Title: The Silent Shore - A Romance
Author: Bloundelle-Burton, John
Language: English
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THE SILENT SHORE

A Romance



BY
JNO. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON



"To die is landing on a silent shore,
Where billows never beat, nor tempests roar."



LONDON
JOHN AND ROBERT MAXWELL
MILTON HOUSE, ST. BRIDE STREET, LUDGATE CIRCUS
AND
SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C.
[_All rights reserved_]



THE SILENT SHORE



Prologue

THE STORY OF THIRTY YEARS AGO


"And you are certain of the year he was married in?"

"Perfectly--there is no possibility of my being mistaken. He was
married on New Year's Day, '58; I was born in May, '59."

"It is strange, certainly. But there is one solution of it--is it not
possible that, even if this is he, the lady registered as his wife
might not have been so? In fact she could not have been, otherwise he
could never have married your mother."

"I will not believe it! He was too cold and austere--too puritanical I
had almost said--to form any such connection."

"Do you think, then, that he would commit bigamy?"

"I don't know what to think!" the other answered gloomily.

Two men, both about the same age, twenty-five, were seated in a
private room at an inn, known as the Hôtel Bellevue, at Le Vocq, a
dreary fishing town with a good though small harbour, a dozen miles
west of Havre. On a fine day the bay that runs in from Barfleur to
Fécamp is gay and bright, but it presented a melancholy appearance
on this occasion, as the two young men gazed out at it across the
rain-soaked plots of grass that formed the lawn of the "Bellevue."
Down below the cliff on which the inn stood, the port was visible, and
in the port was to be seen an English cutter, the _Electra_, in which
the friends had run for Le Vocq when the storm, that had now been
raging for twenty-four hours, broke upon them. They had left Cowes a
fortnight ago, and had been yachting pleasantly in the Channel since,
putting into Cherbourg on one occasion, into Ste. Mère Eglise on
another, and Havre on a third; and now, as ill-luck would have it, it
seemed as if they were doomed to be weather-bound in, of the many
dreary places on the coast, the dreariest of all, Le Vocq.

The first night in the inn, to which they had come up after seeing the
yacht made snug and comfortable in the harbour below, and the sailors
left in charge of her also provided for, passed easily enough. There
was the hope of the storm abating--which was cheering--and they had
cards, and some Paris newspapers to read, and above all, they were
fatigued and could sleep well. But, on the next day, the storm had not
abated, and they were tired of cards, the old Paris papers had been
read and re-read, and later ones had not arrived, and they were
refreshed with their night's rest and wanted to be off. But there was
no getting off, and what was to be done?

They had stood all the morning looking out of the window
disconsolately, had smoked pipes and cigarettes innumerable, and had
yawned a good deal, and sworn a little.

"What the deuce are we to do to prevent ourselves from dying of
_ennui_, Philip?" the one asked the other.

"Jerry," the other answered solemnly, "I know no more than you do.
There is nothing left to read, and soon--very soon, alas!--there will
be nothing left to smoke but the _caporal_ obtainable in the village.
That, however, might poison us and end our miseries."

Then the one called Philip began looking about the salon that was at
their disposal, and whistling plaintively, and peering into the
cupboards, of which there were two:

"Hullo!" he suddenly exclaimed, "here is another great mental treat
for us--a lot of old books; and precious big ones, too! I wonder what
they are?"

"Pull them out and let us see. Probably only _Le Monde Illustré_, or
_Le Journal Amusant_, bound up for the landlord's winter nights'
delectation, after they have been thumbed by every sailor in the
village."

"Oh, confound the books!" Philip exclaimed when he had looked into
them, "they are only the old registers, the _Livres des Étrangers_ of
bygone years."

"Nevertheless, let us see them," the other answered; "at any rate we
shall learn what kind of company the house has kept."

So, obeying his behest, Philip brought them out, and they sat down "to
begin at the beginning," as they said laughingly; and each took a
volume and commenced to peruse it.

Every now and then they told one another of some name they had
come across, the owner of which was known to them by hearsay,
and they agreed that the "Hôtel Bellevue" had, in its day, had
some very good people for its guests. They had found several
titles--English--inscribed in the pages of the register, and also many
prominent names belonging to the same nationality.

"Probably half these people have occupied this very sitting-room at
some time or the other," Philip said to Gervase. "I only wish to
heaven some of them were here now, and that----"

He stopped at a sudden exclamation of his friend, who was gazing
fixedly at the page before him.

"What kind of a find is it now, Jerry?" he asked. "Any one very
wonderful?"

"It must be a mistake," the other said in a low voice. "And yet how
could such a mistake happen? Look at this!" and he pointed with his
finger to a line in the book.

"By Jove!" the other exclaimed, as he read, "_Août_ 17, 1854, _L'Hon.
Gervase Occleve et sa femme_." Then he said, "Your father of course,
before he inherited his title?"

"Of course! There never was any other Gervase Occleve in existence,
except myself, while he was alive. But what can it mean?"

"It means that your father knew this place many years ago, and came
here: that is all, I should say. It is a coincidence, but after all it
is no more strange that he should know Le Vocq, than that you should."

"But you don't see the curious part of it, Philip! It is the words _et
sa femme_. My father had no wife in 1854! He never had a wife until he
married my mother, and then he was Lord Penlyn and no longer known as
Gervase Occleve."

And then followed the conversation with which this story opens.

"It _is_ a strange thing," Philip said, "but it must be a mistake."

In his own heart, being somewhat of a worldling, he did not think it
was any mistake at all. He thought it highly probable that the late
Lord Penlyn had, when here, a lady travelling with him who was
registered as his wife, but who, in actual fact, was not his wife at
all.

After a few moments spent in thought, Gervase turned to his friend and
said, "The landlord, the man who stared so hard at me yesterday when
we came in, was an elderly person. He may have had this hotel in '54,
might even remember this mysterious namesake of mine. I think I will
ask him to come up."

"I shouldn't," Philip said. "He isn't at all likely to remember
anything about it." In his mind he thought it very probable that the
man might, even at that distance of time, remember something of
Gervase's father, especially if he had made a long stay at the house,
and would perhaps be able to give some reminiscences of his whilom
guest that might by no means make his son feel comfortable.

But his remonstrance was unheeded, and the other rang the bell. It was
answered by a tidy waitress wearing the cap peculiar to the district,
to whom Gervase--who was an excellent linguist--said in very good
French:

"If the landlord is in, will you be good enough to say that Lord
Penlyn would be glad to speak to him?"

The girl withdrew, and in a few minutes the landlord tapped at the
door. When he had received an invitation to enter, he came into the
room and bowed respectfully, but, as he did so, Lord Penlyn again
noticed that his eyes were fixed upon him with a wondering stare; a
stare exactly the same as he had received on the previous day when
they entered the hotel. There was nothing rude nor offensive in the
look; it partook more of the nature of an incredulous gaze than
anything else.

"Milor has expressed a wish to see me," he said as he entered. "He
has, I trust, found everything to his wish in my poor house!"

"Perfectly," Gervase answered; "but I want to ask you a question. Will
you be seated?" And then when the landlord had taken a chair--still
looking intently at him--he went on:

"We found these _Livres des Étrangers_ in your cupboard, and, for want
of anything else to read, we took them down and have been amusing
ourselves with them. I hope we did not take a liberty."

"_Mais, Milor!_" the landlord said with a shrug of his shoulders and a
twitch of his eyebrows, that were meant to express his satisfaction at
his guests being able to find anything to distract them.

"Thank you," Gervase said. "Well! in going through this book--the one
of 1854--I have come upon a name so familiar to me, the name of
Gervase Occleve, that----"

But before he could finish his sentence the landlord had jumped up
from his chair, and was speaking rapidly while he gesticulated in a
thorough French fashion.

"_C'est ça, mon Dieu, mais oui!_" he began. "Occleve--of course! That
is the face. Sir, Milor! I salute you! When you entered my house
yesterday, I said to myself, 'But where, mon Dieu, but where have I
seen him? Or is it but the spirit of some dead one looking at me out
of his eyes?' And now that you mention to me the name of Occleve, then
in a moment he comes back to me and I see him once again. _Ah! ma foi,
Milor!_ but when I regard you, then in verity he returns to me, and I
recall him as he used to sit in this very room--_parbleu!_ in that
very chair in which you now sit."

The young men had both stared at him with some amazement as he spoke
hurriedly and excitedly, repeating himself in his earnestness, and now
as he ceased, Gervase said:

"Do I understand you to say, then, that I bear such a likeness to this
man, whose name is inscribed here, as to recall him vividly to you?"
"_Mais, sans doute!_ you are his son! It must be so. There is only one
thing that I do not comprehend. You bear a different name."

"He became Lord Penlyn later in life, and at his death that title came
to me."

"_Bien compris!_ And so he is dead! He can scarcely have lived the
full space of man's years. And Madame your mother? She is well?"

For a moment the young man hesitated. Then he said: "She is dead too."

"_Pauvre dame_," the landlord said, and as he spoke it seemed as
though he was talking to himself. "She was bright and happy in those
days so far off, bright and happy once; and she, too, is gone. And I,
who was older than either of them, am left! But, Lord Penlyn," he
said, readdressing himself to his guest, "you look younger than your
years. It is thirty years since you used to run about those sands
outside and play; I have carried you to them often----"

"You carried me to those sands thirty years ago! Why, I was not----"

"Stop!" Philip Smerdon said to him in English, and speaking in a low
tone. "Do you not see it all? Say no more."

"Yes," Gervase answered. "Yes, I see it all."

Later on, when the landlord had left the room after insisting upon
shaking the hand of "the child he had known thirty years ago," Gervase
said:

"So he who was so stern and self-contained, who seemed to be above the
ordinary weaknesses of other men, was, after all, worse than the
majority of them. I suppose he flung this poor woman off when he
married my mother, I suppose he left the boy, for whom this man takes
me--to starve or to become a thief preying on his fellow men. It is
not pleasant to think that I have an elder brother who may be an
outcast, perhaps a felon!"

"I should not take quite such a pessimist view of things as that,"
Philip said. "For aught you know, the lady he had with him here may
have died between 1854 and 1858, and, for the matter of that, so may
the boy; or he may have made a good allowance to both when he parted
with them. For anything you know to the contrary he might have seen
the boy frequently until his death, and have taken care to place him
comfortably in the world."

"In such a case I must have known it. I must have met him somewhere."

"Nothing more unlikely! The world is large enough--in spite of the
numerous jokes about its smallness--for two peculiarly situated
individuals not to meet. If I were you, Jerry, I should think no more
about the matter."

"It is not a thing one can easily forget!" the other answered.

The landlord had given them a description of what he remembered of the
Gervase Occleve whom he had known thirty years ago, but what he had
told them had not thrown much light upon the subject. He described how
Gervase Occleve had first come there in the summer of '54 accompanied
by his wife (he evidently had never doubted that they were married)
and by his son, "the Monsieur now before him," as he said innocently.
They had lived very quietly, occupying the very rooms in which they
were now sitting, he told the young men; roaming about the sands in
the day, or driving over to the adjacent towns and villages, or
sailing in a boat that Mr. Occleve hired by the month. They seemed
contented and happy enough, he said, and stayed on and on until the
autumn's damp and rain, peculiar to that part of the coast, drove them
away. It was strange, he thought, that Milor did not remember anything
about that period; but it was true, he was but a little child!

Then, he continued, in the following summer they returned again, and
again spent some months there--and then, he never saw nor heard of
them more. But, so well did he remember Mr. Occleve's face, even after
all these years, that, ever since Lord Penlyn had been in the house,
he had been puzzling his brains to think where he had seen him before.
He certainly should not, he said, have remembered the child he had
played with so often, but that his likeness to his father was more
than striking. To Madame, his mother, he saw no resemblance at all.

"But I did not tell him," he said to himself afterwards, as he sat in
his parlour below and sipped a little red wine meditatively, "I did
not tell him that on the second summer a gloom had fallen over them,
and that I often saw her in tears, and heard him speak harshly to her.
Why should I? _À quoi bon_ to disturb the poor young man's meditations
on his dead father and mother!"

And the good landlord went out and served a chopine of _petit bleu_ to
one customer, and a _tasse_ of _absinthe gommée_ to another, and
entertained them with an account of how there was, upstairs, an
English Milor who had been there thirty years ago with his father; the
Milor who was the owner of the yacht now in port.

On the next day the storm was over, there was almost a due south wind,
and the _Electra_ was skimming over the waves and leaving the dreary
French coast far behind it.

"It hasn't been a pleasant visit," Lord Penlyn said to Philip, as they
leant over the bows smoking their pipes and watching Le Vocq fade
gradually into a speck. "I would give something never to have heard
that story!"

"It is the story of thirty years ago," his friend answered. "And it is
not you who did the wrong. Why let it worry you?"

"I cannot help it! And--I daresay you will think me a fool!--but I
cannot also help wondering on which of my father's children--upon that
other nameless and unknown one, or upon me--his sins will be visited!"



The Story



CHAPTER I.


Ida Raughton sat, on a bright June day of that year, in her pretty
boudoir looking out on the well-kept gardens of a West End square, and
thinking of an important event in her life that was now not very far
off--her marriage. Within the last month she had become engaged, not
without some earlier doubts on her part as to whether she was
altogether certain of her feelings--though, afterwards, she told
herself over and over again that the man to whom she was now promised
was the only one she could ever love: and the wedding-day was fixed
for the 1st of September. Her future husband was Gervase Occleve,
Viscount Penlyn.

She was the only daughter of Sir Paul Raughton, a wealthy Surrey
baronet, and had been to him, since her mother's death, as the apple
of his eye--the only thing that to him seemed to make life worth
living. It was true that he had distractions that are not uncommon to
elderly gentlemen of means, and possessed of worldly tastes; perfectly
true that Paris and Nice, and Ascot and Newmarket, as well as his
clubs and his friends--not always male ones--had charms for him that
were still very seductive; but, after all, they were nothing in
comparison to his daughter's love and his love for her. Never during
his long widowerhood, a widowerhood dating from her infancy, had he
failed to make her life and happiness the central object of his
existence; never had he allowed his pleasures to stand in the way of
the study of her comfort. The best schools and masters when she was a
child, the best friends and chaperons for her when womanhood was
approaching, and when it had arrived, the greatest liberality as
regards cheques for dressmakers, milliners, upholsterers, horses,
etc., had been but a small part of his way of showing his devotion to
her. And she had returned his affection, had been to him a daughter
giving back love for love, and endeavouring in every way in her power
to make him an ample return for all the thought and care he had
showered on her. Of course he had foreseen that the inevitable day
must come when--love him however much she might--she would still be
willing to leave him, when she would be willing to resign being
mistress of her father's house to be mistress of her husband's. His
worldly knowledge, which was extensive enough for half-a-dozen
ordinary men, told him clearly enough that the parent nest very soon
palled on the bird that saw its way to building one for itself. Yet,
when the blow fell, as he had known it must fall, he did not find that
his philosophy enabled him to endure it very lightly. On the other
hand, there was his love for her, and that bade him let her go, since
it was for her happiness that she should do so.

"I promised her mother when she lay dying," he said to himself, "that
my life should be devoted to her, and I have kept my vow to the best
of my power. I am not going to break it now. Besides, it is part of a
father's duty to see his daughter well married; and I suppose Penlyn
is a good match. At any rate, there are plenty of other fathers and
mothers who would like to have caught him for their girls."

That she should have made a sensation during her first season was not
a thing to astonish Sir Paul, nor, indeed, any one else. Ida Raughton
was as thoroughly beautiful a girl, when first she made her appearance
in London society, as any who had ever taken their place in its ranks.
Tall and graceful, and possessed of an exquisitely shaped head, round
which her auburn hair curled in thick locks; with bright hazel eyes,
whose expression varied in accordance with their owner's thoughts and
feelings, sometimes sparkling with laughter and mirth, and sometimes
saddened with tears as she listened to any tale of sorrow; with a nose
the line of which was perfect, and a mouth, the smallness of which
disguised, though it could not hide, the even, white teeth within, no
one could look at Ida without acknowledging how lovely she was. Even
other and rival _débutantes_ granted her loveliness, and the woman who
can obtain such a concession as this from her sisters has fairly
established her right to homage.

As she sat at her boudoir window on this June day, thinking of her now
definitely settled marriage, she was wondering if the life before her
would be as bright and happy as the one she was leaving behind for
ever. That--with the exception of the death of her mother, a sorrow
that time had mercifully tempered to her--had been without alloy.
Would the future be so? There was no reason to think otherwise, she
reflected, no reason to doubt it. Lord Penlyn was young, handsome, and
manly, the owner of an honoured name, and well endowed with the
world's goods. Yet that would not have weighed with her had she not
loved him.

She had asked herself if she did love him several times before she
consented to give him the answer he desired, and then she acknowledged
that he alone had won her heart. She recalled other men's attentions
to her, their soft words, their desire to please; how they had haunted
her footsteps at balls and at the Opera, and how no other man's homage
had ever been so sweet to her as the homage of Gervase Occleve. At
first--wishing still to be sure of herself--she would not agree to be
his wife, telling him that she did not know her heart; but when he
asked her a second time, after she had had ample opportunity for
reflection, she told him he should have his wish.

"And you do love me, Ida?" he asked rapturously, perhaps boyishly, as
they drove back from a large dinner-party to which they had gone at
Richmond. "You are sure you do?"

"Yes," she said, "I am sure I do. I was not sure when first you asked
me, but I am now."

"Then kiss me, darling, and tell me so. Otherwise I shall scarcely be
able to believe it;" and he bent over her and kissed her, and she
returned the kiss.

"I love you, Gervase," she said, blushing as she did so.

"You have made me supremely happy," he said to her after their lips
had met; "happy beyond all thought. And, dearest, you shall never have
cause to repent of it. I will be to you the best, the truest husband
woman ever had. There shall be no shadow ever come over your life that
I can keep away."

For answer she put her hand in his, and so they drove along the lanes
that were getting thick with hawthorn and chestnut blossom, while
ahead of them sounded the merry voices of others of the party who were
on a four-in-hand. They had come down, a joyous company, from town in
the afternoon, had dined at the "Star and Garter," and were now on
their way home under the soft moonlight of an early summer evening.
Sir Paul had been with them in the landau on the journey out, but on
this return one he was seated on the top of the coach, talking to a
lady whom he addressed more than once as "his dear old friend," and
was smoking innumerable cigarettes. Probably he did not imagine for
one moment that Lord Penlyn was going to take this opportunity of
proposing to his daughter; but he had noticed that they seemed to
enjoy each other's society very much, especially when they could
enjoy it alone. And so, all things being suitable and harmonious, and
the baronet having a heart beneath his exceedingly well-fitting
waistcoat--and that a very big heart where Ida was concerned--had let
them have the gratification of the drive home together.

"And you never loved any other man, Ida?" Gervase asked. "Forgive the
question, but every lover likes to know, or think, that no one has
ever been before him in the affection of the woman he loves."

"No," she answered, "never. You are the first man I have ever loved."

This had happened nearly a month ago, but as Ida sat in her boudoir
her thoughts returned to the drive on that May night. Yes, she
acknowledged, she loved him, and she loved him more and more every
time she saw him. But as she recalled this conversation she also
recalled the question he had asked her, the question as to whether she
had ever loved any other man; and she wondered what had made him ask
it. Could it be that it was supposed by some of their circle--though
erroneously supposed, she told herself--that another man loved her?
Perfectly erroneously, because that other man had never breathed one
word of love to her; and because, though he would sometimes be in her
society continually for perhaps a week, and then be absent for a
month, he never, during all the time they were thus constantly
meeting, paid her more marked attention than other men were in the
habit of doing. Yet, notwithstanding this, it had come to her
knowledge that it had been whispered about that Walter Cundall loved
her.

This man, Walter Cundall, this reported admirer of hers, was well
known in society, was in a way famous, though his fame was in the
principal part due to the simplest purchaser of that commodity--to
wealth. He was known to be stupendously rich, to be able to spend any
large sum of money he chose in order to gratify his inclinations, to
be able to look upon thousands as ordinary men looked upon hundreds,
and upon hundreds as other men looked upon tens. This was the
principal part of his fame; but there was a lesser, though a better
part! It was true that he did spend hundreds and thousands, but, as a
rule, he spent them quite as much upon others as upon himself. His
fours-in-hand, his yachts and steam-yachts, his villa at Cookham, and
his house in Grosvenor Place, as well as his villa at Cannes--to which
a joyous party went every winter--were as much for his friends as for
him. He gave dinners that men and women delighted in getting
invitations to; but it was noticed that, though his _chéf_ was a
marvel, he rarely ate of anything but the soup and joint himself, and
that, while others were drinking the best wine that Burgundy, or Aÿ,
or Rheims could produce, he scarcely ever quenched his thirst with
anything but a tumbler of claret. But he would sit at the head of his
table with a smile of satisfaction upon his handsome face, contented
with the knowledge that his guests were happy and enjoying themselves.

This man of whom Ida was now thinking and whose story may be told
here, had commenced life at Westminster School, to which he had been
put by his uncle, a rich owner of mines and woods in Honduras, from
which place he paid flying visits to England once a year, or once in
two years. The boy was an orphan, left by his mother to her brother's
care, and that brother had not failed in his trust. The lad went to
Westminster with the full understanding that Honduras must be his home
when school days were over; but he knew that it would be a home of
luxury and tropical splendour. There, after his school days, he passed
some years of his life, attending to the mines, seeing to the
consignments of shiploads of mahogany and cedar, going for days in the
hills with no companions but the Mestizos and the Indians, and helping
his uncle to garner up more and more wealth that was eventually
destined to be his. Once or twice in the space of ten years he came to
Europe, generally with the object of increasing their connection with
London or Continental cities, and of looking up and keeping touch with
his old schoolfellows and friends.

And then, at last, two or three years before this story opens, and
when his uncle was dead, it came to be said about London that Walter
Cundall, the richest man from the Pacific to the Gulf of Honduras, had
taken a house in Grosvenor Place, and meant to make London more or
less permanently his residence. The other places that have
been mentioned were purchased one by one, and he used all his
possessions--sharing them with his friends--by turn; but London was,
as people said, his home. Occasionally he would go off to Honduras on
business, or would rush by the Orient express to St. Petersburg or
Vienna; but he loved England better than any other spot in the globe,
and never left it unless he was obliged to do so.

This was the man whom gossip had said was the future husband of Ida
Raughton--this tall, dark, handsome man, who was, when in England, a
great deal by her side. But gossip had been rather staggered when it
heard that, during Mr. Cundall's last absence of six months in the
tropics, she had become the affianced wife of Lord Penlyn! It wondered
what he would say when he came back, as it heard he was about to do
very shortly, and it wondered why on earth she had taken Penlyn when
she might have had Cundall. It talked it over in the drawing-rooms and
the ball-rooms, at Epsom and on the lawn at Sandown, but it did not
seem to arrive at any conclusion satisfactory to itself.

"I suppose the fact of it is that Cundall never asked her," one said
to another, "and she got tired of waiting."

"I should have waited a bit longer on the off chance," the other said
"Cundall's a fifty times richer fellow than Penlyn, and there's no
comparison between the two. The one is a man of the world and a
splendid fellow, and the other is only a boy."

"He isn't a bad sort of a boy though," said a third, "good-looking,
and all that. And," he continued sententiously, "he has the pull in
age. That's what tells! He is about twenty-five, and Cundall's well
over thirty, isn't he?"

"Thirty is no such great age," said the first one, who, being over
forty himself, looked upon Cundall also as almost a boy, "and, for my
part, I think she has made a mistake!"

And that was what the world said: "She had made a mistake!" Did she
think so herself, as she sat there that bright afternoon? No, that
could not be possible! Ida Raughton was a girl with too pure and
honourable a heart to take one man when she loved another. And we know
what the gossips did not know, that no word of love had ever passed
between her and Walter Cundall. The world was indulging in profitless
speculations when it debated in its mind why Ida had not taken as a
husband a man who had never spoken one word of love to her!



CHAPTER II.

A few days after Ida Raughton had been indulging in those summer
noontide meditations, Walter Cundall arrived at his house in Grosvenor
Place. Things were so well ordered in the establishment of which he
was master, that a telegram from Liverpool, despatched a few hours
earlier, had been sufficient to cause everything to be in readiness
for him; and his servants were so used to his coming and going that
his arrival created no unusual excitement.

He walked into his handsome library followed by a staid, grave
man-servant, and, sitting down in one of his favourite chairs, said:

"Well, West, what's the news in London?"

"Not much, sir; at least nothing that would interest you. There are a
good many balls and parties going on, of course, sir; and next week's
Ascot, you know, sir."

"Ascot, is it? Yes, to be sure! We might take a house there, West, and
have some friends. The four-in-hand could go over from Cookham----"

"Beg pardon, sir, but I don't think you'll be able to entertain any of
your friends this year--not at Ascot, any how. Sir Paul Raughton's man
and me were a-talking together, sir, last night at our little place of
meeting, and he told me as how Sir Paul was going to have quite a
large party down at his place, you know, sir, to celebrate--to
celebrate--I mean for Ascot, sir."

"Well?"

"Well, of course, sir, you'll be wanted there too, sir. Indeed, Sir
Paul's man said as how his master had been making inquiries about the
time you was a-coming back, sir, and said he should like to have you
there. And of course they want to cele--I mean to keep it up, sir.
Now, I'll go and fetch you the letters that have come since I sent you
the last mail."

While the servant was gone, Walter Cundall lay back in his chair and
meditated. He was a handsome man, with a dark, shapely head, and fine,
well-marked features. He was very brown and sunburnt, as it was
natural he should be; but, unlike many whose principal existence has
been passed in the Tropics, there was no sign of waste or languor
about him. His health during all the years he had spent under a
burning Caribbean sun had never suffered; fever and disease had passed
him by. Perhaps it was his abstemiousness that had enabled him to
escape the deadly effects of a climate that kills four at least out of
every ten men. As he sat in his chair he wondered why Providence had
been so unfailingly good to him through his life; why it had showered
upon him--while he was still young enough to enjoy it--the comforts
that other men spent their lives in toiling to obtain, and then often
failed at last to get.

"And now," he said to himself, "let Fortune give me but one more gift,
and I am content. Let me have as partner of all I possess the fairest
woman in the world; let my sweet, gentle Ida tell me that she loves
me--as I know she does--and what more can I ask? Ah, Ida!" he went on,
apostrophising the woman he loved, "I wonder if you have guessed how,
night after night during these long six months, I have sat on my
verandah gazing up at the stars that look like moons there, wondering
if your dear eyes were looking at them in their feeble glory here? I
wonder if you have ever thought during my long absence that not an
hour went by, at night or day, when I was not thinking of you? Yes,
you must have done so; you must have done so! There was everything in
your look, in your voice to tell me that you loved me, that you were
only waiting for me to speak. And, now, I will speak. I will deprive
myself no longer of the love that will sweeten my life."

The man servant came back with an enormous bundle of letters that made
Cundall laugh when he saw them.

"Why, West!" he exclaimed, "you don't imagine that I am going to wade
through these now, do you?"

"I think they're mostly invitations, sir," the servant answered, "from
people who did not know when you would be back."

"Well, give them to me. I will open a few of those the handwriting of
which I recognise, and Mr. Stuart can go through the rest to-morrow."

Mr. Stuart was one of Cundall's secretaries, who, when his employer
was in town, had sometimes to work night and day to keep pace with his
enormous correspondence, but who was now disporting himself at
Brighton. When Cundall was away it was understood that this gentleman
should attend four days a week, two at Grosvenor Place, and two at his
agent's in the City, but that on others he should be free. As, with
his usual generosity, Cundall gave him five hundred a year for doing
this, his post was a good one.

The valet came down at this moment to take his master's orders, and to
say that his bath was ready.

"I shall dine quietly at the club to-night," Mr. Cundall said, "and
then, to-morrow, I will make a few calls, and let my friends know I
have returned. Is there anything else, West?"

"No, sir. Oh, I beg pardon, sir! I had almost forgot. Lady Chesterton
called the day before yesterday to ask when you would be back. When I
told her ladyship you were expected, she left a note for you. It's in
that bundle you have selected, I think, sir."

Cundall looked through the letters until he found the one in question,
and, on opening it, discovered that it contained an invitation for a
ball on that evening. As Lady Chesterton was a hostess whom he liked
particularly, he made up his mind that he would look in, if only for
an hour. It was as good a way as any of letting people know that he
was back in town, and his appearance at her house and at the club
would be quite enough to do so.

It was eight o'clock when he entered the latter institution, and his
arrival was hailed with a chorus of greeting. A man of colossal wealth
is, of course, always welcome amongst his intimates and acquaintances,
but, if he is of a reflecting nature, it may be that the idea
sometimes occurs to him that he is only appreciated for his
possessions, and that, behind his back, there is no such enthusiasm on
his behalf as is testified to his face. He does not know, perhaps, of
all the sneers and jeers that go on about Cr[oe]sus and Sir Gorgius
Midas, but it is to be supposed that he has a very good idea of the
manner in which his fellow men regard him. With Walter Cundall it was
not thus; men neither scoffed at his wealth nor at him, nor did it
ever occur to him to think that he was only liked because of that
wealth. There was a charm in his nature, a something in his pleasant
words and welcoming smile that would have made him, in any
circumstances, acceptable to those with whom he mixed, even though it
had not been in his power to confer the greatest benefits upon them.
There are many such men as he was, as well as many whom we detest for
their moneyed arrogance; men whose lawns and parks and horses and
yachts we may enjoy, but with whom, if they could not place them at
our disposal, we should still be very happy to take a country walk or
spend an hour in a humble parlour.

He was surrounded at once by all kinds of acquaintances, asking
questions as to when he had arrived, how he had enjoyed the voyage,
what May had been like in the Tropics, what he was going to do in the
Ascot week, and a dozen others, some stupid and some intelligent.

"I hardly know about Ascot," he said laughingly, after having answered
all the others. "When my old servant, West, reminded me that it was
next week, which I had entirely forgotten--by-the-bye, what won the
Derby?--I thought of taking a house and having a pleasant lot down,
but now I hear that I am wanted at Sir Paul Raughton's."

"Of course you are!" one very young member said, "Rather! Why, you
know that----"

"They are going to have a jolly party there," an elder one put in; "no
one knows how to manage that sort of thing better than Sir Paul."

Then he turned to the younger man and said, as he drew him aside, "You
confounded young idiot! don't you know that he was sweet on Miss
Raughton himself, and won't like it when he hears she is engaged to
Lord Penlyn? What do you want to make him feel uncomfortable for?
He'll hear it quite soon enough."

"I thought he knew it," the other one muttered.

"I imagine not; and I fancy no one but you would want to be the first
to tell him."

There was undoubtedly this feeling amongst the group, by whom Cundall
was surrounded. Not one of these men, except the boyish member, but
was aware that, before he went abroad six months ago, London society
was daily expecting to hear that he and the beautiful Ida Raughton
were engaged. Now they understood, with that accuracy of perception
which men of the world possess in an extraordinary degree, that her
recent engagement to Lord Penlyn was unknown to him, and they
unanimously determined--though without any agreement between
them--that they would not be the first to open his eyes. He was so
good a fellow that none of them wanted to cause him any pain; and that
the knowledge that Miss Raughton was now engaged would be painful to
him, they were convinced.

Two or three of them made up a table and sat down to dinner, and
Cundall told them that he was going to Lady Chesterton's later on. But
neither here, nor over their coffee afterwards, did any of his friends
tell him that he would meet there the girl he was thought to admire,
attended in all probability by her future husband, Lord Penlyn.

As, at eleven o'clock, he made his way up the staircase to greet his
hostess, he again met many people whom he knew, and, by the time he at
last reached Lady Chesterton, it was rapidly being told about the
ball-room that Walter Cundall was back in town again.

"I declare you look better than ever," her ladyship said as she
welcomed him. "Your bronzed and sunburnt face makes all the other men
seem terribly pale and ghastly. How you must enjoy roaming about the
world as you do!"

He answered her with a smile and a remark, that, after all, there was
no place like London and that he was getting very tired of rambling,
when he turned round and saw Ida Raughton coming towards him on the
arm of Lord Penlyn.

"How do you do, Miss Raughton?" he said, taking her hand and giving
one swift look into her eyes. How beautiful she was, he thought; and
as he looked he wondered how he could ever have gone away and left her
without speaking of his love. Well, no matter, the parting was over
now!

"How are you, Penlyn?" he said, shaking him cordially by the hand.

"When did you return?" Ida asked. Until this moment she had no idea
that he was back in England.

"I landed at Liverpool late last night," he answered, "and came up to
town to-day. Lady Chesterton, hearing of my probable arrival, was kind
enough to leave an invitation for me for to-night."

Before any more could be said the band began to play, and Lord Penlyn
turned round to Cundall and said:

"I am engaged for this dance, though it is only a square one. Will you
look after Miss Raughton until I return?"

"With pleasure, or until some favoured partner comes to claim her.
But," turning to her, "I presume you are also engaged for this dance,
'though it is only a square one.'"

"No," she said, "you know I never dance them."

"Shall we go round the rooms, then?" he asked, offering her his arm.
"It is insufferably hot here!"

Lady Chesterton had moved away to welcome some other guests, and so
they walked to another part of the room. As Ida looked up at him, she
thought how well and strong he seemed, and recalled the many dances
they had had together. And she wondered if he was glad to be back in
London again?

"How cool and pleasant the conservatory looks!" he said, as they
passed the entrance to it. "Shall we go in and sit down until you are
claimed for the next dance?"

She assented, and they went in and took possession of two chairs that
were standing beneath some great palms and cacti.

"I should think that after the heat you have been accustomed to you
would feel nothing in England," she said.

"In Honduras we are suitably clad," he answered, laughing, "and
evening dress suits are not in much request. But I am very glad to be
wearing one again, and once more talking to you."

"Are you?" she said, raising her eyes and looking at him. She recalled
how often they had talked together, and how she had taken pleasure in
having him tell her of the different parts of the world he had seen;
parts that seemed so strange to her who had never been farther away
from home than the Tyrol or Rome.

"Indeed I am! Do you think I should go to the Tropics for pleasure?"

"I suppose you need not go unless you choose," she said; "surely you
can do as you please!"

"I can do as I please now," he answered, "I could not hitherto. I will
tell you what I mean. Until a month ago the property I owned in
Honduras required my constant attention, and necessitated my visiting
the place once at least in every two years. But, of late, this has
become irksome to me--I will explain why in a moment--and my last
visit was made with a view to disposing of that property. This I have
made arrangements for doing, and I shall go no more to that part of
the world. Now," and his voice became very low, but clear, as he
spoke, "shall I tell you why I have broken for ever with Honduras?"

"Yes," she said. "You have told me so often of your affairs that you
know I am always interested in them. Tell me."

As she spoke, the band was playing the introduction to the last
popular waltz, and the few couples who were in the conservatory left
for it. A young man to whom Ida was engaged for this dance came in to
look for her, but, seeing that she was talking to Walter Cundall,
withdrew. It happened that he did not know she was betrothed to Lord
Penlyn, but was aware that, last season, every one thought she would
soon be engaged to the man she was now with. So he thought he would
not disturb them and went unselfishly away, being seen by neither.

Then, as the strains of the waltz were heard from the ball-room, he
said:

"It is because I want to settle down in England and make it my home.
Because I want a wife to make that home welcome to me, because I have
long loved one woman and have only waited until my return to tell her
so. Ida, you are that woman! I love you better than anything in this
world! Tell me that you will be my wife!"

For answer she drew herself away from him, pale, and trembling
visibly, and trying to speak. But no word came from her lips.

"Why do you not answer me, Ida?" he asked. "Have I spoken too soon?
But no! that is not possible--you must have seen how dearly I loved
you! how I always sought your presence--you must----"

Then she made a motion to him with her fan, and found her voice.

"You cannot have heard," she said, "no one can have told you that----"

"That what! What is there to tell? For God's sake speak, Ida!"

"That I am engaged."

"Engaged!" he said, rising to his feet. "Engaged! while I have been
away. Oh! it cannot be, it is impossible! You must have seen, you must
have known of my love for you. It cannot be true!"

"It is true, Mr. Cundall."

"True!" Then he paused a moment and endeavoured to recover himself.
When he had done so he said very quietly, but in a deep, hoarse voice:
"I congratulate you, Miss Raughton. May I ask who is the fortunate
gentleman?"

"I am engaged to Lord Penlyn."

He took a step backward and ejaculated, "Lord Penlyn! Lord----"

Then once more he recovered himself, and said: "Shall I take you back
to the ball-room? Doubtless he is looking for you now."

"I am very sorry for your disappointment," she said, looking up at him
with a pale face; his emotion had startled her, "very sorry. I would
not wound you for the world. And there are so many other women who
will make you happy."

"I wanted no other woman but you," he said.



CHAPTER III.


Lord Penlyn and his friend and companion, Philip Smerdon, had returned
from their yachting tour, which had embraced amongst other places Le
Vocq, about a fortnight before Walter Cundall arrived in London from
Honduras. The trip had only been meant to be a short one to try the
powers of his new purchase, the _Electra_, but it had been postponed
by the storm to some days over the time originally intended. Since he
had become engaged to Ida Raughton, he naturally hated to be away from
her, and, up till the night before he returned to England, had fretted
a great deal at his enforced absence from her.

But the discovery he had made in the _Livre des Étrangers_ at Le Vocq,
had had such an effect upon his thoughts and mind that, when he
returned to England, he almost dreaded a meeting with her. He was an
honourable, straightforward man, and, with the exception of being
possessed of a somewhat violent and obstinate temper when thwarted in
anything he had set his heart upon, had no perceptible failings. Above
all he hated secrecy, or secrecy's next-door neighbour, untruth; and
it seemed to him that, if not Ida, at least Ida's father, should be
told about the discovery he had made.

"With the result," said Philip Smerdon, who was possessed of a cynical
nature, "that Miss Raughton would be shocked at hearing of your
father's behaviour, and that Sir Paul would laugh at you."

"I really don't see what there is to laugh at in my father being a
scoundrel, as he most undoubtedly was."

"A scoundrel!" Philip echoed.

"Was he not? We have what is almost undoubted proof that he was living
for two summers at that place with some lady who could not have been
his wife, and whom he must have cast off previous to marrying my
mother. And there was the child for whom the landlord took me! He must
have deserted that as well as the woman. And, if a man is not a
scoundrel who treats his offspring as he must have treated that boy, I
don't know the meaning of the word."

"As I have said before, it is highly probable that both of them were
dead before he married your mother."

"Nonsense! That is a very good way for a novelist to make a man get
rid of his encumbrances before settling down to comfortable matrimony,
but not very likely to happen in real life. I tell you I am convinced
that, somewhere or other, the child, if not the mother, is alive, and
it is horrible to me to think that, while I have inherited everything
that the Occleves possessed, this elder brother of mine may be earning
his living in some poor, if not disgraceful, manner."

"The natural children of noblemen are almost invariably well provided
for," Smerdon said quietly; "why should you suppose that your father
behaved worse than most of his brethren?"

"Because, if the estate had been charged with anything I should have
known it. But it was not--not for a farthing."

"He might have handed over to this lady a large sum down for her and
for her son, when they parted."

"Which is also impossible! He was only Gervase Occleve then, and had
nothing but a moderately comfortable allowance from his predecessor,
his uncle. He married my mother almost directly after he became Lord
Penlyn."

This was but one of half-a-dozen conversations that the young men had
held together since their return from France, and Gervase had found
comfort in talking the affair over and over again with his friend.
Philip Smerdon stood in the position to him of old schoolfellow and
playmate, of a 'Varsity friend, and, later on, of companion and
secretary. Had they been brothers they could scarcely have been--would
probably not have been--as close friends as they were.

When they were at Harrow, and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford,
they had been inseparable, and, in point of means, entirely on an
equality, Philip's father being a reported, and, apparently,
enormously wealthy contractor in the North. But one day, without the
least warning, without a word from his father or the slightest
stopping of his allowance, he learnt, by a telegram in a paper, that
his parent had failed for a stupendous sum, and was undoubtedly ruined
for ever. The news turned out to be true, and Philip knew that,
henceforth, he would have to earn his own living instead of having a
large income to spend.

"Thank God!" he said, in those days, "that I am not quite a fool, and
have not altogether wasted my time. There must be plenty of ways in
which a Harrow and Oxford man can earn a living, and I mean to try. I
have got my degrees, and I suppose I could do something down at the
old shop (meaning the old University, and with no disrespect
intended), or get pupils, or drift into literature--though they say
that means starvation of the body and mortification of the spirit."

"First of all," said Penlyn, who in that time was the counsellor, and
not, as he afterwards became, the counselled, "see a bit of the world,
and come along with me to the East. When you come back, you will be
still better fitted than you are now for doing something or other--and
you are young enough to spare a year."

"Still, it seems like wasting time--and, what's worse!--it's sponging
on you."

"Sponging! Rubbish! You don't think I am going alone, do you? And if
you don't come, somebody else will! And you know, old chap, I'd sooner
have you than any one else in the world."

"All right, Jerry," his friend said, "I'll come and look after you."

But when they found themselves in the East, it turned out that the
"looking after" had to be done by Penlyn, instead of by Philip. The
one was always well, the other always ill. From the time they got to
Cairo, it seemed as if every malady that can afflict a man in those
districts fell upon Smerdon. At Thebes he had a horrible low fever,
from which he temporarily recovered, but at Constantine he was again
so ill, that his friend thought he would never bring him away alive.
Nor, but for his own exertions, would he ever have done so, and the
mountain city would have been his grave. But Gervase watched by his
side day and night, was his nurse and doctor too (for the grave Arab
physician did nothing but prescribe cooling drinks for him and herbal
medicines), bathed him, fanned him, and at last brought him, though
weak as a child, back to life.

"How am I ever to repay this?" the sick man said, as he sat up one
evening, gazing out on the Algerian mountains and watching the sun
sink behind them. "What can I ever do in acknowledgment of your having
saved my life?"

"Get thoroughly well, and then we'll go home as fast as we can. And
don't talk bosh about repayment."

"Bosh! Do you call it that? Well, I don't suppose I ever shall be able
to do anything in return, but I should like to have the chance. As a
rule, I don't talk bosh, I believe, though no one is a judge of
themselves. Do give me another drink of that lemon-water, Jerry, the
thirst is coming on again."

"Which comes of talking nonsense, so shut up!" his friend answered, as
he handed him the drink.

"It does seem hard, though, that instead of my being your companion as
I came out to be, you should have to always----"

"Now look here, Phil, my friend," Gervase said, "if you _don't_ leave
off talking, I'll call the doctor." This threat was effectual, for the
native physician had such unpleasant personal peculiarities that
Philip nearly went mad whenever he entered the room.

Four years have passed since that excursion to the East and the time
when Gervase Occleve is the affianced husband of Ida Raughton, but the
friendship of these two has only grown more firm. On their return to
England, Lord Penlyn offered his friend the post of his secretary
combined with steward, which at that moment was vacant by the death of
the previous holder. "But companion as well," he said laughingly, "I
am not going to have you buried alive at Occleve Chase when I want
your society in London, nor _vice versâ_, so you had better find a
subordinate."

Smerdon took the post, and no one could say with any truth that his
friendship for Lord Penlyn stood in the way of his doing his duty to
him as his secretary. He made himself thoroughly master of everything
concerning his friend's property--of his tenants and his servants; he
knew to a head the cattle belonging to him, and what timber might be
marked annually, and regulated not only his country estate but also
his town house. And, that his friend should not lose the companionship
which he evidently prized so dearly, he thought nothing of travelling
half the night from Occleve Chase to London, and of appearing fresh
and bright at the breakfast table. For, so deeply had Penlyn's
goodness to him in all things sunk into his heart, that he never
thought he had done enough to show his gratitude.

Of course in society it was known that, wherever Lord Penlyn went his
friend went also, and no doors were shut to the one that were open to
the other, or would have been shut had Philip chosen. But he cared
little for fashionable doings, and refused to accompany his friend to
many of the balls and dinners to which he went.

"Leave me alone in peace to read and smoke," he would say, "and go out
and enjoy yourself. I shall be just as happy as you are." And when he
learned that Ida Raughton had consented to be Lord Penlyn's wife he
told him that he was sincerely glad to hear it. "A man in your
position wants a wife," he said, "and you have found a good one in
her, I am sure. You will be as happy as I could wish you, and that is
saying a good deal."

They had been busy this morning--the morning after Lady Chesterton's
ball--in going over their accounts, and in making arrangements for
their visit, in the forthcoming Ascot week, to Sir Paul's villa, near
the Royal course. Then, while they had paused for a few moments to
indulge in a cigarette, the conversation had again turned upon that
discovery at Le Vocq.

"I tell you what I do mean to do," Penlyn said, "I mean to go and see
Bell. Although he could have known nothing of what was going on thirty
years ago, he may have heard his father say something on the subject.
They have been our solicitors for years."

"It is only letting another person into the story, as he probably
knows nothing about it," Philip said. "I wouldn't go, if I were you."

"I will, though," Penlyn answered; and he did.

Mr. Bell was a solicitor of the modern type that is so vastly
different from the old one. Thirty years ago, when our fathers went to
consult the family lawyer, they saw either an elderly gentleman with a
shaved upper lip and decorous mutton-chop whiskers, or a young man,
also with his lip shaved, and clad in a solemn suit of black. But all
that is passed, and Mr. Bell was an excellent specimen of the
solicitor of to-day. He wore a neatly waxed moustache, had a
magnificent gardenia in his well-cut morning coat, and received Lord
Penlyn in a handsomely furnished room that might almost have passed
for the library of a gentleman of taste. And, had his client been a
few years older, they would probably have known each other well at
Oxford, for Mr. Bell himself had been a John's man, and had been well
known at the debating rooms.

He listened to his client's story, smiling faintly once or twice, at
what seemed to his worldly mind, too much remorse for his father's sin
on the part of Lord Penlyn, then he said:

"I never even knew your father, but I should think the whole affair a
simple one, and an ordinary version of the old story."

"What old story?"

"The story of a person of position---- Forgive me, Lord Penlyn, we are
men of the world" (he said "we," though he considered his client as
the very reverse of "a man of the world"), "and can speak plainly; the
story of a person of position taking up with some woman who was his
inferior and flattered by his attentions, amusing himself with her
till he grew tired, and then--dropping her."

"To starve with her--with his offspring!"

"I should imagine not!" Mr. Bell said with an airy cynicism that made
him appear hateful to his young client. "No, I should imagine not! The
ladies who attach themselves to men of your father's position
generally know how to take very good care of themselves. You may
depend that this one was either provided for before she agreed to
throw in her lot with him, or afterwards."

The lawyer's opinion was the same as Philip's, and they both seemed to
look upon the affair as a much less serious one than it appeared to
him! Were they right, and was he making too much out of this
peccadillo of his father's?

"And you can tell me nothing further?" he asked the solicitor.

"What can I tell you?" the lawyer said. "I never saw the late Lord
Penlyn, and scarcely ever heard my father mention him. If you like I
will have all the papers relative to him gone through; but it is
thirty years ago! If the lady is alive and had wanted anything, she
would surely have turned up by now. And I may say the same of the
son."

"He may not even know the claim he has."

"Claim! my lord, what claim? He has no claim on you."

"Has he not? Has he not the claim of brotherhood, the claim that my
father deserted his mother? I tell you, Mr. Bell, that if I could find
that man I would make him the greatest restitution in my power."

The lawyer looked upon Lord Penlyn, when he heard these words, as a
Quixotic young idiot, but of course he did not say so. It occurred to
him that, in all probability, his father had had more than one affair
of this kind, and he wondered grimly what his romantic young client
would say if he heard, by chance, of any more of them. But he did
promise to go through all the papers in his possession relating to the
late lord, and to see about this particular case. "Though I warn you,"
he said, "that I am not likely to find anything that can throw any
light upon an affair of so long ago. And, as a lawyer, I must say that
it is not well that such a dead and gone business should ever be dug
up again."

"I would dig it up," Lord Penlyn answered, "for the sake of justice."

Then he went away, leaving the lawyer's mind wavering between contempt
and admiration for him.

"He must be a good young fellow at heart, though," Mr. Bell said to
himself; "but the world will spoil him."

Two nights afterwards Penlyn received a letter from him, saying that
there was not the slightest trace in any of the Occleve papers in his
possession of the persons about whom they had spoken. Moreover, Mr.
Bell said he had gone through a great many of the accounts of the late
Lord Penlyn, and of his uncle and predecessor, but in no case could he
find any evidence of the Hon. Gervase having ever exceeded his income,
or, when he succeeded to the property, of having drawn any large sum
of money for an unknown purpose. "And," he concluded, "I should advise
your lordship to banish the whole affair for ever from your mind. If
your father really had the intimacy imagined by you with that lady,
time has removed all signs of it; and, even though you might be
willing to do so, it would be impossible for you now to obtain any
information about it."



CHAPTER IV.


Two people went away from Lady Chesterton's ball with anything but
happiness at their hearts--Ida Raughton and Walter Cundall. The
feelings with which the former had heard the latter's declaration of
love had been of a very mixed nature; pity and sympathy for him being
combined with an idea that she had not altogether been loyal to the
man to whom she was now pledged. She was able to tell herself, as she
sat in her dressing-room after her maid had left her, that she had,
after all, become engaged to the man whom she really loved; but she
had also to acknowledge that, for that other one, her compassion was
very great. She had never loved him, nor did she until this night
believe the rumours of society that reached her ears, to the effect
that he loved her; but she had liked him very much, and his society
had always been agreeable to her. His conversation, his stories of a
varied life in other lands, had had a charm for her that the
invertebrate gossip of an ordinary London salon could never possess;
but there her liking for him had stopped. And, for she was always
frank even to herself, she acknowledged that he was a man whom she
regarded with some kind of awe; a man whose knowledge of the world was
as much above hers as his wealth was above her father's wealth. She
remembered, that when any question had ever perplexed her, any
question of politics, science, or art, to which she could find no
answer, he would instantly solve the knotty subject for her, and throw
a light upon it that had never come to her mind. Yes, she reflected,
he was so much above her that she did not think, in any circumstances,
love could have come into her heart for him.

But, if there was no love there was intense sympathy. She could not
forget, at least not so soon after the occurrence, his earnest appeal
to her to speak, his certainty that she knew of his love, and then the
deep misery apparent in his voice when he forced himself into
restraint, and could even go so far as to congratulate her. Her
knowledge of the world was small, but she thought that from his tone
this must have been almost the first, as she was sure it was the
greatest, disappointment he had ever had. "He wanted to have a wife to
make his home welcome to him," he had said, "and she was the woman
whom he wanted for that wife." Surely, she reflected, he was entitled
to her pity, though she could not give him her love. And then she
wondered what she ought to do with regard to telling her father and
her future husband. She did not quite know, but she thought she would
tell her father first, and then, if he considered it right that
Gervase should know, he should also be told. Perhaps he, too, would
feel inclined to pity Mr. Cundall.

As for him, he hardly knew what to do on that night. He walked back to
his house in Grosvenor Place (he was too uneasy to sit in his
carriage), and, letting himself in went to his library, where he
passed some hours pacing up and down it. Once he muttered a quotation
from the Old Testament, and once he flung himself into a chair and
buried his head in his hands, and wept as strong men only weep in
their darkest hour. Afterwards, when he was calmer, he went to a large
_écritoire_, and, unlocking it, took out a bundle of papers and read
them. They were a collection of several old letters, a tress of hair
in an envelope, which he kissed softly, and two slips of paper which
he seemed to read particularly carefully. Then he put them away and
said to himself: "It must be done, there is no help for it. My
happiness is gone for ever, and, God knows, I would not wreck the
happiness of others! but, in this case, my sin would be beyond recall
if I hesitated." And, again, after a pause, he said to himself: "It
must be done."

He rose in the morning at his usual time, though it was nearly six
before he flung himself wearily on his bed to snatch some troubled
rest, and when he went downstairs to his breakfast he found his
secretary, Mr. Stuart, waiting for him. The young fellow had been
telegraphed for on his employer's return, and had torn himself away
from the charms of Brighton to come back to his duties. After they had
exchanged greetings, the secretary said:

"West told me that I should find you looking better than ever, Mr.
Cundall, but I cannot honestly say that I do. You look pale and worn."

"I am perfectly well, nevertheless. But I went to a bail last night,
and, what with that and travelling all day, I am rather knocked up.
But it is nothing. Now, let us get to work on the correspondence, and
then we must go into the City."

They began on the different piles of letters, Mr. Cundall throwing
over to Stuart all those the handwriting of which he did not
recognise, and opening those which he did know himself.

Presently he came to one with a crest on the envelope that he was well
acquainted with--the Raughton crest, and he could scarcely resist a
start as he saw it. But he controlled himself and tore the letter
open. It was from Sir Paul, and simply contained an invitation from
him to Cundall to make one of his Ascot party at Belmont, the name of
his place near there. The writer said he had heard it rumoured about
that he was on his way home from Honduras, and hence the invitation,
as if he got back in time, he hoped he would come. This letter had
been written some day or two ago, and had been passed over by Cundall
on the previous one. Had he not so passed it over, he would have known
his fate before he went to Lady Chesterton's ball, for the Baronet
went on to say: "You may have learned from some of your numerous
correspondents that Ida and Lord Penlyn are engaged. The marriage is
fixed for the 1st September, and will, I hope and believe, be a
suitable one in every way. At least, I myself can see nothing to
prevent its being so; and I shall hope to receive your congratulations,
amongst others, when we meet."

He read the letter and put it in his pocket, and then he said to
Stuart:

"I have had a letter from Sir Paul Raughton, in which he tells me his
daughter is engaged to Lord Penlyn. You go out a good deal, when did
you first hear of it?"

The secretary looked up, and seemed rather confused for the moment.
He, too, like every one else, even to West the butler, knew that it
was supposed that Cundall was in love with Ida, and had wondered what
he would say when he heard it. And now he was sitting opposite to him,
asking him in the most calm tone when he first knew of her engagement,
and the calmness staggered him. Had the world, after all, been
mistaken?

"Oh, I don't know," he said. "Not so very long ago. About a month, I
should say."

"About a month since it was announced?"

"Yes, about that."

"I wonder you did not think of telling me in your last letter, since
you knew how intimate I was with the Raughtons."

"I forgot it. It--it slipped my memory. And there were so many
business matters to write about."

"Well! it is of no importance."

"Of no importance!" Stuart thought to himself. "Of no importance!" Then
they must all have been indeed mistaken! Why, it was only two or three
days before Mr. Cundall's return that he had, when up in town for the
day, consulted West, and told him that he had better not say anything
on that subject to his master, but let him find it out for himself.
And now he sat there calmly reading his letters, and saying that "it
was of no importance!" Well, he was glad to hear it! Cundall was a
good, upright man, and, when he heard of Ida Raughton's engagement,
his first thought had been that it would be a blow to his employer. He
was very glad that his fears were ungrounded.

They went to the City together later on, and then they separated; but
before they did so, Cundall asked Stuart if he knew what club Lord
Penlyn belonged to.

"'Black's,' I fancy, and the 'Voyagers,' but we can see in the
Directory." And he turned to the Court department of that useful work,
and found that he was right.

In the evening of two days later Cundall called at "Black's," and
learned that Lord Penlyn was in that institution.

"Will you tell him, if you please," he said, "that Mr. Cundall wishes
to see him?"

All through those two days he had been nerving himself for the
interview that was now about to take place, and had at last strung
himself up for it. He had prayed that there might be no cruelty in
what he was about to do; but he was afraid! The lad--for he was little
better--whom he was now summoning, was about to be dealt a blow at his
hand that would prostrate him to the earth; he hoped that he would be
man enough to bear it well.

"How are you, Cundall?" Lord Penlyn said, coming down the stairs
behind the porter, and greeting him with cordiality. "I have never had
the pleasure of seeing you here before."

Then he looked at his visitor and saw that he was ghastly pale, and he
noticed that his hand was cold and damp.

"Oh, I say!" he exclaimed, "aren't you well? Come upstairs and have
something."

"I am well, but I have something very serious to say to you, and----"

"Ida is not ill?" the other asked apprehensively, his first thoughts
flying to the woman he loved. And the familiar name upon his lips
struck to the other's heart.

"She is well, as far as I know. But it is of her that I have come to
speak. This club seems full of members, will you come for a stroll in
the Park? It is close at hand."

"Yes, yes!" Penlyn said, calling to the porter for his hat and stick.
"But what can you have to say to me about her?"

Then, as they went down St. James' Street and past Marlborough House
into the Park, there did come back suddenly to his memory some words
he had once overheard about Cundall being in love with the woman who
was now his affianced wife. Good God! he thought, suppose he had come
to tell him that he held a prior promise from her, that she belonged
to him! But no; that was absurd! He had seen her that very day, and,
though he remembered that she had been particularly quiet and
meditative, she had again acknowledged her love. There could be
nothing this man might have to say about her that should be
disagreeable for him to hear. Yet, still, the remembrance of that
whisper about his love for her disquieted him.

"Now tell me, Mr. Cundall," he said, "what you have to say to me about
my future wife."

They had passed through the railings into St. James' Park, and were in
one of the walks. The summer sun was setting, and the loiterers and
nursemaids were strolling about; but, nevertheless, in this walk it
was comparatively quiet.

"I have come to tell you first," Cundall answered, "that, three nights
ago, I asked Ida Raughton to be my wife."

"What!" the other exclaimed, "you asked my future----"

"One moment," Cundall said quietly. "I did not know then that she was
your future wife. If you will remember, I had only returned to London
on that day."

"And you did not know of our engagement?"

"I knew nothing. Let me proceed. In proposing to her and in gaining
her love--for she told me that she had consented to be your wife--you
have deprived me of the only thing in this world I prize, the only
thing I wanted. I came back to England with one fixed idea, the idea
that she loved me, and that, when I asked her, she would accept me for
her husband."

He paused a moment, and Lord Penlyn said:

"While I cannot regret the cause of your disappointment, seeing what
happiness it brings to me, I am still very sorry to see you suffering
so."

Cundall took no notice of this remark, though his soft, dark eyes were
fixed upon the younger man as he uttered it. Then he continued:

"In ordinary cases when two men love the same woman--for I love her
still, Heaven help me and shall always love her; it is my love for her
that impels me to say what I am now about to--when two men love the
same woman, and one of them gets the acknowledgment of her love, the
other stands aside and silently submits to his fate."

Lord Penlyn had been watching him fixedly as the words fell from his
lips, and had noticed the calmness, which seemed like the calmness of
despair, that accompanied those words. But there was not, however, the
calm that accompanies resignation in them, for they implied that, in
this case, he did not intend to follow the usual rule.

"You are right in your idea, Mr. Cundall," he answered. "Surely it is
not your intention to struggle against what is always accepted as the
case?"

"It is not, for since she loves you I must never look upon her face
again. But--there is something else?" He paused again for a moment and
drew a deep breath, and then he proceeded:

"Are you a strong man?" he asked. "Do you think you can bear a sudden
shock?"

"I do not know what you mean, nor what you are driving at!" Lord
Penlyn said, beginning to lose his temper at these strange hints and
questions. "I am sorry for your disappointment, in one way, but it is
not in your power, nor in that of any one else, to come between the
love Miss Raughton and I bear to each other."

"Unfortunately it is in my power and I must do it--temporarily, at
least. At present, you cannot marry Miss Raughton."

"_What!_ Why not, sir? For what reason, pray?"

"Do not excite yourself! Because she and her father imagine that she
is engaged to Lord Penlyn, and----"

"What the devil do you mean, sir?" the other interrupted furiously.

"_And_," Cundall went on, without noticing the interruption, "_you are
not Lord Penlyn!_"

"It is a lie!" the other said, springing at him in the dusk that had
now set in, "and I will kill you for it." But Cundall caught him in a
grasp of iron and pushed him back, as he said hoarsely: "It is the
truth, I swear it before Heaven! Your father had another wife who died
before he married your mother, and he left a son by her. That man is
Lord Penlyn."

Gervase Occleve took a step back and reeled on to a seat in the walk.
In a moment there came back to his mind the inn at Le Vocq, the _Livre
des Étrangers_ there in which he had seen that strange entry, and the
landlord's tale. So that woman was his wife and that son a lawful one,
instead of the outcast and nameless creature he had pictured him in
his mind! But--was this story true?

He rose again and stood before Cundall, and said:

"I do not know how you, who seem to have lived in such out-of-the-way
parts of the world, are capable of substantiating this extraordinary
statement; but you will have to do so, and that before witnesses. You
have brought a charge of the gravest nature against the position I
hold. I suppose you are prepared to produce some proof of what you
say?"

"I am fully prepared," Cundall said.

"Then I would suggest, Mr. Cundall, that you should call at my house
to-morrow, and tell this remarkable tale in full. There will be at
least one witness, my friend, Mr. Smerdon. When we have heard what you
have to say, we shall know what credence to place in your story."

"I will be there at midday, if you will receive me. And believe me, if
it had not been that I could not see Miss Raughton married illegally,
and assuming a title to which she had no right, I would have held my
peace."

Lord Penlyn had turned away before the last words were spoken, but on
hearing them, he turned back again and said:

"Is this secret in your hands only, then, and does it depend upon you
alone for the telling? Pray, may I ask who this mysterious Lord Penlyn
is whom you have so suddenly sprung upon me?"

"_I am he!_" the other answered.

"You!" with an incredulous stare. "You!"

"Yes, I."



CHAPTER V.


"I have heard it said that he is worth from two to three millions,"
Philip Smerdon said to his friend the next morning, when Penlyn had,
for the sixth or seventh time, repeated the whole of the conversation
between him and Cundall. "A man of that wealth would scarcely try to
steal another man's title. Yet he must either be mistaken or mad."

"He may be mistaken--I must hope he is--but he is certainly not mad.
His calmness last night was something extraordinary, and I am
convinced that, provided this story is true, he has told it against
his will."

"You mean that he only told it to prevent Miss Raughton from being
illegally married, or rather, for the marriage would be perfectly
legal since no deception was meant, to prevent her from assuming a
title to which she had no claim?"

"Yes."

"You do not think that he hopes by divulging this secret--always
assuming it to be true--to cause your marriage to be broken off, so
that he might have a chance of obtaining Miss Raughton himself? If his
story is true, he can still make her Lady Penlyn."

His friend hesitated. "I do not know," he said. "He bears the
character of being one of the most honourable men in London. Supposing
his story true, I imagine he was right to tell it."

The young man expressed his opinion and spoke as he thought, but he
also spoke in a voice broken with sorrow. If what Cundall had told him
was the actual case, not only was he not Lord Penlyn, but he was a
beggar. And then Ida Raughton could never be his wife. Even though she
might be willing to take him, stripped as he would be of his title and
his possessions, it was certain that Sir Paul would not allow her to
do so. He began to feel a bitter hatred rising up in his heart against
this man, who had only let him enjoy his false position till he
happened to cross his path, and had then swooped down upon him, and,
in one moment, torn from him everything he possessed in the world. His
heart had been full of pity for that unknown and unnamed brother, whom
he had imagined to be in existence somewhere in the world; for this
man, who was now to come forward armed with all lawful rights to
deprive him of what he had so long been allowed blindly to enjoy, he
experienced nothing but the blackest hate. For he never doubted for
one moment but that the story was true!

At twelve o'clock he and Smerdon were ready to receive the new
claimant to all he had imagined his, and at twelve o'clock he arrived.
He bowed to Smerdon and held out, with almost a beseeching glance, his
hand to Gervase Occleve, but the latter refused to take it.

"Whether your story is true or not," he said, "I have nothing but
contempt to give you. If it is false, you are an impostor who shall
be punished, socially if not legally; if it is true, you are a
bad-hearted man to have left me so long in my ignorance."

"I should have left you so for ever," Cundall answered in a voice that
sounded sadly broken, "had it not been for Miss Raughton's sake; I
could not see her deceived."

"Had he not come between you and her," Philip. Smerdon asked, "but had
wished to marry some other lady, would your scruples still have been
the same?"

"No! for she would not have been everything in the world to me, as
this one is. And I should never have undeceived him as to the position
he stood in. He might have had the title and what it brings with it, I
could have given Ida something as good."

"Your ethics are extraordinary!" Philip said, with a sneer.

"You, sir, at least, are not my judge."

"Suppose, sir," Gervase Occleve said, "that you give us the full
particulars of your remarkable statement of last night."

"It is hard to do so," Cundall answered. "But it must be done!"

He was seated in a deep chair facing them, they being on a roomy
lounge, side by side, and, consequently able to fix their eyes fully
upon him. The task he had to go through might have unnerved any man,
but he had set himself to do it.

"Before I make any statement," he said, "look at these," and he
produced two letters worn with time and with the ink faded. The other
took them, and noted that they were addressed to, 'My own dear wife,'
and signed, 'Your loving husband, Gervase Occleve.' And one of them
was headed 'Le Vocq, Auberge Belle-Vue.'

"Are they in your father's handwriting?" he asked, and Gervase
answered "Yes."

"It was in 1852," Cundall said, "that he met my mother. She was
staying in Paris with a distant relative of hers, and they were in the
habit of constantly meeting. I bear his memory in no respect--he was a
cold-hearted, selfish man--and I may say that, although he loved her,
he never originally intended to marry her. She told me this herself,
in a letter she left behind to be opened by me alone, when I came of
age. He won her love, and, as I say, he never intended to marry her.
Only, when at last he proposed to her that she should go away with him
and be his wife in everything but actual fact, she shrank from him
with such horror that he knew he had made a mistake. Then he assumed
another method, and told her that he would never have proposed such a
thing, but that his uncle, whose heir he was, wished him to make a
brilliant match. However, he said he was willing to forego this, and,
in the eyes of the world at least, to remain single. For her sake he
was willing to forego it, if she also was willing to make some
sacrifice. She asked what sacrifice he meant, and, he said the
sacrifice of a private marriage, of living entirely out of the world,
of never being presented to any of his friends. Poor creature! She
loved him well at that time--is it necessary for me to say what her
answer was?"

He paused a moment, and he saw that the eyes of Gervase were fixed
upon him, but he saw no sympathy for his dead mother in them. Perhaps
he did not expect to see any!

"How she explained matters to the relation she lived with, I do not
know," he went on; "but they were married in that year in London."

"At what church?" Gervase asked.

"At 'St. Jude's, Marylebone.' Here is the certificate." Gervase took
it, glanced at it, and returned it to him.

"Go on," he said, and his voice too had changed.

"They lived a wandering kind of life, but, in those days, a not
altogether unhappy one. But at last he wearied of it--wearied of
living in continental towns to which no one of their own country ever
came, or in gay ones where they passed under an assumed name, that
which had been her maiden name--Cundall. At my birth he became more
genial for a year or so, and then again he relapsed into his moody and
morose state--a state that had become almost natural to him. He began
to see that the secret could not be kept for ever, now that he had a
son; that some day, if I lived, I must become Lord Penlyn. And he did
not disguise his forebodings from her, nor attempt to throw off his
gloom. She bore with him patiently for a long while--bore his
repinings and taunts; but at last she told him that, after all, there
was no such great necessity for secrecy, that she was a lady by birth,
a wife of whom he need not be ashamed. Then--then he cursed her; and
on the next occasion of their dispute he told her that they had better
live apart.

"She took him at his word, and when he woke the next morning she was
gone, taking me with her. He never saw her nor me again, and when he
heard that she was dead he believed that I was dead also."

"Then he was the deceived and not the deceiver!" Gervase exclaimed.
"He thought that I was really his son and heir."

"Yes, he thought so. My mother's only other relative in the world was
her brother, a merchant in Honduras, who was fast amassing a
stupendous fortune--the one I now possess. She wrote to him telling
him that she had married, that her husband had treated her badly, and
that she had left him and resumed her maiden name. _His_ name she
never would reveal. My uncle wrote to say that in such circumstances,
and being an unmarried man, he would adopt me as his own child, and
that I should eventually be his heir. Then he sent money over for my
schooling and bringing up."

He paused again, and again he went on; and it seemed as if he was
mustering himself for a final effort.

"When I was little over four years old she died. On her death-bed her
heart relented, and she thought that she would do for him what
appeared to be the greatest service in her power. She wrote to tell
him she was dying, and that he would, in a few days, receive
confirmation of her death from a sure hand. _And she told him that I
had died two months before_. Poor thing! she meant well, but she was a
simple, unworldly woman, and she had no idea of what she was doing.
Perhaps it never occurred to her that he would marry again; perhaps
she even thought that her leaving him would free him and his from all
obligations to me. At any rate, she died in ignorance of the harm she
had done, and I am glad she never realised her error."

He paused; and Gervase said:

"Is that all?"

"With the exception of this. When I was twenty-one this letter of my
mother's, which no other eyes but mine have ever seen before, was put
into my hand. I was then in Honduras, and it had been left in my
uncle's care. At first the news staggered me, and I could not believe
it. I had always thought my uncle was on my father's side, and not on
my mother's, and I now questioned him on the subject. I found that he,
himself, was only partly in her secret, and that he knew nothing of my
father's real position. Then, as to the names of Occleve and Penlyn, I
was ignorant of them; although I had at that age seen something of
European society. I came to England shortly afterwards, and there was
in my mind some idea of putting in a claim to my birthright. But, on
my arrival, I found that another--you--had taken possession of it. You
were pointed out to me one night at a ball; and, as I saw you young
and happy, and heard you well-spoken of, I put away from me, for ever,
all thoughts of ever taking away from you what you--through no fault
of your own--had wrongfully become possessed of."

"Yet now you will do so, because I have gained Ida's love."

"No, no, no!" he answered. Then he said, with a sadness that should
have gone to their hearts: "I have been Esau to your Jacob all my
life. It is natural you should supplant me now in a woman's love."

"What then do you mean to do, _Lord Penlyn?_" Gervase asked bitterly.
The other started, and said:

"Never call me by that name again. I have given it to you."

"Perhaps," Smerdon said, with a bitter sneer, "because you are not
quite sure yet of your own right to it. You would have to prove that
there was a male child of this marriage, and then that you were he.
That would not be so easy, I imagine."

"There is nothing would be more easy. I have every proof of my birth
and my identity."

"And you intend to use them to break off my marriage with Ida
Raughton," Gervase Occleve said.

"For God's sake do not misunderstand me!" Cundall answered. "I simply
want you to tell her and her father all this, and be married as
Gervase Occleve. I cannot be her husband--I have told you I shall
never see her face again--all I wish is that she shall be under no
delusion. As for the title, that would have no charms for me, and you
cannot suppose that I, who have been given so much, should want to
take your property away from you."

"You would have me live a beggar on your charity!--and that a charity
which you may see fit to withdraw at any moment, as you have seen fit
to suddenly disclose yourself at the most important crisis of my
life." He spoke bitterly, almost brutally to the other, but he could
rouse him to no anger. The elder brother simply said:

"God forgive you for your thoughts of me!"

"And now," Gervase said, "perhaps you will tell me what you wish done.
I shall of course inform Sir Paul Raughton that, in my altered
circumstances, my marriage with his daughter must be abandoned."

"No, no!"

"Yes! I say. It will not take twenty-four hours to prove whether you
are right in your claim, for if I see the certificate of your birth it
will be enough----"

"It is here," Cundall said, producing it. "You can keep it, or take a
copy of it."

"Very well. That, and the marriage proved, I will formally resign
everything to you, even the hand of Miss Raughton. That is what you
mean to obtain by this declaration, in spite of your philanthropical
utterances."

"It is false!" Cundall said, roused at last to defend himself, "and
you know it. She loves you. You do not imagine I should want to marry
her since I have learnt that."

"I do imagine it, for had you been possessed of the sentiments you
express, you would have held your tongue. Had you kept silence, no
harm could have been done!"

"The worst possible harm would have been done."

"No one on earth but you knew this story until yesterday, and it was
in your power to have let it remain in oblivion. But, though you have
chosen to bring it forward, there is one consolation still left to me.
In spite of your stepping into my shoes, in spite of your wealth--got
Heaven knows how!--you will never have Ida Raughton's love. No trick
can ever deprive me of that, though she may never be my wife."

"Your utterances of this morning at least prove you to be unworthy of
it," Cundall answered, stung at last to anger. "You have insulted me
grossly, not only in your sneers about my wealth and the manner it has
been obtained, but also by your behaviour. And I have lost all
compassion for you! I had intended to let you tell this story in your
own way to Sir Paul Raughton and his daughter, but I have now changed
my mind. When they return to town, after Ascot next week, I shall call
upon Sir Paul and tell him everything. Even though you, yourself,
shall have spoken first."

"So be it! I want nothing from you, not even your compassion. To-night
I shall leave this house, so that I shall not even be indebted to you
for a roof."

"I am sorry you have taken it in this light," Cundall said, again
calming himself as he went to the door. "I would have given you the
love of a brother had you willed it."

"If you give me the feeling that I have for you, it is one of utter
hatred and contempt! Even though you be my brother, I will never
recognise you in this world, either by word or action, as anything but
my bitterest foe!"

Cundall looked fixedly at him for one moment, then he opened the door
and went out.

Philip Smerdon had watched his friend carefully through the interview,
and, although there was cause for his excitement, he was surprised at
the transformation that had taken place in him. He had always been
gentle and kind to every one with whom he was brought into contact;
now he seemed to have become a fury. Even the loss of name, and lands,
and love seemed hardly sufficient to have brought about this violence
of rage.

"It would almost have been better to have remained on friendly terms
with him, I think," he said. "Perhaps he thought he was only doing his
duty in disclosing himself."

"Perhaps so!" the other said. "But, as for being friendly with him,
damn him! I wish he were dead!"



CHAPTER VI.


Sir Paul Raughton's Ascot party had been excellently arranged, every
guest being specially chosen with a view to making an harmonious
whole. Belmont was a charming villa, lying almost on the borders of
the two lovely counties of Berkshire and Surrey, and neither the
beauties of Nature nor Art were wanting. Surrounded by woods in which
other villas nestled, it was shut off from the world, whilst its own
spacious lawns and gardens enclosed it entirely from the notice of
passers-by. It was by no means used only during Ascot week, as both
Ida and her father were in the habit of frequently paying visits to it
in the spring, summer, and autumn; and only in the winter, when the
trees were bare, and the wind swept over the heath and downs, was it
deserted.

On this Ascot week, or to be particular, this Monday of Ascot week,
when the guests were beginning to arrive for the campaign, it was as
bright and pretty a spot as any in England. The lawn was dotted with
two or three little umbrella tents, under which those arrivals, who
were not basking under the shadow of trees, were seated; some of them
talking of what they had done since last they met; some engaged in
speculating over the chances of the various horses entered for the
"Cup," the "Stakes," and the "Vase;" some engaged in idly sipping
their afternoon tea (or their afternoon sherry and bitters, as
the sex might be), and some engaged in the most luxurious of all
pursuits--doing nothing. Yet, although Sir Paul's selection of guests
had been admirable, disappointment had come to him and Ida, for two
who would have been the most welcome, Mr. Cundall and Lord Penlyn, had
written to say they could not come. The former's letter had been very
short, and the explanation given for his refusal was that he was again
preparing to leave England, perhaps for a very long period. And Lord
Penlyn's had been to the effect that some business affairs connected
with his property would prevent him from leaving town during the week.
Moreover, it was dated from a fashionable hotel in the West End, and
not from Occleve House.

"What the deuce can the boy be doing?" the Baronet asked himself, as
he read the letter over once or twice before showing it to his
daughter. They were seated at breakfast when it came, and none of the
guests having arrived, they were entirely by themselves. "What the
deuce can he be doing?" he repeated. "Ascot week of most weeks in the
year, is the one in which a man likes to get out of town, yet instead
of coming here he goes and stews himself up in a beastly hotel! And
Cundall, too! Why can't the man stop at home like a Christian, instead
of going and grilling in the Tropics? He can't want to make any more
money, surely!" After which reflections he handed both the letters
over to Ida. When she read them she was sorely troubled, for she could
not help imagining that there was something more than strange in the
fact that the man who was engaged to her, and the man who had proposed
to her only a few nights ago, should both have abstained from coming
to spend the week with them. At first, she wondered if they could have
met and quarrelled--but then she reflected that that was not possible!
Surely Mr. Cundall would not have told Gervase that he had proposed to
her and been refused. Men, she thought, did not talk about their love
affairs to one another; certainly the rejected one would not confide
in the accepted. Still, she was very troubled! Troubled because the
man she loved, and whom she had not seen for three days--and it seemed
an eternity!--would not be there to pass that happy week with her; and
troubled also because the man whom she did not love, but whom she
liked and pitied so, was evidently sore at heart. "He was going away
again, perhaps for a very long period," he had said, yet, on the night
of Lady Chesterton's ball, he had told her that he would go no more
away. It must be, she knew, that her rejection of him was once more
driving him to be a wanderer on the earth, and, womanlike, she could
not but feel sorry for him. She knew as well as Rosalind that men,
though they died, did not die for love; but still they must suffer for
their unrequited love. That he would suffer, the look in his face and
the tone of his voice on that night showed very plainly; his letter to
her father and his forthcoming departure told her that the suffering
had begun.

Fortunately for her the arrivals of the guests, and her duties as
hostess, prevented her from having much time for reflection. The
visitors had come to be amused, and she could not be _distraite_ or
forgetful of their comfort. The gentlemen might look after themselves
and amuse each other, as they could do very well with their sporting
newspapers and Ruff's Guides, their betting-books and their cigars;
but the ladies could not be neglected. So, all through that long
summer day, Ida, whose mind was filled with the picture of two men,
had to put her own thoughts out of sight, and devote herself to the
thoughts of others. She had to listen to the rhapsodies of a young
lady over her presentation at Court, to how our gracious Queen had
smiled kindly on her, and to how the world seemed full of happiness
and joy; she had to listen to the bemoanings of an elderly lady as to
the manner in which her servants behaved, and to sympathise with
another upon the way in which her son was ruining himself with
baccarat and racing. And she had to enter into full particulars as to
all things concerning her forthcoming marriage, to give exact accounts
of the way in which M. Delaruche was preparing her _trousseau_, and of
what alterations were to be made in Occleve House in London, and at
Occleve Chase in the country, for her reception; to hear the married
ladies congratulate her on the match she was making, and the younger
ones gush over the manly perfections of her future husband. But she
had also to tell them all that he would not be there this week, and to
listen to the chorus of astonishment that this statement produced..

"Not here, my dear Ida," the elderly lady, whose servants caused her
so much trouble, said. "Not here. Why, what a strange future husband!
To leave you alone for a whole week, and such a week, too, as the
Ascot one." And the elderly lady--whose husband at that moment was
offering to take four to one in hundreds from Sir Paul that Flip Flap
won his race--shook her head disapprovingly.

"Nothing will induce my son to stay away from Ascot," the mother of
the gambling young man said to herself. "He will be here to-night,
though he is not engaged to Ida." And the poor lady sighed deeply.

"I did so want to see him," the young lady who had just been
presented, remarked. "You know I have never met Lord Penlyn yet, and I
am dying to know him. They say he is _so_ good-looking."

Ida answered them all as well as she could, but she found it hard to
do so. And before she had had more than time to make a few confused
remarks on his being obliged to stop away, on account of business
connected with his property, another unpleasantness occurred.

"I have just heard very bad news, Miss Raughton," a tall gentleman
remarked, who had joined the group of ladies. "Sir Paul tells me that
Cundall isn't coming for the week. I'm particularly upset, for I
wanted him to give me some introductions in Vienna, to which I am just
off, you know."

Again the chorus rose, and again poor Ida had to explain that Mr.
Cundall was preparing to go abroad once more for a long period. And,
as she made the explanation, she could not keep down a tell-tale
blush. Seated in that group was more than one who had once thought
that, if she loved any man, that man was Walter Cundall.

"He doesn't care for horse-racing, I imagine," the ill-used mother
said.

"No more should I," the tall gentleman remarked, "if I had his money.
What fun could a race be to him, when a turf gamble would be like a
drop in the ocean to a man of his tremendous means?"

"And I have never seen _him_ either," the _débutante_ remarked, with a
look that was comically piteous. "Oh, dear! this is something
dreadful! Just think of both Lord Penlyn and Mr. Cundall being
absent."

"Don't you think some of us others can supply their places?" the
gentleman asked. "We will try very hard, you know!"

"Oh, yes! of course," she replied; "but then we know you, and we
don't--at least, I don't--know them. And then you care about racing,
and will be thinking of nothing but the horrid horses."

"I will promise to think about nothing but you," he said, lowering his
voice, "if you will let me."

At dinner, things were more comfortable for Ida. All the visitors knew
now that Penlyn and Cundall were certain absentees, and, having once
discussed this, they found plenty of other things to talk about. Sir
Paul had got all his guests well assorted, even to the melancholy
mother, who took comfort from the words of wisdom that dropped from
the mouth of the gentleman who wanted to back Flip Flap: "Let the boy
have his fling, madam, let him have his fling! There is nothing
sickens a man so much of gambling as an unlimited opportunity of
indulging in it. Give him this, and then, if he loses, pull him up
sharp on his allowance, and he'll be all right. When he finds he has
no more money to squander, he will either play so carefully that he
will begin to win, or he'll throw it up altogether. That is what they
generally do." It seemed, however, from his conversation, that he had
never done that himself.

Miss Norris, the young lady in her first season, was gradually getting
over, or, indeed, had got over, her disappointment, and now seemed
very comfortable with Mr. Fulke, the tall gentleman. He was a man of
the world as well as of society, and knew everybody, and she began to
think that, after all, she could support the absence of Lord Penlyn
and Mr. Cundall.

So the first night passed away very pleasantly, and Sir Paul
congratulated himself on the prospect of a pleasant week. Of course,
as was natural, a gentleman would occasionally interrupt a
conversation with his neighbour; a conversation on balls and dinners,
and the opera, and the last theatrical production; by leaning across
the table and saying to another gentleman, "I'll take you five to four
in tenners, or ponies, about that;" or, "you can have three hundred to
one hundred it doesn't win, if you like;" and, of course, also, there
would be the production of little silver-bound books afterwards, and
some hasty writing. But on the whole, though, the introduction of the
state of Lady Matilda's legs into the conversation, until it turned
out that she was a mare who was first favourite for the Cup, did
rather dismay some of the fairer portion of the guests, everything was
very nice and comfortable.

It was a hot night, an overpoweringly hot night, and every one was
glad to escape from the dining-room on to the lawn, where the footmen
had brought out lamp-lit tables for the coffee. It seemed to the
guests that there must be a thunderstorm brewing; indeed, towards
London, where there were heavy banks of lurid clouds massed together,
flashes of lightning were occasionally seen, and the thunder heard
rolling. But the gentlemen even derived consolation from this, and
said that a good storm would make the course--which was as hard as a
brick floor--better going, and would lay the dust on the country
roads.

At eleven o'clock the last guest, Mr. Montagu, the sportive son of the
sad lady, arrived, and, as he brought the latest racing information
from town, was eagerly welcomed.

"Yes," he said, after he had kissed his mother and had told her she
needn't bother herself about him, he was all right enough. "Yes! the
favourites are steady. I dropped into the 'Victoria' before coming
over to Waterloo, and took a look at the betting. There you are! And
here's the 'Special.'"

These were eagerly seized on and perused. Lady Matilda's legs, which
had been the cause of anxiety in the racing world for the past week,
seemed to be well enough to give her followers confidence; Mon Roi,
another great horse, was advancing in the betting; Flip Flap was all
right, and Sir Paul felt thankful he had not laid that bet of four
hundred to one hundred in the afternoon; and The Landlord was being
driven back. It took another hour for the gentlemen to get all their
opinions expressed, and then they went to their rooms, the ladies
having long since retired.

"Don't oversleep yourselves, any of you!" Sir Paul Raughton called out
cheerily. "We ought to get the four-in-hands under weigh by half-past
eleven at latest. Breakfast will be ready as soon as the earliest of
you."

Ida went to her room tired with the day's exertions; but her night's
rest was very broken. In the early part, the flashing of the lightning
and the roar of the thunder (the storm having now broken over the
neighbourhood) kept her awake, and when she slept she did so uneasily,
waking often. Once she started up and listened tremblingly, as though
hearing some unaccustomed sound, and even rose and opened her door,
and looked into the passage. "Of what was she afraid?" she asked
herself. The house was full of visitors; it was, of all times, the
least one likely for harm to come. Then she went back to bed and
eventually slept again, though only to dream. Her brain must have
retained what she had read in Walter Cundall's letter that morning,
for she dreamt that he was taking his farewell of her; only it seemed
that they were back again in the conservatory attached to Lady
Chesterton's ball-room. She was seated in the same place as she had
been when he told her of his love; she could hear the dreamy strains
of the very same waltz--nothing was changed, except that it seemed
darker, much darker; and she could do little more than recognise his
form and see his dark, sad eyes fixed on her. Then he bent over her
and kissed her gently on the forehead--more, as it seemed in her
dream, with a brother's than a lover's kiss--and said: "Farewell, for
ever! In this world we two shall never meet again." Then, as he turned
to go, she saw behind him another form with its face shrouded, but
with a figure that seemed wonderfully familiar to her, and, as he
faced it, it sprang upon him. And with a shriek she awoke--awoke to
see the bright sun shining in through her windows, to hear the birds
singing outside, and to notice that the hands of the clock pointed to
nearly eight.

And her first action was to kneel by the side of her bed and to thank
God that it was only a dream.



CHAPTER VII.


There were no late risers at Belmont on that morning, for even the
elder ladies, who were not going to Ascot but meant to remain at home
and pass the day pleasantly in their own society, made it a point of
being early. The younger ones, with Miss Norris the very first down,
were a sight that was charming to the gentlemen, with their pretty new
gowns prepared especially for the occasion; but of them all, none
looked fairer than Ida. Her disturbed rest had made her, perhaps, a
little paler than usual, but had thus only added a more delicate tinge
to her loveliness. As she stood talking to young Montagu on the
verandah, this youth began to wish that he was Lord Penlyn, and to
think that there were other things in the world better than going
_Banco_ or backing winners--or losers! Indefatigable in everything
connected with sport, the young man, in company with two other
visitors, officers who had been in India and had become accustomed to
early rising, had already ridden over to Ascot to learn what was going
on there, and to see if any information could be picked up.

"And now, Miss Raughton," he said, "to breakfast with what appetite we
can? And I can assure you that, if old Wolsey had only half as good a
one as mine is now, King Hal wouldn't have frightened him into saying,
'good-bye' to all the good things in life."

Ida laughed at his nonsense, and then, every one being down, the first
important part of the day's proceedings began.

The story of an Ascot party has been told so often and so well, that
no other pen is needed to describe it. There are few of us who, either
in long vanished or in very recent days, have not formed part in one
of these pleasant outings; who have not sat upon a coach, with some
young lady beside us, who seemed, at least for the time being, to be
the prettiest and nicest girl in the world; who have not eaten our
fill of lobster salad and pigeon pie, and drunk our fill of champagne
and claret cup!

Sir Paul's party went through it all; the gentlemen (with Mr. Montagu
very busy at this) dashing across the course between each race, and
into the Grand Stand to "see about the odds." Flip Flap disgraced
himself terribly in the Gold Vase, and came in last of all, much to
Sir Paul's disgust, who regretted now that he had not laid his old
friend four to one in hundreds, but to the intense delight of young
Montagu, who had persuaded Fulke to take the same odds in tens from
him.

"Hoorah!" he cried, as the beaten favourite came in with the crowd,
"now, if 'Tilda will only pull off the Stakes, I am bound to score
heavily to-day."

And he dashed off across the course again, to see what the betting was
about the magnificent mare whose name he so familiarly shortened.

Ida sat very peacefully on the coach listening to all the laughter and
conversation that was going on around her, but taking very little part
in it, except when directly spoken to. But in the intervals, when it
was not necessary for her to join in it, her mind reverted to things
and persons far away from the bright, sunny racecourse. In her heart,
she did feel hurt that, whatever important business transactions he
might have, her lover could not find time to run down for even one
day. It was evidently supposed by some one that he was with her, for
only that morning a letter had come to Belmont for him, a letter which
she had instantly reposted to the hotel he was staying at accompanied
by a loving one from herself which she had found time to write
hastily. It had seemed to her that she knew the handwriting, and she
supposed it must be from some common friend of theirs; but, whoever
the writer was, he evidently thought Gervase was with them. She
supposed he really was very much occupied, but still she wished he
would come for one day; and she made up her mind to write to him again
that night, and ask him to run down for the Cup. He could leave town
at midday and be back at seven; surely he could spare that much time
to her! Nor had she forgotten her dream, her horrid dream, and she
wondered over and over again why she should have had such a dreadful
one, and why last night? Perhaps it was the storm that had affected
her!

Once more young Montagu's star was in the ascendant, for Lady Matilda
beat all her adversaries, and, to use a sporting phrase, "romped in"
for the Stakes. There was great rejoicing over this on the Belmont
coaches, of which there were two, one driven by Sir Paul and one by
Mr. Fulke; for most of them had backed her with the bookmakers, and
so, while they all won, there was no loser in the party. Miss Norris,
too, had won a dozen of gloves from Fulke, who took the field against
the horse he fancied to oblige the girl he admired, and Sir Paul had
promised Ida anything she liked to ask for if Lady Matilda only got
home first.

Of course, after the last race, there was an adjournment of the whole
party to the lawn; who goes to Ascot without also going to sit for a
while in one of the prettiest scenes attached to a racecourse in
England? There, seated on comfortable chairs on that soft velvet lawn,
with the hot June sun sinking conveniently behind the Grand Stand, the
party remained peacefully and chatted until the horses should be put
to.

It was at this time that, to the different groups scattered about,
there came a rumour that a horrible murder had been committed in
London last night, or early that morning. A few persons, who had come
down by the last special train, had heard something about it, but they
did not know anything of the details; and two or three copies of the
first editions of the evening papers had arrived, but they told very
little, except that undoubtedly a murder had taken place, and that the
victim was, to all appearances, a gentleman. Had it been a common
murder in the Seven Dials, or the East End, it would hardly have
aroused attention at aristocratic Ascot.

Young Montagu first heard it from a bookmaker with whom he was having
a satisfactory settlement, but that worthy knew nothing except that
"some one said it was a swell, and that he had been stabbed to the
'eart in the Park."

"Get a paper, Montagu," the baronet said, "and let us, see what it is.
Every one seems to be discussing it."

"Easier said than done, Sir Paul!" the other answered. "But I'll try."

He came back in a few moments, having succeeded in borrowing a second
edition from a friend, and he read out to them the particulars, which
were by no means full. It appeared that, after the storm in London was
over, which was about three o'clock in the morning, a policeman going
on his walk down the Mall of St. James' Park, had come across a
gentleman lying by the railings that divide that part of it from the
gardens, a gentleman whom he at first took to be overcome by drink. On
shaking him, however, he discovered him to be dead, and he then
thought that he must have been struck by lightning. A further glance
showed that this was not the case, as he perceived that the
dead man was stabbed in the region of the heart, that his watch
and chain had been wrenched away (there being a broken piece of the
chain left in the button-hole), and, if he had any, his papers and
pocket-book taken. His umbrella, which was without any name or
engraving, was by his side his linen, which was extremely fine, was
unmarked, and his clothes, although drenched with mud and rain, were
of the best possible quality. That, up to now, was all the information
the paper possessed.

"How dreadful to think of a man being murdered in such a public place
as that!" Ida said. "Surely the murderer cannot long escape!"

"I don't know about that," Mr. Fulke said. "The Mall at three o'clock
in the morning, especially on such a morning--what a storm it was!--is
not very much frequented. A man walking down it might easily be
attacked and robbed!"

"It is a nice state of affairs, when a gentleman cannot walk about
London without being murdered," Sir Paul said. "But horrible things
seem to happen every day now."

The public were leaving the lawn by this time, and one of the grooms
came over to say that the coaches were ready. There was no longer
anything to stay for, and so they all went back and took their places,
and started for Belmont.

It was a glorious evening after a glorious day; and as they went
along, some laughing and talking, some flirting, and some discussing
the day's racing and speculating on that of the morrow, they had
forgotten all about the tragedy they had heard of half-an-hour
earlier. Not one of them supposed that the murdered man was likely to
be known to them, nor that that crime had broken up their Ascot week.
But when they had returned to Belmont, and gone to their rooms to
dress for dinner, they learnt that the dead man was known to most of
them. A telegram had come to Sir Paul from his butler in London,
saying: "The gentleman murdered in St. James' Park last night was Mr.
Cundall. He has been identified by his butler and servants."



CHAPTER VIII.


About the same time that Sir Paul Raughton received the telegram from
London, and was taking counsel with one or two of his elder guests as
to whether he should at once tell Ida the dreadful news or leave it
till the morning, Lord Penlyn entered his hotel in town. A change had
come over the young man--a change of such a nature that any one, who
had seen him twenty-four hours before, would scarcely have believed
him to be the same person. His face, which usually bore a good colour,
was ghastly pale, his eyes had great hollows and deep rings round
them, and even his lips looked as if the blood had left them. He had
come from his club--where, since it had been discovered who the victim
of last night's tragedy was, nothing else but the murder had been
talked about, as was also the case in every club and public place in
London--and he now mounted the steps of the hotel with the manner of a
man who was either very weak or very weary.

"Do you know where my servant is?" he asked of the hall porter, who
held the door open for him; and even this man noticed that his voice
sounded strange and broken, and that he looked ill.

"He is at his tea, my lord; shall I send for him?"

"No, but send him to me when he has finished. We shall return to my
house to-night."

The porter bowed, and said, "I have sent a letter to your room, my
lord," and Penlyn went on. His apartment, consisting of a sitting-room
and bed-room, was on the ground floor of the hotel, and was usually
given to guests of distinction (who were likely, in the landlord's
opinion, to pay handsomely for the accommodation), as it saved them
the trouble of going up any stairs. The hotel was a private one; a
house that did not welcome persons of whom it knew nothing, but made
those whom it did know, entirely at their ease. It was very quiet,
shutting its doors at midnight unless any of its visitors were at a
ball or party, in which case, if some of those visitors were ladies,
the porter's deputy sat up for them; but, when they were gentlemen,
furnishing them with latch-keys. As sometimes there were not more than
three or four gentlemen in this extremely select hotel at one time,
this was an obviously better system than having a night-porter.

Lord Penlyn took up the letter that was lying on his table, and
proceeded to open it, throwing himself at the same time wearily into
an arm-chair. He recognised Ida's handwriting, and as he did so he
wondered if, by any possibility, the letter could be about the subject
of which all London was talking to-day---the murder of Walter Cundall.
When he saw that there was another one inclosed in it, the handwriting
of which he did not know, his curiosity was so aroused (for he
wondered how a stranger to him should know, or suppose, that he was at
Belmont), that he opened this one first and read it. Read it carefully
from beginning to end, and then dropped it on the floor as he put his
hands up to his head, and wailed, "Murdered! Oh my God! Murdered! When
he had written this letter only an hour before." And then he wept long
and bitterly.

The letter ran:


MY BROTHER,

"Since I saw you last Saturday I have been thinking deeply upon what
passed between us, and I have come to the conclusion that, after all,
it will be best for nothing to be said to any one on the subject of
our father's first marriage; not even to Miss Raughton or her father.
By keeping back the fact that you have an elder brother, no harm is
done to any one. I shall never marry now, and consequently, you are
only taking possession of what will be yours, or your children's,
eventually. No one but you, your friend Mr. Smerdon, and I, know of
this secret; let no one ever know it. We love the same woman, and,
when she is your wife, I shall have the right to love her with a
brother's love. Let us unite together to make her life as perfectly
happy as possible. To do this we must not begin by undeceiving her as
to the position she is to hold.

"I suggest this, nay, I command you to do this, because of my love for
her, a love which desires that her life may be without pain or sorrow.
I shall not witness her happiness with you, not yet at least, for I do
not think I could bear that; but, in some future years, it may be that
time will have so tempered my sorrow to me, that I shall be able to
see you all in all to each other, perhaps to even witness your
children playing at her knee, and to feel content. I pray God that it
may be so.

"Remember, therefore, what I, by my right as your elder brother--which
I exert for the first and last time!--charge you to do. Retain your
position, still be to the world what you have been, and devote your
life to her.

"I have one other word to say. The Occleve property is a comfortable,
though not a remarkably fine, one. You have heard of my means, and
they are scarcely exaggerated. If, at any time, there is any sum of
money you or she may want, come to me and you shall have it.

"Let us forget the bitter words we each spoke in our interview. Our
lives are bound up in one cause, and that, and our relationship,
should prevent their ever being remembered.

"Your brother,

"WALTER."


When he was calmer, he picked the letter up again and read it through
once more, having carefully locked his door before he did so, for he
did not wish his valet to see his emotion. But the re-reading of it
brought him no peace, indeed seemed only to increase his anguish. When
the man-servant knocked at his door he bade him go away for a time, as
he was engaged and could not be disturbed; and then he passed an hour
pacing up and down the room, muttering to himself, starting at the
slightest sound, and nearly mad with his thoughts. These thoughts he
could not collect; he did not know what steps to take next. What was
he to tell Ida or Sir Paul--or was he to tell them anything? The dead
man, the murdered brother, had enjoined on him, in what he could not
have known was to be a dying request, that he was to keep the secret.
Why then should he say anything? There was no need to do so! He was
Lord Penlyn now, there was nothing to tell! No one but Philip, who was
trustworthy, knew that he had ever been anything else. No one would
ever know it. And he shuddered as he thought that, if the world did
ever know that Walter Cundall had been his brother, then the world
would believe him to be his murderer! No! it must never be known that
he and that other were of the same blood.

He could not sit still, he must move about, he must leave the house!
He rang for his man and told him to pack up and pay the bill, and take
his things round to Occleve House, and that he should arrive there
late; and the man seemed surprised at his orders.

"Will you not dress, my lord?" he asked. "You were to dine out
to-night."

"To-night? Yes! true! I had forgotten it; but I shall not go. Mr.
Cundall who was killed last night was a friend of mine; I am going to
his club to hear if any more particulars have been made known." And
then he went out.

The valet was a quiet, discreet man, but as he packed his master's
portmanteaus he reflected a good deal on the occurrences of the past
few days. First of all, he remembered the visit of Mr. Cundall on
Saturday to Occleve House, and that the footman had told him that he
had heard some excited conversation going on as he had passed the
room, though he had not been able to catch the words and he also
called to mind that, an hour afterwards, Lord Penlyn had told him to
take some things round to this hotel (which they were now leaving as
suddenly as they had come), and also that they would not pay their
visit to Sir Paul Raughton's for the Ascot week. Was there any
connecting link between Mr. Cundall's visit to his master, and his
master leaving the house and giving up Ascot? And was there any
connection between all this and the murder of Mr. Cundall, and the
visible agitation of Lord Penlyn? He could not believe it, but still
it did seem strange that this visit of Mr. Cundall's should have been
followed by such an alteration of his master's plans, and by his own
horrible death.

"What time did my governor come in last night?" he said to the porter,
as he and that worthy stood in the hall waiting for a cab that had
been sent for.

"I don't know," the porter answered. "There was only his lordship and
another gent staying in the house, except the Dean's family upstairs,
and some foreign swells, and none of them keep late hours, so we gave
him and the other gent a key and left a jet of gas burning in the
'all. But both on 'em must have come in precious late, for Jim, who
sleeps on the first floor, said he never heard either of them. I say,
this is a hawful thing about this Mr. Cundall."

"It is so! Well, there's the cab. Jim, put the portmanteaus on the
top. Here you are, porter!" and he slipped the usual tip into the
porter's hand, and wishing him "good evening," went off.

"Well," he said to himself as he drove to Occleve House, "I should
like to know what we went to that hotel for three days for! It wasn't
because of the Dean's daughters nor yet for the foreign ladies,
because he never spoke to any of them. Well, I'll buy a 'Special' and
read about the murder."

Lord Penlyn walked on to Pall Mall, going very slowly and in an almost
dazed state, and surprised several whom he met by his behaviour to
them. Men whom he knew intimately he just nodded to instead of
stopping to speak with for a moment, and some he did not seem to see
at all. He was wondering what further particulars he would hear when
he got to Cundall's club, and also when Smerdon would be back. That
gentleman had started for Occleve Chase on Monday morning, but must by
now have received a telegram Penlyn had sent him, telling him to
return at once. In it he had cautiously, and without mentioning any
names, given him to understand that their visitor of last Saturday had
died suddenly, and he expected that he would return by the next train.

He had started off for Cundall's club, thinking to find out what was
known, but, when he got there, he reflected that he could scarcely
walk into a club, of which he was not a member, simply to make
inquiries about even so important a subject as this. He could give no
grounds for his eagerness to learn anything fresh, could not even say
that he was particularly intimate with the dead man. Would it not look
strange for him to be forcing his way in and making inquiries? Yes!
and not only that, but it would draw attention on him, and it would be
better to gather particulars elsewhere. He would go to his own club
and find out what was known there.

So, looking very wan and miserable, he walked on to "Black's," and
there he found the murder as much a subject of discussion as it was
everywhere else. All the evening papers were full of it; the men who
always profess to know something more than their fellows, whether it
be with regard to a dark horse for a race, an understanding with
Germany, or the full particulars of the next great divorce case--these
men had heard all sorts of curious stories--that Cundall had a wife
who had tracked him from the Tropics to slay him; that he had
committed suicide because he was ruined; that he had been murdered by
an outraged husband! There was nothing too far-fetched for these
gentlemen!

Sifted down as the case was thoroughly by the papers, the facts that
had come out, since first his body was discovered, amounted to this:
He had been at his club late in the evening, and his brougham was
waiting outside for him when the storm began. Then he had sent word
down to his coachman to say that, as he had a letter to write, the
carriage had better go home and he would take a cab later on. Other
testimony, gathered by the papers, went on to show that he had sat on
at his club, reading a little, and then going to a writing-table where
he had sat some time; that when he had written his letter he went to a
large arm-chair and read it over more than once, and then put a stamp
on it, and, putting it in his pocket, still sat on and on, evidently
thinking deeply. Two or three members said they had spoken to him, and
one that he had told Cundall he did not seem very gay, but that he had
replied in his usual pleasant manner, that he was very well, but had a
good deal to occupy his mind. It was some time past two o'clock (the
club, having a large number of Members of Parliament on its roll,
was a late one) before the storm was over, and he rose to go. The
hall-porter was apparently the last person who spoke to him alive,
asking him if he should call a cab, but receiving for answer that, as
the air was now so cool and fresh, he would walk home through the
Park, it being so near to Grosvenor Place. The porter standing at the
door of the club, himself to inhale the air, saw Mr. Cundall drop a
letter in the pillar-box close by, and then go on. The only other
person he noticed about, at that time, was a man who looked like a
labourer, who was going the same way as Mr. Cundall. The sentries who
had been on duty at, and around, St. James's Palace were also
interrogated, and the one who had been outside Clarence House, stated
that he distinctly remembered a gentleman answering to Mr. Cundall's
description passing by him into the Park, at about a quarter to three.
It was still raining slightly, and he had his umbrella up. He, too,
saw the labourer, or mechanic, walking some fifteen yards behind him,
and supposed he was going to his early work. From the time Mr. Cundall
passed this man until the policeman found him dead, no one seemed to
have seen him.

With the exception of the medical evidence, which stated that he had
been stabbed to, and through, the heart by one swift, powerful blow,
that must have caused instantaneous death, there was little more to be
told. Judging from the state of the ground, there had been no
struggle, a fact which would justify the idea that the murder had been
planned and premeditated. The workman might have easily planned it
himself in the time he followed him from outside his club to the time
they were in the Park together, but he would have had to be provided
with an extraordinarily long knife, such as workmen rarely carry. But,
even had he not been the murderer, he must have seen the murder
committed, since he was close at hand. It was, therefore, imperative
that this man should be found. But to find one man in a city with four
millions and a quarter of inhabitants was no easy task, especially
when there was nothing by which to trace him. The sentry by whom he
passed nearest thought he seemed to be a man of about five or six and
twenty, with a brown moustache. But how many thousands of men were
there in London to whom this description would apply!

Lord Penlyn sat there reading the "Specials," listening to the
different opinions expressed, and particularly noting the revengeful
utterances of men who had known Cundall. Their grief was loud, and
strongly uttered, and it was evident that the regular police, or
detective, force might be, if necessary, augmented by amateurs who
would leave no stone unturned to try and get a clue to the murderer.
Amongst others, he noticed one young man who was particularly
grief-stricken, and who was constantly appealed to by those who
surrounded him; and, on asking a fellow-member who he was, he learnt
that he was a Mr. Stuart, the secretary of his dead brother. It
happened that he had been brought into the club by a man who had known
Cundall well.

"To-morrow," Penlyn heard him say, and he started as he heard it, "I
am going to make a thorough investigation of all his papers. As far as
I or his City agents know, he hadn't a relation in the world; but
surely his correspondence must give us some idea of whom to
communicate with. And, until this morning, I should have said he had
not got an enemy in the world either."

"You think, then, that this dastardly murder is the work of an enemy,
and not for mere robbery?" the gentleman asked who had brought him
into the club.

"I am sure of it! As to the workman who is supposed to have done
it--well, if he did do it, he was only a workman in disguise. No! he
had some enemy, perhaps some one who owed him money, or whose path he
had been enabled by his wealth to cross, and that is the man who
killed him. And, by the grace of Heaven, I am going to find that man
out."

Penlyn still sat there, and as he heard Stuart utter these words he
felt upon what a precipice he stood. Suppose that, in the papers which
were about to be ransacked, there should be any that proved that
Walter Cundall was his eldest brother, and that he, Penlyn, had only
learnt it two days before he was murdered. Would not everything point
to him as the Cain who had slain his brother, and was he not making
appearances worse against him by keeping silence? He must tell some
one, he could keep the horrible secret no longer. And he must have the
sympathy of some one dear to him; he would confide in Ida! Surely, she
would not believe him to be the murderer of his own brother! Yes, he
would go down to Belmont and tell her all. Better it should come from
him than that Stuart should discover it, and publish it to the world.

"I hope you may find him out," several men said in answer to Stuart's
exclamation. "The brute deserves something worse than hanging. If
Cundall's murderer gets off, it is the wickedest thing that ever
happened." Then one said: "Is there any clue likely to be got at
through the wound?"

"No," Stuart answered, "I think not. Though the surgeon who has
examined it says that it was made by no ordinary knife or dagger."

"What does he think it was, then?" they asked.

"He says the wound is more like those he has seen in the East. The
dagger, he thinks, must have been semicircular and of a kind the Arabs
often use, especially the Algerian Arabs."

"I never knew that!" one said; "but then I have never been to Algiers.
Who has? Here, Penlyn, you were there once, weren't you?"

"Yes," Penlyn said, and his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his
mouth as he uttered the words; "but I never saw or heard of a knife or
dagger of that description."

Stuart looked at Lord Penlyn as he spoke, and noticed the faltering
way in which he did so. Then, in a moment, the thought flashed into
his mind that this was the man who had won the woman whom his generous
friend and patron had loved. Could he--but no, the idea was
ridiculous! He was the winner, Cundall the loser. Successful men had
no reason to kill their unsuccessful rivals!



CHAPTER IX.


After a wretched night spent in tossing about his bed, in dreaming of
the murdered man, and in lying awake wondering how he should break the
news to Ida, Lord Penlyn rose with the determination of going down to
Belmont. But when the valet brought him his bath he told him that Mr.
Smerdon had arrived from Occleve Chase at six o'clock, and would meet
him at breakfast. So, when he heard this, he dressed quickly and went
to his friend.

"Good Heavens!" Philip said, when he saw him. "How ill you look! What
is the matter?"

"Matter!" the other answered, "is there not matter enough to make me
look ill? I have told you that Cundall is dead, and you know how he
died."

"Yes, I know. But surely you must be aware of what it has freed you
from."

"It has freed me from nothing. Read this; would that not have freed me
equally as well?" and he handed him the letter that his brother had
written a few hours before his death.

The other's face darkened as he read, and then he said:

"He was a man of noble impulses, but they were only impulses! Would
you have ever felt sure while he lived that he might not alter his
mind again at any moment?"

"Yes! He loved Ida, and I do not believe he was a man who would have
ever loved another woman. I should have been safe in his hands."

Then they began to talk about the murder itself, and Smerdon asked who
was suspected, or if any one was?

"No," Penlyn said, "no one is suspected--as yet. A labourer was seen
following him on that night, and suspicion naturally falls on him,
because, if he did not do it himself, he must have been close at hand,
and would have helped him or given an alarm. There is only one road
through the Park, which they must both have taken."

"Is there any trace of this man?"

"None whatever, up to last night. Meanwhile, his friend and secretary,
Mr. Stuart, says that he is confident that the murder was committed by
some one who had reason to wish him out of the way, and he is going
through his papers to-day to see if any of them can throw any light on
such an enemy."

"He cannot, I suppose, find anything that can do you any harm?"

"Supposing he finds those certificates he showed us?"

"Supposing he does! You are Lord Penlyn now, at any rate. And it would
give you an opportunity of putting in a claim to his property. You are
his heir, if he has left no will."

"His heir! To all his immense wealth?"

"Certainly."

"I shall never claim it, and I hope to God he has destroyed every
proof of our relationship."

"Why?"

"Why! Because will not the fact that I held a position which belonged
to him, and was the heir to all his money--of which I never thought
till this moment--give the world cause for suspecting----?"

"What?"

"That I am his murderer."

"Nonsense! I suppose you could prove where you were at the time of his
death?"

"No, I could not. I entered the hotel at two, but there was not a
creature in the house awake. I could hear the porter's snores on the
floor above, and there is not a living soul to prove whether I was in
at three or not."

"Nor whether you were out! If they were all asleep, what evidence
could they give on either side?"

"Even though there should be no evidence, how could I go through life
with the knowledge that every one regarded me as his unproved
murderer?"

"You look at the matter too seriously. To begin with, after that
letter he wrote you, he would very likely destroy all proofs of his
identity----"

"He had no chance. He was murdered, in all probability--indeed must
have been--a quarter of an hour after he posted it in Pall Mall."

"He might have destroyed them before--when he made up his mind to
write the letter."

"Certainly, he might have done so. But I am not going to depend upon
his having destroyed them. This secret must be told by me, and I am
going to Belmont to-day to tell it to Ida."

"You must be mad, I think!" Smerdon said, speaking almost angrily to
him. "This secret, which only came to light a week ago, is now buried
for ever, and, since he is dead, can never be brought up again. For
what earthly reason should you tell Miss Raughton anything about it?"

"Because she ought to know," the other answered weakly. "It is only
right that she should know."

"That you were not Lord Penlyn when you became engaged to her, but
that you are now. And that Cundall being your brother, you must mourn
him as a brother, and consequently your marriage must be postponed for
at least a year. Is that what you mean?"

Lord Penlyn started. This had never entered into his head, and was
certainly not what he would have meant or desired. Postponed for a
year! when he was dying to make her his wife, when the very thought
that his brother might step in and interrupt his marriage had been the
cause of his brutality of speech to him. It had not been the impending
loss of lands and position that had made him speak as he had done, he
had told himself many times of late; it had been the fear of losing
his beloved Ida. And, now that there was nothing to stand between
them, he was himself about to place an obstacle in the way, an
obstacle that should endure for at least a year. Smerdon was right,
his quick mind had grasped what he would never have thought of--quite
right! he would do well to say nothing about his relationship to the
dead man. It is remarkable how easily we agree with those who show us
the way to further our own ends!

"I never thought of that," he said, "and I could not bear it. After
all," he went on weakly, "you are right! I do not see any necessity to
say anything about it, and he himself forbade me to do so."

"There is only one thing, though," Smerdon said, "which is that, if
you do not proclaim yourself his brother, I cannot see how you are to
become possessed of his money."

"Don't think about it--I will never become possessed of it. It may go
to any one but me, to some distant relative, if any can be found, or
to the Crown, or whatever it is that takes a man's money when he is
without kinsmen; but never to me. He was right when he said that I had
been Jacob to his Esau all my life, but I will take no more from him,
even though he is dead."

"Quixotic and ridiculous ideas!" Smerdon said. "In fact you and he had
remarkably similar traits of character. Extremely quixotic, unless you
have some strong reason for not claiming his millions. For instance,
if _you had really murdered him_ I could understand such a
determination! But I suppose you did not do that!"

Lord Penlyn looked up and saw his friend's eyes fixed on him, with
almost an air of mockery in them. Then he said:

"I want you to understand one thing, Philip. There must be no banter
nor joking on this subject. Even though I must hold my peace for ever,
I still regard it as an awful calamity that has fallen upon me. If I
could do so, I would set every detective in London to work to try and
find the man who killed him; indeed, if it were not for Ida's sake, I
should proclaim myself his brother to-morrow."

"But for Ida's sake you will not do so?"

"For Ida's sake, and for the reason that I do not wish his money, I
shall not; and more especially for the reason that you have shown me
our marriage would be postponed if I did so. But never make such a
remark again to me. You know me well enough to know that I am not of
the stuff that murderers and fratricides are made of."

"I beg your pardon," Philip said; "of course I did not speak in
earnest."

"On this subject we will, if you please, speak in nothing else but
earnest. And, if you will help me with your advice, I shall be glad to
have it."

"Let us go over the ground then," his friend said, "and consider
carefully what you have to do. In the first place you have to look at
the matter from two different points of view. One point is that you
lose all claim to his money--yes, yes, I know," as Lord Penlyn made a
gesture of contempt at the mention of the money--"all claim by keeping
your secret. It is better, however, that you should so keep it. But,
on the other hand, there is, of course, the chance--a remote one, a
thousand to one chance, but still a chance--that he may have left some
paper behind him which would prove your relationship to each other. In
that case you would, of course, have no alternative but to acknowledge
that you were brothers."

"And what would the world think of me then?"

"That you had simply done as he bade you, and kept the secret."

"It would think that I murdered him. It would be natural that the
world should think so. He stood between me and everything, except
Ida's love, and people might imagine that he possessed that too. And
his murder, coming so soon after he disclosed himself to me, would
make appearances against me doubly black."

"Who is to know when he disclosed himself to you? For aught the world
knows, you might have been aware of your relationship for years."

"Then I was living a lie for years!"

"Do not wind round the subject so! And remember that, in very fact,
you have done no harm. A week ago you did not know this secret."

"Well," Penlyn said, springing up from his chair, "things must take
their course. If it comes out it must; if not, I shall never breathe a
word to any one. Fate has cursed me with this trouble, I must bear it
as best I can. The only thing I wish is that I had never gone to that
hotel. That would also tell against me if anything was known."

"It was a pity, but it can't be helped. Now, go to Belmont, but be
careful to hold your tongue."

Lord Penlyn did go to Belmont, having previously sent a telegram
saying he was coming, and he travelled down in one of the special
trains that was conveying a contingent of fashionable racing people to
the second day at Ascot. But their joyousness, and the interest that
they all took in the one absorbing subject, "What would win the Cup?"
only made him feel doubly miserable. Why, he pondered, should these
persons be so happy, when he was so wretched? And then, when they were
tired of discussing the racing, they turned to the other great subject
that was now agitating people's minds, the murder in St. James's Park.
He listened with interest to all they had to say on that matter, and
he found that, whatever the different opinions of the travellers in
the carriage might be as to who the murderer was, they were all agreed
as to the fact that it was no common murder committed for robbery, but
one done for some more powerful reason.

"He stood in some one's light," one gentleman said, whom, from his
appearance, Lord Penlyn took to be a barrister, "and that person has
either removed him from this earth, or caused him to be removed. I
should not like to be his heir, for on that man suspicion will
undoubtedly fall, unless he can prove very clearly that he was miles
away from London on Monday night."

Penlyn started as he heard these words. His heir! Then it would be on
him that suspicion would fall if it was ever known that he was the
heir; and, as he thought that, among his brother's papers, there might
be something to prove that he was in such a position, a cold sweat
broke out upon his forehead. How could he prove himself "miles away
from London" on that night? Even the sleepy porter could not say at
what time he returned to the hotel! Nothing, he reflected, could save
him, if there was any document among the papers (that Stuart was
probably ransacking by now) that would prove that he and Cundall were
brothers.

He thought that, after all, it would be better he should tell Ida, and
he made up his mind by the time he had arrived at the nearest station
to Belmont, that he would do so. It would be far better that the
information, startling as it might be, should come from him than from
any other source. And while he was being driven swiftly over to Sir
Paul's villa, he again told himself that it would be the best thing to
do. Only, when he got to Belmont, he found his strength of mind begin
to waver. The news of Cundall's dreadful death had had the effect of
entirely breaking up the baronet's Ascot party. Every one there knew
on what friendly terms the dead man had been both with father and
daughter, and had been witness to the distress that both had felt at
hearing the fatal tidings--Ida, indeed, had retired to her room, which
she kept altogether; and consequently all the guests, with the
exception of Miss Norris, had taken their departure. That young lady,
whose heart was an extremely kind one, had announced that nothing
should induce her to leave her dear friend until she had entirely
recovered from the shock, and she had willingly abandoned the wearing
of her pretty new frocks and had donned those more suited to a house
of mourning; and she resigned herself to seeing no more racing, and to
the loss of Mr. Fulke's agreeable conversation, and had devoted
herself to administering to Ida. But, as Mr. Fulke and young Montagu
had betaken themselves to an hotel not far off and had promised that
they would look round before quitting the neighbourhood, she probably
derived some consolation from knowing that she would see the former
again.

"This is a dreadful affair, Penlyn!" the baronet said, when he
received his future son-in-law in the pretty morning-room that Ida's
own taste had decorated. "The shock has been bad enough to me, who
looked upon Cundall as a dear friend, but it has perfectly crushed my
poor girl. You know how much she liked him."

"Yes, I know," Penlyn answered, finding any reply difficult.

"Has she told you anything of what passed between them recently?" Sir
Paul asked.

"No," Penlyn said, "nothing." But the question told him that Ida had
informed her father of the dead man's proposal to her.

"She will tell you, perhaps, when you see her. She intends coming down
to you shortly." Then changing the subject, Sir Paul said: "She tells
me you met the poor fellow at Lady Chesterton's ball. I suppose you
did not see him after that, until--before his death?"

Lord Penlyn hesitated. He did not know what answer to give, for,
though he had no desire to tell an untruth, how could he tell his
questioner of the dreadful scenes that had occurred between them after
that meeting at the ball?

Then he said, weakly: "Yes; I did see him again, at 'Black's.'"

"At 'Black's!'" Sir Paul exclaimed. "I did not know he was a member."

"Nor was he. Only, one night--Friday night--he was passing and I was
there, and he dropped in."

"Oh!" Sir Paul said, "I thought you were the merest acquaintances."

And then he went on to discuss the murder, and to ask if anything
further was known than what had appeared in the papers? And Penlyn
told him that he knew of nothing further.

"I cannot understand the object of it," the baronet said. He had had
but little opportunity of talking over the miserable end that had
befallen his dead friend, and he was not averse now to discuss it with
one who had also known him.

"I cannot understand," he went on, "how any creature, however
destitute or vile, would have murdered him for his watch and the money
he might chance to have about him. There must have been some powerful
motive for the crime--some hidden enemy in the background of whom no
one--perhaps, not even he himself--ever knew. I wonder who will
inherit his enormous wealth?"

"Why?" Penlyn asked, and as he did so it seemed as though, once again,
his heart would stop beating.

"Because I should think that that man would be in a difficult
position--unless he can prove his utter absence from London at the
time."

To Penlyn it appeared that everything pointed in men's minds to the
same conclusion, that the heir of Walter Cundall was the guilty man.
Every one was of the same opinion, Sir Paul, and the man going to
Ascot who seemed like a lawyer; and, as he remembered, he had himself
said the same thing to Smerdon. "What would the world think of him,"
he had asked, "if it should come to know that they were brothers, and
that, being brothers, he was the inheritor of that vast fortune?" Yes,
all thought alike, even to himself.

As these reflections passed through his mind it occurred to him that,
after all, it would not be well for him to disclose to Ida the fact
that he and Cundall were brothers--would she not know then that he was
the heir, and might she not also then look upon him as the murderer?
If that idea should ever come to her mind, she was lost to him for
ever. No! Philip Smerdon was right; she must never learn of the fatal
relationship between them.

"By-the-way," Sir Paul said, after a pause, "what on earth ever made
you go to that hotel in town? Occleve House is comfortable enough,
surely!"

Again Penlyn had to hesitate before answering, and again he had to
equivocate. He had gone out of the house--that he thought was no
longer his--with rage in his heart against the man who had come
forward, as he supposed, to deprive him of everything he possessed;
and never meaning to return to it, but to openly give to those whom it
concerned his reasons for not doing so. But Cundall's murder had
opened the way for him to return; the letter written on the night of
his death had bidden Penlyn be everything he had hitherto been; and so
he had gone back, with as honest a desire in his heart to obey his
brother's behest as to reinstate himself.

But those two or three days at the hotel had surprised everybody, even
to his valet and the house servants; and now Sir Paul was also asking
for an explanation. What a web of falsehood and deceit he was weaving
around him!

"There were some slight repairs to be done," he said, "and some
alterations afterwards, so I had to go out."

"Then I wonder you did not come down here. The business you had to do
might have been postponed."

He could make no answer to this, and it came as a relief to him
when a servant announced that Miss Raughton would see him in the
drawing-room. Only, he reflected as he went to her, if she, too,
should question him as her father had done, he must go mad!



CHAPTER X.


When he saw the girl he loved so much rise wan and pale from the couch
on which she had been seated waiting for his coming, his heart sank
within him. How she must have suffered! he thought. What an awful blow
Cundall's death must have been to her to make her look as she looked
now, as she rose and stood before him!

"My darling Ida," he said, as he went towards her and took her in his
arms and kissed her, "how ill and sad you look!"

She yielded to his embrace and returned his kiss, but it seemed to him
as if her lips were cold and lifeless.

"Oh, Gervase!" she said, as she sank back to the couch wearily, "oh,
Gervase! you do not know the horror that is upon me. And it is a
double horror because at the time of his death, I knew of it."

"What!" he said, springing to his feet from the chair he had taken
beside her. "What!"

"I saw it all," she said, looking at him with large distended eyes,
eyes made doubly large by the hollows round them. "I saw it all,
only----"

"Only what, Ida?"

"Only it was in a dream! A dream that I had, almost at the very hour
he was treacherously stabbed to death."

As she spoke she leant forward a little towards him, with her eyes
still distended; leant forward gazing into his face; and as she did so
he felt the blood curdling in his veins!

"This," he said, trying to speak calmly, "is madness, a frenzy
begotten of your state of mind at hearing----"

"It is no frenzy, no madness," she said, speaking in a strange,
monotonous tone, and still with the intent gaze in her hazel eyes.
"No, it is the fact. On that night--that night of death--he stood
before me once again and bade me farewell for ever in this world, and
then I saw--oh, my God!--his murderer spring upon him, and----"

"And that murderer was?" her lover interrupted, quivering with
excitement.

"Unhappily, I do not know--not yet, at least, but I shall do so some
day." She had risen now, and was standing before him pale and erect.
The long white peignoir that she wore clung to her delicate, supple
figure, making her look unusually tall; and she appeared to her lover
like some ancient classic figure vowing vengeance on the guilty. As
she stood thus, with a fixed look of certainty on her face, and
prophesied that some day she should know the man who had done this
deed, she might have been Cassandra come back to the world again.

"His face was shrouded," she went on, "as all murderers shroud their
faces, I think; but his form I knew. I am thinking--I have thought and
thought for hours by day and night--where I have seen that form
before. And in some unexpected moment remembrance will come to me."

"Even though it does, I am afraid the remembrance will hardly bring
the murderer to justice," Penlyn said. "A man can scarcely be
convicted of a reality by a dream."

"No," she answered, "he cannot, I suppose. But it will tell me who
that man is, and then----and then----"

"And then?" Penlyn interrupted.

"And then, if I can compass it, his life shall be subjected to such
inspection, his every action of the past examined, every action of the
present watched, that at last he shall stand discovered before the
world!" She paused a moment, and again she looked fixedly at him, and
then she said: "You are my future husband; do you know what I require
of you before I become your wife?"

"Love and fidelity, Ida, is it not? And have you not that?"

"Yes," she answered, "but that fidelity must be tried by a strong
test. You must go hand in hand with me in my search for his murderer,
you must never falter in your determination to find him. Will you do
this out of your love for me?"

"I will do it," Penlyn answered, "out of my love for you."

She held out her hand--cold as marble--to him, and he took it and
kissed it. But as he did so, he muttered to himself: "If she could
only know; if she could only know."

Again the impulse was on his lips to tell her of the strange
relationship there was between him and the dead man, and again he let
the impulse go. In the excitement of her mind would she not instantly
conclude that he was the slayer of his dead brother, of the man who
had suddenly come between him and everything he prized in the world?
And, to support him in his weakness, was there not the letter of that
dead brother enjoining secrecy? So he held his peace!

"I will do it," he said, "out of my love for you; but, forgive me, are
you not taking an unusual interest in him, sad as his death was?"

"No," she answered. "No. He loved me; I was the only woman in the
world he loved--he told me so on the first night he returned to
England. Only I had no love to give him in return; it was given to
you. But I liked and respected him, and, since he came to me in my
dream on that night of his death, it seems that on me should fall the
task of finding the man who killed him."

"But what can you do, my poor Ida; you a delicately-nurtured girl,
unused to anything but comfort and ease? How can you find out the man
who killed him?"

"Only in one way, through you and by your help. I look to you to leave
no stone unturned in your endeavours to find that man, to make
yourself acquainted with Mr. Cundall's past life, to find out who his
enemies, who his friends were; to discover some clue that shall point
at last to the murderer."

"Yes," he said, in a dull, heavy voice. "Yes. That is what I must do."

"And when," she asked, "when will you begin? For God's sake lose no
time; every hour that goes by may help that man to escape."

"I will lose no time," he answered almost methodically, and speaking
in a dazed, uncertain way. Had it not been for her own excitement, she
must have noticed with what little enthusiasm he agreed to her behest.

This behest had indeed staggered him! She had bidden him do the very
thing of all others that he would least wish done, bidden him throw a
light upon the past of the dead man, and find out all his enemies and
friends. She had told him to do this, while there, in his own heart,
was the knowledge of the long-kept secret that the dead man was his
brother--the secret that the dead man had enjoined on him never to
divulge. What was he to do? he asked himself. Which should he obey,
the orders of his murdered brother, or the orders of his future wife?
And Philip, too, had told him on no account to say anything of the
story that had lately been revealed. Then, suddenly, he again
determined that he would say nothing to her. It was a task beyond his
power to appear to endeavour to track the murderer, or to give any
orders on the subject; for since he must kelp the secret of their
brotherhood, what right had he to show any interest in the finding of
the murderer? Silence would, in every way, be best.

He rose after these reflections and told her that he was going back to
London. And she also rose, and said:

"Yes, yes; go back at once! Lose no time, not a moment. Remember, you
have promised. You will keep your promise, I know."

He kissed her, and muttered something that she took for words of
assent, and prepared to leave her.

"You will feel better soon, dearest, and happier, I hope. This shock
will pass away in time."

"It will pass away," she answered, "when you bring me news that the
murderer is discovered, or that you have found out some clue to him.
It will begin to pass away when I hear that you have found out what
enemies he had."

"It is not known that he ever had any enemies," Penlyn said, as he
stood holding her cold hand in his. "He was not a man to make enemies,
I should think."

"He must have had some," she said, "or one at least--the one who slew
him." She paused, and gazed out of the open window by which they were
standing, gazed out for some moments; and he wondered what she was
thinking of now in connection with him. Then she turned to him again
and said:

"Do you think you could find out if he had any relatives?" and he
could not repress a slight start as she asked him this, though she did
not perceive it. "I never heard him say that he had any, but he may
have had. I should like to know."

"Why, Ida?"

"Because--because--oh, I do not know!--my brain is in a whirl.
But--if--if you should find out that he had any relations, then I
should like to know."

And again he asked: "Why, Ida?"

"I would stand face to face with them, if they were men," she
answered, speaking in a low tone of voice that almost appalled him,
"and look carefully at them to see if they, or one of those relations,
bore any resemblance to the shrouded figure that sprang upon him in my
dream."

"If there are any such they will, perhaps, be heard of," he said; but
as he spoke he prayed inwardly that she might never know of his
relationship to Cundall. If she ever learnt that, would she not look
to see if he bore any resemblance to that dark figure of her dream? He
was committed to silence--to silence not without shame, alas!--for
ever now, and he shuddered as he acknowledged this to himself. Once
more he bade her farewell, promising to come back soon, and then he
left her.

"She looks dreadfully ill and overcome by this sad calamity," he said
to Sir Paul before he also parted with him. "I hope she will not let
it weigh too much upon her mind."

"She cannot help it doing so, poor girl," the baronet said. "Of course
she told you that Cundall proposed to her on the night of his return,
not knowing that she had become engaged to you."

"She told me that he loved her, and that she learnt of his love on
that night for the first time," Penlyn answered.

"Yes, that was the case," Sir Paul said. "It was at Lady Chesterton's
ball that he proposed to her."

They talked for some little time further on the desire she had
expressed to see the murderer brought to justice, and Penlyn said he
feared she was exciting herself too much over the idea.

"Yes, I am afraid so," Sir Paul said; "yet, I suppose, the wish is
natural. She looks upon herself as, in some way, the person to whom
his death was first made known, and seems to think it is her duty to
try and aid in the discovery of the man who killed him. Of course, it
is impossible; and she can do nothing, though she has begged me to try
everything in my power to assist in finding his assassin. I would do
so willingly, for I admired Cundall's character very much; but there
is also nothing I could do that the police cannot do better."

"Of course not, but still her wish is natural," Penlyn said, and then
he said "Good-bye" to Sir Paul also, and went back to London.

As he sat in the train on the return journey, he wondered what fresh
trouble and sorrow there could possibly be in store for him over the
miserable events of the past week, and he also wondered if he ever
again would know peace upon this earth! It was impossible to help
looking back to a short month ago, to the time before that discovery
had been made at the inn at Le Vocq, and to remembering how happy he
had been then, how everything in this world had seemed to smile upon
him. He had been happy in his love for Ida, happy in the position he
held in the eyes of men, happy without any alloy to his happiness. And
then, from the moment when he had found that there was another son of
his father in the world, how all the brightness of his life had
changed! First had come the knowledge of that brother alive somewhere,
whom, thinking he was poor and outcast, he had pitied; then the
revelation that that brother, far from being the abject creature he
imagined, was in actual fact the rightful owner of the position he
usurped; and then the horror and the misery of the cruelly barbarous
death that brother had been put to, directly after revealing himself
in his true light. And, as horrible almost as all else were, the lies,
and the secrecy, and the duplicities with which he had environed
himself, in the hopes of shielding everything from the eyes of the
world. Lies, and secrecies, and duplicities practised by him, who had
once regarded truth and openness as the first attributes of a man!

And there was one other thing that struck deeply to his heart; the
bitter wickedness of a man, with such nobility of nature as his
brother had shown, being cruelly stabbed to death. His life had been
one long abnegation of what should have been his, a resignation of the
honour of his birthright, so that he, who had taken his place, should
never be cast out of it; an abnegation that had been crowned by an
almost sublime act, the act of forcing himself to witness the
happiness of the one, who had taken so much from him, with the woman
he had long loved. For, that he had determined to resign all hopes of
her, there was, after the letter he had written, no doubt. And, as he
thought of all the unselfishness of that brother's nature, and of his
awful death, the tears flowed to his eyes, and, being alone, he buried
his head in his hands and wept as he had wept once before. "If I could
call him back again," he said to himself, "if I could once more see
him stand before me alive and well, I would cheerfully go out a beggar
into the world. But it cannot be, and I must bear the lot that has
fallen on me as best I can."

He reached his house early in the evening, and the footman handed him
a letter that had been left by a messenger but a short time before. It
ran as follows.


"GROSVENOR PLACE, _June_ 12_th_, 188-

"MY LORD,

"In searching through the papers of my late employer, Mr. Walter
Cundall, I have come across a will made by him three years ago. By it,
the whole of his fortune and estates are left to you, your names and
title being carefully described. I have placed the will in the hands
of Mr. Fordyce, Mr. Cundall's solicitor, from whom you will doubtless
hear shortly.

"Your obedient Servant,

   "A. STUART.

"The Rt. Hon. Viscount Penlyn."


That was all; without one word of explanation or of surprise at the
manner in which Walter Cundall's vast wealth had been bequeathed.

Lord Penlyn crushed the letter in his hand when he had read it, and,
as he threw himself into a chair, he moaned, "Everything must be
known, everything discovered; there is no help for it! What will Ida
think of me now? Why did I not tell her to-day? Why did I not tell
her?"



CHAPTER XI.


That night he did not go to bed at all, but paced his room or sat
buried in his deep chair, wondering what the morrow would bring forth
and how he should best meet the questions that would be put to him.
Smerdon was gone again to Occleve Chase, so he could take no counsel
from him; and, in a way, he was almost glad that he had gone, for he
did not know that he should be inclined now to follow any advice his
friend might give him. He thought he knew what that advice would
be--that he should pretend utter ignorance as to the reasons Cundall
might have had for making him the inheritor of all his vast wealth,
and on no account to acknowledge the brotherhood between them. But he
told himself that, even had Smerdon been there to give such advice, it
would not have been acceptable; that he would not have followed it.

As hour after hour went by and the night became far advanced, the
young man made up his mind determinately that, henceforth, all
subterfuge and secrecy should be abandoned, that there should be no
more holding back of the truth, and that, when he was asked if he
could give any reason why he should have been made the heir to the
stupendous fortune of a man who was almost a stranger to him, he would
boldly announce that it had been so left to him because he and Cundall
were the sons of one father.

"The world," he said sadly to himself, "may look upon me as the man
who killed him in the Park, and will look upon me as having for years
occupied a false position; but it must do so if it chooses. I cannot
go on living this life of deception any longer. No! Not even though
Ida herself should cast me off." But he thought that though he might
bear the world's condemnation, he did not know how he would sustain
the loss of her love. Still, the truth should be told even though he
should lose her by so telling it; even though the whole world should
point to him as a fratricide!

He had wavered for many days now as to what course he should take, had
had impulses to speak out and acknowledge the secret of his and his
brother's life, had been swayed by Smerdon's arguments and by the
letter he had received at the hotel, but now there was to be no more
wavering; all was to be told. And, if there was any one who had the
right to ask why he had not spoken earlier, that very letter would be
sufficient justification of his silence. It was about midday that, as
he was seated in his study writing a long letter to Smerdon explaining
exactly what he had now taken the determination of doing, the footman
entered with two cards on which were the names of "Mr. Fordyce, Paper
Buildings," and "Mr. A. Stuart."

"The gentlemen wish to know if your lordship can receive them?" the
man asked.

"Yes," Penlyn answered, "I have been expecting a visit from them. Show
them in."

They came in together, Mr. Fordyce introducing himself as the
solicitor of the late Mr. Cundall, and Mr. Stuart bowing gravely. Then
Lord Penlyn motioned to them both to be seated.

"I received your letter last night," he said to the secretary, "and,
although I may tell you at once that there were, perhaps, reasons why
Mr. Cundall should have left me his property, I was still considerably
astonished at hearing he had done so."

"Reasons, my lord!" Mr. Fordyce said, looking up from a bundle of
papers which he had taken from his pocket and was beginning to untie.
"Reasons! What reasons, may I ask?"

The lawyer, who from his accent was evidently a Scotch-man, was an
elderly man, with a hard, unsympathetic face, and it became instantly
apparent to Penlyn that, with this man, there must not be the
slightest hesitation on his part in anything he said, nor must
anything but the plainest truth be spoken. Well! that was what he had
made up his mind should be done, and he was glad as he watched Mr.
Fordyce's face that he had so decided.

"The reason," he answered, looking straight at both of them, "is that
he and I were brothers."

"Brothers!" they both exclaimed together, while Stuart fixed his eyes
upon him with an incredulous look, though in it there was something
else besides incredulity, a look of suspicion and dislike.

"This is a strange story, Lord Penlyn," the lawyer said after a
moment.

"Yes," the other answered. "And you will perhaps think it still more
strange when I tell you that I myself did not know of it until a week
ago."

"Not until a week ago!" Stuart said. "Then you could have learnt of
your relationship only two or three days before he was murdered?"

"That is the case," Penlyn said.

"I think, Lord Penlyn," Mr. Fordyce said, "that, as the late Mr.
Cundall's solicitor, and the person who will, by his will, have a
great deal to do with the administration of his fortune, you should
give me some particulars as to the relationship that you say he and
you stood in to one another."

"If Lord Penlyn intends to do so, and wishes it, I will leave the
house," Stuart said, still speaking in a cold, unsympathetic voice.

"By no means," Penlyn said. "It will be best that you both should hear
all that I know."

Then he told them, very faithfully, everything that had passed between
him and Walter Cundall, from the night on which he had come to Black's
Club, and they had had their first interview in the Park, down to the
letter that had been written on the night of the murder. Nor did he
omit to tell them it was only a month previous to Cundall's disclosing
himself, that he and Philip Smerdon had made the strange discovery at
Le Vocq that his father, to all appearances, had had a previous wife,
and had, also, to all appearances, left an elder son behind him. Only,
he said, it had seemed a certainty to him and his friend that the lady
was not actually his wife, and that the child was not his lawful son.
If there was anything he did not think it necessary to tell them it
was the violence of his behaviour to Cundall at the interview they had
had in that very room, and the curse he had hurled after him when he
was gone, and the wish that "he was dead." That curse and that wish,
which had been fulfilled so terribly soon after their expression, had
weighed heavily on his heart ever since the night of the murder; he
could not repeat it now to these men.

"It is the strangest story I ever heard," Mr. Fordyce said. "The very
strangest! And, as we have found no certificates of either his
mother's marriage or his own birth, we must conclude that he destroyed
them. But the letter that you have shown us, which he wrote to you, is
sufficient proof of your relationship. Though, of course, as he has
named you fully and perfectly in the will there would be no need of
any proof of your relationship."

"The man," Stuart said quietly, "who murdered him, also stole his
watch and pocket-book, probably with the idea of making it look like a
common murder for robbery. The certificates were perhaps in that
pocket-book!"

"Do you not think it _was_ a common murder for robbery?" Lord Penlyn
asked him.

"No, I do not," Stuart answered, looking him straight in the face.
"There was a reason for it!

"What reason?"

"That, the murderer knows best."

It was impossible for Penlyn to disguise from himself the fact that
this young man had formed the opinion in his mind that he was the
murderer. His manner, his utter tone of contempt when speaking to him,
were all enough to show in what light he stood in Stuart's eyes.

"I understand you," he said quietly.

Stuart took no notice of the remark, but he turned to Mr. Fordyce and
said: "Did it not seem strange to you that Lord Penlyn should have
been made the heir, when you drew the will?"

"I did not draw it," Mr. Fordyce said, "or I should in all probability
have made some inquiries--though, as a matter of fact, it was no
business of mine to whom he left his money. As I see there is one
Spanish name as a witness, it was probably drawn by an English lawyer
in Honduras, and executed there."

"Since it appears that I am his heir," Lord Penlyn said, "I should
wish to see the will. Have you it with you?"

"Yes," Mr. Fordyce said, producing the will from his bundle of papers,
and handing it to him, "it is here."

The young man took it from the lawyer, and spreading it out before
him, read it carefully. The perusal did not take long, for it was of
the shortest possible description, simply stating that the whole of
everything he possessed was given and bequeathed by him to "Gervase,
Courteney, St. John, Occleve, Viscount Penlyn, in the Peerage of Great
Britain, of Occleve House, London, and Occleve Chase, Westshire." With
the exception that the bequest was enveloped in the usual phraseology
of lawyers, it might have been drawn up by his brother's own hand, so
clear and simple was it. And it was perfectly regular, both in the
signature of the testator and the witnesses.

The two men watched him as he bent over the will and read it, the
lawyer looking at him from under his thick, bushy eyebrows, and Mr.
Stuart with a fixed glance that he never took off his face; and as
they so watched him they noticed that his eyes were filled with tears
he could not repress. He passed his hand across them once to wipe the
tears away, but they came again; and, when he folded up the document
and gave it back to Mr. Fordyce, they were welling over from his
eyelids.

"I saw him but once after I knew he was my brother," he said; "and I
had very little acquaintance with him before then; but now that I have
learnt how whole-souled and unselfish he was, and how he resigned
everything that was dear to him for my sake, I cannot but lament his
sad life and dreadful end. You must forgive my weakness."

"It does you honour, my lord," the lawyer said, speaking in a softer
tone than he had yet used; "and he well deserved that you should mourn
him. He had a very noble nature."

"If you really feel his loss, if you feel it as much as I do, who owed
much to him," Stuart said, "you will join me in trying to track his
murderer. That will be the most sincere mourning you can give him;"
and he, too, spoke now in a less bitter tone.

"I promised, yesterday, the woman whom we both loved that I would
leave no stone unturned to find that man; I need take no fresh vows
now. But what clue is there to show us who it was that killed him?"

For a moment neither of the others answered. He had been dead now for
four days, the inquest had been held yesterday, and he was to be
buried on the following day; yet through all those proceedings this
man who was his kinsman, this man for whom he had exhibited the
tenderest love and unselfishness, had made no sign, had not even come
forward to see to the disposal of his remains. Stuart asked himself
what explanation could be given of this, and, finding no answer in his
own mind, he plainly asked Lord Penlyn if he himself could give any.

"Yes," he answered; "yes, I can. He had charged me in that letter that
I should never make known what our positions were; charged me when he
could have had no idea of death overtaking him; and I thought that I
should best be consulting his wishes by keeping silence when he was
dead. And I tell you both frankly that, had it not been for this
will--the existence of which I never dreamed of--I never should have
spoken, never have proclaimed our relationship. For the sake of my
future wife, as well as to obey him, I should not have done so. He was
dead, and no good could have been done by speaking."

"It will lead to your conduct being much misconstrued by the world,"
Mr. Fordyce said. "It will not understand your silence."

"Must everything be made public?" Penlyn asked.

"More or less. One cannot suppress a will dealing with over two
millions worth of property. Even though you were willing to destroy it
and forfeit your inheritance, it could not be done. If Mr. Stuart and
I allowed such a thing as that, we should become criminals."

"Well, so be it! the public must think what they like of me--at least
until the murderer is discovered." Then he asked again: "But what clue
is there to help us to find him?"

"None that we know of, as yet," Stuart said. "The verdict at the
Coroner's Inquest yesterday was, 'Wilful murder against some person or
persons unknown,' and the police stated that, up to now, they could
not say that they suspected any one. There is absolutely no clue!"

"I suppose," Mr. Fordyce said, with a speculative air, "those Spanish
letters will not furnish any, when translated.'"

"What Spanish letters?" Penlyn asked. "If you have any, let me see
them, I am acquainted with the language."

"Is _Corot_ a man's or a woman's name?" Mr. Fordyce asked, as he again
untied his bundle of papers.

"Neither, that I know of," Penlyn answered. "It is more likely, I
should think, to be a pet, or nickname. Why do you ask?"

"I found these three letters amongst others in his desk," Stuart said,
taking them from Mr. Fordyce and handing them to Lord Penlyn, "and I
should not have had my attention attracted to them more than to any
others out of the mass of foreign correspondence there was, had it not
been for the marginal notes in Mr. Cundall's handwriting. Do you see
them?"

"Yes," he answered. "Yes. I see written on one, '_Sent C 500 dols_.,'
on another, '_Sent 2,000 Escudos_,' and on the third again, '_Sent C
500 dols_.'"

"What do the letters say?" they both asked.

"I will read them."

He did so carefully, and then he turned round and said:

"They are all from some man signing himself _Corot_, and dating from
Puerto Cortes, who seems to think he had, or, perhaps, really had,
since money was sent, some claim upon him. In the first one he says
none has been forthcoming for a long while, and that, though he does
not want for himself, some woman, whom he calls _Juanna_, is ill and
requires luxuries. He finishes his letter with, 'Yours ever devotedly.'
In the second he writes more strongly, says that _Juanna_ is dying,
and that, as she has committed no fault, he insists upon having money.
After this the largest sum was sent."

"And the third?" they both asked.

"The third is more important. It says _Juanna_ is dead, that he is
going to England on business, and that, as he has heard Cundall is
also about to set out for that country, he will see him there,
as he cannot cross Honduras to do so. And he finishes his letter
by saying: 'Do not, however, think that her death relieves you
from your liability to me. Justice, and the vile injuries done to us,
make it imperative on you to provide for me for ever out of your
evilly-acquired wealth. This justice I will have, and you know I am
one who will not hesitate to enforce my rights. Remember how I served
_José_, and beware.'"

"This is a faithful translation?" Stuart asked.

"Take it to an interpreter, as you doubt me?" Penlyn said.

"I do not doubt you, Lord Penlyn," the other replied, "and I beg your
pardon for this and any other suspicions I may have shown. Will you
forgive me?"

"Yes," Penlyn said, and he held out his hand to the other, and Stuart
took it.

"If this man is in England," Mr. Fordyce said, "and we could only find
him out, and also discover what his movements have been, we should,
perhaps, be very near the murderer."

"Every detective in London shall be set to work to-night, especially
those who understand foreigners and their habits, to find him if he is
here. And if he is, he will have to give a very full account of
himself before he finds himself free," Stuart said.



CHAPTER XII.


The conversation between the three was, necessarily, of so lengthy a
nature, that Lord Penlyn desired them to partake of some luncheon,
which invitation they accepted. While it was proceeding, they
continued to discuss fully all the extraordinary circumstances of
which they had any knowledge in connection with the murder of Walter
Cundall, and also of the position in which Penlyn now found himself.

"Of course, it is no use trying to disguise the fact, my lord," the
lawyer said, "that this strange will in your favour will be the
subject of much discussion. The only thing we have to do now is
to think how much need be made public. Your inheritance of his
money--even to a nobleman in your position--is a matter of importance,
and will cause a great deal of remark."

"Of course, I understand that," Penlyn answered. "But you say we have
to think of 'how much' need be made public. What part of this unhappy
story is there that you imagine need not be known?"

Mr. Fordyce thought a moment, with his bushy eyebrows deeply knitted,
then he said:

"I do not see why any one need be told of the relationship existing
between you. It is no one's business after all; and it was evidently
his wish that, for your sake, it should never be known."

"Naturally," Penlyn replied, "I do not want my affairs told to every
one, and made a subject of universal gossip; but then, what reason is
to be given for his having left me all his money?"

"It might be hinted that you were connections, though distant ones,"
Mr. Fordyce said.

"Would it not appear strange that, in such circumstances, we knew so
little of one another?"

"Yes," the lawyer said, "unless it were said that you were only
recently acquainted with the fact."

"But the will is dated three years ago!" Stuart remarked. "Then I
scarcely know what to suggest," Mr. Fordyce said.

They talked it over and over again, but they could arrive at no
determination; and at last it was resolved that the best thing would
be to let matters take their course. No announcement would be publicly
made, and though, of course, it would, eventually leak out that Lord
Penlyn was Walter Cundall's heir, the world would have to put its own
construction upon the fact. Or again, other men had before now made
eccentric wills, taking sudden fancies to people who were strangers to
them and leaving them all their money. It would be best that Walter
Cundall's will should also come to be regarded in that category.

"After all," Stuart said, "you were acquaintances, and mixed in the
same circle. Even the fact that you both loved the same woman goes for
something, and that must be sufficient for those who take any interest
in the matter."

He had come into the house with innumerable suspicions against Lord
Penlyn, suspicions aroused by his being the inheritor of Cundall's
property, and also by the fact that he and the dead man had both loved
the same woman, and with a strange feeling in his heart that, when he
stood before him, he would stand before a murderer. He had also
remembered that conversation in the club about the peculiarity of the
dagger, or knife, with which Cundall must have been slain, and his
recollection of the hesitating way in which Penlyn had answered, had
added to his suspicions. But, when he had seen the genuine tears of
sorrow that had been shed over the will, those suspicions vanished,
and he told himself that it was not in this man that the murderer
would be found. And, if this new-formed idea had required any
strengthening, it would have received it when those importunate and
threatening letters had been read from the unknown person signing
himself, _Corot_. There was the man, who, if in England, must be found
at all costs. But how to find him was the question.

"There is one to whom I must, at least, disclose my relationship with
Walter," Penlyn said, and they both noticed that, for the first time,
he spoke of his brother by his Christian name. "I must tell Miss
Raughton the position we stood in to one another."

Stuart, with feelings of a very different nature now in his heart from
those with which he had first regarded him, asked him if he thought it
was wise to do so? Would she not think that, standing in the position
of his affianced wife and having also been beloved by his brother, she
should have been the first to be told of the bond between them?

"It may not be wise," Penlyn said sadly, and with a weary look upon
his face, "and it may be that she will think I have deceived her--as,
unhappily, I have done by my silence--but still I must tell her. With
her, at least, there must be nothing more suppressed."

Then he told them of the strange dream that she had had (even
mentioning that she had said she could recognise the form, if not the
face, of the man who sprang upon him), and of the vow she had made him
take to endeavour to discover the murderer.

"If dreams were of the slightest importance, which they are not," Mr.
Fordyce said, "this one would go to prove that _Corot_ is not the
murderer, since it is hardly likely that she has ever known him.
Still, it is a strange coincidence that she should have dreamt of his
death on the very night that it took place."

"The idea of knowing the form, or figure, of the man is nothing,"
Stuart said. "If there was any likelihood of there being anything in
that, it would also be the case that we should have to look upon Lady
Chesterton's conservatory as the spot where it happened, as it was
there she dreamt she saw him. But we know that he was killed in St.
James' Park."

"If the detectives can only discover this man _Corot_," Penlyn said,
"we might find out what he was doing on that night."

"If they cannot find him," Stuart said, "it shall not be for the want
of being paid to look for him."

"I would give every farthing of the fortune my brother has left me to
discover him, or to find the real assassin!" Penlyn said.

They discussed, after this, the way in which the information that had
come into their possession, from the three letters written in Spanish,
should be conveyed to the detectives, and Stuart arranged to take the
matter into his hands.

"Leave it to me," he said, "I happen to know two or three of them; in
fact, I have already communicated with Dobson, who understands a great
deal about foreigners. He has done all the big extradition cases for a
long while, and knows the exact spots in which men of different
nationalities are to be found. If _Corot_ is in London, Dobson, or one
of his men, will be sure to discover him."

"And you think I had better not appear in the matter at all?" Penlyn
asked, appealing to both of them.

"Not at present, certainly," Mr. Fordyce said; "as Mr. Stuart is at
present acting in it, it had better be left to him. Mr. Cundall's
agents in the City have placed everything in his hands, and I suppose
you, as his heir, will have no objection to do so also."

"I shall be extremely grateful to Mr. Stuart if he will hold the same
position towards me that he filled with my brother," Penlyn said; "and
if he wants any assistance, my friend and secretary, Mr. Smerdon, will
be happy to render it him."

"I will do all I can," Stuart said quietly, "to assist you, both in
regard to his affairs and to finding the guilty man if possible."

Then Lord Penlyn made a suggestion that his own lawyer, Mr. Bell,
should also be brought into communication with Mr. Fordyce and Stuart,
and the former said that he would call upon him the next day.

"There will then be five of us interested in finding the assassin,"
Penlyn said, "for I am quite sure that both Mr. Bell and Philip
Smerdon will go hand in hand with us in this search. Surely amongst
us, and with the aid of the detectives, who ought to work well for the
reward I will pay them, we shall succeed in tracking him."

"I hope to God we shall!" Stuart said, and Penlyn solemnly exclaimed,
"Amen!"

They were about to separate now, after an interview that had lasted
for some hours, when Penlyn said:

"To-morrow is the day of his funeral. If it were possible--if you
think that I could do so, I should wish to be present at it."

The others thought a moment, Stuart looking at Mr. Fordyce as though
waiting for him to answer this suggestion, but, instead of doing so,
he only said: "What do you think, Mr. Stuart?"

Stuart still hesitated, and seemed to be pondering deeply, and then he
said:

"I think, if it will not be too great a denial to you, if you will not
feel that you are failing in the last duty you can pay him, you should
remain away. You could only go as chief mourner if you go at all, and
that will render you too conspicuous, and would set every tongue in
London wagging. Can you resign yourself to staying away?"

"I must resign myself, I suppose," the other answered. "Perhaps, too,
it is better I should do so; for, when I should see his coffin being
lowered into its grave, the memory of his nobility and unselfishness,
and his cruel end, would come back to me with such force that I fear I
should no longer be master of myself."

So Lord Penlyn did not see the last of his brother's remains; and Mr.
Stuart, Mr. Fordyce, and two of his agents made up the list of his
mourners. But behind the carriage that conveyed them, came countless
other carriages belonging to men and women who had known and liked the
dead man, and in some cases their owners were in them; amongst others
Sir Paul Raughton being in his. The wreaths of flowers that were piled
above his coffin also came from scores of friends, and afforded great
interest to the enormous mob that followed the victim's funeral, and
made a decorous holiday of the occasion. It is not often that a
millionaire is stabbed to death in London by an unknown hand; and many
of those, who had read with intense excitement of the murder,
determined to see the last obsequies of the victim. Amongst those
wreaths were two formed of splendid white roses, one of which bore the
words worked into it, "We shall meet again" and the initial letter
"I," and another the words, "I remember" followed by the letter "G."

And late that night, as the time was, fast approaching for the
cemetery to be closed, Lord Penlyn walked swiftly up the path leading
to the new-made grave, and, seeing that there was no one near, knelt
down and prayed silently by it. Then he whispered, "I will never rest
until you are avenged. If you can hear my vow in heaven, hear me now
swear this." And, taking a handful of the mould from the grave, he
wrapped it in his handkerchief, and passed out again into the world.



CHAPTER XIII.


_The Hôtel et Café Restaurant de Lepanto_ is one of those many places
near, and in the neighbourhood of, Leicester Square, where foreigners
delight to sojourn when in London. Not first-class foreigners,
perhaps, or, at least, not foreigners of large means, but generally
such as come to London to transact business that occupies them for a
short time. As a rule, this establishment is patronised by Spanish
and Portuguese gentlemen of a commercial status, persons who, more
often than not, are connected with the wine trade of those countries;
and it is also frequented by singers and dancers and other _artistes_
who may find themselves--by what they regard as a stroke of
fortune--fulfilling an engagement in our Metropolis. To them, the
Hôtel Lepanto is a congenial abode, a spot where they can eat of the
oily and garlic-flavoured dishes partaken of with so much relish when
at home in Madrid, Lisbon, Seville, or Granada, and here they can
converse in their own tongues with each other and with Diaz Zarates,
the Spanish landlord of the house, to whom half-a-dozen Southern
languages and many _patois_ are known.

The hotel seems to exist entirely for the people of these countries,
since into it no Frenchman, nor Italian, nor German ever comes; they
have their own hostelries of an equally, to them, agreeable nature in
other streets in the neighbourhood. So these Southerners, with the
dark eyes, and coal-black hair, and brown skin, have the little
dining-room with the dirty fly-blown paper, and the almost as dirty
table-covers and curtains, all to themselves; and into it--or to the
passage with the three chairs and the marble-table where, as often as
not, the Señors and Señoras sit and smoke their cigarettes for hours
together, in preference to doing so in the dining-room--no one of
another nation intrudes. If, not having Spanish or Portuguese blood in
his veins, there ever is any one who does so intrude, it is generally
some Englishman of a rashly speculative nature, who wants to try a
Spanish dinner and see what it is like, and who, having done so, never
wants to try another.

And sometimes, as has been the case of late, much to the disgust of
Diaz Zarates, an English detective has made his appearance, and, under
the guise of one of the above speculative individuals essaying an
Iberian meal, has endeavoured to worm secrets out of him about his
patrons and guests. To the disgust of Diaz Zarates of late, because he
knows perfectly well who Dobson is (although that astute individual is
not aware of the landlord's knowledge of his calling), and because,
honestly, he has never heard of any one bearing the name of _Corot_ in
his life.

And it is of such a person with that name, that Dobson has been making
little inquiries whenever he has dropped in to try a Spanish luncheon
or a Spanish dinner.

Seated, a few days after the murder of Walter Cundall, on one of the
three chairs in the passage, and meditatively smoking cigarettes out
of which, as is the case with Spanish-made ones, the tobacco would
frequently fall in a lighted mass on the marble table, was Señor
Miguel Guffanta, as he was inscribed in Diaz's books. Had the Señor
been as carefully washed as the upper classes of Spaniards usually
are, had his linen been as white and clean as the linen usually worn
by the upper classes of Spaniards, and, had he been freshly shaved, he
would, in all probability have presented the appearance of a fine,
handsome man. But he had come downstairs this morning to smoke his
cigarette, without troubling to make his toilette, putting on his
yesterday's shirt, and going through no ablutionary process at all,
and with a thick, heavy stubble of twenty-four hours' growth upon his
cheeks and chin. Still, with all this carelessness, Señor Miguel
Guffanta was a handsome man. He had a dark, Moorish-looking face, the
lines of which were very regular, he had large luminous eyes that,
when he chose, he could open to an enormous extent, and coal-black
hair that curled thickly over his head. His frame was a powerful one;
his height being considerable and his chest broad and deep, and his
long, sinewy, brown hands looked as though their grasp would be a
grasp of iron, if put to their utmost strength. In age he was about
thirty-eight or forty, but he looked younger, because no single gray
hair had appeared either in his luxurious locks or in his long, black
moustache. As he sat there, taking fresh cigarette-papers from his
pocket, and, when he had put some dry, dusty tobacco into them,
twisting both ends up, and smoking them while he gazed meditatively
either at the ceiling of the passage, or into the species of horse-box
that was designated as the "bureau," a stranger might have wondered
what brought the Señor there. Unkempt as he was this morning, there
was something about him, either in the easy grace of his figure, or in
the contemptuous, almost haughty, look in his face, that proclaimed
instantly that this was not a man accustomed to soliciting orders for
wine, or to appearing in Spanish ballets or choruses, or of, in any
way, ministering to other people's amusement.

As he still sat there thinking and smoking, the landlord came down the
passage, and bowing and wishing him "Good morning" in Spanish, entered
his box, and proceeded to make some entries in his books. The Señor
nodded in return, and then made another cigarette and went on with his
meditations; but, when that one was smoked through, he rose and leaned
against the door-post of the bureau, and addressed Zarates.

"And have any more guests arrived since last night," he asked, "and is
the hotel yet full?"

"No more, Señor, no more as yet," the landlord answered him. "_Dios!_
but there is little business doing now."

"That is not well! And he who loves so much our Spanish luncheons and
dinners, our good friend Dobson (he pronounced the name, Dobesoon)
with the heavy, fat face and the big beard--what of him?"

"He is a pig, a fool!" Diaz said, as he ran an unclean finger up a
column of accounts. "He believes me not when I tell him that of his
accursed _Corot_ I know nothing, and that I believe no such man is in
London."

The Señor laughed gently to himself at this answer, and then he said:
"And he has not yet found him?"

"_Dios!_ found him, no! Of that name I never heard before, no, never!
There is no such name!"

"For what does he say he wishes to see this _Corot?_ Is it that he has
a legacy to give him, or has he committed a crime for which this fat
man, this heavy Alguazil, wants to arrest him?"

"_Quien sabé!_ He says he has a little friendly question to ask him,
that is all. He says if he could see him for one moment, he would tell
him all he wants to know. And then he says he must find him. But I do
not think now he will ever find him."

"Nor do I," the Señor said. Then he looked up at the clock, and,
seeing it was past twelve, went to his room, saying that it was time
he prepared himself for the day.

But when he reached that apartment, which was a small room on the
second floor, that looked out on to the back windows of the street
that ran parallel with the one in which the Hôtel Lepanto was
situated, it did not seem as if those preparations stood in any great
need of hurry. The inevitable cigarette-papers were again produced and
the dusty tobacco, and the Señor, throwing himself into the arm-chair
that stood in the corner of the room, again gave himself up to
meditation.

"_Corot_," he said to himself, "_Corot_. How is it that that man has
ever heard the name--what does he know about it, why should he want to
find him? I thought that, outside Los Torros and Puerto Cortes, that
name had never been heard. Walter knew it, and Juanna knew it, and I
knew it, but of others there was no one alive who knew it. Yet here,
is this big, stupid man, in this big, stupid city (where--_por Dios!_
one may be stabbed to death and none find the slayer), with the name
upon his lips. How has he ever heard it, how has he ever known of it?"

He could find no answer to these questions which he asked himself, and
gradually his thoughts went off into another train.

"So, after all," he continued, "his name was not Cundall but Occleve,
and he it was who was this lord, this Penlyn, though that other bears
the name. And he, who inherited all that wealth from the old man, had
no right to it, no not so much right as Juanna--poor Juanna!--and I
had. And now he is gone, and it is with the living that I have to do.
Well, it shall be done, and by my father's blood the reckoning shall
be a heavy one if this lord does not clear himself!"

He rose from his seat, and, going to a cupboard, took from it a suit
of clothes of good, dark material, and after brushing them carefully,
laid them out upon the bed. From a shelf in it he took out a very good
silk hat, which he also brushed, and a pair of nearly new gloves. Then
he rang the bell, and bade the servant who answered it bring him
sufficient hot water for shaving and washing.

As he went through his toilette, which he did very carefully, and
putting on now linen of dazzling whiteness, with which the most
scrupulous person could have found no fault, his thoughts still ran
upon the subject that had occupied his mind entirely for many days.

"There is danger in it, of course," he muttered to himself; "but I am
used to danger; there was danger when Gonzalez provoked me, though it
was not as great as that I stand in now. These English are stupid, but
they are crafty also, and it may be that a trap will be set for me,
perhaps is set already. Well, I will escape from it as I have from
others. And, after all, I have one damning proof in my favour, one
card that, if I am forced to play, must save me! What I have to do,
shall be done to-day. I am resolved!"

His toilette was finished now, he was clean-shaved and well dressed
from head to foot, and the Señor Miguel Guffanta stood in his room a
very different-looking man from the one who had sat, an hour ago,
smoking cigarettes in the hotel passage. Before he left it, he
unlocked a portmanteau, and took from it a pocket-book into which he
looked for a moment, and then he locked his door and descended the
stairs.

"Going out for the day, Señor?" Diaz asked, as he peered out of his
box.

"Yes. I am going to make a call on an English friend. _Adios_."

"_Adios_, Señor."

"It is as hot as Honduras," Señor Guffanta said to himself as he
crossed to the shady side of the street. "I must walk slowly to keep
myself cool."

He did walk slowly, making his way through Leicester Square and down
Piccadilly, and, at nearly the bottom of the latter, turned off to the
right and passed through several streets. Then, when he had arrived at
a house which stood at a corner he stopped. He evidently had been here
before, for he had found his way without any difficulty through the
labyrinth of streets between this house and Leicester Square, and now
he paused for one moment previous to mounting the doorstep. But,
before he did so, he turned away and went a short distance down a
side-street. The big house outside which he was standing formed the
angle of two streets, and ran down the side one that the Señor had now
turned into. At the back of it was a garden, fairly filled with trees,
that ran some distance farther down this street, and into which an
open-worked iron gate led, a gate through which any passerby could
look. It was not a well-kept garden, and in it there was some
undergrowth; and it was at this undergrowth, on the farthest right
hand side, that Señor Guffanta peered for some few moments through the
iron gate.

"It seems the same," he muttered to himself; "nothing appears
disturbed since I was last here." Then he returned to the front of the
house, and mounting the steps knocked at the hall door.

The footman who opened it had no time to ask the tall, well-dressed
foreigner with the handsome face, who was standing before him, what he
required, before the Señor said, in good English:

"Is Lord Penlyn within?"

"Yes, sir," the man answered. "Do you wish to see him?"

"Yes. Be good enough to take him my card, if you please," and he
produced one bearing the name of _Señor Miguel Guffanta_. "Give him
that," he said, "and say that I wish to see him."

The footman motioned him to a seat, and had put the card upon a salver
to take to his master, when the Señor said "Stay, I will put a word
upon it," and, taking a pencil from his pocket, he wrote underneath
his name, "From Honduras."

"He will see me, I think," he said, "when he sees that."

The man bowed and went away, returning a few minutes afterwards to say
that Lord Penlyn would see him, and the Señor followed him into the
room in which so many other interviews had taken place.

Lord Penlyn rose and bowed, and Señor Guffanta returned the bow
gravely, while he fixed his dark eyes intently on the other's face.

"You state on your card, Señor Guffanta, that you are from Honduras. I
imagine, therefore, that you have come about a matter that at the
present moment is of the utmost importance to me?" Lord Penlyn said.

"You refer to the late Mr. Cundall?" the Señor asked. "Yes, I do. Pray
be seated."

"I knew him intimately," Señor Guffanta said. "It is about him and his
murder that I have come to talk."



CHAPTER XIV.


Between the time when Lord Penlyn, Mr. Fordyce, and Stuart had
consulted together as to the way in which some endeavours should be
made to discover the murderer of Walter Cundall, and when the Señor
Guffanta paid his visit to the former, a week had elapsed, a week in
which a good many things had taken place.

The rewards offered both by the Government and by "the friends of the
late Mr. Cundall," had been announced, and the magnitude of them,
especially of the latter, had caused much excitement in the public
mind, and had tended to keep the general interest in the tragedy
alive. The Government reward of "five hundred pounds and a free pardon
to some person, or persons, not the actual murderers," had been
supplemented by another of one thousand pounds from the "friends and
executors;" and the walls of every police-station were placarded with
the notices. There was, moreover, attached to them a statement
describing, as nearly as was possible from the meagre details known,
the man who, in the garb of a labourer or mechanic, was last seen near
the victim; and for his identification a reward was also offered.

But it was known in London, or, at least, very generally believed,
that out of these rewards nothing whatever in the way of information
had come; and, although the murder had not yet ceased to be a topic of
conversation in all classes of society, it was generally spoken of as
a case in which the murderer would never be brought to justice.
Whoever had committed the crime had now had more than a week with
which, either to escape from the neighbourhood or the country, or to
entirely conceal his identity. It was not likely now, people said,
that he would ever be found. And the world was also asking who were
the friends, and, presumably, the heirs of the dead man, who were
offering the large reward? To this question no one as yet had
discovered the answer; all that was known, or told, being that two
lawyers of standing, Mr. Bell, of Lincoln's Inn, and Mr. Fordyce, of
Paper Buildings, were acting for these friends, and for Mr. Cundall's
City representatives.

The detectives themselves, though they were careful not to say so, had
really very little hope that they would ever succeed in tracing the
assassin. Dobson (who, in spite of the stolidity of manner, and
heaviness of appearance that had excited the contempt both of Señor
Guffanta and of the landlord, Zarates, was not by any means lacking in
shrewdness) plainly told Stuart, in one of their many interviews, that
he did not think much would be done by finding the man called _Corot_,
even if he were successful in doing so, which he very much doubted.

"You see, sir," he said, "it's this way. He evidently had some claim
or other upon Mr. Cundall, or else it isn't likely that every time he
wrote for money he would have got it, and that in good sums too. Then
we've only seen the notes made by Mr. Cundall on the letters, saying
that he sent this and that sum; but who's to know, when he sent them,
if he didn't also send some friendly letter or other, acknowledging
the justice of this man's demands? He evidently--I mean this
_Corot_--did have some claim upon him; and supposing that he was--if
we could find him--to prove that claim and show us the letters Mr.
Cundall wrote him in return, where should we be then? The very fact of
his being able to draw on him whenever he wanted money, would go a
long way towards showing that he wouldn't be very likely to kill him."

"He threatens him in the last letter we have seen. Supposing that Mr.
Cundall stopped the supplies after that, would not that probably
excite his revengeful passions? These Spanish Americans do not stick
at taking life when they fancy themselves injured."

"He evidently didn't stop them when he answered that letter, because
he sent five hundred dollars. And it was written so soon before they
both must have started--almost close together--from Honduras, that it
wouldn't be likely any fresh demands would have been made," Dobson
answered.

"They might have met in London, and quarrelled," Stuart replied; "and
after the quarrel this _Corot_ might have tracked him till he found a
fitting opportunity, and then have killed him."

"Yes, he might," Dobson said, meditatively. "Anything _might_ have
happened."

"Only you don't think it likely?" the other asked.

"Well, frankly, Mr. Stuart, I don't. He had always got money out of
him, and it wasn't likely the supplies would be stopped off
altogether, so that to kill him would be killing the goose with the
golden eggs."

"Who on earth could have killed him, then? Who would have had any
reason to do so? You know everything connected with the case now, and
with Mr. Cundall's life and strange, unknown, real position--do you
suspect any one?"

"No," the detective said after a pause; "I can't say I do. Of course,
at first, when I heard everything, the idea did strike me that Lord
Penlyn, as the most interested person, might have done it."

"So it did me," Stuart said; "but after the interview Mr. Fordyce and
I had with him the idea left my mind."

"Where does he say he was on the night of the murder--the night he was
staying at that hotel?"

"He says he stayed at his club until twelve, and that then he walked
about the streets till nearly two, thinking over the story his brother
had told him, and then let himself into the hotel and went to bed."

"It is strange that he should have been about on that night alone. If
he was going to be tried for the murder, it would tell badly against
him; that is, unless he could prove that he was in the hotel before
Mr. Cundall started to walk to Grosvenor Place from his club."

"He couldn't prove it, because all the servants were asleep; but,
nevertheless, I am certain he did not do it."

"I don't think he did," Dobson replied, "and, at the same time, I
can't believe _Corot_ did it. But I wish I could find him, all the
same."

"Do you think there is still a chance of your doing so?"

"There is always a chance," the other answered; "but I have exhausted
nearly everything. You see, I have so little to go on, and I am
obliged to say out openly, in every inquiry I make, that I am looking
for a certain man of the name of _Corot_. And they all give me the
same answer, that they never heard of such a name. Yet his name must
have been _Corot_."

"I do not think so," Stuart said. "A Spaniard would sign an initial
before his name just the same as an Englishman would, and no
Englishman would sign himself simply 'Jones,' or 'Smith.'"

"It can't be a Christian name," Dobson said, "or they would have been
sure to say so, and ask me 'What _Corot?_' or '_Corot_ who' is it that
you are looking for?"

"Lord Penlyn thinks it is a nickname," Stuart remarked.

"Then I shall certainly never find him. A man when he is travelling in
a strange country doesn't use his nickname, and, as far as I can
learn, there isn't any one here from the Republic of Honduras who ever
heard of him; and it isn't any good asking people from British
Honduras."

"Well," Stuart said, "we must go on trying by every means, and in the
hopes that the amount of the rewards will lead to something. But there
seems little prospect of our ever finding the cowardly assassin who
slew him. Perhaps, after all, that labourer killed him for his watch
and chain, and any money he might have about him. Such things have
been done before."

"I don't believe that," Dobson said. "There was a motive for his
murder. But, what was that motive?"

Then they parted, Stuart to have an interview with Lord Penlyn, and
Dobson to again continue his investigations in similar resorts to the
Hôtel Lepanto.

Meanwhile, Penlyn had nerved himself for another interview with Ida
Raughton, an interview in which he was to tell her everything, and he
went down to Belmont to do so.

He found her alone in her pretty drawing-room, Sir Paul having gone to
Windsor on some business matter, and Miss Norris being out for a walk.
She was still looking very pale, and her lover noticed that a paper
was lying beside her in which was a column headed, "The murder of Mr.
Cundall." Had she been reading that, he wondered, at the very time
when he was on his way to tell her of the relationship that had
existed between him and that other man who had loved her so dearly?
When he had kissed her, wondering, as he did so, if it was the last
kiss she would ever let him press upon her lips after she knew of what
he had kept back from her at their last interview, she said to him:

"And now tell me what you have done towards finding Mr. Cundall's
murderer? What steps have you taken, whom have you employed to search
for that man?"

"It is thought," he answered, "that there is some man, now in England,
who may have done it. A man whose name is _Corot_, and who was
continually obtaining money from him."

"How is this known?"

"By some letters that have been found amongst Cundall's papers.
Letters asking for money, and, in one case, threatening him if some
was not sent at once; and with notes in his handwriting saying that
different sums had been sent when demanded."

"_Corot_," she said, repeating the name to herself in a whisper,
"_Corot_." Then, after a pause, she said, "No! That man is not the
assassin."

"Not the assassin, Ida!" Penlyn said. "Why do you think he is not?"

"Because I have never known him, because the form of the man who slew
him in my dream was familiar to me, and this man's form cannot be so."

"My darling," he said, "you place too much importance on this dream.
Remember what fantasies of the brain they are, and how few of them
have ever any bearing on the actual events of life."

"This was no fantasy," she answered, "no fantasy. When the murderer is
discovered--if he ever is--it will be seen that I have known him. I am
as sure of it as that I am sitting here. But who was he? Who was he? I
have gone over and over again every man whom I have ever known, and
yet I cannot bring to my mind which of all those men it is that that
shrouded figure resembles." She paused again, and then she asked: "Has
it been discovered yet whether he had any relations?"

"Yes, Ida," he said, rising from his seat and standing before her,
while he knew that the time had come now when everything must be told.
"Yes, he had one relation!"

"Who was he?" she asked, springing to her feet, while a strange lustre
shone in her eyes. "Who was he? Tell me that."

"Oh, Ida," he said, "there is so much to tell! Will you hear me
patiently while I tell you all?"

"Tell me everything," she replied. "I will listen."

Then he told her, standing there face to face with her. As he
proceeded with his story, he could give no guess as to what effect it
was having upon her, for she made no sign, but, from the seat into
which she had sunk, gazed fixedly into his face. Once she shuddered
slightly, and drew her dress nearer to her when he confessed that he
had refused to part from him in peace; and, when she had read the
letter that he had written on the night of his death, she wept
silently for a few moments.

It had taken long in the telling, and the twilight of the summer night
had come before he finished and she had learnt everything.

"That is what I came to tell you, Ida. Speak to me, and say that you
forgive me for having kept it from your knowledge when last we met!"

"You said an hour ago," she replied, taking no heed of his prayer for
forgiveness, "that dreams were idle fantasies of the brain. What if
mine was such? What, if after all, I have seen the form of the man
who murdered him, have spoken to him and let him kiss me, and have not
recognised him?"

"Ida!" he said, "do you say this to me, to the man to whom you have
plighted your love and faith? Do you mean that you suspect me of being
my brother's murderer?"

"You did nothing," she answered, "to find out his murderer; you would
have done nothing had that Will not been discovered."

"I obeyed his behest," he said, "and what I did was done also through
my love of you."

Again she paused before she spoke, and then she said:

"It is time that you should go now, it is time that there should be no
more love spoken of between us. But, if a time should ever come when
it will be fitting for me to hear you speak of love to me once
more----"

"Yes?"

"It will be when you can come to me and say that his murderer is
brought to justice."

"And until that time shall come, you cast me off?"

"If you take it in that light,--yes."

"I have sworn," he said, and she could not but notice the deep
intensity of his voice, "upon his grave that my life shall be devoted
to avenging him, and no power on earth shall stop me if I can but see
my way to find the man who killed him. Even though I had still another
brother, whom I had loved all my life, and he had done this deed, I
would track him and bring him to punishment. I swear it before
God--swear that I would not spare him! And my earnest and heartfelt
prayer is that the day may arrive when, as you and I desire, I may be
able to come and tell you that he is brought to justice."

"Ah! yes."

"Only," he continued, still with a deep solemnity of voice that went
to her heart, "when I do so come I shall come to tell you that
alone--there will be with that news no pleadings of love upon my
tongue. You have doubted, but just now, whether you have not seen my
brother's murderer standing before you, whether the kiss of Cain has
not been upon your lips. You have reproached me for my silence, you
have cast me off, unless I can prove myself not an assassin. Well, so
be it! By the blessing of heaven, I will prove it--but for the love
which you have withdrawn from me I will ask no more. You say it is to
be mine again conditionally. I will not take it back, either with or
without conditions. It is restored to you; it would be best that
henceforth you should keep it."

Then, with but the slightest inclination of his head, he left her, and
went out from the house. And Ida, after once endeavouring to make her
lips utter the name of Gervase, fell prostrate on the couch.

"He will never come back to me," she wailed; "he will never come back.
I have thrown his love away for ever. God forgive and pity me."



CHAPTER XV.


"I knew him intimately," Señor Guffanta said, "it is about him and his
murder that I have come to talk."

These were the words with which he had responded to Lord Penlyn's
reception of him; and, as he uttered them, a hope had sprung up into
the young man's breast that, in the handsome Spaniard who stood before
him, some one might have been found who, from his knowledge of his
brother, would be able to throw some light upon, or clue to, his
death.

"I cannot tell you," he said, "how welcome this information is to me.
We have tried everything in our power to gather some knowledge that
might lead towards finding--first, some one who would be likely to
have a reason for his death; and, afterwards, the man who killed him.
If you knew him intimately, it may be that you can assist us."

The Señor had taken the seat offered him by Penlyn, and from the time
that he had first sat down, until now, he had not removed his dark
piercing eyes from the other's face. But, as he continued to fix his
glance upon Penlyn, there had come into his own face a look of
surprise, a look that seemed to express a baffled feeling of
consternation.

"_Caramba_," he said to himself while the other was speaking.
"_Caramba_, what mystery is there here? I have made a mistake. I have
erred in some way; how have I deceived myself? Yet I could have sworn
by the blood of San Pedro that I was sure."

Then, when Lord Penlyn had ceased speaking, he said aloud:

"You will pardon me--but I am labouring under no mistake? You are Lord
Penlyn?"

The other looked at him for a moment, wondering what such a question
meant. Then he answered him:

"There is no mistake. I am Lord Penlyn."

The Spaniard passed his hand across his eyes as he heard this, but did
not speak; and Lord Penlyn said:

"May I ask why you inquire?"

"Because--because I had thought--because I wished to be sure of whom I
was speaking with."

"You may rest assured. And now, sir, let me ask you what you know
about this unhappy Mr. Cundall and his life?"

"I know much about him. To begin with, I know that he was your
brother--your elder brother--and that you have come to possess his
fortune."

Lord Penlyn started and said: "You know that? May I ask how you know
it?"

"It is not necessary for me to say. It is sufficient that I do know
it. But it is not of that that I have come to talk."

"Of what have you come to talk then?"

"Of his murderer."

"Of his murderer!" the other repeated. "Oh! Señor Guffanta, is it
possible that you can have any clue, is it possible that you think you
will be able to find the man who killed him?"

"_I am sure of it_."

Lord Penlyn stared at him as he spoke, stared at him while in his mind
there was a feeling of astonishment, mixed with something like awe, of
his strange visitor. This dark, powerful-looking stranger, sat there
before him perfectly calm and unmoved, looking straight at him as he
spoke these words of import, "I am sure of it," and spoke them as
though he was speaking of some ordinary incident. And in his calmness
there was something that told the other that it was born of certainty.

"If you can do that, Señor Guffanta," he said, "there is nothing that
you can ask from me, there is nothing that I can give that----"

"There is nothing I want of you," the Spaniard said, interrupting him,
and making a disdainful motion with his long, brown hand. "I am not a
paid police spy."

"I beg your pardon," the other answered. "I had no thought of offence.
Only, sir, it is the wish of my life, and of some others who knew and
loved him, to see him avenged.

"And it is the wish of my life also. Will you hear a short story?"

"I will hear anything you have to say."

"Then listen. I was born in Honduras, the child of a Spanish lady and
of a friend of the old Englishman, Cundall, him from whom your
brother's wealth was derived. That friend was a scoundrel, a man who
tricked my mother into a marriage with him under a false name, who
never was her husband at all. When they had been married, as she
thought, for some few years, and when another child, my sister, had
been born, she found out the deception, and--she killed him."

"Killed him!" Penlyn exclaimed.

"Yes, dead! We Spaniards brook no dishonour, we never allow a wrong to
pass unavenged. She showed him the evidence of his falsehood in one
hand, and with the other she shot him dead upon his own verandah. She
was tried and instantly acquitted, and, in consideration of the wrong
she had suffered, a law was made constituting her legally his wife,
and making us children legitimate. But the disgrace was to her--a
high-minded, noble woman--too much; she fell ill and died. Then the
old man, Cundall, seeing that it was his friend's evil-doing that had
led to our being orphans, said that henceforth we should be his care.
So we grew up, and I had learnt to look upon myself and my sister as
his heirs, when one day there came another who, it was easy to see,
had supplanted us. It was the English lad, Walter Cundall."

"I begin to see," Penlyn said.

"At first," Señor Guffanta went on, "I hated him for spoiling our
chances, but at last I could hate him no longer. Gradually, his gentle
disposition, his way of interceding for me with his uncle, when I had
erred, above all his tenderness to my poor sister, who was sick and
deformed, won my love. Had he been my brother I could not have loved
him more. Then--then, as years went on, I committed a fault, and the
old man cast me off for ever. Another man tried to take from me the
woman I loved--she was a vile thing worth no man's love; but--no
matter how--I avenged myself. But from that day the old man turned
against me, and would neither see nor hear of me again.

"A year or two passed and then I heard from Walter, for my sister and
I had left Los Torros (the town where we had all lived) and had gone
elsewhere, that the old man was dead. 'He has left everything to me,'
Walter wrote, 'and there is no mention of you nor Juanna, but be
assured neither of you shall ever want for anything.'"

"Stop," Lord Penlyn said, "you need tell me no more. I know the
rest."

"You know the rest?" Señor Guffanta said, looking fixedly at him, "You
know the rest?"

"Yes. You are _Corot_."

A bewildered look came over the Spaniard's face, and then, after a
second's pause, he said:

"Yes. I am _Corot_. It was the name given me by the Mestizos amongst
whom I played as a boy, and it kept to me. It is you, then, Lord
Penlyn, who has set this Dobson to look for me?"

"Yes; we found your letters to him, and from one of them we believed
you to be in England. We thought that--that----"

"That I killed him?"

"You threatened him in one of your letters. We were justified in
thinking so."

"He, at least, did not think so. Read this."

He took from his pocket a letter written by Walter Cundall during the
few days he had been back in England, and gave it to Penlyn. It ran:


"_June_, 188--.

"MY DEAR COROT,

"I am delighted to hear you are in England, and have got an
appointment as agent for Don Rodriguez in London. Perhaps, now, I
shall have some respite from those fearful threats which, at
intervals, from your boyhood, you have hurled at me, at Juanna, and
every one you really love. Come and see me when you can, only come as
late as possible as I am out much; and we will have a talk about the
old place and old times.

"Ever yours, in haste, W. C.

"P.S.--I wish poor Juanna could have lived to know of your good
fortune."


"Do you think I should murder that man, Lord Penlyn?" Señor Guffanta
asked quietly. "That man who, when he heard of my good fortune, could
think of how happy it would have made my beloved sister--she who is
now in her grave."

"Whatever I may have thought must be ascribed to the intense desire I
and my friends have to find his murderer, and you must pardon the
suspicion that came to our minds in reading your letters. But, Señor
Guffanta, let us forget that and speak about finding him, since you
also are anxious to avenge Walter, and feel sure that you can do so."

"I am perfectly sure. And before long I shall stand face to face with
him. Then his doom is certain!"

Again Lord Penlyn noticed the self-constrained calm of the man, and
again he told himself that he spoke with such an air of certainty that
it was impossible to doubt him. For one moment the thought came to his
mind that this apparent calmness, this certainty of finding the
murderer, might be a rôle assumed by Guffanta to prevent suspicion
falling upon him. But on reflection that thought took flight. Had he
been the murderer he would never have revealed himself, would never
have allowed it to be known that he was _Corot_, the man against whom
circumstances had looked so black. And Cundall's letter was sufficient
to show that what the Señor had told him, about the friendship that
had existed between them, was true.

"You must know more than any of us, Señor Guffanta, as no doubt you
do--to inspire you with such confidence of finding him. Had he any
enemy in Honduras, who may now be in England, and have done this
deed?"

"To my knowledge, none. He was a man who made friends, not enemies."

"How then, do you hope to find the man who killed him?"

"I hope nothing, Lord Penlyn, for I am sure to find him. What will you
say when I tell you that I have seen his murderer's face?"

"You have seen his face? You know it!" the other exclaimed, springing
to his feet. "Oh, let me at once send for the detectives and the
lawyers, so that you may describe him to them, and let them endeavour
to find him. But," he said suddenly, "where have you seen him?"

There was an almost contemptuous smile upon the Señor Guffanta's face
as he said:

"Send for no one--at least, not yet. If by the detectives you mean
Dobson, the heavy man, he will not assist me, and of the lawyers I
know nothing; and at present I will not tell you when and where I have
seen this man. But, sir--but, Lord Penlyn, I know one thing. When that
man and I once more stand face to face, Walter Cundall, who shielded
me from his uncle's wrath, who was as a brother to my beloved Juanna,
will be avenged."

"What will you do?" Penlyn asked in an almost awestruck whisper. "You
will not take the law into your own hands and kill him?"

"No; it maybe not! But with these hands alone," and he held them out
extended to Penlyn as he spoke, "I will drag him to a prison which he
shall only leave for a scaffold. Drag him there, I say, unless my
blood gets the better of my reason, and I throttle him like a dog by
the way."

He, too, had risen in his excitement; and as he stood towering in his
height, which was great, above the other, and extended his long sinewy
hands in front of him, while his deep brown skin turned to an almost
darker hue, Penlyn felt that this man before him would be the avenger
of his brother's death. So terrible did he look, that the other
wondered how that murderer would feel when he should be in his grasp.

He stepped forward to Guffanta and held out his hand to him. "Sir," he
said, "I thank God that you and I have met. But can we do nothing to
assist you in your search? May I not tell the detectives what you
know?"

"You may tell them everything I have told you; it will not enable them
to be in my way. But what I have to do I must do by myself." He paused
a moment; then he said: "It may be that when you do tell them, they
will still think that I am the man----"

"No, no!"

"Yes, it may be so. Well, if they want to spy upon my actions, if they
want to know what I do and where I go, I am to be found at the Hôtel
Lepanto--that is when I am not here in this house, for I must ask
you--I have a reason--to let me come to you as I want."

Penlyn bowed, and said some words to the effect that he should always
be free of the house, and the other continued:

"My business here as agent for Don Rodriguez, a wealthy merchant of
Honduras, will not occupy me much at present, the rest of my time will
be devoted to the one purpose of finding that man."

"I pray that you may be successful."

"I shall be successful," the Spaniard answered quietly. "And now," he
said, "I will ask you to do one thing."

"Ask me anything and I will do it."

"You have a garden behind your house," Señor Guffanta said, "how is
admission obtained to it?"

Lord Penlyn stared at him wonderingly, not knowing what this question
might mean, and then he said:

"There is an entrance from the back of this house, and another from an
iron gate in the side street. But why do you ask? no one ever goes
into it. It is damp, and even the paths are partly overgrown with
weeds."

"There are keys to those entrances?"

"Yes."

"And in your possession?" and, as he spoke, his dark eyes were fixed
very intently on the young man.

"They are somewhere about the house, but they are never used."

"I wish them found. Then, when they are found, I must ask you to give
me your word of honour that no living creature, not even you yourself,
will enter that garden without my knowing it. Will you do this?"

"I will do it," Penlyn said. "But I wish you would tell me your
reason."

"I will tell you nothing more at present. But remember that I have a
task to perform and that I shall do it."

Then he left him, and walked away to the neighbourhood of Leicester
Square.

"What I have seen to-day," he said to himself, "would have baffled
many a man. But you, Miguel, are different from other men. You are not
baffled, you are only still more determined to do what you have to do.
But who is he?--who is he? _Caramba!_ he is not Lord Penlyn!"



CHAPTER XVI.


"The story about this Spaniard, Guffanta, is a strange one," Philip
Smerdon wrote from Occleve Chase to Lord Penlyn, who had informed him
of the visit he had received and the revelations made by the Señor,
"but I may as well tell you at once that I don't believe it, although
you say that the lawyers, as well as Stuart and Dobson, are inclined
to do so. My own opinion is that, though he may not have killed Mr.
Cundall, he is still telling you a lie--for some reason of his own, as
to the friendship that existed between them; and he probably thinks
that by pretending to be able to find the man, he will get some money
from you. With regard to his having been face to face with the
murderer, why, if so, does he not say on what occasion and when? To
know his face _as that of the murderer_, is to say, what in plainer
words would be, that he had either known he was about to commit
the act, or that he had witnessed it. It admits of no other
interpretation, and, consequently, what becomes of his avowed love for
Cundall, if he knew of the contemplated deed and did not prevent it,
or, having witnessed it, did not at once arrest or kill his aggressor?
You may depend upon it, my dear Gervase, that this man's talk is
nothing but empty braggadocio, with, as I said before, the probable
object of extracting money from you as he previously extracted it from
your brother.

"As to the locking up of the garden and allowing no one to enter it, I
am inclined to think that it is simply done with the object of making
a pretence of mysteriously knowing something that no one else knows.
And it is almost silly, for your garden would scarcely happen to be
selected by the murderer as a place to visit, and what object could he
have in so visiting it? However, as it is a place never used, I should
gratify him in this case, only I would go a little farther than he
wishes, and never allow it to be opened--not even when he desires it."

The letter went on to state that Smerdon was still very busy over the
summer accounts at Occleve Chase, and should remain there some time;
he might, however, he added, shortly run up to town for a night.

A feeling of disappointment came over Penlyn as he read this letter
from his friend. During the two or three days that had elapsed between
writing to Smerdon and receiving his answer, he had been buoyed up
with the hope that in Guffanta the man had been discovered who would
be the means of bringing the assassin to justice, and this hope had
been shared by all the other men interested in the same cause. But he
had come, in the course of his long friendship with Philip Smerdon, to
place such utter reliance upon his judgment, and to accept so
thoroughly his ideas, that the very fact of his doubting the Señor's
statement, and looking upon it as a mere vulgar attempt to extort
money from him, almost led him also to doubt whether, after all, he
had not too readily believed the Spaniard.

Yet, he reflected, his actions, as he stood before him foretelling the
certain doom of that assassin when once they should again be face to
face, and his calm certainty that such would undoubtedly happen, bore
upon them the impress of truth. And his story had earned the belief of
the others--that, surely, was in favour of it being true. Stuart had
seen him, had listened to what he had to say, and had formed the
opinion that he was neither lying nor acting. Dobson also, the man who
to the Señor's mind was ridiculous and incapable, had been told
everything, and he, too, had come to the conclusion that Guffanta's
story was an honest one, and that, of all other men, he who in some
mysterious manner, knew the murderer's face, would be the most likely
to eventually bring him to justice. Only, he thought that the Señor
should be made to divulge where and when he had so seen his face; that
would give him and his brethren a clue, he said, which might enable
them to assist him in tracking the man. And he was also very anxious
to know what the secret was that led to his desiring Lord Penlyn to
have the garden securely closed and locked. He could find in his own
mind no connecting link between the place of death in the Park and
Lord Penlyn's garden (although he remembered that, strangely enough,
his lordship was the dead man's brother), and he was desirous that the
Señor should confide in him. But the latter would tell him nothing
more than he had already made known, and Dobson, who had always in his
mind's eye the vision of the large rewards that would come to the man
who found the murderer, was forced to be content and to work, as he
termed it, "in the dark."

"You must wait, my good Dobson, you must wait," the Spaniard said,
"until I tell you that I want your assistance, though I do not think
it probable that I shall ever want it. You could not find out that I
was _Corot_, you know, although I had many times the pleasure of
lunching at the next table to you; I do not think that you will be
able any the better to find the man I seek. But when I find him,
Dobson, I promise you that you shall have the pleasure of arresting
him, so that the reward shall come to you. That is, if I do not have
to arrest him suddenly upon the moment, myself, so as to prevent him
escaping."

"And what are you doing now, _Signor?_" Dobson asked, giving him a
title more familiar to him in its pronunciation than the Spanish one,
"what are you doing to find him?"

"I am practising a virtue, my friend, that I have practised much in my
life. I am waiting."

"I don't see that waiting is much good, Signor. There is not much good
ever done by waiting."

"The greatest good in the world, Dobson, the very greatest. And you do
not see now, Dobson, because you do not know what I know. So you, too,
must be virtuous, and wait."

It was only with banter of a slightly concealed nature such as this
that Señor Guffanta would answer Dobson, but, light as his answers
were, he had still managed to impress the detective with the idea
that, sooner or later, he would achieve the task he had vowed to
perform. "But," as the man said to one of his brethren, "why don't he
get to work, why don't he do something? He won't find the man in that
Hôtel Lepanto where he sits smoking cigarettes half the day, nor yet
in Lord Penlyn's house where he goes every night."

"Perhaps he thinks his lordship did it, after all," the other
answered, "and is watching _him_."

"No," Dobson said, "he don't think that. But I can't make out who the
deuce he does suspect."

It was true enough that Guffanta did pass a considerable time in the
Hôtel Lepanto, smoking cigarettes, and always thinking deeply, whether
seated in the corridor or in his own room upstairs. But, although he
had not allowed himself to say one word to any of the other men on the
subject, and still spoke with certainty of ere long finding the
murderer, he was forced to acknowledge that, for the time, he was
baffled. And then, as he did acknowledge this, he would rise from his
chair and stretch out his long arms, and laugh grimly to himself. "But
only for a time, Miguel," he would say, "only for a time. He will come
to you at last, he will come to you as the bird comes to the net.
Wait, wait, wait! You may meet him to-day, to-night! _Por Dios_, you
will surely trap him at last!"

Meanwhile Lord Penlyn, when he was left alone, and when he could
distract his thoughts from the desire of his life, the finding of the
man who had slain Walter Cundall, was very unhappy. Those thoughts
would then turn to the girl he had loved deeply, to the girl whom he
had cast off because she had ventured to let the idea come into her
mind that it was he who might have done the deed. He had cast her off
in a moment when there had come into his heart a revulsion of feeling
towards her, a feeling of horror that she, of all others in the world,
could for one moment harbour such an idea against him. Yet, he
admitted to himself, there were grounds upon which even the most,
loving of women might be excused for having had such thoughts. He had
misled her at first, he had kept back the truth from her, he had given
her reasons for suspicion--even against him, her lover. And now they
were parted, he had renounced her, and yet he knew that he loved her
as fondly as ever; she was the one woman in the world to him. Would
they ever come together again? Was it possible, that if he, who had
told her that never more in this world would he speak to her of love,
should go back again and kneel at her feet and plead for pardon, it
would be granted to him? If he could think that; if he could think
that when once his brother was avenged he might so plead and be so
forgiven, then he could take courage and look forward hopefully to the
future. But at present they were strangers, they were as much parted
as though they had never met; and he was utterly unhappy.

When Guffanta had declared himself; it had been in his mind to write
and tell her all that he had newly learnt; but he could not bring
himself to write an ordinary letter to her. It might be that,
notwithstanding the deep interest she took in his unhappy brother's
fate, she would refuse to open any letter in his handwriting, and
would regard it almost as an insult. Yet he wanted to let her know
what had now transpired, and he at last decided what to do. He asked
Stuart to direct an envelope for him to her, and he put a slip of
paper inside it, on which he wrote:


"_Corot_ has disclosed himself, and he, undoubtedly, is not the
murderer. He, however, has some strange knowledge of the actual man in
his possession which he will not reveal, but says that he is certain,
at last, to bring him to justice."


That was all, and he put no initials to it, but he thought that the
knowledge might be welcome to her.

He had not expected any answer to this letter, or note, and from Ida
none came, but a day or two after he had sent it, he received a visit
from Sir Paul Raughton. The baronet had come up to town especially to
see him, and having learnt from the footman that Lord Penlyn was at
home, he bade the man show him to his master, and followed him at
once. As Penlyn rose to greet him, he noticed that Sir Paul's usually
good-humoured face bore a very serious expression, and he knew at once
that the interview they were about to have would be an important one.

"I have come up to London expressly to see you, Lord Penlyn," Sir Paul
said, shaking hands with him coldly, "because I wish to have a
thorough explanation of the manner in which you see fit to conduct
yourself towards my daughter. No," he said, putting up his hand, as he
saw that Penlyn was about to interrupt him, "hear me for one moment. I
may as well tell you at once that Ida, that my daughter, has told me
everything that you have confided to her with regard to your
relationship to Mr. Cundall--which, I think, it was your duty also to
have told me--and she has also told me the particulars of your last
interview with her."

"I parted with her in anger," the other answered, "because there
seemed to have come into her mind some idea that I--that I might have
slain my brother."

"And for that, for a momentary suspicion on her part, a suspicion that
would scarcely have entered her head had her mind not been in the
state it is, you have seen fit to cast her off, and to cancel your
engagement!"

"It was she, Sir Paul, who bade me speak no more of love to her,"
Penlyn said, "she who told me that, until I had found the murderer of
my brother, I was to be no more to her."

"And she did well to tell you so," Sir Paul said; "for to whom but to
you, his brother and his heir, should the task fall of avenging his
cruel murder?"

"That, I told her, I had sworn to do, and yet she suspected me. And,
Sir Paul, God knows I did not mean the words of anger that I spoke; I
have bitterly repented of them ever since. If Ida will let me recall
them, if she will give me again her love--if you think there is any
hope of that--I will go back and sue to her for it on my knees."

The baronet looked thoughtfully at him for a moment, and then he said.
"Do you know that she is very ill?"

"Ill! Why have I not been told of it?"

"Why should you have been told? It was your words to her, and her
excitement over your brother's murder, that has brought her illness
about."

"Let me go and see her?"

"You cannot see her. She is in bed and delirious from brain fever; and
on her lips there are but two names which she repeats incessantly,
your own and your brother's."

The young man leant forward on the table and buried his head in his
hands, as he said: "Poor Ida! poor Ida! Why should this trouble also
come to you? And why need I have added to your unhappiness by my
cruelty?" Then he looked up and said to Sir Paul: "When will she be
well enough for me to go to her and plead for pardon? Will it be soon,
do you think?"

"I do not know," the other answered sadly. "But if, when the delirium
has left her, I can tell her that you love her still and regret your
words, it may go far towards her recovery."

"Tell her that," Penlyn said, "and that my love is as deep and true as
ever, and that, at the first moment she is in a fit condition to hear
it, I will, myself, come and tell her so with my own lips. And also
tell her that, never again, will I by word or deed cause her one
moment's pain."

"I am glad to hear you speak like this," Sir Paul said, "glad to find
that I had not allowed my darling to give herself to a man who would
cast her off because she, for one moment, harboured an unworthy
suspicion of him."

"This unhappy misunderstanding has been the one blot upon our love,"
Penlyn said; "if I can help it, there shall never be another."

As he spoke these words, Sir Paul put his hand kindly on his shoulder,
and Penlyn knew that, in him, he had one who would faithfully carry
his message of love to the woman who was the hope of his life.

"And now," Sir Paul said, "I want you to give me full particulars of
everything that has occurred since that miserable night. I want to
know everything fully, and from your lips. What Ida has been able to
tell me has been sadly incoherent."

Then, once more--as he had had now so often to go over the sad
history to others, with but little fresh information added to each
recital--Lord Penlyn told Sir Paul everything that he knew, and of the
strange manner in which the Señor Guffanta had come into the matter,
as well as his apparent certainty of eventually finding the murderer.

"You do not think it is a bold ruse to throw off suspicion from
himself?" Sir Paul asked. "A daring man, such as he seems to be, might
adopt such a plan."

"No," the other answered, "I do not. There is something about the man,
stranger as he is, that not only makes me feel certain that he is
perfectly truthful in what he says, and that he really does possess
some strange knowledge of the assassin that will enable him to find
that man at last, but also makes the others feel equally certain."

"They all believe in him, you say?" Sir Paul asked thoughtfully.

"All! That is, all but Philip Smerdon, who is the only one who has not
seen him. And I am sure that, if he too saw him and heard him, he
would believe."

"Philip Smerdon is a thorough man of the world," Sir Paul said, "I
should be inclined to give weight to his judgment."

"I am sure that he is wrong in this case, and that when he sees
Guffanta, he will acknowledge himself to be so. No one who has seen
him can doubt his earnestness."

"What can be the mystery concerning your garden? A mystery that is a
double one, because it brings your house, of all houses in London,
into connection with the murder of the very man who, at the moment,
was the actual owner of it? That is inexplicable!"

"It is," Penlyn said, "inexplicable to every one. But the Señor tells
us that when we know what he knows, and when he has brought the
murderer to bay, we shall see that it is no mystery at all."



CHAPTER XVII.


Although the Señor Guffanta had not, as yet, in answer to many
questions put to him, been able to say positively that he was on the
immediate track of the murderer of Walter Cundall, he still continued
to inspire confidence in those by whom he was surrounded; and it had
now come to be quite accepted amongst all whom he met at Occleve House
that, although he was working darkly and mysteriously, he was in some
way nearing the object he had in view. It may have been his intense
self-confidence, the outward appearance of which he never allowed to
fail, that impressed them thus, or the stern look with which he
accompanied any words he ever uttered in connection with the assassin;
or it may have been the manner he had of making inquiries of all
descriptions of every one who had known anything of the dead man, that
led them to believe in him; but that they did believe in him there was
no doubt.

In the time he had at his disposal, after transacting any affairs he
might have to manage for the merchant who had appointed him his agent
in London, he was continually passing from one spot to another,
sometimes spending hours at Mr. Cundall's house in Grosvenor Place,
and sometimes a long period of time each day at Occleve House; but to
no one did he ever say one word indicative of either success or
failure. And, when he was alone in either of these places, his
proceedings were of a nature that, had they been witnessed by any one,
would have caused them to wonder what it was that he was seeking for.
He would study attentively every picture that was a portrait, whether
painting or engraving, and for photograph albums, of which there were
a number in both houses, he seemed to have an untiring curiosity. He
would look them over and over again, pausing occasionally a long time
over some man's face that struck him, and then would turn the leaf and
go on to another; and then, when he had, for the second or third time
exhausted one album, he would take up another, and again go through
that.

To Dobson, who was by the outside world regarded as the man who had
the whole charge of the case, the Señor's actions, and his absolute
refusal to confide in him, were almost maddening. To any question that
he asked, he received nothing but the regular answer, "Patience, my
good Dobson, patience," and with that he was obliged to be content.
For himself, he had done nothing; he was no nearer having any idea now
as to who the murderer was than he had been the morning after the deed
had been committed, and as day after day went by, he began to doubt
whether Guffanta was any nearer finding the man who was wanted than he
was.

"But if he doesn't do something pretty quick," he said to one of the
men who was supposed to be employed under him in investigating the
case, "I shall put a spoke in his wheel."

"Why, what will you do, Mr. Dobson?" his underling asked.

"I shall just go up to the Home Office, and when they ask me, as they
do regular, if I have got anything to report in connection with the
Cundall case, I shall tell them that the Señor professes to know a
good deal that he won't divulge, and ask them to have him up before
them, and make him tell what he do know."

"And suppose he won't tell, Mr. Dobson? What then?"

"Why, he'll be made to tell, that's all! It isn't right, and it isn't
fair that, if he knows anything and can't find the man himself, he
should be allowed to keep it a secret and prevent me from earning the
reward. I'll bet I'd soon find the man if I had his information--that
is, if he's really got any."

"Don't it strike you, Mr. Dobson," the other asked, "that there is
some mystery in connection with Occleve House that he knows of? What
with his having the garden locked up, and his always being about
there!"

"It did once, but I have thought it over, and I can't see how the
house can be connected with it. You see, on that night it so happened
there was no one in the house but the footmen and the women servants.
His lordship and the valet had gone off to stay at the hotel, and Mr.
Smerdon had gone down in the morning to the country seat, so what
could the murderer have had to do with that particular house? And it
ain't the house the Señor seems to think so much about--it's the
garden."

"I can't make that garden business out at all," the other said; "what
on earth has the garden got to do with it?"

"That's just what he won't say. But you mark my words, I ain't going
to stand it much longer, and he'll have to say. If he don't tell
pretty soon what he knows, I shall get the Home Office to make him."

Meanwhile the Señor, who had bewildered Lord Penlyn and Mr. Stuart by
the connection which he seemed to feel certain existed between the
garden of Occleve House and the murder in the Park, excited their
curiosity still more when he suddenly announced one evening that he
was going down, with his lordship's permission, to pay a visit to
Occleve Chase.

"Certainly," Penlyn replied, "you have my full permission; I shall be
glad if you will always avail yourself of anything that is mine. But,
Señor Guffanta, you connect my houses strangely with this search you
are making--first it was this one, and now it is Occleve Chase----; do
you not think you should confide a little more in me?"

"I cannot confide in you yet, Lord Penlyn. And, frankly, I do not know
that I have much to confide. Nor am I connecting Occleve Chase with
the murder. But I have a wish to see that house. I am fond of old
houses, and it was Walter's property once though he never possessed
it. I might draw inspiration from a visit to it."

For the first time since he had known the Señor, Lord Penlyn doubted
if he was speaking frankly to him. It was useless for Guffanta to
pretend that he was not now connecting Occleve Chase in his own mind
with the murder, as he had certainly connected the old disused garden
previously--but whom did he suspect? For one moment the idea flashed
through his mind that perhaps, after all, he still suspected him; but
another instant's thought served to banish that idea. Whatever this
dark, mysterious man might be working out in his own brain, at least
it could not be that. Had he not said that, by some strange chance, he
had once stood face to face with the assassin? Having done so, there
could be no thought in his mind that he, Penlyn, was that assassin.
But, if it was not him whom he suspected, who was it?

"Well," he said, "you must take your own way, Señor Guffanta, and I
can only hope it may land you aright. Only, if you would confide more
in me, I should be glad."

"I tell you that at present I cannot do so. Later on, perhaps, you
will understand my reason for silence. Meanwhile, be sure that before
long this man will be in my power."

Then the Señor asked for some directions as to the manner of reaching
Occleve Chase, and Lord Penlyn told him the way to travel there.

"And I will give you a letter to my friend, Philip Smerdon, who is
down there just now," he said, "and he will make your stay
comfortable. He, of course, has also a great interest in the affair we
all have so much at heart, and you will be able to talk it over with
him; though, I must tell you, that he has very little hopes of your
ultimate success."

"Ah! he has no hopes. Well, we shall see! I myself have the greatest
of hopes. And this Mr. Smerdon, this friend of yours, I have never yet
seen him. I shall be glad to know him."

So when the letter of introduction was written, the Señor departed,
and on the next day he started for Occleve Chase.

He travelled down from London comfortably ensconced in a first-class
smoking compartment, from which he did not move until the train
deposited him at the nearest station to Occleve Chase. The few
fellow-passengers who got in and out on the way, looked curiously at
the dark, sunburnt man, who sat back in the corner, twisting up
strange-looking little cigarettes, and gazing up at the roof or at the
country they were passing through; but of none of them did the Señor
take any notice, beyond giving one swift glance at each as they
entered. It had become a habit of this man's life now to give such a
glance at every one with whom he came into contact. Perhaps he thought
that if he missed one face, he might miss that of the man for whom he
was seeking.

At the station nearest to the "Chase" he alighted, and taking his
small bag in his hand, walked over to the public-house opposite, and
asked if a cab could be provided to take him the remainder of his
journey, which he knew to be about four miles.

"I beg your pardon, sir," a neat-looking groom said, rising from a
table at which he had been sitting drinking some beer, and touching
his hat respectfully, "but might I ask if you're going over there on
any business?"

"Who are you?" Señor Guffanta asked, looking at him.

"Beg pardon, sir, but I'm one of Lord Penlyn's grooms, and I thought
if you were going over on any business you might like me to drive you
over. I have the dog-cart here."

"I am a friend of Lord Penlyn's," the Señor answered, "and I am going
to stay at Occleve Chase for a day or so. I have brought a letter of
introduction to Mr. Smerdon."

"That's a pity, sir," the man said, "because Mr. Smerdon has gone up
to London by the fast train. I have just driven him over from the
Chase."

"He is gone to London?" the Señor said quietly. "And when will he be
back, do you think?"

"He did not say, sir."

"Very well. If you will drive me there now, I shall be obliged to
you."

The groom put the horse to, and fetched the dog-cart round from the
stable, wondering as he did so who the quiet, dark gentleman was who
was going to stay all alone at the "Chase" for a day or so; and then
having put the Señor's bag in, he asked him to get up, and they
started for Occleve Chase.

On the road Señor Guffanta made scarcely any remark, speaking only
once of the prettiness of the country they were passing through, and
once of the action of the horse, which seemed to excite his
admiration; and then he was silent till they reached the house, a fine
old Queen Anne mansion in excellent preservation. He introduced
himself to the housekeeper who came forward in the hall, and said:

"I have a letter of introduction to Mr. Smerdon; I had hoped to find
him here. Perhaps it would be well if I gave it to you instead."

"As you please, sir, but it is not necessary. Lord Penlyn's friends
often come here, when they are in this part of the country, to see the
house. It is considered worth going over. If you please, sir, I will
send a servant up with your bag."

"I thank you," the Señor said, with his usual grave courtesy, "but I
shall not trouble you much. I dare say by to-morrow I shall have seen
all I want to."

"As you please, sir."

He followed the neat-looking housemaid to the room he was to occupy,
after having told the housekeeper that the simplest meal in the
evening would be sufficient for him, and then, when he had made some
slight toilette, he descended to the lower rooms of the house. The old
servant again came forward and volunteered her services to show him
the curiosities and antiquities of the place; but Señor Guffanta
politely told her that he would not trouble her.

"I am fond of looking at pictures," he said, "I will inspect those if
you please. But I am acquainted with the styles of different masters,
so I do not require a guide. If you will tell me where the pictures
are in this house, I shall be obliged to you."

"They are everywhere, sir," she answered. "In the picture-gallery, the
dining-room, hall, and library."

"I will go through the library first, if you please. Which is that?"

The servant led the way to a large, lofty room, with windows looking
out upon a well-kept lawn, and told him that this was the room.

"These pictures will not take you long, sir," she said, "it's mostly
books that are here. And Mr. Smerdon generally spends most of his time
here at his accounts; sometimes he passes whole days at that desk."

She seemed inclined to be garrulous, and Señor Guffanta, who wished to
be alone, took, at random, a book from one of the shelves, and
throwing himself into a chair, began to read it. Then, saying that she
would leave him--perhaps taking what he intended as a hint--she
withdrew.

When he was left alone he took no notice of the pictures on the walls
(they were all paintings of long-past days), but, rising, went over to
the desk where she had said that Mr. Smerdon spent hours. There were a
few papers lying about on it which he turned over, and he pulled at
the drawers to see if they would open, but they were all locked fast.

"This room is no good to me," he said to himself, "I must try others."

Gradually, as the day wore on, the Señor went from apartment to
apartment in the house, inspecting each one carefully. In the
drawing-room he spent a great deal of time, for here he had found
what, both at Occleve House and at Mr. Cundall's house in Grosvenor
Place, had interested him more than anything else--some photograph
albums. These he turned over very carefully, as he had done with the
others in London, and then he closed them and went to another room.

"Did he ever know," he muttered once, "that the day would come when I
should be looking eagerly for his portrait--did he know that, and did
some instinct prompt him never to have a record made of his craven
face? And yet, he shall not escape me! Yet, I will find him!"

Later in the evening, when he had eaten sparingly of the dinner that
had been prepared for him, and had drunk still more sparingly of the
choice wine set before him, confining himself almost entirely to
water, he sent for the housekeeper and said:

"I think I have seen everything of importance here in the way of art,
and Lord Penlyn is to be congratulated on his treasures. Some of the
pictures are very valuable."

"They are thought to be so, sir," the woman answered. In her own mind,
and after a conversation with another of the head servants, she had
put Señor Guffanta down as some foreign picture-dealer, or
_connoisseur_, who had received permission from her master to inspect
the collection at the "Chase," and, consequently, she considered him
entitled to give an opinion, especially as that opinion was a
favourable one. "They are thought to be so, sir."

"Yes; no doubt. But I have seen them all now, and I will leave
to-morrow."

"Very well, sir."

"So, if you please, I will have that young man to drive me to the
station. I will go by the train that he told me Mr. Smerdon travelled
by."

That night, as Señor Guffanta paced up and down the avenue leading to
the house and smoked his cigarettes, or as he tossed upon his bed, he
confessed that he was no nearer to his task.

"Everything fails me," he said; "and yet, a week ago, I would have
sworn by San Pedro that I should have caught him by now. There is only
one chance--one hope left. If that fails me too, then I must lose all
courage. Will it fail me?--will it fail?"

"It is strange, too," he said once to himself in the night, when,
having been unable to sleep, he had risen and thrown his window open
and was gazing from it, "that I cannot meet this man Smerdon, this man
who believes that I shall fail--as, _por Dios!_ I almost now myself
believe! Strange, also, that he should have left on the very day I
came here. I should like to see him. It may be that I shall do so in
London to-morrow."

He left Occleve Chase at the time fixed, and by his liberality to the
housekeeper and the other servants who had waited on him he entirely
dispelled from their minds the idea that he was a picture-dealer.

"I suppose he is one of those foreign swells, after all," the footman
who had served him said to the housekeeper, as he pocketed the
_douceur_ the Señor had given him; "there is plenty of 'em in London
Society now."

He reached the London terminus late in the afternoon, and bade the
cabman he hired drive him to the Hôtel Lepanto; but, before half the
journey to that house was accomplished, the driver found himself
suddenly called on by his fare to stop, and to turn round and follow
another cab going in the opposite direction.

A hansom cab which had passed swiftly the one Señor Guffanta was in, a
cab in which was seated a young man with a brown moustache, and on the
roof of which was a portmanteau and a bundle of rugs.

"Quick!" the Señor said, speaking for the first time almost incoherent
English; "follow that cab with the valise on the top. Quick, I say! I
will pay you anything!"

"How can I be quick!" the man said with an oath, "when I can hardly
turn my cab round? Which is the one you mean?"

"The one with the valise, I say, that passed just now. I will give you
everything I have in my pockets if you catch it."

But it was no use. Before the cab could be turned and put in pursuit,
the other one had disappeared round a corner into a short street, from
which, ere Señor Guffanta's cab had reached it, it had again
disappeared.

"Blood of my father!" the Señor said to himself in Spanish, "am I
never to seize him?" Then he once more altered his directions to the
cabman, and bade him drive to Occleve House.

He walked into the room in which he heard that Lord Penlyn and Mr.
Stuart were seated, and the excitement visible upon his face told them
that something had happened.

"I have seen him," he said, going through no formality of greeting; he
was far too disturbed for that. "I have seen him once again, and once
again I have lost him."

"Where have you seen him?" Stuart asked.

"Not at Occleve Chase, surely!" Penlyn exclaimed.

"No--here, in London! Not half-an-hour ago, in a cab. And I have
missed him! He went too swiftly, and I lost sight of him."

"What will you do?" they both exclaimed.

"At present I do not know. I feel as though I shall go mad!" Then a
moment after he said: "Give me the keys of the garden; at once, give
them to me."

Penlyn took them from a drawer and gave them to Señor Guffanta, and
he, bidding the others remain where they were, opened the door leading
into the garden from the back of the house, and went out into it.

It was but a few minutes before he returned, but when he did so the
bronze had left his face and he was deathly pale.

"Lord Penlyn," he said, biting his lips as he spoke, and clenching his
hands until the nails penetrated the palms, "to whom have you given
those keys during my absence?"

"To no one," Penlyn answered. "I promised you I would not let any one
have them."

"You have given them to no one?" Guffanta said, while his eyes shone
fiercely as he looked at the other. "To no one! To no one! Then will
you tell me how the murderer of Walter Cundall has been in that garden
within the last few hours?"



CHAPTER XVIII.


That night Guffanta stood in the library of what had once been Walter
Cundall's house in Grosvenor Place, in the room in which the murdered
man had spent hours of agony after he had learned that Ida Raughton's
love was given to another; and to Mr. Stuart he told all that he knew.
To Lord Penlyn's request, nay to his command, that he should tell him
all, he paid no attention; indeed, he vouchsafed no words to him
beyond those of suspicion and accusation.

"I know so much," he said, speaking in the calm, cold voice which had
only once failed him--the time when he had discovered that the
assassin had in some way obtained entrance to the deserted garden
during his absence, "as to be able to say that you are not your
brother's murderer. But, unless there is something very strange that
as yet I do not know, that murderer is known to you, and you are
shielding him from me."

"It is false!" Lord Penlyn said, advancing to him and standing boldly
and defiantly before him. "As God hears me, I swear that it is false.
And you _shall_ tell me what you know, you shall justify your vile
suspicions of me."

"Yes," the Señor replied, "I shall justify them, but not _to_ you.
Meanwhile, have a care that I do not prove you to be an accomplice in
this murder. Have a care, I say!"

"I defy you and your accusations. And the law shall make you speak out
plainly."

"I am about to speak out plainly, this very night. But I am not going
to speak plainly to the man whose house affords a refuge to his
brother's murderer."

Lord Penlyn sprang at him, as he heard these words fall from his lips,
as he had once sprung at his own brother in the Park when that brother
told him he was bearing a name not rightly his; and once more he felt
himself in a grasp of iron, and powerless.

"Be careful!" Señor Guffanta said, as he hurled him back, "be careful,
or I shall do you an injury."

Stuart had endeavoured to come between them, but before he could do so
the short struggle was over, and then the Spaniard turned to him and
said, "I must speak with you alone. Come with me," and, turning, left
the room.

Before Stuart followed him he spoke to Penlyn, and said: "Do not take
this too seriously to heart. This man is evidently under some
delusion, if not as to the actual murderer, at least as to your
connection with the crime. Perhaps, when he has told me what he knows,
we shall find out where the error lies; and then he will ask your
pardon for his suspicions."

"It is too awful!" Penlyn said, "too awful to be borne. And I can do
nothing. I wish I could have killed him as he stood there falsely
accusing me, but he is a giant in strength."

"Let me go to him now," Stuart said; "and do not think of his words.
Remember, he, too, is excited at having seen the man again and missed
him. And if he does not absolutely bind me to silence I will tell you
all." Then he, also, went away. And that night, in Walter Cundall's
library, Señor Guffanta told his story. Told it calmly and
dispassionately, but with a fulness of detail that struck a chill to
Stuart's heart.

"I had been but a few days in London," he said, "when I learnt by
Walter's own hand--in the letter you have seen--that he was also here,
and that I was to go and see him. I was eager to do so, and on the
very night he was murdered, on that fatal Monday night, I set out to
visit him. He had told me to come late, and knowing that he was a man
much in the world, and also that, from living in Honduras, where the
nights alone are cool, one rarely learns to go to bed early, I did go
late; so late that the clocks were striking midnight as I reached his
house. But, when I stood outside it, there was no light of any kind to
be seen, only a faint glimmer from a lamp in the hall. 'He has gone to
his bed,' I said to myself, 'and the house is closed for the night.
Well, it is indeed late, I will come again.' And so I turned away,
and, knowing that there was a road through your Park, though I had not
gone by it, I determined to return that way."

"Through the Park--where he was murdered?" Stuart asked.

"Yes, by that way. But before I reached the gates, and when I was
outside the Palace of your Queen, Buckingham Palace, the storm that
had been threatening broke over me. _Caramba!_ it was a storm to drown
a man, a storm such as we see sometimes in the tropics, but which I
had never thought to see here. It descended in vast sheets of water,
it was impossible to stir without being instantaneously drenched to
the skin, and so I sought shelter in a porch close at hand. There,
seeing no one pass me but some poor half-drowned creature who looked
as though the rain could make his misery no greater than it was, I
waited and waited--I had no protection, no umbrella--and heard the
quarters and half-hours, and the hours tolled by the clock. At last,
as it was striking two, the storm almost ceased, and, leaving my
shelter, I crossed the road and entered the Park."

"Yes!" Stuart said in a whisper.

"Yes, I entered the Park, and went on round the bend, and so, under
the dripping trees, through what I have since learnt, is called the
'Mall.'"

"For God's sake, go on!" Stuart exclaimed.

"I had passed some short distance on my road meeting no living
creature, when but a little distance ahead of me I saw two figures
struggling, the figures of two men. Then I saw one fall, and the
other--not seeing me, there were trees between us--passed swiftly by.
But I saw him and his face, the face of a young man dressed as a
peasant, or, as you say here, a workman; a young man with a brown
moustache."

For a moment Señor Guffanta paused, and then he continued:

"I ran to the fallen man, and--it was Walter--dead! Stabbed to the
heart! I called him by his name, I kissed him, and felt his breast;
but he was dead! And then, in a moment, it came to my mind that it was
not with him I had to do; it was with the murderer. I sprang to my
feet, I left him there--there, dead in the mud and the water with
which his blood now mingled--and, as quickly as I could go, I retraced
my steps after that murderer. And God is good! I had wasted but two or
three moments with my poor dead friend, and ere I again reached the
gates of the Park I saw before me the figure of the man who had passed
me under the trees. He was still walking swiftly, and once or twice he
looked round, as though fearing he was followed. But I, who have
tracked savage beasts to their lairs, and Indians to their haunts,
knew how to track him. Keeping well behind him and at a fair distance,
sometimes screening myself behind the pillar on a doorstep, and
sometimes crossing the road, sometimes even letting myself fall back
still farther, I followed him. At one time, when I first brought him
into my sight again, it had been in my thoughts to spring upon him,
and there at once to kill him or take him prisoner. And then I thought
it best not to do so. We had moved far from the scene; who was to
prove, how was I to prove that it was he who had done this deed, and
not I? And there was blood upon my clothes and hands--it was plainly
visible! I could see it myself! blood that had flown from Walter's
dead heart on to me as I took him in my arms upon the ground. No, I
said, I must follow him, I must know where he lives, then I will take
fresh counsel with myself as to what I shall do. So I went on, still
following him. And by this time the dawn was breaking! He went on and
on, walking, perhaps, for half-an-hour or so, though it seemed far
more to me; but at last he stopped, and I had now some difficulty in
preventing him from seeing me. He had stopped at a gate in a wall, and
with a key had quickly opened it."

"The gate of the garden of Occleve House!" Stuart exclaimed, quivering
with excitement.

"Yes," the Señor answered, "the gate of the garden of Occleve House."

"My God!" the other said.

"Yes, it was that gate. And now I had to be careful. I was determined
to see where he had gone to through that gate, what he was doing in
that garden; but how to do it? If I looked through the railings he
would see me, he would know he was discovered--he might even then be
able to escape me! If I had had my pistol with me, I would have stood
by the gate and looked at him through it, and then, if necessary,
would have shot him dead. But I had it not; I had thought of no need
for it when I left the hotel that night. I did not know what was
before me when I went out. But I knew I must do something at once, and
so, seeing that the street was empty and no creature stirring, I
advanced near to the gate, stretched myself flat upon the _pavé_, and
with my head upon the ground looked under the lowest part of the
railings and saw----"

"What?" Stuart asked, interrupting him again in his excitement.

"A changed man, one different from him I had followed. Still a young
man with a brown moustache, but a young man whose habit was that of a
gentleman. He was dressed now in a dark, well-made suit, and with his
hands he was rolling up the peasant dress I had seen him wear. Then he
stooped over what seemed to be a hole, or declivity, near the wall and
dropped the suit into it, and arranged the weeds and long grass above
it, and then slowly he went to the house, and, taking again a key from
his pocket, entered the door."

"What man could thus have had the entrance to the back of the house?"
Stuart asked. "I am bewildered with horrible thoughts!"

"I also was bewildered, but I am now no longer so. I knew the man's
face; now--to-day--I know for certain who he was. Within the last few
days it flashed upon me, yet I doubted; but my doubts are satisfied. I
only learned of his existence ten days ago, or I should have suspected
him before."

"Who was it?" Stuart said. "Tell me at once."

"Wait yet a moment, and listen to me. As I saw that man enter the
house, a house that I, a stranger, could see was the mansion of some
person of importance, it came to me, to my mind, that this was the
owner, the master of that house, who had killed my friend. His reason
for doing so I could not guess--it might have been for the love of a
woman, or for hate, or about money--but that it was so I was
confident. And I said to myself, 'So! you cannot escape me! I know
your house, to-morrow I shall know your name, and, if in two or three
days the police have not got you in their power--I will wait that
while, for it is better they should take you than I--then I will kill
you.' And I went away thinking thus; there was no need to watch more.
I held him, for he could not escape I thought, in my hand."

"But it was not the owner of the house," Stuart said, "it was not Lord
Penlyn who killed him. He was away at an hotel at the time."

"Yes, he was--though still it would be possible for him then to have
entered his own house--but his was not the face of the man I had seen.
I learnt that, to my amazement, when for the first time I stood before
him. But, listen again! In the morning, at a restaurant, I found in a
Directory, of which I had learnt the use, that that house was Occleve
House, and that Lord Penlyn was the owner of it. And then my surprise
was great, for only an hour or so before I had found that Occleve was
the right name of Walter Cundall."

"You had learnt that?"

"When I lifted Walter in my arms in the Park, I felt against his
breast a book half out of his pocket. The murderer had missed that! I
took that book, for even in my haste and grief, I thought that in it
might be something that would give me a clue. But what were really in
it of importance were a certificate of his mother's marriage, another
of his own birth, and a letter, years old, from her to him. They told
me all, and, moreover they proved to me, as I then thought, that his
murderer lived in the very house and bore the very name that by right
seemed to be his.

"They were the certificates he showed to them on the morning he
disclosed himself," Stuart said, "and he had not removed them from his
pocket-book when he was killed!"

"Yes! that he showed to _them_; you have said it! It was to _two_ of
them that he showed those papers. And one was the friend of the other,
he lived with and upon him, he dares not meet me face to face, he
evades me! he, he is the murderer. He, Philip Smerdon!"

Stuart sprung to his feet.

"Philip Smerdon!" he exclaimed. "No, no! it cannot be!"

"It is, I say! It is he. Of all others, who but he could have done
this deed? Who but he who crept back to Occleve House having in his
pocket the keys whereby to enter it, who but he who shuns me because
it has been told him that I knew the assassin's face! And on the very
night that he is back in London, sleeping in that house, are not the
clothes that might have led to his identification removed?"

Stuart paused a moment, deep in thought, and then he said: "It cannot
be! On the day before the murder, in the morning, he left London for
Occleve Chase. He must have been there when it was committed."

"Bah!" Guffanta said, with a shrug of his shoulders, "he did not leave
London, he only made a pretence of doing so. All that day he, in his
disguise, must have been engaged in tracking my poor friend, and at
night he killed him." Then he paused a moment, and when he next spoke
he asked a question.

"Where was he going when he left Occleve House this afternoon in the
cab, and with his luggage?"

"He was going to join his father, he said," Stuart answered. "His
father is ill and has been ordered abroad for his health, and, having
recovered some money from his ruined business, he is going on the
Continent, and Smerdon is going with him."

"And to what part of the Continent are they going?"

"I do not know, though he said something about the French coast, and
afterwards, the Tyrol. Why do you ask?

"Why do I ask? Why? Because I must go also! I have to stand face to
face with him, and be able to convince myself that either I have made
some strange mistake, or that I am right."

"And--if you are right?"

"Then I have to take him to the nearest prison, or, if he resists, to
kill him."

"You will do that?"

"I will do anything necessary to prevent him ever escaping me again."

They talked on into the night, and Señor Guffanta extracted from the
other a promise that he would lend him any assistance in his power,
and that, above all, he would say nothing to Lord Penlyn that, by
being retold to Smerdon, should, if he were actually the murderer,
help him to still longer escape.

"I promise you," Stuart said, "and the more willingly because I myself
would give him up to justice if I were sure he is the man. But that,
of course, I cannot be; it is you alone who can identify this cruel
murderer. But, in one thing I _am_ sure you are wrong."

"In what thing?"

"In thinking that Lord Penlyn is in the slightest way an accomplice,
or suspects Smerdon at all. If he did so suspect him, I believe that
he would himself cause him to be arrested, even though they are such
friends."

"What motive would Smerdon have to kill Walter except to remove him
from the other's path? Do you think he would have done it without
consulting Lord Penlyn?"

"I am certain that if he did do it, as you think----"

"As I am as convinced as that we are sitting here!"

"Well, then I am certain that Lord Penlyn knows nothing of it. He is
hasty and impetuous, but he is the soul of honour."

"Perhaps," Guffanta said; "it may be so. But it is not with him that I
have to deal. It is with the man who struck the blow. And it is him I
go to seek."

"How will you find him?"

"Through you. You will find out for me where he is gone with his
father--if this is not a lie invented to aid his further escape--and
you will let me know everything. Is it not so?"

"Yes," Stuart said; "I myself swore that I would find the murderer if
I could; but, as I cannot do that, I will endeavour to help you to do
so. How shall I communicate with you?"

"Write, or come to the 'Hôtel Lepanto.' And when you once tell me
where that man is, there I shall soon be afterwards. Even though he
should go to the end of the world, I will follow him."

Then Señor Guffanta went back to his hotel, and told Diaz Zarates that
he should soon be leaving his house.

"I have to make a little tour upon the Continent, and I may go at any
moment."

"On a tour of pleasure, Señor?" the landlord asked.

"No! on a voyage of importance!"

And three days afterwards he went. A letter had come to him from
Stuart saying:

"_S_. has really gone with his father. He has left London for Paris on
the way to Switzerland. They are to pass the summer at some mountain
resort, but the place is not yet decided on. At first they will be at
Berne. If you meet, for God's sake be careful, and make no mistake."

"Yes!" Señor Guffanta muttered to himself as he packed his
portmanteau, and prepared to catch the night mail to Paris. "Yes, I
will be careful, very careful! And I will make no mistake!"



CHAPTER XIX.


The summer began to wane, and as August drew to a close the world of
London at large forgot the murder of Walter Cundall.

It forgot it because it had so many other things to think about,
because it had its garden parties and fêtes, and Henley and Goodwood;
and because, after that, the exodus set in, and the Continent,
Scotland, and Cowes, as well as all the other seaside resorts, claimed
its attention. It is true one incident had come to light which had
given a fillip to the dying curiosity of the world and society, but
even that had scarcely tended to rouse fresh interest in the crime.
This incident was the discovery that Lord Penlyn was the heir to all
of the dead man's vast wealth. The news had come out gradually through
different channels, and it had set people talking; but even then--at
this advanced state of the London season--it had scarcely aroused more
than a passing flutter of excitement. And society explained even this
fact to its own satisfaction--perhaps because it had, by now, found so
many other things of more immediate, and of fresher, interest. Cundall
had been, it said, a man of superbly generous impulses, one who seemed
to delight in doing acts of munificence that other men would never
dream of; what more natural a thing for him to do than to leave his
great wealth to the very man who had won the woman he had sought for
his wife? Was it not at once a splendid piece of magnanimity, a
glorious example of how one might heap coals of fire on those who
thwarted us--was it not a truly noble way of retaliating upon the
woman he loved, but who had no love for him? She would, through his
bequest to her husband that was to be, become enormously rich, but she
could never enjoy the vastness of those riches without remembering
whence they came; every incident in her life would serve to remind her
of him.

So, instead of seeing any cause for suspicion in the will of Walter
Cundall, the world only saw in it a magnificently generous action, a
splendidly noble retaliation. For it never took the trouble to learn
the date of the will, but supposed that it had been made on the day
after he had discovered that Ida Raughton had promised herself to
another.

To those more directly interested in the murder and in the discovery
of the assassin, the passing summer seemed to bring but little promise
of success. Lord Penlyn knew that Señor Guffanta had left London, but
beyond that he did not know what had become of him, nor whether it was
the business of Don Rodriguez, or pleasure, or the search for the
murderer that had taken him away. Stuart, who still believed him
innocent of the slightest participation or knowledge of the crime, yet
did not feel inclined to give him the least information as to the
Señor's movements, fearing that, if Smerdon was the man--of which, as
yet, he by no means felt positive--he might learn that he was being
pursued; and so contented himself with saying as little as possible.
As to Dobson, he had now come to the conclusion that the "Signor," as
he always called him, was an arrant humbug, and really knew no more
about the murder than he did himself. And as the detective had already
received a handsome sum of money from Lord Penlyn for his services,
such as they were, and as he had at the present moment what he called
"one or two other good little jobs on," he gradually devoted himself
to these matters, and the murder of Mr. Cundall ceased to entirely
occupy his efforts. Though, as he was a man who did his duty to the
best of his ability, he still kept one of his subordinates looking
about and making inquiries in various places where he thought
information might be obtained. But the information, as he confessed,
was very long in coming.

From Señor Guffanta Stuart had heard more than once during his
absence, which had now extended to three weeks, but the letters he
received contained nothing but accounts of his failure to come upon
the suspected man. In Paris, the Señor wrote, he had been absolutely
unable to find any person of the name of Smerdon, though he had tried
everything in his power to do so. He had pored daily over _Galignani_
and other papers that contained the lists of strangers who arrived in
the French capital, he had personally inspected the visitors' books in
every hotel likely to be patronised by English people of good social
position; but all to no effect. Then, determined, if his man was
there, not to miss him, he had applied to the particular _bureau_ of
police at the Préfecture, where are kept, according to French law, the
lists furnished weekly by every hotel-keeper and lodging-house keeper
of their guests and tenants, both old and new; and these, being shown
him, he had carefully searched, and still he had failed. He was
induced to think, he wrote Stuart, that Smerdon, either alone or with
his family (if he really had them with him) must have changed his
route, or his destination, at the last moment. Or, perhaps they had
travelled by Brussels and the Rhine to Switzerland, or passed through
Paris from one station to the other without stopping, or they might
have gone by the way of Rheims and Delle from Calais to Basle. Could
Mr. Stuart, he asked, obtain any further information from Lord Penlyn
as to the whereabouts of the man whose face he wished to see, for if
he could not, he did not know where to look for him.

In answer to this, Stuart wrote back that no letter had come from
Smerdon since the day he left Occleve House, the day on which the
Señor had seen the murderer in the cab, but that he had little doubt
that the former was now in Switzerland. "Why," he wrote, "since you
are determined to make yourself sure about Smerdon's identity with the
man you saw kill our friend, do you not go on into Switzerland? There
you could have but little difficulty in finding him, for printed lists
of the visitors to almost every resort, small or large, are published
daily or weekly. Any bookseller would procure you the _Fremdenblatts_
and _Listes des Étrangers_, and if you could only find his name at one
spot, you would be sure to catch him up at last. When a traveller
leaves an hotel in Switzerland, the train, or boat, or diligence is a
sure indication of what district he is changing to, and any
intelligent porter or servant will in all probability be able to
remember any person you can describe fairly accurately."

To this a letter came back from Guffanta, saying that he acknowledged
the reason of Mr. Stuart's remarks, and that he would waste no more
time in Paris but would at once set out for Switzerland. "Only," he
wrote, in his usual grave and studied style, "you must pardon me for
what I am now going to say, and for what I am going to ask. It is for
money. I have exhausted my store, which was not great when I arrived
in England, and which has only been increased by a small draft on Don
Rodriguez's London banker. I have enough to take me to Switzerland I
find, but not enough to carry me into the heart of the country. Will
you please send me some to the Poste Restante, at Basle? I will repay
it some day, and be sure that I shall eventually gain the object we
both desire in our hearts."

For answer to this, Stuart put a fifty-pound note in a registered
letter, and forwarded it to the address Guffanta had given him. Then,
when it had been acknowledged by the latter, he heard no more from him
for some time.

During this period Lord Penlyn had been absent from town. He had
received from Sir Paul Raughton, at the time when the Señor was about
to leave London, a letter telling him that Ida was much better, and
that he thought that Penlyn might see her if he went down to Belmont.
Sir Paul had faithfully delivered the message given him, and to Ida
this, he said, had been the best medicine. At first she would scarcely
believe it possible that her lover would ever again see her or speak
of love to her; but, when she learnt that not only was he anxious to
do this, but that it was he himself whom he considered in the wrong,
and that, instead of extending his pardon to her, he was anxious to
sue for hers, the colour came back to her cheek and the smile to her
eyes and lips.

"Oh, papa!" she said, as she sat up one day in her boudoir and nestled
close to him, "oh, papa, how could I ever think so ill of him, of him
who is everything that is good and noble? How wicked I have been! How
wicked and unjust!"

"Of course!" Sir Paul exclaimed, "that is just the kind of thing a
woman always does say. She quarrels with the man she loves, and then,
just because he wants to make up the quarrel as much as she does, she
thinks she has been in the wrong. And after all, mind you, Ida,
although I don't believe that Penlyn had any more to do with the
murder than I had----"

"No, papa!" speaking firmly.

"Still he does not come out of the affair with flying colours. He
never moved hand nor foot to find out who really had done it, and he
kept the secret of poor Cundall being his brother from me. He oughtn't
to have done that!"

Sir Paul did feel himself aggrieved at this. He thought that, as Ida's
father, he should have been told everything bearing upon the
connection between the two men, and he considered that there had been
some intention to deceive him on the part of Penlyn. In his joy at the
prospect of his daughter's renewed happiness he was very willing to
forgive Penlyn, but still he could not help mentioning his errors, as
he considered them.

"Remember the letter from his brother, papa! It contained his solemn
injunctions--rendered doubly solemn by the awful fate that overtook
him on the very night he wrote them! How could he confide the secret
to any one after that?"

Her father made no answer to this question, not knowing what to say.
After all, he acknowledged that had he been made the custodian of such
a secret, had he had such solemn injunctions laid on him as Cundall
had laid on his brother, he would have tried to keep them equally
well. Honestly, he could not tell himself that Penlyn should have
broken the solemn command imposed upon him; the command issued by a
man who, as he gave it, was standing at the gate of the grave.

So, when Penlyn paid his next visit to Belmont, there was a very
different meeting between him and its inmates from the meetings that
had gone before. Sir Paul took him by the hand, and told him that he
was sincerely happy in knowing that once more he and Ida were
thoroughly united, and then he went into her. Not a moment elapsed
before she was folded to his heart and he had kissed her again and
again, not a moment before she was beseeching him to forgive her for
the injurious thoughts and suspicions she had let come into her mind.

"Hush, Ida hush, my darling!" he said, as he tried to soothe her; "it
is not you who should ask for forgiveness, but I. Not because I kept
my brother's secret from you, but because of the brutal way in which I
cast you off, simply for your doubting me for one moment. Oh, Ida, my
own, say that you forgive me."

"I have nothing to forgive," she said; "the fault was mine. I should
never have doubted you."

And so once more they were united, united never more to part. And
since everything was now known to Ida, her future husband was able to
talk freely to her, to tell her other things that had transpired of
late, and especially of, what seemed to him, the strange behaviour of
the Señor, and the accusation he had brought against him of shielding
the murderer in his house.

"Oh, Gervase!" Ida exclaimed, "why is it that every one should be
so unjust to you? Was it not enough that I should have suspected
you--though only for a moment in my grief and delirium--without this
man doing so in another manner. It is monstrous, monstrous!"

"Your suspicions," he answered, "were natural enough. You had had your
mind disturbed by that strange dream, and, when you heard of my
relationship to Cundall, it was natural that your thoughts should take
the turn they did. But I cannot understand Guffanta, nor what he
means."

He had recognised many times during the estrangement between him and
Ida that her temporary suspicion of him was natural enough, and
that--being no heroine of romance, but only a straightforward English
girl, with a strange delusion as to having seen the assassin in her
dream--it was not strange she should have doubted him; but for
Guffanta's accusation he could find no reason. Over and over again he
had asked himself whom it could be that he suspected? and again and
again he had failed to find an answer. On that fatal night there had
been no one sleeping in Occleve House but the servants, no one who
could have gained admission to it; yet the Señor had charged him with
sheltering the man who had done the deed, both on that night and
afterwards.

"Can he not be made to speak out openly?" Ida asked. "Can he not be
made to say who the person was whose face he saw? Why do you not force
him to do so?"

"I have seen nothing of him since the night he accused me of
protecting the murderer, and he has left the hotel he was staying at."

"Where is he gone?" Ida asked.

"No one seems to know, though Stuart says he fancies he is still
looking for the murderer. I pray God he may find him."

"And I too!" Ida said.

After this meeting, Penlyn acceded to the request of Sir Paul and his
future wife that he should stay at Belmont for some time, and he took
up his abode there with them. His valet came down from town, bringing
with him all things  necessary for a stay in the country, and then Ida
passed happier days in the society of her lover than she had ever yet
enjoyed. They spent their mornings together sitting under the firs
upon the lawn, they drove together--for she was still too weak to ride
in the afternoons; and in the evenings Sir Paul would join them. Their
marriage had been postponed for two months in consequence of Ida's ill
health, but they knew that by the end of October they would be happy,
and so they bore the delay without repining. One thing alone chastened
their happiness--the memory of the dead man, and the knowledge that
his murderer had not been brought to justice.

"I swore upon his grave to avenge him," Penlyn said, "and I have done
nothing, can do nothing. If any one ever avenges him it will be Señor
Guffanta, and I sometimes doubt if he will be able to do so. It seems
a poor termination to the vows I took."

"Perhaps it is but a natural one," Ida answered. "It is only in
romances, and in some few cases of real life, that a murder planned as
this one must have been is punished. Yet, so long as we live, we will
pray that some day his wicked assassin may be discovered."

"Do you still think," Penlyn asked, "that the figure which you saw in
your dream was known to you in actual life? Do you think that if the
murderer is ever found you will remember that you have known him?"

"It was a dream," she answered, "only a dream! Yet it made a strange
impression on me. You know that I also said that, if once I could
remember to what man in actual life that figure bore a resemblance, I
would have his every action of the past and present closely
scrutinised; yet I, too, can do nothing. Even though I could identify
some living person with that figure, what could I, a woman, do?"

"Nothing, darling," her lover answered her, "we can neither of us do
anything. If Guffanta cannot find him, we must be content to leave his
punishment to heaven."

So, gradually, they came to think that never in this world would
Walter Cundall's death be avenged, and gradually their thoughts turned
to other things, to the happy life that seemed before them, and to the
way in which that life should be spent. Under the fir trees they would
sit and plan how the vast fortune that the dead man had left should
best be laid out, how an almshouse bearing his name should be erected
at Occleve Chase, and how a large charity, also in his name, should be
endowed in London. And even then, they knew that but a drop of his
wealth would be spent; it would necessitate unceasing thought upon
their part to gradually get it all distributed in a manner that should
do good to others.

"He was the essence of charity and generosity," Penlyn said, "it shall
be by a charitable and generous disposal of his wealth that we will
honour his memory."

They were seated on their usual bench one evening, still making their
plans, when they saw one of Sir Paul's footmen coming towards them and
bringing the usual batch of papers and letters. It was the time at
which the post generally came in, and they had made a habit of having
their correspondence brought to them there, and of passing the
half-hour before dinner in reading their letters. The man handed
several to Lord Penlyn and one to Ida, and they began to peruse them.
Those to Penlyn were ordinary ones and did not take long in the
reading, and he was about to turn round and ask Ida if hers were of
any importance, when he was startled by a sound from her lips,--a
sound that was half a gasp and half a moan. As he looked at her, he
saw that she had sunk back against the wooden rail of the garden seat,
and that she was deathly pale. The letter she had received, and the
envelope bearing the green stamp of Switzerland, had fallen at her
feet.

"Ida! my dearest! what is it?" he exclaimed, as he bent towards her
and placed his arm round her. "Ida! have you had bad news, have
you----?"

"The dream," she moaned, "the dream! Oh, God!"

"What dream?" he said, while a sweat of horror, of undefined, unknown
horror broke out upon his forehead. "What dream?"

"The letter! Read the letter!" she answered, while in her eyes was a
look he had once seen before--the far-away look that had been there
when he first spoke to her of his brother's murder.

He stooped and picked up the letter--picked it up and read it
hurriedly; and then he, too, let it fall again and leaned back against
the seat.

"Philip Smerdon my brother's murderer!" he exclaimed. "Philip Smerdon,
my friend, an assassin! The self-accused, the self-avowed murderer of
Walter Cundall! Ida," he said, turning to her, "is _his_ the figure in
your dream?"

"Yes," she wailed. "Yes! I recognise it now."



CHAPTER XX.


The Schwarzweiss Pass, leading from the south-east of Switzerland to
Italy, is one well known to mountaineers, because of the rapid manner
in which they can cross from one country to another, and also because
of the magnificent views that it presents to the traveller. Moreover,
it offers to them a choice either of making a passage over the
snow-clad mountains that rise above it, and across the great
Schwarzweiss glacier, or of keeping to the path that, while rising to
the height at some places of 10,000 feet, is, except at the summit,
perfectly passable in good weather. It is true that he who, even while
on the path, should turn giddy, or walk carelessly, would risk his
life, for though above him only are the vast white "horns" and "Piz,"
below him there are still the ravines through which run the boiling
torrents known respectively as the "Schwarz" and the "Weiss"
rivers--rivers that carry with them huge boulder stones and pine-trees
wrenched from their roots; dry slopes that fall hundreds of feet down
into the valley below; and also the Klein (or little) Schwarzweiss
glacier, a name so given it, not because of its smallness--for it is
two miles long, and in one place, half-a-mile across--but to
distinguish it from the Gross-Schwarzweiss glacier that hangs above on
the other side of the pass.

It is a lonely and grim road, a road in which no bird is heard or seen
from the time that the village of St. Christoph is left behind on the
Swiss side until the village of Santa Madre is reached on the Italian
side; a road that winds at first, and at last, through fir-woods and
pine-trees, but that in the middle is nothing but a path, cut in some
parts and blasted in others, along the granite sides of the rocks, and
hanging in many places above the valley far below. Patches of snow and
pieces of rock that have fallen from above, alone relieve the view on
the side of the path; on the opposite side of the ravine is nothing
but a huge wall of granite that holds no snow, so slippery is it; but
above which hangs, white and gray, like the face of a corpse, the
glacier from which the pass derives its name.

A lonely and grim road even in the daytime, when a few rays of
sunshine manage to penetrate it at midday, when occasionally a party
of tourists may be met with, and when sometimes the voice of a
goatherd calling his flocks rises from the valley below; but lonelier
and more grim, and more black and impenetrable at night, and rarely or
ever then trod by human foot. For he who should attempt the passage of
the Schwarzweiss Pass at night, unless there were a brilliant moon to
light him through its most dangerous parts, would take his life in his
own hands.

Yet, on an August night of the year in which this tale is told, and
when there was a moon that, being near its full, consequently rose
late and shone till nearly daylight, a man was making his way across
this pass to Italy.

Midnight was close at hand as, with weary steps, he descended a
rough-hewn path in the rock--a path which, for safety, had a rude
handrail of iron attached to the side from which it was cut--and
reached a small plateau, the size, perhaps, of an ordinary room, and
from which again the path went on. From this plateau shelved down, for
a hundred feet or more, an almost perpendicular moraine, or glacier
bed, and at the foot of this lay the Klein-Schwarzweiss, with its
crevasses glistening in the moonlight; for the moon had topped even
the great mountains above by now, and lighted up the pass. It was
evidently considered a dangerous part of the route, since between the
edge of the plateau and the side of the moraine a wooden railing had
been erected, consisting of two short upright posts and a long cross
one. As the man reached this plateau, holding to the rail with one
hand, while with the other he used his alpenstock as a walking-stick,
he perceived a stone--it may have been placed there for the
purpose--large enough for a seat; and taking off his knapsack wearily,
he sat down upon it.

"Time presses," he muttered to himself, "yet I must rest. Otherwise I
shall not be at Santa Madre by eight o'clock to-morrow. I can go no
farther without a rest."

There is an indefinite feeling of awfulness in being alone at night
amongst the mountains, in knowing and feeling that for miles around
there is no other creature in these vast, cold solitudes but
ourselves: and this man had that feeling now.

"How still--how awful this pass is!" he said to himself, "with no
sound but the creaking of that glacier below--with no human being here
but me. Yet, I should be glad I am alone."

At this moment a few stones in the moraine slipped and fell into the
glacier, and the man started at the distinct sound they made in that
wilderness of silence. Then, as he sat there gazing up at the moon and
the snow above him, he continued his meditations.

"It is best," he thought, "that the poor old mother did not know when
I said 'good-bye' to her this afternoon, and she bade me come back
soon, that I should never come back, that I had a farther destination
than Italy before me; best that my father did not know that we should
never meet again. Never! never! Ah, God! it is a long word."

"Yet it must be done," he went on. "If I want to drag this miserable
life out, I must do it elsewhere than in England. That sleuth-hound
will surely find me there; it is possible that he will even track me
to the antipodes. Yet, if I were sure that he is lying about--having
seen my face before, I would go back and brave him. Where did he ever
see it?--where?--where? To my knowledge I have never seen him."

He rose and walked to the railing above the moraine, and looked down
at the glacier, and listened to the cracking made by the seracs. "I
might make an end of it now," he thought. "If I threw myself down
there, it would be looked upon as an ordinary Alpine accident. But,
no! that is the coward's resource. I have blasted my life for ever by
one foul deed; let me endure it as a reparation for my crime. But what
is my future to be? Am I to live a miserable existence for years in
some distant country, frightened at every strange face, dreading to
read every newspaper that reaches me for fear that I shall see myself
denounced in it, and never knowing a moment's peace or tranquillity?
Ah, Gervase! I wonder what you would say if you knew that, for your
sake, I have sacrificed every hope of happiness in this world and all
my chances of salvation in the next." He went back to the big stone
after uttering these thoughts and sat down wearily upon it. "If I
could know that that Spaniard was baffled at last and had lost all
track of me, I could make my arrangements more calmly for leaving
Europe, might even look forward to returning to England some day, and
spending my life there while expiating my crime. But, while I know
nothing, I must go on and on till at last I reach some place where I
may feel safe."

He looked at his watch as he spoke to himself, and saw that the night
was passing. "Another five minutes' rest," he said, "and I will start
again across the pass."

As he sat there, taking those last five minutes of rest, it seemed to
him that there was some other slight sound breaking the stillness of
the night, something else besides the occasional cracking noise made
by the glacier below and the subdued roar of the torrents in the
valley. A light, regular sound, that nowhere else but in a solitude
like this would, perhaps, be heard, but that here was perfectly
distinct. It came nearer and nearer, and once, as it approached, some
small stones were dislodged and rattled down from above, and fell with
a plunge on to the glacier below: and then, as it came closer, he knew
that it was made by the footsteps of a man. And, looking up, he saw a
human figure descending the path to the plateau by which he had come,
and standing out clearly defined against the moonlight.

"It is some guide going home," he said to himself, "or starting out
upon an early ascent. How firmly he descends the path."

The man advanced, and he watched him curiously, noticing the easy way
in which he came down the rough-hewn steps, scarcely touching the
handrail or using the heavy-pointed stick he carried in place of the
usual alpenstock. And he noticed that, besides his knapsack, he
carried the heavy coil of rope that guides use in their ascents.

At last the new comer reached the plateau, and, as he took the last
two or three steps that led on to it, he saw that there was another
man upon it, and stopped. Stopped to gaze for one moment at the
previous occupant, and then to advance towards him and to stand
towering above him as he sat upon the boulder-stone.

"You are Philip Smerdon," he said in a voice that sounded deep and
hollow in the other's ear.

Utterly astonished, and with another feeling that was not all
astonishment, Smerdon rose and stood before him and said:

"I do not know of what importance my name can be to you."

"Your name is of no importance, but you are of the greatest to me.
When I tell you _my_ name you will understand why. It is Miguel
Guffanta."

"Guffanta!" Smerdon exclaimed, "Guffanta!"

"Yes! the friend of Walter Cundall."

"What do you want with me?" the other asked, but as he asked he knew
the answer that would come from the man before him.

"But one thing now, though ten minutes ago I wanted more. I wanted to
see, then, if the man whom I sought for in London and at Occleve
Chase, whom I have followed from place to place till I have found him
here, was the same man I saw stab my friend to death in----"

"You saw it?"

"Yes, I saw it. And you are the man who did it!"

"It is false!"

"It is true! Do you dare to tell me I lie, you, a---- Bah! Why should
I cross words with a murderer--a thief!"

"I am no thief!" Smerdon said, his anger rising at this opprobrious
term, even as he felt his guilt proclaimed.

"You are! You stole his watch and money because you thought to make
his murder appear a common one. And so it was! You slew him because
you feared he would dispossess your master of what he unrighteously
held, because you thought that you would lose your place."

"Again I say it is false! I had no thought of self! I killed him--yes,
I!--because I loved my friend, my master as you term him, because he
threatened to come between him and the woman he loved. Had I known of
Walter Cundall's noble nature, as I knew of it afterwards, no power on
earth could have induced me to do such a deed."

"It is infamy for such as you to speak of his nobility--but enough!
Are you armed to-night, as you were on that night?"

"I have no arms about me. Why do you ask?"

"To tell you that no arms can avail you now. You must come with me."

"To where?"

"To the village prison at St. Christoph. There I will leave you until
you can be taken to England."

For the first time since he had seen the avenger of Walter Cundall
standing before him, Smerdon smiled bitterly.

"Señor Guffanta," he said, "you are very big and strong--it may well
be stronger than I am. But you overrate your strength strangely if you
think that any power you possess can make me go with you. I am a
murderer--God help and pardon me! It is probable I shall be a double
one before this night is over."

"You threaten me--you! You defy me!" Guffanta exclaimed, while his
dark eyes gleamed ominously.

"Yes, I defy you! If my sin is to be punished, it shall not be by you,
at least. Here, in this lonely place where for miles no other human
creature is near, I defy you to do your worst. We are man to man; do
you think I fear you?"

In a moment Guffanta had sprung at him, had seized him by the throat,
and with the other arm had encircled his body.

"So be it," he hissed in Smerdon's ear, "it suits me better than a
prolonged punishment of your crime would do."

For a moment they struggled locked together, and in that moment
Smerdon knew that he was doomed; that he was about to expiate his
crime. The long, sinewy hand of the Spaniard that was round his throat
was choking him; his own blows fell upon the other's body harmlessly.
And he was being dragged towards the edge of the moraine, already his
back was against the wooden railing that alone stood between the
plateau and destruction. He could, even at this moment, hear it
creaking with his weight; it would break in another instant!

"Will you yield, assassin, villain?" Guffanta muttered.

"Never! Do your worst."

He felt one hand tighten round his throat more strongly, he felt the
other arm of the Spaniard driving him back; in that moment of supreme
agony he heard the breaking of the railing and felt it give under him,
and then Guffanta's hands had loosed him, and, striking the moraine
with his head, he fell down and down till he lay a senseless mass upon
the white bosom of the glacier.

And Guffanta standing above, with his head bared to the stars and to
the waning moon, exclaimed, as he lifted his hand to the heavens,
"Walter, you are avenged."


The day dawned upon the plateau; a few struggling rays of the sun
illuminated the great glacier above and turned its dead gray snow and
ice into a pure, warm white, while the mists rolled away from the high
mountains keeping watch above; and below on the smaller glacier, and
at the edge of a yawning crevasse, lay the body of Philip Smerdon.

Two guides, proceeding over the pass to meet a party of mountain
climbers, reached the plateau at dawn, and sitting down upon the stone
to eat a piece of bread and take a draught of cold coffee, saw his
knapsack lying beside it.

"What does it mean?" the one said to the other.

"It means death," his companion replied, "the railing is broken! Some
one has fallen."

Slowly and carefully, and each holding to one of the upright posts,
they peered over and down on to the glacier, and there they saw what
was lying below. A whispered word sufficed, a direction given by one
to the other, and these hardy mountaineers were descending the
moraine, digging their sticks deeply into the stones, and gradually
working their way skilfully to the glacier.

"Is he dead, Carl?" the one asked of his friend, who stooped over the
prostrate form and felt his heart.

"No; he lives. Mein Gott! how has he ever fallen here without instant
death? But he must die! See, his bones are all broken!" and as he
spoke he lifted Smerdon's arm and touched one of his legs.

"What shall we do with him?" the other asked.

"We must remove him. Even though he die on the way, it is better than
to leave him here. Let us take him to the house of Father Neümann. It
is but to the foot of the glacier."

Very gently these men lifted him in their arms, though not so gently
but that they wrung a groan of agony from him as they did so, and bore
him down the glacier to where it entered the valley; and then, having
handed him to the priest, who lived in what was little better than a
hut, they left him.

Late that afternoon the dying man opened his eyes, and looked round
the room in which he lay. At his bedside he saw a table with a Cross
laid upon it, and at the window of the room an aged priest sat reading
a Breviary. "Where am I?" he asked in English.

The priest rose and came to the bed, and then spoke to him in German.
"My son," he said, "what want of yours can I supply?"

"Tell me where I am," Smerdon answered in the same language, "and how
long I have to live."

"You are in my house, the house of the _Curé_ of Sastratz. For the
span of your life none can answer but God. But, my son, I should do
ill if I did not tell you that your hours are numbered. The doctor
from St. Christoph has seen you."

"Give me paper and ink----"

"My son, you cannot write, and----"

"I _will_ write," Smerdon said faintly, "even though I die in the
attempt."

The _Curé_ felt his right arm, which was not broken like the other,
and then he brought him paper and ink, and holding the former up on
his Breviary before the dying man, he put the pen in his hand. And
slowly and painfully, and with eyes that occasionally closed, Smerdon
wrote:


"I am dying at the house of the _Curé_ of Sastratz, near the
Schwarzweiss Pass; from a fall. Tell Gervase that _I alone murdered
Walter Crandall_. If he will come to me and I am still alive, I will
tell him all.

"PHILIP SMERDON."


Then he put the letter in an envelope and addressed it to Ida
Raughton. And ere he once more lapsed into unconsciousness, he asked
the priest to write another for him to his mother, and to address it
to an hotel at Zurich.

"They will be sent at once?" he asked faintly.

"Surely, my son."



CHAPTER XXI.


It was late on the evening of the fifth day after the letter had been
sent to Ida Raughton, that a mule, bearing upon its back Lord Penlyn
and escorted by a guide, stopped at the house of the _Curé_ of
Sastratz; The young man had travelled from London as fast as the
expresses could carry him, and had come straight to the village lying
at the entrance of the Schwarzweiss Pass, to find that from there he
could only continue his journey on foot or by mule. He chose the
latter as the swiftest and easiest course--for he was very tired and
worn with travelling--and at last he arrived at his destination.

When the first feeling of horror had been upon him on reading the
letter Smerdon had written, acknowledging that he was the murderer, he
had told Ida Raughton that he would not go to see him even on his
death-bed; that his revulsion of feeling would be such that he should
be only able to curse him for his crime. But she, with that gentleness
of heart that never failed her, pleaded so with him to have pity on
the man who, however deep his sin, had sinned alone for him, that she
induced him to go.

"Remember," she said, "that even though he has done this awful deed,
he did it for your sake; it was not done to benefit himself. Bad and
wicked as it was, at least that can be pleaded for him."

"Yes," her lover answered, "I see his reason now. He thought that
Walter had come between my happiness and me for ever, and in a moment
of pity for me he did the deed. How little he knew me, if he thought I
wished him dead!"

But even as he spoke he remembered that he had once cursed his
brother, and had used the very words "I wish he were dead!" If it was
upon this hasty expression that Smerdon had acted, then he, too, was a
murderer.

He left Belmont an hour after the letter had arrived, and so,
travelling as above described, stood outside Father Neümann's house on
the night of the fifth day. The priest answered the door himself, and
as he did so he put his finger upon his lip. "Are you the friend from
England that is expected?" he asked.

"Yes," Penlyn said, speaking low in answer to the sign for silence.
"He still lives?"

"He lives; but his hours draw to a close. Had you not come now you
would not have found him alive."

"Let me see him at once."

"Come. His mother is with him."

He followed the _Curé_ into a room sparsely furnished, and of
unpolished pine-wood; a room on which there was no carpet and but
little furniture; and there he saw the dying form of Philip Smerdon.
Kneeling by the bedside, and praying while she sobbed bitterly, was a
lady whom Lord Penlyn knew to be Smerdon's mother. She rose at his
entrance, and brushed the tears from her eyes.

"You have come in time to see him die," she said, while her frame was
convulsed with sobs. "He has been expecting you. He said he could not
pass away until he had seen you."

Penlyn said some words of consolation to her, and then he asked:

"Is he conscious?"

The poor mother leant over the bed and spoke to him, and he opened his
eyes.

"Your friend has come, Philip," she said.

A light came into his eyes as he saw Penlyn standing before him, and
then in a hollow voice he asked her to leave them alone.

"I have something to say to him," he said; "and the time is short."

"Yes," he said when she was gone, and speaking faintly in answer to
Penlyn, who said he had come as quickly as possible; "yes, I know it.
I expected you. And now that you are here can you bring yourself to
say that you forgive me?"

For one moment the other hesitated, then he said: "I forgive you. May
God do so likewise."

"Ah! that is it--it is that that makes death terrible! But listen! I
must speak at once, I have but a short time more. This is my last
hour, I feel it, I know it."

"Do not distress yourself with speaking. Do not think of it now."

"Not think of it! When have I ever forgotten it! Come closer, listen.
I thought he had come between you and Miss Raughton for ever. I never
dreamed of the magnanimity he showed in that letter. Then I determined
to kill him--I thought I could do it without it being known. I did
not go to the 'Chase' on that morning, but, instead, tracked him from
one place to another, disguised in a suit of workman's clothes that I
had bought some time ago for a fancy dress ball. I thought he would
never leave his club that night; but at last he came out, and
then--then--God! I grow weaker!--I did it."

Penlyn buried his head in his hands as he listened to this recital,
and once he made a sign as though begging Smerdon to stop, but he did
not heed him.

"I had with me a dagger I bought at Tunis, a long, sharp knife of the
kind used by the Arabs, and I loosened it from its sheath as we
entered the Park, he walking a few steps ahead of me, and, evidently,
thinking deeply. Between the lamps I quickened my pace and passed him,
and then, turning round suddenly, I seized him by the coat and stabbed
him to the heart. It was but the work of a moment and he fell
instantly, exclaiming only as he did so, 'Murderer!' Then to give it
the appearance of a murder committed for theft, I stooped over him and
wrenched his watch away, and as I took it I saw that he was dead. The
watch is at Occleve Chase, in the lowest drawer of my writing-desk."

"Tell me no more," Penlyn said, "tell me no more."

"There is no more--only this, that I am glad to die. My life has been
a curse since that day, I am thankful it is at an end. Had Guffanta
not hurled me on to the glacier below, I think I must have taken it
with my own hands."

"Guffanta!" Penlyn exclaimed, "is it he then who has done this?"

"It is he! He followed me from England here--in some strange way he
was a witness to the murder--we met upon the pass and fought, he
taxing me with being a murderer and a thief, and--and--ah! this is the
end!"

His eyes closed, and Penlyn saw that his last moment was at hand. He
called gently to Mrs. Smerdon, and she came in, and throwing herself
by the side of the bed, took his hand and kissed it as she wept. The
_Curé_ entered at the same time and bent over him, and taking the
Crucifix from his side, held it up before his eyes. Once they were
fixed upon Penlyn with an imploring glance, and once they rested on
his mother, and then they closed for ever.

"He is dead!" the priest said, "let us pray for the repose of his
soul."


It was a few days afterwards that Ida Raughton, when walking up and
down the paths at Belmont, heard the sound of carriage-wheels in the
road outside, and knew that her lover was coming back to her. He
had written from Switzerland saying that Smerdon was dead, and
that he should wait to see him buried in the churchyard of St.
Christoph--where many other English lay who had perished in the
mountains--and he had that morning telegraphed from Paris to tell her
that he was coming by the mail, and should be with her in the evening.

She walked swiftly to the house to meet him, but before she could
reach it, he had come through the French windows of the morning-room,
and advanced towards her.

"You have heard that he is dead, Ida?" he said, when he had kissed
her, "it only remains for me to tell you that he died penitent and
regretting his crime. It had weighed heavily upon him, and he was glad
to go."

"And you forgave him, Gervase?" she asked.

"Yes. I forgave him. I could not but remember--as I saw him stretched
there crushed and dying--that, though he had robbed me of a brother
whom I must have come to love, he had sinned for me. Yes, if
forgiveness belonged to me, I forgave him."

"Until we meet that brother in another world, Gervase, we have nothing
but his memory to cherish. We must never forget his noble character."

"It shall be my constant thought," Penlyn answered, "to shape my life
to what he would have wished it to be. And, Ida, so long as I live,
his memory shall be second only in my heart to your own sweet self.
Come, darling, it is growing late let us go in."


THE END.



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MY LADY COQUETTE
VIVIENNE
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COUNTESS DAPHNE
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