed, for there will be no more acting to-night without

poor Denis. I only trust he may be spared to us till to-morrow, and that

he may be well enough to die by my hand to-morrow evening."

We all dispersed for the night in some anxiety. The play could not

proceed without Mr. Denis, who took an important part; and Sir George

ruefully informed me that all the neighboring houses had been filled for

these theatricals, and that great numbers of people were expected. There

was to be dancing afterwards, but the principal feature of the

entertainment was the play. We all retired to rest, fervently hoping

that the health of Mr. Denis might be restored by the following

morning.

CHAPTER VI.

But far from being better the following morning, Denis was much worse.

Charles, who had sat up most of the night with him, and who came down to

breakfast more cool and indifferent than ever, at once extinguished any

hope that still remained that he would be able to take his part that

night.

Great was the consternation of the whole party. A vague feeling of

resentment against Denis prevailed among the womankind, who, having all

preserved their own healths intact for the occasion (and each by her own

account was a chronic invalid), felt it was extremely inconsiderate, not

to say indelicate, of "a great man like him" to spoil everything by

being laid up at the wrong moment.

But what was to be done? Denis was ill, and without Denis the play could

not proceed. Must the whole thing be given up? There was a general

chorus of lamentation.

"I see no alternative," said Charles, "unless some Curtius will leap

into the gulf, and go through the piece reading the part, and that is

always a failure at the best of times."

At that moment I had an idea; it broke upon me like a flash of

lightning: _Valentine Carr_! I had seen him act the very part Denis was

to have taken, in the theatricals on the steamer. How wonderfully

fortunate that it should have occurred to me!

I told Charles that I had a friend who had acted that part only the week

before.

"_You!_" cried Charles, losing all his customary apathy--"you don't say

so! Great heavens, where is he? Out with him! Where is he at this

moment? England, Ireland, Scotland, or Wales? Where is this treasure

concealed?"

"Oh, Colonel Middleton! Oh, how delightful!" cried a number of gentle

voices; and I was instantly surrounded, and all manner of questions put

to me. Would he come? Was he tall? And oh! _had_ he a beard? He had not

a beard, had he? because it would not do for the part. Did he act well?

When had he acted? Where had he acted?

Sir George interrupted the torrent of interrogation.

"Do you think he would come?" he asked.

"I am almost sure he would," I said; "he is a great friend of mine."

"It would be an exceedingly good-natured and friendly act," said Sir

George. "Charles--no, I mean Ralph--bring a telegraph form, and if you

will write a telegram at once, Middleton, I will send it to the station

directly. We shall have an answer by twelve o'clock, and until then we

will not give up all hope, though of course we must not count on your

friend being able to come at such short notice."

The telegram was written and despatched, Carr having given me an address

where letters would find him, though he said he did not put up there. I

sincerely hoped he would not be out of the way on this occasion, and I

was not a little pleased when, a few hours later, I received a telegram

in reply saying that he could come, and should arrive by the afternoon

train which had brought me the day before.

The spirits of the whole party revived. I (as is often the case) was in

high favor with all. Even poor Denis, who had been very much depressed,

was sufficiently relieved by the news--so Charles said--to smile over

his beef-tea. Lady Mary, who appeared at luncheon-time, treated me with

marked consideration. I had already laid them under an obligation, she

said, graciously, by undertaking the care of the jewels, and now they

were indebted to me a second time. Was Mr. Carr one of Lord Barrantyne's

sons, or was he one of the Crampshire Carrs? She had known Lady Caroline

Carr in her youth, but had not met her of late years. She seemed

surprised when I told her that Carr was an American, and he sank, I

could see, at once in her estimation; but she was kind enough to say

that she was not a person who was prejudiced in any way by a man's

nationality, and that she believed that very respectable people might be

found among the Americans.

The day passed in the usual preparations for an entertainment. If I went

into the hall I was sure to run against gardeners carrying in quantities

of hot-house plants, with which the front of the stage was being hidden

from the foot-lights to the floor; if I wandered into the library I

interrupted Aurelia and Ralph rehearsing their parts alone, with their

heads very close together; if I hastily withdrew into the morning-room,

it was only to find Charles upon his knees luring Evelyn to immediate

flight, in soul-stirring accents, before an admiring audience of not

unenvious young ladyhood.

"Now, Evelyn, I ask you as a favor," said Charles, as I came in, moving

towards her on his knees, "will you come a little closer when I am down?

I don't mind wearing out my knees the least in a good cause; but I owe

it to myself, as a wicked baron in hired tights, not to cross the stage

in that position. Any impression I make will be quite lost if I do; and

unless you keep closer, I shall never be able to reach your hand and

clasp it to a heart at least two yards away. Now,"--rising, and crossing

over to the other side--"I shall begin again. 'Ah! but my soul's

adored--'"

"Is Middleton here?" asked a voice in the door-way. It was Sir George

Danvers who had put his head into the room, and I went to him.

"I say, Middleton," he began, twirling his stick, and looking rather

annoyed, "it is excessively provoking. I never thought of it before, but

I find there is not a bed in the house. Every cranny has been filled. It

never occurred to me that we had not a room for your friend, now that he

is kind enough to come. And it looks so rude, when it is so exceedingly

good-natured of him to come at all."

"Oh, dear! anywhere will do," I said.

"There is not even room for Ralph in the house," continued Sir George.

"I have put him up at the lodge," pointing to a small house at the end

of the drive, near the great entrance gates. "There is another nice

little room leading out of his," he added, hesitating--"but really I

don't like to suggest--"

"Oh, that will do perfectly!" I broke in. "Carr is not the sort of

fellow to care a straw how he is put up. He will be quite content

anywhere."

"Come and see it," he said, leading the way out-of-doors. "I would have

turned out Charles in a moment, and given Carr his room; but Denis is

really rather ill, and Charles sees to him, as he is next door."

I could not help saying how much I liked Charles.

"Strangers always do," he replied, coldly, as we walked towards the

lodge. "I constantly hear him spoken of as a most agreeable young man."

"And he is so handsome."

"Yes," replied Sir George, in the same hard tone, "handsome and

agreeable. I have no doubt he appears so to others; but I, who have had

to pay the debts and hush up the scandals of my handsome and agreeable

son, find Ralph, who has not a feature in his face, the better-looking

of the two. I know Charles is head over ears in debt at this moment,

but,"--with sudden acrimony--"he will not get another farthing from me.

It is pouring water into a sieve."

"Ralph is marrying a sweetly pretty creature," I said, with warmth,

desirous of changing the subject.

"Yes, she is very pretty," said Sir George, without enthusiasm; "but I

wish she had belonged to one of our county families. It is nothing in

the way of connection. She has no relations to speak of--one uncle

living in Australia, and another, whom she goes to on Saturday, in

Ireland. There seems to be no money either. It is Lady Mary's doing. She

took a fancy to her abroad; and to say the truth, I did not wish to

object, for at one time there seemed to be an attraction between Ralph

and his cousin Evelyn Derrick, which his aunt and I were both glad to

think had passed over. I do not approve of marriages between cousins."

We had reached the lodge by this time, and I was shown a tidy little

room leading out of the one Ralph was occupying, in which I assured Sir

George that Carr would be perfectly comfortable, much to the courteous

old gentleman's relief, though I could see that he was evidently annoyed

at not being able to put him up in the house.

In the afternoon, towards five o'clock, Carr arrived. I went into the

hall to meet him, and to bring him into the drawing-room myself. Just as

we came in, and while I was introducing him to Sir George, Ralph and

Aurelia, who were sitting together as usual, started a lovers' squabble.

"Oh _my_!" said Ralph, suddenly.

"It is all your fault. You jogged my elbow," came Aurelia's quick

rejoinder.

"My dearest love, I did _not_," returned Ralph, on his knees,

pocket-handkerchief in hand.

It appeared that between them they had managed to transfer Amelia's tea

from her cup to the front of her dress.

"You did; you know you did," she said, evidently ready to cry with

vexation. "I was just going to drink, and you had your arm round the

back of my--"

"Hush, Aurelia, I beg," expostulated Charles. "Aunt Mary and I are

becoming embarrassed. It is not necessary to enter into particulars as

to the exact locality of Ralph's arm."

"Round the back of my chair," pouted Aurelia.

"It is all right, Aunt Mary," called Charles, cheerfully, to that lady.

"Only the back of her _chair_. We took alarm unnecessarily. Just as it

should be. I have done the same myself with--a different chair."

"He is _always_ doing it," continued Aurelia, unmollified. "I have told

him about it before. He made me drop a piece of bread and butter on the

carpet only yesterday."

"I ate it afterwards," humbly suggested Ralph, still on his knees, "and

there were hairs in it. There were, indeed, Aurelia."

"And now it is my tea-gown," continued Aurelia, giving way to the

prettiest little outburst of temper imaginable. "I wish you would get up

and go away, Ralph, and not come back. You are only making it worse by

rubbing it in that silly way with your wet handkerchief."

"Here is another," said Charles, snatching up Lady Mary's delicate

cambric one, which was lying on her work-table, while I was in the act

of introducing Carr to her; and before that lady's politeness to Carr

would allow her to turn from him to expostulate, Charles was on his

knees beside Ralph, wiping the offending stain.

"'Out, d----d spot!' or rather series of spots. What, Aurelia! you don't

wish it rubbed any more? Good! I will turn my attention to the

_Aubusson_ carpet. Ha! triumph! Here at least I am successful. Aunt

Mary, you have no conception how useful your handkerchief is. The amount

of tea or dirt, or both, which is leaving the carpet and taking refuge

in your little square of cambric will surprise you when you see it. Ah!"

rising from his knees as I brought up Carr, having by this time

presented him to Sir George. "Very happy to see you, Mr. Carr. Most kind

of you to come. Evelyn, are you pouring out some tea for Mr. Carr?

Nature requires support before a last rehearsal. May I introduce you to

my cousin Miss Derrick?"

After Carr had also been introduced to Aurelia, who, however, was still

too much absorbed in her tea-gown to take much notice of him, he seemed

glad to retreat to a chair by Evelyn, who gave him his tea, and talked

pleasantly to him. He was very shy at first, but he soon got used to us,

and many were the curious glances shot at him by the rest of the party

as tea went on. There was to be a last rehearsal immediately afterwards,

so that he might take part in it; and there was a general unacknowledged

anxiety on the part of all the actors as to how he would bear that

crucial test on which so much depended. I was becoming anxious myself,

being in a manner responsible for him.

"You're not nervous, are you?" I said, taking him aside when tea was

over. "Only act half as well as you did on the steamer and you will do

capitally."

"Yes, I am nervous," he replied, with a short uneasy laugh. "It is

enough to make a fellow nervous to be set down among a lot of people

whom he has never seen before--to act a principal part, too. I had no

idea it was going to be such a grand affair or I would not have come. I

only did it to please you."

Of course I knew that, and I tried to reassure him, reminding him that

the audience would not be critical, and how grateful every one was to

him for coming.

"Tell me who some of the people are, will you?" he went on. "Who is that

tall man with the fair mustache? He is looking at us now."

"That is Charles, the eldest son," I replied; "and the shorter one, with

the pleasant face, near the window, is Ralph, his younger brother."

"That is a very good-looking girl he is talking to," he remarked. "I did

not catch her name."

"Hush!" I said. "That is Miss Grant, whom he is engaged to. They have

just had a little tiff, and are making it up. He _does_ talk to her a

good deal. I have noticed it myself. Such a sweet creature!"

"Is she going to act?"

"Yes," I replied. "They are going to begin at once. You need not dress.

It is not a dress rehearsal."

"I think I will go and get my boots off, though," said Carr. "Can you

show me where I am?"

"I am afraid you are not in the house at all," I said. "The fact is--did

not Sir George tell you?" And then I explained.

For a moment his face fell, but it cleared instantly, though not before

I had noticed it.

"You don't mind?" I said, astonished. "You quite understand--"

"Of course, of course!" he interrupted. "It is all right, I have a cold,

that is all; and I have to sing next week. I shall do very well. Pray

don't tell your friends I have a cold. I am sure Sir George is kindness

itself, and it might make him uneasy to think I was not in his house."

The rehearsal now began, and in much trepidation I waited to see Carr

come on. The moment he appeared all anxiety vanished; the other actors

were reassured, and acted their best. A few passages had to be

repeated, a few positions altered, but it was obvious that Carr could

act, and act well; though, curiously enough, he looked less

gentlemanlike and well-bred when acting with Charles than he had done

when he was the best among a very mixed set on the steamer.

"You act beautifully, Mr. Carr!" said Aurelia, when it was over.

"Doesn't he, Ralph?"

"Doesn't he?" replied Ralph, hot but good-humored. "I am sure, Carr, we

are most grateful to you."

"So am I," said Charles. "Your death agonies, Carr, are a credit to

human nature. No great vulgar writhings with legs all over the stage,

like Denis; but a chaste, refined wriggle, and all was over. It is a

pleasure to kill a man who dies in such a gentlemanlike manner. If only

Evelyn will keep a little closer to me when I am on my wicked baronial

knees, I shall be quite happy. You hear, Evelyn?"

"How you can joke at this moment," said Evelyn, who looked pale and

nervous, "I cannot think. I don't believe I shall be able to remember a

word when it comes to the point."

"Stage-fever coming on already," said Charles, in a different tone. "Ah!

it is your first appearance, is it not? Go and rest now, and you will be

all right when the time comes. I have a vision of a great success, and a

call before the curtain, and bouquets, and other delights. Only go and

rest now." And he went to light a candle for her. He seemed very

thoughtful for Evelyn.

It was the signal for all of us to disperse, the ladies to their rooms,

the men to the only retreat left to them, the smoking-room. As Aurelia

went up-stairs I saw her beckon Ralph and whisper to him:

"Am I really to wear them?"

"Wear what, my angel? The jewels! Why, good gracious, I had quite

forgotten them. Of course I want you to wear them."

"So do I, dreadfully," she replied, with a killing glance over the

balusters. "Only if I am, you must bring them down in good time, and put

them on in the greenroom. I hope you have got them somewhere safe."

"Safe as a church," replied Ralph, forgetting that in these days the

simile was not a good one. "Father has them in his strong-box. I will

ask him to get them out--at least all that could be worn--and I will

give them a rub up before you wear them."

"Ah!" said Charles, sadly, as we walked up-stairs, "if only I had known

Sir John!"

CHAPTER VII.

It was nearly eight o'clock when I came down. The play was to begin at

eight. The hall, which was brilliantly lighted, was one moving mass of

black coats, with here and there a red one, and evening-dresses many

colored--the people in them, chatting, bowing, laughing, being ushered

to their places. Lady Mary and Sir George Danvers side by side received

their guests at the foot of the grand staircase, Lady Mary, resplendent

in diamond tiara and riviere, smiling as if she could never frown; Sir

George upright, courteous, a trifle stiff, as most English country

gentlemen feel it incumbent on themselves to be on such occasions.

Presently the continual roll of the carriages outside ceased, the lamps

were toned down, the orchestra struck up, and Sir George and Lady Mary

took their seats, looking round with anxious satisfaction at the hall

crowded with people. People lined the walls; chairs were being lifted

over the heads of the sitting for some who were still standing; cushions

were being arranged on the billiard-table at the back for a covey of

white waistcoats who arrived late; the staircase was already crowded

with servants; the whole place was crammed.

I wondered how they were getting on behind the scenes, and slipping out

of the hall, I traversed the great gold and white drawing-room, prepared

for dancing, and peeped into the morning-room, which, with the adjoining

library, had been given up to the actors. They were all assembled in the

morning-room, however, waiting for one of the elder ladies who had not

come down. The prompter was getting fidgety, and walking about. The two

scene-shifters, pale, weary-looking men, who had come down with the

scenery, were sitting in the wings, perfectly apathetic amid the general

excitement. Charles and several other actors were standing round a

footman who was opening champagne bottles at a surprising rate. I saw

Charles take a glass to Evelyn, who was shivering with a sharp attack of

stage-fever in an arm-chair, looking over her part. She smiled

gratefully, but as she did so her eyes wandered to the other side of the

room, where Ralph, on his knees before Aurelia, was fastening a diamond

star in her dress. Diamonds, rubies, and emeralds flashed in her hair,

and on her white neck and arms. Ralph was fixing the last ornament onto

her shoulder with wire off a champagne bottle, there being no clasp to

hold it in its place. I saw Evelyn turn away again, and Charles, who was

watching her, suddenly went off to the fire, and began to complain of

the cold, and of the thinness of his silk stockings.

The elder lady--"the heavy mother," as Charles irreverently called

her--now arrived; the orchestra, which was giving a final flourish, was

begged in a hoarse whisper to keep going a few minutes longer; eyes were

applied to the hole in the curtain, and then, every one being assembled,

it was felt by all that the awful moment had come at last. A more

miserable-looking set of people I never saw. I always imagined that the

actors behind the scenes were as gay off the stage as on it; but I found

to my astonishment that they were all suffering more or less from severe

mental depression. Ralph and Aurelia were now sitting ruefully together

on an ottoman beside the painting table, littered with its various

rouges and creams and stage appliances. Even Charles, who had

established Evelyn on a chair in the wings at the side she had to come

on from, and was now drinking champagne with due regard to his

paint--even Charles owned to being nervous.

"I wish to goodness Mrs. Wright would begin!" he said. "Ah, there she

goes!"--as she ascended the stage steps. "There goes the bell. We are in

for it now. She starts, and I come on next. Up goes the curtain. Where

the devil has my book got to?"

In another moment he was in the wings, intent on his part; then I saw

him throw down his book and go jauntily forward. A moment more, and

there was a thunder of applause. All the actors looked at each other,

and smiled a feeble smile.

"He will do," said General Marston, the Indian officer, who, now in the

dress of an old-fashioned livery servant, proceeded to mount the steps.

It dawned upon me that I was missing the play, and I hurried back to

find Charles convulsing the audience with the utmost coolness, and

evidently enjoying himself exceedingly. Then Evelyn came on--But who

cares to read a description of a play? It is sufficient to say that

Aurelia looked charming, and many were the whispered comments on her

magnificent jewels; but on the stage Evelyn surpassed her, as much as

Aurelia surpassed Evelyn off it.

Ralph and Carr did well, but Charles was the favorite with every one,

from the Duchess of Crushington in the front seat to the scullery-maid

on the staircase. He was so bold, so wicked, so insinuating, in his

plumed cap and short cloak, so elegantly refined when he wiped his sword

upon his second's handkerchief. He took every one's heart by storm.

Ralph, who represented all the virtues, with rather thick ankles and a

false mustache, was nowhere. When the curtain fell for the last time,

amid great and continued applause, the "heavy mother," Ralph, Aurelia,

all were well received as they passed before it; but Charles, who

appeared last, was the hero of the evening.

"He is engaged to his cousin, Miss Derrick, isn't he?" said a lady near

me, in a loud whisper to a friend.

"Hush! no. Charles can't marry. Head over ears in debt. They say _she_

is attached to one of her cousins, but I forget which. I am not sure it

was not the other one."

"Then it is the second son who is going to be married, is it? I know I

heard something about one of them being engaged."

"Yes, the second son is engaged to that good-looking girl in diamonds,

who acted Florence Mordaunt. A lot of money, I believe, but not much in

the way of family. Grandfather sold mouse-traps in Birmingham, so people

say."

"She looks like it!" replied the other, who had daughters out, and could

not afford to let any praise of other girls pass. "No breeding or

refinement; and she will be stout later, you will see."

The play being over, a general movement now set in towards the

drawing-room, where the band was already installed, and making its

presence known by an inspiriting valse tune. In a few moments twenty,

thirty, forty couples were swaying to the music; Aurelia in her acting

costume was dancing away with Ralph in his red stockings; Carr with the

"heavy mother," and Charles in prosaic evening-dress was flying past

with Evelyn, who, now that she had effaced her beautiful stage

complexion, looked pale and grave as ever.

I suppose it was a capital ball. Every one seemed to enjoy it. I did not

dance myself, but I liked watching the others; and after a time Charles,

who had been dancing indefatigably with two school-room girls with

pigtails, came and flung himself down on the other half of the ottoman

on which I was sitting.

"Three times with each!" he said, in a voice of extreme exhaustion. "No

favoritism. I have done for to-night now."

"What! Are you not going to dance any more?"

"No, not unless Evelyn will give me another turn later, which she

probably won't. There she goes with Lord Breakwater again. How I do

dislike that young man! And look at Carr--valsing with Aurelia! He

seems to be leaping on her feet a good deal, and she looks as if she

were telling him so, does not she? There! they have subsided into the

bay-window. I thought she would not stand it long. He does not dance as

well as he acts. Heigh-ho! Come in to supper with me, Middleton. The

supper-room will be emptier now, and I am dying of hunger. You must be

the same, for you had no regular dinner any more than we had. Come

along. We will get a certain little table for two that I know of, in the

bay-window where I took the fair pigtail just now, to the evident

anxiety of the parental chignon who was at the large table. We will have

a good feed in peace and quietness."

In a few minutes we were established in a quiet nook in the supper-room,

which was now half empty, and were making short work of everything

before us.

"How well Carr acted!" said Charles at last, leaning back, and leisurely

sipping his champagne. "I can think of something besides food now. Did

not you think he acted well?"

"Yes," I said, "but you cut him out."

"Did I!" said Charles, absently, beckoning to some lobster salad which

was passing. "Have some? Do, Middleton. We can but die once. You won't?

Well I will. Have you often seen Carr act before?"

"Never," I said. "I never met him till I came on board the _Bosphorus_

at----"

"Indeed! Oh! I fancied you were quite old friends."

"We made great friends on the steamer."

"Did you see much of him in London?" he asked, filling up his glass and

mine.

"Not much, naturally," I said, laughing. "I was in London only two

nights."

"Ah! I forgot. Very good of you, I am sure, to come down here so soon

after your arrival. You would hardly have seen him at all since you

landed, then?"

"Carr? Yes," I replied, thinking Charles's talk was becoming very vague;

though when I rallied him about it next day he assured me it had been

very much to the point indeed. "We dined and went to the play together,

and had rather a nasty accident into the bargain on our way home."

"What kind of accident?"

I told him the particulars, which seemed to interest him very much.

"And you had all those jewels of poor Sir John's with you, no doubt,"

continued Charles. "You said you had them on you day and night. I wonder

you were not relieved of them."

"That is just what Carr said," I went on; "for he lost something of his,

poor fellow. However, I had left them with Jane in a--in a _safe

place_."

I did not think it necessary to mention the tea-caddy.

"Oh! so Carr knew you had charge of them, did he?" said Charles. "Have

some of these grapes, Middleton; the white ones are the best."

"Yes," I said, "he was the only person who had any idea of such a thing.

I am very careful, I can tell you; and I did not mean to have half the

ship's company know that I had valuables to such an amount upon me. When

I told Jane about them--"

"Oh, then, Jane--I beg her pardon, Miss Middleton--was aware you had

them with you?"

"Of course," I replied; "and she was quite astonished at them when I

showed them to her."

"I hope," continued Charles, with his charming smile--all the more

charming because it was so rare--"that Miss Middleton will add me to the

number of her friends some day. I live in London, you know; but I wonder

at ladies caring to live there. No poultry or garden, to which the

feminine mind usually clings."

"Jane seems to like it," I said.

"Yes," replied Charles, meditatively. "I dare say she is very wise. A

woman who lives alone is much safer in town than in an isolated house in

the country, in case of fire, or thieves, or----"

"Well, I don't know that," I said. "I don't see that they are so very

safe. Why, only the night before I came down here----" I stopped. I had

looked up to catch a sudden glimpse of Carr's face, pale and uneasy,

watching us in a mirror opposite. In a moment I saw his face turn

smiling to another--Evelyn's, I think--and both were gone.

Charles's light steel eyes were fixed full upon me.

"'Only the night before you came down here,' you were saying," he

remarked, leaning back and half shutting them as usual.

"Yes, only the night before I came down here our house was broken into;"

and I gave him a short account of what had happened. "And only the night

before _that_," I added, "a poor woman was murdered in Jane's old house.

I remember it especially, because I went to the house by mistake, not

knowing Jane had moved, and I saw her, poor thing, sitting by the fire.

I don't see that living in town _is_ so much safer for life and

property, after all."

"Dear me! no. You are right, perfectly right," said Charles, dreamily.

"Your sister's experience proves it. And that other poor creature--only

the night before--and in Miss Middleton's former house, too. Well,

Middleton," with a start, "I suppose we ought to be going back now. I

have got all I want, if you have. I wonder what time it is? I'm dog

tired."

We re-entered the ball-room to find the last valse being played, and a

crowd of people taking leave of Lady Mary.

"Where's father?" asked Charles, as Ralph came up. "He ought to be here

to say good-night."

"He's gone to bed," said Ralph. "Aunt Mary sent him. He was quite done

up. He has been on his legs all day. I expect he will be laid up

to-morrow."

In a quarter of an hour the ball-room was empty, and Lady Mary, who was

dragging herself wearily towards the hall as the last carriage rolled

away, felt that she might safely restore the balance of her mind by a

sudden lapse from the gracious and benevolent to the acid and severe.

"To bed! to bed!" she kept repeating. "Where is Evelyn? I want her arm.

General Marston, Colonel Middleton, will you have the goodness to go and

glean up these young people? Mrs. Marston and Lady Delmour, you must

both be tired to death. Let us go on, and they can follow."

General Marston and I found a whole flock of the said young people in

the library, candle in hand, laughing and talking, thinking they were

going that moment, but not doing it, and all, in fact, listening to

Charles, who was expounding a theory of his own respecting ball dresses,

which seemed to meet with the greatest feminine derision.

"First take your silk slip," he was saying as we came in. "There is

nothing indiscreet in mentioning a slip; is there, Evelyn? I trust not;

for I heard Lady Delmour telling Mrs. Wright that all well-brought-up

young ladies had silk slips. Then--"

"He exposes his ignorance more entirely every moment," said Evelyn. "Let

us all go to bed, and leave him to hold forth to men who know as little

as himself."

"Oh, Ralph!" said Aurelia, pointing to the jewels on her neck and arms;

"before we go I want you to take back these. I don't like keeping them

myself; I am afraid of them." And she began to take them off and lay

them on the table.

"Nonsense, my pet; keep them yourself, and lock them up in your

dressing-case." And Ralph held them towards her.

"I haven't got a dressing-case," said Aurelia, pouting; "and my hat-box

won't lock. I don't like having them. I wish you would keep them

yourself."

"Bother!" said Ralph; "and father has gone to bed. He can't put them

back into his safe, and he keeps the key himself. Where is the bag they

go in?"

Aurelia said that she had seen him put it behind a certain jar on the

chimney-piece in the morning-room, and Carr went for it, she following

him with a candle, as all the lamps had been put out. They presently

returned with it, and Ralph, who had been collecting all the jewels

spread over the table, shovelled them in with little ceremony.

"Bother!" he said again, looking round and swinging the bag; "what on

earth am I to do with them? Ah, well, here goes!" and he opened a side

drawer in a massive writing-table and shoved the bag in.

"There!" he said, locking it, and putting the key in his pocket; "they

will do very well there till to-morrow. Are you content now, Aurelia?"

"Oh yes," she said, "I am, if you are." And she bade us good-night and

followed in the wake of the others, who were really under way at last.

As we all tramped wearily up-stairs to the smoking-room I saw Charles

draw Ralph aside and whisper something to him.

"Nonsense!" I heard Ralph say. "Safe enough. Besides, who would suspect

their being there? Just as safe as in the strong-box. Brahma lock. Won't

be bothered any more about them."

Charles shrugged his shoulders and marched off to bed. Ralph and Carr

likewise went off shortly afterwards to their rooms in the lodge. Carr

looked tired to death. I went down with them, at Ralph's request, to

lock the door behind them, as all the servants had gone to bed.

It was a fine night, still and cold, with a bright moon. It had

evidently been snowing afresh, for there was not a trace of wheels upon

the ground; but it had ceased now.

"Good-night!" called Ralph and Carr, as they went down the steps

together. I watched the two figures for a moment in the moonlight, their

footsteps making a double track in the untrodden snow. The cold was

intense. I drew back shivering, and locked and bolted the door.

CHAPTER VIII.

It is very seldom I cannot sleep, but I could not that night. There was

something in the intense quiet and repose of the great house, after all

the excitement of the last few hours, that oppressed me. Everything

seemed, as I lay awake, so unnaturally silent. There was not a sound in

the wide grate, where the last ashes of the fire were silently giving up

the ghost, not a rumble of wind in the old chimney which had had so much

to say the night before. I tossed and turned, and vainly sought for

sleep, now on this side, now on that. At last I gave up trying, half in

the hope that it might steal upon me unawares. I thought of the play and

the ball, of poor Charles and his debts--of anything and everything--but

it was no good. In the midst of a jumble of disconnected ideas I

suddenly found myself listening again to the silence--listening as if it

had been broken by a sound which I had not heard. My watch ticked loud

and louder on the dressing-table, and presently I gave quite a start as

the distant stable clock tolled out the hour: One, two, three, four. I

had gone to bed before three. Had I been awake only an hour? It seemed

incredible. Getting up on tiptoe, vaguely afraid myself of breaking the

silence, I noiselessly pushed aside the heavy curtains and looked out.

The moon had set, but by the frosty starlight the outline of the great

snow-laden trees and the wide sweep of white drive were still dimly

visible. All was silent without as within. Not a branch moved or let

fall its freight of snow. There was not a breath of wind stirring. I was

on the point of getting back into bed, when I thought in the distance I

heard a sound. I listened intently. No! I must have been mistaken. Ah!

again, and nearer! I held my breath. I could distinctly hear a stealthy

step coming up the stairs. My room was the nearest to the staircase end

of the corridor, and any one coming up the stairs must pass my door.

With a presence of mind which, I am glad to say, rarely deserts me, I

blew out my candle, slipped to the door, and noiselessly opened it a

chink.

Some one was coming down the corridor with the lightness of a cat,

candle in hand, as a faint light showed me. Another moment, and I saw

Charles, pale and haggard, still in evening-dress, coming towards me. He

was without his shoes. He passed my door and went noiselessly into his

own room, a little farther down the passage. There was the faintest

suspicion of a sound, as of a key being gently turned in the lock, and

then all was still again, stiller than ever.

What could Charles have been after? I wondered. He could not have been

returning from seeing Denis, who was not only much better, but was in

the room beyond his own. And why had he still got on his evening clothes

at four o'clock in the morning? I determined to ask him about it next

day, as I got back into bed again, and then, while wondering about it

and trying to get warm, I fell fast asleep. I was only roused, after

being twice called, to find that it was broad daylight, and to hear

being carried down the boxes of many of the guests who were leaving by

an early train.

I was late, but not so late as some. Breakfast was still going on.

Evelyn and Ralph had been up to see their friends off, but General and

Mrs. Marston and Carr, who was staying on, came in after I did. Lady

Mary and Aurelia were having breakfast in their own rooms. I think

nothing is more dreary than a long breakfast-table, laid for large

numbers, with half a dozen picnicking at it among the débris left by

earlier ravages. Evelyn, behind the great silver urn, looked pale and

preoccupied, and had very little to say for herself when I journeyed up

to her end of the table and sat down by her. She asked me twice if I

took sugar, and was not bright and alert and ready in conversation, as I

think girls should be. Carr, too, was eating his breakfast in silence

beside Mrs. Marston.

It was not cheerful. And then Charles came in, listless and tired, and

without an appetite. He sat down wearily on the other side of Evelyn,

and watched her pour out his coffee without a word.

"The Carews and Edmonts and Lady Delmour and her daughter have just

gone," said Evelyn, "and Mr. Denis."

"Yes," replied Charles, seeming to pull himself together; "Denis came to

my room before he went. He looked a wreck, poor fellow; but not worse

than some of us. These late hours, these friskings with energetic young

creatures in the school-room, these midnight revels, are too much for

me. I feel a perfect wreck this morning, too."

He certainly looked it.

"Have you had bad letters?" said Evelyn, in a low voice.

He laughed a little--a grim laugh--and shook his head. "But I had

yesterday," he added presently, in a low tone. "I shall have to try a

change of air again soon, I am afraid."

I was just going to ask Charles what he had been doing walking about in

his socks the night before, when the door opened, and Ralph, whose

absence I had not noticed, came in. He looked much perturbed. It seemed

his father had been taken suddenly and alarmingly ill while dressing. In

a moment all was confusion. Evelyn precipitately left the room to go to

him, while Charles rushed round to the stables to send a groom on

horseback for the nearest doctor. Ralph followed him, and the remainder

of the party gathered in a little knot round the fire, Mrs. Marston

expressing the sentiment of each of us when she said that she thought

visitors were very much in the way when there was illness in the house,

and that she regretted that she and her husband had arranged to stay

over Sunday, to-day being Friday.

"So have I," said Carr; "but I am sure I had better have refused. A

stranger in a sick-house is a positive nuisance. I think I shall go to

town by an afternoon train, if there is one."

"Upon my word I think we had better do the same," said Mrs. Marston.

"What do you say, Arthur?" and she turned to her husband.

"I must go to-day, anyhow--on business," said General Marston.

"I hope no one is talking of leaving," said Charles, who had returned

suddenly, rather out of breath.

As he spoke his eyes were fixed on Carr.

"Yes, that is exactly what we were doing," said Mrs. Marston. "Nothing

is so tiresome as having visitors on one's hands when there is illness

in the house. Mr. Carr was thinking of going up to London by the

afternoon train; and I have a very good mind to go away with Arthur,

instead of staying on, and letting him come back here for me to-morrow,

as we had intended."

"Pray do not think of such a thing!" said Charles, really with

unnecessary earnestness. "Mrs. Marston, pray do not alter your plans.

Carr!" in a much sterner tone, "I must beg that you will not think of

leaving us to-day. Your friend Colonel Middleton is staying on, and we

cannot allow you to desert us so suddenly."

It was more like a command than an invitation; but Carr, usually so

quick to take a slight, did not seem to notice it, and merely said that

he should be happy to go or stay, whichever was most in accordance with

the wishes of others, and took up the newspaper. He and Charles did not

seem to get on well. I could see that Charles had not seemed to take to

him from the very first; and Carr certainly did not appear at ease in

the house. Perhaps Charles felt that he had rather failed in courtesy

to him, for during the remainder of the morning he hardly let him out of

his sight. He took him to see the stables, though Carr openly declared

that he did not understand horses; he showed him his collection of Zulu

weapons in the vestibule; he even started a game of billiards with him

till the arrival of the doctor. I did not think Carr took his attentions

in very good part, though he was too well-mannered to show it; but he

looked relieved when Charles went up-stairs with the doctor, and pitched

his cue into the rack at once, and came to the hall-fire where I was

sitting, and where Aurelia presently joined us, fresh and smiling, in

the prettiest of morning-gowns. Every one met in the hall. It was in the

centre of the house, and every one coming up or down had to pass through

it. Just now it was not so tempting an abode as usual, for the flowers

and part of the stage had already been removed, and the bare boards,

with their wooden supports, gave an air of discomfort to the whole

place.

Aurelia opened wide eyes of horror at hearing Sir George was ill. She

even got out a tiny laced pocket-handkerchief; but before she had had

time to weep much into it, and spoil her pretty eyes, the doctor

reappeared, accompanied by Charles and Ralph, and we all learned to our

great relief that Sir George, though undoubtedly ill, was not

dangerously so at present, though the greatest care would be necessary.

Lady Mary had undertaken the nursing of her brother-in-law, and in her

the doctor expressed the same confidence which parents are wont to feel

in a stern school-master. In the mean time the patient was to be kept

very quiet, and on no account to be disturbed.

When the doctor had left, Ralph and Aurelia, who had actually seen

nothing of each other that morning, sauntered away together towards the

library. Charles challenged Carr to finish his game of billiards, and

Marston and I retired up-stairs to the smoking-room, where we could talk

over our Indian experiences, and perhaps doze undisturbed. We might have

been so occupied for half an hour or more when a flying step came up the

stairs, the door was thrown open, and Ralph rushed into the room.

"General Marston! Colonel Middleton!" he gasped out, breathing hard,

"will you, both of you, come to my father's room at once? He has sent

for you."

"Good gracious! Is he worse?" I exclaimed.

"No. Hush! Don't ask anything, but just come,"--and he turned and led

the way to Sir George Danvers's room.

We followed in wondering silence, and, after passing along numerous

passages, were ushered into a large oak-panelled room with a great

carved bed in it, in the middle of which, bolt-upright, sat Sir George

Danvers, pale as ivory, his light steel eyes (so like Charles's) seeming

to be the only living thing about him.

As we came in he looked at each of us in turn.

"Where is Charles?" he said, speaking in a hoarse whisper.

"Dear me! Sir George," I said, sympathetically, "how you _have_ lost

your voice!"

He looked at me for a moment, and then turned to Ralph again.

"Where is Charles?" he asked a second time, in the same tone.

"Here!" said a quiet voice. And Charles came in, and shut the door.

CHAPTER IX.

The two pairs of steel eyes met, and looked fixedly at each other.

A tap came to the door.

Sir George winced, and made a sign to Ralph, who rushed to it and bolted

it.

"I am coming in, George," said Lady Mary's voice.

"Send her away," came a whisper from the bed.

This was easier said than done. But it _was_ done after a sufficiently

long parley; and Lady Mary retired under the impression that Ralph was

sitting alone with his father, who thought he might get a little sleep.

"Now," whispered Sir George, motioning to Ralph.

"The fact is," said Ralph, "the jewels are gone! They have been stolen

in the night."

He bolted out with this one sentence, and then was silent. Marston and I

stared at him aghast.

"Is there no mistake?" said Marston at last.

"None," replied Ralph. "I put them in a drawer in the great inlaid

writing-table in the library last night, before everybody. I went for

them this morning, half an hour ago, at father's request. The lock was

broken, and they were gone."

There was another long silence.

"I was a fool, of course, to put them there," resumed Ralph. "Charles

told me so; but I thought they were as safe there as anywhere, if no one

knew--and no one did except the house party."

"Were any of the servants about?" asked Marston.

"Not one. They had all gone to bed except one of the footmen, who was

putting out the lamps in the supper-room, miles away."

Another silence.

"That is the dreadful part of it," burst out Ralph. "They must have been

taken by some one staying in the house--some one who saw me put them

there. The first thing I did was to send for the house-maids, and they

assured me that they had found every shutter shut, and every door

locked, this morning, as usual. Any one with time and wits _might_ have

got in through one of the library windows by taking out a pane and

forcing the shutter. I suppose a practised hand might have done such a

thing; but I went outside and there was not a footstep in the snow

anywhere near the library windows, or, for that matter, anywhere near

the house at all, except at the side and front doors, which are

impracticable for any one to force an entrance by."

"When did it leave off snowing?" asked Marston.

"About three o'clock," replied Ralph. "It must have snowed heavily till

then, for there was not a trace of all the carriage-wheels on the drive

when we went out last night, but our footprints down to the lodge are

clear in the snow now. There has been no snow since three o'clock this

morning."

"It all points to the same thing," said Charles, quietly, speaking for

the first time. "The jewels were taken by some one staying in the

house."

"One of the servants--" began Marston.

"No!" said Charles, cutting him short, "not one of the servants."

"It is impossible it should have been one of them," said Ralph, after

some thought. "First of all, none of them saw the jewels put into that

drawer; and, secondly, how could they suspect me of hiding them in a

place where I had never thought of putting them myself till that moment?

Besides, that one drawer only was broken open--the centre drawer in the

left-hand set of drawers. All the others were untouched, though they

were all locked. No one who had not _seen_ the jewels put in would have

found them so easily. That is the frightful part of it."

For a few minutes no one spoke. At last Marston raised his head from his

hands.

"There is no way out of it," he said, very gravely. "The robbery was

committed by one of the visitors staying in the house!"

"Yes!" said Charles.

"Yes!" echoed a whisper from the bed.

Charles looked up slowly and deliberately, and the eyes of father and

son met again.

"We do not often agree, father," he said, in a measured voice. "I mark

this exception to the rule with pleasure."

"When I had made out as much as this," continued Ralph, "father told me

to call both of you and Charles, to consider what ought to be done

before we make any move."

"Have you an inventory of the jewels?" asked Marston at length.

"None," said Sir George, "unless Middleton had one from Sir John."

I thereupon recapitulated in full all the circumstances of the bequest,

finally adding that Sir John had never so much as mentioned an

inventory.

"So much the better for the thief," said Marston, his chin in his hands.

"It is not a case for a detective," he added.

"I think not," said Charles.

A kind of hoarse ghostly laugh came from the bed. "Charles is always

right," whispered the sick man. "Quite unnecessary, I am sure."

"Oh, I don't know," I said, feeling I had not yet been of as much

assistance as I could have wished. "Now, I think detectives are of

use--really useful, you know, in finding out things. There was a

detective, I remember, trying to trace the people who murdered that poor

lady at Jane's old house since my return."

"But who could it have been? who could it have been?" burst out Ralph,

unheeding. "They were all friends. It is frightful to suspect one of

them. One could as easily suspect one's self. Which of them all could

have done a thing like that? Out of them all, which was it?"

"Carr!" replied Charles, quietly, looking full at his father.

If a bomb-shell had fallen among us at that moment it could not have

produced a greater effect than that one word, uttered so deliberately.

Sir George started in his bed, and clutched at the bedclothes with both

hands. My brain positively reeled. Carr! my friend Carr! introduced into

the family by myself, was being accused by Charles. I was speechless

with indignation.

"I am sorry, Middleton," continued Charles; "I know he is your friend,

but I can't help that. Carr took the jewels. I distrusted him from the

moment he set foot in the house."

"Where is he at this instant?" said Marston, getting up. "Is no one with

him?"

"There is no need to be anxious on his account," replied Charles. "I

took him up to the smoking-room before I came here, and I turned the key

in the door. The key is here." And he laid it on the table.

Marston sat down again.

"What are your grounds for suspecting Carr?" he asked. "Remember, this

is a very serious thing, Charles, that you have done in locking him up,

if you have not adequate reason for it."

"You had better leave Carr alone, Charles," said Ralph, significantly.

"Let him go on," said Sir George.

"I have no proof," continued Charles; "I did not see him take them, but

I am as certain of it as if I had seen it with my own eyes. The jewels

could only have been stolen by some one staying in the house. That is

certain. Who, excepting Carr, was a stranger among us? Who, excepting

Carr--"

"Stop, Charles," said Ralph again. "Don't you know that Carr slept with

me down at the lodge?"

Charles turned on his brother and gripped his shoulder.

"Do you mean to say," he said, sharply, "that Carr did not sleep in the

house last night?"

"Dear me, Charles, that was an oversight on your part," came Sir

George's whisper.

"No," replied Ralph, "he did not. The house was full, and we had to put

him in that second small room through mine in the lodge. If Carr had

been dying to take them he had not the opportunity. He could not have

left his room without passing through mine, and I never went to sleep at

all. I had a sharp touch of neuralgia from the cold, which kept me awake

all night."

"He got out through the window," said Charles.

"Nonsense!" said Ralph, getting visibly angry; "you are only making

matters worse by trying to put it on him. Remember the size of the

window. Besides, you know how the lodge stands, built against the garden

wall. When I came out this morning there was not a single footstep in

the snow, except those we had made as we went there the night before. I

noticed our footmarks particularly, because I had been afraid there

would be more snow. No one could by any possibility have left the house

during the night. Even Jones himself had not been out, for there was a

little eddy of snow before the back door, and I remember calling to him

that he would want his broom."

"The snow clinches the matter, Charles," said Marston, gravely. "You

have made a mistake."

"Quite unintentional, I'm sure," whispered Sir George.

There was something I did not like about that whisper. It seemed to

imply more than met the ear.

Charles did not appear to hear him. He was looking fixedly before him,

his hand had dropped from Ralph's shoulder, his face was quite gray.

"Then," he said, slowly, as if waking out of a dream, "it was _not_

Carr."

"No," said Sir George; "I never thought it was."

"Good God!" ejaculated Charles, sinking into a low chair by the fire,

and shading his face with his hand. "Not Carr, after all!"

But my indignation could not be restrained a moment longer. I had only

been kept silent by repeated signs from Marston, and now I broke out.

"And so, sir, you suspect my friend," I said, "and insult him in your

father's house by turning the key on him. You endeavor to throw

suspicion on a man who never injured you in the slightest degree. You

insult _me_ in insulting my friend, sir. Suspicion is not always such an

easy thing to shake off as it has been in this instance. I, on my side,

might ask what _you_ were doing walking about the passages in your socks

at four o'clock this morning? In your socks, sir, still in your evening

clothes--"

I had spoken it anger, not thinking much what I was saying, and I

stopped short, alarmed at the effect of my own words.

"I knew it! I knew it!" gasped Sir George, in his hoarse, suffocated

voice, and he fell back panting among his pillows.

Charles took his hand from his face, and looked hard at me with a

strange kind of smile.

"At any rate we are quits, Middleton," he said. "You have done it now,

and no mistake."

I did not quite see what I had done, but it soon became apparent.

"I knew it!" gasped out the sick man again; "I knew it from the first

moment that he tried to throw suspicion on Carr."

"Sir George," said Marston, gravely, "Charles made a mistake just now.

Do not you, on your side, make another. Come, Charles," turning to the

latter, who was now sitting erect, with flashing eyes, "tell us about

it. What were you doing when Middleton saw you?"

"I was coming up-stairs," said Charles, haughtily.

"From the library?" asked Sir George.

Charles bit his lip and remained silent.

I would not have spoken to him for a good deal at that moment. He looked

positively dangerous.

"From the library, of course," he said at last, controlling himself, and

speaking with something of his old careless manner, "laden with the

spoils of my midnight depredations. Parental fondness will supply all

minor details, no doubt; so, as the subject is a delicate one for me, I

will withdraw, that it may be discussed more fully in my absence."

"Stop, Charles," said Marston; "the case is too serious for banter of

this kind. My dear boy," he added, kindly, "I am glad to see you angry,

but nevertheless, you must condescend to explain. The longer you allow

suspicion to rest on yourself the longer it will be before it falls on

the right person. Come, what were you doing in the passage at that time

of night?"

Charles was touched, I could see. A very little kindness was too much

for him.

"It is no good, Marston," he said, in quite a different voice--"I am not

believed in this house."

He turned away and leaned against the mantle-piece, looking into the

fire. Ralph cleared his throat once or twice, and then suddenly went up

to him, and laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder.

"Fire away, old boy!" he said, in a constrained tone, and he choked

again.

Charles turned round and faced his brother, with the saddest smile I

ever saw.

"Well, Ralph!" he said, "I will tell you everything, and then you can

believe me or not, as you like. I have never told you a lie, have I?"

"Not often," replied Ralph, unwillingly.

"You at least are truth itself," said Charles, reddening; "and if you

are biassed in your opinion of me, perhaps it is more the fault of that

exemplary Christian, Aunt Mary, than your own. According to her, I have

told lies enough to float a company or carry an election, and I never

like to disappoint her expectations of me in that respect; but you I

have never to my knowledge deceived, and I am not going to begin now."

"You will be a clergyman yet," whispered the sick parent. "There is a

good living in the family. Charles, I shall live to see the Reverend

Charles Danvers in a surplice, preaching his first sermon on the ninth

commandment."

"At any rate, he is practising the fifth under difficulties at this

moment," said Marston, as Charles winced and turned his back on the

parental sick-bed. "Come, my boy, we are losing time."

"Will somebody have the goodness to restrain Middleton if he gets

excited?" said Charles. "I am afraid he won't like part of what I have

got to say."

"Nonsense, sir!" I replied, with warmth. "I hope I can restrain myself

as well as any man, even under such provocation as I have lately

received. You may depend on me, sir, that--"

"We lose time," said Marston, seating himself by me, and cutting short

what I was saying in an exceedingly brusque manner. "Come, Charles, you

should not be interrupted."

But he was. I interrupted him the whole time, in spite of continual

efforts on the part of Marston to make me keep silence. I am not the man

calmly to let pass black insinuations against the character of a friend.

No, I stood up for him. I am glad to think how I stood up for him, not

only metaphorically, but in the most literal sense of the term; for I

found myself continually getting up, and Marston as often pulling me

down again into my chair.

"Am I to speak, or is Middleton?" said Charles at last, in despair. "I

will do a solo, or I will keep silence; but really I am unequal to a

duet."

"Sir George," said Marston, "will you have the goodness to desire

Colonel Middleton to be silent, or to leave the room till Charles has

finished his story?"

I was justly annoyed at Marston's manner of speaking of me, but as I had

no intention to leave the room and miss what was going on, I merely

bowed in answer to a civil request from Sir George, and took up an

attitude of dignified silence. I felt that I had done my part in

vindicating my friend; and after all, no one, evidently, was accustomed

to believe what Charles said.

"As I was saying," he continued, "I suspected Carr from the first. I did

not like the look of him, and I purposely pumped Middleton about him

last night at supper."

I nearly burst out at the bare idea of Charles daring to say he had

pumped me; but, as will be seen, he could twist anything that was said

to such an extent that it was perfectly useless to contradict him any

longer. I said not a single word, and he went on:

"All Middleton told me confirmed me in my suspicions. Sir John had been

murdered the night before Middleton sailed for England, a whisper of the

jewels having no doubt gone abroad. Carr came on board next day, and

made friends with Middleton. Whether he had anything to do with the

murder or not, God knows! but he found out--nay, Middleton openly told

him--that he had jewels of great value in his possession, which he

carried about on his person. Carr was the only person aware of that

fact. What follows? Carr has Middleton's address in London. Middleton

goes to the house, and finds that his sister has moved to the next

street. That house to which he first went is broken into, and the poor

woman in it is murdered, or dies of fright that same night. I mention

this as coincidence number one. The following evening Middleton, having

by chance left the jewels at home, dines, and goes to the theatre by

appointment with Carr. Unique cab accident occurs, in which Middleton is

knocked on the head and rendered unconscious. Coincidence number two.

Miss Middleton's house is broken into that same night on Middleton's

return to it. Coincidence number three. When I put all this together

last night, remembering that Carr, by Middleton's own account, was the

only person aware that he had jewels of great value in his keeping, I

felt absolutely certain (as I feel still) that he had accepted the

invitation, and come down from London solely for the purpose of stealing

them. It was pure conjecture on my part, and I dared say nothing beyond

begging Ralph not to leave the jewels in the library--which, however, he

did. I went straight off to my room when the others went to smoke, but I

did not go to bed. The more I thought it over the more certain I felt

that Carr would not let slip such an opportunity, the more convinced

that an attempt would be made that very night. I did not know that he

was not sleeping in the house, but I knew Ralph was at the lodge, so I

could not go and consult with him, as I should otherwise have done. I

thought of going to Middleton, whose room was close to mine, but on

second thoughts I gave up the idea. I am glad I did. At last I

determined I would wait till the house was quiet, and that then I would

go down alone, and watch in the library in the dark. I lay down on my

bed in my clothes to wait, and then--I had been up most of the night

before with Denis; I was dead beat with acting and dancing--by ill luck

I fell asleep. When I woke up I found to my horror that it was close on

four o'clock. I instantly slipped off my shoes, and crept out of my room

and down the stairs. I could not get to the library from the hall, as

the stage blocked the way, and I had to go all the way round by the

drawing-room and morning-room. As I went I thought how easy it would be

for Carr to force the lock of the drawer; and so, it flashed across me,

could I. Oh, Ralph!" said Charles, "I went down solely to look after

your property for you, but I _did_ think of it. I hope I should not have

done it, but I suddenly remembered how hard pressed I was for money, and

I did think of the crescent, and how you would hardly miss it, and

how--but what does it matter now? When I got to the library I found I

was too late. The lock of the drawer had been forced, and it was empty.

There was nothing for it but to go back to my room. I felt as certain

that Carr had done it as that I am standing here; but I dared say

nothing next morning, for fear of drawing an ever-ready parental

suspicion on myself--which, however, Middleton did for me. All I could

do was to keep Carr well in sight until the theft was found out, to

prevent any possibility of his escaping, and then to accuse him. There!"

said Charles, "that is the whole truth. Carr did not take the jewels;

that is absolutely proved, and the sooner he is let out the better. Who

took them Heaven only knows! I don't. But I know who meant to, and that

was Carr."

"Charles," said Ralph, with glistening eyes, "if ever I get them back

you shall have the crescent."

"A very neat little story altogether," said Sir George, "and the episode

of temptation very effectively thrown in. It does you credit, my son,

and is a great relief to your old father's mind."

"Thank you, Charles," said Marston, getting up. "Sir George, it is close

on luncheon-time, and Carr must be let out at once. Now that Charles has

so completely cleared himself I don't see that anything more can be done

for the moment; and of one thing I am certain, namely, that you are

making yourself much worse, and must keep absolutely quiet for the rest

of the day. If I may advise, I would suggest that Carr should be allowed

to leave, as he wishes to do, by the afternoon train, and should not be

pressed to stay. There is nothing more to be got out of him; and,

considering the circumstances, I should say the sooner he is out of the

house the better. As he has been wrongly suspected, I think the robbery

had better not be mentioned to any one, even the ladies in the house,

until after he has left."

"Aurelia knows," said Ralph. "She was with me in the library. I left her

crying bitterly about them."

"Let her cry, if she will only hold her tongue," said Sir George, making

a last effort to speak, but evidently at the extreme point of

exhaustion. "And you, Marston, you are right about Carr. See that he

goes this afternoon. There is nothing more to be done at present.

Charles, you will remain here, though I have no doubt you have an

engagement in London. I cannot spare you just yet."

Charles bowed, and he and Marston went out. I remained a second behind

with Ralph.

"I see it quite clearly," said Sir George. "I know Charles. He is sharp

enough. He saw Carr meant mischief, and he was beforehand with him; and

_he_ took what Carr meant to take. It was not badly imagined, but he

should have made certain Carr was sleeping in the house. It all turned

on that. He never reckoned on the possibility of Carr's being cleared."

"Middleton is still here," said Ralph, significantly, who was pouring

out something for his father.

"Is he? I thought he was gone!" said Sir George, so sharply, that I

considered it advisable to retire at once.

Charles and Marston were talking together earnestly in the passage.

"He does not believe a word I say," said Charles, as I joined them;

"and, what is more, I could see he had told Ralph he suspected me before

we came in. Did not you see how Ralph tried to stop me when he thought I

was committing myself by accusing Carr, who, it seems, was quite out of

the question? I am glad you cut it short, Marston. He was making himself

worse every moment."

"Come on with that key of yours, and let us go and let out Carr,"

replied Marston, patting Charles kindly on the back, "or he will be

kicking all the paint off the door."

"Not he!" said Charles. "An honest man would have rung up the whole

household and nearly battered the door down by this time, thinking it

had been locked by mistake. Carr knows better."

We had reached the smoking-room by this time, just as the gong was

beginning to sound for luncheon, and under cover of the noise Charles

fitted the key into the key-hole and unlocked the door. He and Marston

went slowly in, talking on some indifferent subject, and I followed.

CHAPTER X

The room seemed strangely quiet after the stormy interview in the

sick-chamber which we had just left. The pale winter sunlight was

stealing in aslant through the low windows. The fire had sunk to a deep

red glow, and in an arm-chair drawn up in front of it, newspaper in

hand, was Carr, evidently fast asleep.

"'Oh, my prophetic soul!'" whispered Charles, nudging Marston; and then

he went forward and shouted "Luncheon!" in a voice that would have waked

the dead.

Carr started up and rubbed his eyes.

"Why, I believe you have been here ever since I left you here, hours

ago," said Charles, in a surprised tone, though really, under the

circumstances, it did not require a great stretch of the imagination to

suppose any such thing.

"Yes," said Carr, still rubbing his eyes. "Have you been gone long? I

expect I fell asleep."

"I rather thought you were inclined for a nap when I left you," replied

Charles, airily; "and now let us go to luncheon."

It was a very dismal meal. Lady Mary did not come down to it, and

Aurelia sat with red eyes, tearful and silent. Ralph was evidently out

of favor, for she hardly spoke to him, and snubbed him decidedly when he

humbly tendered a peace-offering in the form of a potato. Evelyn, too,

was silent, or made spasmodic attempts at conversation with Mrs.

Marston, the only unconstrained person of the party. Evelyn and Aurelia

had appeared together, and it was evident from Evelyn's expression that

Aurelia had told her. What conversation there was turned upon Sir

George's illness.

"We must go by the afternoon train, my dear," said Marston down the

table to his wife. "In Sir George's present state _all_ visitors are an

incubus."

Carr looked up. "I think I ought to go, too," he said. "I wished to

arrange to do so this morning, but Mr. Danvers," glancing at Charles,

"would not hear of it. I am sure, when there is illness in a house,

strangers are always in the way."

"I have seen my father since then," replied Charles, "and I fear his

illness is much more serious than I had any idea of. That being the

case, I feel it would be wrong to press any one, even Middleton, to stay

and share the tedium of a sick-house."

After a few more civil speeches it was arranged that Carr should, after

all, leave by the train which he had proposed in the morning. It was

found that there was still time for him to do so, but that was all. He

was evidently as anxious to be off as the Danverses were that he should

go. The dog-cart was ordered, a servant despatched to the lodge in hot

haste to pack his portmanteau, and in half an hour he was bidding us

good-bye, evidently glad to say it. Poor fellow! He little guessed, as

he shook hands with us, how shamefully he had been suspected, how

villanously he had been traduced behind his back. Somehow or other I had

not had a moment of conversation with him since the morning, or a single

chance of telling him how I had stood up for him in his absence. Either

Charles or Marston were always at hand, and when he took leave of me I

could only shake his hand warmly, and tell him to come and see me again

in town. I watched him spinning down the drive in the dog-cart, little

thinking how soon I should see him again, and in what circumstances.

"We shall have more snow," said Ralph, coming in-doors. "I feel it in

the air."

General and Mrs. Marston were the next to leave, starting an hour later,

and going in the opposite direction. I saw Marston turn aside, when his

wife was taking leave of the others, and go up to Charles. The young

hand and the old one met, and were locked tight.

"Good-bye, my dear boy," said Marston.

"Don't go," said Charles, without looking up.

"I must!" said Marston. "I am due at Kemberley to-night, on business;

but," in a lower tone, "I shall come back to-morrow, in case I can be of

any use."

They were gone, and I was the only one remaining. It has occurred to me

since that perhaps they expected me to go too, but I never thought of it

at the time. I had been asked for a week, and to go before the end of it

never so much as entered my head.

There was no chance of going out. The early winter afternoon was already

closing in, and a few flakes of snow were drifting like feathers in the

heavy air, promising more to come. Every one seemed to have dispersed,

Ralph up-stairs to his father, Charles out-of-doors somewhere in spite

of the weather. I remembered that I had not written to Jane since I

left London, and went into the library to do so. As I came in I saw

Evelyn sitting in a low chair by the fire, gazing abstractedly into it.

She started when she saw me, and on my saying I wished to write some

letters, showed me a writing-table near the fire, with pens, ink, and

paper.

"You will find it very cold at the big table in the window," she said,

looking at it with its broken drawer, a chink open, with a visible

shudder.

I installed myself near the fire, talking cheerfully the while, for it

struck me she was a little low in her spirits. She did not make much

response, and I was settling down to my letters when she suddenly said:

"Colonel Middleton!"

"Yes, Miss Derrick."

"I am afraid I am interrupting your writing, but--"

I looked round. She was standing up, nervously playing with her rings.

"But--I know I am not supposed to--but I know what happened last night;

Aurelia told me."

"It is very sad, isn't it?" I said. "But cheer up. I dare say we may get

them back yet." And I nodded confidentially at her. "In the mean time,

you know, you must not talk of it to any one."

"Do you suspect any one in particular?" she asked, very earnestly,

coming a step nearer.

I hardly knew what to say. Carr, I need hardly mention, I had never

suspected for a moment; but Charles--Marston had evidently believed what

Charles had said, but I am by nature more cautious and less credulous

than Marston. Besides, I had not forgiven Charles yet for trying to

incriminate Carr. Not knowing what to say, I shrugged my shoulders and

smiled.

"You do suspect some one, then?"

"My dear young lady," I replied, "when jewels are stolen, one naturally

suspects some one has taken them."

"So I should imagine. Whom do you naturally suspect?"

I could not tell her that I more than suspected Charles.

"I know nothing for certain," I said.

"But you have a suspicion?"

"I have a suspicion."

She went to the door to see if it were shut, and then came back and

said, in a whisper:

"So have I."

"Perhaps we suspect the same person?" I said.

She did not answer, but fixed her dark eyes keenly on mine. I had never

noticed before how dark they were.

I saw then that she knew, and that she suspected Charles, just as Sir

George had done.

I nodded.

"Nothing is proved," I said.

"I dared not say even as much as this before," she continued, hurriedly.

"It is only the wildest, vaguest suspicion. I have nothing to take hold

of. It is so horrible to suspect any one; but--"

She stopped suddenly. Her quick ear had caught the sound of a distant

step coming across the hall. In another moment Aurelia came in.

"Are you there, Evelyn?" she said. "I was looking for you, to ask where

the time-table lives. I want to look out my journey for to-morrow. Ralph

ought to do it, but he is up-stairs," with a little pout.

"You ought not to have quarrelled with him until he had made it out for

you," said Evelyn, smiling. "It is a very cross journey, isn't it? Let

me see. You are going to your uncle in Dublin, are not you? You had

better go to London, and start from there. It will be the shortest way

in the end."

The two girls laid their heads together over the Bradshaw, Evelyn's

dark-soft hair making a charming contrast to Aurelia's yellow curls. At

last the journey was made out and duly written down, and a post-card

despatched to the uncle in Dublin.

"Have you seen Ralph anywhere?" asked Aurelia, when she had finished it.

"I am afraid I was a little tiny wee bit cross to him this morning, and

I am so sorry."

Evelyn always seemed to stiffen when Aurelia talked about Ralph, and,

under the pretext of putting her post-card in the letter-bag for her,

she presently left the room, and did not return.

Aurelia sat down on the hearth-rug, and held two plump little hands to

the fire. It was quite impossible to go on writing to Jane while she was

there, and I gave it up accordingly.

"I am glad Evelyn is gone," she said, confidentially. "Do you know why I

am glad?"

I said I could not imagine.

"Because," continued Aurelia, nodding gravely at me, "I want to have a

very, very, _very_ serious conversation with you, Colonel Middleton."

I said I should be charmed, inwardly wondering what that little curly

head would consider to be serious conversation.

"Really serious, you know," continued Aurelia, "not pretence. About

that!" pointing with a pink finger at the inlaid writing-table. "You

know I was with Ralph when he found it out, and I am afraid I was a

little cross to him, only really it was so hard, and they were so

lovely, and it _was_ partly his fault, now, wasn't it, for leaving them

there? He ought to have been more careful."

"Of course he ought," I said. I would not have contradicted her for

worlds.

"And you know I am to be married next month; and Aunt Alice in Dublin,

who is getting my things, says as it is to be a winter wedding I am to

be married in a white _frisé_ velvet, and I did think the diamonds would

have looked so lovely with it. Wouldn't they?"

I agreed, of course.

"But I shall never be married in them now," she said, with a deep sigh.

"And I was looking forward to the wedding so much, though I dare say I

did tell a naughty little story when I said I was _not_ to Ralph the

other night. Of course Ralph is still left," she added, as an

after-thought; "but it won't be so perfect, will it?"

I was morally certain Charles would have to give them up, so I said,

reassuringly:

"Perhaps you may be married in them, after all."

"Oh!" she said, clasping her hands together, "do you really think so? Do

you know anything? I have not seen Ralph since to ask him about it. Do

you think we shall really get them back?"

"I should not wonder."

"Oh, Colonel Middleton, I see you know. You are a clever, wise man, and

you have found out something. Who is it? Do tell me!"

"Will you promise not to tell any one?"

"Mayn't I tell Ralph? I tell him everything."

"Well, you may tell Ralph, because he knows already; but no one else,

remember. The truth is, we are afraid it is Charles."

There was a long pause.

"I know Evelyn thinks so," said Aurelia, in a whisper, "though she tries

not to show it, because--because--"

"Because what?"

"Well, of course, you can't have helped seeing, can you, that she and

Charles--"

I had not seen it; indeed, I had fancied at times that Evelyn had a

leaning towards Ralph; but I never care to seem slower than others in

noticing these things, so I nodded.

"And then, you know, people can't be married that haven't any money; and

Charles and Evelyn have none," said Aurelia. "Oh, I am glad Ralph is

well off."

A light was breaking in on me. Perhaps it was not Charles after all.

Perhaps--

"I am afraid Evelyn is very unhappy," continued Aurelia. "Her room is

next to mine, and she walks up and down, and up and down, in the night.

I hear her when I am in bed. Last night I heard her so late, so late

that I had been to sleep and had waked up again. Do you know," and she

crept close up to me with wide, awe-struck eyes, "I am going away

to-morrow, and I don't like to say anything to any one but you; but I

think Evelyn knows something."

"Miss Derrick!" I said, beginning to suspect that she possibly knew a

good deal more than any of us, and then suddenly remembering that she

had been on the point of telling me something and had been interrupted.

I was getting quite confused. She certainly would not have wished to

confide in me if my new suspicion were correct. Considering there was a

mystery, it was curious how every one seemed to know something very

particular about it.

"Yes," replied Aurelia, nodding once or twice. "I am sure she knows

something. I went into her room before luncheon, and she was sitting

with her head down on the dressing-table, and when she looked up I saw

she had been crying. I don't know what to say about it to Ralph; but you

know,"--with a shake of the curls--"though people may think me only a

silly little thing, yet I do notice things, Colonel Middleton. Aunt

Alice in Dublin often says how quickly I notice things. And I thought,

as you were staying on, and seemed to be a friend, I would tell you this

before I went away, as you would know best what to do about it."

Aurelia had more insight into character than I had given her credit for.

She had hit upon the most likely person to follow out a clew, however

slight, in a case that seemed becoming more and more complicated. I

inwardly resolved that I would have it out with Miss Derrick that very

evening. Lady Mary now came in, and servants followed shortly afterwards

with lamps. The dreary twilight, with its dim whirlwinds of driving

snow, was shut out, the curtains were drawn, and tea made its

appearance. Evelyn presently returned, and Charles also, who civilly

wished Lady Mary good-morning, not having seen her till then. She handed

him his tea without a word in reply. It was evident that she, also, was

aware of the robbery, and it is hardly necessary to add that she

suspected Charles.

"How is my father?" he asked, taking no notice of the frigidity of her

manner.

"He is asleep at this moment," she replied. "Ralph is remaining with

him."

"He is better, then, I hope?"

"He is in a very critical state, and is likely to remain in it. His

illness was quite serious enough, without having it increased by one of

his own household."

"Ah, I was afraid that had been the case," returned Charles. "I knew you

had been doctoring him when he was out of sorts yesterday. But you must

not reproach yourself, Aunt Mary. We are none of us infallible. No doubt

you acted for the best at the time, and I dare say what you gave him may

not do him any permanent injury."

"If that is intended to be amusing," said Lady Mary, her teacup

trembling in her hand, "I can only say that, in my opinion, wilfully

misunderstanding a simple statement is a very cheap form of wit."

"I am so glad to hear you say so," said Charles, rising, "as it was at

your expense." With which Parthian shot he withdrew.

I endeavored in vain to waylay Evelyn after tea, but she slipped away

almost before it was over, and did not appear again till dinner-time. In

the mean while my brain, fertile in expedients on most occasions, could

devise no means by which I could speak to her alone, and without

Charles's knowledge. I felt I must trust to chance.

CHAPTER XI.

When I came down before dinner I found Ralph and Charles talking

earnestly by the hall-fire, Ralph's hand on his brother's shoulder.

"You see we are no farther forward than we were," he was saying.

"We shall have Marston back to-morrow," said Charles, as the gong began

to sound. "We cannot take any step till then, especially if we don't

want to put our foot in it. I have been racking my brains all the

afternoon without the vestige of a result. We must just hold our hands

for the moment."

Dinner was announced, and we waited patiently for a few minutes, and

impatiently for a good many more, until Evelyn hurried down, apologizing

for being late, and with a message from Lady Mary that we were not to

wait for her, as she was dining up-stairs in her own room--a practice to

which she seemed rather addicted.

"And where is Aurelia?" asked Ralph.

"She is not coming down to dinner either," said Evelyn. "She has a bad

headache again, and is lying down. She asked me to tell you that she

wishes particularly to see you this evening, as she is going away

to-morrow, and if she is well enough she will come down to the

morning-room at nine; indeed, she said she would come down anyhow."

After Ralph's natural anxiety respecting his ladylove had been relieved,

and he had been repeatedly assured that nothing much was amiss, we went

in to dinner, and a more lugubrious repast I never remember being

present at. The meals of the day might have been classified thus:

breakfast _dismal_; luncheon, _dismaller_ (or more dismal); dinner,

_dismallest_ (or most dismal). There really was no conversation. Even I,

who without going very deep (which I consider is not in good taste) have

something to say on almost every subject--even I felt myself nonplussed

for the time being. Each of us in turn got out a few constrained words,

and then relapsed into silence.

Evelyn ate nothing, and her hand trembled so much when she poured out a

glass of water that she spilled some on the cloth. I saw Charles was

watching her furtively, and I became more and more certain that Aurelia

was right, and that Evelyn knew something about the mystery of the night

before. I must and would speak to her that very evening.

"Bitterly cold," said Ralph, when at last we had reached the dessert

stage. "It is snowing still, and the wind is getting up."

In truth, the wind was moaning round the house like an uneasy spirit.

"That sound in the wind always means snow," said Charles, evidently for

the sake of saying something. "It is easterly, I should think. Yes,"

after a pause, when another silence seemed imminent, "there goes the

eight o'clock train. It must be quite a quarter of an hour late, though,

for it has struck eight some time. I can hear it distinctly. The station

is three miles away, and you never hear the train unless the wind is in

the east."

"Come, Charles, not three miles--two miles and a half," put in Ralph.

"Well, two and a half from here down to the station, but certainly three

from the station up here," replied Charles; and so silence was

laboriously avoided by diligent small-talk until we returned to the

drawing-room, thankful that there at least we could take up a book, and

be silent if we wished. We all did wish it, apparently. Evelyn was

sitting by a lamp when we came in, with a book before her, her elbow on

the table, shading her face with a slender delicate hand. She remained

motionless, her eyes fixed upon the page, but I noticed after some time

that she had never turned it over. Charles may have read his newspaper,

but if he did it was with one eye upon Evelyn all the time. Between

watching them both I did not, as may be imagined, make much progress

myself. How was I to manage to speak to Evelyn alone, and without

Charles's knowledge?

At last Ralph, who had gone into the morning-room, opened the

drawing-room door and put his head in.

"Aurelia has not come down yet, and it is a quarter past nine. I wish

you would run up, Evelyn, and see if she is coming."

"She is sure to come!" replied Evelyn, without raising her eyes. "She

said she _must_ see you."

Ralph disappeared again, and the books and papers were studied anew with

unswerving devotion. At the end of another ten minutes, however, the

impatient lover reappeared.

"It is half-past nine," he said, in an injured tone. "Do pray run up,

Evelyn. I don't think she can be coming at all. I am afraid she is

worse."

Evelyn laid down her book and left the room. Ralph sauntered back into

the morning-room, where we heard him beguiling his solitude with a few

chords on the piano.

Presently Evelyn returned. She was pale even to the lips, and her voice

faltered as she said:

"She has not gone to bed, for there is a light in her room; but she

would not answer when I knocked, and the door is locked."

"All of which circumstances are not sufficient to make you as white as a

ghost," said Charles. "I think even if Aurelia has a headache, you would

bear the occurrence with fortitude. My dear child, you do not act so

well off the stage as on it. There is something on your mind. People

don't upset water at dinner, and refuse all food except pellets of

pinched bread, for nothing. What is it?"

Evelyn sank into a chair, and covered her face with her trembling hands.

"Yes, I thought so," said Charles, kneeling down by her, and gently

withdrawing her hands. "Come, Evelyn, what is it?"

"I dare not say." And she turned away her face, and tried to disengage

her hands, but Charles held them firmly.

"Is it about what happened last night?" he asked, in a tone that was

kind, but that evidently intended to have an answer.

"Yes."

"And do you know that I am suspected?"

"You, Charles? Never!" she cried, starting up.

"Yes, I. Suspected by my own father. So, if you know anything,

Evelyn--which I see you do--it is your duty to tell us, and to help us

in every way you can."

He had let go her hands now, and had risen.

"I don't know anything for certain," she said, "but--but we soon shall.

Aurelia knows, and she is going to tell Ralph."

"Miss Grant!" I exclaimed. "She knew nothing at tea-time. She was asking

me about it."

"It is since then," continued Evelyn. "I went up to her room before

dinner to ask her for a fan that I had lent her. She was packing some of

her things, and the floor was strewn with packing-paper and parcels. She

gave me my fan, and was going on putting her things together, talking

all the time, when she asked me to hand her a glove-box on the

dressing-table. As I did so my eye fell on a piece of paper lying

together with others, and I instantly recognized it as the same that had

been wrapped round the diamond crescent when Colonel Middleton first

showed us the jewels. I should never have noticed it--for though it was

rice paper, it looked just like the other pieces strewn about--if I had

not seen two little angular tears, which I suddenly remembered making in

it myself when General Marston asked me not to pull it to pieces, which

I suppose I had been absently doing. I made some sort of exclamation of

surprise, and Aurelia turned round sharply, and asked me what was the

matter. As I did not answer, she left her packing and came to the table.

She saw in a moment what I was looking at. I had turned as red as fire,

and she was quite white. 'I did not mean you to see that,' she said, at

last, quietly taking up the paper. 'I meant no one to know until I had

shown it to Ralph. _Do you know where I found it?_' and she looked hard

at me. I could only shake my head. I was too much ashamed of a suspicion

I had had to be able to get out a word. 'I am very sorry,' continued

Aurelia, 'but I am afraid it will be my duty to tell Ralph, whatever the

consequences may be. I have been thinking it over, and I think he ought

to know. I am going to show it him to-night after dinner,' and she put

it in her pocket, and then began to cry. I did not know what to say or

do, I was so frightened at the thought of what was coming; and, as the

dressing-bell rang at that moment, I was just leaving the room when she

called me back.

"'I can't come down to dinner,' she said. 'I hate Ralph to see me with

red eyes. Tell him I shall come down afterwards, at nine o'clock, and

that I want to see him particularly; only don't tell him what it is

about, or mention it to any one else. I did not mean any one to know

till he did.'

"She began to cry afresh, and I made her lie down and put a shawl over

her, and then left her, as I had still to dress, and I knew that Aunt

Mary was not coming down. I was late as it was."

"Is that all?" said Charles, who had been listening intently.

"All," replied Evelyn. "We shall soon know the worst now."

"Very soon," said Charles. "Ralph may come in here at any moment. Evelyn

and Middleton, will you have the goodness to come with me?" And he led

the way into the hall.

We could hear Ralph in the next room, humming over an old Irish melody,

with an improvised accompaniment.

"Now show me her room," said Charles, "and please be quick about it."

Evelyn looked at him astonished, and then led the way up-stairs, along

the picture-gallery to another wing of the house. She stopped at last

before a door at the end of a passage, dimly lighted by a lamp at the

farther end. There was a light under the door, and a bright chink in the

key-hole, but though we listened intently we could hear nothing stirring

within.

"Knock again," said Charles to Evelyn. "Louder!" as her hand failed her.

There was no answer. As we listened the light within disappeared.

"Bring that lamp from the end of the passage," said Charles to Evelyn,

and she brought it.

"Hold it there," he said; "and you, Middleton, stand aside."

He took a few steps backward, and then flung himself against the door

with his whole force. It cracked and groaned, but resisted.

"The lock is old. It is bound to go," he said, panting a little.

"Really, Charles," I remonstrated--"a lady's private apartment! Miss

Derrick, I wonder you allow this."

Charles retreated again, and then made a fresh and even fiercer

onslaught on the door. There was a sound of splintering wood and of

bursting screws, and in another moment the door flew open inward, and

Charles was precipitated head-foremost into the room, his evening-pumps

flourishing wildly in the air. In an instant he was on his feet again,

gasping hard, and had seized the lamp out of Evelyn's hand. Before I had

time to remonstrate on the liberty that he was taking, we were all three

in the room.

It was empty!

In one corner stood a box, half packed, with various articles of

clothing lying by it. On the dressing-table was a whole medley of little

feminine knick-knacks, with a candlestick in the midst, the dead wick

still smoking in the socket, and accounting for the disappearance of the

light a few minutes before. The fire had gone out, but on a chair by it

was laid a little black lace evening-gown, evidently put out to be worn;

while over the fender a dainty pair of silk stockings had been hung, and

two diminutive black satin shoes were waiting on the hearth-rug. The

whole aspect of the room spoke of a sudden and precipitate flight.

"Bolted!" said Charles, when he had recovered his breath. "And so the

mystery is out at last! I might have known there was a woman at the

bottom of it. Unpremeditated, though," he continued, looking round. "She

meant to have gone to-morrow; but your recognition of that paper

frightened her, though she turned it off well to gain time. No fool

that! She had only an hour, and she made the most of it, and got off, no

doubt, while we were at dinner, by the 8.2 London train, which is the

last to-night; and after the telegraph office was closed, too! She knew

nothing could be done till to-morrow. She has more wit than I gave her

credit for."

"I distrusted her before, though I had no reason for it, but I never

thought she was gone," said Evelyn, trembling violently, and still

looking round the room.

"I knew it," said Charles, "from the moment I saw the light through the

key-hole. A key-hole with a key in it would not have shown half the

amount of light through it; and a locked door without a key in it is

safe to have been locked _from the outside_. Had she a maid with her?"

"No," replied Evelyn, "she used to come to me next door when she wanted

help--but not often--because I think she knew I did not like her, though

I tried not to show it."

"Well, we have seen the last of her, or I am much mistaken," said

Charles. "And now," he added, compressing his lips, "I suppose I must go

and tell Ralph."

"Oh, Ralph! Ralph!" gasped Evelyn, with a sudden sob; "and he was so

fond of her!"

"And so you distrusted her before, Evelyn? And why did you not mention

that fact a little sooner?"

"Without any reason for it? And when Ralph--Oh, I couldn't! I couldn't!"

said the girl, crimsoning.

Charles gazed intently at her as she turned away, pressing her hands

tightly together, and evidently struggling with some sudden emotion for

which there really was no apparent reason. She was overwrought, I

suppose; and indeed the exertion of breaking in the door had been rather

too much for Charles too; for, now that the excitement was over, his

hand shook so much that he had to put down the lamp, and even his voice

trembled a little as he said:

"I don't think Ralph is very much to be pitied. He has had a narrow

escape."

"Don't come down again, either of you," he continued a moment later, in

his usual voice. "I had better go and get it over at once. He will be

wondering what has become of us if I wait much longer. Evelyn,

good-night. Good-night, Middleton. If it is too early for you to go to

bed, you will find a fire in the smoking-room."

I bade Evelyn good-night, and followed Charles down the corridor. He

replaced the lamp with a hand that was steady enough now, and went

slowly across the picture-gallery. The way to my room led me through it

also. Involuntarily I stopped at the head of the great carved staircase

which led into the hall, and watched him going down, step by step, with

lagging tread. From the morning-room came the distant sound of a piano,

and a man's voice singing to it; singing softly, as though no Nemesis

were approaching; singing slowly, as if there were time enough and to

spare. But Nemesis had reached the bottom of the staircase; Nemesis,

with a heavy step, was going across the silent hall--was even now

opening the door of the morning-room. The door was gently closed again,

and then, in the middle of a bar, the music stopped.

CHAPTER XII.

I passed an uneasy night. The wind moaned wearily round the house, at

one moment seeming to die away altogether, at another returning with

redoubled fury, roaring down the wide chimney, shaking the whole

building. It dropped completely towards dawn, and after hours of fitful

slumber I slept heavily.

In the gray of the early morning I was awakened by some one coming into

my room, and started up to find Charles standing by my bedside, dressed,

and with a candle in his hand. His face was worn and haggard from want

of sleep.

"I have come to speak to you before I go, Middleton," he said, when I

was thoroughly awake. "Ralph and I are off by the early train. Will you

tell my father that we may not be able to return till to-morrow, if

then; and may I count upon you to keep all you saw and heard secret till

after our return?"

"Where are you going?"

"To London. We start in twenty minutes. I don't think it is the least

use, but Ralph insists on going, and I cannot let him go alone."

"My dear Charles," I said (all my anger had vanished at the sight of his

worn face), "I will accompany you."

"Not for worlds!" he replied, hastily. "It would be no good. Indeed, I

should not wish it."

But I knew better.

"An old head is often of use," I replied, rapidly getting into my

clothes. "You may count on me, Charles. I shall be ready in ten

minutes."

Charles made some pretence at annoyance, but I was not to be dissuaded.

I knew very well how invaluable the judgment of an elder man of

experience could be on critical occasions; and besides, I always make a

point of seeing everything I can, on all occasions. In ten minutes I was

down in the dining-room, where, beside a spluttering fire, the brothers,

both heavily booted and ulstered, were drinking coffee by candle-light.

A hastily laid breakfast was on the table, but it had not been touched.

The gray morning light was turning the flame of the candles to a rusty

yellow, and outside, upon the wide stone sills, the snow lay high

against the panes.

Ralph was sitting with bent head by the fire, stick and cap in hand, his

heavy boot beating the floor impatiently. He looked up as I came in, but

did not speak. The ruddy color in his cheeks was faded, his face was

drawn and set. He looked ten years older.

"We ought to be off," he said at last, in a low voice.

"No hurry," replied Charles; "finish your coffee."

I hastily drank some also, and told Charles that I was coming with them.

"No!" said Charles.

"Yes!" I replied. "You are going to London, and so am I. I have decided

to curtail my visit by a few days, under the circumstances. I shall

travel up with you. My luggage can follow."

As soon as Charles grasped the idea that I was not going to return to

Stoke Moreton his opposition melted away; he even seemed to hail my

departure with a certain sense of relief.

"As you like," he said. "You can leave at this unearthly hour if you

wish, and travel with us as far as Paddington."

I nodded, and went after my great-coat. Of course I had not the

slightest intention of leaving them at Paddington; but I felt that the

time had not arrived to say so.

"Here comes the dog-cart," said Charles, as I returned.

Ralph was already on his feet. But the dog-cart, with its great bay

horse, could not be brought up to the door. The snow had drifted heavily

before the steps, and right up into the archway, and the cart had to go

round to the back again before we could get in and start. Charles took

the reins, and his brother got up beside him. The groom and I squeezed

ourselves into the back seat. I could see that I was only allowed to

come on sufferance, and that at the last moment they would have been

willing to dispense with my presence. However, I felt that I should

never have forgiven myself if I had let them go alone. Charles was not

thirty, and Ralph several years younger. An experienced man of fifty to

consult in case of need might be of the greatest assistance in an

emergency.

"Quicker!" said Ralph; "we shall miss the train."

"No quicker, if we mean to catch it," said Charles. "I allowed ten

minutes extra for the snow. We shall do it if we go quietly, but not if

I let him go. An upset would clinch the matter."

We drove noiselessly through the great gates with their stone lions on

either side, rampant in wreaths of snow, and up the village street,

where life was hardly stirring yet. The sun was rising large and red, a

ball of dull fire in the heavy sky. It seemed to be rising on a dead

world. Before us (only to be seen on my part by craning round) stretched

the long white road. At intervals, here and there among the shrouded

fields, lay cottages half hidden by a white network of trees. Groups of

yellow sheep stood clustered together under hedge-rows, motionless in

the low mist, and making no sound. A lonely colt, with tail erect, ran

beside us on the other side of the hedge as far as his field would allow

him, his heavy hoofs falling noiseless in the snow. The cold was

intense.

"There will be a drift at the bottom of Farrow hill," said Ralph; "we

shall be late for the train."

And in truth, as we came cautiously down the hill, on turning a corner

we beheld a smooth sheet of snow lapping over the top of the hedge on

one side, like iced sugar on a cake, and sloping downward to the ditch

on the other side of the road.

"Hold on!" cried Charles, as I stood up to look; and in another moment

we were pushing our way through the snow, keeping as near the ditch as

possible--too near, as it turned out. But it was not to be. A few yards

in front of us lay the road--snowy, but practicable; but we could not

reach it. We swayed backward and forward; we tilted up and down; Charles

whistled, and made divers consolatory and encouraging sounds to the bay

horse; but the bay horse began to plunge--he made a side movement--one

wheel crunched down through the ice in the ditch, and all was over--at

least, all in the cart were. We fell soft--I most providentially

alighting on the groom, who was young, and inclined to be plump, and

thus breaking a fall which to a heavy man of my age might have been

serious. Charles and Ralph were up in a moment.

"I thought I could not do it; but it was worth a trial," said Charles,

shaking himself. "George, look after the horse and cart, and take them

straight back. Now, Ralph, we must run for it if we mean to catch the

train. Middleton, you had better go back in the cart." And off they set,

plunging through the snow without further ceremony. I watched the two

dark figures disappearing, aghast with astonishment. They were

positively leaving me behind! In a moment my mind was made up; and,

leaving the gasping young groom to look after the horse and cart, I set

off to run too. It was only a chance, of course; but in this weather the

train might be late. It was all the way downhill. I thought I could do

it, and I did. My feet were balled with snow; I was hotter than I had

been for years; I was completely out of breath; but when I puffed into

the little road-side station, five minutes after the train was due, I

could see that it was not yet in, and that Ralph and Charles were

waiting on the platform.

"My word, Middleton!" said Charles, coming to meet me. "I thought I had

seen the last of you when I left you reclining on George in the drift. I

do believe you have got yourself into this state of fever-heat purely to

be of use to us two; and I treated you very cavalierly, I am sure. Let

by-gones be by-gones, and let us shake hands while you are in this

melting mood."

I could not speak, but we shook hands cordially; and I hurried off to

get my ticket.

"You can only book to Tarborough!" he called after me, "where we change,

and catch the London express."

The station-master gave me my ticket, and then approached Charles, and

touched his cap.

"Might any of you gentlemen be going to London, sir?" he inquired.

"All three of us."

"I don't think you will get on, sir. The news came down this morning

that the evening express from Tarborough last night was thrown off the

rails by a drift, and got knocked about, and I don't expect the line is

clear yet. There will be no trains running till later in the day, I am

afraid."

"The night express?" said Ralph, suddenly.

"Do you mean the 9 train, which you can catch by the 8.2 from here?"

"Yes, sir."

"She was in it!" said Ralph, in a hoarse voice, as the man walked away.

"How late the train is!" said Charles; "quarter of an hour already. I

say, Jervis," calling after him, "any particulars about the accident?

Serious?"

"Oh dear no, sir, not to my knowledge. Never heard of anything but that

the train had been upset, and had stopped the traffic."

"Not many people travelling in such weather, at any rate. I dare say

there was not a creature who went from here by the last train last

night?"

"Only two, sir. One of the young gentlemen from the rectory, and a young

lady, who was very near late, poor thing, and all wet with snow. Ah,

there she is, at last!" as the train came in sight; and he went through

the ceremony of ringing the bell, although we were the only travellers

on the platform.

It was only an hour's run to Tarborough, where we were to join the main

line.

"What are we to do now?" said Charles, as the chimneys of Tarborough

hove in sight, and the train slackened. "Ten to one we shall not be able

to get on to London!"

"Nor she either," said Ralph. "I shall see her! I shall see her here!"

There was an air of excitement about the whole station as we drew up

before the platform. Groups of railway officials were clustered

together, talking eagerly; the bar-maids were all looking out of the

refreshment-room door; policemen were stationed here and there; and

outside the iron gates of the station a little crowd of people were

waiting in the trodden yellow snow, peering through the bars.

We got out, and Charles went up to a respectable-looking man in black,

evidently an official of some consequence, and asked what was the

matter. The man informed him that a special had been sent down the line

with workmen to clear the rails, and that its return, with the

passengers in the ill-fated express, was expected at any moment.

"You don't mean to say the wretched passengers have been there all

night?" exclaimed Charles. From the man's account it appeared that the

travellers had taken refuge in a farm near the scene of the accident,

and, the snow-storm continuing very heavily, it had not been thought

expedient to send a train down the line to bring them away till after

daybreak. "It has been gone an hour," he said, looking at the clock;

"and it is hardly nine yet. Considering how late we received notice of

the accident--for the news had to travel by night, and on foot for a

considerable distance--I don't think there has been much delay."

"Will all the passengers come back by this train?" asked Ralph.

"Yes sir."

"We will wait," said Ralph; and he went and paced up and down the most

deserted part of the platform. The man followed him with his eyes.

"Anxious about friends, sir?" he asked Charles.

"Yes," I heard Charles say, as I went off to warm myself by the

waiting-room fire, keeping a sharp lookout for the arrival of the train.

When I came out some time later, wondering if it were ever going to

arrive at all, I found Charles and the man in black walking up and down

together, evidently in earnest conversation. When I joined them they

ceased talking (I never can imagine why people generally do when I come

up), and the latter said that he would make inquiry at the

booking-office, and left us.

"Who is that man?" I asked.

"How should I know?" said Charles, absently. "He says he has been a

London detective till just lately, but he is an inspector of police now.

Well?" as the man returned.

"Booking-clerk can't remember, sir; but the clerk at the telegraph

office remembers a young lady leaving a telegram last night, to be sent

on first thing this morning."

"Has it been sent yet?"

"Yes, sir; some time."

"Where was it sent to?"

"That is against rules, sir. The clerk has no right to give information.

Anyhow, it is as good as certain, from what you say, that the party was

in the train, and at all events you will not be kept in doubt much

longer;" and he pointed to the long-expected puff of white smoke in the

direction in which all eyes had been so anxiously turned. The train came

slowly round a broad curve and crawled into the station. Ralph had come

up, and his eyes were fixed intently upon it. The hand he laid on

Charles's arm shook a little as he whispered, in a hoarse voice, "I must

speak to her alone before anything is said."

"You shall," replied Charles; and he moved forward a little, and waited

for the passengers to alight. I felt that any chance of escape which lay

in eluding those keen light eyes would be small indeed.

Then ensued a scene of confusion, a Babel of tongues, as the passengers

poured out upon the platform. "What was the meaning of it all?" hotly

demanded an infuriated little man before he was well out of the

carriage. "Why had a train been allowed to start if it was to be

overturned by a snow-drift? What had the company been about not to make

itself aware of the state of the line? What did the railway officials

mean by--" etc. But he was not going to put up with such scandalous

treatment. He should cause an inquiry to be made; he should write to the

_Times_, he should--in short, he behaved like a true Englishman in

adverse circumstances, and poured forth abuse like water. Others

followed--some angry, some silent, all cold and miserable. A stout woman

in black, who had been sent for to a dying child, was weeping aloud; a

dazed man with bound-up head and a terrified wife were pounced upon

immediately by expectant friends, and borne off with voluble sympathy.

One or two people slightly hurt were helped out after the others. The

train was emptied at last. Aurelia was not there. Charles went down the

length of the train looking into each carriage, and then came back,

answering Ralph's glance with a shake of the head. The man in black, who

seemed to have been watching him, came up.

"Have _all_ come back by this train?" Charles asked.

"All, sir, except,"--and he hesitated--"except a few. The doctor who

went has not returned; and the guard says there were some of the

passengers, badly hurt, that he would not allow to be moved from the

farm when the train came for them. The engine-driver and one or two

others were--"

Charles made a sign to him to be silent.

"How far is it?" he asked.

"Twenty miles, sir."

"Are the roads practicable?"

"No, sir. At least they would be very uncertain once you got into the

lanes."

"We can walk along the line," said Ralph. "That must be clear. Let us

start at once."

"Could not the station-master send us down on an engine?" asked Charles.

"We would pay well for it."

The police-inspector shook his head, but Charles went off to inquire,

nevertheless, and he followed him. I thought him a very pushing,

inquisitive kind of person. I have always had a great dislike to the

idle curiosity which is continually prying into the concerns of others.

Ralph and I walked up and down, up and down, the now deserted platform.

I spoke to him once or twice, but he hardly answered; and after a time I

gave it up, and we paced in silence.

At last Charles returned. His request for an engine had been refused,

but a further relay of workmen was being sent down the line in a couple

of hours' time, and he had obtained leave for himself and us to go with

them. After two long interminable hours of that everlasting pacing we

found ourselves in an open truck, full of workmen, steaming slowly out

of the station. At the last moment the man in black jumped in, and

accompanied us.

The pace may have been great, but to us it seemed exasperatingly slow,

and in the open truck the cold was piercing. The workmen, who laughed

and talked among themselves, appeared to take no notice of it; but I saw

that Charles was shivering, and presently he made his brother light his

pipe, and began to smoke hard himself.

Ralph's pipe, however, went out unheeded in his fingers. He sat quite

still with his back against the side of the truck, his eyes fixed upon

the gray horizon. Once he turned suddenly to his brother, and said, as

if unable to keep silence on what was in his mind, "What was her

object?"

Charles shook his head.

"They were hers already!" he went on. "She would have had them all. If

she had had debts, I would have paid them. What could her object have

been?" And seemingly, without expecting a reply, he relapsed into

silence.

We had left the suburbs now, and were passing through a lonely country.

Here and there a village of straggling cottages met the eye, clustering

round their little church. In places the hedge-rows alone marked the lie

of the hidden lanes; in others men were digging out the roads through

drifts of snow, and carts and horses were struggling painfully along. In

one place a little walking funeral was laboring across the fields from a

lonely cottage, in the direction of the church, high on the hill, the

bell of which was tolling through the quiet air. The sound reached us as

we passed, and seemed to accompany us on our way. I heard the men

talking among themselves that there had been no snow-storm like to this

for thirty years; and as they spoke some of them began shading their

eyes, and trying to look in the direction in which we were going.

We had now reached a low waste of unenclosed land, with sedge and gorse

pricking up everywhere through the snow, and with long lines of pollards

marking the bed of a frozen stream. Near the line was a deserted

brick-kiln, surrounded by long uneven mounds and ridges of ice, with

three poplars mounting guard over it. Flights of rooks hung over the

barren ground, and wheeled in the air with discordant clamor as we

passed--the only living moving things in the utter desolation of the

scene. As I looked there was an exclamation from one of the workmen, and

the engine began to slacken. We were there at last.

CHAPTER XIII.

The engine and trucks stopped, the men shouldered their tools and

tumbled out, and we followed them. A few hundred paces in front of us

was a railway bridge, over which a road passed, and under which the rail

went at a sharp curve. The snow had drifted heavily against the bridge,

with its high earth embankment, making manifest at a glance the cause of

the disaster.

The bridge was crowded with human figures, and on the line below men

were working in the drift, amid piles of débris and splintered wood. The

wrecked train had all been slightly draped in snow; the engine alone,

barely cold, lying black and grim, like some mighty giant, formidable in

death. A sheet of glass ice near it showed how the boiler had burst.

Some of the hindermost carriages were still standing, or had fallen

comparatively uninjured; but others seemed to have leaped upon their

fellows, and ploughed right through them into the drift. It was well

that it began to snow as we reached the spot. There were traces of

dismal smears on the white ground which it would be seemly to hide.

Our friend in black went forward and asked a few questions of the man in

charge, and presently returned.

"The remainder of the passengers are at the farm," he said, pointing to

a house at a little distance; and without further delay we began to

scramble up the steep embankment, and clamber over the stone-wall of the

bridge into the road. My mind was full of other things, but I remember

still the number of people assembled on the bridge, and how a man was

standing up in his donkey-cart to view the scene. It was Saturday, and

there were quantities of village school-boys sitting astride on the low

wall, or perched on adjacent hurdles, evidently enjoying the spectacle,

jostling, bawling, eating oranges, and throwing the peel at the engine.

Some older people touched their hats sympathetically, and one went and

opened a gate for us into a field, through which many feet seemed to

have come and gone; but for the greater number the event was evidently

regarded as an interesting variation in the dull routine of every-day

life; and to the school-boys it was an undoubted treat.

Ralph and Charles walked on in front, following the track across the

field. It was not particularly heavy walking after what we had had

earlier in the day, but Ralph stumbled perpetually, and presently

Charles drew his arm through his own, and the two went on together, the

police-inspector following with me.

In a few minutes we reached the farm, and entered the farm-yard, which

was the nearest way to the house. A little knot of calves, intrenched on

a mound of straw in the centre of the yard, lowered their heads and

looked askance at us as we came in, and a party of ducks retreated

hastily from our path with a chorus of exclamations, while a thin collie

dog burst out of a barrel at the back door, and made a series of

gymnastics at the end of a chain, barking hoarsely, as if he had not

spared himself of late.

An elderly woman with red arms met us at the door, and, on a whisper

from the police-inspector, first shook her head, and then, in answer to

a further whisper, nodded at another door, and, a voice calling her from

within, hastily disappeared.

The inspector opened the door she had indicated and went in, I with him.

Charles, who had grown very grave, hung back with Ralph, who seemed too

much dazed to notice anything in heaven above or the earth beneath. The

door opened into an out-house, roughly paved with round stones, where

barrels, staves, and divers lumber had been put away. There was straw in

the farther end of it, out of which a yellow cat raised two gleaming

eyes, and then flew up a ladder against the wall, and disappeared among

the rafters. In the middle of the floor, lying a little apart, were

three figures with sheets over them. Instinctively we felt that we were

in the presence of death. I looked back at Charles and Ralph, who were

still standing outside in the falling snow. Charles was bareheaded, but

Ralph was looking absently in front of him, seeming conscious of

nothing. The inspector made me a sign. He had raised one of the sheets,

and now withdrew it altogether. My heart seemed to stand still. _It was

Aurelia!_ Aurelia changed in the last great change of all, but still

Aurelia. The fixed artificial color in the cheek consorted ill with the

bloodless pallor of the rest of the face, which was set in a look of

surprise and terror. She was altered beyond what should have been. She

looked several years older. But it was still Aurelia. Those little

gloved hands, tightly clinched, were the same which she had held to the

library fire as we talked the day before; even the dress was the same.

Alas! she had been in too great a hurry to change it before she left, or

her thin shoes. Poor little Aurelia! And then--I don't know how it was,

but in another moment Ralph was kneeling by her, bending over her,

taking the stiffened hands in his trembling clasp, imploring the deaf

ears to hear him, calling wildly to the pale lips to speak to him, which

had done with human speech. I could not bear it, and I turned away and

looked out through the open door at the snow falling. The inspector came

and stood beside me. In the silence which followed we could hear Charles

speaking gently from time to time; and when at last we both turned

towards them again, Ralph had flung himself down on an old bench at the

farther end of the out-house, with his back turned towards us, his arms

resting on a barrel, and his head bowed down upon them. He neither spoke

nor moved.

Charles left him, and came towards us, and he and the inspector spoke

apart for a moment, and then the latter dropped on his knees beside the

dead woman, and, after looking carefully at a dark stain on one of the

wrists, turned back the sleeve. Crushed deep into the round white arm

gleamed something bright. It was an emerald bracelet which we both knew.

Charles cast a hasty glance at Ralph, but he had not moved, and he drew

me beside him, so as to interpose our two figures between him and the

inspector. The latter quietly turned down the sleeve and recomposed the

arm.

"I knew she would have them on her, if she had them at all," he said, in

a low voice. "We need look no farther at present. Not one will be

missing. They are all there."

He gazed long and earnestly at the dead face, and then to my horror he

suddenly unfastened the little hat. I made an involuntary movement as if

to stop him, but Charles laid an iron grip upon me, and motioned to me

to be still. The stealthy hand quietly pushed back the fair curls upon

the forehead, and in another moment they fell still farther back,

showing a few short locks of dark hair beneath them, which so completely

altered the dead face that I could hardly recognize it as belonging to

the same person. The inspector raised his head, and looked significantly

at Charles. Then he quietly drew forward the yellow hair over the

forehead again, replaced the hat, and rose to his feet. Charles and I

glanced apprehensively at Ralph, but he had not stirred. As we looked, a

hurried step came across the yard, a hand raised the latch of the door,

and some one entered abruptly. It was Carr. For one moment he stood in

the door-way, for one moment his eyes rested horror-struck on the dead

woman, then darted at us, from us to the inspector, who was coolly

watching him, and--he was gone! gone as suddenly as he had come; gone

swiftly out again into the falling snow, followed by the wild barking of

the dog.

Charles, who had had his back to the door, turned in time to see him,

and he made a rush for the door, but the inspector flung himself in his

way, and held him forcibly.

"Let me go! Let me get at him!" panted Charles, struggling furiously.

"I shall do no such thing, sir. It can do no good, and might do harm. He

is armed, and you are not; and he would not be over-scrupulous if he

were pushed. Besides, what can you accuse him of? Intent to rob? For he

did not do it. If you have lost anything, remember, you have found it

again. If you caught him a hundred times, you have no hold on him. I

know him of old."

"You?"

"Yes; I have known him by sight long enough. He is not a new hand by any

means--nor she either, as to that, poor thing."

"But what on earth brought him here?"

"He was waiting for news of her in London, most likely, and he knew she

would have the jewels on her, and came down when he got wind of the

accident."

"Knew she would have the jewels! Then do you mean to say there was

collusion between the two?"

The inspector glanced furtively at Ralph, but he had never stirred, or

raised his head since he had laid it down on his clinched hands.

"They are both well known to the police," he said at last, "and I think

it probable there was collusion between them, considering they were _man

and wife_."

CONCLUSION.

I am told that I ought to write something in the way of a conclusion to

this account of the Danvers jewels, as if the end of the last chapter

were not conclusion enough. Charles, who has just read it, says

especially that his character requires what he calls "an elegant

finish," and suggests that a slight indication of a young and lovely

heiress in connection with himself would give pleasure to the thoughtful

reader. But I do not mean at the last moment to depart from the exact

truth, and dabble in fiction just to make a suitable conclusion. If I

must write something more, I must beg that it will be kept in mind that

if further details concerning the robbery are now added against my own

judgment, they will rest on Charles's authority--not mine--as anything I

afterwards heard was only through Charles, whose information I never

consider reliable in the least degree.

* * * * *

It was not till three months later that I saw him again, on a wet April

afternoon. I was still living in London with Jane when he came to see

me, having just returned from a long tour abroad with Ralph.

Sir George, he said, was quite well again, but the coolness between

himself and his father had dropped almost to freezing-point since it had

come to light that he had been innocent after all. His father could not

forgive his son for putting him in the wrong.

"I seldom disappoint him in matters of this kind," he said. "Indeed, I

may say I have, as a rule, surpassed his expectations, and I must be

careful never to fall short of them in this way again. But ah! Miss

Middleton, I am sure you will agree with me how difficult it is to

preserve an even course without relaxing a little at times."

"My dear Mr. Charles," said Jane, beaming at him over her knitting, but

not quite taking him in the manner he intended, "you are young yet, but

don't be downhearted. I am sure by your face that as you grow older

these deviations, which you so properly regret, will grow fewer and

fewer, until, as life goes on, they will gradually cease altogether."

"I consider it not improbable myself," said Charles, with a faint smile,

and he changed the conversation. I really cannot put down here all that

he proceeded to say in the most cold-blooded manner concerning Carr and

Aurelia, or as he _would_ call them, Mr. and Mrs. Brown, _alias_

Sinclair, _alias_ Tibbits. I for one don't believe a word of it; and I

don't see how he could have found it all out, as he said he had, through

the police, and people of that kind. I don't consider it is at all

respectable consorting with the police in that way; but then Charles

never was respectable, as I told Jane after he left, arousing excited

feelings on her part which made me regret having mentioned it.

According to him, Carr, who had never been seen or heard of since the

day after the accident, was a professional thief, who had probably gone

to ---- in India with the express design of obtaining possession of Sir

John's jewels, which had, till near the time of his death, been safely

stowed away in a bank in Calcutta. He and his wife usually worked

together; but on this occasion she had, by means of her engaging manners

and youthful appearance, struck up an acquaintance abroad with Lady Mary

Cunningham, who, it will be remembered, had jewels of considerable

value, with a view to those jewels. Ralph she had used as her tool, and

engaged herself to him in the expectation that on her return to England

she might, by means of her intimacy with the family, have an opportunity

of taking them--Lady Mary having left them, while abroad, with her

banker in London. The opportunity came while she was at Stoke Moreton;

but in the mean while Sir John's priceless legacy had arrived, having

eluded her husband's vigilance. (That certainly was true. The jewels

were safe enough as long as I had anything to do with them.) Her

husband, who followed them, saw that he was suspected, and threw the

game into her hands, devoting himself entirely to putting his own

innocence beyond a doubt; in which, with Ralph's assistance, he

succeeded.

"I see now," continued Charles, "why she spilled her tea when Carr

arrived. She was taken by surprise on seeing him enter the room, having

had, probably, no idea that he was the friend whom you had telegraphed

for. I suspect, too, that same evening, after the ball, when she and

Carr went together to find the bag, it was to have a last word to enable

them to play into each other's hands, being aware, if I remember

rightly, that father had gone to bed in company with the key of the

safe, and that, consequently, the jewels might be left within easier

reach than usual. No doubt she weighed the matter in her own mind, and

decided to give up all thought of Lady Mary's jewels, and to secure

those which were ten times their value. She could not have taken both

without drawing suspicion upon herself. Like a wise woman she left the

smaller, and went in for the larger prize; a less clever one would have

tried for both, and have failed. She failed, it is true, by an

oversight. She could never have noticed that the piece of paper wrapped

round the crescent was peculiar in any way, or she would not have left

it on the table among the others. She turned it off well when Evelyn

recognized it, and made the most of her time. She was within an ace of

success, but fate was against her. And Carr lost no time, either, for

that matter; for I have since found out that the telegram she sent was

to Birmingham, where he was no doubt hiding, bidding him meet her in

London earlier than had been arranged. Of course he set off for the

scene of the accident directly he heard of it, having received no

further communication from her. We arrived only ten minutes before him.

For my part, I admired _her_ more than I ever did before, when the truth

about her came out. I considered her to be a pink-and-white nonentity,

without an idea beyond a neat adjustment of pearl-powder, and then found

that she possessed brains enough to outwit two minds of no mean calibre,

namely, yours, Middleton, and my own. Evelyn was the only person who had

the slightest suspicion of her, and that hardly amounted to more than an

instinct, for she owned that she had no reason to show for it."

"I wonder Lady Mary was so completely taken in by her to start with," I

said.

"I don't," replied Charles. "I have even heard of elderly men being

taken in by young ones. Besides, suspicious people are always liable to

distrust their own nearest relatives, especially their prepossessing

nephews, and then lay themselves open to be taken in by entire

strangers. She wanted to get Ralph married, and she took a fancy to this

girl, who was laying herself out to be taken a fancy to. In short, she

trusted to her own judgment, and it failed her, as usual. I wrote very

kindly to her from abroad, telling her how sincerely I sympathized with

her in her distress at finding how entirely her judgment had been at

fault, how lamentably she had been deceived from first to last, and how

much trouble she had been the innocent means of bringing on the family.

I have had no reply. Dear Aunt Mary! That reminds me that she is in

London now; and I think a call from me, and a personal expression of

sympathy, might give her pleasure." And he rose to take his leave.

I had let Charles go without contradicting a word he had said, because,

unfortunately, I was not in a position to do so. As I have said before,

I am not given to suspecting a friend, even though appearances may be

against him; and I still believed in Carr's innocence, though I must own

that I was sorry that he never answered any of the numerous letters I

wrote to him, or ever came to see me in London, as I had particularly

asked him to do. Of course I did not believe that he was married to

Aurelia, for it was only on the word of a stranger and a

police-inspector, while I knew from his own lips that he was engaged to

a countrywoman of his own. However, be that how it may, my own rooted

conviction at the time, which has remained unshaken ever since, is that

in some way he became aware that he was unjustly suspected, and being,

like all Americans, of a sensitive nature, he retired to his native

land. Anyhow, I have never seen or heard anything of him since. I am

aware that Jane holds a different opinion, but then Charles had

prejudiced her against him--so much so that it has ended by becoming a

subject on which we do not converse together.

* * * * *

I saw Charles again a few months later on a sultry night in July. I was

leaving town the next day to be present at Ralph's wedding, and Jane and

I were talking it over towards ten o'clock, the first cool time in the

day, when he walked in. He looked pale and jaded as he sat down wearily

by us at the open window and stroked the cat, which was taking the air

on the sill. He said that he felt the heat, and he certainly look very

much knocked up. I do not feel heat myself, I am glad to say.

"I am going abroad to-morrow," he said, after a few remarks on other

subjects. "It is not merely a question of pleasure, though I shall be

glad to be out of London; but I have of late become an object of such

increasing interest to those who possess my autograph that I have

decided on taking change of air for a time."

"Do you mean to say you are not going down to Stoke Moreton for Ralph's

wedding?" I exclaimed. "I thought we should have travelled together, as

we once did six months ago."

"I can't go," said Charles, almost sharply. "I have told Ralph so."

"I am sure he will be very much disappointed, and Evelyn too; and the

wedding being from her uncle's house, as she has no home of her own,

will make your absence all the more marked."

"It _must_ be marked, then; but the young people will survive it, and

Aunt Mary will be thankful. She has not spoken to me since I made that

little call upon her in the spring. When I pass her carriage in the Row

she looks the other way."

"I am glad Ralph has consoled himself," I said. "A good and charming

woman like Evelyn, and a nice steady fellow like Ralph, are bound to be

happy together."

"Yes," said Charles, "I suppose they are. She deserves to be happy. She

always liked Ralph, and he _is_ a good fellow. The model young men make

all the running nowadays. In novels the good woman always marries the

scapegrace, but it does not seem to be the case in real life."

"Anyhow, not in this instance," I remarked, cheerfully.

"No, not in this instance, as you so justly observe," he replied, with a

passing gleam of amusement in his restless, tired eyes. "And now,"

producing a small packet, "as I am not going myself, I want to give my

wedding-present to the bride into your charge. Perhaps you will take it

down to-morrow, and give it into her own hands, with my best wishes."

"Might we see it first?" said Jane, with all a woman's curiosity,

evidently scenting a jewel-case from afar.

Charles unwrapped a small morocco case, and, touching a spring, showed

the diamond crescent, beautifully reset and polished, blazing on its red

satin couch.

"Ralph said I should have it, and he sent it me some time since," he

said, turning it in his hand; "but it seems a pity to fritter it away in

paying bills; and," in a lower tone, "I should like to give it to

Evelyn. I hear she has refused to wear any of Sir John's jewels on her

wedding-day, but perhaps, if you were to ask her--she and I are old

friends--she might make an exception in favor of the crescent."

And she did.

* * * * *

SIR CHARLES DANVERS.

CHAPTER I.

"Dear heart, Miss Ruth, my dear, now don't ye be a-going yet, and me

that hasn't set eyes on ye this month and more--and as hardly hears a

body speak from morning till night."

"Come, come, Mrs. Eccles, I am always finding people sitting here. I

expect to see the latch go every minute."

"Well, and if they do; and some folks are always a-dropping in, and

a-setting theirselves down, and a clack-clacking till a body can't get a

bit of peace! And the things they say! Eh? Miss Ruth, the things I have

heard folks say, a setting as it might be there, in poor Eccles his old

chair by the chimley, as the Lord took him in."

To the uninitiated, Mrs. Eccles's allusion might have seemed to refer to

photography. But Ruth knew better; a visitation from the Lord being

synonymous in Slumberleigh Parish with a fall from a ladder, a stroke of

paralysis, or the midnight cart-wheel that disabled Brown when returning

late from the Blue Dragon "not quite hisself."

"Lor'!" resumed Mrs. Eccles, with an extensive sigh, "there's a deal of

talk in the village now," glancing inquisitively at the visitor, "about

him as succeeds to old Mr. Dare; but I never listen to their tales."

They made a pleasant contrast to each other, the neat old woman, with

her shrewd spectacled eyes and active, hard-worked fingers, and the

young girl, tranquil, graceful, sitting in the shadow, with her slender

ungloved hands in her lap.

They were not sitting in the front parlor, because Ruth was an old

acquaintance; but Mrs. Eccles _had_ a front parlor--a front parlor with

the bottled-up smell in it peculiar to front parlors; a parlor with a

real mahogany table, on which photograph albums and a few select volumes

were symmetrically arranged round an inkstand, nestling in a very choice

wool-work mat; a parlor with wax-flowers under glass shades on the

mantle-piece, and an avalanche of paper roses and mixed paper herbs in

the fireplace.

Ruth knew that sacred apartment well. She knew the name of each of the

books; she had expressed a proper admiration for the wax-flowers; she

had heard, though she might have forgotten, for she was but young, the

price of the "real Brussels" carpet, and so she might safely be

permitted to sit in the kitchen, and watch Mrs. Eccles darning her son's

socks.

I am almost afraid Ruth liked the kitchen best, with its tiled floor and

patch of afternoon sun; with its tall clock in the corner, its line of

straining geraniums in the low window-shelf, and its high mantle-piece

crowned by two china dogs with red lozenges on them, holding baskets in

their mouths.

"Yes, a deal of talk there is, but nobody rightly seems to know anything

for certain," continued Mrs. Eccles, spreading out her hand in the heel

of a fresh sock, and pouncing on a modest hole. "Ye see, we never gave a

thought to _him_, with that great hearty Mr. George, his eldest brother,

to succeed when the old gentleman went. And such a fine figure of a man

in his clothes as poor Mr. George used to be, and such a favorite with

his old uncle. And then to be took like that, horseback riding at polar,

only six weeks after the old gentleman. But I can't hear as anybody's

set eyes on his half-brother as comes in for the property now. He never

came to Vandon in his uncle's lifetime. They say old Mr. Dare couldn't

bide the French madam as his brother took when his first wife died--a

foreigner, with black curls; it wasn't likely. He was always partial to

Mr. George, and he took him up when his father died; but he never would

have anything to say to this younger one, bein' nothin' in the world, so

folks say, but half a French, and black, like his mother. I wonder

now--" began Mrs. Eccles, tentatively, with her usual love of

information.

"I wonder, now," interposed Ruth, quietly, "how the rheumatism is

getting on? I saw you were in church on Sunday evening."

"Yes, my dear," began Mrs. Eccles, readily diverted to a subject of such

interest as herself. "Yes, I always come to the evening service now,

though I won't deny as the rheumatics are very pinching at times. But,

dear Lord! I never come up to the stalls near the chancel, so you ain't

likely to see me. To see them Harrises always a-goin' up to the very

top, it does go agen me. I don't say as it's everybody as ought to take

the lowest place. The Lord knows I'm not proud, but I won't go into them

chairs down by the font myself; but to see them Harrises, that to my

certain knowledge hasn't a bite of butcher's meat in their heads but

onst a week, a-settin' theirselves up--"

"Now, Mrs. Eccles, you know perfectly well all the seats are free in the

evening."

"And so they may be, Miss Ruth, my dear--and don't ye be a-getting up

yet--and good Christians, I'm sure, the quality are to abide it. And it

did my heart good to hear the Honorable John preaching as he did in his

new surplice (as Widder Pegg always puts too much blue in the surplices

to my thinking), all about rich and poor, and one with another. A

beautiful sermon it was; but I wouldn't come up like they Harrises.

There's things as is suitable, and there's things as is not. No, I keep

to my own place; and I had to turn out old Bessie Pugh this very last

Sunday night, as I found a-cocked up there, tho' I was not a matter of

five minutes late. Bessie Pugh always was one to take upon herself, and,

as I often says to her, when I hear her a-goin' on about free grace and

the like, 'Bessie,' I says, 'if I was a widder on the parish, and not so

much as a pig to fat up for Christmas, and coming to church reg'lar on

Loaf Sunday, which it's not that I ain't sorry for ye, but _I_ wouldn't

take upon myself, if I was you, to talk of things as I'd better leave to

them as is beholden to nobody and pays their rent reg'lar. I've no

patience--But eh, dear Miss Ruth! look at that gentleman going down the

road, and the dog too. Why, ye haven't so much as got up! He's gone. He

was a foreigner, and no mistake. Why, good Lord! there he is coming back

again. He's seen me through the winder. Mercy on us! he's opening the

gate; he's coming to the door!"

As she spoke, a shadow passed before the window, and some one knocked.

Mrs. Eccles hastily thrust her darning-needle into the front of her

bodice, the general _rendezvous_ of the pins and needles of the

establishment, and proceeded to open the door and plant herself in front

of it.

Ruth caught a glimpse of an erect light gray figure in the sunshine,

surmounted by a brown face, and the lightest of light gray hats. Close

behind stood a black poodle of a dignified and self-engrossed

deportment, wearing its body half shaved, but breaking out in ruffles

round its paws, and a tuft at the end of a stiffly undemonstrative tail.

"The key of the church is kep' at Jones's, by the pump," said Mrs.

Eccles, in the brusque manner peculiar to the freeborn Briton when

brought in contact with a foreigner.

"Thank you, madam," was the reply, in the most courteous of tones, and

the gray hat was off in a moment, showing a very dark, cropped head,

"but I do not look for the church. I only ask for the way to the house

of the pastor, Mr. Alwynn."

Mrs. Eccles gave full and comprehensive directions in a very high key,

accompanied by much gesticulation, and then the gray hat was replaced,

and the gray figure, followed by the black poodle, marched down the

little garden path again, and disappeared from view.

Mrs. Eccles drew a long breath, and turned to her visitor again.

"Well, my dear, and did ye ever see the like of that? And his head, Miss

Ruth! Did ye take note of his head? Not so much as a shadder of a

parting. All the same all the way over; and asking the way to the

rectory. Why, you ain't never going yet? Well, good-bye, my dear, and

God bless ye! And now," soliloquized Mrs. Eccles, as Ruth finally

escaped, "I may as well run across to Jones's, and see if _they_ know

anything about the gentleman, and if he's put up at the inn."

* * * * *

It was a glorious July afternoon, but it was hot. The roads were white,

and the tall hedge-rows gray with dust. A wagon-load of late hay, with a

swarm of children just out from school careering round it, was coming up

the road in a dim cloud of dust. Ruth, who had been undecided which way

to take, beat a hasty retreat towards the church-yard, deciding that, if

she must hesitate, to do so among cool tombstones in the shade. She

glanced up at the church clock, as she selected her tombstone under one

of the many yew-trees in the old church-yard. Half-past four, and

already an inner voice was suggesting _tea!_ To miss five o'clock tea on

a thirsty afternoon like this was not to be thought of for a moment. She

had no intention of going back to tea at Atherstone, where she was

staying with her cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Danvers. Two alternatives

remained. Should she go to Slumberleigh Hall, close by, and see the

Thursbys, who she knew had all returned from London yesterday, or should

she go across the fields to Slumberleigh Rectory, and have tea with

Uncle John and Aunt Fanny?

She knew that Sir Charles Danvers, Ralph Danvers's elder brother, was

expected at Atherstone that afternoon. His aunt, Lady Mary Cunningham,

was also staying there, partly with a view of meeting him. Ralph Danvers

had not seen his brother, nor Lady Mary her nephew, for some time, and,

judging by the interest they seemed to feel in his visit, Ruth had

determined not to interrupt a family meeting, in which she imagined she

might be _de trop_.

"My fine tact," she thought, "will enable them to have a quiet talk

among themselves till nearly dinner-time. But I must not neglect myself

any longer. The Hall is the nearer, and the drive is shady; but, to put

against that, Mabel will insist on showing me her new gowns, and Mrs.

Thursby will make her usual remarks about Aunt Fanny. No; in spite of

that burning expanse of glebe, I will go to tea at the rectory. I have

not seen Uncle John for a week, and--who knows?--perhaps Aunt Fanny may

be out."

So the gloves were put on, the crisp white dress shaken out, the parasol

put up, and Ruth took the narrow church path across the fields up to

Slumberleigh Rectory.

For many years since the death of her parents, Ruth Deyncourt had lived

with her grandmother, a wealthy, witty, and wise old lady, whose house

had been considered one of the pleasantest in London by those to whom

pleasant houses are open.

Lady Deyncourt, a beauty in her youth, a beauty in middle life, a beauty

in her old age, had seen and known all the marked men of the last two

generations, and had reminiscences to tell which increased in point and

flavor, like old wine, the longer they were kept. She had frequented as

a girl the Misses Berrys' drawing-room, and people were wont to say that

hers was the nearest approach to a _salon_ which remained after the

Misses Berry disappeared. She had married a grave politician, a rising

man, whom she had pushed into a knighthood, and at one time into the

ministry. If he had died before he could make her the wife of a premier,

the disappointment had not been without its alleviations. She had never

possessed much talent for domestic life, and, the yoke once removed, she

had not felt the least inclination to take it upon herself again. As a

widow, her way through life was one long triumphal procession. She had

daughters--dull, tall, serious girls, with whom she had nothing in

common, whom she educated well, brought out, laced in, and then married,

one after another, relinquishing the last with the utmost cheerfulness,

and refusing the condolences of friends on her lonely position with her

usual frankness.

But her son, her only son, she had loved. He was like her, and

understood her, and was at ease with her, as her daughters had never

been. The trouble of her life was the death of her son. She got over it,

as she got over everything; but when several years afterwards his widow,

with whom, it is hardly necessary to say, she was not on speaking terms,

suddenly died (being a faint-hearted, feeble creature), Lady Deyncourt

immediately took possession of her grandchildren--a boy and two

girls--and proceeded as far as in her lay to ruin the boy for life.

"A woman," she was apt to remark in after years, "is not intended by

nature to manage any man except her husband. I am a warning to the

mothers, aunts, and grandmothers, particularly the grandmothers, of the

future. A husband is a sufficient field for the employment of a woman's

whole energies. I went beyond my sphere, and I am punished."

And when Raymond Deyncourt finally disappeared in America for the last

time, having been fished up therefrom on several occasions, each time in

worse case than the last, she excommunicated him, and cheerfully altered

her will, dividing the sixty thousand pounds she had it in her power to

leave, between her two granddaughters, and letting the fact become

known, with the result that Anna was married by the end of her second

season; and if at the end of five seasons Ruth was still unmarried, she

had, as Lady Deyncourt took care to inform people, no one to thank for

it but herself.

But in reality, now that Anna was provided for, Lady Deyncourt was in no

hurry to part with Ruth. She liked her as much as it was possible for

her to like any one--indeed, I think she even loved her in a way. She

had taken but small notice of her while she was in the school-room, for

she cared little about girls as a rule; but as she grew up tall, erect,

with the pale, stately beauty of a lily, Lady Deyncourt's heart went out

to her. None of her own daughters had been so distinguished-looking, so

ornamental. Ruth's clothes always looked well on her, and she had a

knack of entertaining people, and much taste in the arrangement of

flowers. Though she had inherited the Deyncourt earnestness of

character, together with their dark serious eyes, and a certain annoying

rigidity as to right and wrong, these defects were counterbalanced by

flashes of brightness and humor which reminded Lady Deyncourt of herself

in her own brilliant youth, and inclined her to be lenient, when in her

daughters' cases she would have been sarcastic. The old woman and the

young one had been great friends, and not the less so, perhaps, because

of a tacit understanding which existed between them that certain

subjects should be avoided, upon which, each instinctively felt, they

were not likely to agree. And if the shrewd old woman of the world ever

suspected the existence of a strength of will and depth of character in

Ruth such as had, in her own early life, been a source of annoyance and

perplexity to herself in her dealings with her husband, she was skilful

enough to ignore any traces of it that showed themselves in her

granddaughter, and thus avoided those collisions of will, the result of

which she felt might have been doubtful.

And so Ruth had lived a life full of varied interests, and among

interesting people, and had been waked up suddenly in a gray and frosted

dawn to find that chapter of her life closed. Lady Deyncourt, who never

thought of travelling without her maid and footman, suddenly went on a

long journey alone one wild January morning, starting, without any

previous preparation, for a land in which she had never professed much

interest heretofore. It seemed a pity that she should have to die when

she had so thoroughly acquired the art of living, with little trouble to

herself, and much pleasure to others; but so it was.

And then, in Ruth's confused remembrance of what followed, all the world

seemed to have turned to black and gray. There was no color anywhere,

where all had been color before. Miles of black cloth and crape seemed

to extend before her; black horses came and stamped black hoof-marks in

the snow before the door. Endless arrangements had to be made, endless

letters to be written. Something was carried heavily down-stairs, all in

black, scoring the wall at the turn on the stairs in a way which would

have annoyed Lady Deyncourt exceedingly if she had been there to see it,

but she had left several days before it happened. The last pale shadow

of the kind, gay little grandmother was gone from the great front

bedroom up-stairs. Mr. Alwynn, one of Ruth's uncles, came up from the

country and went to the funeral, and took Ruth away afterwards. Her own

sister Anna was abroad with her husband, her brother Raymond had not

been heard of for years. As she drove away from the house, and looked up

at the windows with wide tearless eyes, she suddenly realized that this

departure was final, that there would be no coming back, no home left

for her in the familiar rooms where she and another had lived so long

together.

Mr. Alwynn was by her side in the carriage, patting her cold hands and

telling her not to cry, which she felt no inclination to do; and then,

seeing the blank pallor in her face, he suddenly found himself fumbling

for his own pocket-handkerchief.