CHAPTER XVIII.

ON THE TOP.

The top of the tower was flat. It was reached through a hooded doorway

resembling a ship's companion. A parapet about two and a half feet high

ran round the tower on all sides, and in the left-hand angle of the

parapet, looking towards the grounds in front of the house, stood the

tall, battered, dilapidated, rusted tank.

This tank had been of substantial make. Four upright bars of iron still

stood showing where the four angles of the elevation of the tank had

been. Binding the top of these four uprights together had been a

substantial rail. The inner side of that rail had disappeared; the three

other sides remained. Half-way down the uprights had been four girders

binding the uprights together. Of these girders three were entire, the

one on the outside having succumbed to violence of time. A few of the

plates clung to the uprights in the upper section of the tank. In the

lower section only one plate was missing, and that on the back of the

tank. The base of the tank was eight feet square, the height of the

uprights ten feet. Once in it had been stored the water-supply. More

than fifty years ago it had been superseded by a tank put up in the main

building. Since then not a dozen times had any one visited the top of

the tower.

That night of the 17th of August was dark; there were neither stars nor

moon. No wind had arisen to disturb the intense calm.

At length Grey rose from the ground somewhat refreshed and quieted.

There was no use in being foolhardy, and although a person standing on

the avenue below could not possibly see a human figure on the top of the

tower, still all means caution could suggest ought to be employed. So he

stepped into the dilapidated tank through the opening, and having,

except on the inner side, a complete bulwark around him five feet high,

there was no chance of any one seeing him. He did not care to face yet

the descent through that stifling tower.

He would wait a while until he should be fully restored.

He had eaten nothing since luncheon, and the physical and mental ordeals

through which he had since passed reduced the activity of his mind, and

made his thoughts move slowly, and dimmed the ideas in his imagination.

Still in a dull way he sought to review his position.

There to the right lay Daneford, his town, the city of which he was

dictator, which would do anything, everything he asked. You could not

see the city from this, but there it reposed under that red-yellow stain

upon the sky.

The people of that town, if they had seen him take that old man's gold,

would not have believed the evidence of their senses. They would have

placed their opinion of him against the evidence of their eyes, and his

reputation would turn the balance as though nothing was in the other

scale. He was sure of that.

To the left was the Island. The old man probably still lived and would

live for some time, but the will was now safe. Maud was still unmarried,

and he--was free! Free in a double sense: free to marry again, and free

from the clutches of the law--so far.

In front of him lay the Manor Park with its stifling groves and alleys,

whose lush, rank vegetation and loathsome reptiles and insects kept

curious boy and prying man at bay.

By his side stood the Manor House, upon which no green thing would grow,

and which had an evil name.

Beneath him was that repulsive tower, up which no one would care to go

except upon dire compulsion.

Behind him----

Yes, behind him lay--It.

The question was, Would his reputation in the town, the fact that by

noon to-morrow everyone in Daneford would believe he had lost his wife

in the _Rodwell_, the unpopular Park, the uncanny house, the foul tower,

the parapet, the remains of this tank (perfect five feet from the roof,

except for one eighteen-inch plate, which, owing to its position at the

back, could not be even missed from any standpoint but the top of the

tower itself), keep It from discovery? be an effectual and life-long

barrier between detection and crime, so that he might marry and live

once more in----? Well, never mind in what. Anyway, might live?

It was a long question. He put it to himself many times, and could

arrive at no answer. His reason answered Yes. His imagination answered

No; and according as his reason or his imagination dominated he hoped or

he despaired.

The hours advanced. It would be well to get this all over and go down.

He had locked the door on the passage, and there was no need for fear or

hurry. But staying here did no good, and he had now sufficiently

recovered to go down.

He stepped out of the tank and approached the burden.

He raised it, and bending low carried it to the tank. There was

difficulty in getting it through the narrow opening, but at last all was

accomplished.

He stepped out of the tank, and stood on the open part of the top of the

tower for a few moments to recover his breath.

"Hah! I am all right now. I shall grope my way down very well; it will

not take half so long to go down as it did to come up."

He placed his hand on the hood of the doorway and stooped to descend; he

paused and drew back, thinking:

"If I have killed her, that is no reason why I should add brutality to

crime. I did not cover her face, and the birds might----"

He crept back to the tank, leaving the thought unfinished.

He entered it and stooped.

All at once something happened in his mind. Just as he stooped to cover

the face of his dead wife, he fell upon his knees beside her, and cried

out:

"Almighty God, I have killed her. Almighty God, be merciful if Thou

wilt, and let me die."

Burying his face in his hands he burst into hysterical sobs that shook

him and would not be uttered without racking pains. They were too big

for his chest, too big for his throat, too big for his mouth. While a

sob was bursting from his labouring chest he felt the weight of ten

thousand atmospheres pressing down his throat. When the sob burst forth,

he shuddered and shivered and winced as if a scourge wielded by a

powerful arm had fallen on his naked shoulders.

The violence of this outburst had one alleviating effect: while it

racked the physical it annihilated the mental man. He was sobbing

because he knew he had most excellent cause for inarticulable sorrow.

But the sorrow itself made no image in his mind. It was with him as with

the player of an instrument, who, coming upon a well-known passage of

great mechanical difficulty, finds when the passage is passed small

memory of the music and strong memory of each flexion of the fingers,

but can, when he needs it, hear all the passage again note for note as

it had flown from beneath his fingers.

The wife of his middle life had been murdered by some one long ago. He

thought nothing of that. But now he was kneeling by the corpse of the

wife of his youth, the bride-sweetheart of his stronger years.

All the trouble, all the cark, all the memory of her faults, of her odd

ways, were gone. He was not the middle-aged husband penitent by the

body of the middle-aged wife he had murdered. He was the young

enthusiastic husband-lover by the side of his dead young wife.

He had not killed the Beatrice he had married long ago. But, O woe, woe,

incommunicable agony, he had slain all the faults of his middle-aged

wife, he had slain all the years of his life during which his

indifference had sprouted and blossomed, and was now by the side of the

woman dead whose existence had been to him the sunshine and the rapture

of his life.

In a moment of madness he had sought to kill a faulty wife, but by

terrible decrees of Heaven he had killed, instead, all the faults of his

faulty wife and the sweetheart of his youth. Almighty Maker, did his

crime deserve this!

Gradually the physical agony left him, only to be followed by the mental

anguish.

"Bee," he moaned, "Bee, won't you get up and walk with me? We shall not

go far, for it is late. I want to tell you what we shall do with the

back drawing-room in the summer. Don't you remember how I told you once,

love, and you were pleased and kissed me, Bee? It is about building the

little conservatory for you. You will get up and walk with me a little

way. Do, Bee. Let me lift you up."

He stretched out his hand and caught something.

"Cold!

"Cold!"

Then he shuddered and drew back. A third and final change came with the

touch of that dead woman's hand. All illusion left him, and, covering

the face of the dead, he crawled out of the tank--the murderer of his

wife.

Still overhead hung the black sky, still abroad brooded the unbroken

stillness.

He looked deliberately around him. What had been done could not be

undone, and he had now only to make the best of the situation. Already

he felt one good result from his greater crime; it had dwarfed the other

to insignificant proportions. The theft now seemed a trifle.

But what had happened to Daneford and the country round, and the grounds

about his house, and the tower upon which he stood? Some strange change

had come over the relations between him and them. What was it? Daneford,

and the country round, and the ground at his feet had receded, gone back

from him. He was farther from them than he had been that day. What a

strange sensation!

The sensation was very peculiar. He had never felt anything like it

before. What had that morning seemed most important to him had now sunk

into insignificance. Nothing was of consequence--save One; namely, the

chance of a stranger coming to the top of that tower while It remained

there.

The feeling was new to Grey, for he was new to the situation he had that

night created. The solitude of a vast desert of sand under the pale

stars, the solitude of the topmost frozen peaks of the Himalaya, the

solitude of an ice-locked Arctic sea, the solitude for a hunted man of

an unknown city, is profound and awful; but all combined and intensified

a hundred-fold are nothing compared with the appalling solitude upon

which man enters when over one shoulder, he knows not which, peers for

ever the face of a murdered victim.

That face had not yet come to Grey, but as he descended the muffled

stairs of the Tower of Silence he felt her cold lips touch his forehead

once again; and once again he plunged forward on his way, caring little

for life.

PART II. THE TOWERS OF SILENCE.

CHAPTER I.

A STRANGER AT THE CASTLE.

"Maud, darling," said Mrs. Grant, "a gentleman dressed in black, who

will not give his name, and says he wants to see you most particularly,

has arrived. What message do you wish to send him? Will you see him?"

"Oh, Mrs. Grant, I can't see any one. How can any one be so unreasonable

as to think I can see him to-day! Such a day for a stranger to call!"

Both ladies were in the deepest new mourning.

"Mr. Grey has also come. He sends word that he could not think of

intruding upon you, but that if you wish to see him he is at your

service."

"Oh, no, Mrs. Grant! Dear Mrs. Grant, do save me! Tell them all that I

am too wretched to see any one. Thank them all for me, dear Mrs. Grant,

and save me from them. Pray, save me from them!" The girl threw her arm

round the widow and sobbed helplessly.

"No, no, my child, they shall not come near you. I only brought you the

messages. I do not ask you to see any one. You shall, my darling Maud,

do just as you please. A number of other people have come too. Many of

Sir Alexander's old friends. But you hardly know these. My only thought

was, might you wish to see Mr. Grey, who is doing everything; and I

wondered if you might not wish to say something to him. I wondered if

you might not like to tell him some last wish, for they will start

presently--in less than an hour."

The girl made a strong effort, and succeeded in calming herself.

"Dear Mrs. Grant, try to forgive me. I am too selfish. But I am

distracted. I never knew till now how fond I was of--of my father, and

it would be rude and ungrateful in me not to see Mr. Grey after all his

care and trouble. What should we have done without him? Not a soul

belonging to us near us. Dear Mrs. Grant, will you go to him and

say--don't send a servant, he deserves all the courtesy we can show

him--say to him I would go to him myself, but the house and place is

so--so crowded, and I am not very--strong. Say I should like to see him,

if only for a moment, to thank him. Go, please go. I would not for the

world have him think that I did not feel gratitude for all his

kindness."

This was on Wednesday, 31st of October, 1866, ten weeks after the

blowing up of the steamship _Rodwell_, on her way from Daneford to

Seacliff, and a few days more than eight weeks after the visit of Joe

Farleg to the banker Grey at the banker's residence, the Manor,

Daneford.

On the preceding Saturday--that is to say, October the 27th--Sir

Alexander Midharst had passed quietly away. The doctors had foretold

correctly; and from the 17th of August to the 27th of October Sir

Alexander Midharst had never had a lucid moment.

While the baronet lay insensible Grey was, as he had foretold, much at

the Castle, but in that time nothing of importance arose. Grey had

gradually fallen into the position to be occupied by him of right when

the old man died, and was consulted on all matters of moment connected

with the estate and the Island. In fact, after the first few weeks of

Sir Midharst's complete unconsciousness, the direction of affairs fell

almost wholly into his hands. He originated all matters of consequence,

and, having asked and obtained Miss Midharst's approval, saw them

carried out.

This bright, crisp, last day of October was the day of the funeral. For

this ceremony Grey had made the arrangements. Only personal friends of

the late baronet and twenty of the principal tenants were to go to the

Island for the purpose of carrying the body from the Castle to the slip,

and accompanying it across the water. The remainder of the tenants, and

all others desirous of attending the funeral, were to assemble on the

mainland and await the body. When the coffin had been landed, the

procession would proceed in a certain determined order; and as the

deceased had no near relative, and no relative near or distant was to be

present, Mr. Grey, in virtue of his long connection with Sir Alexander,

and of the relations in which the will would place him to Sir

Alexander's child, was to occupy the place of chief mourner.

Mrs. Grant found the banker in the library, and gave him, in a somewhat

modified form, the message Miss Midharst had sent to him. Without saying

a word he left the room, following the lady.

"Where is the strange gentleman who wanted to see Miss Midharst, and

would not give his name?" asked the lady, as they passed down the

corridor leading to the staircase. "I did not see him in the library.

Oh, here he is."

They encountered a tall, slight, sad-faced man clad in black.

Mrs. Grant stopped, Mr. Grey fell back a few paces, and the widow said:

"I am sorry Miss Midharst is so much distressed just now that she does

not feel equal to seeing you. You will of course understand that the

circumstances are very trying upon her."

The stranger bowed, and answered in a low, quiet, full voice:

"I am deeply grieved by Miss Midharst's trouble. I would not think of

seeking to intrude upon her but for good reasons. There is no absolute

necessity for my seeing her at this moment. Later I hope to have an

opportunity of expressing personally to her my sympathy, and of saying

what further I wish to say. I am much indebted to you for the effort you

have made in my behalf."

He indicated that he had nothing to add, and by keeping bowed showed

that he did not desire to detain Mrs. Grant longer.

When she and the banker were out of the stranger's hearing, she said to

Grey:

"Do you know who that gentleman is? I have never seen his face before."

"I do not know who he is. Nor have I seen his face before."

It was well for Grey they were in the dimly-lighted corridor, because he

blenched and staggered for a moment.

"Who can this man be?" he thought, "who has such urgent business with

Miss Midharst? Can this swarthy solemn man be here on _official_

business connected with--with Miss Midharst's money? He looks a

gentleman, but talks too like a book for one. A detective? That would be

a nice finale to this ceremony.

"Dear Miss Midharst, here is Mr. Grey come to see you," said Mrs. Grant,

opening the door of the little drawing-room and ushering in the banker.

Grey entered with a calm, sympathetic face.

Maud had collected herself, and was now much less distressed than when

Mrs. Grant left her a little while before. She held out her hand, and

said, in a tone, under the transient sadness of which could be felt the

steady current of grave gratitude,

"Mr. Grey, you will add to all your great kindness if you consider my

inexperience and how little I know the way to tell you my thanks. I feel

ashamed I am not able to express them; but I know you will understand my

gratitude even though I cannot put it in words. Mrs. Grant and you are

the only friends I have in the world; and if it were not for you two, I

think I should die."

He took her hand respectfully, and retained it a moment.

"Mrs. Midharst, I beg of you not to trouble yourself about such matters.

I know Mrs. Grant is invaluable; but as to me--you are aware what I

promised Sir Alexander about you, and if you trouble yourself to thank

me I shall begin to suspect you imagine I find it irksome to do towards

the living what I have sworn to the dead."

"Oh, no, no, no! Forgive me! I only meant to tell you I am very

grateful, and don't know how to say it. Indeed, you must think nothing

of the kind, Mr. Grey. Tell me you forgive me!" She stretched impetuous

appealing hands to him, and looked out of soft tear-dimmed eyes into

his.

For a moment his admiration of her delicate beauty overcame everything

else, and he remained gazing silently into that sweet young pleading

face--that face pleading to him to believe she felt grateful to him.

Then he came back to the circumstances and the time, and said,

"There is only one thing I shall never forgive you."

"And what is that?"

"If you discover any way in which I can be of use to you and fail to let

me know."

"You are too good, Mr. Grey. How shall I ever thank you?"

He waved her speech aside with a deprecating gesture and a faint smile.

"I have come merely to know if I can be of use to you? Is there anything

you wish done you did not mention to me yesterday?"

"No, nothing. Only I cannot meet any one. If I must go to the library by

and by, that will be more than I should like to see of people. Some

gentleman, who did not give his name, and whom I do not know and can't

see, has asked me to meet him. If you speak to him you will explain and

apologize for me."

"I will, most assuredly," and, bowing once more, the banker retired.

"Who can this man be who has come to the Island uninvited, and seeks to

thrust himself upon Miss Midharst such a day as this? Can it be anything

has been discovered? I have no assurance but Farleg's word that he did

not tell some one besides his wife what he saw in the Tower-room that

evening after the blowing up of the _Rodwell_. But then, if he did tell,

it is not to this place the owner of such news would come, but to me at

the Bank or at the Manor. If this man is here for any unpleasant

purpose, it must be in connection with the Consols. There is nothing

else to cause the dangerous presence of such a man. If he is here about

the Consols, what does he know?"

By this time Grey had reached the library-door, and stood a moment with

his hand on the handle. Suddenly his face cleared, as, with a sigh of

relief, he thought,

"What right have I to assume he is here for an unpleasant or disastrous

purpose? His gloomy face has put a gloomy notion into my head, that is

all."

He entered the room, and found the tall, sad-faced stranger alone; the

others, those who had been invited, were now assembling in the great

hall, where the body of the baronet lay beneath a black velvet pall,

under the eyes of his painted ancestors, who stared at the crowd from

their gilded frames on the walls.

Mr. Grey approached the stranger with a bland face and conciliatory

carriage, saying, "You find us, sir, in very great confusion to-day, and

I must apologize to you for any want of courtesy you may have felt. I am

sure, however, you will make allowances for us under the melancholy

circumstances."

The stranger bowed gravely, and said, in a deep, full voice, "I have

experienced no want of courtesy; on the contrary, every one I met has

been most polite."

"I feel," Grey went on, with a graceful and urbane gesture of the

hand,--"I feel myself more or less responsible for the good treatment of

all guests here to-day. My name is Grey. I have just come from Miss

Midharst. I understand you wish to see her, and, I am sorry to say, she

does not feel herself equal to an interview; but if you will favour me

with any communication for her, or let me know the nature of your

business, I shall be happy to do anything I can for you." Grey spoke in

a kind and winning manner. "There is no knowing what facts he may be in

possession of, and nothing can be lost by politeness to him," was

Grey's reflection.

"I am very much obliged to you," answered the stranger, with a slight

inclination of the head; "but I shall reserve what I have to say until

I have an opportunity of saying it later in the day to Miss Midharst

herself."

There was in the manner of the speaker a profound and imperturbable

self-possession most disquieting to the banker. The latter rejoined,

"But, indeed, I greatly fear she will not be able to see you any time

to-day."

The stranger smiled faintly, waved the point aside with an air of

perfect assurance, and asked, "Will you be good enough to tell me when

and where the will is to be read? I am told it is to be read."

"May I know why you ask?"

"Because I intend to be present?"

"In what capacity?"

"I shall explain then."

"The will is to be read in this room to-day, when we have returned from

the funeral. Such was Sir Alexander's wish."

"Thank you. I shall be here. When does the funeral start?"

Grey looked at his watch. "In quarter of an hour."

"I will not detain you further, Mr. Grey. I know your time is fully

occupied to-day;" and with a bow which indicated the interview was over,

he withdrew towards the window.

Grey was completely confounded between dread of the knowledge this man

might possess and the disagreeable sensation awakened by the sense, for

the first time experienced in his life, of having met a man, foot to

foot and eye to eye, who was a more able fencer than himself.

As Grey took his way from the library to the hall, he felt far from

easy. He did not want men near him, and he did not want strange men; he

did not want strange men more than a match for him in fence; and, above

all, he did not want this man, who was not only a stranger and a better

master of the foils, but who, moreover, had matter of importance to

communicate to Miss Midharst, and displayed a plain conviction he should

that day have an opportunity of speaking to Miss Midharst,

notwithstanding her denials.

And now he had declared his intention of being present at this

old-fashioned reading of the will. What could that mean? Who could he be

that thus insisted upon thrusting himself upon this house of mourning?

Then a terrible fear rushed in upon Walter Grey's mind. Could it be

that at the last moment the old man had altered his will and appointed

a second trustee, one to act in conjunction with him, Grey, and that

this cool self-possessed man was that second trustee? If it were so, the

alteration in the will was Grey's death-warrant.

But much remained to be done in little time; so Grey hastened to the

hall, and was soon lost in the business of getting the funeral under

way.

As the funeral was about starting from the Castle to the Ferry, and just

as Mr. Grey had placed himself immediately behind the coffin, the

stranger stepped up to the banker's left side, and saying, "Pardon me,"

slipped his right arm under the left arm of the other.

Grey looked hastily over his shoulder.

"You will let me walk with you. I assure you I have ample authority."

Grey staggered, so that the other had to steady him. "Authority! ample

authority!" thought the banker in dismay. "What can the nature of that

authority be? Has he a warrant in his pocket to arrest me for the murder

of my wife? Does he defer putting it into execution just now, so as to

avoid making a scene; and has he thus taken my arm to prevent the chance

of my escape?"

Or had he come down with a warrant in his pocket to arrest him the

moment the will had been read? It might be that someone at the Bank had

discovered the Midharst Consols had been sold; and the only evidence

wanting in the chain would be supplied by a reference in the will to the

stock, thereby showing that Sir Alexander, at the time of his death, was

under the impression the stock was still his, thus proving it had not

been disposed of with the baronet's knowledge.

Grey felt himself powerless to resist. He thought it best to raise no

question, make no demur. The cold sweat broke out on his forehead; he

knew his voice would tremble if he essayed to speak. He bowed his head

in token of acquiescence, and the funeral proceeded to the Ferry.

"Can it be," thought Grey in an agony of fear--"Can it be, while I am

walking after the body of him whom I have robbed, they are gazing on the

body of her I have murdered."

They reached the boats, and were ferried across to the main land.

They re-formed, and were joined by a vast gathering of tenants,

labourers, and others. The procession set off once more.

During all this time the stranger remained silent. He did not address a

single word to Grey, nor Grey to him.

During all this time Grey was suffering the agony of the rack. He felt

confident he was about to be attacked, but he did not know whence the

attack would come, or what the nature of it might be. A successful

attack of any kind upon him could have but one result--Destruction.

On the way back to the Castle the stranger seemed plunged in still

deeper reverie; and beyond a few of the most ordinary common-places, not

a word passed between Grey and him.

All throughout the stranger kept on the left-hand side of Grey.

All throughout Grey saw at his left shoulder the Nemesis of his fate,

and over the right the pallid face of his murdered victim.

CHAPTER II.

THE READING OF THE WILL.

"Now, Maud darling, do try to bear up. Drink this wine to give you

strength. Come, they are all waiting for us in the library. Drink this

for my sake. Well, half; drink half of it for my sake, my dear, dear

child. It was your father's direct order the will should be read and you

should be present. Mr. Shaw tells me this is not usual, but must be

done."

"I cannot drink the wine. It will not take long, I suppose?"

"Mr. Grey says that it is not likely to take more than quarter of an

hour. The will is very short."

"Is Mr. Grey in the library?"

"Yes, dear."

"Please, put away that wine; I am ready to go now. You will come with

me?"

"Of course, Maud. My place is at your side, poor darling."

Mrs. Grant's words touched some chord in the girl's heart, and she burst

into tears, crying:

"Oh, Mrs. Grant, I never felt lonely before. I don't know what I should

do, only for you and Mr. Grey."

"Thank you, love. You know I'll stay with you all my life. I have no one

of my own to live for; they are all gone. I have no father or mother, or

brother or sister, or husband or child. I am as lonely as you, Maud;

only you have lost a father and this home, and by and by you will marry

and have a new home, a husband, and little ones at your knee; but for

me the world is over. Every day I live keeps me further off from my

husband; every day you live brings you nearer to yours. Ah, Maud, women

have but poor lives of it, and the poor childless widow is worse than

the dead." She burst into tears.

"Mrs. Grant," cried the girl, throwing her arms round the woman, "pray,

pray forgive me! I have been cruelly selfish, thinking only of my own

sorrow and never of yours. Dear Mrs. Grant, do forgive my selfishness!"

The widow wound her arms around the weeping girl, and crushing back her

own grief, said passionately:

"Selfish, Maud! you selfish! Why, my darling never thinks there is such

a person as herself until she finds she can be of use to some one. No,

love, not selfish. There, love, love, don't cry; we shall be the best of

friends all our lives. We are both friendless and alone; that is all

the more reason why we should be good friends all our lives, Maud

darling. I'll never leave you if you will let me stay. There now,

there's a dear child; dry your eyes and drink the wine, and let us go

and get this matter over."

"Put away the wine; I am ready. We shall never, never part, Mrs. Grant

dear."

The two left the little drawing-room. Mrs. Grant put one arm

affectionately round the girl's waist; Maud held one of Mrs. Grant's

hands in hers.

As they drew near the library-door they found Mr. Grey awaiting them in

the passage. Placing himself on her right side, he offered her his arm.

Mrs. Grant dropped to the rear, and, preserving this order, they reached

the library-door.

Here Mr. Grey paused for a moment, and said to his partner in a low

voice:

"The strange gentleman who would not give his name is within. He says he

has authority to be present. He may be a solicitor on behalf of some of

the smaller legatees. I do not wish to be rude to him or to say he must

give me his authority. He says he will speak to you some time to-day. Do

you wish me to tell him to go, or do you prefer that I should merely

request him to give up all hope of an interview to-day?"

"I cannot, I cannot see him," cried the girl, clinging to his arm, and

looking up appealingly into his face.

"Protect her," he thought, "against this unknown man, who seems to

threaten my safety and her peace, of course I shall. This is the first

time she has sought my protection, and by a fortunate chance it is

against one whom I have reason to dislike. How lucky! How lucky I have

been in everything connected with this Castle--about the will, about

the old man's illness, about the confidence! All has turned out exactly

as I wished. Her arm is now in mine. She is calling out to me for help.

I feel already as if I had won her; as if she leaned upon my arm as

my--wife."

Then he whispered to her,

"Rest assured this man shall not intrude upon you. If he keeps quiet he

may remain until the will has been read. Then I shall be officially

installed as your guardian, Miss Midharst, and I shall know how to act

towards him if he dares to interfere with you."

Drawing himself up to his full height, he walked slowly into the library

with Miss Midharst on his arm, and Mrs. Grant following a few paces

behind. His face was calm and firm; in his tread and gait there was

conscious power. He felt he could have faced any danger then. She, upon

whose good regard towards him and final acceptance of him as a suitor

all depended, hung on his arm and clung to him for protection. The

chance that the Tower of Silence would in his lifetime give up its

secret was one to a million. He had a single reasonable cause of dread,

and that was lest she, Maud Midharst, might turn away from him--might

finally reject him. With her arm on his, and the memory of her confiding

glance, he felt like a great captain, who, having in secret prepared a

crushing attack, throws up his head and pants at hearing the great bay

of the signal-gun which is to shake out the standards and let loose the

thunders of prodigious war.

No more than a dozen people were present. The servants stood at the end

of the room remotest from the one large window.

With its back to the window, at the head of the table, was the baronet's

great straight-backed oak chair, empty. Mr. Grey led Miss Midharst to a

chair on the right of this. As she moved up through the room, half a

dozen gentlemen, seated round the room and at the table, rose and bowed.

The stranger, whose chair was at the foot of the table, rose with the

rest, and bowed more profoundly than any of the others.

As soon as Miss Midharst was seated, Mr. Grey crossed at the back of the

vacant chair and sat down upon the left of it. Upon Grey's left sat Mr.

Shaw, the deceased baronet's lawyer. On Miss Midharst's right sat Mrs.

Grant. Dr. Hardy, who had attended the funeral, was present by

particular request. The old lawyer, whose hands were tremulous, closed

his eyes up firmly first, pulled his white whiskers, shook his white

hair, and, looking at Grey, demanded in a feeble shaky voice:

"Is everything now ready for reading the last will and testament of Sir

Alexander Midharst, deceased, as by him desired?"

For a moment there was no reply. Then Grey cleared his throat and said,

in soft gentle accents:

"As the heir to the baronetcy and property did not reply to my

notification of the late Sir Alexander's death, and therefore was not to

be here at the reading of the will, or represented by a solicitor, he

being, I understand, in Egypt, I have taken it upon myself to nominate a

solicitor to be present on his part. I have therefore asked Mr.

Barrington to be good enough to favour us with his presence, and watch

the interests of the heir."

An excessively fat and prosperous-looking young man stood up and bowed

deeply all round, saying, in a rich oily voice:

"I am proud to represent the heir to this noble house, this lordly

property, and the glorious family of Midharst."

Having bowed all round again, he sat down.

Then Mr. Shaw opened the will, and began reading it in a weak and

quavering voice.

The will was brief, and the language straightforward and plain.

The baronet left small legacies to his servants, and expressed a desire

that Michael might remain in his daughter's service, until he chose to

retire, upon which he was to receive an annuity of forty pounds a year,

in addition to the five hundred pounds, payable within one year from the

opening of the will.

The few other servants kept by the baronet were left legacies on this

scale in proportion to their positions.

To Mrs. Grant he left a thousand pounds, coupled with a request that she

would continue to stay with Miss Midharst as her companion as long as

Miss Midharst might wish.

Upon hearing this Mrs. Grant wept, and put her hand on the girl's hand

and caught the hand, and looked at the girl with eyes that swore,

"Never, never, will I leave you while I live."

To Dr. Hardy he left two hundred and fifty, and to each of the other two

physicians who had attended, one hundred pounds over and above their

proper fees.

To Mr. Shaw he bequeathed five hundred pounds, over and above his proper

fees, and expressed a hope that any legal business which had to be done

in connection with his will, his daughter, or the money, would be

intrusted to Mr. Shaw.

To Henry Walter Grey he bequeathed the gross sum of five thousand

pounds, over and above all his just claims against the estate. Two

thousand five hundred of this was to be paid within twelve months of the

opening of the will, and the other two thousand five hundred upon the

expiration of Grey's guardianship. This was bequeathed in grateful

remembrance of many years of careful guardianship of the testator's

fortune in the past, and in consideration of the duties and obligations

imposed upon the legatee by the will.

The next clause announced that he left and devised and bequeathed to his

daughter Maud, absolutely and for ever, the residue of his property of

all kinds, sorts, and descriptions whatever, subject to the bequests

above mentioned; and the payment of all just debts and demands for which

the testator was liable at the time of his death; and the cost of his

funeral, which latter he desired to be simple and unostentatious, and

yet not unbecoming the house of which he was head. The residue was not

to be paid over to the legatee, but held in trust for her until she had

attained the full age of twenty-two. It was the testator's wish that his

daughter should not marry until she had attained the full age of

twenty-two: but married or single, to her the residue was to go when she

attained her twenty-second year. With regard to her marriage, the

testator would make no restrictions. He felt sure his daughter would

make no unworthy selection, and she would remember that although the

title and estates were passing away to a younger branch of the family,

she was the only representative of the elder branch now surviving. The

testator desired that, should she not marry before her twenty-second

year, she should lean upon her guardian for advice at any time later

than her twenty-second year. The testator desired it to be clearly

understood that the guardian's power extended absolutely only to the

property of the residuary legatee; and that she, being at the time of

executing this will and testament, full twenty years of age, in all her

personal movements, and in the marrying or not marrying, or in the

choice of a husband, was free from the greetings of these presents. That

is to say, the guardianship of the residuary legatee, as constituted

herein, was that of administering her fortune, and of looking after her

welfare, without, except in the matter of the property, power of

constraint or interference in matters personal to the residuary legatee.

The testator, however, reposed the most unlimited confidence in the

guardian, and advised the residuary legatee to be largely guided in

matters personal by the advice of the aforesaid guardian.

Following this paragraph came one reciting the property of the deceased

man, the most important passage of it being this:

"And such Consols as may be found registered in my name in the books of

the Bank of England, an account of which, and the Consols themselves,

are in the custody of Henry Walter Grey aforenamed, to the value at this

date of five hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling."

Then came the final paragraph:

"And I hereby elect and appoint Henry Walter Grey, of the Manor House,

Daneford, banker (hereinbefore described as Henry Walter Grey), executor

and trustee to this my last will and testament, to hold authority, and

to act in all matters connected with my property at his own sufficient

discretion, with the limitations herein aforesaid. And I hereby elect

and appoint the same Henry Walter Grey, of the Manor House, Daneford,

banker, to be and to act as the sole guardian, with the limitations

hereinbefore set forth, of my only daughter Maud, hereinbefore described

as of the Castle of Warfinger, the residuary legatee in this my last

will and testament. And to the aforesaid Henry Walter Grey I leave the

burden of the safe guarding of my daughter's fortune, and the care of

her orphanhood. I leave to his charge the savings of half a lifetime,

and the last of a noble house. I pray that, as Henry Walter Grey may do

by them and me, the God Almighty may do by him. Amen."

The old solicitor then read out the formal ending of the will, looked

up, shut his eyes, and said:

"That is the only will which has been found of the late Sir Alexander

Midharst, Baronet, of Warfinger Castle."

He opened his eyes for a moment, and then shut them again, adding while

they were closed:

"The will is in my handwriting. I drew it at the late baronet's

dictation, using almost his identical words."

He turned over the document, and scrutinised it closely.

"There is no codicil or addition of any kind," bowing to Miss Midharst.

There was a moment's silence, during which every one present looked

down.

It was only by the most powerful effort Grey could prevent himself from

shouting aloud under the intolerable relief. Although he had expected

the will to be in some such terms, he could scarcely believe that, after

his days and nights of agonised dread, all had come right. He felt like

one who, after long durance in a dim and choking cave, is lifted into a

sunlit flowery valley, over which larks are singing, and through which

flows a bright silver stream, along which he may wander with

unquestioned feet.

Now all was secure. This girl and her whole fortune had, within the past

half-hour, been signed and sealed into his possession. True, he had no

control over her personal actions. But he soon should have control, the

most potent of all--the control of husband over wife. According to the

will, she might marry as soon as she pleased. There was nothing now in

the world to prevent her being his wife in twelve months.

Nothing to interfere with his marrying this girl and blotting out the

trace of his crime. Already she liked him. As they came into that room

to hear that will read, by which he became sole executor, trustee, and

guardian, did she not lean on him? Already she liked him. Soon she

should love him. Soon she should marry him.

Considering her position, the world would approve of her marrying; for

she had no one to protect her but a guardian, no kin near enough to take

any interest in her. In her solitary situation, every one would approve

of her marrying soon.

There was a rustle, and all the men rose to their feet upon perceiving

Miss Midharst in the act of rising.

Grey looked across for a moment at her, as she stood upon the right hand

of the vacant chair.

"She mine!" he thought. "She will be my salvation! There is nothing now

to keep her from me! Nothing between her and me!"

"Miss Midharst," said a deep grave voice at the other side of the table,

"I fear there is no one here who can introduce me to you, so that I

shall be obliged to introduce myself."

Grey started, and looking across the table, saw the stranger advancing

towards Miss Midharst.

The banker threw one glance around, by which he plainly told the other

men that he intended resenting so unwarrantable an intrusion on the

grief and privacy of the occasion. All his fears had vanished into air.

The only feeling he now experienced was that a pushing stranger was

seeking to occupy the unwilling attention of his legally constituted

ward, and the woman who was to be his wife.

Grey crossed the room rapidly at the back of the vacant chair, and

placing himself beside Miss Midharst, bowed and offered her his arm.

She took it, and for a second no one moved.

Maud looked up and saw in front of her a tall, broad, dark-visaged,

black-haired, sad-featured man, with dark and dreamy eyes.

She shrank back slightly, and clung to the stalwart arm on which her

small white hand lay.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the banker blandly, "I shall be happy to

place myself at your disposal when I have led Miss Midharst to her

private apartment. May I request you to take a seat until then?"

"Thank you, sir. Your name is Grey."

"It is. And as you have heard the will, you know I am in a position to

tell you that anything you have to say to Miss Midharst may, under

present circumstances, be more reasonably said to me." The banker

advanced his foot, and Maud, still clinging to him, moved to go.

Again the stranger bowed low to Miss Midharst. It was impossible,

without downright rudeness, for Grey to move until the stranger should

have recovered an erect attitude, as evidently there was something else

he wished to say.

"Miss Midharst," at last the stranger said, "I am William Midharst, your

cousin;" he held out his hand to her.

"The new baronet!" murmured the servants, in whispers. All the men

looked keenly at the tall dark young man, who with a grave smile stood

holding out a brown right hand to the fair, shrinking, timid, pale,

beautiful girl.

She took her white trembling hand off the banker's arm and held it out

to him. She was cold and trembling, and she felt as though she should

faint.

He took the fingers of her white hand respectfully between the fingers

and thumb of his own brown hand, and bending low with the homage of a

chivalric age, and the simple sincerity of our own, kissed the white

hand he held. Then, inclining his head towards the banker, he said

gravely:

"Will you, sir, upon this occasion of my first meeting my cousin, forego

your privilege, and allow me to take her to her apartment?"

The mind of the banker was dazed and paralysed, and in silence he

signified his assent.

Placing the hand on the black sleeve of his left arm, Sir William

Midharst, of Warfinger Castle, led his orphan cousin Maud down the room,

and through the doorway.

As they disappeared Grey's face shrivelled up. Fortunately for him all

present were too much occupied with the new baronet's arrival to notice

him.

The whole fabric of Grey's rearing seemed to topple over and tumble

into dust as these two figures went through the doorway. He was

guardian it was true, but his power did not extend to his forbidding her

to take that arm, to go through that doorway with that young man, to

walk up to the altar-rails with any man whatever.

"Idiot that you have been, Alexander Midharst; you deserve nothing

better than that your daughter's fortune should be lost!"

Then he stood a long time immovable.

At last the thought of the stake he had put down in this game rushed in

upon his mind, and he was once more on the top of that Tower of Silence,

under the dull sky with the Dead.

He now stood in the awful solitude of blood. He strode on through a

realm of endless silence and limitless sand. For him there could never

be any change here; always that maddening silence--always those

unconquerable leagues of sand. Never any variety except----

He suddenly started and shouted. There had been a change in the

monotony; for over his shoulder--not the one at which Maud had

stood--over the right shoulder suddenly peered the face of his murdered

victim.

With a pang of apprehension he became alive to his situation, and looked

suddenly round. He was alone. All the others had left, and it was

growing dark.

CHAPTER III.

"COUSIN MAUD----" "NO; MAUD."

When the young baronet reached the corridor he said in a grave sedate

voice:

"I knew your name was Maud; and I knew your poor father did not like me.

I am sure you will believe me when I tell you I never saw him in all my

life, never saw you until to-day, and never gave him any reason I know

of to dislike me. It so happened I was heir to the property; it so

happened I was poor. I could not help the former; I tried to do all I

could to help the latter, and took an appointment in Egypt. It was such

an appointment as a gentleman might take. You, Cousin Maud, had no

feeling against me because I happened to be next to the title and

estates?"

"Oh, no," answered the girl quickly, in a tremulous half-frightened

voice, without looking up.

"And now that I have come to see you, cousin, you have no feeling

against me?"

"Not the least. Why should I?"

"When you did not know who I was, you refused to see me to-day. Now that

you know I am your cousin, the nearest relative you have on earth, will

you do me a favour?"

"If I can, I will."

"Walk with me a while in the grounds; I have much to say to you. The air

will do you good, and what I have to say will keep your mind off the sad

business of to-day. Grant me this favour, if you do not feel too weak."

"I do not feel weak; only--only confused and frightened. I will go with

you."

They had both halted at the foot of the grand staircase. She looked up

into his face as she spoke. She had never seen one of her house but her

father before. It was strange to think this man should be so unlike her

father and yet related to her. He spoke as if he meant to be kind, and

in any case she ought not to refuse so slight a favour to the only

member of her father's family now living. As a child she had stood in

mortal terror of this cousin--this cousin whom her father never lost an

opportunity of abusing. But when she had grown older, she knew the young

man did not, because he happened to be heir-presumptive to the property

and title, deserve on that account solely to be vilified. Her father had

always led her to think that towards her this cousin William would

behave brutally, simply because her father had racked the property to

the very uttermost penny. It had seemed natural that the next tenant for

life would regard the acts of her father with strong resentment; and,

taking into account the object for which the property had been swept

clean, she felt William Midharst, when he came to be Sir William, could

not look on her in a friendly spirit. But now that the worst had

arrived, and he as a factor in the worst, it did not seem that he should

have received such elaborate consideration, or have been the cause of

any great dread. He was dark and gloomy-looking, but then he had been

very polite.

While these thoughts were jostling one another in Maud Midharst's head,

she was in her own room, preparing for that stroll with her cousin. The

young baronet was walking softly up and down the great hall, and Wat

Grey was standing transfixed by a new terror in the library the two

young people had just left.

Presently Maud came down the great staircase. The young baronet looked

up and saw a sweet, white, childish face, full of sadness in the midst

of crape, and beneath that face a lithe graceful figure, moving as

though the ground had nothing to do with her movements, her step was so

free and light.

"My cousin Maud," thought the young man, "is too fair for health. Little

cousin Maud--lonely little orphan cousin Maud--looks as if she and her

father will not be long separated. I hope she is sufficiently clad. But

then I must not forget I am used to swarthy faces and warmer skies. My

little cousin Maud may live to wear a brighter look and gayer colours."

She was at his side now. All the other women in the world were nothing

to him. She was his cousin. Back to the first litigious Sir John they

both traced their lines--the great family of Midharst, which had come

down through the noble house of Stancroft. His cousin Maud. They two

were the last of the great house, they two. She, the pale, fragile,

griefful lady, with the wonderful soft eyes, and shy half-frightened air

and the pure young beauty. Good Heavens, how she sanctified the place!

How she illumined the past! All the ladies of the Midharst house but her

were dead: their portraits hung here and there upon the walls of this

old historic castle. There was on the walls no lady of the Midharst line

as beautiful as Maud. They were all dead and passed away. Around the

walls hung the extinguished lamps of beauty in the Midharst house; here

by his side stood the lamp clear and burning bright, the most beautiful

and the only burning lamp in the house of Midharst--his beautiful

cousin Maud.

"Cousin Maud," he said.

She looked up into his swarthy face, into his deep dark eyes, to show

that she was attending, but did not speak.

"When I touched your hand first in all my life, a little while ago,

there were many present, and you gave me your hand; it may have been

merely to show those around us that you recognised me as the head of the

family--the family of two. Will you now give me your hand as a private

sign that you know of no reason why we should not be friends?"

She held out her hand to him. Not only was he not to be unfriendly, but

he was going to be very kind, she thought.

He took her hand, and bending over it kissed the glove, and once more

placing that hand on his arm, led her into the open air of the

courtyard, under the great brown archway, and out into the shrubless

bare grounds.

When they had got a little distance from the castle he broke silence:

"That tall good-looking gentleman, your guardian, Mr. Grey, was very

nearly right in saying I was in Egypt; I have just returned. I have been

only a few days in England. Upon my arrival I heard what had taken

place, and came on as soon as possible. I got to Daneford last night,

and put up at the Warfinger Hotel. It was then too late to call upon

you, Cousin Maud. I did not send up my name to-day, because I feared, if

you knew my name, you might, out of respect to the old feeling, refuse

to see me."

He paused a moment as if to arrange his thoughts.

She, without raising her eyes from the ground, murmured,

"You were very kind."

She did not in saying this mean he had displayed kindness in his past

action, but that he was displaying kindness to her now.

He understood her, and went on:

"I shall have to go back to Egypt immediately, and I cannot possibly

return to England for some months. I shall be here again as soon as I

can. Before I go away I want to establish a great friendship with you. I

want you to make up your mind to disregard anything you have ever heard

to my disadvantage, and look upon me as the head of the family of two,

and your best and truest friend. I want you to promise me that at once,

to-day--before I leave you--now."

His manner was very fervid and intense as he came towards the end. At

the word "now" he ceased to walk.

She looked up. What a change had taken place in that placid, grave, sad

face of a few moments before! The dark eyes were full of fire, the

delicate nostrils moved, and the swarthy cheek was flushed. He rose up

over her, tall and broad and fierce and strong. She trembled, but could

not take her eyes from his. She had never met any man like this before.

He fixed her attention upon him and upon his words beyond the power of

her control. She was frightened and surprised.

"What am I to do?" she asked fearfully.

"You are always to look on your cousin William Midharst as your best

friend. Will you promise me that here and now?"

"Yes."

"You promise."

"I promise."

"Very well, that is settled," he said in a quick way. "Let us move on.

Now I have other things to say to you of as great importance. You must

listen to me very patiently. When you do not understand what I say, you

are to stop me and ask me to explain. Won't you?"

"Yes," very timidly.

"Now, from the little I have seen of your guardian, I like him very

well, and I have no doubt no wiser selection could have been made. Those

people I met in Daneford had something to say about events here, and

every one who spoke said good things of him; when every one says good

things of a man he must be a good man. Do you like your guardian? I

believe you know him some time?"

"I know him since I was a child and I like him very much. No one could

have been more kind or considerate than he; and I know my poor father

had the greatest confidence in him."

She said this with more animation and earnestness than she had yet

shown. Her gratitude to Grey was profound, and she did not wish her

cousin should be for a moment in doubt of her feelings in the matter.

"That is all right: I am delighted to hear you say so. Now Mr. Grey has

full and complete control of your fortune; that is a mere trifle."

She looked up at him in some surprise and said,

"I understood that Mr. Grey had a large sum."

"I did not mean that your fortune is a mere trifle, but that the fact of

its being in his hands rather than any other honest man's is a mere

trifle. What I wished to do was to draw a contrast between the

comparatively triviality of the guardianship of your money compared with

that of another thing."

His eyes were now fixed, staring ahead; and although she looked up into

his face, he did not glance down, and she could gather no information

through her eyes.

She said, in a tone of faint wonder:

"I do not know what you mean. My father always told me I should have

nothing but the money."

Still keeping his eyes fixed ahead, he said, in a dull, slow, dreamy

way:

"Well, there was one thing in your father's gift, for a time at all

events, and the will gives it to no one. Supposing the guardianship of

that thing were in your gift now, would you, considering that I am the

only relative you have alive, and that you have agreed to look on me as

your best friend,--would you, I ask, give me the guardianship of that

thing?"

"But is there any such thing? I certainly never heard of it," she said,

in greater wonder.

"There is such a thing."

"And it is in my power to give you the guardianship?" she asked.

"Absolutely, Cousin Maud."

"And you really wish to take the troublesome care of this, whatever it

may be?"

"I do."

"Then I give it to you freely."

"And you will give me as absolute control over it as if it had been

formally made over to my care by the will of your dead father?"

He had now paused in his walk once more, and was standing looking down

on her, not with the fiery eyes of a few moments ago, but with deep,

careful, anxious eyes, as though matter of great moment depended on her

answer.

Under his steady glance she felt her head grow confused and hot. She did

not know quite clearly what was passing, but she knew he had asked her

to do something, and she must do it. "I promise," she said, very

faintly.

This time he spoke with the most elaborate clearness of articulation,

slowly and with emphasis:

"You promise to make over to me the guardianship of the thing to which I

allude as absolutely as though it had been made over to me by your

father's will."

"I do."

"Then it is the guardianship of my cousin, Maud Midharst."

"The guardianship of me! But Mr. Grey is my guardian!"

"Yes and no. He is the guardian of your fortune absolutely. But with

respect to your own personal action you are left free. You are

recommended by your father to apply to him for advice, but you are not

bound to do any one thing he asks you, or to accept his advice beyond

money matters. In all matters except money you are to consult me. You

have promised, and you will do so?"

"I will keep my promise, but it is strange." She dropped her eyes, and

again the two moved forward.

His face gradually lost its intense expression, and assumed its usual

dreamy far-away look. In a few moments he spoke:

"Yes, it is strange, and to me, Cousin Maud, very sweet, that I should

be able to do the least thing for you. You must now rely on me wholly.

You must take no important step without consulting me. You are as much

under my charge now as if you were my daughter. My only regret in the

matter is that I am compelled to leave England almost immediately, but I

shall be back in as short a time as possible; in the meanwhile you may

look to Mr. Grey for the advice you want from day to day. But if

anything of importance should arise, you must write and tell it to me,

and I will write back and tell you what to do. You understand?"

"Yes. You are very good to one you know so little of."

"Know so little of! Know so little of! Do I not know you through the

history of our house? Is it because we never met, and I never set foot

on the Island before, that we do not know much of one another? When I

look at those old walls; when I think of the great house of Fleurey from

which we are both come; when I think that you and I bear the one name,

and that the very walls which protected your infancy and girlhood are

mine in my manhood; when I learned that my cousin Alexander had died,

and left my cousin Maud alone in the world with a huge fortune and no

natural guardian but myself; when I saw my cousin Maud, and found her

pale and timid and tearful--I knew her through the past and in the

present; and, Cousin Maud, with the help of Heaven and a resolute will,

I shall know her in the future, to the last hour I can be of the least

service to her. Why, child, I was horrified to think of you all alone

and unfriended, save for the friendship of a middle-aged busy man, who

had no natural claim upon the privilege of your safe-guarding. I feared

something might come between you and me to prevent my getting close to

you as I am now, in your confidence, and in the consequence of your

promise."

She had raised her eyes to his after the first few sentences. She had

noted again the flush in the swarthy cheek, again the fire in the large

dark eye. She caught the voice of passionate chivalry that rang out

through his words, clear and sharp as the voice of the cornet when it

alone holds up the theme to the melodious confluence of harmonious

strains flowing from orchestra and stage.

"Cousin Maud----"

"No; Maud."

"Maud."

They paused again. He was still in thought, and looked into her eyes,

not with the sight of intelligence, but with the sight of the physical

eye merely.

He had aroused her confidence, her gratitude, her interest. She was

looking at him with as much astonishment as though, upon turning her

back, she found not the Weeslade and the Plain of Spears, but the

streams and fertile land that lie around Damascus, and the long low line

of the city's ruined walls against the northern sky.

Mutely she held out her hand to him. He took it in silence, shook off

his absorbed manner, smiled softly on her, then the two resumed their

walk. From that moment, from that hand-pressure, from that smile, from

the soft sigh which greeted that smile, and the firm breathing and

measured step with which he resumed the walk, it was plain their

friendship had been sealed. He knew he had inspired her with confidence,

and she knew she felt faith in this new cousin-friend, who had been a

source of disquiet to her in her childhood, and was destined to be a

source of sustentation and strength to her in her maiden years.

For a while they walked on in silence.

"And now, Maud, there is some detail I wish to speak to you about."

"Yes."

"You will of course continue to live here----"

"But I am no longer----" she interrupted.

"You will, _of course_, continue to live here. I shall not set out for

Egypt for a few days, and in that time I will see that all things are

put in order for you here. I understand that the lady who sat upon your

right is the Mrs. Grant alluded to in the will?"

"Yes. She is my only friend----"

"Maud, your only friend!"

"I mean, of course, William, after you."

"That's a good child. Call me William always, and learn to think of Mrs.

Grant as your _second_ friend. I hope she will continue to stay with

you. Do you think she will?"

"Oh, yes; she has promised. She is and has been a great and a good

friend to me. I do not know what I should have done all through the last

few months but for her. She has promised to stay with me as long as I

like, and I know I shall like her to stay with me always."

He looked fixedly at the slender graceful figure by his side, the figure

of the only woman in the world in whom he felt interest--the interest of

blood. The idea that he was head of the family felt new to him. He had

often tried to realise it before, but never until now did he know what

it was to have any one dependent upon his protection; and the person so

depending being his beautiful cousin Maud, the feeling was not only new,

but sweet and purifying as well.

At length he said: "I wish I had not to go abroad; but, Maud, when I

came away from Egypt I had intended to return, and left matters in such

a state that my not going back would cause the greatest confusion, and I

must not, because I have now become rich, treat badly the office so

useful to me when I was poor. But I will be back to see that you are

all right as soon as ever I can. Has your guardian, Mr. Grey, any sons?"

"No. He has no child. He never had a child."

"He is married, of course?"

"Yes, but he lost his wife in a dreadful accident that happened to a

river steamboat some months ago."

"Then he is a widower?"

"Yes."

Sir William's brows fell, and he bent his eyes on the ground for a few

seconds. He raised his head, and, partly closing his lids, looked dead

ahead for a few seconds more.

"Your father's will was dated the 9th of June in this year. Had Mr. Grey

lost his wife then?"

"No. Not, I think, for some months after. Now I remember, Mr. Grey was

here at the moment the steamboat, on which his wife was, blew up. I

remember now. That day we sent for Mr. Grey; Sir Alexander was raving

about him and other things, and Mr. Grey was on the Island when the

vessel blew up. That night father became delirious finally. I now

recollect it all."

"So that your father, while in possession of his senses, did not hear

Mr. Grey had lost his wife?"

"No. Does it make any difference? Cannot a widower be guardian in a

will?" She dreaded to lose the protection she had been taught to rely

on.

"Oh, indeed, he can. It makes not the least difference in the eyes of

the law whether a man has a wife or not, as far as his appointment of

guardian in a will goes. I was asking merely for information's sake. And

now, Maud, I think you had better go in. It is getting dark already, and

I should like to have a little conversation with your guardian--your

other guardian--before I leave. By the way, at first I was puzzled to

think why Sir Alexander did not leave yourself under the absolute

control of Mr. Grey, but I think I guess the reason. When the will was

made you were old enough to take care of yourself in all ordinary

everyday matters, and his feelings would not allow a daughter of his, a

daughter of this house, to be under the control of a banker. I know that

your father was a little peculiar, and had no friends or associates of

his own rank. He made Mr. Grey guardian of Miss Midharst's fortune, but

not of Miss Midharst herself. It is my lucky chance to occupy the latter

flattering position. Good-bye, now, Maud. I am staying at the

"Warfinger," in Daneford. I shall come over every day of the few I am in

this place to see you."

They had now arrived at the library-door. It opened slowly, and a man

appeared on the threshold, and stood still as if transfixed. Neither of

the others noticed the presence of the man in the doorway.

Sir William went on: "Our meeting was very formal, and our greetings

were very formal too. But we are good friends now, and loyal cousins.

Cousins may be more affectionate, Maud, than strangers in blood.

Good-day, Maud," said he, stooping and kissing her white forehead

lightly. "Good-bye; and remember to take great care of yourself, and

rely on me."

She moved slowly away.

He turned briskly to the library-door, and seeing the man on the

threshold, said gravely:

"Mr. Grey, I am glad to have met you, and shall feel much obliged if

you will favour me with a few moments' conversation."

Without saying a word Grey re-entered the library; the baronet followed

him.

CHAPTER IV.

THE TWO GUARDIANS.

When the two men found themselves in the library it was quite dusk

outside, and a deep gloom filled the room. There was no one else in the

place, and no candle or lamp illumed the dark and cavernous recesses of

shadows lying here and there remote from the great window.

"I will not detain you long, Mr. Grey. Do you wish for lights?"

"Not at all, Sir William."

This man, who had come in the morning as a stranger, and whom he, Grey,

promised himself he would quickly eject if he made himself unpleasant

or pushed himself upon Miss Midharst after the reading of the will, was

now treating him, Grey, as a guest in that house! And not only that, but

he had pushed himself upon Miss Midharst, and seemed to have got on very

well with her, judging from the parting which had just taken place

between them. The tables were turned on him, Grey, and the less light

there was to expose his discomfiture the pleasanter for him. The gold

was still leading, still leading, but only by a head; and the lead was

gaining, hair's-breadth by hair's-breadth, every minute.

"Suppose we sit near the window, where the most light is," said Sir

William.

They both moved towards the window, and, having taken chairs, the

younger man began:

"In the first place, Mr. Grey, let me thank you most cordially for all

your great kindness and care shown to Miss Midharst during this

troublesome time. I assure you I shall never forget the debt of

gratitude I owe you for your generosity and devotedness under the trying

circumstances."

"I feel greatly flattered by your approval, Sir William. I have tried in

my humble way to do my duty, and if I have failed I have failed through

no want of desire to do my duty by the child of--if I may be permitted

to call him so--my old friend Sir Alexander Midharst."

There was a strange mixture of emotions in Grey's voice as he spoke.

Sarcasm and fear mingled freely, and the young man was for a moment in

doubt as to how he should proceed. Mr. Grey, now alone and in the dark,

did not impress him quite so favourably as earlier in the day, when

others were present, and when the man's face and figure could be seen.

The young man paused a while, and made up his mind not to inquire into

the constituents of that tone if it were not repeated.

"It," he thought, "may have been accidental."

Aloud he said, "I did not come into this neighbourhood until last night,

and since then every one I met seems to have done nothing but sing your

praise. All the people at the "Warfinger Hotel" have spoken in unstinted

terms of respect. You must not think they knew who I was, for I gave no

name. I was and am greatly delighted at this, for I hope from it you and

I may get on well together, out of consideration to my cousin's

comfort."

"I sincerely trust we may always get on well together. I certainly will

not deliberately risk losing your good opinion."

This time there was nothing unusual or disquieting in the tone. Grey had

himself caught the import of his own voice in his previous reply, and

felt he had made a great mistake. It was very hard though for him, Grey,

a man of his position and standing, to sit there and be blandly approved

of by this young man--by this young man who seemed to take his own

success in all things as a foregone conclusion. He, Grey, must play his

cards carefully, and above all things he must not show the direction in

which it was necessary for him to force the game. But he was in the

dark; and if denied the expression of his feelings to his voice, he

might allow them to run riot over his face, and it was a relief to frown

and scowl and sneer in silence.

"I have first of all a favour to ask you, Mr. Grey."

"I am sure, Sir William, if it is in my power to grant it, I shall be

only too happy to do so." This was said in the banker's most urbane

accents.

"Well, I understand that your bank has kept the Midharst account for a

long time; will you be kind enough to accept the keeping of mine?"

"The Midharst has been the most important of all our accounts for a long

time, and we shall feel honoured and delighted if you will favour us

with yours."

There was nothing very dreadful about this. It seemed as if the young

baronet would turn out as confiding and uninquisitive as the old one. So

far this looked promising.

"And now," said Sir William, "will you do me another favour?"

"If," returned the banker, in a gay tone of badinage, "the second

_favour_ at all resembles the first, I think I could go on granting you

such favours all the night."

This young man was not only simple and confiding, but downright amiable

and sociable.

"You must not think I am extravagant when I have said what I am going to

say."

"My dear Sir William, if you want any money, you draw on us, as a matter

of course, for any sum you may require. That is an affair of ordinary

business, not favour; and it was quite unnecessary for you to say

anything about it."

Things were growing more comfortable as they got along.

"Why, I should not wonder," thought Grey, with a smile that almost

developed into a laugh,--"I should not wonder if he gave away the

bride."

"But the sum I require is large."

"Draw on us for it in the morning."

"I don't think you would say so if you knew the sum."

"Try us. Draw on us to-morrow."

"Twenty thousand?"

"Only? I thought the sum was a serious one! You really must not think of

attaching any importance to such a matter. My dear Sir William, you can

draw on us for fifty thousand without notice. If you have the least

occasion for more than fifty, just tell me four days before you draw, so

that there may be no chance of a disappointment to you."

Grey thought, "Clearly this young man is in debt. How lucky! When a man

is in debt and wants money badly he will do----" He paused, thought of

his own case, shuddered, and whispered in the innermost solitude of the

desert of crime where he and his spectre dwelt,--"he will do

anything--murder!"

"You must not think I am in debt. I do not owe a shilling. I never did."

"That is highly creditable in a young man of your expectations," said

Grey, in a tone of high admiration. To himself he said, "I'm sorry it

isn't for debts he wants the money. What can he want the money for?

Nothing good, I'll swear."

"You see, Mr. Grey, I may seem abrupt to you, but I do not mean to be

so."

"I assure you I cannot guess why you for a moment imagine I could find

reason to think you abrupt."

"Ah, well, yes! What I said about abruptness has rather to do with what

I am about to say than with anything I have yet said. I am very quick to

decide upon things, and very prompt to act, and I may say without

boasting that once I take a thing in hand I usually make it turn out as

I wish; I like to do things that seem difficult; but I never undertake

anything when I do not clearly see my way to realisation."

"Most useful, positively invaluable qualities," said Grey, in a tone of

admiration; mentally he thought, "If what this man says of himself is

true, my life depends upon the direction this cursed activity of his

takes."

"I have to leave the country for a time. I must go back to Egypt for

some months."

"Indeed!" ejaculated Grey. He could scarcely repress a cry of joy. To be

rid, and rid quickly, of this dreamy energetic man was a mercy for which

he did not dare to hope. "Do you leave England soon?" Grey asked in a

tone of gentle sorrow.

"In a few days. Ten days at the outside, and before I leave I want the

money, and to put the thing I have decided upon in trim."

"Can I be of any further assistance to you than financially?"

"Yes, I think you can, if you will be kind enough. You take a great

interest in Miss Midharst?"

"Aha!" exclaimed Grey, as though he had been struck. The question of the

young man caused the terrible importance of Miss Midharst to present

itself suddenly to his mind. He saw at one glance the stakes he had put

down, and the prize for which he was playing; and thus coming suddenly

upon a bird's-eye view of his position, he received a violent shock,

which forced the exclamation from him.

"What's the matter?" cried the young man, rising quickly and approaching

the banker. "Are you hurt?"

"Pray excuse me. It is nothing, Sir William. Do be seated. I am very

sorry for having alarmed you. Some little time ago I injured my knee--as

I thought at the time, slightly; but it often gives me a single pang of

most acute pain, and in crossing my legs just as you spoke that pang

came, and I could not but cry out, if my life depended on not doing so.

I know you will excuse me, Sir William; the pain is all gone. I think

you were saying, when I so unhappily interrupted you, that you and I

take a deep interest in Miss Midharst."

"You are sure you are all right?"

"Yes, quite sure."

"Did you ever hear the death-scream of a horse?"

"No, never."

"Your shout frightened me; it was like that. Well, as I was saying, we

both take an interest in Miss Midharst. You know the way Sir Alexander

treated this place. I heard of it, and to-day I see it."

"Yes; it is naked enough."

"Well, it is not a fit place for Miss Midharst to reside in now."

"I have been thinking, of course, of getting a suitable house for her

until we are able to buy or build one."

"Oh, I don't mean anything of that kind. She is to stay here."

"Stay here! You do not know that from me, Sir William. It is not my

intention. My intention was to place my own house at her disposal, and

live in my town house."

"Oh, but it is all settled: she is to stay here."

"All settled! All settled, Sir William, and by whom?"

"By Miss Midharst and me."

"But--but--" Grey was trembling all over now, he knew not why--"but, Sir

William, one would think Miss Midharst's guardian might have been

consulted on the matter before all was settled."

"I assure you he was."

"But I pledge you my word, Sir William, this is the first I have heard

of it."

"My dear Mr. Grey, there is some mistake. You surely do not imagine you

are Miss Midharst's guardian?"

"Then, in the name of Heaven," cried Grey feebly, "if I am not, who is?"

"I."

"_You!_ But the will does not mention your name!"

"Nor yours, as guardian of her person. You will take charge of Miss

Midharst's fortune, as by will appointed. I will take charge of Miss

Midharst herself, by position as head of the house. You did not catch

the full drift of the meaning of the will. I paid particular attention

to that paragraph."

"No doubt you are right, Sir William. I did not pay particular attention

to that paragraph. I gathered that I was the only guardian named, and I

concluded the conditions were the usual ones."

It was with the utmost difficulty Grey could prevent himself from

betraying his conflicting passions. Now came personal anger against the

young and determined baronet; now despair at the thought of having Maud

removed from his personal custody. Sir Alexander had certainly given him

to understand that he, Grey, was to be guardian to the girl; and here

was he, after all he had done and risked, after he had died his hands in

blood----Bah! that kind of thing would drive him mad. He must keep calm

now if he did not wish to hang next month.

The young man continued: "That twenty thousand I want for putting this

place to rights. I see already what I wish done to the grounds; before I

leave I shall know what I want done to the building and furniture."

"By-and-by, I daresay," thought Grey, "you will find out what you want

done with me."

The interview lasted little longer, and nothing of importance followed.

As Grey went home that night he thought:

"He will be months away. I will be all these months here. Before he can

be back she shall be mine. I know it, I feel it. I am not now very nice

in the means I employ. She shall be mine before he returns by--some

means or other."

CHAPTER V.

THE INDEFINITE PRESENT.

The morning after the funeral Mrs. Grant and Maud walked up and down one

of the long, silent corridors for an hour. The evening before, when the

widow and the young girl sat together in the firelight, Maud had told

the other the main features of the facts in the interview between

herself and Sir William. Beyond expressing a guarded and general

approval of the baronet, Mrs. Grant said little. She had been too tired,

and Maud too exhausted from fretting and anxiety, to allow of close

inquiry or elaborate statement. Now they were less fatigued, the worst

day of the bereavement had passed, and they were quietly discussing

matters.

"You know, Maud, my dear, no matter how kind Sir William may be to you,

it will not do for you to forget Mr. Grey," said Mrs. Grant, very

gravely. "You must not think of defying him or going to law with him, or

anything of that sort."

"Indeed, Mrs. Grant, I am thinking of nothing of the kind," replied the

girl, looking with troubled eyes and anxious face at her only female

friend.

"Because you know," continued the woman, without heeding the

interruption or the appealing face--"you know very well the Greys have

served the family faithfully for many years; and now the present Mr.

Grey has sworn to serve you, and to take care of you, and to be good and

kind to you; and I am sure he will; for though he is not such a

gentleman by birth as your father or Sir William, still he's a most

respectable man."

The widow had the feminine trick of taking the bit in her teeth and

going straight on, no matter who pulled right or who pulled left.

"You may rely on my doing nothing of the kind. How can you think I

would!" cried the girl fervently.

"Yes, but you mustn't," repeated the widow vehemently. "You must not

throw over the friend of years for a man you never saw until yesterday."

"You ought not to say I am going to do anything so wicked--indeed you

ought not. But remember that the man I met for the first time yesterday

was my cousin, and the head of the Midharsts."

"But your father never liked him."

"My poor father never knew him."

"But he could have known him if he liked, and he didn't."

"That was prejudice."

"Maud!" cried the widow, in a tone of reproach.

The girl burst into tears.

"I did not mean to say anything disrespectful; but I can't bear to think

my cousin insincere."

Mrs. Grant pressed the girl in her arms, and said:

"You must not cry; you must not weep, my love. I did not mean you had

been disrespectful to your father's memory. Heaven forbid! But you must

not be too hasty, and like everyone at first sight. That will never do

for a young heiress who has no right guardian."

The girl ceased to weep, and said in an unsteady voice:

"But I never told you I liked him."

"You do like him, Maud; you know you do."

"How could I like him in one meeting?"

"But, Maud, you do like him, and that is why I feel so uneasy."

"Indeed I don't like him. I am afraid of him: he makes me feel smaller

and helpless. I never feel helpless when Mr. Grey is near me, for he can

always tell me what to do; but I feel as if I must do what my cousin

says, and after only one meeting too. I was ashamed to confess this

until you made me."

Her luminous candid spirit looked out of the large soft eyes into the

eyes of the woman.

Mrs. Grant stole her arm round Maud's waist, and for a while both walked

on in silence. At length Mrs. Grant spoke:

"I am glad to hear that."

"To hear what?" asked Maud, in a tone of abstraction.

"That you take no interest in Sir William."

"What!" with a start. The eyes of the girl were once more fixed on the

eyes of the widow. "I did not say that. On the contrary, he _does_

interest me."

Mrs. Grant looked bewildered, and glanced helplessly around her, as if

seeking someone to bear out what she was about to say.

"Why, child, you told me a moment ago that you did not like him, and

that he frightens you!"

"That is true, but a lion frightens me, and I can't say that I like

lions; but they interest me more than a King Charlie."

Maud smiled at the bewilderment of the other.

"But, my dear," said Mrs. Grant, with a look of grave trouble in her

eyes, "what you say about lions and King Charlie is all nonsense. When

you have a King Charlie you play with him, and feed him out of your

hand. When you have a lion, you look at him through the bars of a cage.

Besides, Maud, it is absurd and romantic to think of an English baronet

as a lion. Suppose he was a lion, and he got loose, what should you do?"

"Run away as fast as I could," answered the girl, with a faint laugh.

"But if he caught you?"

"Oh, if he caught me I don't think I could do much."

"There now, Maud, I told you so."

Mrs. Grant had not told Maud anything about her chance of not being

able, single-handed, to defend herself against a lion. When she said, "I

told you so," she had suddenly lost sight of the monarch of the forest,

and come upon the mental image of the baronet of the Island, in whom

this girl had admitted she took an interest, which, in the illustration

afforded by the lion, proved to be full of the gravest danger.

Miss Midharst had forgotten the baronet in the allegory, and was

thinking only of the lion; so that when Mrs. Grant triumphantly said, "I

told you so," Maud believed Mrs. Grant was contemplating the same image

as herself--that is, her own disappearance down the lion's throat. So

that Maud smiled and said:

"Fortunately there are very few lions in this part of the world, and one

very seldom gets loose."

"On the contrary, there are very many lions in this part of the country,

and they all go about seeking whom they may devour."

Michael the servant entered, and announced, "Sir William Midharst and

Mr. Grey."

"You will see Mr. Grey first, of course, Maud?" said Mrs. Grant, in a

low voice.

Miss Midharst looked perplexed, and by way of reply said:

"Why?"

"Oh, you will surely see your guardian before a man you met only

yesterday?"

"Don't you think it would look strange, Mrs. Grant, if I did not see my

cousin before Mr. Grey?"

"Certainly not. Mr. Grey was appointed to take care of you. He has known

you since you were a child, and you owe him every respect," said Mrs.

Grant, speaking so low that Michael could not hear. Her manner was very

earnest.

"But Sir William is my kinsman, and, Mrs. Grant, you and I are his

guests in this place. You really would not have the owner of this place

wait while I, his guest, received even my guardian? No; my cousin must

come first. Michael, ask Sir William to walk this way."

As soon as the door closed on the servant, the girl turned to Mrs.

Grant, and said: "Will you see Mr. Grey and apologise for delaying him?

Please do, Mrs. Grant."

As the new owner of Island Castle entered the room he met Mrs. Grant

going out.

When greetings and ordinary formalities had been disposed of, and the

cousins were alone, the man spoke.

"I had an interview with Mr. Grey yesterday evening, and I am glad to

say that I found him most reasonable and agreeable. I had two things to

speak to him about, neither of which was likely to please him, and he

behaved admirably."

"I am sure the more you meet him the more you will like him," said Maud,

looking up thankfully to her cousin's face. She felt herself under a

personal obligation to her cousin for his frank approval of so old and

valuable a friend of her father and herself. The desire to be governed,

common to all women, had suddenly sprung up in her nature when her

cousin spoke to her last evening of his claims upon the guardianship of

his only cousin, and she was now greatly relieved to find respect to the

wishes of her father's successor did not clash with fealty to her

father's only friend, one on whom she looked as having a strong claim

upon her regard and attention.

Sir William did not seem to hear her words. He was standing at the

window looking down on the Weeslade with dreamy inattentive eyes.

She was seated on a low chair at the other side of the window. Her eyes

were timidly fixed on his face. He had come from Egypt, the land of the

inexplicable Pyramids and the inscrutable Sphynx. To her this cousin

William's inner life was as dark a mystery as the riddle of the

Pyramids, and his face as baffling as the face of the Sphynx. Until now

she had heard men speak, and had attended to their words. When he spoke

now she regarded less the words than the unuttered thoughts attending

upon them. The "How d'ye do?" of other men required only a

straightforward answer, without thought beyond the scope of the

question. The "How d'ye do?" of her cousin came to her attended by

veiled figures of strange aspect, that gave the simple question a volume

and depth the mightiest questions never had before.

Was it because he who had been the ogre of her younger years had become

the protector of her orphan maidenhood, and the air of the ogre still

hung vaguely around him in her mind? Was it the influence of remote

consanguinity operating, as blood does, between those of the same stock

who have met for the first time when grown up? Was it the background

afforded by the Nile and the sacred crocodile, and the mysterious barren

silent rows of the Pyramids, with those features of men and women lying

hid in folds of linen and layers of asphaltum, with, save the eyes, all

the features, the lips that were kissed by lover or mother, still

unchanged, still the same lip, the same dimple in the cheek, the same

curve in the temple as when Thebes and Memphis conned the stars, the

Paris and the London of three thousand years ago, and taught the world

all the world knew?

Then before her mind rolled forth the plains of purposeless white sand,

overhung by the plains of unbroken blue sky, and, blazing in the blue

sky, the fierce sun. And here, against the homely sash of that old

familiar window, that commonplace sash and frame, down which she had

seen the dreary rain of weary winter days slide to the sodden ground, he

leaned; on his face and hands the brown harvest of Egyptian suns, in his

dark eyes the strange knowledge of awful arts and rites wrought in

labyrinth and in cave by Egypt's ancient priests, and in his tones the

softness of a land where no waves beat and no winds blow loudly enough

to drown the timid whispers of a maid.

"Are you thinking of Egypt?" she asked in a low voice.

"No. I am thinking of Maud," he answered, without moving. Then, rousing

from his reverie, he said: "Yes, Mr. Grey was most agreeable last night,

and I am sure we shall get on very well together. One of the things I

had to speak to him about was a matter of business detail. The other,

Maud, was of the first moment, the arrangement you and I came to

yesterday about my acting as your personal guardian."

"What did he say about that?" asked Maud aloud. She thought he had not

been thinking of Egypt. His mind had not been far away, as she had

supposed, but close at home, near where they were, busy with thoughts of

her. Was it strange a man who had that dark sad face, and those deep

eyes, and those mystic memories, and so short a knowledge of her,

should, while looking so out of that old familiar window, think of her,

who knew nothing of the world and was so commonplace? Was that strange?

No doubt, in her, in this secluded place, and with her humdrum life, the

objects entering into which were all around her clad in the threadbare

interest of daily use, it was not strange that, being who he was, and

coming as he did, she felt a great interest in him. But that he should

concern himself so much about her was inexplicable. Egypt had been to

her, since first she knew how to hold a book, the land of her dreams.

Her only wish for travel sprang from a desire to see the site and

monuments of the race which gave the arts and sciences to Europe. And

here was her cousin William come back from that land, and, while lost in

a reverie which looked proper to the country of the Nile, thinking of

her, Maud.

The young man paused awhile before answering her question. Still his

face wore the same abstracted look as he replied:

"At first Mr. Grey seemed surprised and shocked. I think it appeared to

him as if he had been slighted. I intended no slight to him, and I don't

think my manner showed anything of the kind. At all events, all went

well, and he seemed quite satisfied once the first surprise had passed.

How did he hurt his knee, Maud?"

"I do not know. I am very sorry to hear he has hurt himself. When did it

happen?"

"He said some time ago. It gave him dreadful pain last evening. I never

shall forget the shout it wrung from him. It was like the shout I once

heard of a man who awoke in the jaws of a crocodile."

"I never heard anything about it. I hope it is not serious, and that all

he has been doing for us of late has not made it worse."

"I hope not. By-the-way, he is waiting to see you, Maud. Shall I tell

him he may come up? I have told some tradesmen to be here about this

time. When you have finished with Mr. Grey come into the courtyard. I

shall be there. I am going to have vases for flowers put up, and I want

to consult you about them."

He turned round and glanced down at her. The vacant look faded from his

eyes, a deep gentleness stole into them, and from them spread like light

over the rest of his features as he took her hand, and said, in tone of

deep solicitude:

"Are you always so white, Maud? Are you sure you are well?"

"I am quite well," she answered.

"You must not fret, dear Maud. I will send Mr. Grey to you. You are more

used to him than me. But you will get used to me some day very soon,

won't you, child?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Grey and I will take great care of you. He shall act as my deputy

while I am away, and when I come back I will take care of you. I will go

now; I do not intend letting those tradespeople disturb anything for

some time; I only want to show them what I mean to have done. For my

sake, Maud, you will not brood? Promise me that."

"I promise."

"And you will show me where you would like the vases placed?"

"Yes."

He kissed her hand first and then her forehead, and left her.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TYRANNICAL PAST.

When Mrs. Grant went out of the drawing-room she sought and found Mr.

Grey in the waiting-room off the grand entrance-hall. She closed the

door, and going up to the banker in haste said:

"I want to have a few private words with you, Mr. Grey."

"I am completely at your service, Mrs. Grant," answered the banker, in

his most amiable manner.

He looked worn and haggard to-day. The strain was telling on him. He now

knew what sleepless nights were, and days haunted by the phantoms of

memory, and slight rustling sounds of hideous import. He had learned to

start suddenly and look hastily over his shoulder. It was not the dread

of the hangman disordered his peace, but the faint rustle of a woman's

dress, and the plunge into the darkness and the sense of suffocation

under a burden, and the strange twanging of the arteries in his temples.

"You know," began Mrs. Grant in an excited manner, "that I love Miss

Midharst, and would do anything I could for her."

Mrs. Grant had been very much shocked and excited by what had passed

between Maud and her about Sir William, and the excitement still

survived.

"I am quite confident of that," answered the banker, with a grave look.

He saw Mrs. Grant had something serious to say.

"Will you promise me to keep what I say to yourself?" she asked quickly.

He paused awhile and looked down.

"My position is peculiar," he said. "Although I am not Miss Midharst's

guardian in the usual signification of the word, I really feel bound by

my promise to Sir Alexander to do all I can for her, and that being so I

could not undertake to keep to myself anything which it might be to her

advantage to disclose."

He said this in his most deliberate manner, and with his eyes fixed

solemnly on the face of the widow.

"I know I may trust you, Mr. Grey. My only reason for asking you not to

speak is, that if you mentioned my name in the matter I should be in an

awkward position."

"I promise you not to mention your name in connection with anything you

may say to me."

"That will do. I want to speak about Sir William Midharst."

"The new baronet!" cried Mr. Grey, with a start and suddenly intensified

interest.

"Yes. Do you know anything of him?"

"No. Nothing. He has not yet established his identity, but there can be

no doubt he is the right man. As what you have to say concerns him, and

as I am under no pledge to guard his interests (though of course I

should not sit still and see them injured), you may speak quite freely.

I promise to mention what you say to no one."

They were sitting by the table. As Mr. Grey spoke he drew his chair

closer to his companion's, and, by his manner, showed he had sincerely

resolved to respect her confidence, and attend most carefully to

anything she might say.

"Have you any idea that Sir William is in want of money?"

Mr. Grey started. A more unexpected or disquieting question could hardly

have been addressed to him. This was the first time Mrs. Grant had

mentioned the word money to him, and now she uttered it in connection

with this young man who had already to a great extent come between him

and the heiress. He answered:

"I may tell you in strict confidence he has applied to me for a large

sum of money, and of course I promised it. May I know your reason for

asking?"

"I'll tell you my reason by-and-by. The money he asked you for is not to

come out of Miss Midharst's fortune?"

Again Grey started. Then he knit his brows and braced himself together,

and, fixing his eyes resolutely on the carpet, answered in a firm voice:

"No; I could not think of touching Miss Midharst's money for anyone but

Miss Midharst herself."

He did his best to control himself, still at the words "but Miss

Midharst herself" he shuddered. Had Mrs. Grant discovered anything about

the Midharst Consols? She was the last person of his acquaintance he

would imagine likely to come upon a clue to the fact. But no one could

tell who might pick up the thread. If he had known matters would take

turns like these he should never have touched those Consols. He would

have shut the door first. What a fool, what a poor fool he had been not

to have taken his mother's advice and shut the door.

"But if he wants money he must be poor?"

"He will have a fine income now."

"Miss Midharst has a large fortune, Mr. Grey."

"Very large."

"And you are the guardian of it."

"Yes." What on earth was she driving at?

"Well, I think it only right to tell you that if Sir William is now in

want of money which is not Miss Midharst's fortune, he will very soon be

in want of the money which _is_." She rose and fixed her excited eyes

upon him.

He rose too, passed his hand absently across his brow, grew pale, and

said in a voice of perplexity:

"I forget part of it. I forget part of it. But you know I was looking at

the Witch's Tower of the Castle, the Tower of Silence, when the

steamboat blew up."

"So I have heard," whispered Mrs. Grant in a tone of awe. The change in

his face was terrible.

"And they never found the body of Bee. They never looked in the right

place. It is on the top of the Tower of Silence, blown there when the

boiler of the _Rodwell_ burst. I saw the body blown up there through the

smoke and steam."

"Mr. Grey! Mr. Grey! are you ill?" said Mrs. Grant, when she could find

her voice.

Gradually the fixed look left his eyes. The hands, which had been feebly

beating on the table, ceased to move, the sensation of tightness left

his forehead, and pale and with a gentle sigh he sank on a chair.

"Are you ill, Mr. Grey?" asked Mrs. Grant, in a less alarmed tone now

that she saw his mind was clear again.

He answered feebly:

"I have not been very well, and of late I suffer from sleeplessness, a

very bad thing for a business man, because when he lies awake at night

he is always thinking of his business, and that wears one greatly. Did

I faint?"

"No."

"Pray do not ring. I am all right now. I do not want anything. I feel

quite well again. It was only a passing weakness. You would greatly

oblige me if you will not speak of what has occurred to Miss Midharst,

or to any one else. Did I say anything?"

"Something I did not catch. You spoke of the sad death of Mrs. Grey in

the _Rodwell_. You said, I think, that you saw the _Rodwell_, in which

your wife was, blow up. Really, I was too much alarmed for yourself to

think of what you said."

"Ah," sighed Grey in a tone of profound relief. "You were telling me

something that interested me very much when I had the misfortune to

interrupt you. Let me see. What was it?"

His face was gradually regaining its ordinary look; the haggard aspect

of a while ago did not come back so strongly marked, still he looked

worn.

"Perhaps you are not quite well enough to-day to be troubled with what

may after all be only a wrong guess of mine. But I feel it strange, when

I come to think of it, that Miss Midharst should accept a man Sir

Alexander did not like as a guardian, when all knew Sir Alexander wished

you to have all the power he would give to any one. I spoke to Miss

Midharst, and she certainly means to take the advice of Sir William in

matters regarding herself. Well, then, I thought, Sir Alexander has

stripped the land and the town house and this place, and has rack-rented

and injured the estates, and saved up the money, with your help, for his

daughter. Then I wondered to myself if Sir William was in want of

money; for if he is in want of money, what could be better for him than

to make himself agreeable to Miss Midharst, insist upon her staying in

this place, become her guardian and--marry her."

"Aha!" exclaimed Mr. Grey in a half cough, half groan. "But do you think

there is a likelihood of such a thing occurring?"

"Do you, Mr. Grey, believe in love at first sight?"

"Yes; that is, I believe in something which may grow into love."

"Well, this may be a case of it."

"But have you any reason for thinking Miss Midharst has conceived a--a

tender feeling towards her cousin in so short a time?"

"No, no. I don't say Miss Midharst is in love with her cousin, but she

told me this morning he interests her, and that is a good beginning.

You know she has never met a young man of her own rank closely. Beyond a

bow and half-hour's chat once a month when she and I slipped into town,

she has met no one but you and her father. She has a craze about Egypt,

and this cousin is just home from Egypt--that's another thing in his

favour. I don't want any one to marry Maud for her money only, and this

is the reason I speak to you. She's too good and beautiful to be married

for anything but her own amiable lovely self, and I hope you will

prevent any fortune-hunter from snatching her up before the grave is

closed over her father."

"I--I--I," stammered Mr. Grey, "I do not feel quite well. I fear I am

growing dizzy again."

The door opened.

"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Grant. Good-day, Mr. Grey, I may not meet you

again to-day. You are not looking very well. Miss Midharst will be

delighted to see you. She told me to tell you so. Go to her. You will

find her in her own little drawing-room; the Lancaster room I think they

call it. I hope your knee is better. By the way, when and how did you

hurt it?"

"I--I am a little tired."

"The leg?"

"Yes."

"How did you do it?"

"Strained it."

"Long ago?"

"The night my wife was lost." He shuddered and leaned upon the back of

the chair.

"It is his head that troubles him and not his knee," whispered Mrs.

Grant.

"Take my arm and come into the air. The air will do you good," said the

young man in a voice of grave solicitude and kindness.

"Thank you," said Grey, accepting the offer.

The two left the room together, the banker upon the baronet's arm.

Neither the knee nor the head of Grey was suffering at that moment; but

he felt a deadly faintness come over him when Mrs. Grant made the appeal

to him to protect Miss Midharst against fortune-hunters.

"The blows come too quickly and too heavily; too quickly and too

heavily; too quickly and too heavily for me."

The open air and soothing landscape calmed Grey. He always felt better

out of doors now than between walls. Rooms had furniture, and furniture

cast shadows, and no matter what part of a room you sat in you could

not command a view of the whole. The atmosphere indoors was heavy,

depressing, and often laden with scents a man's wife might use, had used

once; and these perfumes, coming suddenly upon the sense of smell,

brought memories of long ago and half-awakened expectation of seeing a

certain woman of pleasing aspect the love-bearer of one. But with the

dying breath of the perfume the loved familiar figure of the olden time

faded away, and in its place came a ghastly face with open dead eyes and

open dead lips, and temples dark with the blue veins of suffocation.

When that thing came in the house no one could avoid it. It seemed in

all places at the same time, and if one raised eyes no matter to what,

that thing met the eyes somewhere. Even when it had not followed the

dying perfume of the musk, so long as one was in the house one might

come upon it anywhere, leaning against the wall in the darkness between

the double doors, huddled in the shadow of the great oak chimney-piece

in the hall, lying across the mat on one's bedroom-door when one was

retiring for the night.

Across the threshold of that bedroom-door this jaw-dropped thing never

came. That room was one's only sanctuary. The old love of the long ago

never left that place with the dying of the perfume. Here one's wife

moved about the room and stood by the bedside as God had made her,

comely, and as love had made her, happy; not as indifference had made

her, wretched, and the devil's agent had made her, dead.

And yet to live in that sanctuary for happy memories was almost worse

than wandering with a dim light through corridors against the walls of

which stood shrouded indictments for the intolerable crime. It was hard

to wake and smell the musk, and find one's young wife standing at the

glass, with the golden-topped vial in her hand, and a smile upon her

face, then to see her fade slowly away, to spring up, ask why she was

taken from young and loving arms, and to be able to get no answer; until

one opened the door, and found there one's own middle age, and that

terrible thing across the threshold.

Yes; the open air was much better than the house. Out of doors one could

keep at a distance from shadows, and, when there is the rustle of a

dress, soon find out it is not hers. Then, when the worst comes to the

worst, one, when out of doors, could run. Indoors, you cannot run any

distance, and jumping through a window would attract attention and

inquiry, neither of which could be endured now.

Leaning heavily on the arm of the young baronet, Grey walked up and down

the terrace in front of the northern face of the Castle. In about a

quarter of an hour he said:

"I am very much obliged to you, Sir William. You have been exceedingly

kind to me. May I ask you to do one more little favour for me?"

"Certainly."

"Will you kindly make my excuses to Miss Midharst, and say that I will

not intrude upon her to-day. I--I--I do not feel quite equal to it. I am

unstrung a little. I shall drive home; and a drive always does me good."

His voice was unsteady and his manner restless.

The baronet saw the banker safely into the ferry-boat, and then

returned to the Castle with the message.

Wat Grey got into his fly, thinking, "I'll go to see my mother."

END OF VOL. II.

CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, GREAT NEW STREET, FETTER LANE, E.C.