Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter Thirteen.The Beginning of the End.I awoke the next morning with a certain feeling of relief. Clarence Payne, it is true, had given me no definite advice as yet, but it was a comfort to know that he, to a great extent, understood and certainly sympathised with my position. Then, too, I was thankful to have his assurance that Caryll Grey’s condition was not quite such a critical one as I had begun to fear; not improbably indeed, if any action were taken on the knowledge that had come to me, even if it affected the whole fortunes of the Grey family satisfactorily, it might have to be kept secret from the younger brother till he had progressed further towards the partial recovery which there now seemed some hope of. And in the meantime, I felt well content to rest on my oars for a little, knowing that I had done what I could for the best. There was something bracing and strengthening in Clarence’s simple belief that when one so acted, direction—guidance—call it what you will, would come.I shall always remember that Sunday in Granville Square. Owing possibly, in part, to the sort of nervous tension I had worked myself up to, now succeeded by a reaction to comparative restfulness, it has left on my memory an association of peculiar peacefulness. To a country-bred person, in those days perhaps more than now, the quiet of the London streets on a Sunday struck me agreeably, and this quiet one I enjoyed to the full in my present quarters. The old-fashioned square was almost as silent as in the middle of the night, and indoors, though the Paynes were far from puritanical either in belief or practice, the first day of the week was observed somewhat strictly, in the sense, above all, of its being reposeful and calm for the whole household, servants as well as masters. Not that at my godmother’s the true spirit of the fourth commandment was set aside, but she was of a different nature, and seemed to belong to a different order of things, socially speaking.It never occurred to my present host and hostess to attend any church but their legitimate parish one, whither we all dutifully bent our steps to the appointed places. There was no waiting in the aisle, no pushing or crowding, however decorously veiled. The service now-a-days, no doubt, would strike most people as dull, and by no means soul-stirring, and perhaps to a great extent so it was! But all things in this world have their two sides. There was something dignified and reverent about the whole proceedings, which I have always remembered with a certain admiration; appreciative of, and I hope grateful, though I am, for the more abundant life and light which have in such things come to us in the latter half of the present century. I don’t remember anything about the sermon, except that it was gentle and mildly instructive, the preacher giving one the impression of being a scholar and a gentleman of the old school. But whatever it was, it suited me that day. So did the whole course of things. The quiet little walk home across the square; the simple, though carefully served, cold luncheon; the afternoon in my own room, where, as the day was chilly, a nice little fire greeted me. Then the comfortable, somewhat “schoolroom-like” five o’clock tea, to which one or two intimate friends dropped in. Church again later, for those who felt equal to it, of which I was not one, and supper, followed by some favourite hymns, led by Mrs Payne’s sweet voice, and accompanied by Rupert on a chamber-organ installed for the purpose in the library.I liked it all.I had no private talk with Clarence that day, and when I came down to breakfast on the Monday morning, though I had intended to be very early, I found he had already gone. I felt a little disappointed, but that was all. There was something about him which gave one a feeling of security and stability. I felt certain he would not forget a syllable of what had passed between us—that he was not the kind of character to do so, even if his own keen interest and sympathy had not been involved in the matter, as I knew that they so thoroughly were.That evening there was a little dinner-party in my honour. I was to leave the next morning, and Mrs Payne had exerted herself to get together a few friends whom she knew intimately enough to invite at short notice. There was one remarkably pretty girl, the daughter or niece of the senior partner in the Payne firm, whose death, a year or so ago, Rupert had told me of. She was something of an heiress, the same informant told me; inhisopinion the man she was just going to be married to was not “half good enough for her.”“Had it beenClarencenow,” he proceeded to say, with the funny little half-patronising air, which, in conjunction somehow with his literary aspirations, was so amusing, “one would not have wondered.”“But she looks exceedingly happy,” I ventured to remark.“That’s just it,” said Rupert irritably. “If it had been Clarence now, one could understand her looking as if nobody had ever been going to be married before.”As he spoke, the last-named person crossed the room to us.“What’s the matter, Rupert?” he said. “You look rather at war with the world. I fancy I caught the sound of my own name—have I done anything to ruffle his feathers, Miss Fitzmaurice?”I smiled; indeed I was on the point of laughing outright, Rupert looked so cross.“No,” I said, “not that I know of, except—the being yourself, and not somebody else, or rather not being in somebody else’s shoes at the present time.”I am afraid my raillery was far from being oil on the waters of Rupert’s irritation. It was getting late; some of the guests had already left. Rupert got up with some murmured excuse and joined his mother at the other side of the room, whereupon Clarence took his place, so matters had fallen out luckily for me, though I had had no intention of driving Rupert away.“Is he really annoyed at anything?” asked the elder brother.“Oh, no!” I replied, “nothing of the slightest consequence. But I think he would like to be wire-puller to living puppets as well as to those of his own creation, sometimes.”“I suppose there’s a touch of that about us all,” said Clarence, and though he spoke lightly, I think we both felt that the remark was rather curiously appropriate at the present juncture of the drama, of which we were longing to see the dénouement.“Just at present,” I said half ruefully, “I am longing, as you know, to be told whether I should pull wires at all or not.”“Yes, yes,” he said quickly, “I know. Don’t think I am forgetting about it. I am expecting letters to-morrow even. May I write to you? I am sorry to hear you are leaving us so soon. Will you tell me your address?”I did so, understanding that he did not wish to apply to his mother for it.“Write to me?” I repeated. “Yes, indeed, I hope you will. Come to see me if necessary; indeed I almost think it’s sure to be so.”I was feeling less philosophical about the whole business than I had done. Fully as my sympathy was enlisted, there were times when the fact of being in the least mixed up in the unhappy affair weighed on me so uncomfortably, that I felt inclined to throw it off altogether, and the knowledge that I had brought it upon myself by no means diminished this discomfort; such knowledge never does, which truth I wish our well-intentioned friends would sometimes lay to heart!But Clarence’s next words had again a calming effect.“I don’t know how it is,” he said. “I can give neither rhyme nor reason for it, but I have a strong persuasion, as I think I said before, that events are working up in that direction, to clear the ground. We must just be a little patient.”And he was right, as the conclusion of my little history will show. The feeling, the inward persuasion to which he alluded may seem fantastic, but I have noticed in life that such premonitions are by no means limited to superstitious or highly imaginative people. They come sometimes, or are sent, to the best-balanced minds among us, and in such cases of course with double force, bringing with them strenuous demand on our respect and attention. I thanked Clarence, for I felt it a compliment that he should thus trust me—he, an acute and practical man—with the avowal of what many would have set aside as too fanciful to be worthy of any consideration.And from that time—I must again use a rather trite expression—“the plot began to thicken”—palpably so; though, as when the clouds gather together for a final burst, the thickening, as before long we were thankful to feel able to hope, was preliminary to a dispersion of the long, long heavy gloom hanging over an innocent group, with whom circumstances had led to several, unconnected with its members by any natural ties, feeling deep sympathy for, myself among them.I returned to Lady Bretton’s the next morning. I felt sorry to leave my new friends, though the regret was mitigated by their heartily-expressed hopes that we should meet again—hopes which I was sure would be realised, as I could so thoroughly respond to them, and I knew that I had but to say a word to secure my kind parents’ co-operation in any plan for continuing the intercourse.My godmother was pleased, unfeignedly and rather specially so, it seemed to me, to have me with her again. She cross-questioned me a little more than was usual with her as to the Granville Square people, and was notquiteas cordial about them as I could have wished, which somewhat perplexed me.“Very nice! oh yes, I have no doubt they are very nice, excellent people,” she said, “and it will do you no harm, Reggie, dear,” for she sometimes condescended to use my brother’s pet name. It had rather taken her fancy, and then, too, she being my name-mother as well as godmother, the abbreviation diminished confusion—“no harm to see something of other kinds of society. There are so manyshadesof it in London, even among the well-bred, unexceptionable people.”Still I felt that her tone was not thoroughly cordial, especially when she added consideringly—“I thought the young fellow, the one who wants to write novels, was the eldest son?”“Oh, no!” I replied. “Clarence Payne is some years older, and I—” but I stopped short. I had been on the point of adding, “I have met him before,” but under the circumstances of that meeting, I quickly remembered that it was better not to do so.I think it was the next day but one that I received a letter from my father. The sight of his handwriting gave me a little start, for it was very rarely indeed that he was one of my correspondents when I was away from home, as he left all letter-writing, as far as I was concerned, to my mother, who had rather an old-fashioned love of it, in consequence of which, what she wrote was always interesting.“I hope mamma is not ill,” I thought, as I opened the envelope; fortunately I was alone at the time, for the contents of the sheet before me were indeed surprising. I have it still, so I think I will here transcribe at least some part of it.To begin with, it was headed, “Private and confidential,” which, had I been less disinterestedly engrossed at once by the nature of the communication, would have filled me with no little pride, for my father, though in his heart he had a high respect for sensible women, was rather chary of allowing that many such existed.“My dear child,” it went on, “after some consideration, I have made up my mind to confide to you—I may almost say consult you about—a rather strange occurrence. Do you remember some little time before you left home asking me if I knew anything of a certain ‘Ernest Fitzmaurice,’ whom you had heard casually referred to? You did not even know if he were a member of our own family or not; you gave me no special reason for the inquiry, and after telling you the little I remembered about the man in question (always supposing that it was the same individual), I thought no more of the matter, and probably never should have done so again, but for what I have to tell you. I received yesterday a letter written to dictation, but signed by the owner of the name,i.e.Ernest Fitzmaurice himself. Its contents are in a sense private, though the writer in no way debars me from acting upon them—in fact, that I should do so, and that without delay, is the motive of his communication. The letter is dated from an hotel at Liverpool, where he has recently arrived, and where he is delayed by serious, indeed he hints probably fatal illness. He has been in bad health for some time, but in no anticipation of anything sudden, so came over from Australia to prosecute certain inquiries leading to the reparation of a terrible wrong which he committed many years ago in this country. Of this wrong he gives me a rough idea, but reserves details till we meet, or at least till he receives a reply to his letter. It may seem strange that he has picked me out, distant relation as I am, for his confidence, but this he explains satisfactorily enough, his own immediate family having to a great extent died out, and such as remain very difficult to trace, whereas we, from our long residence in the same spot, and my county position, were easily found. The man is not poor—rather, I should infer, very rich. He has a wife and family in the colonies, known and respected there, as he has been himself, but under a different name, which he does not tell me. His narrative, slightly as he gives it, fills me with horror and indignation, though this attempt at reparation, tardy as it is, should, I suppose, make us pity him. What a burden he must have carried about all these years of outward success and prosperity! Now, my dear Regina, if there is anything you can tell me, I depend upon your doing so. I may be mistaken in hoping that the coincidence of your naming this man will lead to anything, but, on the other hand, I have a strange persuasion that it may do so. Let me know at once if my conjecture is correct.”When I had read all this, I sat still for a few minutes with my brain in a whirl. Clarence had been right. My father’s intuition, my own, were right; the whole thing was more than extraordinary! But it was no time for reflecting in this way; not a moment must be lost, considering the critical state this man was in, and the enormous consequence to the family at Millflowers of what he had to disclose. No reasonable person could doubt that the stories were one and the same; that the Ernest Fitzmaurice whose name I had overheard was this very man. I sat still, thinking earnestly what should be my first step, and by degrees things grew a little clearer.“I must write to father, and get his leave to consult the Paynes,” I thought, “and I shall strongly advise him, without asking my grounds for so doing as yet, to go down to Liverpool, and at least hear everything fully, and if necessary, get a ‘deposition,’ or whatever they call it, from his cousin—how I hate calling him so!—which would be effectual or valid in case of his death before anything more can be done. And the moment my letter is written and posted, I must arrange to see Clarence, to have him prepared and ready for the necessary action. My own path is no longer doubtful; I shall not require to betray anything, only to help others in the right direction.”I set to work at once to write to my father, and having done so, I felt a little more at leisure in my mind, and other details began to take shape.Yes, it seemed all happening very curiously, all to fit in, to prevent complication or confusion.Ten to one “Grey” was not the real name of the family. How then, with all the goodwill in the world to help forward this tardy reparation, could my father have done anything effectual, except by public advertisement or some step of the kind which would have been horror for the principals in the affair? How, again, could the Paynes, father or son, even suspecting what they already did, have used their influence in any practical way had Mr Grey continued to refuse to give the name of the traitor he had so long concealed, but for my assurance that they were on the right track? Indeed the ins and outs of the possibilities and contingencies were too bewildering and useless to dwell upon. WhatIhad to do was simple enough. I calculated that if my father replied at once, as I felt sure he would—it was before the days of telegrams being privately employed to any appreciable extent—I should receive a letter the day after to-morrow by the first post, immediately upon which I must try to arrange to see Clarence, and probably his father.So I wrote that same day to the former, telling him that I hoped he would be able to call on Thursday morning, on the chance, approaching a certainty, of my having something of great importance to talk over with him.“It is better to write this to him,” I reflected.“It will prevent his pondering unnecessarily over what I have asked him to decide, and it will make his coming to see me much more likely.”This second letter written and sent, I gave a sigh of relief. I had done all I could for the present, and though still conscious of a good deal of nervous anxiety, or rather, perhaps, excitement, I felt more at rest, and freer to enjoy my kind godmother’s plans for the day. The “season” was advancing now, and as the time for my return home was close at hand, these plans of hers for my amusement were multiplying hourly, so determined was she that the last part of my visit to her should in no way fall flat.“I want you to want to come back again,” she said to me that afternoon, as we drove off in her charming carriage to some pleasant party—what or where, I forget—and as she said it she glanced at me scrutinisingly. “I have just one fault to find with you,” she continued, “tomboy though your mother called you, and as you called yourself, if I am not mistaken, before now—I am afraid there is some danger of your growing too sedate. That would never do, and to tell you the truth, the danger of it has struck me since your return from those good folk in Granville Square. I hope they have not put it into your wise little head, Reggie, that your godmother is too frivolous or fashionable, or any nonsense of that kind?”“Ohdear, no,” I replied emphatically and truthfully, though nevertheless something in her inquiry made me blush a little—not with any consciousness of a word, or the shadow of a word, having been said by the Paynes of the kind she alluded to, but because I knew Ihadsecret cause for “sedateness,” as Lady Bretton called it; “preoccupation” would have been a more appropriate word. And also because I still felt the charm of the quiet, somewhat more serious tone of the peaceful and dignified home-life of my new friends, and in my heart hoped that my next visit to my godmother might mean one to them too. “Ohdear, no,” I repeated, “they are not at all that kind of family. They seem to have nice feelings to and about everybody, as far as I can judge. Indeed, dearest godmother, I can’t tell you how much I shall look forward to another visit to you. You have been so very,verykind.”“That’s all right, then,” she replied. “And next time there must be no interruptions. I won’t have you going off to Granville Square or anywhere. You won’t care to do so. It isn’t as if there were daughters in the family,” and here there was a touch of inquiry in her tone; “that reminds me, by the way, that before you come again, I want to hunt up a few—even one or two—girl friends for you. You see I could scarcely do so before, till I knew you a little better and could judge what your tastes were, and so on.”“And the sort of girl friends you thought I needed! Evidently they will not be of the ultra-serious order,” I reflected, with a little secret amusement. But aloud I just laughed, and begged my godmother to believe that no girl friends she could possibly hunt up or down for me would suit me half or a quarter as well as her own charming young-hearted self. “I have Isabel Wynyard now,” I said, “and I do feel that she has made me much more like other people—other girls, I mean.”Lady Bretton glanced at me with affectionate approval.“I don’t think, dear,” she said, “that in my eyes there would ever have been much room for improvement or alteration for the better, though I am sure—I knew her mother a little, you know—that Isabel must be a thoroughly nice companion for you. I only hope that some day—”But here she stopped and hesitated.“What?” I said, my curiosity aroused. “Do go on, dear godmother. I could never mind anything you would say.”She laughed, but there was a little constraint in her manner.“I was only going to—to express a hope,” she resumed, “that some day you may meet somebody as desirable for a different kind of companion as Isabel Wynyard is inherway. A commonplace thing to say, and certainly in your case there is time enough! Don’t be in a hurry about it, my dear.”It was not for a moment or two that I took in the drift of her remark, and she laughed again, this time more heartily, at my perplexed expression. I think she was pleased to see my entire absence of self-consciousness. But when her meaning became clear to me, and I turned it over in my mind after we got home, I felt a little surprised. What could she have got into her head to cause any allusion of the kind? I could not make it out.The next day brought some enlightenment, and not of a pleasant kind. Certainly, if the Fates had destined me to interference for good in the affairs of the Grey family, it was not to be without annoyance and discomfort to myself!In answer to my letter to him, I heard from Clarence Payne that he had arranged to call to see me on Thursday morning. It was of course necessary to mention this to my hostess, but in my real interest, and engrossment to a certain extent, in the matter, I made the little communication with perfect freedom from embarrassment, and I was really startled at my godmother’s unmistakable surprise and disapproval.“My dear child,” she exclaimed, “what are you thinking of, or what is this young man thinking of? It is an extraordinary thing to do!”I stood silent for a moment, realising that on the face of it the proceedingwassomewhat unconventional. But it would not be fair to let any blame for this rest on Clarence Payne.“I am very sorry,” I said, my colour rising, “but it is not anybody’s fault but my own, if fault there is. I wrote to ask Mr Payne to come. It is entirely a matter of business—I would like to tell you all about it, but I don’t think I can. It depends on a letter I have had from father, and I am expecting another to-morrow morning, which I hope I shall be able to show you at least part of, in explanation of what I have done.”But Lady Bretton, good as she was, was not perfect. She was irritated at the whole episode, and therefore not quite reasonable.“I can scarcely think,” she said, “that your father can have realised what he was putting upon you. If so, he should have written to me direct. Why, the very servants will gossip about it, and no wonder, as of course, from what you say,Iam not to make a third at the interview.”It was all I could do not to begin to cry, but I controlled myself as a new and, I thought, happy idea struck me.“I have been very thoughtless, I’m afraid,” I said penitently, “but if you understood the whole thing, and before long I hope I may be able to tell you about it, Idon’tthink you would be vexed with me.” I stopped short, forgetting that I had not introduced my new project.“What is to be done?” said my godmother, still rather coldly.“Oh!” I exclaimed, “I was just going to tell you what I think I can do. I will write to Clar— to the younger Mr Payne, I mean, and ask him to beg his father to come with him.Thatwould put it all right, would it not?”“It would certainly give the interview its proper character,” she allowed, “that of a purely business one. But in taking all this upon you, my dear child,” and I was glad to hear her more natural tone again, “are you quite sure that you know what you are about?”“Yes,” I replied, decidedly, and I meant it. “Sooner or later,” I said to myself, “Mr Payne must be told everything. And if father’s letter is what I am sure it must be, ‘sooner’ will be pretty surely better than ‘later.’”My dreams, I well remember, were not of a very tranquil nature that night. I felt distressed at having managed for the first time, during my stay with her, to annoy my kind godmother, and I felt miserable and mortified at the bare shadow of a suggestion that my writing to Clarence Payne, asking him to call, as I had done, was, to say the least, unconventional, if not unladylike. For remember, I am writing of fully thirty or forty years ago, when the position of young girls of our class was very different from what it now is—though I cannot quite allow that in every way the alteration seems to me for the better.My correspondent had not, it is true, in the faintest degree appeared to think I had done anything unusual, but then I felt that he was a man of peculiarly chivalrous temperament.Hadhe thought so he would have done his best to prevent my finding it out.“Perhaps,” I said to myself, “he looks upon me as very childish and inexperienced, and makes allowance on this account.” This idea was not a pleasant one either, but my common-sense dismissed it. “No,” I thought, “he does not think me silly, or he would not have talked to me about all this as he has done.”But I felt very glad that I had written to ask the elder Mr Payne to come too, though my latest waking reflection was a hearty longing that I had never mixed myself up for good or bad in the Millflowers mystery.And a strange thing happened, as if to reprove me for the mingling of selfishness in this wish.I dreamt that as I was sitting alone in my godmother’s drawing-room waiting for my expected visitors, the door opened silently, and in came—walking slowly and with evident effort—Caryll Grey, or—a shiver went through me even in my sleep—his ghost. I saw him distinctly—more distinctly than I had ever done in my waking hours. His poor face looked very drawn and white, the gentle eyes unnaturally large and wistful.“Miss Fitzmaurice,” I thought he said, “regret nothing. Go through with it, I beseech you, and oh! for Heaven’s sake, make him tell.”Then the vision disappeared, and I seemed to be again alone in the room—waiting.Whom did he mean by “him”? His brother, or the already praying-to-confess traitor? I could not say, but it did not matter. I threw my misgivings and regrets aside, resolved to do my best. And when I awoke in the morning, the impression of my dream had in no way grown fainter.

I awoke the next morning with a certain feeling of relief. Clarence Payne, it is true, had given me no definite advice as yet, but it was a comfort to know that he, to a great extent, understood and certainly sympathised with my position. Then, too, I was thankful to have his assurance that Caryll Grey’s condition was not quite such a critical one as I had begun to fear; not improbably indeed, if any action were taken on the knowledge that had come to me, even if it affected the whole fortunes of the Grey family satisfactorily, it might have to be kept secret from the younger brother till he had progressed further towards the partial recovery which there now seemed some hope of. And in the meantime, I felt well content to rest on my oars for a little, knowing that I had done what I could for the best. There was something bracing and strengthening in Clarence’s simple belief that when one so acted, direction—guidance—call it what you will, would come.

I shall always remember that Sunday in Granville Square. Owing possibly, in part, to the sort of nervous tension I had worked myself up to, now succeeded by a reaction to comparative restfulness, it has left on my memory an association of peculiar peacefulness. To a country-bred person, in those days perhaps more than now, the quiet of the London streets on a Sunday struck me agreeably, and this quiet one I enjoyed to the full in my present quarters. The old-fashioned square was almost as silent as in the middle of the night, and indoors, though the Paynes were far from puritanical either in belief or practice, the first day of the week was observed somewhat strictly, in the sense, above all, of its being reposeful and calm for the whole household, servants as well as masters. Not that at my godmother’s the true spirit of the fourth commandment was set aside, but she was of a different nature, and seemed to belong to a different order of things, socially speaking.

It never occurred to my present host and hostess to attend any church but their legitimate parish one, whither we all dutifully bent our steps to the appointed places. There was no waiting in the aisle, no pushing or crowding, however decorously veiled. The service now-a-days, no doubt, would strike most people as dull, and by no means soul-stirring, and perhaps to a great extent so it was! But all things in this world have their two sides. There was something dignified and reverent about the whole proceedings, which I have always remembered with a certain admiration; appreciative of, and I hope grateful, though I am, for the more abundant life and light which have in such things come to us in the latter half of the present century. I don’t remember anything about the sermon, except that it was gentle and mildly instructive, the preacher giving one the impression of being a scholar and a gentleman of the old school. But whatever it was, it suited me that day. So did the whole course of things. The quiet little walk home across the square; the simple, though carefully served, cold luncheon; the afternoon in my own room, where, as the day was chilly, a nice little fire greeted me. Then the comfortable, somewhat “schoolroom-like” five o’clock tea, to which one or two intimate friends dropped in. Church again later, for those who felt equal to it, of which I was not one, and supper, followed by some favourite hymns, led by Mrs Payne’s sweet voice, and accompanied by Rupert on a chamber-organ installed for the purpose in the library.

I liked it all.

I had no private talk with Clarence that day, and when I came down to breakfast on the Monday morning, though I had intended to be very early, I found he had already gone. I felt a little disappointed, but that was all. There was something about him which gave one a feeling of security and stability. I felt certain he would not forget a syllable of what had passed between us—that he was not the kind of character to do so, even if his own keen interest and sympathy had not been involved in the matter, as I knew that they so thoroughly were.

That evening there was a little dinner-party in my honour. I was to leave the next morning, and Mrs Payne had exerted herself to get together a few friends whom she knew intimately enough to invite at short notice. There was one remarkably pretty girl, the daughter or niece of the senior partner in the Payne firm, whose death, a year or so ago, Rupert had told me of. She was something of an heiress, the same informant told me; inhisopinion the man she was just going to be married to was not “half good enough for her.”

“Had it beenClarencenow,” he proceeded to say, with the funny little half-patronising air, which, in conjunction somehow with his literary aspirations, was so amusing, “one would not have wondered.”

“But she looks exceedingly happy,” I ventured to remark.

“That’s just it,” said Rupert irritably. “If it had been Clarence now, one could understand her looking as if nobody had ever been going to be married before.”

As he spoke, the last-named person crossed the room to us.

“What’s the matter, Rupert?” he said. “You look rather at war with the world. I fancy I caught the sound of my own name—have I done anything to ruffle his feathers, Miss Fitzmaurice?”

I smiled; indeed I was on the point of laughing outright, Rupert looked so cross.

“No,” I said, “not that I know of, except—the being yourself, and not somebody else, or rather not being in somebody else’s shoes at the present time.”

I am afraid my raillery was far from being oil on the waters of Rupert’s irritation. It was getting late; some of the guests had already left. Rupert got up with some murmured excuse and joined his mother at the other side of the room, whereupon Clarence took his place, so matters had fallen out luckily for me, though I had had no intention of driving Rupert away.

“Is he really annoyed at anything?” asked the elder brother.

“Oh, no!” I replied, “nothing of the slightest consequence. But I think he would like to be wire-puller to living puppets as well as to those of his own creation, sometimes.”

“I suppose there’s a touch of that about us all,” said Clarence, and though he spoke lightly, I think we both felt that the remark was rather curiously appropriate at the present juncture of the drama, of which we were longing to see the dénouement.

“Just at present,” I said half ruefully, “I am longing, as you know, to be told whether I should pull wires at all or not.”

“Yes, yes,” he said quickly, “I know. Don’t think I am forgetting about it. I am expecting letters to-morrow even. May I write to you? I am sorry to hear you are leaving us so soon. Will you tell me your address?”

I did so, understanding that he did not wish to apply to his mother for it.

“Write to me?” I repeated. “Yes, indeed, I hope you will. Come to see me if necessary; indeed I almost think it’s sure to be so.”

I was feeling less philosophical about the whole business than I had done. Fully as my sympathy was enlisted, there were times when the fact of being in the least mixed up in the unhappy affair weighed on me so uncomfortably, that I felt inclined to throw it off altogether, and the knowledge that I had brought it upon myself by no means diminished this discomfort; such knowledge never does, which truth I wish our well-intentioned friends would sometimes lay to heart!

But Clarence’s next words had again a calming effect.

“I don’t know how it is,” he said. “I can give neither rhyme nor reason for it, but I have a strong persuasion, as I think I said before, that events are working up in that direction, to clear the ground. We must just be a little patient.”

And he was right, as the conclusion of my little history will show. The feeling, the inward persuasion to which he alluded may seem fantastic, but I have noticed in life that such premonitions are by no means limited to superstitious or highly imaginative people. They come sometimes, or are sent, to the best-balanced minds among us, and in such cases of course with double force, bringing with them strenuous demand on our respect and attention. I thanked Clarence, for I felt it a compliment that he should thus trust me—he, an acute and practical man—with the avowal of what many would have set aside as too fanciful to be worthy of any consideration.

And from that time—I must again use a rather trite expression—“the plot began to thicken”—palpably so; though, as when the clouds gather together for a final burst, the thickening, as before long we were thankful to feel able to hope, was preliminary to a dispersion of the long, long heavy gloom hanging over an innocent group, with whom circumstances had led to several, unconnected with its members by any natural ties, feeling deep sympathy for, myself among them.

I returned to Lady Bretton’s the next morning. I felt sorry to leave my new friends, though the regret was mitigated by their heartily-expressed hopes that we should meet again—hopes which I was sure would be realised, as I could so thoroughly respond to them, and I knew that I had but to say a word to secure my kind parents’ co-operation in any plan for continuing the intercourse.

My godmother was pleased, unfeignedly and rather specially so, it seemed to me, to have me with her again. She cross-questioned me a little more than was usual with her as to the Granville Square people, and was notquiteas cordial about them as I could have wished, which somewhat perplexed me.

“Very nice! oh yes, I have no doubt they are very nice, excellent people,” she said, “and it will do you no harm, Reggie, dear,” for she sometimes condescended to use my brother’s pet name. It had rather taken her fancy, and then, too, she being my name-mother as well as godmother, the abbreviation diminished confusion—“no harm to see something of other kinds of society. There are so manyshadesof it in London, even among the well-bred, unexceptionable people.”

Still I felt that her tone was not thoroughly cordial, especially when she added consideringly—

“I thought the young fellow, the one who wants to write novels, was the eldest son?”

“Oh, no!” I replied. “Clarence Payne is some years older, and I—” but I stopped short. I had been on the point of adding, “I have met him before,” but under the circumstances of that meeting, I quickly remembered that it was better not to do so.

I think it was the next day but one that I received a letter from my father. The sight of his handwriting gave me a little start, for it was very rarely indeed that he was one of my correspondents when I was away from home, as he left all letter-writing, as far as I was concerned, to my mother, who had rather an old-fashioned love of it, in consequence of which, what she wrote was always interesting.

“I hope mamma is not ill,” I thought, as I opened the envelope; fortunately I was alone at the time, for the contents of the sheet before me were indeed surprising. I have it still, so I think I will here transcribe at least some part of it.

To begin with, it was headed, “Private and confidential,” which, had I been less disinterestedly engrossed at once by the nature of the communication, would have filled me with no little pride, for my father, though in his heart he had a high respect for sensible women, was rather chary of allowing that many such existed.

“My dear child,” it went on, “after some consideration, I have made up my mind to confide to you—I may almost say consult you about—a rather strange occurrence. Do you remember some little time before you left home asking me if I knew anything of a certain ‘Ernest Fitzmaurice,’ whom you had heard casually referred to? You did not even know if he were a member of our own family or not; you gave me no special reason for the inquiry, and after telling you the little I remembered about the man in question (always supposing that it was the same individual), I thought no more of the matter, and probably never should have done so again, but for what I have to tell you. I received yesterday a letter written to dictation, but signed by the owner of the name,i.e.Ernest Fitzmaurice himself. Its contents are in a sense private, though the writer in no way debars me from acting upon them—in fact, that I should do so, and that without delay, is the motive of his communication. The letter is dated from an hotel at Liverpool, where he has recently arrived, and where he is delayed by serious, indeed he hints probably fatal illness. He has been in bad health for some time, but in no anticipation of anything sudden, so came over from Australia to prosecute certain inquiries leading to the reparation of a terrible wrong which he committed many years ago in this country. Of this wrong he gives me a rough idea, but reserves details till we meet, or at least till he receives a reply to his letter. It may seem strange that he has picked me out, distant relation as I am, for his confidence, but this he explains satisfactorily enough, his own immediate family having to a great extent died out, and such as remain very difficult to trace, whereas we, from our long residence in the same spot, and my county position, were easily found. The man is not poor—rather, I should infer, very rich. He has a wife and family in the colonies, known and respected there, as he has been himself, but under a different name, which he does not tell me. His narrative, slightly as he gives it, fills me with horror and indignation, though this attempt at reparation, tardy as it is, should, I suppose, make us pity him. What a burden he must have carried about all these years of outward success and prosperity! Now, my dear Regina, if there is anything you can tell me, I depend upon your doing so. I may be mistaken in hoping that the coincidence of your naming this man will lead to anything, but, on the other hand, I have a strange persuasion that it may do so. Let me know at once if my conjecture is correct.”

When I had read all this, I sat still for a few minutes with my brain in a whirl. Clarence had been right. My father’s intuition, my own, were right; the whole thing was more than extraordinary! But it was no time for reflecting in this way; not a moment must be lost, considering the critical state this man was in, and the enormous consequence to the family at Millflowers of what he had to disclose. No reasonable person could doubt that the stories were one and the same; that the Ernest Fitzmaurice whose name I had overheard was this very man. I sat still, thinking earnestly what should be my first step, and by degrees things grew a little clearer.

“I must write to father, and get his leave to consult the Paynes,” I thought, “and I shall strongly advise him, without asking my grounds for so doing as yet, to go down to Liverpool, and at least hear everything fully, and if necessary, get a ‘deposition,’ or whatever they call it, from his cousin—how I hate calling him so!—which would be effectual or valid in case of his death before anything more can be done. And the moment my letter is written and posted, I must arrange to see Clarence, to have him prepared and ready for the necessary action. My own path is no longer doubtful; I shall not require to betray anything, only to help others in the right direction.”

I set to work at once to write to my father, and having done so, I felt a little more at leisure in my mind, and other details began to take shape.

Yes, it seemed all happening very curiously, all to fit in, to prevent complication or confusion.

Ten to one “Grey” was not the real name of the family. How then, with all the goodwill in the world to help forward this tardy reparation, could my father have done anything effectual, except by public advertisement or some step of the kind which would have been horror for the principals in the affair? How, again, could the Paynes, father or son, even suspecting what they already did, have used their influence in any practical way had Mr Grey continued to refuse to give the name of the traitor he had so long concealed, but for my assurance that they were on the right track? Indeed the ins and outs of the possibilities and contingencies were too bewildering and useless to dwell upon. WhatIhad to do was simple enough. I calculated that if my father replied at once, as I felt sure he would—it was before the days of telegrams being privately employed to any appreciable extent—I should receive a letter the day after to-morrow by the first post, immediately upon which I must try to arrange to see Clarence, and probably his father.

So I wrote that same day to the former, telling him that I hoped he would be able to call on Thursday morning, on the chance, approaching a certainty, of my having something of great importance to talk over with him.

“It is better to write this to him,” I reflected.

“It will prevent his pondering unnecessarily over what I have asked him to decide, and it will make his coming to see me much more likely.”

This second letter written and sent, I gave a sigh of relief. I had done all I could for the present, and though still conscious of a good deal of nervous anxiety, or rather, perhaps, excitement, I felt more at rest, and freer to enjoy my kind godmother’s plans for the day. The “season” was advancing now, and as the time for my return home was close at hand, these plans of hers for my amusement were multiplying hourly, so determined was she that the last part of my visit to her should in no way fall flat.

“I want you to want to come back again,” she said to me that afternoon, as we drove off in her charming carriage to some pleasant party—what or where, I forget—and as she said it she glanced at me scrutinisingly. “I have just one fault to find with you,” she continued, “tomboy though your mother called you, and as you called yourself, if I am not mistaken, before now—I am afraid there is some danger of your growing too sedate. That would never do, and to tell you the truth, the danger of it has struck me since your return from those good folk in Granville Square. I hope they have not put it into your wise little head, Reggie, that your godmother is too frivolous or fashionable, or any nonsense of that kind?”

“Ohdear, no,” I replied emphatically and truthfully, though nevertheless something in her inquiry made me blush a little—not with any consciousness of a word, or the shadow of a word, having been said by the Paynes of the kind she alluded to, but because I knew Ihadsecret cause for “sedateness,” as Lady Bretton called it; “preoccupation” would have been a more appropriate word. And also because I still felt the charm of the quiet, somewhat more serious tone of the peaceful and dignified home-life of my new friends, and in my heart hoped that my next visit to my godmother might mean one to them too. “Ohdear, no,” I repeated, “they are not at all that kind of family. They seem to have nice feelings to and about everybody, as far as I can judge. Indeed, dearest godmother, I can’t tell you how much I shall look forward to another visit to you. You have been so very,verykind.”

“That’s all right, then,” she replied. “And next time there must be no interruptions. I won’t have you going off to Granville Square or anywhere. You won’t care to do so. It isn’t as if there were daughters in the family,” and here there was a touch of inquiry in her tone; “that reminds me, by the way, that before you come again, I want to hunt up a few—even one or two—girl friends for you. You see I could scarcely do so before, till I knew you a little better and could judge what your tastes were, and so on.”

“And the sort of girl friends you thought I needed! Evidently they will not be of the ultra-serious order,” I reflected, with a little secret amusement. But aloud I just laughed, and begged my godmother to believe that no girl friends she could possibly hunt up or down for me would suit me half or a quarter as well as her own charming young-hearted self. “I have Isabel Wynyard now,” I said, “and I do feel that she has made me much more like other people—other girls, I mean.”

Lady Bretton glanced at me with affectionate approval.

“I don’t think, dear,” she said, “that in my eyes there would ever have been much room for improvement or alteration for the better, though I am sure—I knew her mother a little, you know—that Isabel must be a thoroughly nice companion for you. I only hope that some day—”

But here she stopped and hesitated.

“What?” I said, my curiosity aroused. “Do go on, dear godmother. I could never mind anything you would say.”

She laughed, but there was a little constraint in her manner.

“I was only going to—to express a hope,” she resumed, “that some day you may meet somebody as desirable for a different kind of companion as Isabel Wynyard is inherway. A commonplace thing to say, and certainly in your case there is time enough! Don’t be in a hurry about it, my dear.”

It was not for a moment or two that I took in the drift of her remark, and she laughed again, this time more heartily, at my perplexed expression. I think she was pleased to see my entire absence of self-consciousness. But when her meaning became clear to me, and I turned it over in my mind after we got home, I felt a little surprised. What could she have got into her head to cause any allusion of the kind? I could not make it out.

The next day brought some enlightenment, and not of a pleasant kind. Certainly, if the Fates had destined me to interference for good in the affairs of the Grey family, it was not to be without annoyance and discomfort to myself!

In answer to my letter to him, I heard from Clarence Payne that he had arranged to call to see me on Thursday morning. It was of course necessary to mention this to my hostess, but in my real interest, and engrossment to a certain extent, in the matter, I made the little communication with perfect freedom from embarrassment, and I was really startled at my godmother’s unmistakable surprise and disapproval.

“My dear child,” she exclaimed, “what are you thinking of, or what is this young man thinking of? It is an extraordinary thing to do!”

I stood silent for a moment, realising that on the face of it the proceedingwassomewhat unconventional. But it would not be fair to let any blame for this rest on Clarence Payne.

“I am very sorry,” I said, my colour rising, “but it is not anybody’s fault but my own, if fault there is. I wrote to ask Mr Payne to come. It is entirely a matter of business—I would like to tell you all about it, but I don’t think I can. It depends on a letter I have had from father, and I am expecting another to-morrow morning, which I hope I shall be able to show you at least part of, in explanation of what I have done.”

But Lady Bretton, good as she was, was not perfect. She was irritated at the whole episode, and therefore not quite reasonable.

“I can scarcely think,” she said, “that your father can have realised what he was putting upon you. If so, he should have written to me direct. Why, the very servants will gossip about it, and no wonder, as of course, from what you say,Iam not to make a third at the interview.”

It was all I could do not to begin to cry, but I controlled myself as a new and, I thought, happy idea struck me.

“I have been very thoughtless, I’m afraid,” I said penitently, “but if you understood the whole thing, and before long I hope I may be able to tell you about it, Idon’tthink you would be vexed with me.” I stopped short, forgetting that I had not introduced my new project.

“What is to be done?” said my godmother, still rather coldly.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, “I was just going to tell you what I think I can do. I will write to Clar— to the younger Mr Payne, I mean, and ask him to beg his father to come with him.Thatwould put it all right, would it not?”

“It would certainly give the interview its proper character,” she allowed, “that of a purely business one. But in taking all this upon you, my dear child,” and I was glad to hear her more natural tone again, “are you quite sure that you know what you are about?”

“Yes,” I replied, decidedly, and I meant it. “Sooner or later,” I said to myself, “Mr Payne must be told everything. And if father’s letter is what I am sure it must be, ‘sooner’ will be pretty surely better than ‘later.’”

My dreams, I well remember, were not of a very tranquil nature that night. I felt distressed at having managed for the first time, during my stay with her, to annoy my kind godmother, and I felt miserable and mortified at the bare shadow of a suggestion that my writing to Clarence Payne, asking him to call, as I had done, was, to say the least, unconventional, if not unladylike. For remember, I am writing of fully thirty or forty years ago, when the position of young girls of our class was very different from what it now is—though I cannot quite allow that in every way the alteration seems to me for the better.

My correspondent had not, it is true, in the faintest degree appeared to think I had done anything unusual, but then I felt that he was a man of peculiarly chivalrous temperament.Hadhe thought so he would have done his best to prevent my finding it out.

“Perhaps,” I said to myself, “he looks upon me as very childish and inexperienced, and makes allowance on this account.” This idea was not a pleasant one either, but my common-sense dismissed it. “No,” I thought, “he does not think me silly, or he would not have talked to me about all this as he has done.”

But I felt very glad that I had written to ask the elder Mr Payne to come too, though my latest waking reflection was a hearty longing that I had never mixed myself up for good or bad in the Millflowers mystery.

And a strange thing happened, as if to reprove me for the mingling of selfishness in this wish.

I dreamt that as I was sitting alone in my godmother’s drawing-room waiting for my expected visitors, the door opened silently, and in came—walking slowly and with evident effort—Caryll Grey, or—a shiver went through me even in my sleep—his ghost. I saw him distinctly—more distinctly than I had ever done in my waking hours. His poor face looked very drawn and white, the gentle eyes unnaturally large and wistful.

“Miss Fitzmaurice,” I thought he said, “regret nothing. Go through with it, I beseech you, and oh! for Heaven’s sake, make him tell.”

Then the vision disappeared, and I seemed to be again alone in the room—waiting.

Whom did he mean by “him”? His brother, or the already praying-to-confess traitor? I could not say, but it did not matter. I threw my misgivings and regrets aside, resolved to do my best. And when I awoke in the morning, the impression of my dream had in no way grown fainter.

Chapter Fourteen.“Not Jocelyn.”It is a great comfort in life to have to do with people whose attitude of mind, whose action even, one can predicate with an amount of probability almost amounting to certainty; whom, in other words, one can “count upon” in unforeseen circumstances or complications. And when this species of confidence, of mutual trust, founded upon mutual knowledge, exists between members of the same family, it is a great link; in some ways even a stronger one than the bond of mutual affection. This I realised fully when I received my father’s letter. It was just what I had hoped for. He said frankly that he wished I could have told him more, but cordially approved of and authorised my consulting the Paynes. Furthermore, he announced his intention of setting off for Liverpool at once, giving me an address there, at which to communicate with him.So as I sat in the drawing-room, waiting, as in my dream, I felt fully prepared for the coming interview.Yes, it was curiously like my dream; when the door at last opened, I would scarcely have felt surprised had it been to admit the pathetic figure of Caryll Grey. But no! the visionary picture was reversed. There entered the much more substantial person of Mr Payne the elder, followed by his son. Had I felt less intent on the business in hand, I would almost have been amused at the combination of “professionalness” and friendliness in the bearing of the former as he greeted me. He was evidently brimful of curiosity and interest, which sentiments, nevertheless, were to some extent tempered by his difficulty in believing that a young girl like myself could have much of importance to communicate, and as to how far his son had thought it well to take him into his confidence I was of course in the dark.“You wish to see me, my dear young lady?” Mr Payne, senior, began, after we had shaken hands, “and I made a point of attending to your behest at once.”There was a kind of “remember my time is valuable,” in the words and manner, which I was quick to recognise.“Yes,” I said. “It is very good of you to have trusted me by doing so, and I will not lose a moment. I think the best way of coming to the point is by showing you the letter I received from my father an hour ago, and after you have read it—it contains, so to say, my credentials—I will show you his former one.”I handed him the envelope, which he received in silence, at once drawing out the sheet it contained, which he read with the greatest attention. Inthisletter, curiously enough, the name of Ernest Fitzmaurice was not mentioned, my father only alluding to his relative as “that unhappy man.” So a certain perplexity naturally mingled with Mr Payne’s expression of close interest and expectation, and when he had finished reading it, he held out his hand, without speaking, for the second, that is to say for thefirstletter, which I had already unfolded in readiness for his perusal.And now indeed the dramatic interest of the situation rose visibly. As his eyes fell on the words, “Ernest Fitzmaurice,” I saw the colour plainly spread over his face, though he was no longer a young, and certainly not an emotional man.Then there came a sound like a gasp, the colour receding as quickly as it had come, leaving him almost pallid.“Ernest Fitzmaurice!” The words, though scarcely above a murmur, caught my ears at once. “Good God! the last man, the last human being one could have suspected. Can it be?”I, though no lawyer, nor gifted with special instinct of the detective kind, had not lost any shadow of the expressions following each other on his face, nor of the words of his almost involuntary exclamations, and of course I was much better prepared than my companions for the probable incidents of the interview, and therefore to some extent at an advantage. So I waited for a moment or two while Mr Payne handed the letters to his son, and, still without addressing me, sat motionless, save for a slightly nervous tapping of his fingers on the table, his eyes fixed before him, till Clarence, with a gleam of something almost approaching triumph, laid the papers down in front of his father, with the two words only, into which, however, his tone infused a big amount of meaning—“Well, sir?”Then the father turned to me.“I am so amazed,” he said, and his voice shook a little in spite of his professional self-control, “so amazed, as to what all this points to, as to feel almost stunned for the moment. May I ask you, Miss Fitzmaurice, as to what the knowledge was which, so far, I gather by these,” and he tapped the letters as he spoke, “you have had the courage and resolution to keep to yourself? And still further, how did you come by it?”I shook my head. I had anticipated some such inquiry as the first result of his reading the letters, and I was prepared for it.“Mr Payne,” I said earnestly, “I have thought it well out. I do not see that it is necessary for me to tell even you what you have just asked. You see I have withheld it from my own father, and he does not press it. The whole thing is, or may be, now well in train. You and he—my father, I mean—with the benefit of your advice and experience, can follow it out to the end, without my having to tell what I should be thankful to keep silent about. The information, or the knowledge, came to me accidentally. I was never intended to hear or to know what I did hear and do know. What, in point of fact, you now know yourself. If I have been able, as I think I have been, to start things, or rather to help things on in the right direction, by doing away with the difficulty that this man, Ernest Fitzmaurice, might have had in tracing—well, you know whom—I shall feel thankful and grateful for the rest of my life.”“As to that,” was Mr Payne’s reply, “there can be no manner of doubt; whereas, but for your intervention, time of the most precious might have been lost. The wholeéclaircissement, in short, delayed till, in the eyes of those chiefly concerned, it had lost its greatest value for them! But, excuse me, I still feel almost stupefied. It will take a little time for this extraordinary aspect of things to get into focus with me.”“Yes,” I replied, “I can understand that.”I said no more, hoping—for of course I cannot pretend that I felt no curiosity, no legitimate interest rather, in the further unfolding of the mystery—hoping that I was going to hear more. But such for the moment was not to be, though Mr Payne seemed by instinct to guess that I might be expecting him to volunteer some explanation, for his next words were in deprecation, almost in apology, for his not offering anything of the kind.“I wish,” he said, “that I could talk the whole thing out with you. That is not yet in my power. And,” with a resumption of his friendly, less professional manner, “if I may say so, you have shown yourself such a sensible girl that I am sure you will understand the delay, though eventually it will be only due to you to hear the whole sad history.”At this juncture, for the first time almost, Clarence spoke.“If you have no objection, father,” he said, “it may be as well for Miss Fitzmaurice to understand that it is only of recent date that we have again been drawn into personal relations with the—Grey family. And I myself,” and he turned to me, “have only made their acquaintance within the last year or so.”“I thought so,” was my reply, “for however carefully they have hedged themselves round, there could not but be gossip about the Grim House. The neighbours were quite aware of your first visit there!”Mr Payne, senior, pricked up his ears at what I said.“Indeed!” he remarked drily. But then his tone altered again. “I think I may tell you a little more, which, if you have not already suspected it, you are sure to hear through your father; that is, that ‘Grey’ is not the real name of the family.”I bent my head in agreement; Ihadthought so. “And,” resumed Clarence, “the business which has taken us down, I more frequently than my father, has no connection with the old affair.” He glanced at Mr Payne, as if for acquiescence in his continuing. “Not very long ago, they—the elder brother—came into possession of a large estate, which we manage for him. Not that for many, many years past, twenty-five or thirty, I suppose—”“Fully twenty-five,” interposed the elder Mr Payne.”—They have been at all poor,” continued Clarence. “And now they are really very wealthy.”“I am glad to hear it,” I said simply. “Then, that poor Caryll can haveeverythingthat money can do to make him well, or at least to soften his suffering?”“Yes,” Clarence replied, with emphasis on the words, “everything that money can do, but even money cannot always buy peace of mind.”He said no more, for at that moment his father took out his watch and consulted it with a business-like air.“Miss Fitzmaurice will excuse us, I am sure,” he said, “if we discuss practical matters in her presence.” I half rose from my seat.“Shall I leave you?” I said; but this they at once both negatived.“On the contrary,” said Clarence. “We shall be very much indebted to you if you will stay while we settle what is best to be done.”“And I should very much like to hear it,” I said, seating myself again.“The first thing, it seems to me,” the younger man continued, “is for one of us to go down to Liverpool, and at once to see Mr Fitzmaurice—your father, of course, I mean. Shall I do so, father?”Mr Payne considered.“You, I think, Clarence,” he said after a moment, “can do as well as, or better than I. Can you get off this afternoon?”“Certainly,” answered his son. “I can reach Liverpool a little before midnight I think, and if in the meantime you, Miss Fitzmaurice, will write to your father, it will help on matters greatly. Please say I will go to the same hotel that he is at, so that I shall be ready for a talk with him as early as he likes to-morrow morning. And if,” now addressing Mr Payne, “I find, as I quite expect, that things are already satisfactorily in train—” He glanced at me as he spoke, and I replied to the tacit inquiry.“Yes,” I said, “I am sure you will find them so. My father is not one to let the grass grow under his feet in a case like this; he is too Irish!” and I smiled. “Very likely you will find that he has had the deposition—is that the word?—formally taken, and that what will fall to your share more directly will be deciding how to act towards the other side.”“I,” said Mr Payne, “will hold myself in readiness to go down to Millflowers at a moment’s notice from you, Clarence. Perhaps it would be best for us to meet there?”“Just what I was going to say,” replied his son. “Poor Caryll, it is to be hoped, is not in quite such a critical state as—as the new actor in the scene, but still I own to feeling desperately anxious, most unprofessionally excited,” and he smiled, “to see the thing through for the ‘Grim House’ people!”“Is that what you call the place?” said his father. “Humph! Not a bad idea!”“It did not originate with me,” said Clarence.“And certainly not with me,” I said half-laughingly. “It seems to have been the local name of the place for ever so long.”Mr Payne glanced at me. I could feel that he was—I beg pardon of his kind memory even now, dear good man, for my disrespect—I could feel that he was dying of curiosity to learn how much I know of Millflowers and its neighbourhood, and I had a slightly mischievous satisfaction in keeping him in the dark. It was a sort of tit-for-tat; for after all, my own eagerness to hear the whole story could not but be greater than his, already in possession as he was of the main facts. And as I surreptitiously peeped from behind the drawing-room curtains at the father and son, as they walked down the street together, talking eagerly, I did wish I could hear what they were saying to each other!But I had no time to spare for any useless conjectures of this kind. There was my father to write to, and my letter must be careful and well considered; and this done, there was my godmother’s still somewhat ruffled plumage to smoothe down, for she was not yetquiteher most approving and delightful self to me. And I began to realise for almost the first time in my life that I was feeling very tired—overstrained, I think, and suffering from a sort of reaction from the too great consciousness of responsibility of the last few days.My godmother’s instincts were as quick as her sympathy was sure. She met me as I was carrying my letter downstairs, to ask her if I might have it posted at once. I had a babyish feeling that it would be a relief to know it in the safe possession of her Majesty’s post-office, till it should reach its destination the next morning.“Certainly,” was Lady Bretton’s reply, as she took it from me. “It shall be sent off at once.”“It is to father,” I explained. “There is no hurry, I know. He is at Liverpool.”“At Liverpool?” she repeated, in a tone of surprise.“Yes,” I said, “he is there on this business that I can’t tell you about, and the younger Mr Payne is to join him there to-night.”I was glad to be able to tell her this, and I think it thoroughly satisfied her. The kindly caressing look and tone returned to her eyes and voice.“You’re looking tired, dear,” she said, almost tenderly, “and, dear me, yes!—you leave me the day after to-morrow. I wish this annoying business had not cropped up just at the end of your visit—you were so blooming last week, before you set off to that Granville Square.”“I am a little tired,” I said, “but I shall be all right again now. The business is out of my hands.”“You quaint little person,” said Lady Bretton. “You and business! It seems too absurd! Now go and lie down till luncheon-time; you know I never coddle, but there are exceptions to all rules.”I was not sorry to do as she told me; I rather suspect I fell asleep. I know that I felt quite myself again by the afternoon, and when I said good-bye to my dear hostess on Saturday, she expressed her satisfaction at seeing me looking so well.“So they will trust you to me again, and that before very long, I hope,” were her last words.No letters had reached me on these intervening days; none at least, except one from mother, in which, to my great delight, she said there were good hopes of father’s return home late on that same day.“If so,” I thought to myself, “I shall soon hear all,” and in my heart I know that, though I was by no means devoid of curiosity—curiosity, too, naturally intensified by the events of the last week or two—my deepest feeling was an earnest desire to learn that the victims of a bad man’s treachery were now in the way, so far as was still possible, of having the terrible cloud removed from their lives.“That poor Caryll,” I said, over and over again. “I can never forget his face as I saw it in my dream.”My home-coming was very pleasant. Mother was so delighted to have me with her again, and I to be with her.“It seems all to have been so successful,” she said. “Regina Bretton is really a godmother worth having. You are looking so well, and your dress is so pretty.” It was one of those chosen for me in London, and I felt pleased at mother’s approval.“I am sure you will like all I have got,” I said. “Lady Bretton has such good taste, and knows so exactly where to go for everything, and just what to get.”There was only one little damper on the satisfaction of my return, and that but a passing one. Father was not expected till very late that night, too late for me to see him. For we were old-fashioned enough in those days to think that a railway journey, of even a few hours’ duration, must be tiring, and mother made me go to bed at least an hour sooner than my usual reasonable time. And I fell asleep almost at once.I awoke suddenly. I had, in fact, been awakened, though I did not know it, by the sound of the carriage returning from the station, whither it had gone to fetch father, and the sound of the clock striking twelve fell on my ear a minute or two later. Then, for, as I think I have said, my hearing was very quick, I heard a little bustle in the hall, and the sort of rustle and flutter through the house which tell of an arrival. Then father’s voice, and a murmur of welcome which must have been from mother, followed by a quick run up the stairs—father had the agile movements of a much younger man—and the cheery sound of voices down the corridor.Voices, whose were they? Father’s of course I distinguished at once, but whose was the second? Certainly not our immaculate butler or either of his subordinates, who would never have ventured to laugh in the august presence of their master! But I was too sleepy to trouble myself farther.“One of the boys must have come unexpectedly,” I thought as I composed myself again. “Perhaps Dad sent for Jocelyn to help him at Liverpool, after all; he may have needed him.”My long night’s rest left me quite ready to get up at my usual hour, and I ran down to the dining-room, anxious to learn all I could about father’s return. This would have to be gleaned in the first place from the servants no doubt, for mother was sure to be tired, and not improbably too much so to appear at breakfast. But punctual as I was, some one was there before me, standing in the window, looking out at our pretty garden, never prettier than in the spring, above all with the early morning light. A tall, well-knit figure familiar to me somehow.“Jocelyn!” I exclaimed, my eldest brother’s personality being the first that occurred to me, “so it was you after all! Did father send for you?”He turned; no, it was not Jocelyn? “I am so sorry,” he said, though the regret expressed was tempered by a smile, “I am so sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t help it! You see I am only myself—not ‘Jocelyn’?”Though I did not say so, I cannot but confess that the disappointment was scarcely worthy of the name, for the unexpected guest was Clarence Payne!“Oh, how delightful!” was my first thought; “now I am going to hear all! And things must have gone rightly—he looks in such good spirits—Dad and he must have taken to each other.”But even while these ideas rushed across my mind, I was conscious, simultaneously, as it were, of extreme surprise, and this, I suppose, must have been the prominent expression of my face, for the newcomer looked just a shade crestfallen.“I am so sorry,” he began again, and this pulled me together.“Please don’t say that,” I exclaimed; “you make me feel so rude, and indeed I don’t mean to be so. I was only, well, very surprised. But I am very pleased, for ever so many reasons. To begin with, I feel sure things went well at Liverpool, otherwise you would not be here, and—and—what about the poor Greys, and did you and father travel here together? and—oh I have such a lot of questions to ask. I feel half-choking with them,” and I sat down, really feeling almost overwhelmed with the rush of thoughts and “wonderings” in my brain.“You shall ask what you please, and I scarcely think, that there will be anything which we—or I—will not be able to answer,” he said kindly. “Indeed, it was partly, greatly, to satisfy your most natural wish—right—to hear more, that I have come here.”I felt my cheeks grow red.“It is very good of you to put it in that way, Mr Payne,” I said. “I felt so ashamed when your father commended me the other day; even you do not fully know how wrong and foolish I was. No one does except Moore and myself. No, scarcely Moore. I should like you to know the whole of it, but you see I don’t want to bring in Isabel Wynyard, and possibly expose her to blame for having gossipped.” I stopped in consideration. “Perhaps,” I resumed, “no one need ever know any more,” and I looked up at him as I said so.“I think very decidedly that no one need ever hear or think any more of that part of it,” was his reassuring reply. “I can put it all together pretty well, if it is any satisfaction to you for me to say so. And your father is content to ask you no more than the fact of certain knowledge having come to you that was not intended for you, and, after all, ‘all’s well that ends well,’” and here he smiled.“Then it has or is going to end well?” I said eagerly.At my words he grew grave again.“Yes,” he replied, “though,” he hesitated a moment, “I don’t want to seem heartless, and death is always awe-inspiring, especially in such circumstances as we have just seen it—your father and I, I mean.”“Then heisdead?” I said breathlessly. “That unhappy man, Ernest Fitzmaurice?”Clarence bent his head.“An hour or two after I saw him,” he replied, “he died. But—truly repentant.”I felt shocked, and for a moment or two we did not speak.Then “I am so glad you were in time to be with father,” I said.“Thank you,” he replied. “I think I was of use to him, though he had done excellently. Got the deposition fully drawn out, signed and witnessed, so that there was scarcely anything for me to do at Liverpool, and therefore, armed with my full credentials, I hurried off to Millflowers, wheremyfather met me. But as to this part of it, Mr Fitzmaurice and I must tell it to you together, more at leisure,” for just then the servant came into the room with the breakfast trays.“Only one word,” I said eagerly. “It went off well? And that poor Caryll?”“Wonderfully well. You would scarcely believe how wise and tender my father was.”Dad joined us at breakfast, declaring he was not tired at all, and as soon as it was over, we three adjoined to his own den, where I learnt for the first time the details of the Grim House mystery.Perhaps it will be best that I should give it in simple narrative style, though, as can readily be imagined, the story related to me was not uninterrupted by a good many questions on my aide.These were the facts:—Many years before, the elder Mr Grey, whose real name was that of a well-known Welsh family, the Gwynneths of Maerdoc, to which he belonged, had fallen into terrible trouble. He was poor at the time, though with good prospects, well-intentioned, honourable and affectionate, but dangerously reckless and impulsive, and in consequence of this, though from no actual wrong-doing of his own, seriously, considering his circumstances, in debt. The details of his position need not be entered into, as they bear little upon his history, beyond saying that they were shared, more than shared indeed, and had been greatly caused by a friend of his, the Ernest Fitzmaurice of my narrative. But Ernest was a man of very different character. He was calculating and unscrupulous, thought highly of in some quarters even, though not by his own family, as my father recollected. The two, by an unfortunate coincidence, were staying in the same house on a visit, when their troubles came to a crisis. An extraordinary robbery took place—I am not sufficiently “up” in such matters to give full particulars as to the nature of the bonds or documents stolen, but they were such asmighthave been utilised with safety by the thief. Such, however, was not the case. They were traced to young Gwynneth, who was arrested, tried, and sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude. The blow fell on his family with appalling horror. But no one, not even his devoted sisters or his boy brother Caryll, his nearest relations, felt it more terribly to all appearance than his friend, Fitzmaurice, at that time thefiancéof Jessie Gwynneth. He exerted himself frantically to have the sentence mitigated, but to no avail. And the dogged silence maintained by the prisoner, whose whole nature seemed changed, added enormously to the weight of evidence against him. What his sisters thought during the term of his imprisonment never transpired. Afterwards, I have always suspected, and as far as regards the brother I indeedknow, that his family came to believe him entirely innocent.Things grew easier for them, materially speaking, by a moderate fortune being left to them shortly before the elder brother’s imprisonment terminated. But he came back to them an utterly crushed, broken, and aged man, to find the “girls” he had left in little better case than himself. Only the youngest of the four, Caryll, despite the accident which had made him a life-long cripple, retained any cheerful or hopeful hold on life.Then came the decision of the four to cling together at all costs; to hide themselves from the world, giving up everything but each other. Ernest Fitzmaurice had disappeared shortly after his victim’s imprisonment began, carrying with him, as was revealed by his dying deposition, a comparatively trifling portion of his theft, which he had had time to realise, and on which, thanks to his skill and adroitness, was founded the large fortune he eventually made. He was never heard of again while alive by the Gwynneths.With Mr Payne’s help, Grimsthorpe House was taken for the brothers and sisters under the name of “Grey,” and there for twenty years they had lived their strange and isolated life, refusing even to alter its tenor when the second and much more important fortune became theirs. Why, it may be asked, did the elder brother—Justin was his name—never attempt to clear himself? I can scarcely say. Mr Payne, in lapse of time, had become convinced of his client’s innocence, and had often, but vainly, prayed for full confidence. His own opinion was, I think, that Mr Gwynneth’s brain had grown morbid on the point. Not improbably, too, the poor man’s seeing that even this old friend and adviser had not the most shadowy suspicion of the real culprit, may have helped to seal his lips.“Poor Ernest!” Mr Payne used to say sometimes, “ifhewere still alive, he would have been back with us to join me in urging you to tell the whole. But he must be dead—indeed, Gwynneth, I think it broke his heart.”“What torture it must have been to him to listen to me,” the kind-hearted man added, when he told us this. “No, Caryll was his only confidant, I feel sure.”“And did you suspect no one else?” I remember asking.“Yes, a certain man-servant did not escape all suspicion of collusion,” was the reply. “But he, we knew as a fact, was dead, and the mere allusion to him was enough to excite Gwynneth painfully. He swore he would never move a finger to clear himself, unless Providence itself interposed.”“Which it did,” said Clarence. This fragment of conversation took place some time later, when I was again a guest at Granville Square.Well, it “ended well,” as far as could be so late in the day.The Gwynneths left Millflowers and went to live at their own beautiful house. And there, as they deserved, they were respected by all whom they allowed to know them, loved by the very few whom they admitted to intimacy. But the iron had entered too deeply into the souls of the three elder ones for them ever to be “like other people.” Caryll and the younger sister are still living, very old but very peaceful, happy in making others so.Publicity, so far as it could serve any good purpose, was given to Ernest Fitzmaurice’s statement. But the more than a quarter of a century that had passed had almost obliterated the once famous trial from the world’s short memory—better so, perhaps.One trivial question I remember putting to Clarence that Sunday morning. “What was the mystery of the ‘black curtain’?”He smiled.“Oh, an arrangement of some gymnastic kind, which it had been hoped might be of service to poor Caryll’s crippled leg.”My next visit to London, though again under my godmother’s auspices, had a definite object—the choosing of mytrousseau. Clarence has been my husband for—ah, I must not say how many years! Lady Bretton was not pleased at first, but she “came round” by degrees, and now—she isquitean old lady, but a very pretty and alert one—she is more than proud of the great name he has won for himself, and always ready to say that her godchild’s is one of the happiest marriages she has ever known.One exception—no, one addition I may make to this. My Isabel became my sister-in-law, and Jocelyn and she are our life-long and dearest friends.The End.

It is a great comfort in life to have to do with people whose attitude of mind, whose action even, one can predicate with an amount of probability almost amounting to certainty; whom, in other words, one can “count upon” in unforeseen circumstances or complications. And when this species of confidence, of mutual trust, founded upon mutual knowledge, exists between members of the same family, it is a great link; in some ways even a stronger one than the bond of mutual affection. This I realised fully when I received my father’s letter. It was just what I had hoped for. He said frankly that he wished I could have told him more, but cordially approved of and authorised my consulting the Paynes. Furthermore, he announced his intention of setting off for Liverpool at once, giving me an address there, at which to communicate with him.

So as I sat in the drawing-room, waiting, as in my dream, I felt fully prepared for the coming interview.

Yes, it was curiously like my dream; when the door at last opened, I would scarcely have felt surprised had it been to admit the pathetic figure of Caryll Grey. But no! the visionary picture was reversed. There entered the much more substantial person of Mr Payne the elder, followed by his son. Had I felt less intent on the business in hand, I would almost have been amused at the combination of “professionalness” and friendliness in the bearing of the former as he greeted me. He was evidently brimful of curiosity and interest, which sentiments, nevertheless, were to some extent tempered by his difficulty in believing that a young girl like myself could have much of importance to communicate, and as to how far his son had thought it well to take him into his confidence I was of course in the dark.

“You wish to see me, my dear young lady?” Mr Payne, senior, began, after we had shaken hands, “and I made a point of attending to your behest at once.”

There was a kind of “remember my time is valuable,” in the words and manner, which I was quick to recognise.

“Yes,” I said. “It is very good of you to have trusted me by doing so, and I will not lose a moment. I think the best way of coming to the point is by showing you the letter I received from my father an hour ago, and after you have read it—it contains, so to say, my credentials—I will show you his former one.”

I handed him the envelope, which he received in silence, at once drawing out the sheet it contained, which he read with the greatest attention. Inthisletter, curiously enough, the name of Ernest Fitzmaurice was not mentioned, my father only alluding to his relative as “that unhappy man.” So a certain perplexity naturally mingled with Mr Payne’s expression of close interest and expectation, and when he had finished reading it, he held out his hand, without speaking, for the second, that is to say for thefirstletter, which I had already unfolded in readiness for his perusal.

And now indeed the dramatic interest of the situation rose visibly. As his eyes fell on the words, “Ernest Fitzmaurice,” I saw the colour plainly spread over his face, though he was no longer a young, and certainly not an emotional man.

Then there came a sound like a gasp, the colour receding as quickly as it had come, leaving him almost pallid.

“Ernest Fitzmaurice!” The words, though scarcely above a murmur, caught my ears at once. “Good God! the last man, the last human being one could have suspected. Can it be?”

I, though no lawyer, nor gifted with special instinct of the detective kind, had not lost any shadow of the expressions following each other on his face, nor of the words of his almost involuntary exclamations, and of course I was much better prepared than my companions for the probable incidents of the interview, and therefore to some extent at an advantage. So I waited for a moment or two while Mr Payne handed the letters to his son, and, still without addressing me, sat motionless, save for a slightly nervous tapping of his fingers on the table, his eyes fixed before him, till Clarence, with a gleam of something almost approaching triumph, laid the papers down in front of his father, with the two words only, into which, however, his tone infused a big amount of meaning—

“Well, sir?”

Then the father turned to me.

“I am so amazed,” he said, and his voice shook a little in spite of his professional self-control, “so amazed, as to what all this points to, as to feel almost stunned for the moment. May I ask you, Miss Fitzmaurice, as to what the knowledge was which, so far, I gather by these,” and he tapped the letters as he spoke, “you have had the courage and resolution to keep to yourself? And still further, how did you come by it?”

I shook my head. I had anticipated some such inquiry as the first result of his reading the letters, and I was prepared for it.

“Mr Payne,” I said earnestly, “I have thought it well out. I do not see that it is necessary for me to tell even you what you have just asked. You see I have withheld it from my own father, and he does not press it. The whole thing is, or may be, now well in train. You and he—my father, I mean—with the benefit of your advice and experience, can follow it out to the end, without my having to tell what I should be thankful to keep silent about. The information, or the knowledge, came to me accidentally. I was never intended to hear or to know what I did hear and do know. What, in point of fact, you now know yourself. If I have been able, as I think I have been, to start things, or rather to help things on in the right direction, by doing away with the difficulty that this man, Ernest Fitzmaurice, might have had in tracing—well, you know whom—I shall feel thankful and grateful for the rest of my life.”

“As to that,” was Mr Payne’s reply, “there can be no manner of doubt; whereas, but for your intervention, time of the most precious might have been lost. The wholeéclaircissement, in short, delayed till, in the eyes of those chiefly concerned, it had lost its greatest value for them! But, excuse me, I still feel almost stupefied. It will take a little time for this extraordinary aspect of things to get into focus with me.”

“Yes,” I replied, “I can understand that.”

I said no more, hoping—for of course I cannot pretend that I felt no curiosity, no legitimate interest rather, in the further unfolding of the mystery—hoping that I was going to hear more. But such for the moment was not to be, though Mr Payne seemed by instinct to guess that I might be expecting him to volunteer some explanation, for his next words were in deprecation, almost in apology, for his not offering anything of the kind.

“I wish,” he said, “that I could talk the whole thing out with you. That is not yet in my power. And,” with a resumption of his friendly, less professional manner, “if I may say so, you have shown yourself such a sensible girl that I am sure you will understand the delay, though eventually it will be only due to you to hear the whole sad history.”

At this juncture, for the first time almost, Clarence spoke.

“If you have no objection, father,” he said, “it may be as well for Miss Fitzmaurice to understand that it is only of recent date that we have again been drawn into personal relations with the—Grey family. And I myself,” and he turned to me, “have only made their acquaintance within the last year or so.”

“I thought so,” was my reply, “for however carefully they have hedged themselves round, there could not but be gossip about the Grim House. The neighbours were quite aware of your first visit there!”

Mr Payne, senior, pricked up his ears at what I said.

“Indeed!” he remarked drily. But then his tone altered again. “I think I may tell you a little more, which, if you have not already suspected it, you are sure to hear through your father; that is, that ‘Grey’ is not the real name of the family.”

I bent my head in agreement; Ihadthought so. “And,” resumed Clarence, “the business which has taken us down, I more frequently than my father, has no connection with the old affair.” He glanced at Mr Payne, as if for acquiescence in his continuing. “Not very long ago, they—the elder brother—came into possession of a large estate, which we manage for him. Not that for many, many years past, twenty-five or thirty, I suppose—”

“Fully twenty-five,” interposed the elder Mr Payne.

”—They have been at all poor,” continued Clarence. “And now they are really very wealthy.”

“I am glad to hear it,” I said simply. “Then, that poor Caryll can haveeverythingthat money can do to make him well, or at least to soften his suffering?”

“Yes,” Clarence replied, with emphasis on the words, “everything that money can do, but even money cannot always buy peace of mind.”

He said no more, for at that moment his father took out his watch and consulted it with a business-like air.

“Miss Fitzmaurice will excuse us, I am sure,” he said, “if we discuss practical matters in her presence.” I half rose from my seat.

“Shall I leave you?” I said; but this they at once both negatived.

“On the contrary,” said Clarence. “We shall be very much indebted to you if you will stay while we settle what is best to be done.”

“And I should very much like to hear it,” I said, seating myself again.

“The first thing, it seems to me,” the younger man continued, “is for one of us to go down to Liverpool, and at once to see Mr Fitzmaurice—your father, of course, I mean. Shall I do so, father?”

Mr Payne considered.

“You, I think, Clarence,” he said after a moment, “can do as well as, or better than I. Can you get off this afternoon?”

“Certainly,” answered his son. “I can reach Liverpool a little before midnight I think, and if in the meantime you, Miss Fitzmaurice, will write to your father, it will help on matters greatly. Please say I will go to the same hotel that he is at, so that I shall be ready for a talk with him as early as he likes to-morrow morning. And if,” now addressing Mr Payne, “I find, as I quite expect, that things are already satisfactorily in train—” He glanced at me as he spoke, and I replied to the tacit inquiry.

“Yes,” I said, “I am sure you will find them so. My father is not one to let the grass grow under his feet in a case like this; he is too Irish!” and I smiled. “Very likely you will find that he has had the deposition—is that the word?—formally taken, and that what will fall to your share more directly will be deciding how to act towards the other side.”

“I,” said Mr Payne, “will hold myself in readiness to go down to Millflowers at a moment’s notice from you, Clarence. Perhaps it would be best for us to meet there?”

“Just what I was going to say,” replied his son. “Poor Caryll, it is to be hoped, is not in quite such a critical state as—as the new actor in the scene, but still I own to feeling desperately anxious, most unprofessionally excited,” and he smiled, “to see the thing through for the ‘Grim House’ people!”

“Is that what you call the place?” said his father. “Humph! Not a bad idea!”

“It did not originate with me,” said Clarence.

“And certainly not with me,” I said half-laughingly. “It seems to have been the local name of the place for ever so long.”

Mr Payne glanced at me. I could feel that he was—I beg pardon of his kind memory even now, dear good man, for my disrespect—I could feel that he was dying of curiosity to learn how much I know of Millflowers and its neighbourhood, and I had a slightly mischievous satisfaction in keeping him in the dark. It was a sort of tit-for-tat; for after all, my own eagerness to hear the whole story could not but be greater than his, already in possession as he was of the main facts. And as I surreptitiously peeped from behind the drawing-room curtains at the father and son, as they walked down the street together, talking eagerly, I did wish I could hear what they were saying to each other!

But I had no time to spare for any useless conjectures of this kind. There was my father to write to, and my letter must be careful and well considered; and this done, there was my godmother’s still somewhat ruffled plumage to smoothe down, for she was not yetquiteher most approving and delightful self to me. And I began to realise for almost the first time in my life that I was feeling very tired—overstrained, I think, and suffering from a sort of reaction from the too great consciousness of responsibility of the last few days.

My godmother’s instincts were as quick as her sympathy was sure. She met me as I was carrying my letter downstairs, to ask her if I might have it posted at once. I had a babyish feeling that it would be a relief to know it in the safe possession of her Majesty’s post-office, till it should reach its destination the next morning.

“Certainly,” was Lady Bretton’s reply, as she took it from me. “It shall be sent off at once.”

“It is to father,” I explained. “There is no hurry, I know. He is at Liverpool.”

“At Liverpool?” she repeated, in a tone of surprise.

“Yes,” I said, “he is there on this business that I can’t tell you about, and the younger Mr Payne is to join him there to-night.”

I was glad to be able to tell her this, and I think it thoroughly satisfied her. The kindly caressing look and tone returned to her eyes and voice.

“You’re looking tired, dear,” she said, almost tenderly, “and, dear me, yes!—you leave me the day after to-morrow. I wish this annoying business had not cropped up just at the end of your visit—you were so blooming last week, before you set off to that Granville Square.”

“I am a little tired,” I said, “but I shall be all right again now. The business is out of my hands.”

“You quaint little person,” said Lady Bretton. “You and business! It seems too absurd! Now go and lie down till luncheon-time; you know I never coddle, but there are exceptions to all rules.”

I was not sorry to do as she told me; I rather suspect I fell asleep. I know that I felt quite myself again by the afternoon, and when I said good-bye to my dear hostess on Saturday, she expressed her satisfaction at seeing me looking so well.

“So they will trust you to me again, and that before very long, I hope,” were her last words.

No letters had reached me on these intervening days; none at least, except one from mother, in which, to my great delight, she said there were good hopes of father’s return home late on that same day.

“If so,” I thought to myself, “I shall soon hear all,” and in my heart I know that, though I was by no means devoid of curiosity—curiosity, too, naturally intensified by the events of the last week or two—my deepest feeling was an earnest desire to learn that the victims of a bad man’s treachery were now in the way, so far as was still possible, of having the terrible cloud removed from their lives.

“That poor Caryll,” I said, over and over again. “I can never forget his face as I saw it in my dream.”

My home-coming was very pleasant. Mother was so delighted to have me with her again, and I to be with her.

“It seems all to have been so successful,” she said. “Regina Bretton is really a godmother worth having. You are looking so well, and your dress is so pretty.” It was one of those chosen for me in London, and I felt pleased at mother’s approval.

“I am sure you will like all I have got,” I said. “Lady Bretton has such good taste, and knows so exactly where to go for everything, and just what to get.”

There was only one little damper on the satisfaction of my return, and that but a passing one. Father was not expected till very late that night, too late for me to see him. For we were old-fashioned enough in those days to think that a railway journey, of even a few hours’ duration, must be tiring, and mother made me go to bed at least an hour sooner than my usual reasonable time. And I fell asleep almost at once.

I awoke suddenly. I had, in fact, been awakened, though I did not know it, by the sound of the carriage returning from the station, whither it had gone to fetch father, and the sound of the clock striking twelve fell on my ear a minute or two later. Then, for, as I think I have said, my hearing was very quick, I heard a little bustle in the hall, and the sort of rustle and flutter through the house which tell of an arrival. Then father’s voice, and a murmur of welcome which must have been from mother, followed by a quick run up the stairs—father had the agile movements of a much younger man—and the cheery sound of voices down the corridor.Voices, whose were they? Father’s of course I distinguished at once, but whose was the second? Certainly not our immaculate butler or either of his subordinates, who would never have ventured to laugh in the august presence of their master! But I was too sleepy to trouble myself farther.

“One of the boys must have come unexpectedly,” I thought as I composed myself again. “Perhaps Dad sent for Jocelyn to help him at Liverpool, after all; he may have needed him.”

My long night’s rest left me quite ready to get up at my usual hour, and I ran down to the dining-room, anxious to learn all I could about father’s return. This would have to be gleaned in the first place from the servants no doubt, for mother was sure to be tired, and not improbably too much so to appear at breakfast. But punctual as I was, some one was there before me, standing in the window, looking out at our pretty garden, never prettier than in the spring, above all with the early morning light. A tall, well-knit figure familiar to me somehow.

“Jocelyn!” I exclaimed, my eldest brother’s personality being the first that occurred to me, “so it was you after all! Did father send for you?”

He turned; no, it was not Jocelyn? “I am so sorry,” he said, though the regret expressed was tempered by a smile, “I am so sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t help it! You see I am only myself—not ‘Jocelyn’?”

Though I did not say so, I cannot but confess that the disappointment was scarcely worthy of the name, for the unexpected guest was Clarence Payne!

“Oh, how delightful!” was my first thought; “now I am going to hear all! And things must have gone rightly—he looks in such good spirits—Dad and he must have taken to each other.”

But even while these ideas rushed across my mind, I was conscious, simultaneously, as it were, of extreme surprise, and this, I suppose, must have been the prominent expression of my face, for the newcomer looked just a shade crestfallen.

“I am so sorry,” he began again, and this pulled me together.

“Please don’t say that,” I exclaimed; “you make me feel so rude, and indeed I don’t mean to be so. I was only, well, very surprised. But I am very pleased, for ever so many reasons. To begin with, I feel sure things went well at Liverpool, otherwise you would not be here, and—and—what about the poor Greys, and did you and father travel here together? and—oh I have such a lot of questions to ask. I feel half-choking with them,” and I sat down, really feeling almost overwhelmed with the rush of thoughts and “wonderings” in my brain.

“You shall ask what you please, and I scarcely think, that there will be anything which we—or I—will not be able to answer,” he said kindly. “Indeed, it was partly, greatly, to satisfy your most natural wish—right—to hear more, that I have come here.”

I felt my cheeks grow red.

“It is very good of you to put it in that way, Mr Payne,” I said. “I felt so ashamed when your father commended me the other day; even you do not fully know how wrong and foolish I was. No one does except Moore and myself. No, scarcely Moore. I should like you to know the whole of it, but you see I don’t want to bring in Isabel Wynyard, and possibly expose her to blame for having gossipped.” I stopped in consideration. “Perhaps,” I resumed, “no one need ever know any more,” and I looked up at him as I said so.

“I think very decidedly that no one need ever hear or think any more of that part of it,” was his reassuring reply. “I can put it all together pretty well, if it is any satisfaction to you for me to say so. And your father is content to ask you no more than the fact of certain knowledge having come to you that was not intended for you, and, after all, ‘all’s well that ends well,’” and here he smiled.

“Then it has or is going to end well?” I said eagerly.

At my words he grew grave again.

“Yes,” he replied, “though,” he hesitated a moment, “I don’t want to seem heartless, and death is always awe-inspiring, especially in such circumstances as we have just seen it—your father and I, I mean.”

“Then heisdead?” I said breathlessly. “That unhappy man, Ernest Fitzmaurice?”

Clarence bent his head.

“An hour or two after I saw him,” he replied, “he died. But—truly repentant.”

I felt shocked, and for a moment or two we did not speak.

Then “I am so glad you were in time to be with father,” I said.

“Thank you,” he replied. “I think I was of use to him, though he had done excellently. Got the deposition fully drawn out, signed and witnessed, so that there was scarcely anything for me to do at Liverpool, and therefore, armed with my full credentials, I hurried off to Millflowers, wheremyfather met me. But as to this part of it, Mr Fitzmaurice and I must tell it to you together, more at leisure,” for just then the servant came into the room with the breakfast trays.

“Only one word,” I said eagerly. “It went off well? And that poor Caryll?”

“Wonderfully well. You would scarcely believe how wise and tender my father was.”

Dad joined us at breakfast, declaring he was not tired at all, and as soon as it was over, we three adjoined to his own den, where I learnt for the first time the details of the Grim House mystery.

Perhaps it will be best that I should give it in simple narrative style, though, as can readily be imagined, the story related to me was not uninterrupted by a good many questions on my aide.

These were the facts:—

Many years before, the elder Mr Grey, whose real name was that of a well-known Welsh family, the Gwynneths of Maerdoc, to which he belonged, had fallen into terrible trouble. He was poor at the time, though with good prospects, well-intentioned, honourable and affectionate, but dangerously reckless and impulsive, and in consequence of this, though from no actual wrong-doing of his own, seriously, considering his circumstances, in debt. The details of his position need not be entered into, as they bear little upon his history, beyond saying that they were shared, more than shared indeed, and had been greatly caused by a friend of his, the Ernest Fitzmaurice of my narrative. But Ernest was a man of very different character. He was calculating and unscrupulous, thought highly of in some quarters even, though not by his own family, as my father recollected. The two, by an unfortunate coincidence, were staying in the same house on a visit, when their troubles came to a crisis. An extraordinary robbery took place—I am not sufficiently “up” in such matters to give full particulars as to the nature of the bonds or documents stolen, but they were such asmighthave been utilised with safety by the thief. Such, however, was not the case. They were traced to young Gwynneth, who was arrested, tried, and sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude. The blow fell on his family with appalling horror. But no one, not even his devoted sisters or his boy brother Caryll, his nearest relations, felt it more terribly to all appearance than his friend, Fitzmaurice, at that time thefiancéof Jessie Gwynneth. He exerted himself frantically to have the sentence mitigated, but to no avail. And the dogged silence maintained by the prisoner, whose whole nature seemed changed, added enormously to the weight of evidence against him. What his sisters thought during the term of his imprisonment never transpired. Afterwards, I have always suspected, and as far as regards the brother I indeedknow, that his family came to believe him entirely innocent.

Things grew easier for them, materially speaking, by a moderate fortune being left to them shortly before the elder brother’s imprisonment terminated. But he came back to them an utterly crushed, broken, and aged man, to find the “girls” he had left in little better case than himself. Only the youngest of the four, Caryll, despite the accident which had made him a life-long cripple, retained any cheerful or hopeful hold on life.

Then came the decision of the four to cling together at all costs; to hide themselves from the world, giving up everything but each other. Ernest Fitzmaurice had disappeared shortly after his victim’s imprisonment began, carrying with him, as was revealed by his dying deposition, a comparatively trifling portion of his theft, which he had had time to realise, and on which, thanks to his skill and adroitness, was founded the large fortune he eventually made. He was never heard of again while alive by the Gwynneths.

With Mr Payne’s help, Grimsthorpe House was taken for the brothers and sisters under the name of “Grey,” and there for twenty years they had lived their strange and isolated life, refusing even to alter its tenor when the second and much more important fortune became theirs. Why, it may be asked, did the elder brother—Justin was his name—never attempt to clear himself? I can scarcely say. Mr Payne, in lapse of time, had become convinced of his client’s innocence, and had often, but vainly, prayed for full confidence. His own opinion was, I think, that Mr Gwynneth’s brain had grown morbid on the point. Not improbably, too, the poor man’s seeing that even this old friend and adviser had not the most shadowy suspicion of the real culprit, may have helped to seal his lips.

“Poor Ernest!” Mr Payne used to say sometimes, “ifhewere still alive, he would have been back with us to join me in urging you to tell the whole. But he must be dead—indeed, Gwynneth, I think it broke his heart.”

“What torture it must have been to him to listen to me,” the kind-hearted man added, when he told us this. “No, Caryll was his only confidant, I feel sure.”

“And did you suspect no one else?” I remember asking.

“Yes, a certain man-servant did not escape all suspicion of collusion,” was the reply. “But he, we knew as a fact, was dead, and the mere allusion to him was enough to excite Gwynneth painfully. He swore he would never move a finger to clear himself, unless Providence itself interposed.”

“Which it did,” said Clarence. This fragment of conversation took place some time later, when I was again a guest at Granville Square.

Well, it “ended well,” as far as could be so late in the day.

The Gwynneths left Millflowers and went to live at their own beautiful house. And there, as they deserved, they were respected by all whom they allowed to know them, loved by the very few whom they admitted to intimacy. But the iron had entered too deeply into the souls of the three elder ones for them ever to be “like other people.” Caryll and the younger sister are still living, very old but very peaceful, happy in making others so.

Publicity, so far as it could serve any good purpose, was given to Ernest Fitzmaurice’s statement. But the more than a quarter of a century that had passed had almost obliterated the once famous trial from the world’s short memory—better so, perhaps.

One trivial question I remember putting to Clarence that Sunday morning. “What was the mystery of the ‘black curtain’?”

He smiled.

“Oh, an arrangement of some gymnastic kind, which it had been hoped might be of service to poor Caryll’s crippled leg.”

My next visit to London, though again under my godmother’s auspices, had a definite object—the choosing of mytrousseau. Clarence has been my husband for—ah, I must not say how many years! Lady Bretton was not pleased at first, but she “came round” by degrees, and now—she isquitean old lady, but a very pretty and alert one—she is more than proud of the great name he has won for himself, and always ready to say that her godchild’s is one of the happiest marriages she has ever known.

One exception—no, one addition I may make to this. My Isabel became my sister-in-law, and Jocelyn and she are our life-long and dearest friends.

The End.

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