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Title: The fog princes

Author: Florence Warden

Release date: November 9, 2023 [eBook #72077]
                Most recently updated: January 30, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Frank F. Lovell, & Company, 1889

Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOG PRINCES ***




 THE FOG PRINCES

 BY
 FLORENCE WARDEN
 Author of “St. Cuthbert’s Tower,” “The House on the Marsh,” Etc.




 NEW YORK
 FRANK F. LOVELL, & COMPANY,
 142 and 144 Worth Street




 [IMPRINT.]

 Copyright, 1889,
 BY
 JOHN W. LOVELL.




 CONTENTS.

 CHAPTER I
 CHAPTER II
 CHAPTER III
 CHAPTER IV
 CHAPTER V
 CHAPTER VI
 CHAPTER VII
 CHAPTER VIII
 CHAPTER IX
 CHAPTER X
 CHAPTER XI
 CHAPTER XII
 CHAPTER XIII
 CHAPTER XIV
 CHAPTER XV
 CHAPTER XVI
 CHAPTER XVII
 CHAPTER XVIII
 CHAPTER XIX
 CHAPTER XX
 CHAPTER XXI
 CHAPTER XXII
 CHAPTER XXIII
 CHAPTER XXIV
 CHAPTER XXV
 CHAPTER XXVI.




 THE FOG PRINCES.

 CHAPTER I.

Among the noblemen’s seats of the United Kingdom there are many more
imposing, many more ancient, than Llancader Castle; but there are none
better adapted to the requirements of modern life, none where lifts
and electric bells combine more harmoniously with old tapestry and
heavily decorated ceilings. It is built in the hybrid classical style
of the Jacobean period, and is pleasantly placed among lawns and trees
and artificial fishponds not far from the banks of the River Wye.

The Earl of St. Austell, by far the largest landowner in this part of
the country, and possessor of estates rich in relics of the past, knew
how to avail himself of all the resources of the present. He had the
reputation in the country of being a good and beneficent landlord;
while in town, in the greenrooms of theatres where ballet was the
principal attraction, he had a reputation for munificence of quite
another sort.

Lady St. Austell was an amiable and still handsome woman, easy-going
to a fault, whose chief grief and grievance was, not her husband’s
peccadilloes, but the fact that she had not borne him an heir. In
their three daughters the earl took but slight interest; and the
countess being allowed full liberty to conduct their education on what
principles she pleased, tried to make up for their not being sons by
giving them the same education as if they had been.

If these young ladies had possessed brains or strength of character
out of the common, this system might have answered very well.
Unluckily, however, they were commonplace girls, and their unusual
training only served to foster a belief in their own superiority, and
thus to emphasize a certain lack of feminine grace and charms which,
considering their parentage, was difficult to account for.

On a warm afternoon in early August the eldest and the youngest
daughter were sitting at work in a pleasant room, pannelled with light
oak and hung with large flowered cretonne, which looked out on to a
wide lawn dotted with trees and brightened with flower-beds. In the
distance could be seen, through a clearing made specially in the thick
groves which line the banks of the winding Wye, the rugged grey walls
of ruined Carstow Castle.

“Where’s Marion?” asked Lady Catherine suddenly, looking up from a
Latin exercise she was preparing for her tutor.

Lady Catherine was a reddish-haired, freckled little girl of sixteen,
very plump and very merry looking.

“Oh, wherever Rees Pennant is, I suppose,” answered her eldest sister,
Elizabeth, glancing out of window between the stitches of crewel work
over which she was bending.

Lady Elizabeth was, like her younger sister, round-cheeked and
blue-eyed; she had a fair complexion, golden hair, eyebrows and eye
lashes, a self-satisfied expression, and a figure which all the
back-boards, reclining boards, and all the dancing masters in Europe
could never have saved from being round-shouldered and “dumpy.”

Lady Catherine burst into a merry laugh, and from a sofa in the
shadier depths of the long room a plaintive, but cracked, voice wailed
out a request in French that “miladi Katte” would be quieter, and
would remember that “madame la comtesse,” her mother, wished her to
overcome her propensity to unladylike outbursts of merriment.

Mademoiselle de Laval, the duenna of the earl’s daughters, had been
specially chosen for the post for her abnormal ugliness, Lord St.
Austell holding that women’s virtue was always in inverse proportion
to their beauty. He had over-reached himself, however, for
mademoiselle, being a martyr to neuralgia and rheumatism, and finding
herself very comfortable in her Welsh home, would not for worlds have
endangered her situation by any indiscreet prying into the amusements
of her charges.

Lady Kate, with a grimace in her direction, crossed the room to her
sister, and sat down on a footstool by her side, with a scandal-loving
expression on her face.

“Rees Pennant,” she repeated in a hissing whisper; “do you think she
is in love with him?”

“I am sure of it!” cried Elizabeth, with all the superiority in such
matters which twenty possesses over sixteen.

Lady Kate chuckled to herself with intense amusement.

“Of course he isn’t in love with her,” she suggested, with a sister’s
partiality. “Marion is so gawky and Rees is so handsome. It would be
like a figure of Raffaele falling in love with an Anglo-Saxon saint.”

“What’s the use of their falling in love, either of them?” said
Elizabeth prosaically. “They can’t marry.”

“Why not? He is the eldest son, and Captain Pennant’s family is as old
as ours. And look at us! We’re not beauties, and I know papa does not
mean to give us very handsome fortunes, or else you would have had an
offer before this. You’re twenty, you know.”

“Certainly. And I don’t want any offer,” answered her sister, not
without a pardonable suspicion of tartness. “But I certainly shouldn’t
condescend to flirt with a man beneath me in rank, and without a
penny. And there must be madness in the family, or Captain Pennant
would never have adopted a fisherman’s baby and brought it up as his
own child.”

“Deborah’s very pretty,” said Lady Kate, thoughtfully. “If we were
half as good-looking we should have been photographed all over the
place as beauties.”

“Pretty! Do you think so?” asked her sister, with an air of
matter-of-fact impartiality. “I don’t admire those big, coarse-looking
women. I like a face which shows signs of the higher intelligence, a
face which lights up. And Deborah has no conversation. I can’t admire
a girl without conversation.”

“Papa can though,” said Kate, rather maliciously. “He admires Deborah,
and I am sure you can’t say he likes coarse-looking women.”

“A gentlemen’s taste in beauty is not the same as a lady’s,” said
Elizabeth, moving restlessly, and wishing that her persistent little
sister would let her change this awkward subject.

“I know it isn’t. I expect some women would admire Mademoiselle de
Laval,” whispered Kate, glancing towards the dozing French governess,
whose wide nose and mouth, leathern complexion and well-defined
moustache formed a combination of feminine attractions rarely to be
met with. “But do you know, Betty, after mature consideration of the
subject, I would rather be pretty according to the gentlemen’s
standard than according to the ladies’.”

Lady Elizabeth, who, although extremely erudite, was rather dull, did
not perceive all the point of this speech, but felt that the pert girl
was slyly laughing at her. She was too good-tempered to grow cross,
however; she only grew didactic.

“You can’t expect much refinement from a fisherman’s daughter, of
course,” she said in obstinate tone. “I’ve always pitied poor Mrs.
Pennant--who comes of one of the oldest families in England, better
than her husband’s--for having to submit to such an absurd caprice of
his. She feels it, poor thing, dreadfully.”

“Yes, and turns up her eyes over it, and acts quite a pretty pantomime
of resignation over it still, though Deborah’s been one of the family
eighteen years. The consequence is that the boys have never learnt to
look upon her as a sister, and so they’re falling in love with her.
Godwin, and Hervey--yes, and Rees too, whatever Marion may like to
think.”

“So much the better. Then Rees can marry the girl, though I think one
of the gamekeepers would be a more suitable match.”

“Betty, how can you? You talk just like an ordinary spiteful girl.
Deborah is as much a lady as we are ourselves.”

“Very well then. Don’t let’s talk any more about it. We shall only
quarrel. And all about a girl who thinks that a smattering of French,
German and the piano form a good education.”

There was a pause. But Kate, who always liked to worry a subject to
death, soon broke out again.

“Betty, why do you think papa wouldn’t let Rees marry Marion? He’s so
fond of Rees, he really treats him almost as if he were his own son.”

“You don’t understand papa,” said Elizabeth, with authority. “He
always seems so easy-going that people don’t guess that he’s just like
a rock underneath. Nobody thinks so much of class distinctions and
money distinctions--those are almost the same thing nowadays--as he
does. Rees would have no more chance as a son-in-law than--than Amos
Goodhare,” she ended contemptuously.

Lady Kate laughed and pretended to shudder.

“Oh, old Amos,” she cried with real disgust. “Don’t speak of that man.
I can’t bear him. I think he has such shifting eyes and such a bad,
horrible face. I never could understand why papa allowed such a man
into the house at all.”

“He is really a well-read man, and he looks just such a man as a
librarian ought to look,” said Elizabeth, in a reserved tone, as if
she knew more than she intended to tell.

Kate looked hard at her sister, and then edged her footstool close up
to her side.

“Betty,” she whispered, with a very curious expression, “did you ever
notice the extraordinary likeness there is between Mr. Goodhare
and--papa?”

“Nonsense, child,” said Lady Elizabeth, blushing violently, and trying
to rise.

But Lady Kate, who was a sturdily built girl, with little fat, but
muscular hands, held her down.

“Of course, he looks much older, because he doesn’t dye his hair and
mustache, as papa does, and because he wears a beard. But really, do
you know, Betty, I’ve sometimes thought----”

But here Lady Elizabeth, who was also a robust young woman, disengaged
herself, with no great gentleness, from her sister’s clasp, and with
an almost frightened, “Hush, Kitty, hush; you mustn’t let your tongue
run on so,” left her to form her own opinion on the subject of this
sudden closure of the discussion.

Lady Kate mused for some time on this point, until at length it
occurred to her to get a peep at Mr. Goodhare by the light of her new
suspicions. She knew where he was to be found, for, to do him justice,
the librarian loved his books, and appeared to live for nothing else.
He had lately been employed in collecting papers and documents and
books of reference bearing on the history of Carstow Castle, of which
most interesting ruin Lady Marion proposed to compile an exhaustive
chronicle.

No subject more fascinating could well have been chosen. The old
place, after having suffered many vicissitudes of fortune under
Plantagenets and Tudors, had been almost destroyed during the Great
Rebellion, when it was held for King Charles by a brave little
garrison, who did not surrender until all hope of escape had been cut
off by a fearless Puritan soldier. Swimming across the river with a
knife in his mouth, he cut adrift the boat on which the defenders of
the castle counted for their flight. Some years later a tower of the
desolated castle was patched up into a prison for one of the
“regicides,” who passed there a pleasantly mitigated captivity, and
was buried in the churchyard of the quiet little old town.

From these events Lady Marion had determined to construct a strictly
impartial chronicle, which should, however, illustrate in a marked
manner her own strictly impartial views on the subject of hereditary
monarchy and the powers of Parliament. Therefore, Amos Goodhare, the
librarian, had been for the past few weeks employed in digging out,
from the vast hoards of accumulated records of the past with which not
only the library, but various corners of roomy Llancader were filled,
such documents as seemed likely to be of use to the young lady in her
vast undertaking.

It was among the nooks and crannies of the castle, therefore, that
Lady Kate set about her search for the librarian; and it was in one of
the dustiest corners of a scarcely used wing of the building that,
after a long hunt, she found him.

There was here a little awkward staircase, which led up to a tower,
long since given up, for its draughtiness, to the bats and the mice.
Underneath this staircase was an oddly-shaped recess, as large as a
small room, where, behind some boxes, boards, and similar lumber, a
rough chest, full to the top of yellow and musty papers, had that very
day been unearthed by the indefatigable librarian. Lady Kate, creeping
about the corridors and staircases with careful feet, heard the rustle
of papers as soon as she entered the passage in which the tower
staircase was. She stopped, listened, advanced on tiptoe until she was
close to the outer pile of lumber. She did not at first dare to peep
round at Amos Goodhare, for she wanted to get an opportunity of
studying his face unseen by him. She knew he was there, though, for
whenever Amos found anything which interested him he omitted a series
of low grunts of satisfaction. And now he was grunting at a great
rate.

Lady Kate, after half choking with suppressed laughter at his curious
little cries and murmurs of excitement, decided that he was too deeply
interested in something he had discovered to take any notice of her.
So, with cautious steps, holding her breath, she crept through the
space between the piled-up boxes and the staircase. He could not have
been more favorably placed for her proposed inspection. A long lancet
window lighted the staircase, and the bottom panes came low enough to
illuminate the space below. Standing close under the little patch of
dusty glass was the librarian, holding in his hands some large sheets
of paper, which Lady Kate perceived to be old and yellow-looking. He
was far too intent upon deciphering the contents of the papers to
notice the plump and curious girl’s face peering up at him a couple of
feet from the floor.

Lady Kate’s design of comparing the librarian’s face with her father’s
was forgotten with her first glance at Amos Goodhare, who was a tall,
slender, eminently gentlemanly-looking man, with grey hair and beard,
grey eyes, which gazed habitually on the ground, and slightly stooping
shoulders. For she saw his usually composed features lighted up with
excitement so strong that his nostrils were dilated, his breath came
fast and his eyes looked fierce, wide open and almost lurid. His long,
white hands shook as he clutched at the yellowing papers, or passed
his fingers, in feverish restlessness, through his still thick and
curly grey hair.

Little Lady Kate’s plump face grew white with horror; she thought the
librarian had gone mad. Over-devotion to the books had done it, she
supposed. At any rate, she was too much frightened to stay and
speculate as to the cause of this horrible event. She crept back into
the passage on all fours, as she had come, and fled away as softly as
she could.

On the floor below she met her sister Marion, who had just come in,
and who was, as Kate afterwards described it, “looking sentimental.”

Lady Marion was, on the whole, the least attractive of the three
sisters. She had not the stolid, but “comfortable,” look of the
eldest, nor the merry eyes and laughing little pursed-up mouth of the
youngest. She was a tall, bony, angular girl, fair, like the others,
but without the pink color they had in their cheeks. Her hair was a
little darker than theirs, and of an unpleasing length, as it had been
cut quite short and then allowed to grow, the result of which was that
little ends and tufts stuck out straight in all directions from the
tiny little knob she wore at the back of her neck. Her nose was long,
her mouth was wide, and her light blue eyes were without fire.
Nevertheless there was a certain look, not only of good nature, but of
gentleness and affection, in her face, which made her affectation of
masculine manners and speech rather pathetic. For Lady Marion had the
warmest and deepest nature of the three sisters, therefore it was on
her that their anomalous education had worked the most disastrous
effects. She was always yearning to show “strength of mind,” when, as
a matter of fact, the strength her character really possessed did not
lie at all in mental attributes, but in the more womanly qualities
which she despised.

When her younger sister fell against her, whispering fearsomely, “Oh,
Marion, Mr. Goodhare’s gone mad!” Lady Marion instantly assumed a
manly and devil-may-care front, and said in a deep voice:

“Where is he?”

Whereas, if she had been really a person of much common sense, she
would have decided at once that her sister’s statement was a wild
exaggeration.

Lady Kate briefly described where and how she had found him. Then a
happier idea crossed Marion’s mind.

“Perhaps he’s got hold of something,” she mused. “And I believe he’s
quite capable of keeping back important papers, and bringing out a
rival work to mine, compiled from authorities he has kept from me.”

For Lady Marion shared the common mistrust of Amos Goodhare, which
was, perhaps, only a result of his extreme reserve.

“He looks wickeder than ever, at any rate,” murmured Kate, as the
sisters went softly up the stairs together.

“Look here,” whispered Marion, when they had reached the upper floor,
and come in sight of the tower staircase at the other end of a long,
dark corridor. “You call him out suddenly, as if something had
happened, and I’ll watch him on the stairs from the space between the
staircase and the window. Then I’ll see what he does with the papers,
and try to get in and have a look at them.”

“All right,” whispered Lady Kate.

And they stole along the corridor to the further end.




 CHAPTER II.

The two girls carried out their plan beautifully. Marion crept
softly up the tower staircase as far as the window. Then, crouching
down, she managed to peep between the dusty panes and the side of the
staircase, and saw the top of the librarian’s head, which moved from
side to side as he scanned the pages of a discolored MS.

Suddenly, ringing down the corridor came a cry in a high, girlish
voice, which caused Amos to start and mechanically to hide away under
his coat the paper he was reading. Marion noted this action with a
suspicious eye.

“Mr. Goodhare, Mr. Goodhare! Where are you? Come! Quick!” the second
young conspirator was crying lustily.

“Here I am, your ladyship, at your service,” called out the librarian,
as the girl’s voice sounded nearer and nearer.

At the same moment he opened the old chest he had been ransacking, and
thrust the document he had been reading deep down among a mass of
other old papers, from which the dust rose in a cloud as his hand
moved them. To Lady Marion’s delight, he had dropped the last page on
the ground. But she had scarcely congratulated herself on the fact
when, turning, he perceived the missing leaf, and, not having time to
put it into the chest with the rest, dropped it into his pocket. Then
he hastened out of his corner to meet the young girl, and addressed
her in his usual suave, respectful and dignified manner:

“What can I do for your ladyship?”

“I want you to help me with my Latin exercise. There are some
dreadfully hard words in it this time.”

“I shall be delighted,” said he, as he followed the young girl
downstairs.

But in his grave and beautifully modulated voice Lady Marion detected
a tone of impatience at the trivial cause of this interruption. She
was by this time already in the nook under the stairs, making the most
of her time, for she guessed that it would not be long before Amos
would find an excuse for returning to the occupation which had
absorbed him so deeply. She flung open the chest with violence, which
caused its old hinges to creak and little splinters to fly off the
worm-eaten wood, while she, half choked by the dust, groped blindly
among the mass of mouldering, musty parchments, pamphlets and papers.
It was some minutes before the air was clear enough, and her eyes
sufficiently used to the obscurity of the ill-lighted corner, for her
to begin her search in earnest. Deep down into the withered-looking
heap she dived, and, after many a futile plunge, fished up at last a
crumpled paper, which she felt sure was the one on which Amos had been
engaged.

It was part of an old letter, undated, but bearing every sign, in its
yellowish paper, faded ink, old-fashioned handwriting, and voluminous
style, of having been written long before the introduction of the
penny post. The page containing the signature was missing, but the
commencement, “My dear Oswin,” showed that it was written to one of
her ancestors--Oswin being a family name--and internal evidence proved
that it was from one intimate friend to another.

The writer began by regretting that his own health was so bad, not
having been improved by a long voyage he had recently taken to improve
it, that he was unable to come to see his friend Oswin, who, he was
sorry to hear, was also far from well. He wrote in the strain of a man
who thinks the end of his own life approaching.

“And now,” so the letter went on, “before the end of my own days shall
come, I have somewhat on my mind which I would fain impart to you. Of
late, being unable to follow my accustomed pursuits, and compelled to
endure a sedentary life which suits me but ill, I have been studying
the history of our own land, and more especially such part of it as
concerns the reign of our late martyred King Charles, of blessed
memory. In the course of my researches (if I may bestow on my poor
studies so honorable a name) I have read much of the valiant defence
of your own fair Castle of Carstow, that now lies ruined, and have
noted a thing that may have escaped your eyes. You know, doubtless,
being well versed in the history of this notable and loyal fortress,
that shortly before the siege by the rebels, under Essex, the Queen
Henrietta Maria did send to her own country of France a trusty
messenger, charged straightly to entreat the king for help for her and
her lord, and also bearing certain rich jewels of hers for sale in the
Netherlands, that the proceeds thereof might be used for payment of
troops. And it is known that this messenger did return in safety to
England, and that he did reach Carstow, and was there detained by the
siege on his way to join the king. But what became further of that
noble, the Lord Hugh of Thirsk, never was known, nor was ever aught
heard of the treasure he brought back or of the treasure he carried
away with him. Yet was he as valiant, and trusty, and honorable a
knight and gentleman as ever drew sword, nor was capable of any
treachery nor unfair dealing whatsoever. But no mention of moneys
reaching the king about this time was ever made, but that he was hard
pressed and had to borrow and beg from his faithful courtiers is
certain. Now, we know that there has always been among men, during all
time, a great and most marvellous avidity for lost treasure, which
appeals to the imagination most strangely, and that little of such
treasure has ever been recovered. Yet, since we know that here is
plain evidence of a knight, bearing treasure, reaching your Castle of
Carstow; and since we have no evidence whatsoever of his being seen
thereafter, or the riches he carried, is it not just to suppose that
such treasure may never have left the precincts of the castle, which
was then so close besieged, but that it may have been concealed from
the besiegers, and thereafter either forgotten, or, the concealer
being killed, its existence not known? You, with your grave
discernment, not carried away by impulse, may judge my plan fantastic
and unworthy your thought. But I pray you consider the suggestion I
have to set before you. It is founded on a study of the castle as I
made it minutely some years ago, and may lead, I think, to a discovery
of importance. You will remember that, on passing under the great
gateway, with its square tower to the south, you have before you a
wide open space, now grass-grown, which----”

Here the bottom of the second sheet was reached, and here Marion, who
was devouring the MS. with its crooked and sprawling handwriting, in
the same state of feverish excitement as the librarian had suffered,
was forced to a standstill.

“And the rest is in his pocket,” she said to herself, with fiery
impatience. “The most interesting part, too, the plan he had conceived
for the finding of this treasure! I must go and find Amos Goodhare; I
must force him to give it to me.”

But she was spared that trouble. Springing to her feet, for she had
sat down upon a pile of lumber to consider the dazzling prospect which
the letter opened to her girlish imagination, she found herself face
to face with the librarian himself.

The sun had gone down low in the sky while she was occupied in making
out slowly, letter by letter, the old-fashioned spelling and scrawling
handwriting. Now there came, through the corner of the window, the
last red rays of the sunset. They fell on the face of the librarian,
gave a lurid light to his grey eyes, and a diabolical cast to his
complexion; so that Lady Marion, seeing him thus unexpectedly, belied
her assumption of strength of mind by uttering a shrill cry. Perhaps
it was the heat into which the letter had thrown her imagination;
perhaps it was only the effect of the shadows thrown by the ivy
outside; but it seemed to the girl that his features were distorted by
passion so violent as to render him for the time scarcely human; she
actually cowered as she stood, afraid that he would strike her, or
that his very look would work upon her some mischief. She went through
a moment of horror which she never mentioned, yet never forgot, in
which the tall, spare man, with his flashing eyes and threatening
attitude, the brown rafters overhead, the great piles of lumber on
either side, and the thick, choking dust over all, were stamped upon
her mind in a weird and vivid picture.

The next moment, as if in a dissolving view, the picture had faded
away, and Amos Goodhare, the grave and courteous librarian, stood
before her with his head bent and his usual stoop, in a most
respectful attitude.

“I have found some papers here to-day, Lady Marion, which I believe
will interest you greatly,” said he in his bland, measured voice.

But Lady Marion had received a shock from which she could not in a
moment recover.

“I--I--thank you. You can show me presently,” she said, with dry mouth
and unsteady voice.

“Can you not stay one moment, just to see one part of a letter
which--ah, you have it in your hand. Have you read it? I am afraid the
handwriting is not very easy to make out. Will you let me----”

“Thank you, I--I made it out,” said the girl, not yet mistress of
herself.

“Dear me! I am afraid I frightened you just now when I came in. I was
so astonished myself to find any one in this forsaken corner, that in
the dusk my imagination ran away with me, and I thought--well, I don’t
know exactly what I thought--but I certainly had no idea it was your
ladyship who sprung up suddenly like a fairy in the darkness.”

“Didn’t you?” said Lady Marion, who was recovering her self-command,
and had decided to come to an understanding with him at once. “I never
knew that there was anything in this little recess until to-day, when
I saw you come out of it to join my sister. I have read this
letter--or rather the first two pages of it--and now I want you to
give me the third, if you please.”

There was now no mistaking the malevolence in Goodhare’s eyes as he
answered:

“Unfortunately I haven’t got it,” he said in the humblest and most
deprecatory of tones. “Like a serial story, it breaks off just when
one is mad for it to go on. But we must hunt and search and ransack
until we find it.”

“And supposing, Mr. Goodhare,” suggested Lady Marion, whose temper was
rising, “that you ransack first in your own pocket.”

For a moment he was taken aback. The next, he smilingly turned out the
contents of his coat pockets. Whether he had already stowed away the
missing leaf in a safe place, or whether by some skilful sleight of
hand he concealed it about his own person before her eyes, it is
certain that he pulled out the lining of the very pocket into which he
had so hastily thrust it, but the paper had disappeared.

“I don’t know what can have made you think I had the rest of your
letter, your ladyship,” he said with dignity and a shade of contempt.
“Any documents found in this house are the property of your family,
and I hope you would scarcely accuse me of taking what is not mine. A
lady’s caprices must be gratified, and so I have done my best to
gratify yours. At the same time I believe you will agree on
reflection, that I should not be too exacting if I expected an
apology.”

“I do apologise, Mr. Goodhare,” said Lady Marion drily. “You are so
much cleverer than I thought, that I can’t think of taking up any more
of your time in making notes for my poor work.”

And she gave him a little stiff bow as she went out.

The librarian made no answer, but a murmur of most deeply respectful
apology and regret; when she had gone, however, his face puckered up
with a look of malice, followed by one of anxiety.

“He would hardly dare--hardly dare, to dismiss me, I should think;
and, even if he does, perhaps it may not matter now.”

Again the grave, reserved face lighted up with an almost indescribable
expression, in which fierce passions of hunger and yearning seemed to
burst the bonds of long-continued repression and to shine forth out of
a demon’s eyes.

Lady Marion in the meantime had carried her grievance against the
librarian straight to her mother, who, although not passionately
attached to her daughters, was kind and indulgent to them. After
hearing the story, she agreed to use her influence to procure the
dismissal of Amos Goodhare, the more readily as she herself shared the
popular prejudice against him.

“I don’t promise that your father will listen to me, my dear,” she
said. “I dare say you are old enough to guess that Goodhare is a
connection of the family, though, of course, we don’t talk about it.
He has to be provided for somehow, and I think your father looks upon
him as rather a dangerous man--one whom he likes to keep under his own
eye. Perhaps I am wrong, but that has always been my impression. And
I don’t suppose your father will think there is much in the story of
the lost treasure.”

Lady St. Austell was right. The earl pronounced the story to be “all
nonsense,” and said that at the beginning of the last century, to
which period he assigned the letter when the first part was shown to
him, people went mad on the subject of buried money, and would even
fit out ships to go in search of hoards said to have been left by
pirates on distant islands. However, he listened attentively to
Marion’s account of how she saw the librarian secrete part of the
letter in his own pocket. Although he said nothing on the subject to
Goodhare, perhaps he thought that his MSS. were not in safe keeping.
Shortly afterwards he established a public library in the little town
of Carstow, dowered it with a handsome supply of books and appointed
Amos Goodhare custodian, with a small furnished house rent free and a
more than ample salary.

Goodhare received news of the change in his position with his usual
dignified modesty, and declared that he was entirely at the earl’s
service always, and was happy provided he was allowed to remain near
the old town and castle of which he had grown so fond.

On learning a new regulation which Lord St. Austell, at the instance
of the countess, about this time established at the old castle, Amos
Goodhare, however, showed himself less submissive. The earl, who
preserved all the ruins on his estates with scrupulous care, left each
in charge of a keeper, who kept the key and admitted visitors on
payment of a small fee. In the case of Carstow, the keeper lived in a
tower of the castle itself, close to the gate. She was a respectable
widow, with a family of children, and the new rule was that no person
whatever should be allowed to go over any part of the ruins
unaccompanied either by herself or by one of her children. The only
exceptions to this regulation were the Pennant family, for whom Marion
procured this privilege; and any deviation from the rule, except in
their case, was to be punished by dismissal from the charge of the
gate. When Amos Goodhare heard of this, he ventured, in his usual
respectful manner, to suggest that this piece of favoritism would
offend all the other families in the neighborhood; but the earl, who,
having promised to satisfy this whim of his wife’s, was not the man to
go back from his word, simply said that it was known that, having no
sons of his own, he took an especial interest in the Pennants; and
that the regulation would be enforced in such a manner as not to
interfere with the enjoyment of anybody. The rule had become necessary
in consequence of the dangerous state of part of the ruins; and this
reason should be published. The librarian could say no more.

But when the days grew shorter, and the black shadows of the night
began to lengthen out under the grey walls early in the evening, Amos
Goodhare, now installed in his little house adjoining the new library
of Carstow, would spend his every spare hour in rambles round the old
fortress, now this, now the other side of the winding river. Walking
slowly, with eyes always cast down, and feet that appeared reluctant
to rise, even for a moment, from the precious earth, he seemed to
worship each blade of grass, each broken stone. It was a beautiful
devotion, people said, that made a man so well known for learning and
accomplishments linger so lovingly about the grey ruin, never even
caring to go within the walls, but always hovering about it, scarcely
letting himself go beyond the limited area within which he could keep
its rugged and broken towers in view. Why, there could scarcely be a
foot of ground within a mile of the castle that he didn’t know, they
said.

And they were right. Under the beams of the rising sun, when the
laborer was going to his work in the fields; at midday, in sun, or
wind, or rain; at evening time, when his work was done, and he was
free to wander restlessly until far into the night, the tall, gaunt,
stooping figure, with its keen, hungry eyes, stalked, like a starving
ghoul, about the precincts of the castle. It passed its long, lean
fingers searchingly over the very stones and among the clinging ivy
that hung in ragged bunches round the bases of the towers. It crept
along over the ground with shuffling, searching feet. It returned,
night after night, savage and disappointed, like a starving rat to its
hole.

So the winter passed.

At last, one evening in April, when every rood had been well trodden
by his restless feet, Amos Goodhare gave in.

“It can’t be done alone,” he said to himself, bitterly. “I must have
help--help.”

And as he went home he made up his mind whose it should be.




 CHAPTER III.

Captain Pennant’s family was by far the most popular in the
neighborhood, and this in spite of the fact that they were far too
poor to give entertainments on a large scale, or to contribute largely
to charities, or to do any of those things upon which popularity is
generally supposed to depend.

Captain Pennant himself, though not commonly considered to be
overweighted with intellect, was a gentle and chivalrous gentleman,
whose strong and kindly impulses were sometimes a little disconcerting
to his wife. Thus he had, on one occasion, eighteen years before,
brought home from Penzance, and placed in his wife’s lap, a baby girl,
the orphan daughter of a fisherman who had been drowned while forming
one of the crew of a life boat.

Mrs. Pennant, a stout, handsome little woman of the world, with twice
her husband’s common sense, and none of his straightforward simplicity
of character, had at last uttered a mild protest. She was in the habit
of bearing with all his caprices so beautifully, respecting his
prejudices and behaving with such perfect wifely submission, that he
had not the least suspicion that the grey mare was the better horse.
But she was a strict Conservative, and this sudden addition to her
family from the ranks of the proletariat was the last straw which
broke her patience.

“I am afraid, Graham,” she said, “that this dear little baby will be
rather in the way in the servants’ hall.”

“The servants’ hall!” echoed Captain Pennant, indignantly, “Alicia,
I’m astonished at your suggesting such a thing. I mean the darling to
be brought up as our own child.”

“As our child! A fisherman’s daughter!”

“We are all of the same value in the sight of heaven, Alicia,”
answered her husband, whose Conservatism was never allowed to
interfere with his whims.

“And insects are all of the same value in our eyes. Yet we tolerate a
fly where we should think a caterpillar out of place.”

“Well, I don’t want to know anything about flies and caterpillars, but
I have adopted her as my daughter, and she is to be treated
accordingly,” said Captain Pennant, with increased obstinacy because
of his wife’s unexpected restiveness. “I believe that God has sent her
to us as a precious gift and blessing, because among our own dear
children we have not had a girl.”

He had his own way, to all appearances, as he always had. Deborah
Audaer was brought up with his sons, and treated as a young lady. But
equally, of course, Mrs. Pennant had her own way more surely; for,
without any overt act of unkindness, she made the girl feel, and the
boys feel, that between them were no ties of blood.

Then, as they all grew up, the intriguing old lady had her punishment.
For, one and all, the boys fell in love with Deborah, and when she had
reached the age of nineteen they were all suitors for her hand.

Of course, the girl was true to her sex, and gave her heart where it
was least wanted. Hervey, the youngest boy, a slow, broad-shouldered
giant with a ruddy face and ripe-corn colored hair, who had a didactic
manner and a great reputation for wisdom, was only her own age, and
therefore too young for her, she said. He was a great theorist, an
authority upon “style” in rowing and “seat” in riding, although he
could neither pull a boat along nor stick on a horse.

A dash of the kindly prig there was about Hervey, perhaps, and a
little too strong a sense that other people didn’t count for much when
he was about. But he was fond of Deborah, and he thought that he and
she would make quite the grandest couple in the world, if only that
unappreciative beast, Rees, were out of the way.

Godwin, the second son, was twenty-one; a matter-of-fact young man, of
strictly moderate abilities, plenty of common sense, who never did
anything that he did not do well, but in a plodding, methodical
manner, without show or fuss. He had never given any trouble to
anybody, and was in consequence thought very little of by anybody,
particularly by his two brothers, who always exceeded their allowances
while he managed to save out of his, the most meagre of the three, and
who lived idly at home making up their minds “what they should be,”
while he had been for two years going backwards and forwards to a bank
at Monmouth, where he had got himself a situation. He adored Deborah
in a prosaic manner, keeping her in sweets, of which she was
childishly fond, doing her shopping for her with twice as much taste
and tact as she would have shown herself, and eking out the few pounds
she could spare for this purpose with money of his own, so that she
was filled with admiration and astonishment at his “bargains.”

Deborah liked both Hervey and Godwin, but it was on Rees that she
poured out all the devotion of a passionate and generous nature. Rees,
the handsome, the daring, the brilliant, the favorite of the whole
county, adored and indulged by his mother, petted and spoiled by Lord
St. Austell, who put his horses, his dog-cart, his yacht, his guns at
the service of the lad, whom he treated with smiling, good-humored
fondness, as if Rees had been his own son. As a matter of course, the
young fellow’s character suffered from all this spoiling, as Captain
Pennant, far-sighted in this matter only, had early foreboded.

“Rees is one of those unlucky lads who are born to be ruined,” he had
predicted, giving thereby a great shock to his wife, who was as weak
as water where her eldest born was concerned, and who flattered
herself, poor lady, that her prayers would counteract the effects of
reckless indulgence.

At three-and-twenty Rees was the handsomest young fellow in the
county. Of the middle height only and slightly built, with delicate
features, curly black hair, and black eyes full of fun and fire, his
appearance was irresistibly attractive to man, woman, child, and
animal. His dog loved Rees with a devotion uncommon even in a dog.
Careful mothers were afraid of him, for there was not a pretty girl in
the countryside who would not snub the richest bachelor in the
principality for the sake of the supper dance with Rees Pennant.

Nothing was difficult to him. He rode and drove well by instinct,
could manage a yacht like any old salt, and always made the biggest
bag at a shooting party. He had a voice pleasing without cultivation,
and a laugh as musical as a bird’s song. A nature so gifted, generous
and genial withal, needed an armor of ideal strength of character and
of intellect. Unfortunately, Rees Pennant possessed neither. The very
curves of his handsome mouth betrayed weakness, which, if now
excusable and even lovable, might later in life bear a pitiful
significance. He was a leader and ruler now among his companions,
attended by satellites of his own sex, worshipped by a troop of shy
girls; but he was not of the stuff of which rulers are made, for all
that.

It was on Rees Pennant that Amos Goodhare, in search of a tool and
catspaw, had cast his eyes. The librarian was, perhaps, the only man
in Carstow who disliked Rees; who not only saw through the lad’s
bright, affectionate manner to the growing selfishness and egotism
beneath, but found no charm in his grace and brightness. He was,
besides, intensely jealous of the earl’s fondness for the young
fellow, and of Deborah’s passionate attachment.

For Amos had himself cast on the handsome girl eyes full of covetous
longing, so that Deborah, without knowing why, blushed under his gaze
and felt afraid of him.

Having decided on his plan of action, the librarian lost no time. He
put himself in Rees Pennant’s way one sunny April afternoon, when the
latter was returning home, flushed and light-hearted, after a game of
tennis on one of the Llancader lawns. The meeting took place near the
top of the hilly street of which Carstow may almost be said to
consist. Amos was leaning against the trunk of a tree, his soft, wide
hat thrown back, his stick in his hand, as if overcome by the heat and
consequent lassitude.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Pennant,” he said, with that tone of flattering,
dignified respect which he knew well how to assume.

“Afternoon, Goodhare,” said the lad, saluting him with the airy grace
peculiar to him. “Why, you look done up. Don’t you like these warm
spring days? They intoxicate me.”

“Yes, yes,” answered the elder man, putting into his grave tone an
amount of respectful admiration which inclined the young fellow to
stay and chat for a few minutes with the “old bookworm.” “The spring
suits you, and the sunshine, and girls’ fair faces, and all bright
things. But I’m only an old hulk, and men think me fit for nothing but
to stick labels on the backs of books for fools to read and not to
profit by.”

“Come, that’s rather hard on us Carstowites, isn’t it? Some of us read
seriously, you know, and how do you know we don’t profit by what we
read?”

“Well, Mr. Pennant, I don’t want to flatter you, but you must know in
your own mind that you are not like the clods around you. You have a
quick brain and vivid feelings. But even you--pray excuse the liberty
I am taking--show signs of the rusting effect of these narrow-hearted
provincial towns. Fancy a fine young fellow like you remaining content
with such a horizon! You, who might aspire to be anything you
pleased--a king among men--wasting your energies on lawn tennis! Why,
to me, old as I am and callous as I ought to have grown, the idea
seems shocking--positively shocking!”

The young man’s face had clouded slightly during this speech from the
librarian, who worked himself up to a pitch of high excitement for the
last words.

“How do you know that I am content?” asked Rees, quietly.

“Oh, pray forgive my taking such liberty! I got excited, carried
away,” murmured Amos, showing great irritation with his own indiscreet
boldness.

“I’m not offended. I repeat: how do you know I’m contented?” asked
Rees, swinging his tennis racquet.

“How do I know?” echoed Amos, diffidently, but with some surprise.
“Why, because with natures like yours, full of energy, and fire, and
daring, to will is to do. And that you have never done
anything--anything great, I mean--is proof enough to me that you have
never willed to do anything; that, in fact, the air of Carstow is
responsible for the waste of a fine nature. Now you said you would not
be offended, Mr. Pennant, and I hold you to your word.”

He made a feint of moving away, but Rees detained him by a gracefully
imperious gesture. The lad’s complexion was flushed now with something
more than the sun’s heat; his candid face showed a very becoming
boyish shame and modesty.

“You do me a lot more than justice, Goodhare,” said he half laughing.
“You make me ashamed of my own idleness, not for the first time, I do
assure you, though. You see I’ve been spoilt; I know that; but it’s so
jolly that one hasn’t the strength of mind to wish people wouldn’t
encourage one in one’s evil courses.”

“What evil courses? I’ve never heard a word about you in that way,”
said the librarian, whose eyes had glowed with an ugly light at this
suggestion.

“Oh, nothing worse than my besetting sin, idling, which they say is
the parent of all others,” said Rees, looking up with his handsome,
frank young face, on which was no trace of any passion worse than
boyish vanity.

Goodhare’s face fell, though its change of expression was not
noticeable enough for his ingenuous companion to remark it.

“You see, dear old Lord St. Austell is ever so much too good to me,”
continued Rees with an affectionate inflection; “and while there are
always his horses for me to ride and his coverts for me to shoot over,
the temptation for me to do nothing else is too great.”

“And why should you do anything else, at least in your leisure?” asked
Goodhare, with apparent surprise. “Doesn’t every gentleman who goes in
for a public career in any profession amuse himself so--among other
ways, of course?”

Rees laughed rather bitterly.

“Gentlemen who go in for a public career have private means, Mr.
Goodhare,” said he. “Everybody knows I have nothing----”

“But you are the eldest son?”

“And heir to my father’s liabilities; nothing else, I assure you.”

“But when you become Lady Marion’s husband--”

The lad started in astonishment. The idea had never occurred to him.

“Lady Marion’s husband!” he repeated, bewildered.

“Why, Mr. Pennant, you are very modest. Or don’t you wish it to be
talked about so soon? If so, I really beg your pardon. But you must
know that it has already become common talk--”

“It’s the first I’ve heard of it, though,” said Rees, dryly. “Lord St.
Austell would never let me enter Llancader Castle again if I were to
hint at such a thing.”

“And Lady Marion herself?” suggested the librarian, with malice.

Rees laughed rather self-consciously.

“Poor girls! They must have some creature to talk to, especially now,
for this fright about scarlet fever has caused his lordship to give
orders for them to remain shut up here all through the London season.”

“And do you believe that, being as fond of you as his lordship is,
that his daughter would not be able to talk him round?”

“I am sure she would not. I know the earl.”

“So do I; and I say he would.”

Rees shrugged his shoulders. He was rather impressed by the tone of
quiet conviction of the elder man. After a short pause he said,
hesitatingly:

“He might, perhaps, if I had money. But as it is----”

“Ah, that want of money--that fatal, miserable want of money. That’s
the pinch; yes, that’s always the pinch,” burst out Amos, with
surprising energy. “How many a promising, brilliant young man--and yet
not so brilliant as--well, as some I know, either--how many have been
wrecked on that shoal! What might I not have done myself in the world,
with the moderate abilities I have and with perseverance, if it had
not been for that curse, want of money. Yes, there’s the rub.”

There was a pause. The younger man was lost in thought, the elder was
watching him. Rees woke out of his reverie with a start, and a laugh
which was, perhaps, a shade less light-hearted than usual.

“And after all,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and throwing his
racquet high in the air, to catch it again as easily as if he had been
born a conjuror, “I don’t know, when one comes to think of it, whether
I would care about Lady Marion as a wife. She’s a good girl, but not
the most graceful creature in the world. Why, I know a girl, one who
doesn’t dislike me very furiously either, who has more beauty in the
bend of her little finger than all the Ladies Cenarth have in their
whole bodies.”

Amos cast at him out of the corners of his eyes a brief glance
instinct with venom.

“I don’t suppose there are many girls about, high or low, who do
dislike you very furiously, Mr. Pennant,” he said, in a tone of sly
malice not altogether as pleasing as the words; “but I do earnestly
hope, if I may presume to say so, that you will not destroy chances
which I, an old experienced man, perceive to be great, for the sake of
a pretty face in a rank of life beneath you.”

“You may be quite sure that the girl I should choose for a wife would
be beneath nobody, Goodhare,” said Rees, with haughtiness in which
there was no offence. “But anyhow,” he added, with another laugh,
“there’s time enough to think about that. I don’t mean to bestow upon
any lady my name and my tennis racquet--all I possess--for the next
ten years.”

“Of course not. You mean to enjoy yourself.”

Rees did not quite understand the significance of the elder man’s
tone, but it rather grated on him.

“Yes, I mean to enjoy myself in my own way,” he said, as he sprang up
from the gate on which he had been sitting, and prepared to continue
his walk. “Well, good night, Goodhare; I must be getting home.”

“Good night, Mr. Pennant. I wish you’d come round to the library some
evening and see an edition of Carlyle which I’ve just had rebound
after my own taste. I’m rather proud of it. It won’t be very
entertaining for you, but it will bring a ray of sunshine into my grey
life, and show me that you are not offended by my frankness.”

He had touched on the right chord again. The young fellow held out his
hand and grasped that of the librarian warmly.

“Of course I’ll come,” he said good humoredly. “Only you mustn’t
butter me up so; it’ll turn my head.”

He ran down the hill like the boy he still was, and turned his
handsome young face for a farewell nod to Goodhare as he reached the
bottom.

Amos returned the salutation, but Rees was too far off to hear his
suppressed chuckle of hideous exultation.

“He takes the bait already,” he said to himself, grinding out the
words between his teeth. “What a pitiful fool he is, and how
splendidly he’ll suit my purpose.”




 CHAPTER IV.

It was about three months after the first friendly interview between
Rees Pennant and Amos Goodhare that, one hot July afternoon, Deborah
Audaer was sitting on the terrace behind Captain Pennant’s house, with
a book in her hand, and her eyes fixed, not upon its pages, but upon
the straggling, untrimmed fruit trees which filled the bottom of the
garden.

Everything about the place--the glimpse of shabby furniture inside the
open French window behind her, the greenish flags and broken
balustrade of the terrace, and wild and uncultivated condition of the
long garden--told of limited means and a pitiful struggle to make both
ends meet. Deborah herself was dressed in the most extraordinarily
ill-fitting frock that ever clothed a beautiful girl. It was made of a
pretty bluish-grey cotton, and set off between the throat and the left
shoulder by a bunch of double poppies. But it was too tight in front,
too loose in the back, garnished everywhere by unexpected puckers, and
giving the idea that it was making its wearer very uncomfortable.
Deborah, who was tall and of a handsome, well-developed figure, looked
in this garment as if she was masquerading in the dress of a
narrow-chested girl with a hump-back. However, her fresh beauty was
too decided to be spoilt by such an accident; she had a rich brunette
complexion, blue eyes, good teeth, a nose a little bit inclined to be
aquiline, and dark-brown hair with strands of a bright copper color.

She had been sitting idly, with rather a melancholy expression of
face, for some time, when Godwin, who had been watching the back of
her head from the open window, stepped out on to the terrace and
seated himself on the balustrade in front of her.

It was not surprising that a young girl should find him less
attractive than Rees, for Godwin was short, sallow, insignificant of
feature, and rather brusque in manner.

“What are you thinking about, Deborah?” he asked with a shrewd look.

“Nothing,” of course, she answered promptly.

“That is a--well, a perversion of the truth. You were thinking of
Rees.”

“I suppose I can think of anything I like.”

“Yes, provided--firstly, that you tell the truth about it; and,
secondly, that you don’t lose your temper over it. Shall I give
another guess, and tell you _what_ you thought about Rees?”

“You can if you like,” said she with an affectation of indifference.

But she turned away to hide the fact that tears were rising to her
eyes.

“Well, we won’t talk any more about him,” said he hastily, distressed
and irritated that she should cry over what he considered an unworthy
object.

“Yes, we will,” cried Deborah, turning suddenly and almost fiercely.
“I can’t bear it all by myself any longer; and you, Godwin, who
understand things, you can perhaps tell me what is the matter.”

“With Rees?”

“Yes. He’s changed lately, changed altogether; it’s been coming on
gradually, but it’s been most plain the last month or six weeks.
Haven’t you noticed it?”

“I’ve noticed that he’s become ill-tempered and discontented, and
doesn’t seem to think any of us good enough for him.”

“Well, he used not to be like that, you know, he used not. He was
always bright and cheerful and happy. But ever since he’s taken this
studious fit, which we thought at first was such a good thing, he’s
quite changed. He seems to avoid me, and everybody; and I’ve heard him
say such ungrateful things of Lord St. Austell, who’s been so good to
him. And yet now, when he isn’t shut up reading in his own room or up
at the library in the town, he’s always up at Llancader.”

“Don’t you know why?” asked Godwin, drily.

The girl grew a little paler and her breath came faster, as if she had
an idea that she was to hear something unpleasant. But she did not
answer.

“Of course you’ll hate me for telling you,” said Godwin rather
bitterly. “And it’s no use to tell you it’s for your own good. Anyhow,
it’s this: Rees is making up to Lady Marion. I’ve told him he’s only
making a fool of himself, and I’ve got snubbed for my pains. There.”

But Deborah had drawn herself up with haughty astonishment.

“And why shouldn’t he ‘make up’ to Lady Marion? He’s a great deal too
good for any of those silly, conceited girls.”

Godwin looked at her attentively.

“Girls _are_ ridiculous creatures,” he said at last, contemptuously.
“They’ll like a man without reason, and they’ll go on liking him
against reason. However, we won’t talk about Rees any more, except
that I’ll just say this: ‘Use all your influence with him to try to
get him to turn his hand to something; for I’m inclined to think this
illness of my poor father’s is more serious than we like to believe,
and if anything happens to him Rees and Hervey will have to put their
shoulders to the wheel, for father’s pension ends with his life, and
his affairs are in a hopeless state of muddle. Now, don’t cry; it had
to be said, and if I haven’t said it in the best way you must forgive
me.”

But Deborah’s tears were flowing fast. There was only one person in
the world whom she loved as well as Rees, and that was Captain
Pennant. The idea of his death, which had forced itself upon her again
and again lately, she could never bear calmly.

“Now, I thought you had more sense than to give way like that,” said
Godwin, trying to be very stern. “I look to you to help me to comfort
my mother, who hasn’t the least notion of what you and I--know.”

Deborah shook her head.

“She won’t let me comfort her. She has never--never looked upon me as
anything but an intruder, and when our poor father dies I shall have
to go. It is only right, too, of course. It’s only lately I’ve begun
to see and know what a burden I must have been upon them all these
years----”

“Nonsense, Deb. You may be sure my father--and all of us--never
considered you that.”

“Of course he didn’t, he is too good,” said the girl, with a caressing
tone. “But it’s true, all the same. And you needn’t look like that at
me. I shall be glad to earn my own living, and I don’t care how. See,
I’ve begun to make my own dresses; I made this one.”

With the tears still rolling down her cheeks, she sat upright with
some pride.

“The back of the bodice looks a little like the waves of the sea in a
pantomime,” said Godwin, who was a critic on the subject of woman’s
dress. “However, no doubt the intention was better than the sewing.”
Then he came to a sudden stop, and presently said, “There’s something
else to be thought of when you talk about going away. You know we all
want to marry you.”

“Rees doesn’t,” burst from her lips.

The next moment she hung her head, crimson and confused.

But Godwin took this outburst beautifully.

“He couldn’t just now, however much he wanted to,” said he,
soothingly. “But he will by-and-bye, if he isn’t even a more
thundering idiot than I think him,” he added with a burst of
irritation. “And if he shouldn’t----”

She interrupted him hastily, with a look almost of fear in her eyes,
as she put her hand affectionately on his arm.

“Look here, Godwin,” she began hurriedly. “I know what you’re going to
say; but you mustn’t say it. It’s of no use pretending things to you,
for you notice everything. Well, and you know I love Rees, and I’m not
ashamed of it--no, not a bit,” she added, raising her blushing face
fearlessly to his. “He has faults, I know, but there is enough good in
him to love, and I do love him. And if he marries any other girl I
shall never marry at all; but if he ever marries me, even if he were
to be always cross and cold to me, as he has been lately, and if he
were to lose all his handsomeness and brightness, and be miserable,
and old, and dull, I should be happier as his wife than as the wife of
the best man that ever lived.”

“Oh, of course; I don’t doubt it. A good character in a man is a
scarecrow which would frighten any woman away.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Yes, I do, unfortunately. I always had a secret belief that girls
were idiots. Now it’s an open belief. That’s all.”

Deborah rose, and leaned over the balustrade, against which Godwin was
kicking his heels and knocking off pieces of the mouldering stone.

“I can’t help it, Godwin,” she said, with a sigh.

“And I can’t help being just as fond of you as if you were a woman of
sense,” said he, with another sigh. “And the worst of it is, that
loving you has reduced me to your own level. For I know that there
isn’t any hope for me, and that all the same I shall go on hoping, so
that, without any fault on your side or my side, you will be the bane
of my life.”

“Oh, Godwin, how can you say such dreadful things?” said the girl,
with a scared face.

“You will forget them, and everything else--as soon as Rees comes in,”
said Godwin, bitterly.

Before she could utter another protest, he had gone back into the
house, leaving Deborah unhappy and self-reproachful. And yet those
last words of his were true, as she knew. Lord St. Austell, who had
been in town for the season, was expected to arrive at Llancader that
day for a short stay, before joining his yacht for a long cruise. Rees
had been so feverishly anxious to meet him that Deborah had become
deeply interested as to the object of the interview. That Rees was not
actuated merely by gratitude and affection she knew, as he had been
lately in the habit of casting on the earl all the blame of his own
idleness.

The fact was that Amos Goodhare, having devoted himself to the study
of Rees Pennant’s character, and especially of its weaknesses, had
managed by degrees to get such a hold upon him, and to use it in such
a diabolical manner, that the lad’s good impulses were being gradually
choked and the evil encouraged, while even the loving women of his own
household were unable to trace the true source of the change, the
effects of which were plain to one at least of them.

Swallowing the bait which the cunning Goodhare held out to his vanity,
he persistently avoided Deborah, for whom he had a natural
inclination, and hung about Marion, whose unabashed adoration at heart
rather disgusted than attracted him. Why should he not become the
earl’s son-in-law, as the librarian, by insinuation rather than by
direct speech, so constantly suggested? Lord St. Austell had no sons,
and had never shown for any man, young or old, so great a partiality
as he constantly did for him. He was handsome, brilliant, and more
like the ideal conception of what a nobleman’s son ought to be than
any eldest son in the whole aristocracy. Rees knew this, and felt more
than a modest confidence in the fact. He even began to think that in
the earl’s constant indulgence, which had indeed greatly increased the
lad’s aversion from the thought of serious work, he saw a long-fixed
determination to provide for his future in some brilliant manner.

So that, by the time of the earl’s return to Llancader, Rees had quite
prepared himself for an encouraging answer to his proposals. He went
to meet him at the station, and everything seemed to favor his wishes.
Lord St. Austell was more than kind, he was most affectionate in his
greeting, in his inquiries after all the family, not forgetting
Deborah. Then, saying that he would like a walk, he dismissed the
dog-cart that had been sent to meet him, and, thrusting his arm
through that of Rees, started with him towards Llancader.

Nothing could be more propitious, so thought Rees, who felt too
hopeful to spoil his effect by rushing at the subject. It was not
until they were in sight of the first lodge that Rees, emboldened to
make a very spirited appeal, formally asked the earl’s consent to his
marriage with Lady Marion.

Lord St. Austell listened in complete, attentive silence. Rees thought
it was all right, when, at the end of his carefully prepared and
beautifully delivered speech, the earl burst into a fit of laughter.

“Oh, you boys and girls!” he said, indulgently, but with great
amusement, “when will you learn a little sense?”

And again he began to laugh.

When Rees had recovered from his first impulse of rage and
mortification, he asked, in his haughtiest manner--

“Am I to understand from this strange reception that you refuse my
proposals?”

“No, no, dear boy, we won’t put it like that,” said the earl, seeing
that he had hurt the young fellow’s feelings, and laying on his
shoulder a kindly hand, which Rees instantly shook off, as if by an
accidental stumble. “We’ll forget all about it, we’ll decide that you
never for a moment dreamt of such folly as asking for one of my poor
dowerless, unattractive girls. Why, lad, what would you live on?”

“I may be rich some day,” said Rees quietly.

“Well, well, so you may, and then you can marry a beautiful woman, and
treat her a great deal better than most of us treat our wives. And
mind, my boy, I like the impulse which made you feel you would like to
be something nearer to me; for that, I am sure, was what first put
this mad notion into your head. And I have a proposal to make to you,
which I hope may lead to something more satisfactory than this unlucky
one of yours. I have an opening for a steward on my Midland property,
and you, with your love of the open air, and of riding and driving,
would find it an easy and pleasant berth. I need not tell you that I
should treat you in a very different spirit from that which I should
show to anybody else. And I should overlook any shortcomings which
might arise from want of experience----”

“You may save yourself the trouble of making excuses for me, my lord,”
interrupted Rees, whose handsome face was white with passion. “You
will not have me for a son-in-law; well, at any rate, you shall not
have me for a servant, and I wish your ugly daughters better
husbands.”

Lord St. Austell looked up in pain and amazement. But Rees had left
him, and was speeding back towards Carstow. The earl’s face grew very
grave as he asked himself what miracle could have wrought such a
hideous change in the frank, generous-spirited lad.

In the meantime, Rees reached the little town, still in a tempest of
passion. He called in at the library; Goodhare was out. He hurried
home, dashed through the garden, and into the house by one of the back
windows, without noticing that there seemed to be an unusual silence
and stillness about the place. A servant whom he met ran out of his
way, as if afraid to meet him. Deborah burst out crying at sight of
him, and tried to detain him at the foot of the stairs. But she could
not speak, and after waiting by her side impatiently for a few
seconds, Rees gently pushed her aside, and mounted the staircase to
his mother’s room.

With her he was sure of sympathy, no matter what he had done; no
matter, too, how much in the wrong he might be.

He burst open the door, and dashed into the room.

Mrs. Pennant was there, but she was not sitting as usual, knitting in
her low armchair by the window. She had his father’s desk on her
knees, and was busy, with Godwin, reading over the papers it
contained. Her eyes were red with crying, but her face wore a set,
stern expression of responsibility and anxiety. Godwin also looked sad
and anxious. Both mother and son started at his abrupt entrance, and
the former, holding out her arms towards him, tried to smile as she
asked him where he had been.

“To meet Lord St. Austell,” answered Rees, bewildered by the strange
reception he met with from every one. “And what do you think, mother,
he presumed to offer me?”

“I don’t know, my dear boy,” said Mrs. Pennant, caressing his curly
head with a trembling hand.

“He wanted me to become his steward--his land steward. What do you
think of that?”

Godwin sprang up from the seat by his mother’s side.

“For heaven’s sake, Rees, don’t tell us you were such a fool as to
refuse?”

“I did refuse, of course. It is not for me, the prospective head of
the Pennant family, to become the paid dependent of any man.”

“Well, it’s better than being a pauper, head of the family or not. And
that’s what mother and I have just discovered you to be.”

Mrs. Pennant’s tears began to flow again.

“He is right, Rees, I am afraid,” said she, in a sad, low voice. “Your
father never would let us know the real state of his affairs, and we
have just found out enough to make us fear that we are absolutely
ruined.”

Rees looked from one face to the other in utter bewilderment. His
mother drew his head tenderly to her breast.

“Your poor father, Rees, fell down dead in the drawing-room two hours
ago.”

Rees tore himself from his mother’s clasp with wild eyes. For a moment
he saw the reckless folly of the course he had been pursuing, and the
ruin to which it had brought him. The next, his mind was again
clouded. For the poison of delicate flattery had been subtle, and had
penetrated his system thoroughly.

Half an hour later he was walking up the hill, with unsteady steps,
towards Amos Goodhare’s lodgings.




 CHAPTER V.

Rees Pennant reached Amos Goodhare’s lodgings just as the latter,
having finished his tea, was about to start on his usual evening walk.

He saw the young man coming up the street, and waited on the threshold
for him, noting, with hawk-like keenness, the signs of unusual and
strong emotion in his ingenuous face.

“Come in, come in, my dear young friend,” he said with soothing
deference, which poured balm into poor Rees’s wounded soul. “I am
fortunate, indeed, to have delayed starting just long enough to see
you.”

And he stood aside, inviting the young man to enter with a welcoming
gesture.

Rees hurried in, threw himself on the little, hard, chintz-covered
sofa in the cottage sitting-room, and tried to bury his face in the
one brick-like cushion. Goodhare followed him into the room, and,
without worrying him by persistent inquiries into the cause of his
evident distress, stood beside the couch and placed a firm hand, the
very touch of which seemed to the unhappy lad instinct with friendship
and support, on the young fellow’s shoulder.

The room faced the east, and the light from the window was, moreover,
obscured by a screen of long-legged geranium plants. When, therefore,
Rees suddenly turned and looked up at the librarian, he did not notice
the hungry impatience in the elder man’s eyes, like the expression of
a vulture hovering over the body of a dying traveller. He saw only the
tall figure bending over him, felt only the pressure of a long, lean
hand on his, and believed that here at last was some one who
understood him, who loved him, not with the blind, unreasoning love of
his mother and Deborah, but with affection and admiration which were a
just tribute to his own high qualities. Here he should find true
sympathy, unmixed with blame.

“Something is troubling you, my dear boy, if you will allow me to call
you so,” said Amos, at last, in a voice the very tones of which were
consolation. “Tell me if you like, or be silent if you like. You can
take your own time with--if I may presume to call myself so--an old
friend like me.”

“Thanks, Goodhare, thanks a thousand times,” said Rees; and wringing
the librarian’s hand with a strong, warm pressure, he sprang up,
tossed back his curly hair, and held up a frank, young face, convulsed
with a dozen emotions which he in vain tried to hide, to the shrewd
gaze of the elder man.

“The fact is, you must know--or perhaps you _do_ know--that I’ve been
making an arrant fool of myself. I don’t know how it was that I didn’t
see it before, but I see it now with a clearness that’s positively
appalling.”

He sat down, and leaned forward on his elbows with clasped hands and
an expression of utter hopelessness. Amos waited in respectful
silence, and presently Rees continued--

“First of all, my poor father’s dead. He died of heart disease this
afternoon, and that was the news that greeted me when I returned home
this evening, after receiving the greatest blow to my feelings--to my
vanity, if you like--that I’ve ever had to put up with.”

“Poor boy!” murmured Amos compassionately.

“Secondly, we are ‘broke,’ absolutely without the pounds, shillings,
and pence necessary to pay for bread and butter, coals and candles,
let alone such extras as rent and clothing. That’s pretty bad, isn’t
it? But worse remains behind.” He was trying to recover his old bright
manner, and to face his difficulties with some appearance of courage.
“For I have the satisfaction of knowing that it’s my own fault that I
am not to-day in possession of prospects of supporting my family in a
much more comfortable manner than before. That’s not exactly a
comfortable frame of mind, is it?”

“Why, no, I’m afraid it is not. But surely you exaggerate----”

“Not a bit of it. And you’ve only heard about half. The last and worst
point is that I’ve quarrelled with my best friend, and in such a
manner that even the most grovelling apology would scarcely put me
right with him again.”

Goodhare had listened with his head half turned away, in the attitude
of deep attention, to his young friend’s recital; the glow of
satisfaction in his eyes as each misfortune was named thus escaped his
hearer’s observation. But when he heard the last, the crowning source
of distress, Amos, old as he was, could only conceal the passionate,
evil joy he felt by an abrupt change of position. Rising hastily, as
if overcome by the sad intelligence, he went to the window and looked
out into the little stony street, while visions of ill-gotten gold
floated before his eyes, and sounds of the boisterous revelry, for
which his corrupt soul hankered in age as it had hankered in youth,
made hideous but welcome music in his ears. It was with a start he
turned, as his companion’s voice broke in upon his reverie.

“Well, what do you think of my position now?”

Amos had to think a moment before he spoke. For in the glowing picture
he had conjured up, the poor tool had been forgotten. Then, with
measured steps, he crossed the little room, and sat down by Rees.

“Tell me,” he said sympathetically, “if you will so far honor me with
your confidence, how this disastrous state of things came about.”

Rees told him the whole story faithfully, not withholding the record
of his own shame and astonishment, and the mortifying derision with
which the earl had received his proposals. He had expected sympathy,
he had expected a kindly palliation of his own fault. But he was not
prepared for the torrent of outraged amazement with which Goodhare
heard the account of Lord St. Austell’s behavior.

The librarian walked to and fro on the hearth-rug, which was the
longest promenade his tiny sitting-room afforded.

“To think that he, of all men, after the admiration he always
expressed for you, the hints which he has frequently given about the
handsome manner in which he intended to provide for you”--here Rees
looked up in surprise,--“that he should treat you in this manner, as
if you were his inferior! I cannot understand it! I always imagined
him to be a man of right feeling and noble instincts, incapable of
outraging the feelings of a man poorer than himself.”

“Well,” said Rees, who, now that his own cause was espoused so hotly,
could afford to be magnanimous, “money makes the one great difference
now, you know, as Lord St. Austell has said himself a dozen times.”

Amos stopped suddenly in the centre of the hearth-rug.

“If you could only, some day, get rich, make a fortune, and come back
and see him anxious for you to renew your proposal! What a revenge
that would be for you!”

The young man looked at him dubiously. Even to the excitable brain of
twenty-three, that seemed a fantastic and melodramatic idea.

“Yes,” he answered, rather drily, “but fortunes are not picked up in
the roads.”

“Not often,” assented Amos, watching him. “Yet still I have heard of
money being picked up in strange ways.”

“It isn’t likely to come much in my way, though, unless indeed I eat
humble pie, and beg his lordship to give me the--the place, I suppose
you call it, which I refused to-day so contemptuously.”

“And are you really ready to do that?” asked Amos, in a tone so full
of scorn that the weak and sensitive lad writhed under it.

“As ready as I am to starve, perhaps,” answered he, reddening.

“But why do either?” asked the librarian, in a low, soft tone of
gentle persuasion. “Providence does sometimes favor the deserving, and
though I am not superstitious, I am inclined to think that, having
preserved you from a life of unworthy drudgery, such as your own
family seem to have been quite willing for you to adopt, Providence
has some better destiny in store for you than you fancy.”

“Providence had better make haste about it then, or she may find that
she has missed her chance.”

“Shall we take a walk together?” asked Amos, who began to see in the
lad’s eyes the look of desperation he had been hoping for. “The fresh
air sometimes cools the brain, and gives one fresher and brighter
thoughts. It is my sovereign remedy for all the ills of my dull life.
Come.”

Rees let himself be led out by the librarian; but when the latter
wished to direct his steps towards the ruins of Carstow Castle, he
drew back and protested.

“Not to the castle. I don’t want to go to any place which reminds me
of that man and the humiliation he put me to to-day.”

“Try to get over that feeling,” insisted Amos, gently drawing him
forward in the direction of the old walls. “Take my word for it, the
humiliation will some day be on the other side. Besides, the old
castle can hardly be called his property. Any treasure found buried in
the ruins would not be his; it would belong to that vague thing, ‘the
Crown.’”

“Treasure!” echoed Rees, astonished. “Why, surely you don’t believe
that cock-and-bull story Lady Marion told me! Lord St. Austell himself
said that every ruin in the three kingdoms had some such story
attached to it, as surely as the ivy.”

“That doesn’t prove that it may not sometimes be well authenticated.
As a matter of fact, in this case I believe it to be so.”

“Have you told the earl?”

“When I hinted my belief it was received with derision. So I have kept
it to myself till now.”

“With derision, do you say? But Lady Marion thought there was
something in the story. And she thought you had kept back part of the
story.”

“So I had. It would have been of no use to Lady Marion; so far,
indeed, it has been none to me. But with your help----”

“You don’t count on my help for a robbery, surely!” interrupted Rees
with much haughtiness.

“No. Of what use would it be for anybody to count upon your help in a
dishonorable action? I am not so stupid. But I do think that you will
not refuse your assistance in discovering the treasure, if indeed it
should exist, which is, as you say, by no means certain. The search
will be an arduous one, and will require the exercise of qualities of
no common order. But if something should come of it, think what a
splendid opportunity you would have of heaping coals of fire on the
head of the man who insulted you so lightly to-day. That, indeed,
would be a noble revenge, and his lordship could hardly, in common
gratitude, do less than accept you for a son-in-law if you put in his
hands such a handsome supply of ready money.”

“But if this apocryphal treasure really existed, and were discovered
by us, how do you know what its amount would be? And what good would
it do to Lord St. Austell if buried treasure goes, as you say, to the
Crown?”

“The treasure, if it exists, consists either in the jewels--royal
jewels, mind, which Henrietta Maria sent to the Netherlands to be
sold--or in the proceeds of that sale, which, it was expected, would
be sufficient to wipe off long arrears of debt to a whole army and to
pay for the levying of fresh troops. Now only two-thirds of a buried
treasure are claimed by the Crown. Wouldn’t the remaining third of
such a sum as that be a comfortable little windfall?”

“I dare say it would,” answered Rees hastily. For he was anxious to
get rid of a subject which he felt to contain a temptation to his
honor. “But as you have conceived the idea of this find being
possible, I don’t think I ought to step in at the last moment and rob
you of part of the honor of it.”

“But it is not the last moment; it is, on the contrary, only the first
step that we have reached--that of recognising the fact that there may
be treasure there, and that, if there is, it can only be reached from
the inside of the castle walls.”

“From the inside?” echoed Rees in spite of himself, interested in the
ever-fascinating suggestion, and impressed by the growl of passionate,
hungry earnestness in the elder man’s hawk eyes.

“Yes. And as only the members of your family are allowed to ramble
over the ruins without a guide nobody but you can pursue the search.
Do you see?”

“That is unfortunate,” said Rees, with the irascible decision of the
weak, who never feel that they have sufficiently emphasised the
determination which they doubt their power to keep.

“For nothing would induce me to take advantage of a favor shown to me.
Besides,” he added, after a lame pause, which Amos did not attempt to
break, “after this afternoon’s work, of course Lord St. Austell will
retract his special permission to my family.”

“He won’t think of it,” said Amos quietly. “And if he did, he wouldn’t
condescend to do so.”

“And I shall certainly not show myself less magnanimous than he,” said
Rees.

Again Goodhare said nothing; and again it was Rees who had to break
the silence. It was rather awkward to do so, but curiosity concerning
this project of the librarian’s began to burn within him.

“What makes you so strong in this belief, Goodhare? It isn’t like you
to take an infatuation without good reason to back it.”

“There were nearly always, at the period when Carstow Castle was last
rebuilt, subterranean passages built through which the occupants could
escape in case of a surprise.”

“But, if there had been, would not the garrison have used these
passages to escape by, when they were hard pressed, during the siege?”

“The surmise is that these passages, not having been used for many
years, were believed to be impracticable. If they existed at all, this
was probably the case, as I have searched the neighborhood thoroughly
for nearly a mile in every direction round the castle, and I can find
no trace of any opening.”

“And don’t you think what that proves is that there never was either
passage or opening?”

“I do not. I believe that this unlucky Lord Hugh, knowing the heavy
responsibility which lay on his shoulders, may have tried this means
of escape, and been buried in the attempt with whatever he carried,
whether jewels or money. How else--in what more reasonable manner can
you account for his utter disappearance? For that neither he, nor the
money he had been sent to fetch, ever reached the king, is certain.”

“I should think any manner of accounting for his disappearance
likelier than that one,” said Rees. “And even if that were the true
explanation, nothing would induce me to prowl about Lord St. Austell’s
property to find out the truth of it.”

He said this haughtily, yet he waited when he had finished speaking,
to hear Goodhare’s further arguments.

But the elder man had apparently decided that to argue against such
flinty determination would be waste of breath. He turned away from the
young man with a sigh.

“Well, Mr. Pennant, it is no use for me to try to persuade you into
any course which you do not think strictly honorable, I know. I will,
therefore, say no more about this, but only ask you to believe that I
would never have breathed a word on the matter to you, if I had not
myself believed it to be a suggestion which you might follow up to
your own honor and Lord St. Austell’s profit.”

“I don’t wish to do anything to his profit,” said Rees passionately.
“But, of course, I know you meant well, and--and thank you, and--and
good-night.”

He gave Goodhare’s hand a grateful squeeze, and then lingered as if
expecting a little more argument or a little more persuasion from him.

But none came. Goodhare simply wished him good-night, and left him to
return home by himself with slow steps and an unusually reflective
manner.

When he got home he found that his practical brother, Godwin, and his
harassed mother, had had time to make a more thorough examination of
such of his father’s papers as were within their reach, and that the
result, even of this cursory search, was worse than they had feared.
Nothing but debts, debts; bills unpaid, liabilities unmet. It was
ruin, absolutely ruin, without a hope. Rees had to learn the truth,
from their haggard eyes first, and their lips afterwards. Poor,
kind-hearted old Captain Pennant had not been of so much account in
the world or in his own household but that this discovery of the
penniless state in which he had left his family over-shadowed their
grief at his death.

Rees listened to the recital at first in dumb dismay. Then came a
feeling of bitterness, of injury. Lastly, the idea of the gold which
might lie hidden among those old ruins within half a mile of his own
wrecked home rushed into his brain, not as the chimerical vision it
had appeared when Amos first mentioned it to him that evening, but as
a vivid, saving truth. So fast had the welcome fancy grown
unconsciously in his mind.

At ten o’clock that night, when the quiet little town lay already
asleep, and the bats were flying in the moonlight about the ragged
walls of Carstow Castle, Rees crept out of his home like a guilty
creature, and ran along the quiet roads and lanes with a fast-beating
heart, until he stopped under the old portcullis, and leaned, panting
for breath, against the massive oak door, which, studded with huge
nails, and held together by thick bars of rusty iron, had stood the
test of centuries of hard usage, and still kept intruders out of the
ruin as it had kept them out of the castle in the time of its strength
and its prime.

What were the secrets it held within its keeping? Was there indeed
gold, in handfuls, in sackfuls, buried behind its jealous barrier?

Rees Pennant’s brain was growing heated under the spell which the
glittering fancy cast upon him. With stealthy feet he soon was pacing
underneath the walls, as Amos Goodhare had done the winter and the
summer long, now caressing the rugged old stones, now tearing away the
ivy which covered them, maddened by that idea of hidden treasure to be
had for the finding, which has played havoc with the reason of
stronger men.

He saw no one on his stealthy walk. But he was not unseen.

At the angle of the ancient wall, Amos Goodhare, to whom this nightly
prowling was now an accustomed thing, suddenly caught sight of this
new searcher in the darkness. He drew back hastily into the shadow of
the trees, where his eyes seemed to blaze luridly out of the
surrounding blackness as he laughed to himself silently.

“Caught, caught, my little fly,” he thought, with the nod of a
triumphant fiend. “There we are--a step nearer to my gold, _my_ gold!”

Rees came on, and passed him, feeling the old walls with feverish
hands, and unluckily not seeing Amos, nor the expression with which
his friend and mentor gloated over his boyish eagerness.

So, turning his back reluctantly to the castle and its grim grey
towers, Rees crept, in a fever of longing and high excitement, back to
his home.




 CHAPTER VI.

Mrs. Pennant was a woman of some strength of character, which had
never before come out so vividly as it did on the occasion of her
husband’s death.

She spent very little time in weeping over his loss. She was one of
those women in whom the instincts of maternal affection are much
stronger than the marital; and in truth her patience had been so
hardly tried by Captain Pennant’s almost imbecile mismanagement of his
affairs and the necessity of controlling her exasperation into the
outer aspect of submissive respect, that there was a touch of relief
even in her sorrow.

The few days between the death and the funeral were passed by all in
an uneasy state of apprehension as to what would follow. Rees was
hardly ever in the house, and could not be approached on the subject
of his future actions. Hervey mooned about, comforting himself, after
his usual fashion, by great thoughts of life and death, and the
impracticable things he would do to get his family out of their
difficulties. Godwin went quietly backwards and forwards to the bank
as usual. Deborah kept out of Mrs. Pennant’s way, believing, poor
child, that as that lady had never liked her, and had only suffered
her to remain a member of the household in consequence of the
captain’s express wish, she should now be ignominiously expelled on
the first decent opportunity.

Deborah was Captain Pennant’s truest mourner. During the days when he
lay dead in the house, she spent most of her time watching by his
coffin, gazing at the passionately loved face of her “father,” as she
had always called him, and grieving over her loss with all the
intensity of her fiercely loving nature. The remaining hours of her
time she spent, not in luxurious regret at leaving the old house which
had so long been her home, but in looking over the clothes of the boys
and mending such as wanted repairs, and in doing every little bit of
active work she could think of to save Mrs. Pennant trouble. She did
not love Mrs. Pennant; sometimes she had felt she almost hated her;
but she appreciated the sense of duty to her husband which had made
the lady tolerate her presence, and she felt bound to make what small
return she could before breaking what she believed to be to the elder
lady a galling tie.

So, on the day after the funeral, Deborah presented herself early in
the day before Mrs. Pennant in her walking dress. The elder lady was
writing at the table, and the girl stood for some moments watching
her, without speaking; she was a good deal affected by the prospect of
parting, now that it was so near, more especially as she noticed that
Mrs. Pennant had aged suddenly, and that her handsome face showed the
lines and wrinkles brought by care and anxiety more clearly than ever
before. At last Mrs. Pennant looked up.

“Oh, are you going out, Deborah? Would you mind taking these letters
to the post for me? I have just finished.”

Deborah murmured assent, and Mrs. Pennant bent over her writing. As
she closed the last envelope, she looked up again. The girl stepped
forward and quietly took up the letters. Then, turning to go, she
addressed Mrs. Pennant without facing her, for she was afraid of
breaking down, and bringing upon herself a cold reproof.

“I am going away, mamma. I came in to say good-bye to you. I am afraid
you will not believe me when I say I am sorry to leave you; you think
me ungrateful, but I am not. I am afraid I have been a burden on you
for a great many years; but, thanks to your goodness, I can support
myself now. I shall never forget you, or the boys, or--or my dear,
dear father--I mean Captain Pennant.”

Mrs. Pennant was entirely taken aback. It was not until this moment
that she knew how much she should miss the bright, beautiful face, or
how lonely she should feel without the girl whom, in spite of herself,
she had long secretly looked upon as a daughter.

“This, this is very sudden. You might have spoken to me. I had a right
to expect to be consulted,” she said, trying to speak coldly, but with
a tremor in her voice.

“I didn’t know how--I didn’t like to trouble you,” faltered the girl.

“Where are you going to? What do you want to do?”

“I have got a situation as help, lady-help they call it, at a little
town the other side of Monmouth.”

“Lady--help! A girl brought up as Captain Pennant’s daughter!” cried
the poor lady, in disgust and dismay.

“Well, mamma, what could I do? I should never have had the patience to
teach children; and I can cook and sew a little, and I’m sure I could
scrub. Nobody will ever know me as Captain Pennant’s daughter any
more,” she said sadly. “I am simply Deborah Audaer, the fisherman’s
daughter.”

“But you can’t go back like that, it’s impossible,” said Mrs. Pennant
pettishly. “You are a lady now, whatever you were born. And my husband
adopted you as his daughter, so his daughter you will always be to me.
And you must remain with me. Understand that.”

She spoke sharply and querulously, but with determination. Still
Deborah stood before her, looking perturbed and undecided.

“Do you hear what I say?” asked the old lady, peremptorily.

“Yes, I hear, mamma,” answered Deborah, in a low-toned, broken voice.
Then, after a moment’s further hesitation, she moved two steps nearer,
sank down on her knees, and hid her face in Mrs. Pennant’s chair.
“Mamma,” she whispered, “I can’t stay--if you speak to me like that.
You must try to be fond of me, and I’ll stay, and be good to you, work
for you if I can, comfort you if I can. You would never let me love
you before--will you try now? Captain Pennant is gone, Rees doesn’t
care for me now; I can’t live without any love, in the place where I
had so much. I would rather go away among strangers; I could bear that
better.”

Mrs. Pennant was touched. At last she felt her heart go out to the
brave, frank girl, and she put a trembling hand upon her neck, where
the soft brown hair strayed from under the sombre black bonnet.

“Stay, child,” she whispered. “You shall not have to complain.”

Half a word was enough for Deborah, craving, as she did, an affection
to replace what she had lost. She threw her strong young arms round
her with a clasp in which the poor harassed lady felt at last not only
comfort, but support. And from that hour Deborah transferred, if not
all, at least a great part of the affection she had felt for her
adopted father to his widow, whom she cherished and served with a true
daughter’s devotion.

Meanwhile, the unhappiest member of the household was poor Rees, who,
before his father had been dead a week, found that his own position as
head of the family had been practically usurped by his younger brother
Godwin. This shrewd and energetic fellow, on learning Lord St.
Austell’s offer to Rees and the latter’s refusal of it, had instantly
been seized with the idea of applying himself for the post.

The earl was rather cold at first, feeling, on account of Rees’s
conduct, a temporary disgust with the whole family. But Godwin
insisted so humbly, representing truly enough that he had had, young
as he was, much more business experience than his elder brother, that
at last he gained his point to the extent of being appointed assistant
steward on trial.

When Rees learnt this, although he tried to congratulate his brother,
and to wish him God-speed on his journey northwards, he fell into a
passion of remorse and anger, and, rushing out of the house towards
the spot which he now began to haunt as regularly as Goodhare himself,
he flung himself down under the trees in a large field which stretched
under the western wall of the castle, and burying his face in his
hands, gave himself up to a paroxysm of despair.

What had he done, he the spoiled favorite of the county, who had begun
to look upon all men’s indulgence as his right, that he should
suddenly find himself thrown down from his long-established position,
an exile from Llancader, cut by all its inmates, neglected by
Goodhare, and even avoided by his faithful slave, Deborah? For the
girl’s spirit had at last rebelled against his curt assumption of
indifference towards her; while, as for Amos, he had had reasons for
his own for giving the young man a wide berth for a few days. Those
few days, however, were now over; and that very afternoon Amos, having
seized the opportunity of his dinner-hour for a prowl round the goal
of his dreams, saw the young fellow as he lay stretched on the grass,
and instantly decided that the time was ripe for another step. He came
down to the lower ground, therefore, and called Rees gently by his
name before the young fellow had heard his footsteps.

The lad sprung up with a flushed, wild face and reckless manner.

“Goodhare,” cried he, hoarsely, “I’ll begin hunting to-night, this
very night.”

The elder man smiled gravely, and stroked his beard in a meditative
manner.

“You have decided, then, to give Lord St. Austell the third part of a
handsome fortune, if indeed we are so fortunate as to find anything at
all, which possibly we may not do.”

“Well, let’s find it first, and we can talk about Lord St. Austell
afterwards. The finders of a big hoard are entitled to something, I
suppose?”

“Very little. They may claim a trifling percentage, I believe, perhaps
2 per cent. or 3 per cent., on the value of the find as assessed by
the Crown. Enough to pay the expenses of the journey to London to
claim it. But even then, there are such pleasures in London, such
wines, such lovely faces--a week’s visit would be well worth all the
trouble.”

“Wines! I don’t suppose the finest wine that ever was made would
intoxicate me like a gallop over the hills here!” said Rees,
doubtfully. “And as for faces, I don’t believe there’s another in
England as handsome as Deborah’s!”

An ugly flush rose in the elder man’s cheeks at the mention of her
name.

“Deborah! Why, she’s a negress compared to the London girls. They are
the pick of the beauty-basket, as I think you will say. For if you
cannot judge a woman’s beauty, who should, when all the pretty lasses
in the county are waiting for you to throw them the handkerchief? But
they are dumpy, dowdy creatures you will find when you get to London.”

“And if we find all this, we shall only get a few pounds? But that is
not fair. What right has the Crown to it, that never heard of it? Or
Lord St. Austell, who laughed at the idea of its existence?”

“That’s what I want to know. The Crown portion will perhaps be paid
away in the pensions of those noblemen who are paid handsomely by the
State for being the descendants of Charles the Second’s mistresses. Or
it may be spent in keeping up Buckingham Palace, where the Sovereign
never lives, and where a collection of splendid pictures moulders away
in the company of the Royal spiders, the public not being allowed to
enter and see them. I don’t know. And Lord St. Austell’s portion?
Well, he will be able to enjoy himself in town upon that,” added Amos,
with suggestive dryness.

“At any rate,” said Rees with excitement, “the thing is first to find
it, before we settle what’s to be done with it.”

“That is just what I say.”

“How shall we begin?”

“You must take up a craze, say botany for instance, and start
specimen-hunting inside the castle walls. You must have a pickaxe and
spade; I will get you those up over the walls--and you must explore
systematically, bit by bit. I will be on the watch outside. You will
always let me know what part you are at work in, and I will keep
watch. I have two hours in the middle of the day, and as many as you
like at night.”

“All right. We’ll begin to-night.”

They parted with only a few more words, for Rees was oppressed by the
consciousness that, explain it away as he might, he was about to do an
underhand action; and Goodhare, when he had gained a point, was not a
man to weaken his effect by superfluous words.

That night the search began. Day after day and night after night it
continued, and always without result, until the young man’s heart grew
sick within him, and the elder grew fierce with disappointed longing.
In the hot afternoons, when the trees that grew thickly on the high
banks of the Wye seemed to dance in a heat-mist; in the cool, summer
nights, when the owls peered out with gleaming eyes from the ivy
bushes which hung round the broken turrets, Rees worked on. He dug
deep in the beaten earth which had collected in the ruined chambers.
He clave with his pickaxe old beams that had fallen to the ground to
become food for the busy worms. Not a grating in the ground that he
did not examine; not a blocked-up doorway into which, by long and
patient labor, he did not grope. Their way of working answered
admirably. If any one from the neighborhood, or a party of tourists,
approached the outer gate, Rees had instant warning from the watcher
outside, and on the entrance of the visitors a handsome young man
would be found seated on a broken step in the outer court or on a
massive window embrasure in one of the damp, cool vaults below,
attentively studying a bramble or a weed by the aid of a book or a
microscope.

One curious discovery he made in the second week of his labors. It was
that the earth on which the castle was built possessed the property of
preserving, almost uninjured by damp or decay, anything which was
buried at a certain depth within its bosom. For he came upon the
bodies of various dead pets, a guinea-pig, a rabbit, and a white rat,
to which his brothers, in their childhood, had given honorable
sepulture within the castle walls; and they were all in a perfect
state of preservation, except that they had become dry and shrivelled.

Amos Goodhare’s information here came in to account for this. He had
himself visited certain caves in the neighborhood of Bordeaux, in
which the bodies of a dozen dead monks were preserved, their habits
still clinging, uninjured, round the shrivelled and wasted forms. He
gave Rees a scientific account of the properties of the soil which
produced this effect, to which the young man was too much excited to
take heed.

For he had got an idea into his head that the subterranean passage, if
it existed at all, by which the unlucky Lord Hugh had tried to make
his escape, must start from a certain large vaulted chamber, the base
of which and part of the walls were formed in the rock itself. This
chamber was the lowest part of the castle, and not being so much
exposed as the rest to storm and siege, was in an excellent stage of
preservation. It looked out through a deep-walled window over the
river, which formed at this point a beautiful bend, with trees on one
side and swelling meadow ground on the other. The original level of
the floor was at present not easily to be found, as the rock surface
was encumbered with stones and earth.

Here it was, however, that Rees had resolved to make a search, the
thoroughness of which should be complete. At last, on the fifth
evening of his labors, when he had dug deep down in the piled-up
earth, until the last of the daylight had faded out of the sky, he
felt the floor tremble under his feet.

He was by this time in utter darkness, his spade working mechanically
in the hard earth.

He stopped, shivering from head to foot, cold from excitement and an
instinct of mad joy. A hoarse shout escaped his lips in spite of
himself.

The next moment it turned to a low-breathed exclamation of savage
impatience. For a girl’s voice called to him from the outer court, and
in another minute the faint light which came through the doorway was
blocked by her figure. It was Lady Marion Cenarth.

“What are you doing here, Rees Pennant,” she asked sharply.




 CHAPTER VII.

On hearing Lady Marion’s voice, Rees felt his heart stand still. It
was by this time quite dark in the cavernous chamber, so that he could
only guess that she must have been watching, unseen by him, for an
hour or more. He had a few moments to consider what he should do, for
at the first sound of her voice he had stepped back hastily into the
black shadow of one of the corners of the chamber, from whence he
could observe her figure as long as she remained with her back to the
faint light at the entrance.

“I know you are here, Rees. What are you doing?” she repeated.

And she passed with careful feet through the doorway, and began to
advance towards the middle of the vaulted room.

Rees, interrupted thus, as he believed, on the brink of an important
discovery, and afraid every moment that Lady Marion’s feet would touch
the iron grating he had just partly unearthed, felt that he could have
killed her. But there was no time to be lost in explosions of
resentment. The intruder had to be treated with, and at once. Throwing
himself on his hands and knees, he crept hastily towards the doorway
by which she had entered, while the slight noise he made in gliding
over the rocky floor and the smooth-trodden earth which had in course
of time accumulated over great part of it, was drowned by her own
constant and excited calls to him by name. He slipped through the
opening quickly, and ran up the rickety wooden steps which now
connected these lower chambers of the ruins with those above.

A dozen steps more brought him to the open air, in the inner courtyard
of the castle. Thence a little hazardous climbing enabled him to reach
the outer wall, at a point immediately above the chamber in which he
had been at work. Leaning over the ruined stonework so that his voice
might penetrate through the embrasure of the great window below, he at
last answered her repeated calls.

“Hallo!” he cried. “Hallo! Who’s that down there? Is it you, Mrs.
Crow? Do you want to shut up early to-night, eh?”

“It is I, Lady Marion Cenarth,” answered a voice from the window
below, tartly.

“You, Lady Marion, you!” cried Rees with well-acted astonishment.
“Why, are you down in those dungeons? You’ll catch your death of
cold.”

Rees would not have believed, ten minutes before, that he, the
open-hearted, the recklessly sincere, could have assumed a sentiment
he did not feel. But the hunger for hidden gold, the desire to keep
his fancied discovery secret, had already done their work upon him.

“Can’t you find your way out? Shall I come down and help you out?”

No answer at first. But she had evidently heard him, for her cries
ceased. Rees climbed down much more slowly than he had come up, went
to the top of the wooden steps, and called again.

“Lady Marion, Lady Marion, are you still there? Shall I come down and
help you?”

She was stumbling towards him over the uneven floor. He leapt down and
offered the assistance of his hand. There was only just light enough
for her to see it, and for the first moment she refused haughtily,
shrinking back as if the very offer had been an insult. The next, she
characteristically tried to atone for this conduct by excessive
humility, and seized his arm with pathetic eagerness. Rees, impatient
and annoyed, helped her up the shaking steps without another word,
while she muttered lame apologies for troubling him to come to her.

When they reached the open air, however, and she was able to see his
face, the suspicions which had brought her to the castle returned in
full force.

“Rees,” she said, assuming an air of searching penetration, “it is of
no use trying to deceive me. What makes you come here night after
night? You do, I know, for I have just found it out from Mrs. Crow,
and she says you never miss a single evening. And who is there about
besides you? When I got down to that dungeon I distinctly heard
somebody digging. The sound left off as soon as I called you, so I am
certain there was some one.”

“Really, Lady Marion, I don’t think I am responsible for every noise
heard in this old ruin, and don’t know why I should be put through a
long catechism about my movements here, when the place is free to
every rat and bird in the country!”

In her usual blundering, tactless way the girl continued:

“The rats and birds only come to find a shelter. I don’t see what a
man should come here for late at night, unless he’s a thief.”

Of course this speech, according a little, as it did, with the feeling
in his own conscience, maddened Rees.

“And, pray, is that the category in which you place me, your ladyship?
Do you think I have formed a design for carrying off the castle, stone
by stone, and building it up somewhere else?”

“No,” answered she, “of course not. But how about the treasure lost in
the Civil War?”

“Treasure!” echoed Rees, with a long, loud laugh of scornful
amusement, which his intense excitement enabled him to simulate quite
naturally. “Oh, if you believe that story, of course you can believe
anything. If you were to hear I was a murderer, you would take it for
granted. I think you will feel easier if I relieve you of my presence.
It’s not pleasant for a lady to be alone with a rogue so late in the
evening.”

He raised his cap, and was hurrying in the direction of the principal
gate, and had reached the outer court of the castle, when Lady Marion,
always weak when she ought to have been strong, ran after him in the
humblest of moods.

“Rees! Rees!” she cried, “I didn’t mean what I said. Come back! I’m
going to Mrs. Crow for a candle, and I’m going to hunt through those
rooms that we call the dungeons, for I’m sure I heard some one there.
Won’t you help me?”

Rees grew hot with fright. How on earth was he to keep her from
carrying out this fatal intention? Unluckily for him, she noticed his
hesitation, and putting a shrewd interpretation upon it, she ran on
past him, and had burst open the door of the custodian’s room before
he could stop her.

Rees was beside himself. In his rage, impatience, and confusion, no
plan for stopping her occurred to him, and he stood by the great
gateway of the castle, kicking his heels against its huge beams in
blank despair. As he did so, the gate, which alone was used now,
creaked and slowly gave way behind him. He turned, and perceived that
the big key of the gate had been left in the lock by Mrs. Crow when
she admitted Lady Marion. He thrust it open, putting his shoulder
against it impatiently, and found himself face to face with Amos
Goodhare.

Rees uttered an exclamation of relief and joy. Here was advice and
help.

“What am I to do?” he whispered hurriedly. “Lady Marion is here,
suspects something, and insists on searching the place.”

“Make up to her, of course,” said Amos, who had very nearly added “you
fool.” “Let her think you are crazy about her, and she’ll hold her
tongue safe enough. Just the kind of girl--mad as a hatter and not too
handsome; nothing like that sort to keep a man’s secret. Go in.”

Rees obeyed; indeed, Amos emphasized his injunction by a push which
sent him staggering. But as the door was drawn softly to behind him,
he felt his spirit rising in resentment at this change in the
librarian’s manner towards him. For Amos had suddenly dropped his
pedantic respectfulness, his gentle movements, had looked at him with
fierce impatience, and had been both rough and rude.

“I shall just wash my hands of the whole thing, and go home,” he said
to himself. But he hesitated, with his hand upon the gate. At that
moment Lady Marion appeared at the door of the lodge, candle in hand,
and with just a glance at him, made swiftly across the courtyard in
the direction of the “dungeons,” as the vaulted apartments overlooking
the river were called.

“You needn’t come with me, Mrs. Crow,” he heard her call out as she
ran. Rees followed her, all his anxiety about the safety of his secret
alive again. She flew over the grass, a great sparrow-legged girl, not
yet grown out of immature gawkiness, and got down the wooden steps
somehow in a wonderfully short space of time. But in her haste she let
the candle fall, and the light went out. Rees, at the top of the
steps, looked down into the black vault, where he heard her groping
about, and conceived the project of passing her again in the darkness,
finding his way into the next and lower apartment, in which he had
discovered the grating, and flattening down the earth to cover the
traces of his work.

At the doorway, however, were two steps; stumbling on the damp and
slippery surface of the second, he made enough noise for her to find
him.

“Rees,” she cried, “don’t go away. This is a horrid place; something
flapped past me. I feel quite frightened. It is you there, isn’t it?”

Thinking that, by not answering, he should alarm her still more and
induce her to find her way to the upper air, he was silent; and
creeping away into a huge arched recess in the lower apartment, he
leaned back and waited.

But Lady Marion, though susceptible to feminine fears, had some
courage and more curiosity. She hunted about on her hands and knees in
the outer room until she found her box of matches, struck one,
discovered her candle, and relighting it, prepared for an exhaustive
search.

He heard her manly footsteps--she and her sisters all wore
flat-footed, “sensible” boots--tramping over the stones and the hard
earth. He had just time to seize his pickaxe and spade, thrust them
into a heap of loose rubble that filled one corner of the recess, and
to kick a few spadefuls of earth over the uncovered grating, when she
reappeared at the doorway.

Holding her candle high, she looked round the walls suspiciously,
without condescending to take any notice of the young fellow’s
presence. Then she advanced slowly into the middle of the floor,
peering curiously at the ground beneath her feet as she did so.

Rees held his breath. The next moment, making up his mind that there
was nothing else to be done, he sprang forward and flung his arms
around her.

“Marion, Marion,” he cried, “it can’t be true that you care for me if
you won’t so much as look at me.”

The ruse succeeded. Lady Marion, who, in spite of her affectation of
mannishness, was at heart rather a limp, pliable, and easily dominated
young woman, was taken aback.

“Oh!” she exclaimed faintly, with a feeble feint of disengaging
herself.

“I suppose you don’t know--the earl won’t have let you know--that I
proposed to him for you, and that he rejected me almost as if I had
been a groom.”

“Don’t, don’t, Rees, I can’t bear it. I’ve been miserable ever since.”

“He told you then?”

“No, I guessed it from his manner, and when I found you didn’t come to
Llancader, and then I spoke to mamma, and she told me, and said it was
no use hoping. Oh, but Rees, I don’t think you can care as much as I
do! You--you think more about getting this treasure than about me. I
know you do. I know you were angry at my interrupting you. Yes, and I
believe you _were_ at work in here, and that it’s only to prevent my
finding out something that you are so nice to me now.”

She thrust him away from her, noticed the roughness of the fresh-dug
earth at her feet, and looked up at him with triumphant suspicion.

“Ah!” she cried in a whisper.

Rees was seized with a bold idea.

“Yes,” he said, “I have been digging here; I have been trying to find
the treasure. For if I could show him the way to a little fortune, the
earl could scarcely refuse to let me marry you.”

Lady Marion, fond of him as she was, had the sense to look doubtful.

“And Deborah? They say you like Deborah better than me!”

Rees was not past blushing, and he blushed now.

“Nonsense!” he said. “Look here, Marion.”

Stooping down, he scraped away the loose earth and discovered the
grating on which he had built such high hopes.

“This is what I found to-night,” said he. “It may be only the covering
of an old drain. But it may be something more. At any rate, that is my
secret, which I have confided to nobody but you. Is that confidence
enough? Now do you believe I care for you?”

It was a bold stroke, and he watched the effect in desperate
excitement. Lady Marion’s sallow face lighted up with eagerness as
great as his own as she looked down at the rusty grating, which,
slightly displaced during Rees’s labours, shook under the tread.

“But did you do it for me, Rees--really for me?” she asked still
half-doubtfully.

“If I had not, why should I confide in you? I did not want you to know
my aims yet, certainly; I was too much humiliated by your father. But
you have found me out, so you may as well know everything. Now,
Marion, if ever I get your father to accept me for a son-in-law, will
you have me?”

The poor affectionate girl was overjoyed. She hung about him, kissed
his hands and his hair, and assured him that she would wait ten years
for him if a prince were to woo her. She begged him to see her home as
far as the park gates, as a compensation for the fact that they would
have to be circumspect and content to see each other seldom. It was
Rees who, impatient at her demonstrativeness, impressed this upon her.

“But I can come and see you at the same place to-morrow evening,” said
she. “Mademoiselle de Laval always leaves us quite undisturbed in the
evening, and thinks we are busy over our Greek. I can slip out without
the least danger. I shall come; don’t be afraid.”

Rees was already wishing her or himself at the bottom of the sea.
Overwhelmed with shame and anger at his own conduct, he bade her as
hasty a farewell as she would allow, returning her passionate kisses
with embraces so reluctant and perfunctory that if she had not been so
infatuated they must have chilled her own warmth.

Then, when she had left him and disappeared through a little side-gate
into the park, he crept, with slow feet and hanging head, towards
Goodhare’s lodging.

The librarian was enjoying a frugal supper of a couple of poached
eggs, a slice of bread and butter, and a glass of milk; and as he ate
he studied a heavy, much-used volume of Cicero.

The young man shut up the book impetuously and flung himself into a
chair opposite to Amos.

“I’ve found the entrance to the passage, I believe,” said he, “a wide
grating under two feet of earth, with a couple of stone steps to be
seen underneath.”

Amos started up with an exclamation of triumph.

“And I ought to be able to take full advantage of it, for I’m on my
way to become a very finished scoundrel.”

He related the incidents of his discovery and of his interview with
Lady Marion. Goodhare listened with the ugly look of covetousness in
his eyes which had sometimes shocked Rees before now. When he had
finished, Amos burst out into a laugh of hideous, satyr-like raillery.

“Don’t pretend to be ashamed of your conquest; that sort of modesty
doesn’t deceive me. And I won’t distress you by asking for any details
of the interview.”

Rees started up, his face flushed, his hair disordered, his whole
bearing speaking of shame for himself, but also of indignation against
his companion.

“You are making me a thief, Amos; you are making me a rascal; but you
have not yet made me forget that I was born a gentleman,” said he.

The next moment, Amos meanwhile going on quietly with his poached eggs
and bread and butter, the poor lad seemed to realize what an empty
boast it was that he had uttered so proudly, and he sank down again in
his chair and buried his face in his hands. But the fascination of the
hidden treasure soon came over him again, driving out all other
thoughts and feelings. Springing up once more, and leaning across the
table to make his words more emphatic, he whispered:

“Goodhare, it’s all up with us. I left the grating exposed, and forgot
to fill up the hole in the earth above it!”

Amos had the wit to hide part of what he felt; but he betrayed enough
to show Rees a little more of the demoniacal side of his character.

The two men parted that night with hearts and minds burdened with the
deepest anxiety. The poking about with a stick of a couple of Mrs.
Crow’s children might reveal enough to set the neighborhood talking
and prying, and then good-bye to visions of a golden independence.




 CHAPTER VIII.

On the following morning Amos Goodhare, for the first time since his
dismissal, visited Llancader Castle. He asked modestly whether he
could see Mademoiselle de Laval, having, from his knowledge of the
habits of the place, been able to choose the hour when she was resting
in her own sitting-room before beginning the day’s labors.

He was shown up to this apartment, where the lady received him very
graciously. Amos took care to let her think that his visit was
prompted by an overwhelming wish to know whether the recent damp
weather had affected her rheumatism, and it was not until he had
listened sympathetically to an exhaustive list of her “symptoms,” that
he enquired after the family. Then he asked, confidentially, whether
there was any truth in a report he had heard that Lady Marion was
engaged to the eldest son of the late Captain Pennant. To this,
Mademoiselle de Laval replied with horror on her face that the very
mention of his name was forbidden in the household.

Amos Goodhare’s face immediately underwent a change, and expressed the
deepest anxiety. In answer to her questions he then very reluctantly
confessed that Lady Marion and Rees Pennant were in the habit of
meeting late in the evening. Mademoiselle was much alarmed, but at
first inclined to be incredulous.

“Very well,” said Amos quietly. “I would not take the trouble to prove
what I say if I did not feel so much admiration for you and so much
grateful interest in his lordship’s family. But find out whether Lady
Marion was in the house last night between eight and nine. What would
happen to you if anything were to go wrong with one of the young
ladies? It goes to my heart to think of the cruel injustice which
might be done to a lady of such talents and accomplishments as
yourself.”

He did not prolong the interview after that; for he had succeeded in
thoroughly alarming her, and he felt sure that in future Rees would be
able to pursue his researches without interruption from Lady Marion.

Rees went to the old castle very early that morning. It was a pouring
wet day, and he had to tell the custodian that he had left something
in the ruins the evening before in order to account for his appearance
there in weather which no sane person, without some strong reason,
would have chosen for a ramble among the mouldering stones.

Breathless with anxiety, he crossed the two courts, and entered the
vault with streams of water pouring down his mackintosh. The rain had
done him good service; not only had it prevented Mrs. Crow’s boys from
wandering among the ruins, but it washed down in torrents from the
upper chambers, and rushing through the exposed grating, carried with
it a quantity of the earth which had accumulated above. Rees could see
the stone steps underneath, and with fiery energy he dug away spadeful
after spadeful, until at last the grating, loosened in its place,
shook under his feet. A few more frenzied efforts, and he was able to
raise it half a dozen inches. He could scarcely restrain a cry of joy,
which, however, speedily changed to a groan of disappointment.

The grating was kept down by no hinges; it was more than two feet
wide, of clumsy, old-fashioned workmanship, though of much later date
than the last rebuilding of the castle in the fourteenth century. With
great difficulty Rees raised it, tearing the flesh off his hands as he
did so on the iron bars, which were caked with a hard deposit of rust.
He had taken the precaution of bringing in his pocket a candle and
matches. Striking a light he descended about a dozen rough and much
worn stone steps in a sort of well hewn out of the solid rock. He had
to move very carefully, as the steps were steep and unevenly covered
with earth which the late rains had converted into mud; while the rude
walls were too slimy with damp for the irregularities of their surface
to afford him any hold.

The air down here was cold; it chilled his heated body and made his
teeth chatter. Taking a couple of steps rather more quickly than the
rest in his excitement and impatience, his right foot suddenly
splashed into water. Drawing it back hastily, he peered into the
darkness at his feet, and saw that what he had taken for the entrance
to a subterranean passage was apparently nothing more nor less than an
old, long disused well.

With a moan of anger and bitter disappointment, he sat down, with his
feet on the lowest dry step, while a cold perspiration made him shiver
from head to foot, and at the same time his forehead burned, and his
mouth was so parched that, as he drew breath, he emitted a choking
cough. He felt as if the hidden gold had been wrenched out of his
eagerly clutching fingers, the gold which was to have supported his
mother, showered presents on Deborah, restored his prestige as the
genius of his family, and perhaps made him an earl’s son-in-law--for
somehow that first idea of making known the discovery to the earl had,
under the fire of Goodhare’s discourses, melted quite away.

He had brought his spade with him, and he sat holding it idly in his
hand, and not heeding the fact that the rain-water from above was all
the while trickling down the steps, making his seat not only damp but
dangerous. Suddenly he slipped, and the spade in his hand scraped the
ground at the bottom of the water.

It could not be very deep then! Perhaps it was not a well at all!

His excitement returning, he drew the spade slowly and carefully from
left to right, stirring the foul mud at the bottom of the stagnant
water, and causing noxious odours to rise from it. The water was not
more than a foot and a half deep. The evil smells were so overpowering
that he felt himself turn sick, and had to go back up a half a dozen
steps to get fresh air and to recover himself.

When he redescended he found that the water had gone down a little. At
first he thought this might only be his fancy, so by the faint light
of his dwindling candle-end he watched. Surely enough, the water-line
on the shiny wall seemed to emerge higher and higher above the foul
black liquid, and Rees could hear the quick drip drip of water below
him. Again he sounded with his spade even more carefully than before.
Close under the bottom step one corner of the implement got caught in
a hole, which proved to be round and about seven inches in diameter.
As Rees passed the spade backwards and forwards, he heard a rushing
sound, and the water began to go down much more rapidly. This small
hole, he thought, must be the top of a drain-pipe which had become
choked with obstacles which the spade removed.

He glanced at his candle--there was not half an inch of it left. Would
that water never go down? With frantic impatience he dragged his spade
to and fro from wall to wall. Work as hard as he would, he had not
time. The candle-end, which he held in his left hand and glanced at
anxiously, grew hot between his fingers; then the wick fell over,
burning him so that he had to shake it off hastily on to the wet step,
where it went out with a faint little hiss and splutter.

“Hang it!” almost shouted Rees, forgetting his caution, forgetting
everything in his frantic impatience.

“Hallo!” cried a voice above, which sounded hollow in the rocky
cavity.

Rees could have bitten his tongue out. He leaned against the uneven
and slippery wall, shivering with alarm and disappointment. Had he
fatally betrayed himself? Who was the intruder? All that he could tell
as yet was that it was the voice of a young man. Rees kept quite still
and silent, hoping against hope that the man would not see the opening
in the floor of the vaulted chamber. The day was so dark that this was
just possible. But the hope was vain. Rees heard footsteps, and then
another exclamation as the tiny light of a match appeared for a few
moments at the opening in the floor above him and then went out.

At that moment his foot slipped, making a slight noise.

“Who’s there?” cried the voice above. “Not Rees, not Rees Pennant? For
God’s sake, answer?”

Rees recognised the voice by this time. It was that of Sep Jocelyn,
one of his most devoted admirers and friends.

This Sep was a short and rather thick-set fair man, without hair on
his face, who was five-and-thirty, but looked ten years younger until
you examined quite closely the little thread-like wrinkles which
crossed and recrossed his face in all directions, and the white
streaks in his thick fair hair. While still very young, he had been
left an orphan with command of money; as usual in such cases, he had
been ruined in character and fortune in the most commonplace way--by
bad women, worse men, and drink. At three-and-thirty he had been
discovered in abject circumstances by an old aunt, the widow of an
admiral, who had carried him off with her to her house in Carstow,
where she could still keep up some show of state on an extremely
limited income.

Here she tried hard to regenerate him, and as far as that could be
done, she succeeded. That is to say, he became entirely respectable,
lived soberly, went to church, and was a most submissive,
affectionate, and good-humored companion to his aunt, of pleasant, if
somewhat effeminate manners. But at heart he was blasé and cynical,
with a surprised feeling that any one could be so misguided as to
bestow on him so much attention and kindness, which he certainly was
not worth. And yet he was grateful, in a certain way, making due
allowance for the facts that his aunt had wanted a companion, and that
she belonged to the sex which has a fondness for the reclamation of
ne’er-do-weels. Belonging to that class of men who, incapable of
leading, have an instinct of attaching themselves where they will be
led, he had become the devoted satellite of Rees Pennant, whose
handsome face and dashing manner fascinated and enchained him.

Rees, who made the not unnatural mistake of rating Sep’s devotion
higher than it was worth, felt intensely relieved on learning who his
discoverer was. In an instant he made up his mind to confide in him.
Knowing, as he did, that he must have help to prosecute his researches
further, it seemed, indeed, that no better assistant could be
obtained.

“S-h!” he hissed, and creeping up three or four of the rough steps as
quickly and quietly as he could, he asked in an eager whisper, “Who is
with you?”

“Little Jack, Mrs. Crow’s boy. He’s outside. I told him not to come
down; the room above us is ankle deep in mud. What are you doing down
there? What a pickle you’re in!”

“I’m clean to what I shall be before I’ve done,” said he, in a low
voice, as he crept up the remaining steps, replaced the grating with
Sep’s help, and taking off his waistcoat, laid it upon the bars and
shovelled a layer of earth on to it.

Then, silencing all his companion’s questions until they should be
above ground, he seized his arm and hurried him upstairs, where they
found little Jack making mud-pies in the outer doorway. In a few
words, and with an air of the deepest confidence, Rees then told Sep
the story of the MS., the supposed lost treasure, of his discoveries
and his hopes. Sep was desperately interested, ready to hazard his own
limbs, if needful, to help his friend’s researches, although he knew
by this confidence Rees was only making a virtue of necessity.

They decided that, as Sep had not the same right of entry as Rees,
some way must be found to draw him up over the castle walls. Sep, who,
on hearing his friend had gone into the castle, had braved torrents of
rain and huge stretches of mud to meet him, was ready to submit even
to this.

They left the ruins together, and meeting Goodhare, who was, as usual,
on the watch outside, Rees introduced him as a confidant, and related
his discoveries. Amos could scarcely conceal his rage and
disappointment--rage that a new hand should be engaged in the work, to
take his share of the hoped-for spoil; disappointment at the result of
the discovery on which Rees counted so much.

“What on earth possesses you, Pennant, to imagine that any good can
come of your finding an old blocked-up drain?” he asked scornfully.

Rees, exhausted by excitement and manual labour of an unaccustomed
kind, and flushed by a sense of achievement, was incensed by the
question and by this familiar manner of address.

“The feeling which possesses me,” he answered promptly, “is
indignation that I should associate myself in any work with an
impudent and lazy rascal, who waits outside for the result of other
people’s labor.”

Instead of resenting this insolence, Goodhare listened with his head
bent down, as if with remorse, and made full and ample apology for his
impatience.

But when he had turned to go back to his library, after a most
affectionate and respectful farewell to Rees, and a cordial one to the
new associate in the enterprise, Sep linked his arm within that of his
friend, and suggested, in his mincing voice and manner:

“I say, Rees, you made a mistake with that old boy just now. You
didn’t notice his face as he hung his head down. Now, if you were to
call me a humbug, a liar, and a thief, I should forget it, knowing
that we’re friends for all that. But this old fox remembers. I know he
hates me, but through thick and thin I’m going to treat him like a
brother.”

“Well, I don’t pretend I can hide my feelings,” said Rees, in a tone
of large generosity.

“It’s necessary, though, when one’s not quite acting on the square.”

“What do you mean, Sep?” and Rees turned on him quite fiercely. “Do
you think I’m such a skunk as not to give Lord St. Austell what
belongs to him, shamefully as he has treated me?”

“Oh, no, no, Rees, I forgot for the moment,” answered Sep.

And he looked up into his friend’s handsome face with amused
curiosity. Did Rees really believe in his own integrity still?




 CHAPTER IX.

The rain continued to fall in torrents all day long after Rees
Pennant’s discovery of the mysterious drain. He took Sep Jocelyn home
with him, and they waited in fiery impatience for the evening, unable
to settle to any occupation or amusement but that of speculating on
the marvels they might find. Godwin was away; Hervey was reading in
his own room; Deborah was, if the truth must be known, cooking in the
kitchen before dinner, brushing Rees’s macintosh afterwards. The only
person, therefore, who interfered with their excited _tête à tête_
was Mrs. Pennant, who noticed her darling son’s restlessness, and was
curious as to the cause.

“Well, my little mother,” said Rees, throwing his arms around her and
giving her a more affectionate hug than he had bestowed upon her of
late, “and supposing I tell you that I see a prospect of helping you,
of doing more for you than either Godwin the grumpy or Hervey the
heroic! What would you say then, mother?”

“My dear boy, I should only say that you were doing what I always
expected of you,” said she, too much delighted by this welcome change
in his manner towards her to be very curious as to the precise meaning
of these large promises.

“And without becoming any man’s servant, either,” continued Rees,
whose strong point was not prudence.

Sep twitched his friend’s sleeve warningly unseen by Mrs. Pennant.

“Rees only means,” he put in with his quiet little mincing voice,
“that he thinks he has a chance of a berth in London at a good
salary.”

“Yes, yes; in London, that’s it,” assented Rees quickly.

“In London,” cried Mrs. Pennant. “Oh, I should like to live in London
again; nothing would please me better.”

Rees and Sep both grew suddenly subdued and reticent.

“I--I don’t know whether that could be managed, mother dear, until my
position was more secure. You see I--I--in fact, I’m not sure at all
about it yet, you know.”

“I don’t want to force your confidence, my son, since I see there is
some little surprise intended for me. But if it is any situation which
depends on talent and a good appearance,” she went on proudly, “I have
no fear for you.”

Rees turned the subject in a tremulous voice. He loved his mother, and
thought of her continually throughout this enterprise, now
congratulating himself that he might be able to support her in the
comfort and luxury which he considered to be the only suitable
surrounding for her, now trying to stifle the knowledge that she would
look upon this secret search with the most violent disapproval.

So he took Sep off to the stable-yard to hunt for a second spade, a
piece of rope, and for an old lantern which Rees knew to be lying
about there. They found it, rubbed it up, and put a piece of candle in
it. Unfortunately, one of the glass sides was broken, but they thought
that this would not matter.

At tea, Rees was preternaturally gay, Sep unusually silent. Soon
afterwards, on pretence of going to Mrs. Kemp’s, they left the
drawing-room; and taking with them the spade, the rope, and the
lantern, slipped through a little door in the wall at the bottom of
the garden, and made for the ruins.

It was unusually dark, for the grey clouds were thick in the sky and
the rain was still falling. Outside the castle walls, under the trees
on the west side, Amos Goodhare, a gaunt figure shivering in the damp,
was waiting. Very few words were exchanged between them, for their
plan of action was already settled. Then Rees left the other two, and
going round to the castle gates, pulled the bell which summoned the
custodian.

Mrs. Crow was rather cross, not having expected to be disturbed so
late.

“Really, Master Rees,” she said, using, as most people did, his boyish
name, “I can’t think what you’re up to, a-wandering about them ruins
at all hours of the day and night. And if it’s to meet Lady Marion,
who came in here after you last night, I can tell you I’ll not be a
party to it, that I won’t.”

“My dear old soul,” said Rees, throwing his arm round her in his
fascinatingly affectionate way, “there’s nothing I want less than to
have Lady Marion always at my heels. So, if she turns up while I’m
inside, you just tell her I’m not there. Why, I come here so that I
may study in peace away from the girls, they pester one so.”

And, with a light air of all-conqueror, he tossed up into the air a
book which he had taken care to bring as evidence of his veracity.

Mrs. Crow shook her head and began to chuckle indulgently.

“Oh, what a lad you are, with your carneying ways. I suppose it’s poor
Miss Deborah you mean, since everybody knows she’s dying for ye. Well,
well, some hearts are made to be broken, and others made to break
them, I suppose. But it’s a pity, for sure, that you don’t make it up
together, for you’d make a handsome couple!”

Rees laughed, and passed in not ill-pleased. His was not a nature with
any great depth of passion to bestow on any woman. But he knew that
Deborah was the handsomest and altogether the nicest girl in the
neighborhood. So it pleased him to hear that she was in love with him.
In his way, too, he loved her, and would most probably have proposed
to her on his father’s death but for the influences which had lately
been brought to bear upon him. At present, however, no woman held any
but the most insignificant place in his heart or mind, and as he
hurried to the vaulted chamber all thought of Deborah went out of his
head.

Everything was secure. After one glance in the dusk, he returned to
the inner court, and climbing to the outer western wall of the castle
by the help of a broken turret staircase and the branches of one of
the trees which had sprung up in what once were rooms, he leaned over
the broken battlements and whistled softly. The trees grew tall and
thick outside the walls on this side, and the ivy clung to the ruins
with the strong clasp of a couple of centuries. Amid the mass of
foliage Rees could not for several minutes distinguish the two men’s
figures in the obscurity far below him, though he could hear their
voices softly answering him.

Assured that all was safe, and that they were ready, he made one end
of the rope he carried fast to one of the iron bars used in the
building of the castle, which time and weather had laid bare, and
threw the other end over the wall.

“All right!” said Sep’s voice in a husky whisper.

The strong, gnarled branches of the ivy afforded such a firm support
to the feet that Sep, who, like most ne’er-do-weels, had had a short
spell of the sea, found no difficulty in climbing up, by the aid of
the rope, very quickly.

Then they hissed out “All right!” to Amos, watching below, and taking
the rope with them descended to the scene of their search.

“Why doesn’t Goodhare come too?” asked Rees, in a low voice. “He could
get up quite as well as you, and we shall want all the help we can.”

Sep uttered his mincing little laugh.

“Because our friend prefers leaving the risk to us, and doesn’t
consider that sharing terms need begin until the profits roll in,”
said he.

Sep had the blessing of shrewdness and the curse of never being able
to profit by it.

“What risk?”

“The risk of being found out, and the risk of losing our limbs or our
lives. If Lord Hugh really did lose his life down there, you know, why
shouldn’t we?”

“And supposing you and I choose to say--‘No risk, no profit’?”

“Then he would choose to tell the earl all about it, and you and I
would look very small.”

Rees walked on in silence. He was beginning to see some of the
disadvantages of having a rogue for a partner. At sight of the
grating, however, when they had removed the covering, everything but
the excitement of the search went out of his head. Not heeding Sep’s
admonitions to be careful, he lighted the lantern, and went down the
steps with so much haste that at the bottom he slipped, and found
himself sitting in the mud on the floor of the little chamber, close
to the mouth of the drain-pipe.

Luckily, all the water had by this time drained off down the pipe, and
he was able to make a thorough examination of the walls and floor. The
little chamber was about six feet square, rough-hewn in the rock. The
walls were wet and slimy, and the floor was deep in malodorous mud. As
he slipped into the slush, his heels fell with a dull thud on
something which was not rock. Not heeding the mud, nor the whispered
cries of his friend above, who was afraid he had hurt himself, Rees
groped about with his hands in the slime which covered the floor.

Suddenly Sep was startled by a wild cry. Half beside himself with fear
for his companion, he began to descend the steps himself. He saw the
light of the lantern moving about below him; the worst had not
happened therefore: Rees was alive. As he put his foot on the bottom
step, Sep found himself suddenly seized by a strange figure with wild
eyes and face bespattered with mud, coated from head to foot with
slime. Being a particularly neat and dapper little man in his
appearance, Sep rather resented this embrace.

“I’ve found something!” stammered Rees hoarsely.

“Yes, I see you have; and you may keep it, and welcome,” answered Sep,
trying ruefully to brush the mud off his own coat-sleeves.

“But listen, Sep, listen, you don’t understand,” went on Rees, at a
white heat of excitement. “I’ve found a trap-door in the floor. What
do you think of that?”

“Perhaps it’s another drain,” suggested Sep, who was inclined to be
sceptical about the whole business, knowing by experience that
fortunes are more easily lost than found.

“Nonsense! We’ve got to open it. Hold the lantern and give me the
spade.”

Sep obeyed, and stood on the bottom step, a pitiful figure, holding
the lantern aloft while he shivered with the damp, grew sick with the
smells, and gazed at his coat-sleeves with ever-increasing annoyance
to think that he had let himself be drawn into such a crack-brained
enterprise.

Meanwhile, Rees, with feverish energy, was cleaning the mud in
spadefuls from a space on the floor about two feet square. When this
was done, down he went on his knees again, and after several futile
efforts, lifted, not a trap-door, but a heavy square piece of wood,
like a box lid, which had evidently been sawn out of the trunk of a
tree in the roughest manner, and chopped into an uneven square. This
was about five inches thick. When it was dragged away, the light of
the lantern showed an abyss of blackness underneath, at which both men
instinctively drew back a little. After a few seconds, Rees knelt down
again beside the hole and peered into it with keen eyes.

“There are steps down cut into the rock, Sep,” he whispered at last
hoarsely. “Quite straight down they are, only just notches for the
feet,” he went on. “And there’s an iron rail fixed close to the wall
at the side of them, like those in locks on a river.”

Sep stooped gingerly, and looked down too.

“Stand back,” said Rees impatiently, “I’m going down.”

But Sep, one of whose qualities was an absolutely unselfish power of
self-sacrifice, prevented him.

“Don’t be absurd, Rees,” he said quietly. “I can climb better than
you, and it may come to be a climbing matter. Give me the lantern.”

He took it from his companion’s unwilling hand, and began the descent.
But when he had gone ten or twelve steps it seemed to Rees that the
lantern swung from side to side, and that Sep was going down very
slowly.

“Are you all right, old man?” he asked anxiously.

No answer. At that moment the light in the lantern went suddenly out,
and there came up to his ears a dull sound like the fall of some heavy
body.

“Sep, Sep, are you all right?” again he shouted, in a voice that rang
in the hollow space.

Again no answer. The truth flashed upon him. The cavernous abyss below
him was full of foul poisonous gases, such as he had often heard of at
the bottom of old wells. There was not a moment to lose. Already poor
Sep, stupefied by the noxious vapors, might be beyond the reach of
help. Fastening the rope they had brought with them to the top of the
perpendicular iron railing in such a manner that the knots, wedged in
on the top step, kept it firm, he fastened the other end round his
waist, and half-climbed, half-slid down into the blackness below.

He had not gone down far, however, before he began to feel the
influence of the vapors which had overcome his friend. He found
himself growing giddy, and then for a moment, which seemed to him an
hour, he partly lost consciousness of what he was doing. But he
struggled with this creeping paralysis, and by a strong effort of will
recovered command of himself and remembered his errand. The length of
the rope just enabled him to get to the bottom of the steps. The
darkness was absolute. He held his breath to avoid inhaling any more
of the foul, heavy air than he could help, and, stooping down with
outstretched hands, touched the insensible body of his friend. He
gathered him up with the support of the rope, and being lucky enough
to find the iron handrail at once, he dragged himself and Sep up the
rugged steps as quickly as the heavy burden would permit.

Rees’s movements had been so rapid that the whole proceeding of
descent and ascent had not occupied more than a minute. Short as the
time was, however, it had been long enough for the poisonous gas to
take effect. By the time they got to the little chamber which
contained the opening of the drain, Rees felt that he was succumbing
to its influence, and that the only chance, not only for Sep, but for
himself, lay in reaching the purer air above. He staggered across the
muddy floor, and with efforts which grew every moment more frantic as
again he felt a dizziness like approaching death come over him, he
dragged his companion, whether dead or alive he did not know, up--up
to the floor of the vaulted room.

“Thank God! thank God!” he cried deliriously; and then he turned,
thinking the voice was that of some one else.

Then again for an instant he remembered where he was, and staggering
about on the rocky floor, called, “Where are you, Sep?” in a husky,
weak whisper. He felt his limbs give way under him, and, sinking on
the floor, he had just strength left to reach his friend’s motionless
body, when his senses left him.




 CHAPTER X.

Sep was the first to recover consciousness. Little by little,
beginning by half-opening his eyes in the darkness only to shut them
again, without thought, without memory, he at last woke with a start
to the knowledge that he was lying on something very hard, in a cold,
dark place, that his teeth were chattering, and that he was very badly
bruised on his right arm and side. Then, turning, he saw the pale
remains of the daylight, or the pale beginnings of the moonlight,
coming through the deep embrasure of the window. Following the line of
faint light with eyes in which the intelligence was scarcely yet
awake, he saw on the floor, almost close to him, what looked like a
tumbled heap of dark clothes.

Then he remembered. Shaking off the stupor, which again seemed to be
overpowering him, Sep turned his friend’s body so that he could dimly
see the face. At first he thought he was dead, and with a shriek of
horror Sep started to his feet. But Rees stirred at the sound, and in
a moment his friend was again beside him, loosening his clothes,
watching eagerly the first faint signs of returning life, and
muttering curses on his own weakness in having helped him in this
dangerous, mad enterprise. At last Rees, after uttering a few faint
sighs, rolled over on his left side, and again his companion thought
he was dying, if not dead.

Springing up again with a despairing exclamation, Sep was on the point
of risking discovery by rushing to the lodge to summon help, when
Rees, as if instinctively knowing that his project was in danger,
recovered himself quite suddenly, like a child waking out of sleep,
and stopped him with a hoarse cry.

“Where is it? What have you done with it, Sep?” he asked wildly, but
in a weak voice.

“Done with what?” asked Sep, startled by his friend’s tone, and
fancying at first that the incidents of the night, whatever they might
have been, had turned his brain.

“The gold! You know,” said Rees mysteriously.

Sep sat down beside him, much excited.

“Gold. Did you really find any, Rees? Tell me just what happened. I
only remember feeling giddy and then drowsy, and then the light went
out.”

“You fell down, and I went to bring you up. You were right deep down
there, on the ground, insensible. I couldn’t see you, but I felt you,
and I dragged you up. And then I saw gold, gold, shining all round us
on the walls in the darkness; but when I touched it I found it all
like dry powder. I suppose I was dreaming, Sep,” he added slowly.

“Of course you were. And you went down to pull me up?” Sep went on
wonderingly. “It was very silly; you might have been overcome just as
I was, and then we should have lain dead together.”

“Well, that would be much better than for people to say Rees Pennant
left his friend to die alone.”

This sort of romantic outburst became Rees, because a little Welsh
rhodomontade was natural to him; and, indeed, he was physically brave
enough. Sep took his hand affectionately.

“Now, Rees,” said he, “we must get away, and never come near this
villainous pest-hole again.”

Rees pushed his friend’s hand away like an impatient boy.

“You need not come again,” he said. “But I shall come here again and
again, and go down that hole again and again, until I find what it
leads to, and whether there is anything in it worth finding.”

He spoke with dogged obstinacy, but indeed after the evening’s
adventures, and the cold awakening from that dream of gold which
turned at the touch, there only remained to him the embers of hope and
sullen persistency in carrying this project through to the end.

“Oh, well, then, of course if you come, I shall,” said Sep, in his
little chirpy voice. “We’ll come, and come as long as you like, till
we both find a fool’s grave down there.”

Rees did not answer. He was busy replacing the grating over the hole,
and covering it up as before. Then they walked in silence, still
suffering from a sort of lightness in the head, out into the open air,
and climbed up to the spot on the wall where Sep had been drawn up. By
the same means he was now let down again very silently, by the watery
light of a moon that was battling not very successfully with the
clouds. Then Rees walked out by the gate, as he could do without
summoning Mrs. Crow, and rejoined the other two men under the castle
wall.

Amos Goodhare was in a state of much excitement, and professed great
enthusiasm over the devotion which each of the young men had displayed
towards the other.

“It is such hazardous enterprises as these,” he said warmly, “which
bring out in their brightest colors the qualities of young men.”

“Yes, and of older ones too,” assented Sep, in his best fool’s manner,
which the librarian did not yet understand.

Goodhare heartily applauded Rees’s determination to go through with
the adventure, but declined the offer that he should share the dangers
of the next descent with a good-humored laugh.

“I am too old,” he said. “My limbs are too stiff for such doings. What
would have become of me if I had been in the place of either of you?
If in Sep Jocelyn’s, I should have been too heavy for you to lift; if
in yours, I should not have been active enough to get him out in time.
No, I must take the humbler part of watcher, and be content therefore
with such share of the spoils--if there are to be any spoils--as you
think due to my initiative.”

The younger men could not but agree with the justice of this
reasoning, in whatever light they might consider these last words.
They parted for the night very soon, Rees declaring that he had a
plan, and that if Sep would be at the same place under the walls on
the next evening but one, he would by that time, he thought, be in a
position to perform the perilous adventure in safety.

On the evening appointed, therefore, Rees, without increasing the risk
of exciting suspicion by meeting the other two men first, passed as
usual through the castle gates and mounted to his place on the west
wall. The weather was fine and mild, so that they had to wait their
opportunity of escaping the eyes of such of the townsfolk as had
strolled this way for a summer evening’s ramble. Sep’s seafaring
experiences now stood him in good stead. As soon as Amos, on the watch
a few yards below in the cricket meadow, gave the signal that no one
was near, Sep seized the rope, which was almost hidden by the thick
ivy, and was safe on the top of the wall in a few seconds.

Then came a more severe trial for their patience. Rees and his
companion had scarcely got down to the inner court of the castle when
they saw in the distance a small party of young tradesmen of the town
and their lasses, who were being escorted over the ruins by one of
Mrs. Crow’s sons. The two young men, knowing every corner of the old
building, easily found a hiding-place for Sep and for a mysterious
parcel which Rees had brought, hidden under his rug. This rug he now
quickly spread on the remains of one of the wide inner walls, and
throwing himself upon it, he lit a cigarette and opened before him a
book, on which he appeared to be intent as the excursion party came
up. He had to look up then, however, for he and his family were so
popular that more than one of the intruders stopped to make kind and
respectful inquiries after his mother, which Rees, though boiling with
impatience to get rid of them, was obliged to answer civilly. This
incident caused a delay of nearly an hour before the two young men
could begin their work.

At last, however, the wicket-gate swung to behind the party. Sep
instantly, on a whistle from Rees, came out of his hiding-place, and
they descended together to the vaulted room. Here Rees, going down on
his knees on the floor, opened his mysterious parcel and spread out
before Sep’s inquiring eyes a great coil of old garden hose, neatly
repaired in various places, and furnished at one end with a sort of
macintosh bag.

“What’s that for?” asked Sep.

“To breathe through,” answered Rees in a tone of triumph. “It was the
foul air that put out the light and overcame you and me. To go down
there safely one must have air from above, like a diver. I’ve stopped
up all the holes in the tubing myself, and I’ve joined our own garden
hose with Mr. Long’s, which I borrowed out of his tool-shed without
troubling him for permission; and I’ve contrived, as you see, a sort
of loose air-tight mask at one end to cover the nostrils as well as
the mouth. Provided with this, I believe I can breathe down there as
freely as up here. Anyhow, I mean to try.”

Sep, though not inclined to put much faith in this ingenious
arrangement, and, in fact, most dismally minded concerning their
chances of escaping with their lives out of the adventure, listened
submissively to all his friend’s instructions, and agreed at last,
with much reluctance, to be the one left at the top, while Rees was to
test his own apparatus.

Rees then showed his friend an old miner’s lantern which he had bought
secondhand in Cardiff years ago when he was a boy. A very long rope
completed his equipment. One end of this rope he tied round his waist,
fastening the other securely to the bars of the iron grating; then
attaching the air-tight mask over his face, with the tube depending
from it, he took the lantern in his hand and began the descent.

Sep’s office was to keep the tubing straight, that the supply of air
might be unimpeded; also to watch the rope, and, when he saw it jerked
three times, to help his friend’s return to the upper air by hauling
it up with all his might.

Although he had made light of the risks he was about to run in order
to encourage his friend, Rees was really quite as fully aware of the
desperate nature of his enterprise as Sep was. All definite hopes
about the supposed treasure had, indeed, given place in his mind to
the mere desire to carry on to the end an exciting adventure; for
Rees, though deficient in moral strength, had just the needful dash
and daring for a dangerous feat of this kind. He thought he saw in the
discovery of these underground steps, not the confirmation of
Goodhare’s ambitious hopes, but the foundation for them. It was,
therefore, as an explorer rather than as a robber that he made this
third descent.

The first flight of steps was quickly passed. The next stage was the
flight of rugged, perpendicular notches with the handrail at the side.
To his great joy, the tubing answered admirably. He got to the bottom
of this flight of steps, and landed on the spot where he had picked up
Sep’s insensible body, without having suffered the slightest
inconvenience. Neither did his light go out, although he fancied that
it began to burn rather dimly. Down there, in the depths of the earth
though, surely his imagination was beginning to play some odd tricks
with him. The ground, which was still hard and rocky, sloped down from
the bottom of the steps towards what looked like the black round mouth
of a cavern. It seemed to Rees that a thin mist, rising like curls of
filmy smoke, came out of the blackness of this opening continually,
and mounting slowly to just above his head, obscured his view of the
walls. Was there some intoxicating property in this vapor, that, in
spite of his precautions, perhaps began to cloud his brain? For, as he
looked at the walls, he saw again the effect which had dazzled him
before; on every side the rock shone like gold in the light of the
lantern. He hastened to examine the walls, and found that this
singular effect was merely produced by a sort of glaze which, as he
could not doubt, the gases generated at this cavernous depth below the
earth’s surface had, in the course of ages, deposited there. This, he
thought, as, much excited by the strange sight, his eyes ran round the
steep, glistening walls, might be another and very reasonable origin
of the hidden gold story. Indeed, on this point he was now satisfied,
and for a moment he hesitated whether, as he began to find it much
more of an effort to draw breath, he should not make his way back to
the upper air, and, if not relinquish further search, at least put it
off for the present. One look into that cavern a few yards off,
though, he must cast.

His lantern, meanwhile, was certainly growing very dim. He had done
everything so rapidly that only a few seconds had elapsed since he had
began the descent. He now ran down the slope, but stopped short just
in time, with a guttural ejaculation of horror.

For the rock ended abruptly in a perpendicular cliff.

Rees, shaking and shivering with an odd feeling of having been very
near the Great End, peered down. He could see nothing. There was a
cavernous depth of blackness below, but he could tell neither its
width nor its height, for his light was waning rapidly. Suddenly he
caught sight of something which roused him again to a frantic pitch of
do-all, dare-all curiosity. It was a rope attached to an iron staple
at his feet, and hanging down. The temptation to go further was now
irresistible. Throwing himself first into a sitting position, with his
legs hanging over the rock, he tried the rope, giving it a tug with
his disengaged hand. It seemed firm. That decided him. He fastened his
lantern to the rope which was tied round his waist, and seizing the
other, swung himself over and began descending, hand under hand. He
had not gone down more than a couple of yards, however, when the rope,
which was old and rotten, gave way, and he was thrown to the ground.
Luckily, this was only a couple of feet or so below him, and he picked
himself up at once, unhurt, with his lantern unextinguished.

As he did so, he noticed a strange sound like heavy hailstones
falling. Beginning as he touched the ground, it continued for a few
moments after, growing gradually fainter. This, he found, proceeded
from the walls, which were here only just far enough apart to allow
him to pass without touching them. The disturbance he made in the
still air had caused hundreds of little flat flakes of stone to
crumble off the rocky sides and to fall to the ground.

He was now, he felt sure, going under the river; for the passage went
straight forward without slope or curve. He was conscious, as he
hurried on, of a strange acrid smell, quite unlike the damp heavy
fumes which, in spite of his precautions, had faintly reached his
nostrils in the stage above. Here it was dry--strangely dry--with an
atmosphere which, although not hot, seemed to parch the flesh as he
passed.

But, in the meantime, breathing through the tube was becoming
difficult, and a mad impatience seized him when he found that there
was a sudden turn in the passage just in front of him, while he had
come so close to the end of the tubing that the length left would not
allow him to pass the corner. If he went carefully, however, he
thought he could, by the last rays of his dying candle, manage to look
round.

Very cautiously he now moved; two steps more; yes, he could just do
it. The tube was stretched to its utmost length; already he felt
himself half suffocated, as if it had caught on something. But as he
reached the corner, and held the little flickering light up to see
what it led to, his eyes fell on a sight which would have stopped his
breath with horror even if he had been breathing free air.

Seated on a chest against the wall, leaning his head back, and meeting
Rees Pennant’s stare of dismay with eyes wide open and horror-struck
as his own, was a lean and shrivelled man.




 CHAPTER XI.

Rees Pennant was physically brave, but the sight of those staring
eyes meeting his in the bowels of the earth gave him a shock which, in
the state of excitement into which his recent adventures had thrown
him, for the moment caused his mind to lose its balance. He thought
the man was alive, and, reeling, began to murmur some hoarse words of
explanation of his own intrusion; but they came forth in indistinct,
guttural sounds through the tube which covered his mouth. His hand
shook so much that the dying light in his lantern went suddenly out,
leaving him in utter darkness. Losing his head altogether, he uttered
a wild cry, and would have burst himself loose both from tube and rope
if a strong pull at the latter had not suddenly called him to
remembrance of Sep faithfully waiting for him in the vaulted chamber
above.

The fact was that Rees, in his efforts to get as far as the length of
the tube would allow, had given the three pulls which he had arranged
between them as the signal for Sep to help him to return. In spite of
himself, therefore, he felt that he was drawn backwards. He had been
pulled two or three steps when he heard the clink of his nailed boots
against something on the floor, which, by the sound, he thought must
be metal. Stopping, he groped on the ground, and had just time to pick
up something small and round, which he fancied might be a coin, when a
stronger pull then before at the rope round his waist dragged him
away, and told him that Sep believed him to be in some dire emergency.

More and more rapidly he felt himself pulled along, until it was as
much as he could do to save himself, in the darkness, from injury
against the rough walls. When he reached the cliff, he was indeed
thankful for the help the rope afforded him; for it rose almost sheer
from the ground, with but few notches down the side on which the feet
could rest. After that, however, the rest was comparatively easy.
Impelled to increased speed by the fact that he was now nigh to
suffocation, as poor Sep could not draw the rope and keep the tube
straight at the same time, he reached the bottom of the upper
staircase in very few moments, and tearing off the macintosh mask,
drank in the air in great draughts.

“Are you all right, Rees? Are you all right?” asked Sep, in tones of
deep anxiety.

“All right?” sang out the young fellow, in a voice which thrilled with
triumph. “Yes, righter than I ever was in my life, for I’ve found Lord
Hugh!”

Scrambling up the remaining steps, he flung himself down, panting, by
the side of Sep, who threw his arms round him with genuine delight,
which, to do him justice, was caused more by the sight of his
companion safe and well than by the news he brought.

When Rees, now again feverish with excitement, told him his adventures
in thrilling whispers, Sep was carried away with astonishment and
delight, which reached their climax on the production of the piece of
metal which Rees had picked up in the darkness. For this proved to be,
as the latter had supposed, a coin, heavy, clumsy, of a fashion they
had never seen; but it was gold, genuine gold. The young men looked at
it, rubbed it, turned it over reverently in their hands. There was a
romance about this gold, the property of a king long since passed out
of reach of the need of it, and guarded for more than two centuries by
a dead man, which appealed to the imagination.

“You think it was Lord Hugh of Thirsk I saw down there, don’t you?”
asked Rees in a low voice.

“Who else should it be? Did you notice his dress?”

“No, nothing but his eyes, staring straight at me, I tell you, like
those of a living man. I thought he was alive. If he had been dead two
hundred and forty years, he would be crumbled to dust, wouldn’t he?”

“I don’t know. Shall you go down there again?”

“No,” answered Rees, with a shiver. “I don’t think so. I--I suppose
it’s sentimentality, but even if he has down there with him the
thousands that old beggar expects, I don’t like the idea of robbing a
dead man of what he’s watched over for more than two hundred years.”

“Well,” said Sep, who, as usual, was ready to chime in with the views
of his companion, “you mustn’t let him know what you’ve found then;
for he’s a greedy old hunks, and as cynical as they make ’em. Let’s
keep him out of it altogether if we can.”

The words were hardly out of his mouth when both were startled by
Goodhare’s voice. This gentleman, who was not likely to lose anything
for want of a little watchfulness, had conceived the idea that
something was likely to turn up this evening, and had managed, in his
praiseworthy intention of looking after his own interests, to scale
the outer wall of the castle with the help of the ivy. He heard Sep’s
words, but affected not to have done so, since any little resentment
he might feel would “keep,” and to show it now would be inconvenient
and even dangerous.

“Are you there, boys?” he asked therefore in a low voice, speaking in
a mild and patriarchal tone.

“Yes,” answered Rees, with ill-humor which he did not hide.

He had slipped the old coin into his pocket at the first sound of the
librarian’s voice; but the action did not escape Goodhare’s keen eyes.
As the latter advanced and took his place slowly on the ground by the
younger men, it was evident to him that something of great interest
had occurred. The disordered and dirty state of Rees’s clothes, the
frayed rope, the excitement under which both young men were laboring,
all spoke eloquently of some discovery.

“So you’ve been down, I see, and I see also that you’ve found
something. Come, lad, out with it; I’m sure by your face that I did
not set you to work in vain.”

Rees moved uneasily.

“You seem to know more about it than I do myself,” he said, rather
sulkily. “I’ve risked my life over this business, and I’ve found a
stopped-up passage certainly, but nothing of these thousands you
talked about.”

He could not, however, meet the eyes which were fixed steadily upon
him.

“If you don’t choose to tell me your adventures, Rees, at least you
can trust me,” the old man said at last with affecting simplicity. “So
you won’t be alarmed if I withdraw from a conference where I see I’m
not wanted.”

He was in the act of rising with much dignity when Rees drew him
pettishly down again.

“Sit down; it’s all right,” said he. “Only you needn’t bring more risk
upon us by coming in to play the spy.”

“Indeed, I think you might know me better than to suppose that was my
intention. I----”

“All right,” said Rees, cutting him short. “There, that’s all I’ve
found and the body of a dead man.”

“A dead man!” cried Amos, who had clutched the old coin which Rees
threw to him with greedy eagerness. “A dead man! Why, that must be
Lord Hugh, and it’s all true! This,” he went on, turning over the gold
piece in his lean fingers, “is a louis d’or. And there must be
more--more!”

“That’s all I found, at any rate,” said Rees shortly.

“And you were content to come away with that, without hunting,
searching, finding the great treasure which we may now be sure he had
on him!” hissed out Goodhare, his mildness giving place to such
burning fierceness of look and manner that it crossed the minds of
both young men that he looked like a savage animal ready to spring
upon Rees and tear his heart out.

“I was content to come away before I was suffocated, certainly,” said
Rees very quietly. “I would sooner die a few years later a beggar on
the top of the earth than die now in the bowels of it with my hands
full of gold. Besides, I didn’t find any gold, except just that one
piece. Probably they had drafts on bankers in those days just as they
have now, and the fortune may turn out to be just a bit of faded and
worthless paper.”

This suggestion startled them all for a moment. Then, however,
Goodhare shook his head.

“It is not probable,” he said. “The money was brought from the one
country to the other, and I should doubt whether the credit of the
King of France was good enough in England for his draft for a large
sum to be honored by any banker, even if the times had been more
settled. No, depend upon it, if there was treasure sent it was in
specie.”

“Perhaps the chest he was sitting on--” began Rees.

“Chest!” echoed Goodhare impetuously; “there was a chest, you say!
Surely you don’t mean to let the night pass without ascertaining what
is in it?”

“I do, though,” said Rees frankly. “The journey down there and back,
with the dangers of poisonous air on the one hand, and no air at all
on the other, bruising one’s limbs, and tearing one’s flesh, is not to
be undertaken every half hour.”

Goodhare was white and very quiet, but they could see fiery anger and
impatience in his eyes.

“Those who cannot face danger are not worthy of a great reward,” he
said sententiously.

“Face it yourself, then,” answered young Pennant, and he brought the
tube and the rope over to Goodhare. “We’ll arrange all this for you,
and as there are two of us, we shall be able to help you better than
Sep could me.”

Amos saw that the young man, fresh from his triumphant adventure, must
be humored.

“Well, lads, you must forgive the impatience of an old man who has
only a few years left in which to enjoy life,” he said benignantly.
“And now I think you both deserve a little merry-making for your
pluck, so you must come home with me and share my humble supper.”

He helped them actively in coiling up both rope and tube. The lantern
Rees took home for examination, as the light it had given was by no
means satisfactory. Then, for fear of possible watchers at the lodge,
Goodhare and Sep were let down in the usual manner, while Rees walked
out by the wicket-gate. Ten minutes later they were all at the
librarian’s lodging.

The younger men had expected nothing but the most frugal fare, and
they were too much excited to have cared what was put before them. To
their surprise, however, Goodhare had provided a game-pie, and on
turning the key of a small corner cupboard which one would have
supposed devoted to books, he revealed a small cellar of different
wines of the choicest brands.

“Now, boys,” said Goodhare in his most benevolent tones, “I shall not
complain if you leave my cellar empty. For we shall soon be able to
fill it again in London--glorious London. I had a presentiment that we
should have something to celebrate to-night.”

While he left the room for a corkscrew, Sep, to whom wine was an
irresistible temptation, made a brief but close inspection of the
bottles, at the end of which he turned to his friend with a dry laugh.

“The old fox made good use of his time up at the castle,” he said.

Before the less suspicious Rees could make any inquiry, Amos had
re-entered the room.

It was not difficult, in the state of high excitement into which his
adventures had thrown him, to make Rees drink a great deal more wine
than he had ever done in his life before, nor by artful suggestions,
to tickle his imagination into the belief that a princely fortune lay
at his feet ready to be enjoyed. At the same time, by rousing in Sep
memories of his past dissipations, Amos managed to make him feel
discontented with his present quiet life, and eager to indulge again
in the old excesses. Thus the librarian secured a half unwilling ally
in the corruption of Rees Pennant, who, from listening with disgust to
their remarks on women, passed to laughter, and finally to a boastful
share in the conversation. As for Lord St. Austell, when reference was
made to him, Rees had no words strong enough to express his contempt
and abhorrence for the man whose vices he had, a moment before, seemed
anxious to emulate.

By midnight it was evident that, unless they wished to court a
death-blow to all their plans by some indiscreet revelation on the
part of Rees, his potations must cease. So Goodhare and Sep, better
seasoned than he, escorted him home, and returned to continue their
revels without him.

In this quiet country town, burglaries were so little feared that in
many houses the front-door could be opened from the outside and was
yet left unlocked at night. Rees, therefore, was able to let himself
in without rousing the household. But when, as steadily as he could,
he had stumbled upstairs and reached the landing, he met Deborah, in
her dressing-gown, and with her hair arranged for the night in a long
plait down her back.

“Oh, Rees, where have you been? I have been so frightened about you,”
she said in an anxious whisper.

For answer he flung his arm round her and gave her a kiss.

“Well, as long as you didn’t tell, I’ll forgive your fright, Deb,
because it makes your eyes look so large and pretty,” answered Rees,
who had sense enough left to speak in a whisper.

The girl raised her little brass lamp and looked at him with a puzzled
expression. There was a freedom in his manner, a boldness in his kiss,
and something in his tone which made her blush crimson, and feel
afraid of him. Having no idea of any of the causes of his excitement,
she asked:

“Won’t you come and say good-night to mamma? She’s gone to bed, but
she’s been so anxious about you, for you never said you were going
out.”

Rees remained for a moment without answering. The mention of his
mother brought a momentary feeling of shame to him. But then the evil
effects of his recent experience again made themselves felt, poisoning
Deborah’s beauty to him. He pulled the girl down beside him on to the
box-ottoman which stood in the corridor, and said vehemently:

“No, no; stay here and talk to me. Tell me it’s true you love me, as
they say you do.”

Deborah, now beginning to suspect something, disengaged herself with
the air of a Juno.

“I love you so much,” she said with simple dignity, “that it gives me
great pain to see you disgrace yourself. Go to your room now, as
quickly and as quietly as you can.”

Rees, overwhelmed with shame, and feeling for a moment as if the wind
of an angel’s wing had wafted away the mists of evil which had for
months been creeping ever more closely round him, crept away, without
so much as daring again to meet her eyes, to his own room.




 CHAPTER XII.

Next morning Rees rose with a violent headache and a feeling that
the whole world was out of joint. He was ashamed to meet Deborah,
ashamed to meet his mother, and not in the mood to bear with Hervey’s
sententiousness. So he had a hurried breakfast alone, in a ground
floor apartment, which was still, in memory of past glories, called
the “housekeeper’s room,” and slipping out by the back garden door to
avoid the rest of the household, he started for a walk by himself,
full of remorse, full of great resolutions, and a determination that
never again--no, never, for the sake of gold or for any other cause,
would he consort with the satyr-like librarian, who seemed able, by a
look, a word, to throw a taint upon all things fair and good.

Rees crossed the bridge, and sauntered along the banks of the river,
instinctively choosing the direction which brought him face to face
with the grey-walled ruins which had lately been the centre of all his
dreams. At the first sight of the castle, in the hot morning sun, he
felt that he hated it, connected as it was with all the disturbing
forces which had been agitating his formerly happy life. But as he
walked he began to feel that, whichever way he wished to look, those
broken towers, those huge piles of rough stone, were the one point in
the landscape to which his eyes must turn. They fascinated him: he
watched the new and fantastic shapes which the jagged walls formed
from every fresh bend in the river’s banks with a sense that they now
formed part of his life, and if that crumbling ruin were to disappear
from the face of the earth the world would be empty for him.

He began to live over again, in spite of himself, the adventure of the
night before; the descent of the two flights of steps, the cliff, the
groping along the passage, the glassy stare of the dead man’s eyes.
Then suddenly he was struck with the idea that down under the ground,
perhaps at that very moment underneath his feet, the dead messenger of
a dead king was still keeping watch and ward over his master’s gold.
Out here in the staring sunshine, with the hot haze dancing over the
narrow river, and the clang of the workmen’s hammers coming to his
ears from the shipbuilders’ yards, all those experiences of the
darkness seemed like a dream to him.

And yet he had seen it all with his own eyes, so he had to assure
himself; and the old louis d’or which he had picked up among the dust
of hundreds of years was still in his pocket. He drew it out and
looked at it, and the coin seemed, by its incontrovertible reality, to
put more practical thoughts into his head. That underground passage
must have an end, an opening; and that opening would probably be on
this side of the river. Slowly, thoughtfully, he retraced his steps,
until he was exactly opposite the perpendicular cliff on which the
castle, its foundations deep in the solid rock, stood.

The ground on which Rees was standing, on the opposite bank, was an
open and very undulating meadow, under the numerous hillocks of which
the imaginative could fancy the graves of the besieging Puritans to
have been made. It was so open, indeed, so fully exposed, not only to
passers by, but to occupants of the cattle lodge and of a couple of
adjacent cottages, that Amos Goodhare, in his exhaustive scourings of
the neighborhood, had never dared to carry on his researches there
except at night.

Now Rees, less cautious, found himself strolling very slowly along
with eyes fixed intently on the thick grass, which, cropped close by
cattle on the higher ground, grew thick and lush at the water’s edge.
At last he sat down immediately opposite the window in the rock which
gave light to the vaulted apartment in which his adventures had begun.
His feet were only just above the sedge, and the grassy ground on
which he was sitting was so soft from the heavy rains that he found a
great slab of earth giving way under his weight, and sliding gently
down with him towards the water. He scrambled up hastily, but in
regaining his feet he caused the displaced earth to come down still
faster, so that he fell down on his hands and knees and cut his left
wrist against a stone. This stone proved to be the upper edge of a
great slab of rock, which the freshly-moved turf had grown over and
hidden. Rees drew a long breath. Was this the other entrance to the
underground passage?

It was impossible to ascertain this now, in broad daylight, exposed to
curious eyes. With a wildly beating heart, every thought but of the
lost treasure again forgotten, Rees walked quickly away in the
direction of the town library. He felt that he was bursting with this
new discovery, that he must confide it to some one. Goodhare received
him, seated in the library, surrounded by a pile of books of
reference, the leaves of which he was busily turning for a pale,
spectacled young man, who was taking notes by his side. Rees watched
the librarian in amazement. It seemed scarcely conceivable that this
grave, reverend-looking man, absorbed in intellectual work, and taking
deep delight in it, could be the same creature whose eyes last night
had shone with evil passions and almost ghoulish greed. In another
moment, however, the spell was broken; Amos looked up, and there
passed over his face the strange change which was like the peeping out
of the spirit of evil through a hermit’s eyes. He finished his work,
however, after only a brief, respectful request to Rees to wait.

As soon as the spectacled young man had left them together, Rees,
boiling with impatience, dashed across the room and communicated his
discovery. Then they formed their plans for prosecuting the search,
but, in their dread of prying eyes, decided to put off the execution
of it until the next moonless night.

During the four following days, in the course of which they thought it
prudent not to revisit the castle, all three of the conspirators lived
in a state of intermittent fever, haunted by fears that some accident
would lay bare to others the secret which the earth had so long
hidden. These fears, however, proved unfounded. On the night when they
all groped their way to the river bank with no other light than a dark
lantern, they found the stone slab and the loosened earth exactly as
Rees had left them.

Then began a task much heavier than they had expected. The stone was
not far above high-water mark, and was situated near a bend in the
river, so that the earth had accumulated upon it, especially at its
base, during the ages which had elapsed since it was last displaced.
The three men dug alternately for more than two hours and a half
before there was any possibility of moving the stone. When they at
last got clear of the surmounting obstructions, however, the task of
raising the stone was comparatively an easy one. For, buried in the
sand beside it, was a rusty iron bar, which they used, as it had
evidently been used before, as a lever. The only thing which caused
them still to doubt whether this was indeed the entrance to the
passage was its extreme nearness to the water. However, all doubts on
this point were soon set at rest; for, on raising the stone, they
found that it covered the entrance to a narrow passage, not high
enough even for a short man to stand upright in, which sloped rapidly
down to the left, then, with a sharp curve, dipped more suddenly still
to the right.

These facts Rees, who, armed with the miner’s lantern, entered first,
ascertained after a very few minutes’ exploration. But at the bend the
air grew so foul and heavy that he retreated, and again had recourse
to his rope and his air tube. Thus equipped, he went on with his
researches, and proceeding cautiously down the second incline, which
was steep and exceedingly rough under the tread, he soon came to a
third abrupt bend, after which the passage, now grown so much steeper
that notches had been cut in the ground to help the passenger, turned
again sharply in the opposite direction. When he had gone a few steps
Rees stepped upon something, the sound of which set his heart beating
violently and caused him to come to a dead stop. The incline was so
abrupt that he had been walking with his head well back, feeling for
each notch with careful feet. Stooping down he now saw that the ground
was strewn with coins, grown dingy in the dust, but the reddish
glitter of which, when he picked some up and rubbed them on his
coat-sleeve, proclaimed them to be gold.

It was true then--the story of the lost treasure was true!

Rees climbed down the remaining steps, the nails in his boots clanking
at almost every tread against more of the scattered coins. At last he
was again on level ground. Stumbling against something, he heard the
surging sound of a sea of gold pieces, and discovered at his feet a
small clumsily fashioned chest, made of wood, covered with leather,
and strengthened by metal bands. The lid was open, and the coins with
which it had been filled were pouring from it. Rees scarcely noticed
it.

For, not a yard from where he stood, was the dead Lord Hugh of Thirsk,
the wide cavalier cloak still hanging in dusty folds from his
fleshless shoulders, the low-crowned hat, with its ragged shred of
feather, still lying at his feet.

Rees shuddered. This man, dying nobly in the execution of his
desperate duty, reproached him--stung him with a half-acknowledged
sense of a great difference. He stole closer, and by the lantern’s
weak light examined the motionless figure. The face was grey and
shrivelled, the dry lips had fallen apart, and the glassy eyes stared
out of cavernous sockets. Yet Rees fancied he saw the remains of a
noble and handsome countenance in the wreck death had made. The hair
fell, dark and lank and powdered with dust, upon the shoulders. The
withered hands still rigidly clasped the thighs, as if their owner had
determined with resolute strength of will to wait for death quietly.
The low seat on which his body rested was formed of two small chests,
of similar shape and size to that one against which Rees had stumbled.

Rough conjectures as to the events which had immediately preceded Lord
Hugh’s death flashed through Rees Pennant’s mind as he made his way
rapidly back to his companions, without disturbing by so much as a
touch the solemn peace of the dead man.

No man, Rees supposed, could have carried more than one of those
chests at a time. Small as they were, not more than twelve inches
high, by ten wide, and eight deep, the weight of each when full of
gold must have been great. Lord Hugh must have brought them down from
the castle one by one when he resolved to try to escape by risking the
unknown dangers of the disused subterranean passage. Rees pictured to
himself that he must then have found his way to the other entrance,
and either finding the stone impossible to raise, or discovering that
he was in the midst of the Puritan camp, he had crept back, perhaps
dashing to the ground in his despair the chest he had brought with
him, and having failed in his enterprise, rather than fall either
within or without the walls into the enemy’s hands, he had sat down
and calmly waited for death in the poisonous air.

This was the last of the romantic side of the adventure which Rees was
allowed to see. With his return to Goodhare and Sep came the greedy,
the base, the commonplace. When the opening of the entrance for some
hours had allowed fresh air to mingle with the poisonous gases in the
passage, which Rees’s intrusion had moreover helped to disperse, in
the cold grey light of the early morning Goodhare himself ventured to
go down, followed by Sep, and, pushing aside the body with avaricious,
ruthless hands, began to drag up one of the chests with long, lean,
clutching fingers. Lord Hugh’s dead body fell to the ground with very
little noise, his long cloak in a moment losing its shroud-like
dignity and splitting into ragged strips. Goodhare did not heed it;
Sep glanced at it with a shudder; only Rees felt still the influence
of the sentiment with which the sight of the poor cavalier had
impressed him. Then back again they all went into the chilly morning
air, carrying one of the chests with them. They worked all through the
hours of early morning, until not a single coin was left in the
cavernous passage of all the treasure which Lord Hugh had guarded so
long. They did not attempt to carry it away then, as the daylight was
growing strong, and at any moment they might be espied by some laborer
on his way to work. Leaving the chests just within the entrance to the
passage, they replaced the stone, and covered that over carefully with
the clods of turf. Then, forced to trust to chance the safety of their
fortune, they parted and returned as quickly as they could to their
homes.

On the following night they removed the whole of the gold to
Goodhare’s lodging, where Amos made a rough calculation that the value
of the gold, though much greater at the time it was first buried than
now, would prove to be about fifteen thousand pounds. Rees made some
faint suggestions about making known the discovery to Lord St.
Austell; but Goodhare, while listening gravely, said it would be
better for them first to take the gold up to London, and have the
value decided by experts. To which Rees with little persuasion, and
Sep without any, agreed.

They had made their plans for going to London, and Rees was, under the
auspices of the two other men, looking forward to this new experience
with vague delight, when Goodhare, who constantly affected to
depreciate Deborah’s charms, found an opportunity of meeting her alone
as she was returning from some trifling errand for Mrs. Pennant.

Deborah had never tried to hide her dislike and fear of the librarian
except by the barest show of civility, and therefore her surprise was
unbounded when she suddenly found that he was making her an offer of
marriage. When, not heeding her prompt refusal, he proceeded to tell
her that he had just had a large sum of money left him, and could make
her rich and independent, she drew herself up with much indignation.

“I don’t think you understand women very well, Mr. Goodhare,” she said
coldly and proudly. “The first step towards marrying a man that I
shall take will be to like him. That step, in your case, I have not
taken.”

Goodhare’s face turned the ugly grey color to which any strong feeling
brought it, and his eyes flashed.

“You are wasting your time waiting for Rees Pennant, Miss Audaer,” he
said, coolly; “he has other aims in view. In fact, perhaps I may say
you have seen the last of him. If he does ever see you again, however,
don’t be surprised if he makes you proposals less honorable than those
you have so very prettily rejected to-day.”

Deborah broke away from him with an exclamation of disgust, and ran
home as fast as she could, humiliated beyond expression by the man’s
offensive words and manner. She could not quite, try as hard as she
might, dismiss some of his words about Rees as idle ones. The young
fellow had gone out very early that morning, and had not yet returned,
although it was past dinner-time. Tea-time passed, and still he did
not come.

Then, overpowered by a dreadful presentiment, Deborah crept upstairs
to the open door of his room, and finding it empty, went in. On the
dressing-table was a note directed hastily in pencil to his mother.
She carried it with a heavy heart to Mrs. Pennant.

It was as follows:--


 “My dearest old mother,

 “I am off; gone, not for long, but still gone. I have got a situation
 in London, and shall send you money every week, and come and see you
 very soon, be sure. I couldn’t bear to say good-bye.--With all love,
 your ever affectionate son,

                                                      “Rees.”


Mrs. Pennant burst into tears.

“My brave, darling boy,” she said, not willing to own she was hurt at
this leave-taking, “he was quite right, as he always is. I could not
have borne his going.”

Deborah did not answer. A great fear blanched her cheeks. Goodhare had
had money left him, and Rees had gone. After the words the librarian
had used, she could not fail to connect the two facts. Was it in
Goodhare’s service that Rees was to be employed?

If so, the one being evil and the other weak, what power could save
the man she loved from ruin?




 CHAPTER XIII.

Fourteen months passed quickly and quietly away in the Pennant
household, during which time the eldest son never once revisited his
old home. At first Rees wrote to his mother regularly once a week.
Very short indeed his notes were, but they were always warmly
affectionate, and they always contained messages for Deborah and a
remittance of thirty shillings or two pounds towards the house-keeping
expenses. Poor Mrs. Pennant, who had been told how difficult to get
situations in London were, was crazily proud of the immediate success
of her favorite son, and only afraid that, in the wish to send her as
much as he could, he was denying himself more than he ought to do.

Before long, however, these dutiful attentions began to fail. The
remittances dropped off first, and the notes contained excuses, to
which his doting mother replied by immediate assurances that she was
in no need of money. This was now true. The energetic Godwin, who was
acquitting himself admirably in his new position, sent home to his
mother more than enough money to keep the little household in comfort.
He also persuaded Hervey to apply for his own old situation in the
Monmouth Bank, with many artful suggestions as to its being only for a
time, and just to show people that a young man of unusual intellect
could make himself a position anywhere. Hervey had swallowed the bait,
got the situation, and, rather to his own disgust, proved a very good
clerk. Once in the bank, therefore, he remained there, as Godwin had
expected. For however high his soul might soar, and however far his
great mind might roam, his great body had a habit of remaining
docilely, in cabbage-like fashion, wherever circumstances placed it.

Both Hervey and Godwin remained as much in love with Deborah as ever,
but she resisted steadily every attempt to break down the brotherly
and sisterly relation between her and them. Godwin, in spite of
discouragement, persisted, every time that he paid his mother a visit,
in renewing his advances. But he did so in such a prosaic,
matter-of-fact manner that Deborah could treat them as a joke.

“Are you still in the same mind, Deb?” he would ask in an off-hand
tone, at the first opportunity when they were left together.

“About what?” she would say, affecting to have forgotten such a
ridiculous trifle as his last proposal.

“About marrying me.”

“Marrying you! Of course. What nonsense!”

“Very well, then, I hope you’ll die an old maid,” he would say
viciously, to close the subject.

And Deborah would only laugh to herself in a contented manner, as if
she felt that in that respect her fate was in her own hands.

As the girl was too handsome not to arouse envy among her own sex, she
was often made to feel uncomfortably conscious that people believed
she was pining for love of a man who did not care for her. Lord St.
Austell, among others, tried to take advantage of this supposition. He
had always been a great admirer of Deborah’s rich and massive beauty,
and as he belonged to that class of men who consider all women, in the
position of dependents, fair game for their attentions, he now lost no
opportunity of trying to ingratiate himself with her.

It was early in October of the year following Rees Pennant’s departure
from his home. Lord St. Austell, who was down for the cub-hunting,
called upon Mrs. Pennant, and used all the genial charm of manner for
which he was well known, in the endeavor to break down an instinctive
shyness which the beautiful Miss Audaer had always left with him. But
Deborah left him a good deal to Mrs. Pennant, who prided herself on
being a brilliant talker and a woman of enduring fascination, and had
had in her time ideas of becoming an Anglicised version of Madame
Récamier. Not to be daunted, the earl called one morning before the
old lady was prepared to receive visitors. She sent Deborah to the
drawing-room with elaborate messages of regret, which Lord St. Austell
quickly cut short.

“Well, Miss Audaer, it really doesn’t matter, I only came to leave
these papers for the old lady, and to ask” (and he dropped his voice
confidentially), “whether you had any news of our old friend, Rees. I
knew,” he went on, “that if anybody had heard from him, it would be
you.”

Deborah blushed and looked very unhappy.

“No,” she said. “For the last six weeks we have heard nothing. He
hardly ever writes to me, only to mamma, and his notes are never very
long. He travels about a great deal, he says, for the firm of lawyers
he is with, and doesn’t have much time for writing.”

“Does he ever write to you, though, except from London?”

“No.”

“Ah! And he is with a firm of lawyers, travels about, and was able
from the first to send home two pounds a week?”

“Oh, he doesn’t now. He hasn’t sent any money for a long time.”

“I wonder what the young beggar’s up to?”

Lord St. Austell was walking up and down the room, and he said this
half to himself. But Deborah, all passionate excitement, sprang up
from her seat and placed herself right in front of him.

“What do you mean, Lord St. Austell?”

“Rees has been telling his mother a parcel of falsehoods, that’s all.
Do you think an idle, self-indulgent young scamp like that would get a
salary large enough for him to spare two pounds a week? Do lawyers
send their clerks scudding about all over the country like bagmen? No,
Miss Audaer, our young friend is amusing himself, and doesn’t want his
mother to come up to interrupt his pleasures.”

“But he has no money!” said Deborah, whose face expressed the strength
of her feelings.

“How do you know? He manages to have the things that money gets, I
happen to know, for not six weeks ago I saw him at Goodwood, perfectly
dressed and perfectly mounted. Now, those are things which people can
only do when they have either money or credit. The little beggar had
the audacity to cut me, not that I bear him any malice for that,” he
added, good humoredly.

Poor Deborah was greatly troubled.

“He is so weak, so dreadfully weak; he must have got into bad hands,”
she said, in a quavering voice. “And yet, what can one do? Mamma will
not go up to see him, because from the tone of his letters she can see
he does not want her to. And she believes, or tries to believe, his
constant promise of coming down to see us.”

“Well, if you wait for that, you will have to wait until the young
scapegrace has got to the end of his tether,” said the earl, with a
short laugh.

“But what am I to do? Mamma will believe nothing; indeed, I could
scarcely wish her to. In the meantime----”

“In the meantime the lad may go one step too far, and the next news
you have of him may be--through the newspapers.”

Deborah drew her breath with a sob. These suggestions were only an
echo to the fears which had lately been haunting her.

“I’ll tell you what you could do,” the earl went on, in a kindly,
sympathetic voice. “You might discover an excuse for wanting to go to
London; I am going up myself in a day or two, and you would be very
welcome to my services as an escort, since I don’t suppose they would
let you travel alone. Then I would help you to find him out, and if
he’s got into some scrape, we’d do our best together to help him out
again.”

“Thank you,” said Deborah, “I’ll think about it.”

The earl was delighted, thinking he had advanced a step. But the girl
had the discretion which natural modesty imparts, and though she did
give his proposition a second thought, it was with a slight alteration
which he had not contemplated. The result of her reflections was that
she put it into Mrs. Pennant’s head that Rees might be ill, and that
the best thing they could do was to go up and see him without too long
a notice of their intention.

The discreet submissiveness towards the members of her family who were
of the superior sex, which had become a habit of her life, made the
old lady at first disinclined to act on Deborah’s suggestion. But, by
working upon her maternal fears, the girl at last induced Mrs. Pennant
to write a note to Rees, at the address in St. Martin’s-lane from
which he always dated his letters, informing him that she was anxious
about his health, and that she would call and see him within a few
hours of the arrival of her note.

The two ladies left Carstow by the 4.12 train one raw October morning,
before it was light. Hervey got up to see them off, but was just too
late; they caught sight of him, panting and blinking on the platform,
in the dull flicker of the gas-lamps, just as their train steamed out
of the station. They had a dreadful, slow, stopping journey, and
reached Paddington at ten minutes past ten, benumbed with cold,
sleepy, and depressed. It was Deborah’s first visit to London, and the
sensations she experienced as they drove in a shaky four-wheeled cab
across the town between Praed street and Trafalgar-square were mingled
bewilderment and disappointment. For a film of brownish fog enveloped
the houses and obscured the sun, gave a wet, greasy look to the
pavements, and to the atmosphere a heaviness which seemed suffocating
to the country girl.

“Oh, mamma, is this really London?” she asked, as, with her teeth
chattering, she looked out of the window when they came to Oxford
Circus.

“Yes, child; of course you know it is. This is where two of the
principal streets cross each other,” answered Mrs. Pennant, rather
pettishly, for she was tired with the early and unaccustomed journey.

“What a pity we have come up on such a bad day! It makes everything
look so black and gloomy.”

“If we had come up any other day it would have been the same. London
is always foggy at this time of year.”

“Always like this?” cried Deborah, in amazement. “Why, how can people
live in it?”

“They not only live in it, they like it.”

“Well, then, now I can understand all one reads about the corrupting
influences of a great city. For if people can grow to like this
atmosphere better than the pure air, it is not astonishing that they
can learn to like evil ways better than good ones.”

Mrs. Pennant did not answer; she was too cross. They drove on in
silence, Deborah filled with ever-increasing amazement and disgust.
When at length the cab drew up at an old-fashioned and dingy house in
St. Martin’s-lane, on the right hand side as you go down towards the
church, she, however, could not suppress a low cry of horror.

“Oh, mamma,” she cried, “surely poor Rees doesn’t live here?”

“Don’t be silly, Deborah, crying out like some gawky country cousin.
Of course, London is not like Carstow.”

They got out, and going up four much-worn stone steps, rang the bell,
and were admitted by an old woman, who said that she didn’t know
whether Mr. Pennant had come home yet, but she would see. She turned
and walked to the end of the hall, which was narrow, dingy, and dark.
Knocking at a door on the right, she opened it without waiting for an
answer and announced:

“Some ladies to see you, sir.”

“Show them in,” said a voice which neither recognised.

Mrs. Pennant and Deborah traversed the passage slowly, both prepared
for some great change in Rees. Therefore, at the first moment of
meeting, they were both inclined to think the alteration in him less
great than it really was. The room was small and very dark, for the
little daylight that filtered through the fog was obscured by the
backs of the neighboring houses. The furniture was of the dingy kind
peculiar to the back rooms of London lodging-houses, and the fire
which burned in the small grate gave forth plenty of smoke, but little
flame and less heat.

On a desk in front of the window were pens, ink, some sheets of blue
foolscap, and a legal looking document, one pen lying as if it had
recently been used. Rees was sitting by the fire, with a newspaper in
his hand. He got up to meet them, but it was with more nervous
excitement than pleasure that he kissed his mother and shook hands
with Deborah. Both saw at once that he was much thinner than he used
to be, and that the old boyish, light-hearted expression had left his
face. But it was not until the flush which had come into his cheeks at
their entrance had died away that they knew what a wreck of the Rees
they had known and loved was before them. His cheeks were sallow and
sunken, his eyes looked larger and blacker than ever, there were new
lines and furrows forming about his mouth and eyes, and, greater
change than all, the look which had been frank had become cynical and
bold. Even these two simple ladies could see that many people--women
especially--would have considered Rees handsomer now than in the old
time, but yet both knew that the alteration in him was for the worse.

Mrs. Pennant affected to think that her son was overworked. Deborah,
who assigned a very different cause to the change in him, wondered
whether the reticent old lady was sincere. Rees explained that he had
lost his situation at the lawyer’s through no fault of his own, and
that he was now keeping himself by law-copying at home. And he glanced
at the desk. Although he hurried this out in a mumbling tone, Mrs.
Pennant made no indiscreet comments, but contented herself with
caressing his curly head and murmuring, “Poor boy, poor boy!”

After an hour spent in the dingy little room, Rees asking many
questions about the family and about Carstow, and leaving no
opportunity for questions in return, Mrs. Pennant asked if he would
come out and take them somewhere to lunch.

“You know,” she explained gently, “we have had no breakfast.”

“Indeed, mother, I wish I were in a place where I could have had a
nice luncheon prepared for you. But I have only this little den and a
couple of cupboards--for they’re nothing more--on the second floor.
And I’m too busy to go out. But I’ll pack you up comfortably in a cab
and send you to a place where I’ve been very well served in better
times, and you might get your shopping done or whatever calls you may
have to make; and by the time you come back here I’ll have my work
done. By-the-bye, Deborah,” he went on, turning as if by an
afterthought to the girl who had risen to go, “you might stay and help
me to get this through, if you will. I can get on twice as fast if
you’ll dictate.”

The girl hesitated, but Mrs. Pennant broke in at once:

“Yes, yes; stay, my dear, and help him to get his work done. I will be
back in an hour--or two hours. Which shall it be, Rees?”

“I don’t think we can get through in less than two hours, mother.”

“Very well, then. In two hours I will be back.”

The active old lady was already out of the room, Rees following, while
Deborah, erect and very grave, waited for his return.




 CHAPTER XIV.

When Rees re-entered the room, he found Deborah standing at the desk
examining the inkstand. It was quite dry.

“Ha! you’ve found me out,” he said, laughing. “Of course, I didn’t
really want you to dictate for me. One doesn’t waste the time of a
lovely girl like that. Come and sit by the fire and talk to me. We
have two hours before the old lady comes back.”

He put his arm round her, drew her to the fire, made her sit in the
arm-chair, from which he had risen, and placed himself on the
hearth-rug at her feet.

“Now,” he said, “we can talk.”

“Yes,” answered Deborah, who had been unusually grave and silent ever
since her arrival.

“I say,” he went on, looking up to examine her face with boldly
critical eyes, “you’ve changed a good deal, Deborah, surely.”

“Changed!” said she. “Have I ‘gone of,’ as they say?”

“No, it isn’t that exactly; but you seem to have grown older, more
staid, more demure. And--you dress differently, don’t you?”

“I’m not wearing the same things that I wore a year ago, of course. I
suppose you mean that I’m countrified beside the London ladies.”

“You’re much handsomer than they are, at any rate. I really think,
Deborah, without any joking, that you are the handsomest woman I’ve
ever seen.”

“Well, you have something more interesting than that to tell me, I
suppose. I want to know all about yourself; I’m not so submissive as
mamma, remember, and you can’t put me off as you can her.”

“No, I’m afraid you’re rather inclined to be strong-minded, Deb. No
need to ask whether you’re still heart whole and fancy free. No man
would ever have the courage to make up to you.”

“They have though; you will be surprised to hear that I’ve had two
offers, and that I refused them both because I was _not_ heart whole
and fancy free.”

Rees looked rather pleased. Grave, almost solemn as her manner was,
there was a tell-tale shyness in her glance, a marked maidenly reserve
about her actions, which told the already blasé young man that her
interest in him was as strong as ever.

“I can guess who the offers were from,” said he. “Godwin and Hervey.”

“No,” she said simply, “I didn’t count them.”

“Indeed, that’s flattering to us poor Pennants, to hear we don’t
count.”

Deborah said nothing to this.

“And in all this crowd of admirers, I suppose you never find time for
a thought of me? Being a Pennant, I suppose I don’t count either.”

“I think of you a great deal,” said Deborah quietly.

“And what is it you think of me? That you never want to see me again?”
he asked, leaning coaxingly against her knee.

“I think,” she said sorrowfully, “we never shall see the old Rees
again.”

“Did you care for the old Rees then?” asked the young man very softly,
with a tender inflection in his voice which was altogether new to her,
as he looked up into her face with pleading, passionate eyes.

The unsophisticated girl betrayed her secret altogether in a moment,
as her body began to tremble, her cheeks to flush, and her eyes to
fill. Rees at once seized his advantage. Crawling up to her side on
his knees, he put his arm round her waist and leaned his head against
her shoulder.

“Deb, Deb, you care for me still, don’t you, whether I’m good or bad,
whether I’m changed or not? If you knew that I wanted you, you’d come
to me, wouldn’t you, whatever they said? And you don’t care for
Godwin’s frigid love-making, or for Hervey’s virtuous homilies, but
you love your poor Rees through everything, don’t you, don’t you,
Deb?”

“Rees, you know that I love you,” whispered the girl passionately.

“And if I asked you to come up and live near me, you would, wouldn’t
you, Deb? If you knew that I was ill, and wanted your care and your
consolation? You wouldn’t leave me to the care of that cock-eyed old
lady who let you in, would you?”

“Oh, Rees, no! of course we wouldn’t. But if you are ill, why don’t
you come home and be nursed? We live comfortably now. I’m housekeeper,
and sometimes cook as well. And, oh! we should be so pleased and proud
to take you home again!”

Rees listened to this speech rather impatiently.

“My dear child,” he said, “I don’t feel inclined at present to settle
down to the old lady’s tea and toast and prayer meetings. One may end
in that, but it’s a little too early as yet. The fact is,” he went on
hurriedly, as he saw her face change, “that I couldn’t leave town just
now, however much I wished it. A man has his living to get, a career
to make, you know.”

“And you want us to come up and live in London?”

“Well, I want you, Deborah--_you_--to get used to the thought of a
London life. You see, my dearest child, I live a most harassing life,
bound by ties and responsibilities that are a perpetual burden to me.
I want some one near me who would be sweet and kind, and capable of
self-sacrifice for a man she loved; who would bear with his caprices,
keep him straight through his temptations, who would care nothing for
the world, but only for him. It’s a great deal to ask, Deborah; and I
don’t think there are many women capable of it.”

The girl interrupted him by laughing softly. She was brimming over
with happiness.

“Why, Rees, those things are not sacrifices to any woman worth her
salt. Your London ladies must be poor creatures if they’ve taught you
to think differently. And if I’m a little ‘countrified’ at first, as
you seem to think, I promise you that in the pride of being your wife
I shall soon grow into a very elegant person indeed.”

“My wife!” said Rees, coming closer to her, and joining his arms round
her waist. “Yes, that would be jolly, wouldn’t it? For me to come home
and find you waiting for me, making a lovely picture by the fireside.
But you know, Deb, I’m very poor. I can’t afford to marry yet. In the
meantime I am slowly dying, I really believe, for want of the care
that only a woman can give.”

Deborah started and looked down with anxious solicitude into his face.

“Oh, Rees, you don’t mean that. It can’t be true! If it is, of course
mamma and I must leave Carstow and come up at once to you.”

“But you can’t break up the old home like that,” objected Rees,
quickly. “It would be most unfair both to my mother and to Hervey.”

“Yes, but if there is nothing else to be done to save your life, Rees,
I know neither of them would hesitate for a moment.”

Rees leapt up from the floor and began to pace up and down the little
room in a state of high excitement.

At that moment there was heard the sound of a latch-key in the front
door, and then steps along the passage. The door of the room was
thrown open, and a well-dressed elderly man came quickly in. Deborah
started up in astonishment.

“Lord St. Austell!” she exclaimed.

With a bow and a harsh laugh the man came nearer.

Rees stamped his foot, and said haughtily:

“Don’t mention that wretch’s name here.”

Deborah looked at the new-comer again. It was Amos Goodhare. Except
that he was evidently older, better-dressed, and that he lacked the
earl’s geniality of manner, Amos was the very counterpart of Lord St.
Austell, down to the libertinism of expression which had always marred
the earl’s countenance.

The meeting gave the girl a great shock. Goodhare’s presence poisoned
all the pleasure she had felt in Rees’s protestations of affection.
With a sudden change to extreme dignity and reticence, she turned to
Rees, and told him that she would go and find his mother; she was
afraid something had happened to detain her. Then, before he could
remember that she did not know where Mrs. Pennant was, Deborah shook
hands with him, bowed coldly to Goodhare, and left the house.

Once outside in the street she did not know where to go. It was not
much past midday, but already the fog was hanging in a thick brown
veil over the houses; in a few hours even old Londoners would be
unable to find their way from place to place. She turned to the left,
and walking a few paces slowly up the street, found herself at the
corner of a paved passage, which ran, between two rows of dismal,
deserted houses, into Charing Cross-road. The entrance to this passage
was flanked by high boardings, which were covered with flaming
advertisement posters, among which there flaunted conspicuously the
colossal portrait of a lady with a marvellous abundance of curly hair,
whose eyes had been carefully picked out by the ubiquitous boy.
Deborah gazed up at the houses with fascinated interest. They were
old, almost ruinous. The windows, the glass of which had in nearly all
cases disappeared, were covered by nailed-up boards. Most of these
buildings had been small shops which had gone gradually down in the
world, as was proved by the fact that in some cases two had been made
out of what was originally one. The doors were nailed up as well as
the windows, and pasted over the whole of the ground-floor walls were
the dingy remains of more posters, which the damp had reduced to
fluttering rags.

There was a look about these hole-and-corner beetle-browed little
shops which would have suggested to a more sophisticated observer the
unsavory literature of Holywell-street. To Deborah the place was
eloquent only of black poverty and wretchedness, such as, in her
pleasant country life, she had scarcely dreamed of. She glanced down
the gratings into the disused cellars, full of dust and rubbish, then
up at the great beam which had been put across from side to side at
one end of the passage to keep the tottering buildings from falling
in, while they awaited their impending demolition. As she raised her
head and watched with a kind of horror the great clouds of mist and
smoke that seemed to roll down towards the earth from the brown sky,
she heard footsteps on the flags behind her, and turned with a start
to see Amos Goodhare.

His mouth expanded with an ugly smile as his eyes met hers. The girl
thought that he looked like the incarnate spirit of evil, and that his
figure harmonised with the hideous surroundings.

“I am so pleased to see you, Miss Audaer,” he said, courteously
enough. His old pedagogic manners seemed to have given place to a
burlesque of those of the earl. “But I am surprised, too, for I had
heard that you were married.”

“No,” said Deborah, “I am not married.”

“Well, I am jealously inclined to be glad that no unworthy wretch of a
man has yet obtained a prize much too good for him. But matrimony
seems to be in the air just now, and I didn’t know whether you had yet
fallen a victim. Rees and Lady Marion Cenarth are the last pair. But
of course you’ve heard that. It’s a secret at present, and I’m the
letter-carrier.”

He held out for her inspection a letter, stamped and directed to
“M.C.” at a shop in South Audley-street.

Deborah was for the moment so absolutely stunned as to be incapable,
not only of showing, but of feeling anything. She looked at the
envelope and appeared to be examining the address, which she perceived
to be in Rees’s handwriting. She was intelligent enough to understand
in a moment the meaning of Rees’s strange love-making and the extent
to which the evil influence of the man before her had corrupted the
unhappy lad. At the same time there sprang up in her mind a defiant
determination that this depraved Goodhare should not triumph in her
humiliation.

“I did not know of it,” she said at last, very quietly, “though I
rather guessed at something of the sort from his manner. Are they
already married then?” she went on; and, having quite recovered her
serenity she looked up in his face.

Goodhare was puzzled, disappointed. This she saw and hated him for.

“I’m not sure whether they’re married yet,” he said; “but, at any
rate, they’re going to be. They’ve been corresponding all this year.”

“Oh dear, I hope the earl won’t be very angry.”

Goodhare’s face, as usual, grew black at the mention of the earl’s
name.

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” he said, shortly. “But I don’t suppose he’ll
be pleased.”

“I do hope, though, that he’ll forgive them very soon. But now I must
say good-bye to you, Mr. Goodhare, for my mother must be by this time
waiting for me at Rees’s lodgings.”

She bowed to him, and turning, walked rapidly back to St.
Martin’s-lane, where she found Mrs. Pennant in the act of getting out
a cab.

“What is the matter, my dear? You look so dreadfully white,” cried the
old lady on seeing her.

The girl ran up and clung to her hand.

“Mamma, mamma, don’t go in again, or if you do, let me go away without
you,” she whispered in a hoarse voice. “I cannot bear it.”

Mrs. Pennant was a strangely reticent woman, whose thoughts were
difficult to guess. She turned as pale as the girl herself, however,
and drawing her into the cab without more inquiries, directed the
cabman to drive to Paddington.

The two ladies reached Carstow late that night; but neither during the
journey, on their arrival, nor ever afterwards, did they exchange
confidences on the subject of the impressions the visit to Rees had
left on their minds.

In the meantime the first thick fog of the season was settling down
steadily over London, and when Amos Goodhare rejoined Rees in the
little back room, the gas which they were obliged to light shone dimly
through a murky mist. The young man lay stretched on the narrow sofa.

“Where is she?” he cried, starting up, with dishevelled hair and wild
eyes.

“Who? Lady Marion?” asked Goodhare lightly.

“Lady Marion! No, d---- Lady Marion. I mean Deborah--my beautiful
Deborah! I will see her--I must! If she will have me, I’ll give up all
thoughts of that lanky caricature of a woman, beg her to forgive me,
and marry her.”

“Too late, too late, my impulsive young friend. ‘Your’ beautiful
Deborah is on her way back to Carstow, too utterly disgusted with you
to give you another thought.”

“But, Goodhare, she did not understand. She is too pure, too good to
believe that men can be such blackguards as you have made me. Let me
go, I tell you, let me go!”

He struggled to pass Goodhare, who locked the door and put the key in
his pocket.

“I am not going to have that poor girl insulted any more,” he said.
“If she did not understand what you meant while she was with you, she
did before she left London.”

“You infernal scoundrel! You told her! You explained to her! You have
ruined and degraded me, and you wanted to make me ruin and degrade
her!”

He flew at the elder man, who held him off with long, sinewy hands, as
he could not have done before the once athletic young man had become
weakened by excesses and dissipation.

“_You_ degrade her! _You_ degrade that girl!” said Amos, letting the
contempt he felt for his poor tool shine for once full from his eyes;
“women of her sort are not degraded by such as you, nor by such as I
either. You have to marry Lady Marion. I had to bring that about by
any means I could. That’s explanation enough. And now to business.”

He let the young man go, for Rees Pennant’s outburst of anger had
already given place to sullen passivity, and he had thrown himself
limply into a chair. Goodhare took a seat beside him.

“Listen,” he said, “I have something to say to you. You know that we
have come to the end of our money?” Rees nodded. “And of our credit?”
Rees nodded again. “That at present there are no more new clothes to
wear, horses to ride, evenings at the theater, suppers afterwards,
trips to Paris, and the rest of it?”

“Well, of course, I know it. Hasn’t every caller been a dun, and every
letter a bill, for weeks past?”

“Quite so. Now the question is, whether you want any more of those
past pleasures, or whether you would prefer to set to work as a clerk
on twenty shillings a week, or to creep back to Carstow, and live on
the charity of your younger brothers?”

Rees writhed.

“Out with it. What do you want me to do? You know you have made work
impossible to me; quiet life in the country insupportable. What have I
got to do?”

“Well, I suppose you know that, in the straits we are in, one mustn’t
be too particular.”

“I can’t be a lower rascal than I showed myself this morning. Go on.”

“Put on your hat, button up your overcoat, and come out.”

“Out! What, in this fog, that’s almost blinding even indoors?”

“Yes. I found you one fortune in the bowels of the earth. The second
we must hunt for in the dim recesses of the air.”

With a short laugh Goodhare rose, and waited while Rees slowly
prepared himself for the walk.

When they reached the street the brown mist was already so thick that
the houses on the opposite side of the way were scarcely visible.
Goodhare drew his young companion’s arm through his with a laugh.

“Look at this beautiful atmosphere,” he said; “feel it, hug it up to
you. Talk of the blue skies of Italy! I wouldn’t give twopence for the
brightest of them. These sweet, fair brown skies were made for
rogues--like you and me.”

Rees shuddered, but he did not dispute the point.

Slowly, through the ever-thickening fog-cloud, they made their way
together towards Trafalgar-square.




 CHAPTER XV.

For months Deborah Audaer suffered from the horrible effect which
the incidents of the visit to Rees had left upon her mind. London
seemed to her the pestilential centre of all evil, physical and moral.
The inky atmosphere, the black, gloomy streets, Rees Pennant’s dingy
room, the passage full of deserted, dirty houses, all contributed to
form a ghastly background to the picture of evil in which Amos
Goodhare, with his cynical stare, and Rees, with his bold, feverish
eyes, formed the central figures.

That journey had shown her men and things from a new and hideous point
of view. For a time all the sweetness and freshness of life seemed
poisoned for her. She saw the ills in the world--poverty, sin, and
sorrow, in a harder, colder light. Since Rees whom she loved, could be
corrupt and base, what in the wide world could be pure? So she
reasoned, womanlike, and suffered in silence for the rest of the year,
seeing a new and uglier sadness in the autumn and winter changes of
nature, and brooding over her poor lost ideal.

Deborah was much too brave and good a girl for this change in her
thoughts and feelings to find outward expression in her actions.
Whatever view she might take of life in the abstract, the round of
daily duties, which were sufficiently heavy, were fulfilled just as
well as ever, and if Mrs. Pennant was shrewd enough to detect a change
in the girl, it was not by finding the thin places in the old
drawing-room curtains less carefully darned or her early cup of tea
forgotten. For Deborah, to save the expense of keeping more than one
servant, was perfect mistress of every household duty. This extreme
domestic devotion, as Godwin considered it, excited in him great
annoyance, the more so that he was now enjoying a salary which enabled
him to send home a very handsome allowance.

Soon after the eventful visit to London, Godwin paid his mother a
Saturday to Monday visit, and took the opportunity of the old lady’s
afternoon nap to make a formal remonstrance with Deborah.

She was sitting on the old-fashioned fender-stool by the drawing-room
fire, stroking the head of his fox terrier, when he came very softly
down the long, cold-looking room, and stood behind her. She was
bending down over the dog, talking to him softly; but presently,
lifting up her head and perceiving the blocking out of the light from
the window behind her, she turned with a start.

“Oh, Godwin, you startled me! I didn’t hear you come in. I thought
you’d gone over to Llancader.”

“I changed my mind; I wanted to have a talk with you.” Deborah moved
impatiently. He went on quickly, noticing this movement, “Oh, not on
the old subject; don’t be afraid. I see you are not in the mood for
one of my matter-of-fact proposals. I’m not even going to ask you why
you are so particularly brusque, not to say snappish, to me this time.
But I want to know why you don’t keep another servant. You know very
well that, with what I send to her, my mother can afford it.”

Deborah, who had got up from the fender-stool and seated herself
firmly on a chair, spoke very coldly and decisively.

“Is there anything wrong about the house, then--dirty windows, unswept
carpets, or bad cooking--that you are dissatisfied with our
arrangement?”

Godwin bounced up from the chair he had taken, and, standing with his
back to the fireplace, stared over her head defiantly.

“Well, of all the disagreeable, bad-tempered girls I ever met, you are
the most impossible to do anything with,” he said, at last losing his
temper. “What do you suppose I want you to keep another servant for,
except to save you trouble? Considering that I don’t live at home,
what would it matter to me if the washing were hung over the front
garden wall, and the knives cleaned on the drawing-room table?”

“What are you grumbling for, then?”

“I was not grumbling at all. I merely thought that a second servant
would allow you to have more time to yourself.”

“That was not your reason at all. You thought it more in accordance
with the family dignity--that is, your dignity--that there should be
two servants in your mother’s house.”

Godwin brought his eyes quickly down from the window, and looked at
her with a keenness which made her uncomfortable.

“You are unhappy,” he said at last, shortly, and not at all tenderly.
“You never used to fish among people’s motives for a mean one like
that. You have had some annoyance or disappointment, and, like an
unreasoning woman, you visit it on me, because you think you can hurt
me. But you shan’t! you shan’t!”

And he put his hands in his pockets, and walked away up the room with
a defiant air.

Deborah felt sorry and ashamed. He was quite right, and she knew it.

All women, when they have had their belief in man in the abstract
destroyed by the perfidy of one particular individual, like to visit
their disappointment and resentment upon some other individual whom
they at the bottom of their hearts know that they can implicitly
trust. If he had known it, therefore, Deborah’s snappishness, which
she reserved for him alone, was only the natural expression of her
indignation that he, the man she did not love, was sound to the core,
while the man she did love had proved himself a contemptible wretch.

She was not going to own herself in the wrong, though. Oh, no! She bit
her lips with a moment’s self-reproach, and then said, quite coldly:

“Whether I am happy or not is, you will admit, my own affair. Whether
we keep one servant or twenty is, I admit, yours, since you pay them.
But I tell you frankly that I feel much more comfortable with only
one, because like that, by careful management and without any
pinching, I am saving a large sum out of the money you send mamma,
which she means to give you to furnish your house when you marry.”

Of course Deborah knew that she was hurting him, though she would not
have owned it.

“How dare you talk of my marrying?” he burst out, almost dancing with
rage. “You know I don’t mean to marry; you know you don’t want me to
marry.”

He had gone a little too near the truth. Naturally enough, Deborah
would not have liked to see her own devoted admirer enslaved by
another woman, however indifferent to him she herself might be. She
gave him one look of speechless indignation, and without heeding the
grovelling apologies which he hurriedly began to make, sailed out of
the room with the dignity of an empress.

She would not speak to him for the remainder of his short visit,
except such few words as were absolutely necessary; and these she
uttered in a loftily distant tone. Poor Mrs. Pennant saw that
something was wrong, and make several discreet, but ineffectual,
efforts to put it right. Deborah even took care to be out of the way
when, on the following morning, Godwin went away again.

Mrs. Pennant heard very little from her other absent son, her darling
Rees, although she wrote to him regularly. Indeed, as winter drew on,
her letters became more frequent than ever, for the London papers
published alarming accounts of a gang of skilful and desperate
thieves, who, taking advantage of the foggy season, which was now at
its height, waylaid well-dressed men even in much-frequented
thoroughfares, and robbed them of everything of value they had about
them, often with considerable violence. Rees’s answers to his mother’s
letters were always very short; but he re-assured her as to his
personal safety and also as to his prospects. He had got another
situation, he said, better than the last, and was saving money.
However, he sent home no proof of his altered fortune until Christmas,
when Mrs. Pennant received from him a parcel containing a handsome fur
collar and muff for herself and a beautiful chased silver clasp for
Deborah.

The girl took her gifts in silence, and interrupted by no comment Mrs.
Pennant’s ecstasies. It was Christmas Eve, and Godwin, who was
expected home, had already sent his presents.

“Why, Deborah, Deborah, this clasp is the very thing for the mantle
Godwin has given you!”

“Yes, mamma,” answered the girl, quietly.

But on the following morning, when she put on her new cloak to go to
church with Mrs. Pennant and her sons, the clasp was not on it. The
old lady remarked on this with some displeasure, thinking her eldest
son’s gift despised. Deborah, however, steadily excused herself from
wearing it, and there was a slight coolness in consequence between the
ladies, which resulted in Mrs. Pennant walking with Hervey instead of
with her adopted daughter, and leaving the latter to follow with
Godwin.

“Why won’t you wear Rees’s present, Deb?” ventured Godwin,
diffidently, as they walked along. “No such luck as that you have give
up thinking about him, I suppose?”

“No,” answered the girl in a tremulous voice; “but don’t let us talk
about Rees; I can’t tell you why, but I can’t bear it.”

He walked on by her side, obediently changing the subject. Only just
before they passed under the heavy porch of the old Norman church, he
asked:

“May I walk home too with you, Deb? I won’t talk about anything to--to
worry you.”

“Of course,” answered she, with a gentle and grateful smile.

But when the service was over and the congregation poured out of the
church, Deborah was seized and surrounded by the Llancader ladies, who
had come to Monmouthshire to pass Christmas. Only Lady Marion was
absent. Deborah inquired after her of Lady Kate.

“Oh, don’t you know. Of course, it’s a secret, but still it’s one that
everyone seems to know--except papa and mamma,” babbled out Lady Kate,
in a confidential tone. “Marion is so dreadfully, idiotically fond of
that Rees of yours that she has gone to stay with Aunt Lucilla, in
Eaton Square, so that she may stay in the same town with him. She is
making a perfect fool of herself about him. I must say so, Mr.
Pennant, though I know he is your brother.”

“Oh, I’m not at all offended, Lady Kate. You can’t expect two geniuses
in one family. But I think its a pity Lord St. Austell isn’t told of
their pranks.”

“Nobody dares tell papa anything since last Friday,” answered Kate in
a lower voice.

“He was knocked down and robbed as he was walking at night with one of
his friends. He had been out to dinner, and it was so foggy that he
dared not drive home. And--of course we are not supposed to talk about
it--but he believes he recognised one of the men who attacked him.”

“Who was it?” asked Godwin, interested.

“Why--you won’t say anything about it, will you?--but he thinks the
man who knocked him down was the man who used to be librarian
here--Amos Goodhare!”

“By Jove!” cried Godwin. “You don’t mean it?”

“Yes, I do. This man struck papa down quite savagely, and held him
down, and was going to kick him as he lay on the ground if one of the
men with him--there were three altogether--had not interfered.”

A sharply uttered exclamation burst from Deborah’s lips. Godwin and
Lady Kate turned quickly, and saw that the color had left her cheeks
and that her face wore a terror-struck expression.

“What is the matter, dear?” asked plump little Lady Kate, in much
concern.

“Nothing, nothing. I--I was only thinking--of--of what a narrow escape
your father might have had with those--ruffians, and how glad I am
that one of them had the humanity to save him from being hurt.”

“Yes, indeed, we were surprised ourselves at that. It is quite like
Claude Duval and the days of chivalry, isn’t it? But I mustn’t laugh
about it for really poor papa has a dreadful bruise at the back of his
head, and he might have been killed, of course.”

“Yes, I--I am very thankful,” said Deborah.

Godwin saw that something was the matter, and he managed to cut short
Lady Kate’s chatter, so that he could take Deborah home. But not all
his artfully made suggestions and inquiries could drag from her the
secret of the fear which made her creep about with startled eyes and a
terror-struck white face all through that Christmas Day.




 CHAPTER XVI.

Rees meanwhile was spending his Christmas at his lodgings in St.
Martin’s-lane, with the faithful Sep Jocelyn for company. Sep was
still as much outwardly devoted as ever to his more brilliant friend;
but the fast life they were leading, acting upon a constitution
already weakened by former excesses, was telling upon him even more
plainly than upon the younger man. Sep was losing his nerve. As he sat
with Rees by the fire on the evening of Christmas Day, heavy with late
sleep and with a drinking bout of the previous night, every slight
noise made by a movement of his companion, or by the traffic in the
street outside, caused him to start, and sometimes to shiver. He had
grown much older looking during the past year; his face was swollen
and puckered about the eyes, while the threads of grey in his fair
hair had multiplied into wide white streaks. His starts and tremors
began to irritate Rees, who put out his hand to stop Sep as the latter
was about to help himself from a decanter which stood on the table.

“That will do, Sep. Goodhare will be here in a minute to settle our
next plans, and you’ll want all your wits about you.”

“But I’m so cold,” pleaded the other, in a husky voice.

“Well, brandy won’t warm you. Sit nearer to the fire.”

“I can’t get any nearer, unless I sit in the fender,” complained Sep,
rather sullenly.

For Rees had used rather a bullying tone.

“I’m going into a decline, I think,” Sep began again. “This life’s too
much for me, what with the danger, and the work, and the risks, and
then the pace we go when we’re in funds.”

“Do you want to go back to Carstow and your old auntie, then?” asked
Rees, with what was meant for a sneer, but which proved to be a rather
feeble one.

“No-o; at least if I did, I suppose you wouldn’t let me go; and if you
would, Goodhare wouldn’t,” said Sep, hopelessly.

The idea of starting an independent course of action was now further
than ever beyond his capacity.

“I shouldn’t prevent you,” said Rees, gloomily. “This occupation of
gentlemanly footpad is not more to my taste than to yours. I believe
Goodhare likes violence; it’s one vent to the savagery he has been
saving up all these years. But, for my part, if I had my chances over
again, I should choose life in the country with----”

He stopped.

“With Deborah Audaer?” suggested Sep.

Rees got up and stretched himself.

“What’s the use of talking, when there’s one of Marion’s ecstatic
effusions to be answered, and Goodhare may be in any minute.”

“I’m sick of Goodhare, Rees; aren’t you? He’s a selfish, greedy old
rascal, and he always contrives to get the lion’s share of the plunder
and the fox’s share of the risk. He hardly lets one call one’s soul
one’s own.”

“Have we any souls?” said Rees. “I don’t feel as if I had any such
relic of respectability about me. Whatever I may have had left of that
sort Deborah took away with her the day she came here with my mother.
When I’m tired of this life I shall go to Carstow and claim it back
from her.”

“Do you think, Rees,” suggested Sep, after a pause, “that a man who’s
led the sort of life we have is--is--well--quite good enough for a
woman like Miss Audaer?”

“My dear boy, why trouble ourselves with questions of that sort? As
long as they’ll have us and worship us, no matter what sort of lives
we’ve led, why should we worry ourselves by trying to lead any
better?”

“And you think Miss Audaer worships you still?”

Rees got up, swaggered confidently across the room to his desk,
unlocked it, and took from an inner drawer a woman’s little morocco
purse, which he flung across the table carelessly to his companion.

“Look inside,” said he.

Sep opened it almost reverently, and found that it contained ten
sovereigns.

“Her savings for half a year at least,” explained Rees. “The day she
came here she left it on the desk, sliding it under a piece of
blotting paper, because she knew I was badly off. You see I have not
touched it,” he added, magnanimously.

“So I should think,” said Sep, laconically. “Are you sure, though,
Rees, whether she left it at the beginning or the end of her visit--on
her coming in or on her going away?”

“What do you mean?” asked Rees sharply.

“Why, that perhaps she left it for the old Rees, whom she had known,
and would not have left it for the new Rees whom she had to learn to
know.”

Limp and undecided in action, Sep was shrewd of thought and could be
plain of speech. Rees received his suggestion very haughtily, and the
two men were on the verge of a quarrel when the sound of the turn of a
latch-key in the front door caused them instantly to drop their
voices. For mistrust of their elder was the bond on which the
friendship between the two younger men now chiefly rested.

Amos Goodhare entered in brisk and jaunty fashion. He alone of the
three seemed to have found their alternately riotous and risky life
perfectly agreeable to his tastes and constitution. After having grown
old in the pursuit of learning, he was now growing young again at the
fountain of pleasure. If he had lost something in dignity, he had
gained in distinction, and the man on whom all had looked as an
intellectual marvel seemed now remarkable rather for his well-cut
clothes and the easy condescension of his manner.

“Well, boys,” was his greeting, “you don’t seem to understand how to
make Christmas merry. I’ve come to show you how it can be made
useful.”

“By taking a lesson at Drury Lane, perhaps, and buttering the pavement
outside rich old gentlemen’s doors,” suggested Rees ironically.

Amos gave the young man a glance of no particular warmth and said:

“No, not exactly that. We have a game in hand that nobody, I think,
need despise for its facility. What do you say, boys, to carrying off
the Crown jewels, or at least part of them?”

“I should say it was a very bad joke, and might, if indulged in, lead
to a very good term of penal servitude,” answered Rees, picking out a
cigar very carefully from the case Goodhare offered.

“But I suppose that, like many other bad jokes, you won’t be unwilling
to lend a hand to carry it out.”

Rees considered a few moments, and then laughed.

“No,” said he. “It would be a new sensation, at all events.”

But Sep began to shiver, and to look with glances of alarm from the
one to the other.

“Leave me out this time, Goodhare,” he said at last, hoarsely.

“Can’t, my dear boy. Your shrewdness and methodical way of carrying
out instructions is just as necessary to our combination as Rees’s
dash and my inventiveness. You sketch, don’t you?”

“Ye-es, a little,” admitted Sep reluctantly.

“And you have been in America, and could get up, I suppose, very
fairly as artist and correspondent to a New York paper?”

“If I must, I suppose I could.”

“And you, Rees,” continued Amos, “who can do anything which needs
smartness and dexterity of fingers, can use a file, or could learn to
do it?”

“I could learn to do it, of course.”

“Very well, then. The Christmas holidays are now on, and people flock
to the Tower in swarms. By-the-by, I suppose that you know that St.
Austell’s brother, the Honorable Charles Cenarth, is keeper of the
regalia?”

Rees started.

“Why on earth can’t you leave that family alone, Goodhare?”

Amos laughed harshly, and a look of diabolical malice flashed out of
his eyes.

“Oh, in this case my reason will explain itself as it goes on,” said
he. “In the meantime you will both, in the course of the holidays,
visit the Tower more than once to familiarise yourselves with it. Go
on Mondays and Saturdays, the free days, when there is a crush. Use
disguise, but of the simplest and neatest sort. Rees, you will
practise the filing away of iron bars without noise. And there is
something else for you to do. Lord Wenlock, the general, is a great
chum of St. Austell’s, isn’t he?”

“I believe so.”

“Have you ever seen any of his handwriting?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Then you must get Lady Marion to procure you a couple of his letters.
Say they’re for autographs. Study the handwriting, and then forge a
letter requesting the keeper to give the bearer (whom you will call an
American journalist of note), permission to sketch the regalia. I
think you will find these instructions enough for the present.”

“Yes, quite enough to land us at Portland,” said Rees, cheerfully.

Reckless as impunity in crime had made him, he was not dull enough to
ignore the stupendous risk of such a colossal piece of knavery. But
the excitement of carrying out Goodhare’s daring plans had now become
necessary to his jaded senses, on which the risks of smaller and
meaner thefts were beginning to pall. Trusting, therefore, to the
fertile invention of the elder man for the details of the plot, he at
once set to work on the preliminaries Amos had suggested, and
persuaded the reluctant Sep to do the same.

Weeks passed on, during which Amos put the younger men through their
paces with regard to their recently acquired knowledge of the
geography of the Tower, tested Rees’s progress in the art of using a
file expeditiously and without noise, and caused him to forge letters
from Lord Wenlock, until he produced one which the general himself
might have mistaken for the production of his own pen.

Then, when all was ready, came a spell of bright weather; and Amos,
who had implicit faith in the disorganising powers of fog, waited
until the kindly brown cloak was again drawn over the sky.

One morning in the middle of February he announced that all was ready,
and that the attempt would be made that day. Sep, whom Amos had kept
under his own eye for a week or more, made his way through a thick
sepia-colored mist to the Tower, presented the forged letter, and
after only a short delay was admitted to the Wakefield, or Record,
Tower, where the Crown jewels were kept, and accommodated with a seat.

The day was so dark, and the consequent difficulties of locomotion
were so great, that only very few visitors came to the tower at all.
These few were chiefly of the country cousin sort, and those who came
into the Record Tower did not scruple to crowd round Sep, and to pass
their opinion, in loud whispers, on the merits of the series of neat
little pen-and-ink drawings which he was making from different points
of view, so that from time to time the warder, who stood at the door,
had to come forward and beg them not to interrupt the gentleman.

Presently, in the midst of a small batch of strangely-dressed people
fresh from the colonies, there sauntered in, guide-book in hand, a
young fellow of rather rustic appearance, dressed in the sort of
clothes a respectable carpenter might wear for his Sunday suit. He was
greatly interested in the work of the artist, who was making his way,
by easy stages, all round the great cage, in the centre of the small
stone room, in which the Crown and other jewels are kept. Wherever the
American artist stopped, the young carpenter stopped too, carried away
by his interest in the sketches. The warder, who never remained for
many minutes out of the room, grew interested also, and watched the
progress of the little pictures with much admiration. The day was so
dark, and the fog so thick even inside the stone chamber, that the gas
jets between the deeply-embrasured windows were all alight, giving to
the precious gems a fiery lustre as they glittered through the murky
atmosphere.

Sep had almost reached that side of the room which was furthest from
the door when a tall, well-dressed man appeared at the entrance, and
peeping in, said in cheery tones:

“Hallo! you’ve got an illumination up here, I see! What a mistake it
is, this showing the State jewels at sixpence a head, like the Chamber
of Horrors at a waxworks! What do you think, warder?”

“Well, I don’t know, my lord; they’re the people’s treasures after
all, and it pleases them to see ’em.”

At the words “my lord,” the American correspondent and the young
carpenter looked around. The latter started. Seen by a cursory
observer, not careful to mark trifling differences of stature and
feature, the easy-mannered gentleman at the door, who wore an overcoat
of “horsey” cut, and carried a small dressing-bag, would have passed
for Lord St. Austell.

“I find my brother is not in,” went on Amos, still in the earl’s
well-known genial manner, “so I’ve come up for a chat with you. They
wanted to stop my bag at the gate--for a dynamitard’s, I suppose. But
the sight of my hair brushes and pomatum pots reassured them, I
believe. You can keep it under your own eye, at any rate.”

And the pseudo earl threw his bag down inside the doorway of the stone
chamber, and proceeded to ask the alarmed warder if he had heard that
it was proposed to do away with the body of men of which he formed so
distinguished and ornamental a member, and to replace them with a
staff chosen from the ranks of the metropolitan police.

The alarmed warder listened in consternation to this suggestion,
which, coming from the lips of a gentleman who had so much access to
persons in authority as the Earl of St. Austell, bore a frightful
impress of probability. They discussed the rumor with much warmth, the
sham nobleman growing even more excited and loud than the warder. A
few visitors passed into the chamber and out again, while still the
noble visitor and the alarmed guardian conversed at the door. With the
last batch came the young carpenter and the American, the latter full
of thanks to the warder for his courteous assistance. Still they
discussed, the poor veteran much comforted, in the midst of his alarm,
by the promise of his noble companion to “use his influence” for him
and the body to which he belonged.

At last, however, with a start, the gentleman affected to remember
that his brother, the Honorable Charles Cenarth, would have returned
and be waiting for him. Snatching up his bag, he thrust a
half-sovereign into the warder’s hand, and made his way in a
sauntering, jaunty manner, down the stone staircase.

That handsome “tip” was, however, dearly bought. A quarter of an hour
later the poor warder, having recovered his equanimity a little, made
his accustomed perfunctory tour of the chamber in which the Crown
jewels lay. At the innermost point of the stone apartment he stopped,
sick with horror. Some of the jewels were gone.

With clammy, trembling hands, the unhappy man touched the cage, behind
the bars of which the treasures had seemed so safe. They gave way at
the touch. The bars had been filed through, the glass neatly and
noiselessly cut, and the jewels taken without the least warning sound.
In a moment the whole building rang with the alarm. The soldiers
turned out, the gates were closed, the few visitors still groping
their way about in the fog were closely searched--all to no purpose.

By that time there was a bundle of clothes--“horsey” overcoat,
carpenter’s suit, American tourist’s rig out--sinking,
heavily-weighted, to the bottom of the Thames; while Amos Goodhare,
Sep, and Rees were finding their way to the lodging in St.
Martin’s-lane by different routes.

An hour later there lay on the table in the dingy back sitting-room
two Royal crowns--the so-called Queen’s diadem, a massive circlet set
with pearls and diamonds of enormous size, and St. Edward’s golden
crown, a larger and still more magnificent treasure, ablaze with
precious stones. Besides these lay an old golden spoon and a collar
studded with gems.

The three plotters, having carried through their adventures so
successfully, stood staring at their treasure in bewilderment.

For even Amos, the oldest and craftiest, began to understand, in the
face of this splendid prize, that they were very much in the position
of gentlemen who, having obscurity as their only hope of safety, find
themselves suddenly the possessors of a fine white elephant.




 CHAPTER XVII.

Amos Goodhare was the first to recover from the sort of stupefaction
into which the sight of their royal plunder had thrown the three
confederates.

“Well, boys,” he said, “I think we may rest on our laurels a little
while after this feat. It would take an expert in jewels, which I
don’t profess to be, to tell you what value we have there. But here is
a diamond in this,” and he took up the diadem, “which cannot, I should
think, be worth less than five thousand pounds. While this crown,” and
he laid his hand upon the other and still more magnificent prize,
“ought to bring us in enough to live in modest comfort for the
remainder of our lives.”

“Well, there can’t be much of them left to run at the rate we’re going
on,” moaned Sep, who was altogether unhinged by the life of enforced
abstinence he had led for the last few days under Goodhare’s
supervision, by the risks of the morning, and by the still greater
risks in the disposal of the jewels which he knew would fall to his
share.

“Sep, you’re out of sorts. Drink a health to the Honorable Charles
Cenarth, keeper of the regalia, and may he come half as easily out of
this scrape as we have done!”

He went to the little rickety sideboard, and, taking out a decanter
and glasses, filled three bumpers, and pushed one over to Sep, who
emptied part of the spirit into another tumbler, and drank the rest,
diluted with two-thirds of water.

“Now, to the health of the Honorable----” began Goodhare again.

But Sep interrupted him. Glancing restlessly round the room, he laid
his hand on the elder man’s arm, and whispered hoarsely:

“Don’t. Its unlucky.”

“And instead of spending our time drinking healths we’d better be
deciding what to do with these dangerous little toys, now we’ve got
them,” suggested Rees drily. “As long as they remain in their present
form the sight of them by an outsider might expose our motives to
misconstruction.”

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the door burst open, and
the landlady, a rheumatic old woman in a rusty black cap, entered with
only that perfunctory knock which is more like a fall against the door
in the act of opening it, than a respectful request for permission to
enter. Mrs. Williamson was quite taken aback at the sight of the
treasures on the table. Luckily for them, the confederates also were
so utterly overwhelmed by this unexpected surprise, that no one of
them made so much as an instinctive movement as if to hide the jewels.

After a few moments’ dead pause, during which the old woman remained
blinking at the gems, and the three men felt as if the handcuffs were
already on their wrists, Mrs. Williamson, with a short laugh, put all
their fears to flight with half a dozen words.

“Well, I never,” she said. “What finery to be sure!”

It had not for a moment occurred to this matter-of-fact Londoner that
the crowns were “real.” Her words suddenly opened the eyes of the
three men to a different view of the gold and precious stones before
them. Knowing them to be genuine, they had seen them illuminated by
the glow with which the consciousness of their value endowed them.
Looking at them all at once from the landlady’s point of view, they
saw that in the weak and murky daylight which came through the dirty
window the jewels looked wonderfully little better than theatrical
properties. The resourceful Amos hailed this idea with delight.
Seizing one of the crowns, he held it over his own head, and asked
gaily:

“Well, Mrs. Williamson, what do you think of my crown? You didn’t know
that I went in for acting, did you? I’m going to play Richard the
Third to-night.”

“And a very handsome-looking king too, I’m sure, sir. But you should
have gone to ’Ales, in Wellington-street, for your crown, begging your
pardon for suggesting it. He’d never have sent you such a one as that,
with a dirty old piece of velvet in the middle not fit to touch. I’ve
had a actor--not an amateur like you, sir, but one who did it for his
living--on my third floor, and he had a much better one than that from
’Ales, much brighter and bigger jewels.”

“Well, I must remember that for the next time. I think now this will
have to serve my purpose.”

“Mrs. Williamson thought they were real at first, I believe,” laughed
Rees, throwing himself on the sofa.

“Indeed, sir, I did not,” said the old woman indignantly. “I’ve not
always been redooced to letting lodgings, and there was a time when I
had jewellery of my own, though you mayn’t choose to believe it. And I
don’t suppose now there’s many better judges about of what’s good than
what I am, sir. However, I hadn’t come to tell you that, but to know
whether I should lay the cloth for dinner?”

“Certainly, and Mr. Goodhare will dine with us to-day,” said Rees.

Sep and Rees had each a little room on the second floor, but
Goodhare’s lodgings were at Westminster. There was too much business
to be settled, however, for them to separate for the present. So they
ate a hurried meal, had the table cleared, and then very gently, very
noiselessly, opened the window and looked out.

The fog was thicker than ever, settling down upon the city for such a
night as the three confederates loved. Only a little bit of sky was
visible at all from this ground floor room, for the backs of the
houses behind came very close, leaving between the two walls of
blackened brick nothing but a passage paved with worn and irregular
flags. When a good look to right and left had assured the three men
that no one was about and that the fog was thick enough to hide them
from a chance observer at any of the adjacent windows, one by one they
dropped through their own window into the passage, turned to the
right, and over the wall at the end into a second and much narrower
passage, which ran at right angles to the first, along the backs of
the deserted houses which had struck Deborah Audaer with such a sense
of poverty and desolation.

The back doors of all these houses were boarded up as carefully as the
windows and doors in front. But Rees, who was the first of the three
to venture on this errand, stopped at the door of the fourth house,
with one strong pull wrenched off the two lowest boards, and crawled
through the opening thus made. For the door itself had been taken
bodily away. A minute later, Sep, and then Goodhare, had passed
through also.

As soon as they were all inside they drew up the displaced boards,
which were joined together, fastened them in their place with bolts,
and proceeded together along the passage which ran from the back to
the front of the house. Without striking a light they felt for and
found, about half way along the passage, an opening in the floor which
led, by a narrow ladder-staircase, into the cellars.

The first they entered was at the front, underneath that part of the
house which had once been a shop. It was very dimly lighted through a
rusty grating just below the shop window, and was full of scraps of
paper, heaps of dust, and rubbish of the most worthless kind, such as
not even the poorest rag-picker would find it worth while to carry
away. Behind this miserable and mouldy-smelling cellar was a second,
more miserable and mouldy still. It had been sunk some three feet
deeper into the earth than the front one, from which it was divided by
a brick wall, in which a wooden door had been inserted, artfully
painted so as to be undistinguishable, except by an experienced eye,
from the brickwork on either side. Into this lower cellar all three
men dropped and shut the door behind them.

Then Goodhare struck a light. The cellar was small, and ventilated
only by a hole about a foot square in the floor of the back shop
above. Immediately under this hole was a small, roughly-made square
grate, and above the grate there swung a huge melting-pot. The rest of
the furniture consisted of a couple of benches, a dirty table on which
was a piece of brown paper containing tools, a large collection of
wine and spirit bottles, both empty and full, and a wide,
comfortable-looking, old-fashioned couch.

Rees and Sep set to work without delay, extracting the precious stones
from their heavy setting with accustomed fingers. In the meantime Amos
built up a fire in the rusty grate, and as fast as a piece of gold was
deprived of its jewels, he threw it into the melting-pot. While he did
so he issued his next instructions to the two younger men.

“We shall have a day or two to work in, boys, because I expect they’ll
try to recover the things first without raising a hue and cry. Cenarth
will know it’s life and death to him to get them back quietly. You,
Sep, will have to cross to Amsterdam to-night. I’ll take care to make
up such a parcel as no one shall suspect. You will represent yourself
as a merchant of--Tunis, say--who has been trading in South Africa.
When you have disposed of as much there as you safely can, go on to
Paris, and try--not the big firms--they’ll be on the alert by that
time--but rich private Americans. Try the swell hotels. Stay at the
Grand or the Louvre, and look out for Bertram, the railway
millionaire; he’s due in Paris in a day or two. With him you may
suggest the real source they came from; you needn’t give him all
particulars. But if you manage well, he’ll nibble. And there will be
no haggling. Do you understand? Keep your head clear--but you always
do when there’s work in hand. I must do you that justice.”

“Justice!” echoed Sep sulkily. “I shall get a little too much of that
before this affair is over, I fancy. There’s nothing in what we’ve
done up to now. It might have been done over and over again if the
rascals who thought of the Crown jewels before us hadn’t remembered
the certainty of discovery afterwards. I’m tired of playing cat’s-paw.
Go to Amsterdam yourself. You’re much more like a Tunisian merchant
than I am. And you’ve more nerve. I don’t know what’s become of mine,
but it’s gone.”

And Sep shivered as he cast round him another of the restless glances
which Amos had noticed in him all day. Goodhare looked at him
searchingly, and then laid an encouraging hand on his shoulder.

“I’d go with pleasure, my boy, if I could do what is to be done as
well as you. But my Greek and Hebrew would not serve me as your
knowledge of modern languages serves you; besides, you have been a
traveller, and I a stay-at-home, and there is a difference between
those two classes which I could not hide.”

“Come, Sep, don’t make difficulties,” said Rees impatiently. “We have
all our different departments and separate work. Goodhare organises, I
have the chief hand in carrying out----”

“And I do the dirty work,” added Sep querulously. “I shall have to go,
of course; I know that. But it will be the last time; I feel it. So
look out for yourselves.”

“What do you mean? You’re not going to round on us, I suppose?” said
Rees, savagely.

“No, I haven’t the spirit to do that, as you know. But I--I’ve been
seen--I’m sure of it. On my way back from that cursed Tower I seemed
to see faces peering out of the fog--Charles Cenarth’s and Lord St.
Austell’s. Of course I’ll go if you insist, but I tell you it will be
a d----d unlucky journey.”

His companions laughed at his fears, did their best to raise his
drooping spirits, and at last, chiefly by the aid of consoling
potations, restored him to something like his old cheerful
submissiveness. Then, taking swift advantage of the change in him,
they equipped him for his journey with a disguise which Amos had had
ready, with clothing, with money, and with a travelling bag with a
false bottom, in which, between layers of tissue paper, the stolen
jewels were packed. All these preparations being completed, Amos mixed
a loving cup, which they all drank solemnly to their usual toast on
the eve of one of their nefarious enterprises:

“Success to the Princes of the Fog.”

But somehow the old spirit flagged. As the light from the glowing
charcoal fire flickered up on their faces, each seemed to see
distorting shadows of fear and failure on the features of his
companions. They finished the ceremony with unusual haste and in
unusual silence, and climbing up out of the damp yet stifling
underground retreat, slipped out into the raw air, and getting over
the palings unseen in the mist, emerged into Charing Cross-road. Rees
and Goodhare accompanied Sep as far as St. Martin’s Church, and left
him with just time to catch the continental mail train from Charing
Cross. Then they returned to Rees Pennant’s lodgings.

“For,” whispered Amos, as soon as their companion had left them, “I
have something for you also to do.”

As soon as they were again within closed doors, the older man
unburdened himself of his instructions.

“I didn’t wish to frighten Jocelyn,” he began ominously, “for the
lad’s turning soft and doesn’t need warning to be careful at any time.
But there’s no denying that this is a dangerous business, the most
ticklish thing we’ve had on our hands yet.”

“Yes, of course,” assented Rees gloomily.

“So I think we had better get as near the safe side as possible.”

He paused.

“Well?” said Rees.

“Now, the best shelter we can get behind is--influence.”

“Whose?”

“Lord St. Austell’s.”

Rees started.

“The man we both hate?”

“Why should that prevent our making use of him? Now he can’t, in
common decency, let me suffer if he can help it. It lies with you to
make it equally impossible for him to let you suffer.”

“Go on; out with it.”

“Become his son-in-law without delay. Marion will jump at you.”

Rees moved uneasily.

“I know that. If she were a little less ready, I might be a little
more so.”

“This is not a time to stick at trifles. You had an appointment with
her to-night at a friend’s house?”

“Yes, but I can’t go--fog’s too thick for me to venture out.”

“She’ll venture, I suppose?”

The young man shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

“Of course. She’d walk through the Thames to meet me at any time.”

“Then your unparalleled devotion must stand even this test. You must
meet her to-night and arrange to marry her with as little delay as
possible.”

Rees made a grimace.

“Can’t it be put off until we see how things really turn out?”

“No,” answered Amos, decisively, “we can really only reckon on safety
for a few hours. You see we were all seen. Our best chance, yours and
mine, is to remain where we are, keep perfectly quiet, and trust to
Sep’s keeping his head; in the meantime we must take all the
precautions we can, and yours is--Lady Marion.”

Rees got up from his chair with a very sour face.

“All right,” he said briefly. “If it’s got to be done, here goes.”

He ran upstairs to his room without another word, and returned in
twenty minutes in evening dress and overcoat, wearing the tired and
blasé air which was now no affectation with him. His pale face, curly
hair, and great black eyes with dark rings under them, made him look
what ladies call “interesting,” a fact of which he did not appear to
be ignorant.

“Will it do?” he asked, carelessly, as he took up his gloves.

“First-rate,” answered Amos, with a nod.

And with much apparent reluctance, part of which was real and part
affected, Rees Pennant jumped into a hansom and gave the driver an
address in a street near Russell-square.




 CHAPTER XVIII.

Through all Rees Pennant’s changes of conduct, of manner, of
thought, of appearance, Lady Marion Cenarth had remained unswervingly
faithful and devoted, brooding over the short notes Goodhare induced
him to write to her, with alternate rapture and anxiety; making
appointments to meet him at the house of a convenient friend, bearing
with his caprices of temper, proud of his tepid sufferance of her
vehement adoration, ready at all times, as she repeatedly hinted, to
throw away the dignity of her sex and position, and incur all the
humiliation and danger of a private marriage. This step, in spite of
Goodhare’s persuasions, Rees was in no hurry to take. Poor Lady
Marion’s devotion was perhaps too slavish, too entirely unconcealed,
to have been highly valued by any man. It therefore speedily palled
upon Rees, who was not only accustomed to feminine adoration, but who
had become doubly fastidious since Deborah Audaer’s visit to town.

The appearance of the beautiful country girl, with her modest,
straightforward manner, and handsome, yet most innocent, eyes, had
been like a draught of fresh, sweet air to a man coming out of a
chamber foul with asphyxiating gases--not without a certain chilling
effect, but refreshing, invigorating, pure--reminding him of the
wholesome joys of the life he had left, and contrasting them with the
feverish, soul-deadening pleasures of the life he was leading. So
that, dropping out of his mind altogether his own shameful conduct on
that occasion, he had allowed himself to brood over Deborah’s image as
that of the angel who--but not before he was tired of it--should lead
him back from his exhausting London life to recruit his energies in
quiet Carstow.

So that this mandate of Amos Goodhare’s to go and marry Lady Marion
fell in the midst of his dreams with disconcerting suddenness. Amos
had used his craft so well on Rees’s weak nature that not all Sep’s
shrewd observations had been able to shake the young man’s confidence
in the judgment of the old. Amos thought for him, and Rees acted upon
those thoughts with docility, though he constantly protested with a
verbal freedom which Goodhare, while permitting, hated him for.

Rees, therefore, did not now stay to ask himself whether Amos had some
private motive in this matter of his marriage, but he arrived at the
meeting-place in the worst possible temper.

Mrs. Walker, Lady Marion’s accommodating friend, was the wife of a
city architect, and one of those persons who are ready, by no matter
what means, to attach themselves to people of a rank superior to their
own. Although exceedingly small, plain, and vulgar she had, by the
attractions of a coarse, easy-going good nature and a somewhat
startling freedom of speech, secured the equivocal attentions of a
young fellow of no brains but of good social position, and it was
through him that she had made the acquaintance of Lady Marion Cenarth,
who was his own cousin. Mrs. Walker was therefore just the sort of
person to be an accommodating friend, and Lady Marion, while inwardly
loathing her unrefined manners, was glad to make use of her.

On this particular evening Mrs. Walker had had an appointment to go to
the theatre, but the fog having prevented her keeping it, she gave
Lady Marion her undesirable companionship, and the two sat in the
drawing-room with Francis Cenarth, the brainless one before mentioned;
the hostess trying to talk a jargon of fashionable slip-slop, to which
Lady Marion who, whatever her faults might be, was not frivolous,
turned rudely inattentive ears.

“He’s not coming, my dear, that is clear, so I should advise you to
give up hope, and look pleasant,” whispered Mrs. Walker, as she
crossed over to her friend with a cup of tea.

But at that moment a cab stopped at the door, and Lady Marion, with a
naïve start and a flushing face, betrayed her hopes. A minute later
Rees was in the room.

If Lady Marion was annoyed at the presence of Mrs. Walker, her admirer
was unspeakably relieved by it. He drank cup after cup of tea, and
bore lightly the chief burden of the conversation, delighted to
shorten the inevitable tête-à-tête in which he would have to
forswear his liberty and be surfeited with unwelcome caresses. At
last, however, the hostess proposed to show her own admirer a picture
her husband had just bought, in order to allow the supposed passionate
lovers an opportunity of exchanging mutual vows. The two
drawing-rooms, which were both furnished with a good taste which
seemed at first sight a surprising characteristic of their occupier,
ran from the front to the back of the house, and were divided simply
by a reed curtain. Mrs. Walker passed through these with Francis
Cenarth, and Rees was left to make his proposal. As usual, having let
Amos make up his mind for him, Rees was not long in carrying out his
instructions when once he and the opportunity stood face to face.

The reed curtain had scarcely ceased to rustle behind his hostess and
her companion, when he threw himself into a chair by Lady Marion’s
side.

“Well, Marion,” he said in a rather languid, pretty-pretty manner,
“have you any idea why I was so anxious to see you to-night?”

The poor girl flushed with surprise and agitation. Indeed, she had not
noticed any great degree of anxiety in her lover’s manner. Knowing her
own personal disadvantages, with a cankering knowledge that she was
lean, high-shouldered, awkward, and altogether without beauty, and
regarding Rees with worshipful eyes which even exaggerated his good
looks and attractions, she had always been content with very little.
Now, therefore, she scarcely dared to think that the goal of her hopes
was really reached.

“No, Rees,” she stammered, looking at him with sudden, most eloquent
shyness, and a bright gleam of excitement in her rather dull blue
eyes, “I--I didn’t know that you had any particular reason.”

“And if I tell you that I have, can you guess what it is?”

“No--no, Rees.”

She had scarcely uttered these words when a cab drew up so sharply
outside that, in the fog, the horse stepped upon the curbstone, and
was got off amid much shouting and clatter. Rees jumped up and looked
out from behind the blind to see what had happened. He stepped back
muttering an exclamation, with a strange look in his eyes.

“It’s the earl,” he said briefly.

Lady Marion started to her feet with a cry, and stood for a few
moments staring at him vacantly. Then, whispering quickly:

“Behind the curtain--the other room--papa must not see you!” she met
Mrs. Walker, just as the latter, hearing a loud and peremptory ring,
ran in from the next room.

“It’s my father,” said Lady Marion.

Mrs. Walker did not notice the girl’s tone of alarm. The honor of
having an earl in her house, no matter what his errand might be,
out-weighed every other thought in her mind. She had only time to draw
one deep breath of gratification before the drawing-room door was
opened and Lord St. Austell was announced.

He walked in with a firm step and dignified manner--“every inch a
nobleman” was the description Mrs. Walker afterwards gave of him. With
a curt bend to the lady, who came forward very ready to overflow with
an effusive welcome, he asked shortly:

“My daughter is here, I believe, madam?”

“Yes, papa,” said a tremulous voice behind him.

He turned and saw Lady Marion standing near the door, with a very
white face. Then, with only a glance at her, he again addressed the
lady of the house.

“Can I have a few words with my daughter alone, madam?”

Nothing could be more courteous than his words and attitude, nothing
more contemptuous than his tone and manner. It was impossible to
mistake the fact that he took at a glance the measure, social and
moral, of the person he was addressing. No upbraidings, no
explanations were necessary. Mrs. Walker retired at once with some
incoherent words which sounded like an apology, and the earl turned at
once again to his daughter.

“Last week you begged of me,” he began at once, without any preface,
“two letters from General Wenlock as autographs, you said. Who did you
give them to?” No answer. “Was it to Amos Goodhare?”

Another pause.

Then, in a stifled voice, poor Lady Marion answered, “No, papa.”

“Who was it to, then?”

He was perfectly quiet. Rees, who was listening, with bated breath,
behind the reed curtain, could only just distinguish the words.

Again Lady Marion made no answer.

The earl spoke again, after a short silence, in very measured tone.

“Your uncle Charles will be a ruined man by this time to-morrow unless
we find out into what hands those letters have got. They have been
used for purposes of forgery.”

The girl uttered a low cry and hid her face in her hands.

“Will you tell me now?”

“I cannot.”

She lifted a countenance like that of a dead person, staring wildly,
blankly, before her.

“Then I know. It was Rees Pennant!”

Lord St. Austell was by no means a dull person when an important
occasion arose for the exercise of his wits. He had been told where to
find his daughter by a servant who knew better than to say what reason
took her to Mrs. Walker’s, and until this moment he had not had the
least suspicion of her attachment to Rees and her secret
correspondence with him. But he had caught sight of a slight,
well-formed figure he recognised behind the reed curtain, for neither
Rees nor Lady Marion had remembered that a small lamp was burning at
the back of the second room. In an instant the earl understood
everything. Connecting Amos with the change in Rees, as he had already
known how to connect him with the personation of himself at the Tower
that day, he felt that he had now more than a clue, and therefore
spoke with certainty.

Marion was in despair. She at once began a denial so energetic that
Rees, perceiving that the game was up, stepped through the rustling
reeds with a grand air.

“It is unnecessary to say more,” he said, standing in the centre of
the room, conscious even at this moment of the effective picture he
made. “I admit that the letters were given to me.”

The earl came to the point at once. What were these two, this knave
and this fool, that he should spend time and words on them when the
honor of his family was at stake?

“Then you know where the jewels are,” he said, still in a low voice,
but with perceptibly rising excitement. “Put me in the way of finding
them to-night, and you may marry my daughter to-morrow.”

Rees gave him a low bow.

“Thank you,” he said. “You do me too great an honor. For, in the first
place, I don’t want to marry your daughter; and in the second, the
jewels you speak of have already passed out of my reach and out of my
knowledge altogether. I wish your daughter a better husband than I
should make, the Crown jewels a better keeper than your brother, and
yourself a very good evening.”

With a low but a very rapid bow, Rees darted out of the room, only
just evading the grasp which the earl, beside himself with rage, would
have laid upon his coat-collar. In another instant the front door
slammed behind him with a noise that echoed through the house, and two
minutes later still he was as much lost to the earl in the pitchy
blackness of the fog as if he had left the regions of earth.




 CHAPTER XIX.

While Rees Pennant and his two confederates in evil were passing an
existence of feverish excitement in London, life at Carstow rippled on
with the monotony of a brook in a plain. The only break that ever
occurred in the quiet uniformity of Deborah’s daily duties was on the
occasion of Godwin’s visits, which had become more frequent of late.
He was thinking seriously of “settling down,” so he told Deborah soon
after Christmas. He now spent every second Sunday at his mother’s
house, and, by Deborah’s imperatively express command, had altogether
given up making her his matter-of-fact offers of marriage, and spent
much of his time at Carstow, away from the house.

“Settling down?” echoed Deborah, laughing, when he made this
announcement. “That seems rather an odd expression to apply to
yourself, Godwin. You’ve never been anything else than settled down.
Now you might, with some sense, apply that term to Rees.”

“Rees, Rees, Rees,” repeated Godwin, impatiently. “You don’t mean to
say that after all this time, you have Rees as much on the brain as
ever.”

“‘Out of sight’ is not ‘out of mind’ with us women,” answered Deborah,
didactically.

“Not when you live in the country, perhaps. If you lived in a big town
you’d learn better how to rate people at their proper value.”

“And you would go up, you think, and poor Rees down?”

“Certainly, if you used the educational advantages of town life as you
ought. But to come back to the point--when I say I intend to settle
down, I mean to marry. I didn’t tell you about it before, because I
knew it would distress you.”

“Distress me, why?”

“Well, everyone thinks more highly of the prize they’ve lost. So I
knew that you, when you found I was engaged to somebody else, would
have some regrets, however transient, at having thrown away your
chances.”

“You are very good, and in consideration of that goodness, I’ll shed
all my tears in private.”

“But if I don’t mind seeing them? If I should _like_ to see them?”

“Then I shall know that you are a mere monster of selfish cruelty, and
I shall keep them to myself all the more.”

“Well, don’t you want to know who I’m engaged to?”

“I _do_ know.”

Godwin looked much astonished.

“To the second Miss Brownlow.”

He sat down in the next chair to Deborah, and stared at her in blank
amazement.

“But--but you’ve never seen me with her! I’m perfectly certain that in
your presence I’ve never exchanged half a dozen words with her.”

“No, but she is the very girl mamma and I picked out for you, as being
admirably suited to you in every way--sensible, practical,
straightforward and quite nice-looking enough.”

“Quite nice-looking enough for me; I see.”

“Now don’t be angry. The fact that you’ve chosen her proves that she
_is_ nice-looking enough for you. And knowing how sensible you are,
and how you always do the right thing, it was quite natural to expect
that you would choose the right woman. When are you going to be
married?”

“I don’t know,” answered Godwin, shortly, “it depends on who my wife
is.”

“What! I thought you said you were engaged!”

“I am--or very near it. But I am going to give you one more chance.”

“And Miss Brownlow?”

Godwin shrugged his shoulders.

“She’ll suffer less at the loss of such an ordinary admirer as I than
she would by gaining such an ordinary husband as I should make--to
her.”

“And do you think,” asked Deborah, looking full at him with an
expression of great scorn, “that that would be honorable conduct? You
who know what an opportunity of marriage means to a girl in a country
town?”

Godwin returned her look very straightforwardly.

“Isn’t that rather a low point of view to look at the matter from?”

“It is probably hers.”

“Well, that admission condemns you. For I decline to think that the
well-being and happiness of a girl whose only aim in existence is to
catch a husband by any means she can is of so much consequence
as--well, as mine. Is that frank enough?”

Deborah was a little taken aback by this straightforward egotism.

“Then you must logically deny any sort of equality between men and
women?”

“I do, emphatically. Women are our superiors or our inferiors, never
our equals. And better education for them will not alter this fact; it
will accentuate it.”

“Now you are running right away from the point, which is this. Is the
inequality between the sexes so great that a man may jilt a girl for
his own happiness without losing his right to be considered an
honorable man?”

“Well, he loses the first freshness of his honor; but if he gets rid
of a girl who could be nothing better than his housekeeper, to get one
who will be, in the noblest sense of the word, his wife, he gains a
great deal more than he loses.”

“And if she brings an action for breach of promise?”

“Then she loses the cloak which has so far covered her natural want of
delicacy.”

“You are as hard and didactic as ever.”

“I’m not hard; but I have a few gleams of sense left shining through
the mass of cobwebs with which you have filled my head.”

“I don’t understand the simile.”

“Well, I’m in love with you; I love you so much that I’d rather come
to you without a rag of honor left than be saluted as the noblest man
in the world by any other woman. Just as you, who know that Rees has
turned out such a scamp that we daren’t inquire into his actions,
would think nothing of lowering yourself to the point of forgiving
him.”

Deborah got up and touched the bell for tea, too much agitated to
answer him. Godwin had not only spoken to her with less reserve than
ever before, but had looked at her with passion, and finally poured
out his words with a vehemence quite in sharp contrast with his
accustomed matter-of-fact manner.

“Well,” said he, rising quickly and leaning over her as she rang the
bell; “do you think more of me now than you did before?”

“No. Less,” she answered sharply.

But it was not true. No woman thinks less of a man for letting her
into the secrets of his innermost feelings. Godwin retreated, however,
without guessing this, and made no further reference to their
conversation until the following morning, when he was on the point of
starting on his journey back to his work.

“You needn’t tell my mother anything about Miss Brownlow,” he said
hurriedly, in a low voice, with his hat in his hand and his eyes on
the floor.

“But why not? I think she would be pleased. Mamma likes her. And poor
mamma wants cheering just now.”

“Yes; but it might not come off, you know, and then she’d be
disappointed. Well, you’ll see me again in a fortnight.”

“You’re more assiduous in your courtship of Miss Brownlow than you
were in my case.”

“Yes, there’s more work to do in getting up the excitement.”

“Godwin, I have something serious to say to you about mamma. You know
how reserved she is.”

“Yes.”

“And don’t you notice a difference in her from visit to visit.”

“I am afraid I do. And I know the reason of it--Rees.”

Deborah’s voice dropped to an emphatic whisper.

“She is breaking her heart about him.”

Godwin began to move restlessly from one foot to the other.

“Well, well; perhaps that sad ignorance is better than full knowledge
would be.”

Deborah shuddered.

“There is nothing to be done, Godwin, is there?”

He shook his head.

“Not until the prodigal comes back--as he will do sooner or later, to
oust the dutiful son,” he answered bitterly.

Deborah said nothing to this--did not even look at him--but her cheeks
flushed guiltily.

“Well, good-bye, you’ll miss your train,” she said at last.

“Good-bye,” said he curtly.

And he turned abruptly, without again offering to shake hands, and
started on his way to the station.

It was true that Mrs. Pennant brooded over the defection of her eldest
son. Without having discussed the matter with any one, she knew that
there was something discreditable in his mode of life, something which
none of the artfully worded suggestions in her own letters could
induce him to confess. Belonging, as she did, to that numerous class
of women who would allow their sons any latitude and spend their time
in efforts, not to reform their darlings, but to shield them, she
lived in perpetual terror lest Rees should “get into trouble;” and
when, three days after Godwin’s confession to Deborah, Lord St.
Austell was announced one morning while Mrs. Pennant was taking her
breakfast in her bed-room, the old lady sprang up from her chair with
an intuitive conviction that this visit concerned her son.

Deborah thought so too. Wishing therefore to spare the old lady as
much as she could of any coming shock, she cried out, as Mrs. Pennant
hurried towards the door.

“What, mamma, you are surely not going to let Lord St. Austell see
_you_ in your dressing-gown!”

The old lady stopped. The habits of her life conquered even her
impatience for news of her son. Stepping back to the looking-glass and
catching sight of her haggard old face and unsmoothed hair, she said:

“You go down, Deborah, and tell his lordship I shall be ready to
receive him in ten minutes.”

But Deborah thought she could reckon on a good half-hour. She was
white and agitated herself when she entered the morning-room, where
the earl was standing by the fire. His expression told her that her
fears were well-founded.

“I don’t know how to break the news to you,” he said at once, in a low
voice, as they shook hands. “But have you heard anything? You look as
if you had.”

“Nothing. I have only guessed by your face, and in fact from your
coming, so early, so unexpectedly. Mamma guessed too.”

“The old lady? She isn’t up yet, is she?” asked he anxiously.

“Yes. She will be down in a few minutes.”

“Then I must make haste. For I could not meet her. You know it is
about--Rees.”

“Is he dead?”

“No, unhappily, I might almost say. He is concerned in a stupendous
robbery.”

Deborah listened with surprising outward calmness. She had expected
some calamity of this sort for such a long time that it almost seemed
to her that she was hearing old news.

“Is he in the hands of the police?” she asked quietly.

“No. They have not even been informed of the robbery yet, except
perhaps unofficially. For the great object is to get the jewels back
without noise.”

“Jewels?”

“Crown jewels.”

Deborah started. She had not expected anything so sensational as that.

“What are you going to do?” she whispered.

“I am going to try home influence, your influence, if you will help
us.”

“Of course.”

“Put on your things.” He looked at his watch. “We have twenty-eight
minutes before the train starts. No time to lose. If by to-night we
are not in the way to recover the jewels we must trust to the police.”

Deborah ran to the door, but, with her fingers on the handle, she
turned with a white face.

“Mamma!” she whispered, scarcely doing more than form the words with
her lips, “she is outside.”

She rattled the handle, but still she heard the sound of heavy
breathing on the other side. At last, very gently, she opened the
door, and found, as she had begun to fear, Mrs. Pennant on her knees,
with half-closed eyes, in a kind of fit. The old lady had known that
an attempt would be made to keep from her something concerning her
son, and had had recourse to eavesdropping to find out the truth.

“I can’t go up to London now,” said Deborah quietly, but in a tone of
despair.

“We will see,” said the earl.

Before she could say another word he was out of the house. In five
minutes the family doctor had arrived, and in ten minutes Mrs. Kemp,
the admiral’s widow, was standing by the bed to which her old friend
had been carried. It was a stroke of paralysis, the first, and not a
very severe one. Within an hour Mrs. Pennant had recovered
sufficiently to remember what she had heard, and to insist on her
adopted daughter’s going up to town.

By the next train, therefore, Lord St. Austell and Deborah Audaer were
on their way to London.




 CHAPTER XX.

In the midst of his anxiety on his brother’s account Lord St.
Austell was filled with admiration, but rather puzzled, by the entire
change in Deborah’s manner towards him. Being on old man of the world
he was able, as soon as he had done for the time all there was to be
done, to ease his mind sufficiently of its burden to enjoy the idea of
a long tête-à-tête with the beautiful girl. When he asked her if he
should have the compartment reserved, she made no objection. When he
loaded her with little attentions, and began to assume his most
fascinating manner, she thanked him smilingly, but still showed none
of the rather distant timidity with which she had formerly treated his
advances. He grew more and more anxious to know the reason of this
change.

“I did not think, Miss Audaer, at this time yesterday that I should
ever have the pleasure of a journey in your society.”

“No indeed, nor did I,” said Deborah simply.

“In fact, at one time I was afraid that I had had the misfortune to
come under the ban of your displeasure.”

“Oh no, how could you, when you were so kind to Rees?”

“Yet even your fondness for Rees would never before induce you to come
up to London with me to find out how he was getting on.”

Deborah said nothing to this. After a short pause Lord St. Austell
went on:

“So that, while I am delighted to find that the--shall we call
it--prejudice under which I labored in your eyes has broken down, I am
at the same time at a loss to account for the change which has made me
so happy.”

“Are you really?” asked Deborah with surprise, turning towards him
eyes full of intelligence and sincerity. “I should have thought a man
of your experience would have understood it so easily.”

There was no quality of his to which the earl would not rather have
heard her allude than to his experience, suggesting, as it did, the
years which had brought it. However, he had a great deal too much tact
and shrewdness to betray his feeling on the subject.

“I confess,” he said, “that long and varied as my experience has been,
your charming sex still has surprises for me. Will you explain the
reason of the altered light in which you regard me?”

“There has been no alteration. It is simply this: You asked me to
accompany you to London this morning with the definite object of
trying to do you a service. In those circumstances, unless I am much
mistaken in you, a girl might safely trust herself in your care from
here to Japan.”

The girl’s spirit and modesty took the old _roué_ by storm. It was
such a deft and graceful appeal to all that was best in the traditions
of his not very worthy school, that this particular girl was indeed,
after making it, an almost sacred object in his eyes. He leaned back
in his seat in the carriage, regarding her with admiration more
respectfully than before.

“What a strangely different world this would be,” he said at last, “if
only half the women in it possessed your divine attribute of common
sense!”

“Perhaps there are some divine attributes lacking in the men, too,”
suggested Deborah demurely.

“That is more than likely. But who, that knows anything about him,
would expect divinity in such a creature as a man?”

“Not I, for one,” answered Deborah, with simple sincerity which was
rather startling.

“And it’s rather hard, isn’t it, that such commonplace, tainted
wretches as we are, should expect such moral perfection in our
helpmates.”

Deborah paused a few moments, and then answered thoughtfully:

“I don’t think so. Surely it is better that one-half the world should
be good than that none should be. And if a man can’t be good himself,
it is at least something that he can admire goodness in his wife and
wish for a good influence around his children.”

The earl was much interested.

“There,” said he, with excitement, “is the sensible way of looking at
it. What a wife you’d make?”

“Yes,” said Deborah, quietly, “to a good husband.”

“But I understood you to say----”

“That a man should choose a good mother for his children. But I think
also that a woman should choose a good father for hers.”

“And you would be very hard to please?”

“Very.”

“But don’t you know that most women prefer a man not too utterly
immaculate?” suggested the earl, gently.

“That is because they hope to reform him.”

“And--stop me at once if you think I am getting impertinent--but have
you never, never entertained any idea of the sort?”

Deborah blushed, but she turned to answer him very frankly.

“Yes, I have. I wanted very badly to reform Rees Pennant. And that set
me thinking what sort of a thing such a reform could be. And then I
began to doubt my own powers.”

“And you decided to give him up?”

“No, oh no. But I saw that it would need a great deal of love on the
man’s side as well as on the woman’s to bring such a reform about.”

“And had you not in the meantime met some one who--well, who insisted
on occupying a corner in your thoughts?”

Deborah started.

“Oh, no; at least----.” She hesitated in some confusion.

The earl laughed softly.

“Ah, you are a very woman after all. I was beginning to be afraid you
were rather too superior to our poor common clay.”

“But you are quite wrong if you think----”

“I don’t think anything; I never did. I have been a soldier, you know,
not a philosopher. I can act, you see; I could run down to Carstow to
fetch you; but having done so, I have for the time given up all
thought about our errand, and the numerous difficulties this business
has thrown me into.”

“Indeed!” said Deborah gravely, “I can’t think about it clearly; it
has come upon me like a misfortune which one has dreamed about all
night and which happens in the daytime.”

Lord St. Austell shivered, and Deborah saw that his face had turned
quite grey, and that his eyes moved restlessly, as if trying to escape
the sight of some haunting object. He opened one of the pile of papers
he had hastily bought at the station, and asked her opinion upon one
of the public topics of the day. But that his mind was more burdened
by the object of their journey than he chose to confess was proved by
a remark into which he burst quite abruptly after a long silence.

“This young scamp Rees has a wonderful fascination about him. He has
bewitched one of my own daughters. I caught them together last night
at the house of some miserable little snob.”

“Lady Marion?” said Deborah quietly.

“What? You have heard?”

“Oh, that has been well known for a long time.”

“To every one but me, I suppose?”

“I should think so.”

“Well, your confession that a woman can become disgusted with even a
worthless man gives me hope.”

“I did not speak for every woman, remember,” said Deborah warningly.

Her caution was justified. At Paddington, waiting for the train from
Carstow, stood poor Lady Marion, leaner, more hatchet-faced than ever,
in a long cloak and a shabby black hat, looking old enough for her own
mother. Deborah saw her first, and jumping quickly out of the
carriage, went up to her. The poor thing looked at the handsome girl
before her with angry eyes, and would have turned her back and walked
on. Deborah was not to be daunted.

“We have come to try and save Rees,” she whispered, following her.

Lady Marion turned quickly.

“To save him! Ah, yes, _you_,” she added immediately, in a bitterly
envious tone. “He loves you.”

“Well, if you care for him, surely the great thing is that he should
be saved,” urged the other persuasively.

Lady Marion had stopped reluctantly, and she now looked everywhere but
at Deborah’s beautiful face.

“But papa, what does he say?”

Before her companion could answer, Lord St. Austell was beside them.
He looked coldly and sternly at his daughter.

“Come down here, out of the crowd,” said he. “I wish to speak to you.”

He took her arm and led her down the platform to the almost deserted
end, which is, morning and evening, piled with huge milk cans going
and returning between the London dairies and the country. Deborah
followed them at a long distance, and waited. The earl addressed his
daughter very coldly.

“What is the meaning of this exhibition. You promised me, when I took
you home last night, that you would remain there.”

“I couldn’t papa, I couldn’t,” sobbed the girl.

“What have you come here for?”

“To tell you that I love him, and that if you don’t let him off I
shall kill myself and let everybody know why. You don’t believe me!”
the poor distracted creature continued passionately.

“I do. I could believe anything of such an idiot,” said her father
contemptuously. “You have seen him, I suppose, this morning?”

“No. I don’t know where he lives.”

“Ah, he was afraid of your worrying him even at his rooms, evidently.”
And he uttered an exclamation of disgust. “Now go home. Nothing is
further from my thoughts than punishing Rees. I would not even give
him a fool for a wife.”

He led her, without too much gentleness, through the station, put her
in a hansom, and gave the driver the address of his home.

Then, with a laconic caution that she had better remain at home and
keep quiet, he turned his back upon her and went in search of Deborah,
whom he found just inside the doors, wearing a rather sad face.

“I wish that foolish girl of mine had a little of your sense,” said
he, as he helped Deborah into a hansom and got in after her.

“She is the ideal faithful woman, though.”

“Yes, because she has no beauty.”

They drove on in silence to the lodgings in St. Martin’s-lane, where,
in answer to their inquiries, they were told that Mr. Pennant still
lived; then they were ushered into the little back room, which Deborah
remembered, and, finding that Rees was not there, they said they would
wait. Mr. Pennant’s hours were very uncertain, the old landlady, who
opened the door herself, said; and as he scarcely ever had a meal at
home, and always let himself in with a latch-key, she could give very
little information about his movements. Both Mr. Pennant and Mr.
Jocelyn, she mentioned, as if it was no uncommon occurrence, had slept
out last night.

“Jocelyn!” repeated Lord Austell, turning to Deborah.

“It must be Sep, Mrs. Kemp’s nephew,” answered she.

“We will wait,” repeated he. “If you should meet either of them on
their way in, don’t tell them any one is here. We want to surprise
them.”

“Very well, sir,” said Mrs. Williamson. Then she continued, with a
smile, “If Mr. Goodhare should call, sir, I suppose you would wish him
told that his brother is inside?”

Lord St. Austell started.

“Brother!” he repeated sharply.

“Lor’, yes, sir, I saw the likeness in a minute!”

The earl glanced in the looking-glass over the mantelpiece, and
laughed with an effort.

“No,” he said. “Let him in, but don’t let him know I’m here.”

“Very well, sir.”

She left the room, and the earl turned to Deborah in great agitation.

“Now do you know who is the prime mover in all this?” he asked, almost
fiercely, when the door closed.

“Amos Goodhare,” she answered quietly. “He has been Rees’s evil genius
for the last eighteen months.”

“And mine for a much longer time than that. But,” he added gloomily,
after a pause, “I would have avoided meeting him if I could. It can do
no good. He is a rascal, but I cannot charge him, and he knows it.”

He was silent for some time, pacing up and down the little room,
listening intently to every sound, glancing from time to time at his
watch impatiently, while the gloom upon his face constantly increased.

“Perhaps none of them will come,” suggested Deborah.

“Yes, they will; at any rate _he_ will,” said the earl. “When I am
highly strung, as I am to-night, I can feel a misfortune approaching.
And this man has always brought misfortune to me. Don’t smile, my dear
girl. When you have reached my age, you will believe, at any rate
somewhat, in portents.”

But Deborah was not smiling. There was something more of solemnity,
something more of a kindly dignity, in the earl’s manner, as the
afternoon wore slowly on. She began to believe, as she watched the
change which was creeping over him, and turning him, as it were, from
the genial carpet knight into the soldier ready for battle, that they
were, indeed, as his presentiment told him, on the eve of some great
calamity, which would overshadow even the anxieties from which they
were suffering.

The dark afternoon was merging into evening, and the fire had been
allowed to sink very low, when, at last, there was a sound of turning
of a latch-key in the outer door. The earl, who had been resting for a
moment in a chair by the dying fire, with his head in his hands, sat
up and signed to Deborah to keep still on the little sofa where she
was sitting.

Before she could guess his purpose they both heard a very light tread
in the hall outside, the door opened noiselessly, and a man, not at
first distinguishable in the darkness, crept into the room like a
shadow.

Then by his height, and his stealthy movements, they knew him to be
Amos Goodhare.




 CHAPTER XXI.

When Amos Goodhare entered the little sitting-room, Deborah was
sitting on a sofa, so far back in the black shadow that she knew it
was impossible for him to see her. But Lord St. Austell was sitting so
far forward in the arm-chair that the faint glow of the little fire
shone upon him. Nevertheless, Amos behaved exactly as if he saw no
one.

The window was to the left of the door, and only four or five steps
from it. He crossed the narrow space with a very soft tread, and
throwing open the window, which he did quickly, but without the least
noise, descended on the stone flags outside, and, turning to the
right, disappeared quickly in the darkness.

Lord St. Austell sprang up from his seat, ran to the window, and
strained his eyes to follow him. He had his hand on the sill to jump
out after him, when he felt Deborah’s touch upon his sleeve.

“Lord St. Austell,” she whispered, “don’t on any account follow that
man alone. He is dangerous.”

The earl turned impatiently. He was at all times physically fearless.

“My dear girl, don’t be alarmed, these men have nothing to fear and
everything to hope from me. By this time they must have found it
practically impossible to dispose of the stolen property, and must be
in hourly dread of the police. Now, I can hush up the whole affair if
they will restore the jewels.”

Deborah was still holding his sleeve with no uncertain grip, and she
spoke in a low but very decided tone:

“It is not that, but Amos Goodhare has a grudge against you, I am sure
of it.”

“No reasonable one, I assure you.”

By this time the girl was clinging to both his arms, almost struggling
with him to prevent his carrying out his purpose.

“What does that matter,” she cried, vehemently. “Was a prejudice ever
the weaker for being unreasonable? I tell you he saw you and pretended
not to, in order to lure you to follow him. You don’t know where he’s
gone, and what accomplices he may have waiting in that nest of dirty
courts and passages out there. Get police assistance before you try to
find him.”

“Confound the girl!” muttered Lord St. Austell savagely, as at last,
not without the exercise of something like violence, he got partially
free from her clinging hands. “You’ve made me miss him!”

Deborah let him go at once, with an exclamation of relief.

“That’s all right!”

He had already got half out of the window, when suddenly he drew back
and came to her. She was sitting by the table leaning her head on her
hand.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Audaer,” said he, most contritely with the
ring of sincere feeling in his voice, as he felt in the obscurity for
her hand, which she gave him at once. It was cold and trembling. “My
dear girl, I hope I have not hurt you--for heaven’s sake, tell me I
have not!” he cried with much concern.

“No, you have not,” she answered in a hoarse and broken voice. “But I
am beginning to feel what you feel--that some dreadful thing is going
to happen--that that man’s presence brings harm.”

“Well, I choose to think that your presence counteracts it, for you
are a good, brave girl. Now, child, I want you to wait here for me,
and if Rees should come, use your influence with him. I am going to
use mine with Amos.”

“You are--really?”

“Really. Good-bye for the present.”

Deborah was in so excited a state that even the haste with which he
added those last three words, “for the present,” seemed to her
portentous. She listened with straining ears to the last sound of his
footsteps as he trod the uneven stones in the direction Amos had
taken.

As in the case of most “presentiments,” Lord St. Austell’s vague
foreboding was the result chiefly of very clear and distinct
knowledge. He knew very well that his personator at the Tower on the
previous day could be no other than Amos Goodhare, between whom and
himself there had alway existed a dislike, all the stronger for having
been most decently veiled. There was a likeness in the temperament and
disposition of the two men as marked as their outward resemblance to
each other, and this likeness accentuated their difference of social
position, and so increased the mistrust of the one, and the hatred of
the other. What treatment, then, could the earl hope to receive at the
hands of a man who hated him, who had just proved himself to be an
audacious and unprincipled scoundrel, and who held all the cards in
his own hands. Lord St. Austell had not the least fear of personal
violence; in his younger days he had proved a brave and a lucky
soldier, and he would have felt reassured rather than alarmed if he
had thought that the matter would be decided by any sort of physical
encounter. What he feared was that Goodhare would absolutely refuse to
come to terms, would stubbornly affect ignorance of the whole affair,
in which case the career of his brother Charles, keeper of the
regalia, would be ruined.

As he picked his way over the stones, under the eaves of the outer
buildings which had grown up between the old houses, with the
raindrops dripping down upon him, and his feet slipping from time to
time, with a little splash, into the pools and rivulets in the uneven
pavement, he debated which price he should have to pay for the
information he wanted.

But he never came near the true one.

He was brought to a standstill, in the midst of his cogitations, by a
low brick wall. He was a tall man and he could see over it. He saw the
backs of the deserted houses on the left, and a passage running behind
them. At the back door of the fourth house a man was standing, who
came forward quickly, peering into the darkness. When he was close to
the wall he said:

“I beg your pardon. Can you oblige me with a light?”

“Certainly, Amos.”

“Your lordship! Is it possible? What can you be doing here?”

“I was looking for you.”

“For me! You do me too much honor. But what am I to do? I feel at
present rather under a cloud, and, to confess the whole truth, I am in
hiding from the police. You know, your lordship, since you threw me
over, I have always been an unlucky man.”

He spoke in his old tone of almost fawning respect, and his last words
conveyed a reproach uttered with tender melancholy. Lord St. Austell’s
hopes rose.

“Perhaps I can get you out of the police difficulty, Amos, and perhaps
you can help me in return,” he said in the low voice in which their
colloquy had been conducted from the beginning. “Can’t you take me
somewhere where we can talk. I’m standing with my feet in a pool of
water, and with more of the same exhilarating liquid meandering down
my back from a broken waterspout over my head.”

“Well, I really don’t know what to do,” said Amos, in apparent
confusion. “I’ve a wretched den on this side of the wall where I hide
myself, but it’s not the sort of place I could take your lordship
into.”

“But I give you my word my lordship would prefer anything to his
present position.”

With a shamefaced effort, Amos apparently made up his mind.

“Come then, my lord, if you will. At any rate, you’ll see what straits
I’m reduced to.”

Something in the man’s tone rang false, and Lord St. Austell noticed
it. But he did not hesitate. There were notches in the wall which
would have made the climbing an easy matter to a less athletic man
than he still was, and although he remarked good-humoredly that he had
hoped his climbing days were over, he got over without the least
difficulty, and followed Amos up the passage.

“Dreary hole this,” he exclaimed, glancing up at the deserted houses
with their blank, nailed-up windows, and at the cold reflection of a
distant gaslamp on the wet pavement at the other end of the passage.
Big drops of rain-water splashed down from the broken roofs, and
little streams trickled into the passage from bent and rusty
water-pipes. “But I should have thought these deserted houses would be
just the sort of place the police would keep an eye on.”

“I believe they think they are too obviously suitable a hiding-place,
and that the fear of a chance inspection would keep poor vagabonds
away. I have had an occasional rattle at my shutters from a passing
bobby when I have been keeping close, but I have never been disturbed
in any other way.”

Amos was standing by the door of the fourth house. Bending down, he
drew away the lower part of the boarding with which it was nailed up.
“I’m afraid your lordship will have to stoop,” said he.

As Lord St. Austell instantly bent down to creep through the opening,
the face of the other man underwent a sudden change. His features
became convulsed with fury, and he drew up his right arm as if the
impulse to take advantage of his companion’s stooping position was
irresistible. The next moment he had controlled himself, and following
the earl into the house, he drew up the boards behind them.

It was quite dark inside the passage of the house.

“You go first, Amos,” said Lord St. Austell; and he leaned back
against the wall for Goodhare to pass him.

“You don’t mind going down a floor lower, do you, my lord? I daren’t
strike a light till we get below the street level.”

“Do you take refuge in the cellar then?”

“Your lordship will allow that it is better than a police cell. This
way. Shall I go first? Mind how you come. It’s only a ladder.”

Lord St. Austell followed without hesitation, but he was not so dull
as to ignore the fact that his errand was becoming more dangerous than
he had expected. He followed to the first cellar, to which a faint
light penetrated through a grating below what had once been the shop
window. Goodhare, after listening for a few moments to be sure that no
tread of a passer-by was audible on the stone pavement outside, pushed
open a door on the right and climbed down into a lower cellar which
was as much overheated as the upper one was too cold. The ruddy glow
of a fire was seen at once on floor and ceiling, and a gust of air hot
as the breath of a furnace, seemed almost to sear the wet, cold faces
of the two men as they entered.

“Good heavens! I shall never be able to stay down here,” exclaimed the
earl, stepping back from the huge square iron grate, like the cage of
an ancient beacon, which stood in the middle of the floor, and in
which blazed an enormous fire.

“Oh, you will manage it as long as I want to keep you,” said Amos,
quietly.

He drew the door close and made it fast with a rough bolt, while Lord
St. Austell examined the cellar in which he found himself, which Amos
not inaptly termed a den.

There was no boarding on the floor, nothing but the rough earth. The
walls were only bricked in about half-way down, as if the cellar had
been dug out after the house was built. A piece of sacking on the
floor, two benches, a dirty sofa, and deal table covered with tools
and lumber, formed all the furniture. The earl looked attentively at a
huge melting-pot which stood before the fire.

“That,” said Goodhare, “was what the gold crowns from the Tower were
melted in.”

The coolness with which he said this caused Lord St. Austell to look
round at his companion. He was startled by the change in him. Instead
of the stooping, lean librarian, with the shabby coat and cringing
manner, he saw a well-dressed, dignified man, with trim grey
beard--the counterpart of himself. One great difference there was
between them, one only. The earl’s eyes looked out upon the world with
the cynical and languid interest of a man who has tasted and tired of
every human pleasure; those of his companion glowed with the ferocity
of a wild beast interrupted in a meal of human flesh.

“Why, Amos, rascality seems to agree with you!” exclaimed St. Lord
Austell.

Goodhare laughed harshly.

“Rascality is perhaps too strong a word, as your lordship will perhaps
allow when I point out one particular feature of the transactions in
which I have lately been engaged. I began, as perhaps you have not yet
heard, by taking a little sum that was lying idle on your lordship’s
property at Carstow. It was in old-fashioned gold, but I managed, with
some difficulty, to get it converted into the current coin of to-day.”

The two men were standing one on either side of the blazing fire which
shot up golden flames and threw a lurid brightness on both faces.
There was no other light in the cellar.

Lord St. Austell perceived now that he was in a trap, but no one could
have guessed his thoughts from the stolidly calm expression of his
face.

“Yes,” he said, very quietly. “It is the first I had heard of it. Go
on.”

“When that little provision was exhausted, I took to the calling of
gentlemanly footpad. Before you condemn me, if you look back on the
street robberies of the past winter, you will do me the justice to
remember that the first was committed on your own person and the rest
on those of your intimate friends.”

“I don’t see how that excuses you.”

“I will make it clear to your lordship by-and-bye. Last of all, when
my funds had sunk so low that it needed a bold stroke to restore them,
I helped myself, with the aid of my friends, to part of the jewels
kept in the tower, of which your brother is custodian. Do you see the
connection?”

“Of course I see that you seem to have had me always for choice as the
victim of your malpractices.”

“And you cannot yet see why, my lord?” asked Goodhare, with a panting
ferocity which he scarcely now took the trouble to veil.

“No. Except that you are a d----d ungrateful beast, biting by
preference the hand that fed you.”

“Could your lordship give me a list of your benefactions to me?” asked
Goodhare, glaring across at him over the smoke and flame of the fire.

“Well I gave you the post of librarian at Llancader, until I found you
taking advantage of the position to rob me of MSS., which, as I see,
you knew how to use.”

“And did I not earn my pay? Was I idle, drunken, dissolute?”

“Certainly not. You were an ideal librarian, and I respected you for
it.”

“Respected me for repressing every instinct of my nature, every
passion which you were freely indulging! I should think so.”

“Our positions were not the same: I could not alter that fact.”

“Did you do all for me that my father--and yours--on his death-bed
desired that you should do?”

The earl looked uneasy.

“I did all that a man is ever expected to for an illegitimate
half-brother,” said he evasively. “If I had been a Quixote I couldn’t
have given up my title to you. The law would not allow it.”

“But you could have given up Llancader, as my father, when he was
dying, told me you would do.”

The earl flushed a little.

“He should have made that provision by will if he wished it attended
to. I could not be expected to dismember the property. I am not a rich
man, as you know. For my position I’m a poor one. I never have a
thousand pounds to spend as I choose.”

“Not when your wines and women have all been paid for, I dare say.”

“Why sneer? I never knew you cared for those things. You were always
for books, books. And a studious man is supposed to be virtuous.”

“Why? Is every thought holy that is printed and bound up in morocco?
Through your father’s dishonesty to my mother and yours to me, I have
had to pass the best years of my life in revelry of the imagination
only. And so I whetted an appetite for pleasure which I have only just
begun to satisfy as yours is exhausted.”

The earl felt for the first time in his life an impulse of fear; there
was something scarcely human, something ghoulish, in the face before
him. The eyes seemed to shoot flames through the fire-smoke.

“I am getting tedious, my lord,” continued Goodhare, with mock
respect, after a short pause, during which the two men watched each
other warily. “Let us sum up the situation. Your father and mine, an
unmarried man, deceived my mother, a country lawyer’s daughter, by a
mock marriage. He took her away to North Wales, and kept her there in
privacy, on goodness knows what wretched plea. I was their son--his
eldest son. She knew who he was; she thought I was his heir. I was
fourteen before, in that out-of-the-way place, we learnt that he had
married a woman of his own rank. Then the truth came out. My mother
was broken-hearted, and did not live through the year. I was brought
up a gentleman and left a beggar. Then, with stupendous generosity you
gave me office as librarian--to close my mouth. And all your favors
you gave to Rees Pennant, whom for that reason I have ruined. And so I
lived near enough to hear the vices condoned in you which in me would
have been condemned; to see a beautiful girl repulse my honorable
advances with as much horror as she did your dishonorable ones. And
yet my mother was a better woman than yours, and _I_ am the eldest
son.”

“But you are mad! Can I help the law?”

“Can I respect it? Let us be logical. You are the eldest son above
ground, in the daylight, by right of the law. I am the eldest son down
in the earth, from which I took my birthright. And so here, down in
the earth, I take my revenge on the law and on you!”

With a spring he leapt over the iron grate, in which the fire now
burnt with a steady red glow. Seizing Lord St. Austell by the throat
before the earl had the least intimation of his purpose, Goodhare,
with a growling noise like a wild beast, twisted him and flung him
down on to the red-hot coals. Before his victim had time for more than
one struggle, one shout for help, Amos had torn open his waistcoat,
and plunging a large claspknife between his ribs, stabbed him to the
heart.

With a sigh of fiendish satisfaction, he threw the body, the clothes
of which were in a blaze, on to the floor, and wrapping it tightly in
the matting, extinguished the flames. Then, unbolting the door, he
dragged the ghastly burden across the rough floor, and lifting it, not
without difficulty and with an exclamation of disgust, into the upper
cellar, he rolled it into a corner with a series of sharp kicks.
Striking a match, he cast one more look, full of a thirsty, savage
delight, at the staring eyes and mouth distended with horror; then,
turning lightly on his heel, he threw away the match, and taking a
bottle carefully from a rough wine-bin which stood in one corner, he
climbed down into the inner cellar, took a corkscrew from his pocket,
opened the bottle lovingly, and, pouring himself out a tumblerful,
drank it off with great enjoyment.




 CHAPTER XXII.

Meanwhile, Deborah had suffered much more from gloomy anticipations
than the unfortunate Lord St. Austell. She opened the window wide, in
spite of the rain and the cold, and putting her head out, listened and
watched eagerly for his return.

Half an hour had passed, and her anxiety had reached fever pitch, when
the door of the room was opened very slowly. Catching sight of a
woman’s figure in the gloom, the intruder tried to retreat. But
Deborah, who was no fussy young woman, and who was getting tired of
mysteries, rushed to the door and kept it shut.

“I know who you are,” she cried. “You’re Sep Jocelyn. And you shall
not go until you have told me everything I want to know.”

Sep, in a trembling voice, was trying to silence her throughout the
whole of this speech.

“Sh-sh,” he whispered as she finished. “Do you want to get me into
trouble, perhaps have me murdered! Where’s”--and his voice sank still
lower--“where’s Goodhare?”

“I don’t know. He went out through that window some time ago. Do you
know where he is gone?”

“It’s better not to ask too many questions here, Miss Audaer. Where’s
Rees?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him. I want to see him.”

“Have you come to see Rees, Miss Audaer?” asked Sep, in a weak,
mistrustful voice.

“I will tell you everything when you have lit the gas,” said she,
struck by the fear in his tones. “Have you any matches about you?”

Very unwillingly Sep produced a box, which Deborah took from him. As
soon as the gas was alight she turned to look at him, and surprised a
furtive glance towards the door. Before he had time to follow his
evident inclination, she put her arm through his and drew him down on
to the sofa beside her. Sep never resisted anybody, so of course he
yielded like a lamb to her.

“And now,” she said, looking him full in the face, “what is the matter
with you?”

“Nothing,” stammered Sep, glancing quickly at her, and then avoiding
her eyes.

The answer was absurd. With his wan face, wrinkled and furrowed by
deadly anxiety and fear, and marked with black streaks of smoke and
fog, his bloodshot, swollen eyes, his quivering lips, and the
trembling fits which from time to time seized his limbs, Sep Jocelyn
had evidently something very seriously the matter with him.

“You are cold,” said Deborah gently.

“I am always cold.”

“Have you just returned from a journey?”

Sep started, and began to tremble so violently that Deborah, with her
wits on the alert, began to have an inkling of the truth.

“Listen, Sep,” she said in a low, earnest voice. “I know the trouble
you and Rees are in. It is through that man Goodhare, I feel sure.”

“Sh-sh,” interrupted Jocelyn, glancing around him fearfully.

“I’ve come to get you all out of it. If you will tell me where the
jewels are, I can promise you that nothing will ever be heard of the
business. And if you will come back to Carstow with me, I can promise
that your aunt, who misses you most dreadfully, will take you back to
her arms without a word of reproach.”

“Oh, no; she couldn’t now. You don’t know--I can’t tell you; but it’s
too late. The next shelter I get will be a prison.”

Deborah was shocked. He was altogether broken down, a mere wreck, a
shivering, quaking creature, broken-nerved, bemuddled, helpless.

“Lord St. Austell’s influence will keep you out of prison.”

“Lord St. Austell!” Sep started violently. “Why, he’s the very last
person to help us. He has no end of grudges against us, if he only
knew.”

“He does know, but the career of his brother Charles and the honor of
his family outweigh everything with him. You see, if the loss of part
of the regalia were made known, there would be a public outcry, and
his brother would be disgraced. Now, Sep, what interest have I in the
matter except yours and Rees Pennant’s?”

“Rees’s! Yes, that is true,” he muttered.

“Well, then, trust your secret to me. You were sent away with the
jewels to dispose of them, were you not?”

Sep admitted this with a half-involuntary nod, not looking at her.

“Where?”

“To Amsterdam.”

“But the jewels were only stolen yesterday, and you are back already!”

“I didn’t go. I lost heart. I was afraid. I fancied I was followed.”
And he cast another hunted look around him. “And now I daren’t meet
Goodhare. And yet--I don’t know where to go. So I sneaked back
here--to wait--till I’m taken.”

“No! Your instinct guided you back to be saved,” cried Deborah, in
re-assuring tones. “You have the jewels with you now?”

“No-o,” stammered Sep.

“Oh yes, you have,” said she, confidently. “Now, trust them with me,
and Goodhare need not know at present that you have not taken them to
Amsterdam.”

“But where shall I go?”

“Go back to your aunt at Carstow, and she’ll nurse all those worried
lines out of your face again.”

“But I daren’t; I’m ashamed to,” objected the poor wretch.

“Then go away and hide yourself somewhere for to-night, and be at
Paddington to-morrow at twelve, and you shall go down with me.”

“And Rees, what about Rees?” asked Sep, who although he had lost most
of his old enthusiasm about his friend, still retained the remains of
a dogged and not very reasonable devotion to him.

“You don’t think I should forget him,” said Deborah, gravely.

“Of course not,” he answered, hastily. “You will get him out of the
scrape too?”

“Certainly.”

“But there are so many other scrapes behind this one!”

“I think I can get them all hushed up.”

“But then there’s Goodhare,” whispered Sep, with a shudder. “He’ll
have us both back if he wants to!”

“I think he will find it expedient to keep out of the way for the
future. Now come, we haven’t much time.”

She held out her hand, assuming a tone of greater confidence than she
felt; for she feared that at the last moment Sep might decline to part
with the treasure entrusted to him. However, he looked at her
outstretched hand, and then, irresolutely, tremblingly drew out from a
pocket of his coat first one flat packet, and then another.

Deborah could scarcely refrain from snatching them, or keep her
fingers from quivering, as she took them and hid them in the front of
her own dress, under her mantle. Sep felt a-trembling as soon as he
had given them up, and buried his face in his hands.

“And now,” said she, softly, “I must find Lord St. Austell. He went
out at that door, following Goodhare.”

Sep started up wildly. “Following Goodhare!” he almost shouted. Then,
sinking his voice to a hoarse whisper, he stammered out: “You musn’t
hope anything from Lord St. Austell, then. If Goodhare took him where
I expect he did, he would never let him out alive. Goodhare hates him,
and he is more devil than man!”

Deborah rose quickly and quietly and opened the door into the yard.

“Take me to this place at once,” said she.

Remonstrance with her was useless. With staggering steps Sep
accompanied her along the outer passage.




 CHAPTER XXIII.

Deborah had scarcely got outside the door when she perceived that
something more than moral force would be wanted to keep Sep Jocelyn up
to the simple task she wished him to perform. The mere thought of
intruding unbidden upon Amos Goodhare caused him so much trepidation
that she was able to measure the awful extent of the influence the old
man had established over the younger ones. When, therefore, Sep had
stopped and hesitated half-a-dozen times, she put her hand through his
arm and gently urged him forward.

“You had better go back; let me take you back,” he whispered, afraid
of the strength of her compelling will.

“Not until you have shown me Goodhare’s hiding-place, and I have
assured myself that Lord St. Austell is safe,” she answered firmly.

Sep took a few steps forward with a groan, and stopped short in some
relief a couple of feet from the wall at the turn in the passage.

“You’ll have to come back now,” he whispered; “and I’ll try to find
out another way round. You can’t get over this wall.”

“Can’t I?” said the country girl contemptuously. “You go first and
just give me a hand on the other side.”

He obeyed very reluctantly, and he scarcely got over the wall himself
when the athletic young girl was by his side. After that, with a sort
of dismal acquiescence in the fact that she must have her own way, he
led her without further pause to the door of the house which they had
made their hiding-place.

Here at last for a moment the girl’s brave spirit seemed to fail her.
For Sep removed the lower boards of the door noiselessly, and she saw
that the house was as black as night inside, and felt the hot fumes of
stifling smoke which, coming up through the hole made in the floor of
what had once been the back-shop, spread slowly through the whole
house, and escaped, through what cracks and crevices it could find,
into the open air.

Sep snatched at the opportunity of persuading her to go back.

“Listen,” he whispered. “Can’t you hear him singing to himself down
there?”

Deborah bent forward, and caught certain fitful, crooning sounds,
which, rising from time to time to a loud, savage note, made her
shiver.

“He sings like that when he has done some diabolical thing,” Sep went
on. And Deborah heard his teeth chatter. “It would not be safe for you
to go near him now.”

“But Lord St. Austell! What can have become of him?” asked Deborah
with a sudden impulse of alarm stronger than any she had felt yet.

“Well, you can’t help him, anyhow,” said Sep shuddering.

“And Rees?”

Sep did not answer. They were inside the house now, listening to that
terrible crooning.

“I must find out what has happened--what is going on,” said Deborah
suddenly, with decision.

“You can’t see anything unless you go down into the first cellar,”
said Sep, sulkily. “And then, if he heard you go, or saw you through
the door, it would be all up with you.”

“Won’t you come down with me?”

He hesitated, and then said pettishly, “Why can’t you come back?”

“I can’t till I am sure that no harm has happened to Lord St. Austell.
Will you come!”

“I suppose so--if you won’t be persuaded,” said Sep, sullenly.

It was easy to descend without noise, as every precaution to deaden
sound had been taken by the three confederates. The ladder was fixed
quite firmly, and the rungs of it were covered with felt. Deborah went
down first, and waited at the bottom of the ladder for Sep, not
knowing which way to move in the darkness. But he did not come. She
did not dare to call to him, and while she was debating with herself
whether she should creep up the ladder again and shame him into
accompanying her, a very faint sound above told her that he had broken
faith and gone back, leaving her to face alone whatever danger might
be awaiting her.

Her first impulse on making this discovery was indignation, not with
the trembling wretch who had failed her, but with herself for her own
folly in trusting him. Then immediately she set about devising what
she could do. She heard a cork drawn in the lower cellar, the door of
which was shut, and it seemed to her that the weird, droning sound
which Amos Goodhare was making grew gradually louder. Was Lord St.
Austell hiding somewhere, on the watch like herself, she wondered. Her
eyes were getting accustomed to the gloom, and she now perceived, some
way to the left, a faint light from above. Moving very cautiously in
that direction she perceived that there was a boarded-up-window, and
that a few rays of what murky daylight was left filtered through the
cracks from a grating above.

As she crossed the floor her boot struck against a couple of boards
that were lying there, and made a little clatter. Instantly the
crooning in the next room stopped, and Deborah heard sounds as of a
seat pushed back. She had time to get close to the wall under the
boarded window, and to crouch down, when the door was pushed open, and
against a ruddy glow of fire-light she saw the figure of Amos
Goodhare.

She kept quite still.

“Rees!” called he, not loud but imperatively. A pause. He repeated the
name savagely. Then, between his teeth, he muttered, “D--n the young
whelp,” and took a few steps into the room.

Deborah could hear her own heart beating.

But Goodhare had not found her out. The next moment she heard the
clank of glass, and as he returned to the lower cellar she saw that he
carried a bottle of wine under his arm. This time he pulled the door
after him, but it rebounded a little way and stood ajar. After a few
more minutes of silent apprehension, during which Goodhare’s savage
droning went on again, Deborah felt sufficiently secure to indulge the
overwhelming anxiety and curiosity which prompted her to look at him
in his den and discover whether he was really alone.

She crept over the floor, cautiously feeling with her feet before
every step she took, and reaching the half-open door, found it easy to
peep into the lower cellar without being seen by Goodhare. For he was
sitting on the opposite side of the square grate, leaning on his elbow
along one of the wooden benches, with a great pewter tankard beside
him and two or three empty bottles at his feet. He was reaching the
sleepy stage of intoxication, she thought, for his face wore an
expression of dull ferocity as he stared into the fire.

Suddenly he lifted his head and assumed a listening attitude, becoming
on the instant alert and fierce. Deborah withdrew at once from the
door, afraid that he had seen her. But the next moment she heard
sounds on the floor above, and a step which she thought was Rees
Pennant’s. Creeping back to the wall she listened intently, and heard
Goodhare push the door of the inner cellar wide open, just as some one
began to climb down the ladder.

“Rees!” whispered Amos rather huskily.

“All right.”

They disappeared together into the lower cellar, pulled the door after
him, and drew the bolt.

Deborah crept close to the small nail-holes where once a lock had been
fixed, hoping to learn what had become of Lord St. Austell, about whom
she felt every minute more anxious. She could see nothing through the
holes but the glow and flicker of the fire on the walls, but she was
able to distinguish every word of the conversation.

“Well,” Rees began, in a spiritless and surly voice, “you seem to have
been enjoying yourself.”

“I have,” assented the other, in a tone of such savage satisfaction
that Deborah seemed to feel the blood grow suddenly cold in her veins.
“There’s nothing else to be done till Sep comes back.”

“He has come back,” said Rees shortly.

“Come back!” echoed Goodhare in a tone of anger and consternation.
“What the d--l has he come back for?”

“You’d better ask him. I met him just now standing shivering and
hesitating at the outer door of our room.”

“But he never went then! He can’t have been to Amsterdam and back
since yesterday!”

“I should say not.”

“Then what has the fool done with the jewels?” asked Amos, whose tones
grew more furious every moment.

Already he had drawn the bolt of the door.

“From what I could make out, some woman’s got them. But the poor
wretch was in such an abject state of funk that I couldn’t get much
that was intelligible out of him.”

Goodhare stammered out an oath. He seemed to be choking with rage as
he burst opened the door with a rough hand.

“A woman!” he growled out. “I’ll tear the heart out of her.”

“If you can get hold of her,” says Rees drily. “But as I thought you’d
make things unpleasant for the poor chap, I pushed him out of the
front door and told him to put a couple of miles between you and him
as fast as possible.”

Goodhare turned, very slowly. The shock of this intelligence, imparted
thus coolly, seemed for the moment to overwhelm him. Then, with a howl
of rage, he sprang at Rees, who nimbly avoided him.

“You dare to defy me, to help this miserable cur to escape me!”

“Yes, I tell you I’m sick of the whole business, this dog’s life and
all. And I’m not sorry the jewels are gone, that I can be quit of
knavery and you together. You seem to be pretty well ‘on’ to-night,
and in you’re true colors you’re by no means fascinating.”

Goodhare seemed, however, to perceive the need of pulling himself
together. There was a short pause before he answered, in a quieter
tone:

“Don’t you think you’re rather ungrateful? You must own that I’ve
shown you how to enjoy yourself, and given you the means to do it,
too.”

“A poor sort of enjoyment! I’m the wreck of what I was a year and a
half ago!”

“Only shows how alluring you found pleasure, that you gave yourself up
to it so completely.”

“Well, I’ve had enough of it now. I’m going back to Carstow, where
I’ve left a good little girl dying for love of me. I’m going to settle
down to quiet respectability and forget that I ever saw your cursed
face.”

“And on what money do you propose to do this?”

“That’s my affair.”

“No; mine.”

Rees had miscalculated the old man’s activity, as well as his
patience. Having been in the habit of treating Goodhare with
impertinence, which the ex-librarian always bore without protest, the
short-sighted and vain young man thought he need set no bounds to his
pertness. But as a matter of fact, every insult, every slight which he
had ever put upon his accomplished tutor in evil-doing, had been
stored up in the mind of the latter, who only waited to destroy his
tool until he should have no further need for it. That time he thought
had now come.

Maddened by the shedding of blood--that last crime which he had tried
within the past hour--Goodhare gave rein to the demoniacal side of his
nature, and showed all the hatred and contempt, which had been
gathering in his mind against the young man since their connection
first began, in one look, one exclamation which turned the young man’s
blood cold, even before he felt the sinewy grip of the lean fingers
about his throat.

“I’ll serve you,” he growled, “as I’ve just served a better man.” And,
drawing from one of his pockets the same knife with which he had
stabbed Lord St. Austell, he made a dash at Rees Pennant’s breast. But
the young man was more alert than the old one had been. He flung out
his hands, struck, struggled, and writhed to such good purpose that
his assailant could not despatch him with the neatness he had shown in
his attack on the earl. It was not until the third stab that Rees fell
back with a groan, and slipping from Goodhare’s murderous hands, sank
on to the nearest bench, and thence in a heap on to the floor.

The sight of the young fellow’s body, and the red stain that was
spreading on the matting at his feet, seemed to sober Goodhare and
bring him for the first time to a knowledge of his position. He
glanced at the door, for he thought he heard sounds outside. Then,
kneeling hastily down by Rees Pennant’s motionless body, he ransacked
all the pockets of the young man’s clothes with eager, swift fingers.
He had fancied that in them he should find the jewels, believing that
Rees had either gone shares with Sep in them, or appropriated them
all, with the idea that such audacity would never be suspected.
Finding no trace of either jewels or money, beyond a handful of loose
silver, Goodhare started to his feet, for the first time utterly
horror-struck and confounded. Had he really lost his best chance of
recovering the jewels? For Rees Pennant’s influence over Sep was
infinitely greater than his own; besides, the story of Sep’s escape
might be true.

With real solicitude he stooped over the silent huddled-up figure on
the floor.

“Rees, Rees, old boy!” he cried, in a voice full of anxiety.

But he got no answer.

Enraged beyond measure, and still too much excited to be quite master
of himself, he gave the inanimate body an impatient kick, and rising
hastily, drank the remains of a bottle of wine without taking the
trouble to pour it into the tankard, climbed out of the room, and up
the ladder on to the ground floor.

Here, however, he came to a sudden check. Somebody had begun to hammer
violently at the back door and just as he was making for the front,
resolved to try to burst it open, he heard the sound of somebody
battering it from the outside.

A moment’s thought showed him the only course open. Just as he heard
the sound of the first board giving way under the crashing blows which
were being hailed upon it, he sprang up the rickety stairs.




 CHAPTER XXIV.

As soon as the altercation between Goodhare and Rees grew warm,
Deborah, hearing the tramp of footsteps on the pavement outside the
house, had crept to the cellar window, and, unheard by the two men in
their excited discussion, had torn away one of the boards from the
nail which fastened it, and succeeded in attracting the attention of a
passer-by, who proved to be policeman.

“Get in! break in! get in somehow!” she cried, “there are two men
quarrelling here, and I’m afraid they will do each other harm.”

By that time the voices in the lower cellar were growing louder, and
she stumbled across the floor, called to the men, and beat against the
door. But they were too much excited to heed her. She heard upstairs
the sound of knocking; and climbing up the ladder as fast as she could
in the darkness, she groped her way to the front door. There was,
however, nothing that she could do to help. She could only wait, sick
with terror, while they hammered in the nailed-up door from the
outside. Before the first board gave way, she heard someone pass her
in the darkness and spring up the staircase. From the agility with
which he mounted she thought it must be Rees.

“Rees, is it you? Are you safe? Hide, hide yourself,” she called to
him in a hissing whisper.

Amos Goodhare heard her voice and recognised it. It flashed through
his mind instantly that it must have been to her that Sep had given
the jewels. If he could only get possession of them, the day’s work
which had rid him of a troublesome confederate and satisfied his
appetite for revenge on two men he hated, would be indeed well done.

He descended the stairs as softly and rapidly as he had mounted them.

“Yes, Deborah, it is I, Rees,” he said, in a whisper which was only
just audible in the noise of knocking, both at the front and the back
of the house. “Where are you? Give me your hand. You have the jewels?”

“Yes,” she answered, hesitatingly.

“Where are you? where are you?” he repeated impatiently. “Quick; I
must be off.”

But he had betrayed himself. Deborah, shocked, alarmed, crept along
the wall away from him, uttering no sound. He groped about for her,
muttering to himself, until, with a crash, one of the boards of the
door fell. By the light which was thus let in, he saw where the girl
was, and sprang at her. But she pushed him off with a piercing shriek,
avoided nimbly a second attack, and got back to the front door just as
it was quivering on its hinges. Goodhare saw that he had no more time
to lose.

“Good-bye, my dear; my love to Rees,” he said, as he re-mounted the
staircase rapidly, and disappeared from view just as the front-door
fell down with a crash on to the rotten flooring, and four policemen
rushed in.

“Upstairs, upstairs, he’s escaped upstairs,” panted out Deborah.

Two out of the four men mounted the staircase in pursuit; the other
two remained with her and wanted to know what had happened.

“I don’t know myself yet,” she answered. She was still breathless and
trembling from her recent encounter with Goodhare, and feverish with
anxiety on Rees Pennant’s account.

The officers seemed inclined to look upon her with suspicion. Deborah
noticed this, and tried hard to compose herself.

“I want you to go downstairs--into the cellars,” she cried. “They were
quarreling there, and one of them ran upstairs past me while I was
standing here.”

“And what might you be doing here, miss?” asked one of the men, not
uncivilly, but in a tone of cautious inquiry, which woke Deborah
suddenly to a full knowledge of the dangerous thing she was doing in
letting the servants of the law into this busy little nest of
villainy. She had thought only of summoning help for Rees when she
fancied that he was physically at the mercy of a savage and
unscrupulous man; now she saw that by so doing she had perhaps
betrayed Rees into the clutches of the law.

There was no help for it now, however.

“My name is Deborah Audaer,” said she. “I live at Carstow, in
Monmouthshire. I will give you any particulars you want later.”

“What was it you said about the cellars, miss?” asked the other
constable, as the lady paused.

Deborah turned desperately towards the ladder.

“This way down,” said she briefly, as she led the way herself.

It was quite dark, and the constables were unprovided with any light
except matches, which they struck from time to time as they blundered
down. It occurred to her that if Rees were unharmed and had failed to
take warning by the noise of the policemen’s forcible entrance, she
might find a chance of aiding his escape. So she hurried down as fast
as she could, and stood with her back to the door of the lower cellar,
so as to hide the fire-light which showed through the hole made by the
old lock.

“Search this place first, please,” said she.

“I’ll light my lantern,” said one of the men.

The other struck a match, and examined the den as well as he could by
its feeble light.

“What’s that in the corner?” said the first man.

Deborah was not paying much heed to their discoveries. She was
watching for an opportunity, when their backs were turned, of slipping
down into the adjoining cellar to find out what had become of Rees.
But an exclamation from both men at once, as they crossed with their
heavy tread to the corner indicated, riveted her attention.

“Look here, miss,” called one of them.

Deborah crept forward, prepared for some horrible sight, and thinking
still of Rees.

On the damp, muddy floor, with a piece of old and frayed matting
wrapped around it, lay the body of a man. As Deborah drew near, the
flickering match held by the policeman went out, and while he struck
another his companion laid his hand on the lady’s arm with evident
suspicion. Deborah did not resent the touch; she stood in a dumb agony
of dread.

When the lantern was lighted, she dared not look; the policeman drew
her forward.

“Will you besergood as to tell us whether you know the gentleman?”

She glanced down, and utterly unable to restrain herself, almost
shrieked:

“Lord St. Austell! Dead! Murdered!”

The men looked at each other and at her. By her tone they knew that
the sight was for her a ghastly surprise, and the man who had held her
arm at once let it go. Lord St. Austell was a well-known and popular
peer, and, looking closer, one of the policemen recognised his face.

“She’s right. The lady’s right, Bill,” said he more respectfully.

And the men looked at each other and at Deborah again. The dead earl’s
character was so well-known that their first thought was of an ambush
laid, with a handsome woman as decoy.

“Do you know who’s done this, ma’am?” asked one, bluntly.

“Yes, the man who escaped upstairs; his name is Amos Goodhare,” she
answered promptly. “But come into the inner cellar. There may be
another murdered man lying there,” she cried, rousing herself suddenly
out of the numb apathy into which the horrible sight had cast her.

“You go, Fred; I’ll stay here.”

The other nodded and accompanied her to the door of the inner cellar,
where Deborah fumbled for a minute with weak, wet fingers.

“Open it,” said she hoarsely.

The man did so, and leapt down at once into the den. The fire was
getting low now, but the air was still as hot as a furnace, and there
was enough light for him to find his way to the prostrate form of
Rees.

“By Jove! Another!” he muttered.

Deborah got down with difficulty, and tottered with swimming brain
across the floor.

“Rees, Rees!” she whispered. “Dead, too!”

“No, miss, not quite--this one,” said the policeman, trying to speak
re-assuringly, but growing every moment more perplexed by the whole
affair. “This poor chap may come round, I think, if he ain’t bled too
much. Let’s try to stop the bleeding if we can.”

Scarcely knowing what she did, Deborah lent her aid. Pressing her
fingers to the wound, she said imploringly:

“Go and fetch a doctor as quickly as you can, please. It is his only
chance.”

“All right, miss,” said the man.

And, quite satisfied that she would not move from the side of the
handsome young fellow, he went out at once. Although, in the close,
stifling atmosphere of the cellar, absorbed in grief and anxiety of
the most bitter kind, Deborah fancied that she passed an hour kneeling
by the side of the unconscious man, with her fingers tightly pressing
together the sides of the ghastly wound in his chest, it was really
not more than seven minutes before the policeman came back with a
doctor.

“There’s a gentleman just got into the house from the back, miss,”
said the constable. “He doesn’t seem to know anything of what’s been
going on, and I haven’t told him, but he asked if there was a lady
here, and I told him there was.”

“A gentleman!” echoed Deborah, as she rose from the floor, and
staggered, overcome by the stifling heat.

She glanced down at Rees. He was in the doctor’s hands now; she could
do no more for him. She was glad to escape out of this horrible den,
and she climbed up the ladder to the ground floor without further
question. A short, fair man, with a strong sense of his own importance
apparent in his face and bearing, but evidently suffering for the time
from some deep anxiety, was waiting in the passage. He carried a lamp
which Deborah had seen on the table at Rees Pennant’s lodgings, and by
its light she recognised the Honorable Charles Cenarth, keeper of the
regalia.

“My niece, Marion, followed her father and you to a house in St.
Martin’s-lane, and then she drove to my house and brought me here. She
was afraid of coming alone, lest he should be angry. And a young man
who was hovering about outside showed me the way to this place----”

“Sep Jocelyn,” murmured Deborah.

“And told me he thought my brother had come here. Perhaps you, Miss
Audaer, can tell me where Lord St. Austell is.”

Deborah paused. She had no fear of inflicting a very severe wound on
this deliberate gentleman by informing him of his elder brother’s
death. It was pretty well known that the Honorable Charles looked upon
the earl chiefly as the man who stood between him and the title.

“You are Lord St. Austell now,” she said, gently.

He honored the announcement with a start of surprise, but made no show
of being deeply affected. There was a pause.

“How was it?” he asked, trying to keep his hands out of the pockets to
which they instinctively felt their way.

“He was murdered, I think, by Amos Goodhare,” she answered in a
whisper.

“Dear me, how very stupid of him to trust himself with Amos,” said the
new earl, fretfully. “Have they caught him yet?”

“Not yet, I think.”

“Then I hope they won’t! I hope to God they won’t! It’s an awkward
position, don’t you see? And the fellow does say such unpleasant
things.”

Deborah was disgusted. But she had something of importance to say to
this phlegmatic gentleman, and it was perhaps fortunate in one way
that he was unemotional.

“I have a favor to ask of you,” she said.

He pricked up his ears. “A favor! It’s of no use asking favors of me,
Miss Audaer. I’m not my unfortunate brother, you know,” he said
hastily.

“You need not trouble yourself on that point. Nobody is likely to
mistake you for him.”

“So much the better. I’m a poor man. The estates are very heavily
encumbered, owing to my unhappy brother’s extravagance, his lamentable
extravagance, I repeat. So that it is quite out of my power to grant
favors--quite.”

“Even when they put money into your pocket?” said Deborah, who thought
he deserved this plain-speaking.

He was not in the least offended.

“Tell me what it is?” said he at once.

At that moment the noise of a scuffle and men’s cries, “I’ve got you,
my lad.” “Hold him, Jim!” in the upper part of the house reached their
ears.

“They’ve caught him!” cried Deborah, with excitement.

The new Lord Austell gave an exclamation of impatience.

“Well, well, tell me at once what you want, before we are
interrupted.”

Deborah had known how to gain the ear of the generous nobleman.




 CHAPTER XXV.

The new Earl of St. Austell was not the man to lose any opportunity
of making a good bargain. Deborah Audaer had promised to ask him a
favor which should put money in his pocket, and although he was
puzzled by the offer, he was so desperately anxious to hear it that
the news of the capture of his brother’s supposed murderer came to him
only as a tiresome interruption.

“Well, well, this favor you want of me, what is it?” he repeated,
impatiently. “Of course, Miss Audaer, you know I am only too happy at
any time to----”

“Thank you, yes, of course,” answered Deborah, with one eye upon him
and one upon the staircase, as the sounds of voices and scuffling
seemed to subside a little. “I want to ask you if you will forgive any
injuries you or poor Lord St. Austell may have received from two men
who were merely the tools of Amos Goodhare. I can convince you that
they had nothing to do with his murder; in fact, one of them has been
stabbed by Amos so severely that I am afraid he may not recover. Will
you promise this?” A pause, during which Charles Cenarth looked
doubtfully at the candle. “I should not have had to ask your brother
twice,” she added, with a touch of dry irony.

“And where is the advantage this would bring to me?” asked he,
doubtfully.

“I could restore to you the lost jewels. The setting I believe, is
gone beyond recovery.”

He looked at her as if he could scarcely believe his ears.

“Restore the jewels!” he repeated, hardly daring to utter the words
aloud. Then he added with an abrupt change of tone: “If you know where
they are you are bound to give them up.”

“Yes, so I am--to the police,” said Deborah, quietly.

He looked at her askance, with much mistrust. This was a disagreeably
sharp young woman.

“Offenders against the law ought to be punished!” he said severely. “I
am not the man to compound a felony.”

“Then, your lordship, I am at liberty to make known whatever I have
learnt to the police.”

“And give up these people you are so anxious to shield?”

“No; persuade them to turn Queen’s evidence.”

He began to move about impatiently.

“Have it your own way, then, and for goodness sake let me know where
the jewels are, and get this business over.”

“You give me your word of honor that you will not only refrain from
taking proceedings against any man but the murderer, but you will help
to shield the others from the effects of their own folly?”

“And wickedness,” added the earl, severely.

“And wickedness.”

“You are asking a great deal,” said the new Lord St. Austell, with a
wry face. “Do you know the reputation I bear?”

Deborah did. It was that of a close-fisted and sanctimonious prig.

“Well, your lordship, you have only to say no, and I will set about
getting these unfortunate men out of their scrape in another way.”

She turned away impatiently. The noise of a heavy tramp of feet was
heard coming down the stairs. The new earl tapped her arm petulantly.

“I agree! I agree! I give my word of honor!” he mumbled, “And now get
me the jewels as fast as you can,” he continued, in a burst of
eagerness.

Deborah brought out from under her cloak the two small flat paper
parcels which Sep had given her, and placed them in the earl’s hands.
He tore one of them open and quickly examined the contents. By his
little murmur, by his very attitude, she saw that she need have no
further fear for Rees or Sep. Indeed, the recovery of the jewels meant
for him, social salvation. He buttoned them up hastily under his coat,
hugging as it were himself and them as he did so. He had not time to
repent having got them back by a bargain instead of by cheaper
strategy, when Amos Goodhare, secured at last, was forced down the
stairs by his captors with no great gentleness, and brought face to
face with the brother of the man he had murdered.

He had been seized by the policemen just as he was endeavoring to
escape into the next house, by scrambling from window to window; he
had got loose again, had squeezed through a trap-door on to the roof,
and after a chase along the leads, rendered more exciting by their
dangerously ruinous condition, he had been caught, dragged back,
handcuffed, and finally brought down the staircase by which he had
ascended.

“Who’s this?” said one of the policemen roughly, as he looked the new
earl up and down without apparently, having his suspicions allayed by
any dignity in the little man’s appearance.

“My brother,” said Amos promptly.

“I am Charles Cenarth. It is my brother who has been murdered.”

“Oh, ho! You don’t acknowledge your relationship to me, then,” said
Goodhare in a mocking tone. “That’s ungrateful, when I’ve done for you
what you’d never have dared to do for yourself,” he added, darting
forward to whisper into the little man’s unwilling ear.

“This gentleman is connected with my family and I’m sure he will be
able to give a perfectly satisfactory account of himself,” said his
frightened kinsman nervously.

“Hope so, I’m sure,” said one of the policemen drily.

“Could you not let him go?” suggested the new earl uneasily.

“No, sir; I’m afraid we couldn’t see our way to it. Gentlemen found
running away in a house where a murder has been committed isn’t let
off quite so easy.”

“Murder! Who said there was a murder?”

The man pointed to the constable who had brought the doctor to Rees.

“This man and the young lady there found the body.”

“The young lady,” cried Goodhare mockingly. “The young lady’s word
isn’t worth much. If you take her to the station and have her
searched, you will find on her a quantity of jewels of great value,
stolen from the Regalia at the Tower.”

Evidently some rumor of the theft, quiet as the matter had been kept,
had reached the ears of the force. For they looked at each other, and
one of them stepped quickly forward, with his hand raised, towards
Deborah. To her great surprise, the decorous Charles Cenarth came to
the rescue with a deliberate and roundly uttered falsehood.

“I don’t know what the prisoner hopes to gain by this ridiculous
charge against a young lady,” he said, gravely. “But as I happen to be
Keeper of the Regalia, no one can prove better than I that she cannot
be in possession of any of the crown jewels, as none of the crown
jewels have ever been stolen.”

“Ah, ah! Very good! Very good, indeed, brother Charles,” said
Goodhare, mockingly.

The police officers said nothing to all this. They began to “smell a
rat,” however; for if there had been nothing in the rumored theft,
what should two such prodigious swells as the earl and his brother do
poking about in this thieves’ den, with such disastrous results for
one of them? As there was nothing to be got by contradicting the
“swell’s” assertion, the man who had approached Deborah stepped back
respectfully.

“Come on,” said he to his companions, “we’ll make sure of this one,
anyhow.”

And he looked at Goodhare, who had subsided into silence.

“There’s another of ’em downstairs, ain’t there?” asked one of the
others.

“He’s done for, I think.”

But at that moment there came up from the cellar the doctor and the
fourth policeman, supporting between them the weak and almost helpless
Rees Pennant, who tried feebly to walk, but was scarcely able to do
more then drag his feet limply after him.

“This man had nothing to do with the murder,” said Deborah hastily,
glancing in fear towards Amos Goodhare as she laid her hand on one of
Rees’s helpless arms.

“No, that is right enough,” said Goodhare at once, to Deborah’s
surprise. “He had nothing to do with it.”

There was a malicious expression on the old scoundrel’s face which did
not accord with the words. The policemen, though not at all satisfied
as to the share Rees Pennant and Deborah had taken in this mysterious
affair, contented themselves with taking their names and the address
at Carstow which the young lady gave them, on Charles Cenarth’s
offering to go to the police-station and to become security for their
appearance when they should be wanted. For it was apparent to everyone
that the young man’s injuries were of a dangerous, if not fatal
description.

On learning from the questions of the constables how important a
factor her own evidence against Goodhare would be, poor Deborah could
not suppress a little cry of horror. Strong as were her mistrust and
dislike of the ex-librarian, the thought that it might be her words
which would convict him was so terrible that, as he passed her on his
way out, she gave him a look as if to implore his forgiveness.

Amos Goodhare, who, now that he was caught, was very quiet and
subdued, stopped short with a low cry of pain as soon as the
constables who had him in charge attempted to lead him forward.

“I am hurt,” he said, in a low voice. “One of you infernal ruffians
must have done it when you caught me, two men against one. Let the
doctor see my ankle, my right ankle--I think I have sprained it.”

With the constables’ help he limped back to the bottom stair and sat
down. While the men stood back to allow the doctor to examine the limb
he declared to be injured, and Deborah reluctantly held the lamp, Amos
looked up malevolently into her face.

“Don’t apologise, Miss Audaer, for any injury your evidence might do
me?” he said in a rapid whisper. “By giving you back your lover, Rees
Pennant, now that I have done with him, I show you that I bear no
malice.”

“Thank you,” said she quietly. “I appreciate your kindness.”

“I hope you may find a young scoundrel more to your taste than an old
one.”

Deborah made no answer. The doctor having declared that there was no
sign of a broken or displaced bone, and that the pain Amos spoke of
must be the result of a slight sprain, he was helped on to his feet
again, and led out of the house by his captors, followed by Charles
Cenarth, who was to accompany them to the police station.

Deborah then asked the doctor if it would be safe to take Rees as far
as Carstow that night. He answered with a decided negative. As she
stood wondering what she should do with him, a hand was laid on her
arm, and turning, she saw Lady Marion Cenarth, lean, haggard,
despairing. She had crept into the house after her uncle, and remained
in a distant corner, unseen in the darkness, unheard amid the general
excitement.

“Bring him to my aunt’s,” she whispered imploringly. “Not Mrs. Charles
Cenarth, but an aunt of my mother’s. She would take charge of him, I
know. And if I could be of any use in nursing him--” she added
piteously, imploringly. “Do let me. Oh! do let me,” she continued in a
heart-broken tone. “Let him love you, and marry you--I don’t care.
Only don’t take him quite away--until he is well.”

Deborah was touched. She took the girl’s hand and answered very
gently:

“I don’t want to take him away from you. I shall be very glad if your
aunt will take him in for a little while.”

So Rees was half-led, half-carried out of the house and along the
little court, and lifted into a cab, in which he and Deborah and the
faithful Marion were driven slowly as far as Hill street, where old
Lady Susan Mortimer lived. As Lady Marion had prophesied, they were
all made welcome by the little old lady, who was of a highly
sentimental turn of mind, and took her grandniece’s part heartily
against the girl’s more worldly-minded parents. She sent at once for
her own doctor, and in the meantime had Rees carried into the best
bed-room, a large and gloomy chamber, with a funereal four-post
bedstead of carved wood, with hangings darkened by age.

When the young fellow had been laid carefully on this sombre couch,
Deborah, who saw that he would have no lack of attention, attempted to
retire from the bedside. But Rees, who had been lying with closed
eyes, opened them suddenly to say:

“Where are you going, Deborah?”

“I’m going back to Carstow to tell mamma you are all right. She will
be anxious.”

He half raised himself feebly.

“Very well, then, I shall come with you,” he whispered obstinately.
“I’m not going to stay here without you.”

“Nonsense, Rees. You mustn’t be ungrateful. It would kill you to
travel to-night.”

In the meantime, poor, meek-spirited Lady Marion had begged her
great-aunt to invite Deborah to stay.

“He wants her, you see,” she added pitifully.

So little Lady Susan trotted forward and said that if Miss Audaer
would stay and help to nurse Rees she should be very pleased. And
Deborah, with some reluctance, had to yield.




 CHAPTER XXVI.

Deborah was saved the pain of giving evidence against Amos Goodhare,
for that gentleman, having by his ruse of a sprained ankle, put the
policemen in whose charge he was a little off their guard, managed to
escape from their guardianship before they got to the end of the
court, and by means of the London fog which had helped him so much
already, got away, doubled on his pursuers, and took refuge, with
great astuteness, in the very house in which he had been caught, even
before the men who were now in charge of the body of the murdered man
had left the building with their burden.

Amos was never caught; indeed, the authorities seemed rather slack in
his pursuit; and as he had the astuteness to leave the country
immediately, nothing more was ever heard of him until two years later,
when he died in Paris, in abject poverty.

The sensational death of Lord St. Austell was never fully explained to
the public. As the recovered crown jewels were immediately re-set and
restored to their places among the rest, the temporary loss of them
was never widely known, and the country bumpkins who go to the Tower
to stare at the treasures, which many Londoners have never seen, are
still as much impressed as ever by the antiquity of the gold of King
Edward’s crown. So that the murder of the earl was generally believed
to have been merely the sequel to a commonplace affair of robbery,
affected by means of a decoy.

Rees and Sep also got off much more easily than they deserved, the
whole affair having died out of the public mind before the former was
in a fit condition to be moved from Lady Susan’s house to his mother’s
home in Carstow. But Rees was injured for life. No physician could
give him hopes of more than a sickly existence, with constant danger
of the re-opening of the wound. So much his excesses of the past year
had done to undermine a fine constitution. And another wound was in
store for him.

Sep crawled back one cool April evening, shivering, miserable, and
half crazy, from want on the one hand, and a guilty conscience on the
other, to his old aunt at Carstow, who took him in and nursed and
tended him with unquestioning goodness. But he was never the same man
again. Without suffering evidently from impaired reason, he fell into
a lethargic state, and was subject for the few remaining years of his
life to fits of nervous depression which nothing could cure. One sign
of the change in him was that he hated the sight of Rees, and would
turn hurriedly out of his way as soon as his formerly beloved
companion came in sight.

Rees, in spite of his wound, took things more easily, and was easily
nursed back, by the adoration of his mother and of Lady Marion, into
nearly his old belief in himself. Lady Marion, whose devotion was, if
possible, more pronounced than ever, returned to Llancader as soon as
he went back to Carstow, in order to be as near to him as possible.
His evident preference for Deborah did not disconcert her; she was
resigned to everything but losing sight of him, and accepted any small
crumbs of gratitude and kindness which he chose to throw to her with
humble joy.

Partly, perhaps, because Deborah showed no particular devotion, but
more of a kindly and even contemptuous pity in her ministrations to
his comfort, Rees showed for her something nearer to genuine affection
than he had ever showed to a girl before. Nothing was done rightly for
him except by her; and as Mrs. Pennant had not resolution enough to
interfere with any caprice of her darling boy’s, the young girl was in
danger of losing her health by the close confinement his demands upon
her care involved.

At last Godwin, whose disgust was unbounded at the fuss made over the
returned prodigal, stepped in to say a necessary word for Deborah.
Since his brother’s arrival, Godwin had been on very distant terms
with her, having given Rees a colder welcome than she thought right.
They had, therefore, not held any conversation together except of the
most formal kind, when, finding, an one of his fortnightly visits,
that she began to look pale and dull-eyed, he ordered her out for a
walk in such an angry and peremptory tone that his mother backed up
his command with coaxing words of entreaty.

“Yes, dear, go, do go,” said the old lady, who had now almost
recovered from her paralytic stroke, but who had been, since that
misfortune, more afraid of masculine wrath than ever. “Godwin is quite
right. You do want a walk. Rees will let you go, I’m sure; he’s never
selfish.”

The poor old lady really believed this; and Godwin’s grunt on hearing
her ingenuous remark was not likely to undeceive her.

Rees, who was still confined a great deal to the house, gave an
unwilling consent to Deborah’s going out “for an hour.”

“Only for an hour, mind,” he added, as she went out of the room. “I
shan’t drink my tea unless you make it. I don’t want to be poisoned.”

“All right, Rees, only an hour,” sang out Deborah good-humoredly, as
Godwin closed the door for her.

As soon as he had done so, Godwin walked over abruptly to the armchair
in which Rees was leaning back.

“Do you know that you ought to be ashamed of yourself not to give more
thought to that girl’s comfort?” he said, in what both Rees and his
mother considered a cruelly sharp tone. “How is she to keep her health
if she is stuck in the house all day attending to your fads?”

“Godwin, Godwin,” remonstrated Mrs. Pennant, shocked beyond measure at
this irreverent treatment of her divinity, “you must not speak like
that to our dear Rees! He knows there is nothing we would not, any of
us, gladly do to help him to get well, and to wile away the tedious
hours before he does get well.”

“You don’t quite seem to understand, Godwin, my boy,” said Rees, with
a touch of haughtiness, holding up his hand languidly to stop his
mother. “I should be the last man in the world to take advantage of
any girl’s devotion to me. I am going to marry Deborah.”

“Indeed! Well it’s very good of you, I must say,” said Godwin, with a
bitterly ironical tone. “Of course, then, it’s much easier for her to
be a slave to your whims, since she knows it is to be for life!”

“Godwin, Godwin, my poor darling will be ill again if you speak so and
excite him,” wailed the mother.

“Serve him right. I never heard of such a pitiful sham martyr in my
life,” said Godwin, shortly; and not daring to trust himself to
deliver such a lecture as he had in his mind, he went quickly out of
the room, leaving Mrs. Pennant to sob on her darling’s neck, and to
assure him that he must forget every word of what his brother had so
cruelly said.

“Remember, Rees dear,” she went on tenderly, “he only speaks like that
because he wanted to marry Deborah himself. But, of course, she
preferred my own boy, my darling eldest son.”

And she passed tremulous fingers through his curly hair.

“Have you told her yet that you mean to marry her?”

“Not yet, mother. I think I will to-night, after what that young cub
said.”

“Do, dearest. I suppose she knows what you mean to say to her; but
she’s been really very good and devoted to you, so why should you
defer the pleasure it will give her?”

“All right, dear mother, I’ll speak to her to-night--that is, if she’s
not too late to make my tea,” he added, with the petulance of a spoilt
child.

Meanwhile, Deborah, unmindful of the honor which was in store for her,
was revelling in the fresh, sweet air of a spring afternoon. After a
moment’s debate as to where she should go, she turned her steps
towards the river, crossed the bridge, and almost ran down to the
meadow where, twenty months ago, the three confederates had found the
second entrance to the underground passage.

She wandered along the river bank, looking now at the grey towers of
the castle, and now at the pale green foliage which sparsely covered
the trees on the opposite bank, when suddenly she was startled by two
rapid steps behind her and a sharp touch, which was almost a light
blow, on her shoulder.

Turning quickly, she saw Godwin, who looked angry and harassed. He
stopped short, so she had to do the same.

“So you’re to be my sister-in-law,” he said, abruptly.

“Well?” said Deborah, quietly.

“I wish you joy of your post as wife to such a man as Rees has
become.”

“Is that kind of you?”

“I can’t help it. I must say what I think for once. I’ll never mention
the subject again. If you like to be the slave of a man who hasn’t it
in him to care for you, what right have I to object?”

“What right, indeed,” said Deborah.

“There, that’s enough. I didn’t know whether you, being a woman, could
understand what a wreck, morally even more than physically, that
unfortunate lad has become. So I thought I ought to warn you. Of
course, I find it is useless; I might have known it would be.”

“It is indeed,” said she, in a peculiar tone.

“Of course, you think I am speaking from a selfish motive. But I am
not. I gave up all hopes of you as soon as I knew that Rees was coming
back.”

“And devoted your attentions to the second Miss Brownlow?” asked
Deborah, rather archly.

“No, that was all nonsense. I never spoke to the girl in my life,
except to offer her a cup of tea,” said Godwin, despondently.

“Didn’t you?” asked Deborah slowly.

“No. Unlucky beggar that I am, I never can look at any other woman but
you, except to find fault with her. I suppose it will be different
when you are married. I hope so.”

“And I hope not,” said Deborah, laughing gaily.

Godwin looked at her with a rather puzzled expression.

“Don’t you remember telling me,” said she, saucily, “that a woman was
always sorry to lose an admirer? How much more must this be the case,
then, when that admirer is her own husband!”

Godwin stared at her in bewilderment. Deborah looked across at the
castle.

“What on earth _do_ you mean?” asked he, at last, slowly.

“Find out,” she answered, making the words come in to a tune she was
humming.

“Aren’t you going to marry Rees?” asked he, in a loud and stolid tone.

“Not if he were an emperor or an angel,” answered she, simply.

Godwin looked at her for a few moments as if he scarcely dared to take
in the meaning of the situation.

“Then you’ll have to marry me,” said he decidedly.

“‘Yes, if you please, kind sir, she said,’” answered Deborah, with a
smile and a deep curtsey.

“But you don’t love me,” whispered Godwin, whose voice had suddenly
broken and grown husky.

“Not more than I have done for the last six months. But then that’s a
good deal,” added Deborah below her breath.

Rees Pennant displayed the rage of a spoilt child thwarted when, on
the return of Godwin and Deborah together, the former announced their
engagement. He stormed all that evening at the fickleness and
insincerity of women, to a sympathetic accompaniment from his mother,
who never quite forgave Deborah for what she called “jilting poor
Rees.”

Still in a tumult of angry pique, Rees straightway proposed next day
to Lady Marion Cenarth, who accepted him with rapture. He duly married
her before many weeks were over, in spite of the opposition of her
relations. It was a fate much too good for him, but his punishment lay
in the fact that he never understood this, but really believed that
the abject sort of happiness Lady Marion found in ministering to his
lightest caprice was a more than ample recompense for any woman’s
devotion.

Godwin, whose services by this time had proved valuable, was, within a
few months of his marriage to Deborah, removed to Carstow, to take
charge of the large estates in that neighborhood, where they both
continued to lead the quiet life they liked best.

And so a second romance, of a brighter cast than the first, was ended
in the shadow of the old grey castle walls.

 THE END.




 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Florence Warden was the pseudonym of Florence Alice (Price) James.

The cover image is taken from the Ward & Downey edition (London,
1889).

Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ armchair/arm-chair,
good-humoredly/good humoredly, etc.) have been preserved.

Alterations to the text:

Add TOC.

Punctuation: missing periods, sentences ending with commas/colons,
quotation mark pairings, etc.

[Chapter I]

Change “_whisperedK ate_, glancing towards the dozing French” to
_whispered Kate_.

“Godwin, and _Harvey_--yes, and Rees too, whatever Marion” to
_Hervey_.

“given up, for its draughtiness, to the _bat_ and the mice” to _bats_.

“briefly described where and how she had found _hlm_” to _him_.

[Chapter II]

“mile of the castle that he _did’nt_ know, they said” to _didn’t_.

[Chapter IV]

“The fact was that Amos _Gooodhare_, having devoted” to _Goodhare_.

[Chapter V]

“growl of passionate, _hunger_ earnestness in the elder man’s hawk
eyes” to _hungry_.

“But the elder man had _appearently_ decided that to argue” to
_apparently_.

“by himself with slow steps and an _ususually_ reflective manner” to
_unusually_.

“He drew back hastily into the shadow of the _strees_” to _trees_.

[Chapter VII]

“_Bnt_ I can come and see you at the same place to-morrow” to _But_.

[Chapter VIII]

“under the fire of Goodhare’s _dicourses_, melted quite away” to
_discourses_.

“But at heart he was _blase_ and cynical, with a surprised feeling”
to _blasé_.

[Chapter IX]

“before dinner, brushing _Ree’s_ macintosh afterwards” to _Rees’s_.

“a _guant_ figure shivering in the damp, was waiting” to _gaunt_.

“his arm round her in his _facinatingly_ affectionate way” to
_fascinatingly_.

[Chapter X]

“_Skaking_ off the stupor, which again seemed to be overpowering” to
_Shaking_.

(“You need not come _agian_,” he said. “But I shall come here…) to
_again_.

[Chapter XI]

“to scale the outer wall of the _casle_ with the help of the ivy” to
_castle_.

“his tone which made her blush _crimsom_, and feel afraid” to
_crimson_.

[Chapter XIV]

“Rees stamped his foot, and said haughtily;” change semicolon to
colon.

“and I _did’nt_ know whether you had yet fallen a victim” to _didn’t_.

“But now I must say good-bye to you, Mr Goodhare” add period after
_Mr_.

[Chapter XV]

(“No _snch_ luck as that you have give up thinking about him) to
_such_.

[Chapter XVII]

“a good look to right and left had _as ured_ the three men” to
_assured_.

“And with much _apparant_ reluctance, part of which was real” to
_apparent_.

[Chapter XIX]

(“_Is’nt_ that rather a low point of view to look at…) to _Isn’t_.

[Chapter XX]

(“_Bnt_ you are quite wrong if you think----”) to _But_.

[Chapter XXI]

“_Deporah_ was still holding his sleeve with no uncertain” to
_Deborah_.

[Chapter XXII]

“what interest have I in the matter except _your’s_ and Rees” to
_yours_.

“You were sent sent away with the jewels to dispose of them” delete
one _sent_.

[Chapter XXIII]

“It would not be safe for you to go near him _how_” to _now_.

(“A woman!” he growled out. “I’ll tear the heart out of _he_.”) to
_her_.

[Chapter XXIV.]

“hearing the tramp of footsteps on the pavement _ontside_” to
_outside_.

[Chapter XXV]

(“One of you infernal ruffians _mnst_ have done it…) to _must_.

 [End of text]






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