Miss Baynard reached Dene House on the stroke of noon, where she was warmly welcomed by Mr. Delafosse and his wife. The old bibliophile proved to be quite willing to exchange his gold stater of Epaticcus for the rare MS. on vellum which Nell had brought with her. Although genuinely grieved to receive such a bad account of his old friend, he could not help reminding himself that there were several rarities in Cortelyon's collection the possession of which he had long envied him. Well, we must all die some time, and as his friend's collection would be sure to come to the hammer, there would at length be a possibility of his becoming the owner of such articles as he especially coveted. All the more would they be valued by him for having been the property of a man he so highly esteemed.
After joining the Dene House family over their three o'clock dinner, Miss Baynard set out on her return, and, there being nothing this time to detain her on the road, Stanbrook was reached by dusk. As she rode up the avenue she glanced anxiously at the windows. Had the Squire been dead the blinds would have been drawn down. But there was no change in the usual aspect of the house, and it was with a relieved heart that she dismounted.
She went up to her uncle's room without delay when told that he had more than once asked for her. "There's a great improvement in him to-day, my dear," Mrs. Budd had said to her in the entrance hall. "Dr. Banks was quite struck by the change when he called this morning."
Nell found her uncle awake. His eyes met hers questioningly as she entered the room, but when she produced the coveted coin and placed it in his hand his face lighted up wonderfully. "Good lass! good lass!" he murmured. Then he gave a sigh of relief, and his lean fingers closed lovingly over the stater.
As to whether Miss Baynard's attempt to purloin her uncle's will was, or was not, under the circumstances morally justifiable, the writer wishes it to be understood that the point is one with which he considers himself in nowise concerned. His duty, as he apprehends it, is simply that of a recorder of facts, without taking on himself either to justify or condemn any actions, good, bad, or indifferent on the part of his characters, who are allowed to go their own way without let or hindrance, and as we all have to do, must accept and make the best of whatever consequences may result therefrom.
Yes, as Mrs. Budd had told Miss Baynard, there was a decided change for the better in Mr. Cortelyon's condition, but by what means the change in question had been brought about was known to three people only--the sick man, his nurse, and the latter's son.
Cornelius Dinkel had gone to Stanbrook in obedience to his mother's midnight summons, taking with him a small quantity of his remedy, and had spent an hour with the Squire, unknown to any of the household.
He was a tall, sallow, dried-up man, who looked as if all the juices of his body had been sucked out of him by the heat of a tropical climate. He was thirty years old, but might well have been taken for a man of forty-five. Nobody would have ventured to call him handsome, but his expression was one of marked intelligence, in combination with considerable will-power and great tenacity of purpose.
"Mr. Cortelyon, my son," said Mrs. Dinkel, as she introduced the young doctor into the sick room.
Dinkel bowed gravely. The Squire blinked his eyes; he would have nodded, but had not strength to do so.
Then he said, speaking in a thin whisper, broken by frequent gaspings for breath: "Your mother informs me that you have brought some wonderful discovery back home with you, and she would fain cozen me into the belief that by means of it you can succeed in prolonging the life of a moribund like me. I tell you at once that I don't believe in your ability to do anything of the kind. No, damme! I'm too far gone for any hanky-panky of that sort, and both Banks and Mills would simply dub you a quack for your pains."
Dinkel's face remained impassive. "Permit me, Mr. Cortelyon," he said, and with that he proceeded to submit the other to a brief but searching examination. Till it had come to an end no one spoke. Then taking up a position on the hearth with his back to the fire, and speaking in the tone of one who felt himself master of the situation, he broke the silence:
"Your case, Mr. Cortelyon, I find to be exactly such as my mother described it to me. That I can permanently cure you I at once admit to be an impossibility. You are too advanced in life, and your constitution is too nearly worn out, to warrant any such hope. But that I can succeed in prolonging your life for weeks, nay, it may well be for several months to come, I make no manner of doubt--such is the marvellous efficacy of the remedy I have brought back with me from abroad."
This, to a man who had every reason for believing that a few more hours would bring the end, was news indeed. Weeks--perhaps months--of life, when he had looked forward to being buried about a week hence! It was too marvellous to credit.
For a little while he was too overcome to speak. Then he murmured, and Dinkel had to bend over him in order to catch what he said: "I--I cannot believe it--I cannot!"
"Nevertheless, Mr. Cortelyon, I am not dealing in romance--heaven forbid that I should in such a case!--but in sober fact. There is a homely proverb which affirms that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I have brought with me a small quantity of my remedy. Will you permit me to administer a dose of it to you?"
Again there was a space of silence. The sick man's gaze was bent on the young doctor as if he would fain read him through and through, while his grizzled eyebrows made a straight line across his forehead, he liked the look of him; there was something in that strong, earnest, plain face which inspired confidence. Compared with him, Dr. Banks looked like an amiable old woman.
"First of all, I should like to know what this so-called wonder-worker of yours is compounded of," he murmured, after a time.
Dinkel shrugged his shoulders. "Its chief constituent is the dried and powdered bark of the tatao tree--a tree indigenous to the island of Java. The other ingredients consist of sundry drugs in certain fixed proportions, the secret of which I am not at present prepared to divulge."
"Quite right--quite right. Very sensible on your part. You don't want to poison me, I suppose--hey?"
The ghost of a smile flitted across Dinkel's rugged face. "What should I gain by that, sir? Only the hangman's noose. I think you ought to credit me with a desire for lengthening your days, not for shortening them."
"It would puzzle you to make 'em much shorter than they seem likely to be," gasped the Squire, with a painful imitation of one of his old chuckles. "Well, well," he resumed, "I'll venture on a dose of this stuff of yours, not because I've any faith in it, mind you, but merely to take the cock-a-doodle out of you, and prove to you that you're not the wonderfully clever fellow you're inclined to crack yourself up as being."
Not for days had the Squire spoken so much in so short a time, and as the last words died from off his lips his eyes closed and he sank into a half swoon.
He could not have been in more competent hands, and before long he was brought back to consciousness. His first words, in a feeble whisper, were: "Give me the stuff; I'll take it."
From his waistcoat pocket Dinkel extracted a tiny phial, no bigger than his little finger, about three-parts full of a ruby-colored fluid, which he proceeded to empty into a dessert spoon.
"You won't find it at all disagreeable," he said, as he proffered the spoon and its contents to the Squire.
"It tastes not unlike the liquorice-root I used to be fond of when a lad," murmured the latter half a minute later, and with that his eyes closed again.
Dinkel held up his hand, and for a little space neither he nor his mother stirred. Then said the young doctor, "He is asleep, and if all goes well, as I have every reason to think it will, he won't awake for five or six hours. I will go now, and return between six and seven o'clock."
As already stated, Dr. Banks, when he called as usual in the course of next forenoon, was considerably surprised at finding such a decided improvement in his patient's condition, when, according to all the rules and regulations of medical science, he ought to have been nearly, if not quite, in a state of collapse. "It's merely a flash in the pan--the sudden flare-up of a candle before it drops into darkness," he said to himself. "He's a wonderful old fellow, and I've evidently underrated the strength of his constitution."
But next day, and the day after that, a still further improvement unmistakably manifested itself. Dr. Banks rubbed his nose with his forefinger and was clearly nonplussed. On the fourth morning he was joined by Dr. Mills, who had been expecting from hour to hour to have tidings of the Squire's demise. He and Banks did not fail to discuss the case as they drove over to Stanbrook in the latter's gig, but neither of them could make head or tail of it, and certainly it was difficult for them to believe the evidence of their eyes when, on entering their patient's room, they found him seated in his easy-chair, propped up by cushions, and not only that, but dictating a letter in a firm voice to his secretary, Andry Luce.
He favored them with a curt nod, but did not otherwise notice them till he had brought his dictation to an end. Then turning with a sardonic smile, he said: "Good-morrow, gentlemen. Very pleased to see you, especially you, Mills. You find an unlooked-for change in me since you were here last week--hey? It's all your friend Jimmy Banks's doing. From the hour he changed my physic, now four or five days since, I began to mend. Why he didn't change it before, instead of letting me get down to death's door first, the Lord only knows. But Jimmy always was a wag. Don't shake your pow in that way, sir; you know I'm speaking the truth. What grand weather for the crops we are having just now! I'm told that both my corn and my taties are coming on famously; but I hope to drive round in a day or two and see them for myself."
There was nothing to be done and very little to be said, and the two doctors cut their visit as short as possible.
Said Mills to the other after they had left the room: "What was the change of medicine he spoke of? What fresh treatment have you been subjecting him to?"
"To none at all, I give you my word. I am sending him the same mixture now that I was sending him three weeks ago--the one that you and I agreed upon. No single ingredient has been changed. In saying what he did he was only poking fun at us in his cynical way."
"Possibly at you, Banks, but certainly not at me," rejoined the other in his pompous way. "In any case, he's a very remarkable old man, and although I could not quite follow you in thinking that his vitality was at such a low ebb as you seemed to make out, I certainly did not credit him with the possession of the marvellous recuperative powers to which our eyes have just borne testimony."
"Humph! You seem to be blessed with a very short memory, Mills. Your own words on the occasion of your last visit were, 'I give him three days at the outside,' and that's just a week ago."
"Well, well; we are all liable to err, of course. Still, I'm afraid that I allowed my judgment to be in some measure led astray by your diagnosis. I ought to have subjected him to a more comprehensive examination than seemed to be necessary at the time. For all that, I cannot deny that his case is one of the most remarkable which has come under my notice. In short, I should hardly be going too far if I were to term his recovery, however temporary it may be, little short of miraculous."
Dr. Banks grunted. He was too indignant to reply in words. Only to himself he said, "I always set you down in my own mind as a humbug, and now I'm more convinced of it than ever."
As the reader will have rightly surmised, the marvellous change in Squire Cortelyon was wholly and solely due to the drug administered to him by Cornelius Dinkel. Already, as we have seen, he was able to sit up--although only for a short hour at first--and transact business; and each day brought its own small addition of strength and vital power. Soon he was able to go out on fine days for a drive, and a little later he even got so far as, with the help of Andry Luce's arm, to take short strolls about the grounds.
But this eminently satisfactory state of things could only be maintained on one condition: it was absolutely essential that a certain regulated dose of the wonderful drug should be administered to the patient daily. For the purpose of carrying out this arrangement Dinkel made a point of coming to the Hall every evening after dark, bringing the day's dose with him in a phial. He simply waited long enough to see the Squire swallow it, and then went his way.
Mrs. Dinkel remained at Stanbrook, nor, although he was so much better, would her patient listen to a word about her departure. Perhaps it seemed to him that so long as he could succeed in retaining her services he would have a firmer hold on those of her son. Besides, his man Tatham was not yet able to resume his duties.
So interested was young Dinkel in the case of Mr. Cortelyon that for the present he made up his mind to stay where he was. As his mother had told the Squire, the object of his life now was to take his discovery to London, and build up a fortune on the strength of it. But he was gifted with the patience, slow but sure, of his father's race, and was content to wait.
By this time it had got rumored about the country-side that the Squire's amazing recovery was due to Dinkel, or rather, to the effect of some magic compound he had brought with him from abroad. Further, it was commonly reported that so long as Dinkel continued to practise his arts on the old man, the latter would not, or could not, die. Among others, the whisper went that the Squire had sold himself, body and soul, to the young doctor on condition of his life being prolonged till he was a hundred.
These rumors were not lessened by Dinkel's mode of life. He had fitted up an old shed at the back of his mother's cottage, and there he conducted his experiments. Strange-colored flames would often be seen issuing from its chimney after dark, and one or two bolder spirits, who had ventured to pry upon him, averred that they had seen him warming his hands at a big glass jar which gave off blue sparks when he touched it. Evidently he was a man to be both shunned and feared.
But the love of life burns strongly in us. Not merely are we desirous of prolonging our own existence, but the lives of those dear to us, and among the villagers were three mothers who, their children having been given up by the local doctor, went to Cornelius Dinkel as a last resource, and prayed him with tears in their eyes to try to save their little ones. He did try, and in two cases out of the three he succeeded.
Still, the country people, with their ingrained superstitious prejudices, fought shy of him, and regarded him with a suspicion that was largely mixed with dislike. "He's a man-witch, that's what he is," they muttered among themselves. If he could prolong "th' owd Squire's" life, why couldn't he save Molly Grigg's child?--and why didn't he try his hand on old Tommy Binns, who was only eighty-seven when he died?
In view of the astonishing and wholly unexpected change for the better in Mr. Cortelyon's condition, it became manifest to Miss Baynard that, even if she had succeeded in despoiling Mr. Tew of the will, her doing so would have been to no purpose, seeing that her uncle had lived long enough to make half-a-dozen others had he been so inclined. She could not help cherishing a faint hope that, now a fresh lease of life had mercifully been granted him, he would see fit to change his mind in the matter of his grandson, and, either by means of a codicil to his present will, or the drawing-up of a new will, repair, in a greater or lesser degree, the act of cruel injustice of which he had been guilty.
But as time passed on Nell's hope faded and died. No allusion to his will ever passed her uncle's lips, or she would have heard of it from Andry Luce. It seemed that he was satisfied to let it stand unchanged.
One day a brief letter from her godmother, Lady Carradine, was received by Miss Baynard. Her ladyship was up in town for a fortnight--her usual home was in Devonshire--and she wrote very pressingly to Nell to join her there during her stay.
This Nell was by no means loth to do; and as her uncle raised no objection to her going, but rather urged her to accept the invitation, she and her maid were driven over to Lanchester a couple of days later, where she booked two inside places in the London mail.
Nell was especially glad to find herself again in London, because she would now be enabled to renew her acquaintance with young Evan, whom she had not seen since his mother's death.
But before going to Lawn Cottage, where, so far as she was aware, the boy was still domiciled, she deemed it advisable to call upon Mr. McManus, whom she found in nowise changed, but still as genial, as shabby-looking, and as snuffy as ever.
"Yes," he said in answer to a question, after he had ushered his visitor into a little parlor behind the shop, "the young shaver is quite well and hearty, or was so a week since, and is still in charge of Mrs. Mardin."
"And all the expenses in connection with him are still defrayed by Mr. Dare?"
"In that respect nothing is changed. I may, however, just mention that some time ago a report reached me--although, mind you, Miss, I can't tell how true it was--that between two and three years ago Mr. Dare came to the end of his tether--was ruined, in point of fact (no doubt gambling had to do with it), and had to give up all his fine acquaintances and leave London. But be that as it may, I have it from Mrs. Mardin's lips that the quarter's money for young Evan is always punctually remitted. He's one of those gentlemen, is Mr. Dare, whose word is his bond. I wish all so-called gentlemen were like him."
The old man paused to refresh himself with a pinch of his favorite mixture and then went on:
"I myself, on a fine Sunday afternoon, sometimes manage to get as far as Chelsea, in order to satisfy myself as to how the boy is getting on. Although Mrs. Mardin knows me for his great-uncle on the mother's side, that fact, at my request, has been kept a secret from Evan. From the first I made up my mind that I would not spoil any chance the boy might have of one day being acknowledged by his father's relations by putting my humble self in the way, and when you entered the shop just now, Miss, I was in hopes you had come to tell me that Mr. Cortelyon had changed his mind at last, and had sent you to fetch his grandson."
Nell shook her head sadly. "I am afraid there is no present likelihood of my uncle doing anything of the kind. Up till now his feelings in the matter have undergone no change."
"And maybe he will go down to the grave without having known how sweet it is to forgive. Poor old gentleman, how I pity him!"
An hour later Nell despatched a note to Mrs. Mardin, telling her that she hoped to be at Lawn Cottage in the course of the afternoon of next day, and there the specified time found her.
Evan had by no means forgotten his "Aunt Nell," and she was made very glad thereby. But she had sent him so many presents of toys and other things from time to time that it would have been odd if he had not remembered her. To her he seemed to have grown more like his father than ever. If his grandfather would but once have admitted the lad to his presence, surely his hard heart would have softened at Evan's haunting likeness to the dead man! But, as the old tobacconist had said he would go down to the grave without having known how sweet it is to forgive.
Mrs. Mardin was nothing if not hospitable, and before long tea was served; nor were the toothsome buns for which Chelsea was famed forgotten. But scarcely had the first cup been poured out before Mrs. Mardin rose suddenly to her feet. Some one had just passed the window, and next moment there was a tug at the front-door bell.
"I declare if here isn't Mr. Dare!" exclaimed the widow. "What a strange thing that you and he should happen to come on the same day!" And with that she hurried out of the room.
Miss Baynard had often desired to make the acquaintance of this unknown benefactor of her dead kinsman's widow and child, and now her wish was about to be gratified. She stood up as the door opened, with a slightly heightened color, and with a heart that beat somewhat faster than common.
A second later every vestige of color fled her face, and it seemed to her as if her limbs were on the point of giving way under her. She drew one long, gasping breath, and unconsciously her hand gripped the back of her chair, as if to keep herself from falling. In the man who now entered the room she had recognized--or she felt nearly sure she had--the notorious Captain Nightshade, he who had come to her help that night when she was reeling in her saddle after having been fired at by the unknown traveller in the chaise, and who had afterwards acted as her guide as far as Rockmount!
It was true that she had only had a clear view of his face for a few brief seconds, while the old serving-man stood at the open door with his lighted candle, but the picture thus seen had burnt itself into her memory as few things had ever done, and many a time since then had she conjured it up in fancy till its every lineament seemed to have grown familiar to her.
And now, marvel of marvels, here before her, a living reality, was the face she had never thought to see again--long and brown, with its thin, high-ridged nose, its delicate nostrils, its black, brilliant eyes, its mobile mouth, and its massive, rounded chin, together with that air of almost defiant recklessness which of itself would have served to mark the man out from his more commonplace fellows, and which seemed to sit so easily upon him. And there, too, had further proof been needed, was the tiny brown mole on the lower half of the left side of his face, which had caught her attention at the time, as a "beauty-patch" might have done on the cheek of one of her own sex.
She tightened her grip on the back of the chair, and their eyes met. Into his there came no flicker of recognition, no slightest evidence which betrayed any consciousness on his part that they had ever met before. His glance encountered hers with the clear, unwinking steadfastness of one stranger regarding another. His features were grave and composed; there was no start of surprise; the sallow of his cheeks remained untinged by any faintest flush of color. Miss Baynard was bewildered. Could it be that he had known beforehand whom he was about to meet and had schooled himself accordingly? But this was a question Nell had no grounds for asking herself.
p108"She had recognized thenotorious Captain Nightshade."
The girl's perturbation and amazement passed unnoticed by Mrs. Mardin, whose eyesight was no longer what it once had been, and she now went through the office of introducing the young people in the fewest words possible.
Miss Baynard curtsied a littlegauchement, which was not like her. Mr. Dare, with his hat pressed to his heart, made her a profound bow.
"I am indeed fortunate in finding here to-day a lady whom it has long been the chief desire of my existence to have the felicity of meeting."
Such a speech addressed nowadays by a young man to a young woman would seem, and rightly so, absurdly high-flown and unreal; but to our great-grandfathers and grandmothers it would have appeared nothing of the kind. They and their progenitors for generations had brought the art of compliment, especially as between the sexes, to a degree of perfection of which we, in these degenerate times, retain little more than the tradition. Very likely it was all very artificial and insincere, but the fair sex of a day which now seems so far removed not only expected it but liked it. If we have been brought up on sugared food, the taste for it generally clings to us through life.
If any doubt had lingered in Miss Baynard's mind with regard to the dual personality of the man before her, his first words would have finally dispelled it. She would have known his voice among a thousand. How many times since she first heard those full deep tones had she heard them again in her dreams? She would have blushed to tell how often had she cared, or been able to count them. Yes, the last shred of amazed doubt was gone. Had she encountered Dare in the dark and heard him speak, she would have whispered to herself, "That is the voice of Captain Nightshade, and of no one but him."
And yet he had not recognized her! But perhaps there was nothing to wonder at in that. So far as she knew he had had no opportunity of scanning her features as she had of his, and probably had no curiosity to do so, besides which he had been unaware of her sex, and had parted from her as one man parts from another. To a man of his profession the adventure of that night would seem a tame little episode hardly worth the trouble of remembering. She was glad, she was very glad, that he had failed to recognize her, and yet--being of the sex she was--even while she told herself so she felt a bitter heart-stab.Shewould have knownhimagain anywhere, and under any disguise.
But she put this thought from her, and drew a breath of reviving courage. Her blood began to flow again, and soon a strange gladness, for which she could not account, began to make itself felt at her heart.
Before this came about she had found words to reply to Dare's little speech.
"And I on my part, Mr. Dare, can say in all sincerity that I am very glad to make your acquaintance. I have long wanted to be able to thank you for your generous kindness towards both the dead and the living, and now the time has come when I can do so. But pray let us be seated."
Mrs. Mardin had discreetly withdrawn. She was sorry that all the good tea in the pot would be spoiled with standing, but such little mishaps cannot always be avoided.
Master Evan was in the garden, urging on his wild career on a big rocking-horse which his Aunt Nell had sent him by carrier the day before.
"Dick Cortelyon and I were very dear friends, Miss Baynard, as you are doubtless aware. When his premature death left those he loved on the verge of destitution, was it not the place of him he had honored with his friendship to come forward and shield them, in some measure at least, from the chill blasts of penury? This it has been my privilege to be able to do. 'Twas but little--very little--and had our places been reversed I feel assured that Dick would have done the same by me."
"There I agree with you; but such friendships are rare, or so I am bidden believe. For all you have done in the past, Mr. Dare, I thank you from the bottom of my heart; it is what not one so-called friend out of a hundred would have done. But from to-day his charge upon your generosity must cease."
A shade of perplexity passed across Dare's face. "Pardon me, Miss Baynard, if I fail to apprehend your meaning."
"What I mean is that my cousin's child must no longer be a burden on you, and that it devolves upon those to whom he is bound by the ties of blood to care henceforth for his future."
"A burden, Miss Baynard! The word stabs me."
"Pardon me, I was wrong. It ought never to have passed my lips. I am very sorry."
Mr. Dare bent his head as accepting the apology, and, indeed, for once Nell looked almost abject.
"From your remark," said Dare, "I can only conclude that Mr. Cortelyon's hard heart has at length relented, and that he has made up his mind to acknowledge his grandson."
Nell shook her head. "I am sorry to say that nothing of the kind has come to pass. My uncle is still as much embittered against the boy as ever he was."
"Excuse me, but you spoke of those to whom the boy is bound by the ties of blood as----"
"Am I not bound to Evan by the tie of blood, Mr. Dare?"
"The fact is one which cannot be disputed. Then, you wish me to understand----?" He paused.
"That from now I charge myself wholly and solely with Evan's future. 'Tis what I have long wished, nay, determined to do, but till to-day you and I have never met." The last words had hardly passed her lips before a quick flush mounted to her cheeks. Unthinkingly she had given utterance to an untruth. They twohadmet before, although he seemed to be wholly unaware of the fact. But there was no possibility of recalling her words even had she been desirous of doing so. "And----and consequently I have had no opportunity of making this known to you before." The break had only been momentary. Had he noticed it? She could not tell.
Dare's face darkened, and the line between his eyebrows became more marked. "I was certainly not prepared for this," he replied. "Had I had any prevision of what I was about to hear, much as I value my introduction to Miss Baynard, I think I should hardly have come near Lawn Cottage to-day."
Nell's eyes struck fire, and for a moment or two her teeth bit into her underlip; but when she spoke it was with no trace of temper.
"That was a very rude speech on your part, Mr. Dare, to address to a lady. But, under the circumstances, I can make every allowance for your feelings, and I am not going to take offence at it. The one thing I am sorry about in connection with this affair is that some such arrangement was not come to long ago."
"And I am grieved that it should ever be come to. It will cut me to the quick, I tell you plainly. When poor Dick lay on his deathbed I gave him my word that while I had a crust his boy should not want, and that I would do my best to make up to him for that stroke of ill-fortune which was about to rob him of a father's love and care. It was a promise which, as far as the exigencies and circumstances of my life would allow, I have striven to fulfil to the best of my ability. That life--my life--is a very lonely one, how lonely you cannot conceive, and in the course of time my dead friend's son has grown very dear to me. Yet now, Miss Baynard, you would come between us (how cruel in some things is your sex!) and would deprive me of him."
"You misapprehend my intentions, Mr. Dare. I have no wish to come between you and the boy in any way. You will have full freedom to visit him as often as you wish. All I say is, that henceforth all charges in connection with him must be defrayed by me."
Dare got up abruptly, crossed to the window, stared out of it for a few moments, and then went back to his seat.
"Look here, Miss Baynard," he said, "why should not you and I come to a compromise in this matter, as one finds it advisable to do in so many of the affairs of life? Suppose we share the expense--'tis a mere bagatelle after all. Come, now, what say you?"
Miss Baynard shook her head. "It cannot be, Mr. Dare. On this point my mind is finally made up. I am very sorry if my telling you so causes you any pain or annoyance, but there is no help for it. My action is based on reasons which I do not feel at liberty to explain. Your goodness in the past will never be forgotten by me, and I trust----"
"Not a syllable more, I beg," said Dare, with a queer little break in his voice. "My 'goodness,' forsooth! Revile me, strike me, but never fling that word at me again as applicable to anything between me and my dead friend! But I will urge you no longer. You tell me your mind is made up, in which case there is nothing more to be said or done."
Although Dare had not succeeded in persuading Miss Baynard to reverse or modify the decision she had come to in the case of her cousin's child, and although he was at no pains to hide his chagrin and disappointment, he and she did not fail to part as good friends are in the habit of parting. Neither of them had any wish to part otherwise, and it would have been hard to say which of them would have been the more sorry to do so; indeed, Nell was unwilling to say good-bye till she had obtained from him an address--that of a lawyer--to which she could write in case she should have occasion to communicate with him about the boy.
Both of them put the selfsame question to themselves within five minutes of their parting: "When and where, if ever, shall we meet again?"
Dare went direct from Chelsea to Holborn. Miss Baynard had said that her action was influenced by certain reasons which she did not feel at liberty to specify. Was one of those reasons based on the fact that he was now a ruined man? If so, through what channel had the information reached her?
Finding Mr. McManus as usual in his shop, Dare at once challenged him with being the tale-bearer. It was an accusation he made no attempt to rebut; but that in saying what he had to Miss Baynard he had been actuated by any feeling of ill-will towards Dare was too absurd a notion to be entertained for one moment. However, the mischief was done and could not be undone, and with all his faults Dare was not the man to vent his annoyance on so helpless an object as the old tobacconist.
But Miss Baynard had spoken as if there were more reasons than one for the decision she had arrived at. Might not another, and perhaps the chief one, lie in the fact that in him she had recognized the man who had been mixed up with herself in a certain memorable adventure, and who, when asked his name, had told her that he was none other than the notorious "Captain Nightshade"? It was a recognition he had not counted on, being unaware how incautiously he had afforded her the opportunity of scanning his features by the light of the serving-man's candle at the door of Rockmount. But that she had recognized him was an indisputable fact. Was it, then, to be wondered at that she should refuse in such positive terms to permit him any longer to defray young Evan's expenses with money which she doubtless regarded as the proceeds of robbery on the King's highway?
No, he felt bound to admit that it was not to be wondered at, and that, in point of fact, no other course was open to her. And yet, knowing him now to be that which he had told her he was, she had parted from him with a cordiality in which he felt assured there was noarrière-pensée. She had given him her hand frankly, and in her beautiful eyes he had read nothing but kindliness, with just a hint of sadness, or so he fancied, shining through it. And then, what had her last words to him been? "Let us not say good-bye, butau revoir." And this to the man who had confessed to being Captain Nightshade!
But to attempt to follow the turnings and twistings of that incomprehensible thing, a woman's mind, was what he made no pretensions to doing. It was enough for him that her own lips had saidau revoir; and that a propitious fate in its own good time would bring them together again he did not permit himself to doubt.
Dare had had no thought or expectation of finding Miss Baynard at Lawn Cottage; he had not even known that she was in town; consequently the meeting was as great a surprise to him as it was to her. But what he did know, and had known all along, was that she and thesoi-disant"Mr. Jack Prentice" were one and the same person. So piqued had his curiosity been by the adventure which had brought them together after such a strange fashion, that after her departure from Rockmount he had caused a watch to be set upon her movements till she had been traced back to Stanbrook. That she should prove to be the cousin of his dead friend, Dick Cortelyon, was merely one of those coincidences such as people who habitually keep their eyes open can see happening around them every day.
Dare had been quite right in his surmise as to the reasons which had actuated Nell in her refusal to allow him to contribute any longer, even in part, towards the cost of Evan's maintenance. The fact that he was a ruined man would of itself have been argument sufficient for the step she had decided upon taking. But when, in addition, she had to face the question, and it was one she could not shirk, "From what source is the money derived which is remitted every quarter-day to Mrs. Mardin?" she felt that no answer was needed from her. It was a question which answered itself. And this state of things had been going on for she knew not how long! Not another day must it last.
She had only been a couple of days back at Stanbrook when a small packet reached her through the post. It bore the London postmark, and was addressed in a writing wholly strange to her. She opened it, not without curiosity, to find that all it contained was the mask worn by her on a certain never-to-be-forgotten occasion. She had been unable to find it when, after reaching home, she proceeded to replace Dick's habiliments in the closet whence she had disinterred them. To the best of her belief she had inadvertently left it behind her in the bedroom at Rockmount, but it was a point as to which she could not be positive. Anyhow, here it was, sent back to her by an unknown hand, and her receipt of it in such fashion raised more than one perplexing question.
But supposing she was in error in thinking she had left the mask at Rockmount? In that case only one conclusion was open to her--that it was not Mr. Ellerslie, but Mr. Dare, who had returned it. One or the other of them it must be. If Mr. Dare were the sender of it, how woefully in error she must have been in assuming that he had not recognized her when they met accidentally at Lawn Cottage! And yet, by not so much as the flicker of an eyelid had he betrayed any knowledge, or even suspicion, of their ever having met before! If he did recognize her on that occasion, then of course her secret--the secret of her sex--was equally in his keeping. Perhaps he had known or guessed it from the first! Had he not, when she reeled and all but swooned in the saddle, caught her in his arms? and had she not, with wandering senses, lain for a little while--a very little while--in his embrace! Was it then he made the discovery, supposing it to have been made at all?
Hardly had she asked herself the question before a delicious thrill went through her from crown to foot, and all the pulses of her being began to palpitate with a strange, new, sweet life, far sweeter than anything she had hitherto known. She felt as a chrysalis may feel when it bursts its husk and first spreads its wings to the sun.
She sat for some little time, her face hidden in her hands, although she was alone, and her veins aglow with something that almost frightened her. Then on a sudden her mood changed: she sprang to her feet, and with clenched hands and hard-set face took to pacing her room from end to end, doing silent battle with herself meanwhile. Never had she been so assailed before, and she brought all the forces of her womanly pride to bear on the insidious foe that was undermining her outworks one by one. She had deemed herself invulnerable; she had, as it were, set herself on a pedestal as a being apart, whom the one great weakness of her sex--for such it seemed to her--could never touch. And now nature was beginning to revenge itself by proving to her that she was no stronger in some ways than the weakest of her weak sisters. But she would not yield, she would not give way, she told herself again and again with a sort of fierce despair, while conscious all the while that one bastion after another was crumbling before the enemy's assaults. "Shall not a woman remain mistress of her own fate?" she cried despairingly.
In some things she shall, my dear Nell, but not in all, as you are proving to your cost. There is a power within you that is stronger than yourself.
At length, sick and weary at heart, she cast herself on her bed and buried her face in the pillows. "Never, never will I submit!" she moaned. But even as the words escaped her some traitor in the garrison hauled down the flag which had flaunted itself so defiantly, and the citadel was won.
But who the sender of the mask was remained as much a mystery as before.
Except in a few occasional instances, Mr. Ambrose Cortelyon, who prided himself on his possession of an unbiassed mind, was not in the habit of being unreasonable either in his demands or his expectations, whether they concerned himself or others. Thus, he was quite aware that when his convalescence, so to call it, had reached a certain point and made no advance beyond it, it would be both useless and unreasonable on his part to look for any. Although Dinkel's marvellous drug could do much, it could not work miracles. He, the Squire, must not only be content, but must deem himself one of the most fortunate of men that such a measure of health had been given back to him as was now his, and henceforward his most fervent prayer must be for a continuance of it for an indefinite time to come.
Dinkel had held out to him the hope--nay, it had been next door to a promise--of a prolongation of his life for several months. What was there to hinder those months from extending themselves to years? He himself could see nothing in the way. Why should he not go on as he was going on now till his years had stretched themselves out to fourscore? Of course, he was only living a half-life, as it were; it was existence with sadly maimed powers, but only on such terms was existence possible to him at all. When we can't have what we would, the only wisdom is to content ourselves with what we have.
He was quite aware of his utter dependence on Dinkel, but on that score he had no fears. He knew that the young doctor meditated a removal to London before long; indeed, the contingency had already been discussed between them and provided for. Week by week Dinkel would forward to his mother by coach a small packet containing seven phials, the contents of one of which would be administered to the Squire each day by Mrs. Dinkel, whose services had been exclusively secured by the payment of a wage far more liberal than she could hope to obtain elsewhere. Dinkel's own services were to be remunerated at the rate of one hundred pounds a month for as long a time as he should prove successful in keeping his patient in the land of the living.
Under these circumstances, the Squire could bear to look forward to Dinkel's proximate departure with tolerable equanimity.
Dr. Banks, at the Squire's request, still kept up his visits to the Hall, but he no longer came daily as of yore. At each visit the same little farce, which each knew to be a farce, was enacted between him and his patient. Having felt the latter's pulse and looked at his tongue, Banks would remark in his inanely amiable way: "We are going on famously--famously. Strength thoroughly maintained; total absence of febrile symptoms; temperature absolutely normal. I think we could not do better than keep on with the old medicine."
"Of course we couldn't, Banks," the Squire would respond with a chuckle. "It's wonderful stuff that of yours. Send another pailful along as soon as you like."
Then would Banks take his departure, knowing well that not one drop of his medicine would be swallowed by the master of Stanbrook. But he had a large family, and could not afford to quarrel with his bread-and-cheese. He was no worse than the majority of his fellows, for circumstances make humbugs of most of us, if not in one way, then in another.
He had heard all that common report had to tell him about Dinkel, and about the magical drug he had brought with him from the East, but he forebore to make any inquiries of his own into the matter. To him the whole thing was an insoluble mystery; but, for all that, there was one consolatory feature connected with it. So long as Mr. Cortelyon could be kept alive, even were it with the connivance of the Foul Fiend himself, so long would he, James Banks, continue to draw a certain number of guineas for visits paid and physic supplied, although the one might be nothing more than a solemn farce, and the other might be poured down the kitchen sink.
To himself he stigmatized Cornelius Dinkel as a "Son of the Devil."