"He could not help it. He said he had urgent business at Genoa."

"The business should have waited, had it been mine. Well, if I can do anything for you, Mrs. Dundyke, now or later, do let me. If what you say is correct—that we are related—I have a right to help you."

"Thank you very much. And remember," she added, in a voice almost as low as a whisper, "that should you ever be in—in—trouble, or distress, or need a friend in any way, you have only to come to me."

What was in Mrs. Dundyke's mind as she spoke? What made her say it? She was thinking of that shock which might be looming for him in the future, it was hard to say how near or how distant. And she felt that she could love this young man almost like a son.

"I will see you again, Mrs. Dundyke, before I leave town," were his last words.

But he did not. When he reached his lodgings that night, he found a telegraphic despatch awaiting him from Rotterdam, saying that his father was taken dangerously ill.

And the Reverend Robert Carr hastened to Dover by the first train, en route for Holland.

CHAPTER VI.
NEWS FOR WESTERBURY.

It cannot be denied that the present time, this first day after coming home, was one of peculiar pain to Mrs. Dundyke. She would have to go over the sad and strange story again and again, and there was no help for it. The chief partners in Fenchurch-street naturally required the particulars; the few friends she had, the household servants, wished to hear them, and there was only herself to tell the tale.

By ten o'clock, on the morning after her arrival, the second partner of the house, who wore rings and a moustache, and had altogether been an object of envy to the unfortunate common-councilman, was sitting with Mrs. Dundyke. She had not put on widow's weeds; she would not yet; she had said to Mary Prattleton, with a burst of grief, that a widow's cap would take the last remnant of lingering hope out of her. She wore a rich black silk gown, trimmed with much crape, but the cap and bonnet of the widow she assumed not.

Mr. Knowles, a kind-hearted man, who did not want for good sense, dandy though he was in dress, sat twirling his sandy moustache, the very gravest concern pervading his countenance. Mrs. Dundyke, who had never seen this gentleman more than once or twice, sat in humility, struggling with her grief. His social position was of a different standing from what poor Mr. Dundyke's had ever been.

"You see, Mrs. Dundyke, one hardly knows how to act, or what to be at," he remarked, after they had talked for some time, and she had related to him the details (always excepting any suspicion she might once have entertained of Mr. Hardcastle) as closely as she could. "Apart from the grief, the concern for your husband personally, it is altogether so awkward an affair, in a business point of view: we don't know whether we are to consider him as dead or alive."

She shook her head.

"There is little hope that he is alive, sir."

"Well, it would really seem like it. But what can have become of him?"

"There was the lake, you know."

"Yes."

A pause. Presently Mr. Knowles went on.

"When the letter came from that clergyman—Prattleton, wasn't his name?—saying that Mr. Dundyke was missing, and asking for the particulars of the money we had forwarded to him, we could not understand it. 'Missing!' cried old Mr. Knowles, who happened to have come to Fenchurch-street that day, 'one talks of a child being missing, but not of a man.' And when Mr. Prattleton's second letter came to us, giving some of the facts, I assure you we could with difficulty give credence to them."

"There is one little point I did not know of, sir; the sending to you for a fifty-pound note. My husband told me he was sending for the thirty pounds, but he did not say anything of the other. I cannot think why he sent for it."

Mr. Knowles took out his pocket-book.

"I happen to have Mr. Dundyke's letter, which was preserved quite accidentally, not being a strictly business one. You see, he only asks for the fifty pounds in a postscript, as if it were an afterthought. In fact, he says as much:" and Mrs. Dundyke's eyes filled as she looked on the well-known characters.

"P.S. Upon second thoughts, I doubt whether the 30l. will be enough for me. Be so good as to send me a 50l. note in addition to it; in halves as the other."

"Which accordingly we did," resumed Mr. Knowles, as Mrs. Dundyke returned him the letter. "And that note, you say, has not been traced?"

"No, sir, it has not."

"Well, it is altogether most strange. Of course whoever found the pocket-book (if the supposition that it was picked up on the bank of the lake be correct) may be keeping the fifty-pound note by him, but the probability is that he would have got rid of it at once, as he did the others."

"The most singular point to my mind throughout, sir, is the finding of the pencil-case in Mr. Hardcastle's room," said Mrs. Dundyke. "I can't get over that."

"Can't you? It appears to me easily explainable. The supposition that Mr. Dundyke took it out with him that morning must be a mistake. Mr. Hardcastle probably borrowed it from him at breakfast."

"I am quite sure, sir, he did not. I saw my husband put the pencil in its place in the pocket-book, and return the pocket-book to his pocket."

"Then he must have taken it out again when outside the room, and perhaps dropped it. Mr. Hardcastle may have picked it up, and carried it up to the chamber and forgotten it. There are many ways of accounting for that; but it is a pity the pencil was not found before Mr. Hardcastle's departure."

Mrs. Dundyke opened her lips to ask how then could her husband have written the pencilled note afterwards—that he never carried but that one; but she was weary with reiterating the same thing over and over again; and, after all, what Mr. Knowles said was possible. He might have dropped the pencil afterwards; Mr. Hardcastle might have picked it up and carried it to his room; and it certainly might have happened, it was not impossible, that her husband, contrary to custom, had a second pencil in his pocket.

"Shall we send the twenty-pound order to Hardcastle's house and get it cashed for you?" Mr. Knowles asked, when he was leaving. "I fancy that young Hardcastle is not very steady. He is a great deal on the continent, and I have heard he gambles."

Mrs. Dundyke thanked him and handed him the order. "Perhaps you would let the clerk inquire for Mr. Hardcastle's address at the same time, sir?" she said; "and whether he is still at Genoa. I should like to write and ask how he did find the pencil."

But when the order on Hardcastle and Co. was presented—as it was that same day—the house in Leadenhall-street declined to pay it, disclaiming all knowledge of the drawer. Upon the clerk's saying that it had been given by the nephew of Mr. Hardcastle, senior, to Mrs. Dundyke, in liquidation of money borrowed at Geneva, the firm shrugged their shoulders, and recommended the clerk to apply personally to that gentleman, at his residence at Kensington. This information was conveyed to Mrs. Dundyke, and she at once said she should like to go herself.

She went up to Mr. Hardcastle's the next day, and the old gentleman received her very courteously. He was a venerable man with white hair, and was walking up and down the room, which opened to a conservatory. Mrs. Dundyke did not state any particulars at first; she merely said that she had an order on the house in Leadenhall-street for twenty pounds, money borrowed by his nephew; that the house had declined to pay it, and had referred it to him.

"Borrowed money?" he repeated, in a sharp tone, as if the words visibly annoyed him.

"Yes, sir," he borrowed it of my husband; "his remittances did not arrive from England."

Mr. Hardcastle put on his spectacles, and she noticed that his hands trembled, she thought with agitation. "I have a nephew," he said, "who lives principally upon the continent; a thankless scapegrace he is, and has caused me a world of trouble. He has not been in England for eighteen months now, and I hope he will not come to it in a hurry; but he is always threatening it."

Mrs. Dundyke was surprised. "He told us, sir, that he had come from London recently; in fact, he said—he certainly implied—that he took a principal and active part in your house in Leadenhall-street."

"All boast, madam, all boast. He has not anything to do with it, and we would not let him have. I wonder he should say that, too! He is tolerably truthful, making a confession of his shortcomings, rather than hiding them."

"Is he at Genoa still, sir?"

"At where?" asked Mr. Hardcastle, looking at Mrs. Dundyke through his spectacles, which he had been all the time adjusting.

"He went on to Genoa, sir, from Geneva. I asked whether he was there still."

"He has not been at Geneva or at Genoa," said Mr. Hardcastle; "latterly, at any rate."

"Yes he has, sir; he was at Geneva when we got to it in July, and he stayed some time. He then went on to Genoa."

"Then he has deceived me," said Mr. Hardcastle, in a vexed tone. "I don't know why he should; it does not matter to me what place he is in. What is this, madam—the order? This is not his handwriting," hastily continued Mr. Hardcastle, at the first glance, as he unfolded the paper.

"I saw him write it, sir," said Mrs. Dundyke.

"Madam, it is no more like his writing than it is like yours or mine," was the testy answer. "And—what is this signature, B. Hardcastle? My nephew's name is Thomas."

There was a momentary silence. Mr. Hardcastle sat looking at the written order, knitting his brow in reflection.

"Madam, I do not think he could have been at Geneva when this was dated," he resumed; "I had a letter from him just about this time, written from Brussels. Stay, I will get it."

"Madam, I fear you must have been imposed upon."

"Have you two nephews, sir?"

"I never had but this one in my life, ma'am; and I have found him one too many."

"His wife is a showy woman, very pale, with handsome features," persisted Mrs. Dundyke, in a tone as dreamy as her gaze. Not that she disbelieved that venerable old man, but it all seemed so great a mystery.

"His wife! my nephew has no wife: I don't know who'd marry him. I tell you, ma'am, you have been taken in by some swindler who must have assumed his name. Though egad! my nephew's little better than a swindler himself, for he gets into debt with everybody who will let him."

Mrs. Dundyke sat silent a few moments, and she then told her tale—told everything that had occurred in connexion with her husband's mysterious fate. But when she came to hint her suspicions of Mr. Hardcastle's having been his destroyer, the old gentleman was visibly shocked and agitated.

"Good heavens! no! Spendthrift though he is, he is not capable of that awful crime. Madam, how do you suppose your husband lost his life? In a struggle? Did they quarrel?"

"I know nothing," answered poor Mrs. Dundyke.

"A quarrel and struggle it may have been. Mr. Hardcastle was a powerful man."

"A what? A powerful man, did you say, this Mr. Hardcastle?"

"Very powerful, sir; tall and strong. Standing nearly six feet high, and as dark as a gipsy."

"Thank Heaven for that relief!" murmured Mr. Hardcastle. "My nephew is one of the smallest men you ever saw, ma'am, short and slight, with fair curls: in fact, an effeminate dandy. There's his picture," added the old gentleman, throwing open the door of an inner room, "and when he next comes to England, and he is threatening it now, as you read in that letter, you shall see him. But, meanwhile, I will refer you to fifty persons, if you like, who will bear testimony that he is, in person, as I describe. There is no possible identity between them. Once more, thank Heaven!"

Mrs. Dundyke returned to her home. The affair seemed to wear a darker appearance than it had yet worn. And again her suspicions reverted to the man who had called himself Mr. Hardcastle.

We must now turn to Westerbury. That generally supine city was awakened out of its lethargy one morning, by hearing that Death had claimed Marmaduke Carr. On the very night that his grandson was at Mrs. Dundyke's, he was dying: and in the morning, Westerbury heard that he was dead.

On the same day, the instant the news was conveyed to them, Squire Carr and his son and heir came over with all the speed that the train could bring them, and went bustling to the house of the dead man. There they found Mr. Fauntleroy, the solicitor to the just deceased Mr. Carr. He was a tall, large man, this lawyer; a clever practitioner, a fast-living man, and, by the way, the same scapegrace who had done that injury, in the shape of money, to Peter Arkell. But Mr. Fauntleroy had settled down since then, and had made an enormous deal of money; and he held some sway in Westerbury.

"Here's a pretty go!" cried Mr. Fauntleroy, in his loud, blustering tones. "To think that he should die off like this, and nobody know of it!"

"I never knew he was ill," said the squire. "I should, of course, have come over if I had."

"Oh, he has been ill—that is to say, ailing—a good month now," returned the lawyer. "And when these aged healthy men begin to droop, their life is not worth much."

"Well, what's to be done now?" cried Squire Carr.

"Nothing of consequence until we hear from the son. I sent down to the carpenter this morning about the shell, but I shall do nothing more until we hear from Mr. Carr in Holland. I wrote a line to him the moment I heard what had happened, and was in time to get it off by the day mail. He will come over, there's no doubt."

"You knew his address, then?" cried Valentine. It was the first word he had spoken, and he had stood, with his little mean figure, rather behind his father, and his little mean light eyes furtively scanning the lawyer's countenance.

"I believe I know it," replied Mr. Fauntleroy. "There has been an address in our books as long as I have had anything to do with the office, 'Robert Carr, Messrs. something (I forget the name), Rotterdam.' I once asked Mr. Carr if it was his son's correct address, and he said it was, for all he knew. That is the address I have written to."

"Are you sure that the old man did not make a will?" asked the squire, alluding to his relative, Marmaduke.

"I am sure that I never made one for him," returned Mr. Fauntleroy. "Will? no, not he! The very mention of the subject used to anger him? Where was the use of his making a will, he said. His son would inherit just as well without a will as with one: he was heir-at-law."

Squire Carr's covetous heart gave vent to a resentful sigh. They were the very self-same words that Mr. Carr had used to him so many years ago, on the same topic. That old Marmaduke had not made a will, he felt as certain as that he should go to his own bed that night, but he could not help harping upon the contrary hope. As to Valentine, he could almost have found in his heart to forge one, had such doings not been unfashionable.

"Well, I must say Marmaduke might have remembered that he had other relatives besides that runagate son," grumbled the squire. "Had he been mine, I'd have cut him off with a shilling."

"Not a bit on't, Carr," laughed the lawyer, in his coarse way. "You'll not leave your chattels away from your own progeny; not even from the roving sheep, Ben."

Now it was a singular coincidence, amid the many small coincidences of this history, that Marmaduke Carr's son Robert should die at the same time as his father. But so it was. The exile of many, many years died without ever having seen his father, or sought for a word of reconciliation with him: he had died suddenly in a fit, before his father, but not above an hour or two; and without seeing one of his three children, for all were away from home when it occurred.

In reply to Mr. Fauntleroy's letter there arrived a short note, written by a lady who signed herself "Emma Carr, neé D'Estival." The language was English, and good English, too; but the handwriting was unmistakably French. In acknowledging the receipt of Mr. Fauntleroy's letter, it stated that "her husband" was from home; and it gave the information that Mr. Carr was dead—had died after a few hours' illness.

Nothing could exceed the commotion that this news excited at Squire Carr's. Robert Carr dead! then they were the heirs-at-law. They beset the office of Mr. Fauntleroy; they took the conduct of affairs into their own hands; they ordered the funeral, and they fixed the day of interment. Not by any means a remote day; scarcely decently so, according to English notions of keeping the dead. It was hot weather, Valentine remarked; and that was true: but Westerbury said they wanted to get the poor old man under ground that they might ransack the house, and see what valuables were in it. Mr. Fauntleroy was rather taken aback at these proceedings; at the summary wrestling of affairs out of his hands; and he had promised himself some nice little pickings out of all this, the funeral and the acting for Robert Carr, and one thing or another; but he did not see his way clear to hinder it. If Robert Carr was dead, and the old man had left no will, Squire Carr was undoubtedly the heir-at-law.

It was not, however, to be quite smooth sailing. On their return home from the funeral—and the only stranger invited to it was Mr. Arkell, he and Mr. Fauntleroy, with the two Carrs forming the mourners—Mr. Fauntleroy produced from his pocket a letter which he had received that morning. It was from the Reverend Robert Carr, the son of the deceased gentleman in Holland, requesting Mr. Fauntleroy to take all necessary arrangements upon himself for the interment of old Mr. Carr, his grandfather, and regretting that he was prevented journeying to attend it, in consequence of the melancholy circumstances already known to Mr. Fauntleroy. It desired that the style of the funeral should be handsome, in accordance with the fortune and position of the deceased. It was signed Robert Carr.

"Robert Carr!" contemptuously ejaculated the squire. "What a fool he must be to write in that strain to us!"

Mr. Fauntleroy chuckled over the letter; especially over that part of it ordering a suitable funeral. In his opinion, and in the opinion of Westerbury generally, the funeral of Mr. Carr had not been suitable. There were no mutes, no pall-bearers, no superfluous plumes, no anything: none but a mean-minded man would have ordered such a one.

Mr. Fauntleroy wrote back to the Reverend Robert Carr. He gave him a statement of the case in a dry, lawyery sort of way, and told him that Squire Carr being, under the apparent circumstances, heir-at-law, had taken possession of the affairs and property. This elicited a most indignant reply from Robert Carr. There could not be the slightest doubt that his father and mother were married, he said, and he should be in Westerbury as speedily as he could to maintain his own rights.

"Does he think he can impose upon us, this young fellow of a parson?" cried Squire Carr, when the letter was shown him. "He will be for making out next that his mother, that Hughes girl, was my cousin's wife. Let him prove it. Old birds are not caught with chaff."

And Squire Carr took out letters of administration.

CHAPTER VII.
ROBERT CARR'S VISIT.

Mrs. Arkell sat in her drawing-room with a visitor. She was listening to what struck her as being the very strangest tale she had ever heard or dreamt of. The Reverend Mr. Prattleton, who had reached home the previous night, had come this afternoon to tell her of the disappearance of Mr. Dundyke.

"Your sister wished me to give you the particulars as soon as I got home," he observed. "There was little, if any, acquaintance between you and Mr. Dundyke," he said, "but she felt sure you would feel concern for him, now he was dead, and would like to hear the details. It is a sad thing; I may say an awful thing."

"No, no; I don't think that," said the minor canon. "Of course there is the possibility; but I incline to the belief that he must have fallen into the lake, leaving his pocket-book on the shore. Indeed, I feel convinced of it, and I think Mrs. Dundyke felt so at last. In the first uncertainty and suspense, I hardly know what horrible things she did not fancy."

"But surely all proper search was made for him!"

"Of course it was. I am not sure that the police took so much interest in it, all of us being foreigners, and temporary sojourners in the town, as they would have done if a native had been missing. It was with difficulty they were persuaded to take a serious view of the case. The gentleman had only gone off somewhere else, they thought, without telling his wife. However, they did their best to find traces of him; but it proved useless."

"What could have taken them to Geneva?" exclaimed Mrs. Arkell.

"A desire for change and recreation, I suppose. The same that took me—that takes us all."

"But——those common working-people don't require change," had been on Mrs. Arkell's tongue; but she altered the words. Mrs. Dundyke was her sister, and unfortunately she could not deny it. "But——Geneva was very far to go."

"Not very, in these days of travelling. It is twenty years, Mrs. Arkell, since I was on the continent, and one seems to get about there ten times as quick as formerly. It's true I took the rail this time as much as I could; the Dundykes, on the contrary, preferred the old diligences, wherever they were to be had."

"Did you see Mr. Dundyke?"

"No," said the minor canon. "He had disappeared—is it not a strangely sounding word?—before we reached Geneva."

"What a mercy that it was not after it!" thought Mrs. Arkell, remembering the graces of manner of the ill-fated common-councilman. "Mrs. Dundyke has returned home, you say?"

"Oh, yes. When all hope was gone, we left Geneva. She went on home direct, but we stayed in Paris. I very much wished to call upon her as we came through London, but we had remained beyond our time, and I could not. I assure you, Mrs. Arkell, I do not know when I have met with anyone that so won on my regard and on Mary's, as your sister."

Mrs. Arkell raised her eyes in pure surprise. Her sister, humble Betsey Dundyke, win upon anybody's regard! It struck her that the clergyman must be saying it out of some notion of politeness; he could surely never mean it. The fact was, Mrs. Arkell had so long been accustomed to regard her sister in a disparaging point of view, that she could not look upon her in any other light.

"She was always a poor, weak sort of girl, between ourselves, Mr. Prattleton. Otherwise you know she never could have made such a marriage. The man was most inferior; dreadfully inferior."

"Indeed! Then I think he must have got on well," said Mr. Prattleton. "He was to have been one of the sheriffs, I believe, next year."

Mrs. Arkell superciliously drew down her still pretty lips. "A great many of those civic London people are quite inferior tradesmen," she said; "at least I have heard so. I only hope poor Betsey has enough left to keep her from want. When these business people die, it often happens that all they have dies with them, and—oh, William, Mr. Prattleton has brought us the strangest news! Mr. Dundyke—Betsey's husband, you know—is either murdered or drowned."

She had broken off thus on the entrance of her husband. Mr. Arkell, as he shook hands with the clergyman, listened in amazement little less great than his wife's, and asked question upon question, greatly interested. You see there was sufficient—what shall I say?—uncertainty, about the matter still, to make them look upon it more as an uncleared-up mystery, than a certain tragedy, and perhaps the chief feeling excited in all minds when they first heard it, was that of marvel. In the midst of Mr. Prattleton's explanations, the college clock struck three, and the bell rang out for afternoon service. It was the minor canon's signal.

"I must go," he said, as he rose; "it is my week for chanting. Mr. Wilberforce took the duty for me the two first days. I did intend to get home on Saturday last, but somehow the time slipped on."

Mr. Arkell was going into the town, and he walked with Mr. Prattleton as far as the large cathedral gates; for the minor canon went round to the front way that afternoon, as it lay in the road for Mr. Arkell. Lounging about in an idle mood, now against the contiguous railings, now against a post of the great doorway, in a manner not often seen at cathedral doors, and not altogether appropriate to them, was a rather tall, bilious-looking young man, with fair hair. He did not see them; his head was turned the other way.

"Can't you find anything better to do, George?"

The words came from the clergyman, and the young man turned with a start. It was George Prattleton, the half-brother of the minor canon, but very, very much younger. Mr. George held a good civil appointment in India, but he was now home on sick leave, and his days were eaten up with ennui. He made the Rev. Mr. Prattleton's his home, who good-naturedly allowed him to do it; but he was inclined to be what the world calls fast, and, except at the intervals (somewhat rare ones) when he had plenty of money in his pocket, he felt that the world was a wearisome sort of place, of no good to anybody. A good-natured, inoffensive young fellow on the whole; free from actual vice; but extravagant, incorrigibly lazy, and easily imposed upon. He generally called his brother "Mr. Prattleton." The difference in their ages justified it, and they had not been brought up together.

"I was deliberating whether I should go in to service this afternoon," said George—a sort of excuse for lounging against the door-post, as he shook hands with Mr. Arkell.

"By way of passing away the time!" cried the clergyman, some covert reproof in his tone.

"Well—yes," returned George, who was by no means unwilling to confess to his shortcomings. "It is a bore, having nothing to do."

"When you first came home you brought a cartload of books with you, red-hot upon studying Hindustanée. I wonder how many times you have opened them!"

Mr. Prattleton passed into the cathedral as he spoke. It was time he did, for the bell had been going twelve minutes. George pulled a rueful face as he thought of his Hindustanée.

"I tried it for six whole days after I came home, Mr. Arkell—I give you my word I did; but I couldn't get on at all by myself, and there is not a master to be had in the town. I shall set to it in right earnest before I go out again."

Mr. Arkell laughed. He rather liked the good-natured young man, and Travice he knew was fond of him.

"But, George, you should remember one thing," he said: "idleness does not get a man on in the world. You have a fine career before you out yonder, if you only take the trouble to secure it."

"I know that, Mr. Arkell; and I assure you not a fellow in all the three presidencies is steadier than I am, or works harder than I do, when I am there. It is only here, where I have no work before me, that I get into this dawdling way."

Mr. Arkell left him, passed out of the cathedral inclosure, and continued his way up the town. George Prattleton remained where he was, wondering what on earth he could do with himself. It was too late to go in to service, for the bell had ceased, the organ was pealing out, and he caught a glimpse, across the great body of the cathedral, of the white surplices of the dean and two of the chapter, as they whisked in at the cloister door. George Prattleton believed time must be given to mortals as a punishment for their sins. He had not a sixpence in his pocket; he owed so much at the billiard-rooms that he did not like to show his face there; he was in debt to all the tobacconists of the place; he had borrowed money from private friends; and altogether he rather wished for an earthquake, or something of that light nature, by way of a diversion to the general stagnation of the sultry afternoon.

Mr. Arkell meanwhile reached the house of lawyer Fauntleroy, for that was the place he was bound for. Mr. Fauntleroy was not his solicitor, but he had a question to ask him on a matter unconnected with professional business. As he was turning out of the office again, he nearly ran against a stranger in deep mourning, who was looking up, as though he wanted to find the number of the house. He was a slight, delicate-looking young man; and it instantly struck Mr. Arkell that he had seen his face before, or one like it.

"I beg your pardon," said the stranger, taking his hat more completely off than an Englishman generally does to one of his own sex, "can you tell me whether this is Mr. Fauntleroy's?"

"It is Mr. Fauntleroy's. I think—I think you are the son of Robert Carr!" impulsively cried Mr. Arkell, as the resemblance to the exiled and now dead friend of his boyhood flashed across his memory.

It was no other. The Reverend Robert Carr had hastened to Westerbury as soon as family arrangements and his own health permitted him. A few moments of conversation, and Mr. Arkell turned back with him to introduce him to Lawyer Fauntleroy, thinking at the same time that he had rarely seen anyone look so thin, so pale, so shadowy as Robert Carr.

It was a handsome house, this of Lawyer Fauntleroy's—and if you object to the term "Lawyer Fauntleroy," as old-fashioned, you must not blame me for using it. Westerbury rarely called him anything else; does not call him anything else now, if it has occasion to recal him or his doings. The offices were on either side of the door, as you entered; Mr. Fauntleroy's private room, a large, well fitted-up apartment, being on the right; a small ante-room led to it, generally the sanctum of the managing clerk.

Mr. Fauntleroy was at leisure, and the whole affair in all its details, past and present, was related to Robert Carr. Mr. Arkell remained also. It was not a pleasant office to have to seek to convince this young man of his own illegitimacy, never a doubt of which had arisen in his mind.

"My mother not married!" he repeated, a streak of suspicious crimson—suspicious when taken in conjunction with that hacking cough, those shadowy hands—"indeed you would not entertain such a thought had you known her. She was, I believe, of inferior family, but in herself she was a lady, and her children had cause to love and bless her. Not married! Why, are you aware, Mr. Fauntleroy, that my father was a partner in one of the first merchant's houses in Rotterdam, and that my mother held her own, and was visited, and respected as few are, so long as she lived?"

Lawyer Fauntleroy shook his head. He was a man who took practical views of most things, utterly scorning theoretical ones.

"I don't doubt your word, Mr. Carr, that your mother was a most estimable lady; I remember her myself, an uncommon pretty girl; but that does not prove that she was married."

Mr. Carr's eyes flashed. "Not prove it! Do you think, being what I tell you she was, a good, religious woman, that she would have lived with my father unless they had been married?"

"I have known such cases," cried the lawyer, with his dry practicalness, if there is such a word. "One of the first men in this city—if you except the clergy and that set—Haughton was his name, and plenty of money he had, and lived in style, as Mr. Arkell here can tell you, his sons sticking themselves above everybody, his wife and daughters setting the fashions—well, Mr. Carr, when he died, it was discovered that his wife was not his wife; that his children were nothing in the eyes of the law. Westerbury was electrified, I can tell you, and bestows hard names upon old Haughton to this day, for having so imposed upon them."

"You should not put such a case on a parallel with ours," said the young clergyman, in pained reproof.

"But, my good sir, it is on a parallel; so far, at all events. I tell you this family were looked upon as superior, as everything that was moral; not a word could be urged against the wife (as we'll call her for the argument's sake); she was respected and visited; and not until old Haughton died, and his will came to be read, did the secret ooze out. He left his money to them, but he could not leave it in the usual straightforward way. By the way," added the lawyer briskly, as a thought struck him; "in what manner was your father's will worded? How was your mother styled in it?"

"You forget that my mother has been dead for some time. The will was made only two years ago. It was a perfectly legally-drawn-up will, according to the Dutch laws; there can be no doubt of that."

"Do you remember how you are described in it, and your brothers and sisters?" persisted Mr. Fauntleroy.

"I have but one brother and one sister; we are described in what I suppose is the usual manner, by our Christian names, Robert, Thomas, and Mary Augusta, the sons and daughter of Robert Carr. It is something to that effect; I did not take particular notice of the wording."

"I wonder what the law is, over there, with regard to legitimacy?" mused Mr. Fauntleroy, his eyes seeing an imaginary Holland in the distance. "But, Mr. Carr, this is waste of time," he added, rousing himself; "the plain case round which the question will revolve, is not so much whether your father and mother were married, as whether it can be proved that they were. The law, in a case like this, requires proof actual—and very right that it should."

"I suppose there will not be the slightest difficulty in proving it," said Robert Carr, resenting the very suggestion.

"Can you prove it? Do you know where it took place?"

The young man shook his head. "I never heard where. It can be readily found out."

"Did you ever question your father upon the point?"

"No; it was not likely I should, seeing that my attention was never drawn to any doubt of the sort."

"Well, Westerbury has never entertained any doubt the other way," said the lawyer. "It is not agreeable to say these things to your face, Mr. Carr; but there's no help for it; and the sooner the question is set at rest for you, one way or the other, the better. I should not think there's a single person living still in Westerbury, who recollects the circumstances as they took place, that would believe your father married Miss Hughes after she went away with him."

"It is probable they were married before they did go away," spoke Robert Carr, hating more than he liked to show the being compelled to this discussion.

"That, I can answer for, they were not. When they left here she was Martha Ann Hughes."

"Mr. Fauntleroy is right so far," interposed Mr. Arkell. "They were not married when they left Westerbury: on that point there can be no mistake. The question that remains is, were they married subsequent to it?"

"They must have been," said Robert Carr.

"But there is no must in the case," dissented the lawyer. "The probabilities are that they were not: the belief is such."

"I do not see why you should persistently seek to cast this opprobrium on my father and mother, Mr. Fauntleroy!" exclaimed Robert Carr, his hollow face lighting up with reproach.

"Bless you, my good sir, I don't seek to cast it," said the lawyer, good-humouredly. "Facts are facts. If you can prove that Robert Carr married Miss Hughes, and your own legal birth with it, you will take the property; but if you can't prove it, Squire Carr must keep possession, and things will remain as they are. Where's the use of shutting our eyes to the truth?"

"There can be no doubt whatever of the marriage. I am sure of it; I would stake all my hopes upon it here and—I was going to say—hereafter."

"But you so speak only according to your belief, sir? You have no shadow of proof."

"True; but——"

"Just so," interrupted Mr. Fauntleroy, in his decisive and rather overbearing manner. "All the proofs lie on the other side—negative proofs, at any rate. They went away together without being married; that is certain—and, by the way, they hoaxed my friend here, William Arkell, into helping them off; and I believe his father never forgave him for it. Neither were there wanting subsequent proofs—negative ones, perhaps, as I say—that they remained unmarried; at any rate, for some years. Rely upon one thing, Mr. Robert Carr: that old Marmaduke, just dead, would have left his money away from his son unless he had been thoroughly certain that no marriage took place. He had sworn to disinherit his son if he married Miss Hughes, and he was a man to keep his word."

"Excuse me," said Robert Carr: "you do not perceive that this very fact may have been the motive that induced my father to keep his marriage a secret."

"I perceive it very well. But it is a great deal more probable that there never was a marriage. Weigh all the circumstances well, Mr. Carr; without prejudice: though, of course, it is difficult for you to do so. Over and over again your father was heard to say that he had no intention of marrying the girl——"

"You forget that you are speaking to me of my mother," interrupted Robert Carr.

"Well, yes, I did," acknowledged the lawyer. "It is difficult to speak to a son upon these things; but I think, Mr. Carr, you had better hear them. Mr. Arkell there, who was your father's intimate acquaintance, can testify how positively he disclaimed, even to him, any intention of marriage. Next came the——"

"Allow me," interposed the clergyman, his haughty tone bespeaking how painful all this was to him. "I presume no suspicion was cast upon my mother's name while she was in Westerbury?"

"Not a breath of it. Blame was cast, though, on her and her sisters for allowing the visits of Robert Carr: as is usual in all cases where there is much disparity in the social standing of the parties. Next came the elopement, I was about to say. They went direct to London, where they stayed together——"

"The marriage must have taken place there," again interrupted Robert Carr.

"I believe not," said Mr. Fauntleroy, dryly. "Marmaduke Carr took care to acquaint himself with particulars, and it was ascertained that they did not remain in London long enough to allow of it. The law, more particular then than it is now, required a residence of three weeks in a place, before a marriage could be solemnized, and they left for Holland ere the expiration of a fortnight. It was our house—my father then being its head—which sought out these particulars for old Marmaduke. No; rely upon it there was no marriage in London."

His tone plainly said, "Rely upon it there was no marriage, there or elsewhere." Mr. Carr was about to speak, but the lawyer raised his hand and continued.

"Some little time after they had settled in Rotterdam, John Carr—Squire Carr now—went over and saw them. There's no doubt his visit was a fishing one, hoping to find out that a marriage had taken place; for in that case, Marmaduke Carr would have wanted another heir than his son. I am sure that John, close-fisted as he was known to be, would have given a hundred pounds out of his pocket to be able to come back and report that they were married; but he could not. He was obliged to confess not only that his cousin and Miss Hughes were not married, but that Robert had told him he never should marry her. And, indeed, it was hardly to be supposed that he would then."

"But——"

"A moment yet, if you please, Mr. Carr. Some considerable time after this, and when I think there was one child born—which must have been you, sir—Mr. Carr got to see a letter written by Martha Ann Hughes to her sister Mary. I think he got the sight of it through you, Mr. Arkell?"

"Through my father. Mary Hughes was at work at our house, and Tring, our maid, brought the letter on the sly to my mother. My father, I remember, said he should like to show it to Marmaduke Carr; and he did so."

"Ay. Well, Mr. Carr, nothing could have been plainer than that letter. Mary Ann Hughes acknowledged that she had no hope of Robert's marrying her; but he was kind to her, she said, and she was as happy as anyone well could be under her unfortunate circumstances. Indeed, I fear you have no room for hope."

"Where is that letter?" asked the clergyman.

"It's impossible to say. Destroyed most likely long ago. None of your mother's family are remaining in Westerbury."

"Are they all dead?"

"Dead or dispersed. The brother went off to America or somewhere; and the second sister, Mary, died: it was said she grieved a great deal about her sister, your mother. The eldest sister married a young man of the name of Pycroft, and they also emigrated. Nothing has been heard of any of them for years."

"You must permit me to maintain my own opinion, Mr. Fauntleroy," pursued Robert Carr; "and I shall certainly not allow anyone to interfere with my grandfather's property. If the other branch of the family—Squire Carr and his sons—wish to put forth any pretensions to it, they must first prove their right."

Mr. Fauntleroy laughed. He was amused at the clergyman's idea of law.

"The proof lies with you, Mr. Carr," he said; "and not with them. They cannot prove a negative, you know; and they say that no marriage took place. It is for you to prove that it did. Failing that proof, the property will be theirs."

"And meanwhile? While we are searching for the proof?" questioned Robert Carr, after a pause.

"Meanwhile they retain possession. I understand that Mrs. Lewis has already come over and taken up her abode in the house."

"Who is Mrs. Lewis?" asked the clergyman.

"Squire Carr's widowed daughter. She has been living at home since her husband died. I was told this morning that she had come to the house with the intention of remaining."

Mr. Fauntleroy's information was correct. Mrs. Lewis had come to Marmaduke Carr's house, and was fully resolved to stop in it, fate and the squire permitting. Mr. Lewis had died about a year before, and left her not so well off as she could have wished. She had a competency; but she had not riches. She broke up her household in the Grounds, and went on a long visit to her father's, to save housekeeping temporarily; leaving her two boys, who were on the foundation of the college school, as boarders at the house of Mr. Wilberforce.

CHAPTER VIII.
GOING OVER TO SQUIRE CARR'S.

Mr. Arkell put his arm within Robert Carr's, as they walked away together. It would be difficult to express how very much he felt for this young man. His father's fault was not his, and Mr. Arkell, at least, would not be one to visit it upon him. For a few yards their steps were taken in silence; but the clergyman spoke at last, his eye dilating, his voice vehement.

"If they had only known my mother as I knew her, they would see how improbable is this tale that they are telling! I do not care what their suspicions are, what their want of proof; I know that my mother was my father's wife."

"Indeed I hope it will prove so," said Mr. Arkell, rather at a loss what else to say.

"She was modest, gentle, good, refined; she was respected as few are respected. There never was a trace of shame upon her brow. Could her children have been trained as she trained hers, if—if—I can hardly trust myself to speak of this. It is a cruel calumny."

Perhaps so. But, looking at it in its best light; allowing that they were really married; the calumny was alone the fault of this young man's father. If he could have removed the stigma, he should have done it. Did this poor young man begin to think so? Did unwilling doubts arise, even to him? Scarcely, yet. But the lines grew hard in his face as they walked along, and his troubled eyes looked out straight before him into space, seeing nothing.

"I wish you would give me the whole history of the past yourself, Mr. Arkell, now that I can listen quietly. I was hardly in a state to pay attention just now; somehow I distrusted that old lawyer."

"You need not have done that. He was your grandfather's man of business; and, though a little rough, he is sufficiently honest."

"Is he not acting for Squire Carr?"

"I think not. I am sure not."

"Will you give me the history of the past, quietly? as correctly as you can remember it."

Mr. Arkell did so; telling, with a half laugh, the ruse Robert Carr had exercised in getting his father's carriage to take them away, and the hot water he, William, got into in consequence. He told the whole affair from its earliest beginning to its ending, concealing nothing; he mentioned how Mary Hughes had happened to be at work at his mother's house that day; and the dreadful distress she experienced, as soon as the matter was made known to her; he even told how severe in its judgment on the fugitives was Westerbury.

"Yes, my father showed it to me. Not in any gossiping spirit, but as a convincing proof that the opinion I had held was wrong, and his was right. He had been very greatly vexed at the whole affair, and would never listen to me when I said I hoped and thought they were married. It was, as Mr. Fauntleroy observed, a plain, convincing letter; and from the moment I saw it, I felt sure that there had been no marriage, and would be none. I am so grieved to tell you this, my dear young friend; but I might not be doing my duty if I were to suppress it."

Robert Carr's face turned a shade paler.

"I see exactly how it is," he said: "that it is next to impossible for you, or anyone else, to believe there was a marriage; all the circumstances telling against it. Nevertheless, I declare to you, Mr. Arkell, on my sacred word as a clergyman, that I am as certain a marriage did take place, as that there is a heaven above us."

Mr. Arkell did not think so, and there ensued a pause.

"Your father died rather suddenly, I believe," he said to Robert Carr.

"Very suddenly. He was taken with a sort of fit; I really cannot tell you its exact nature, for the medical men differed, but I suppose it was apoplexy. They agreed in one thing, that there was no hope from the first; and he never recovered consciousness. I was in London when they telegraphed to me, but when I got home he had been for some hours dead."

"I will send to the hotel for your portmanteau," said Mr. Arkell; "you must be our guest while you stay. My son will be delighted. He is about your own age."

"Thank you, no; you are very kind, but I would rather be alone just now," was Robert Carr's answer. "This is not a pleasant visit for me, and I am in poor health, besides. I shall not stay here long; I must enter upon a search for the register of the marriage. But I should like to pay a visit to the Carr's before I leave, and I am too fatigued to go back to-day."

"To pay a visit to the Carr's?" Mr. Arkell echoed.

"Yes. Why should I not? They are my relatives, and I do not see that there need be ill blood between us. As to the property, they have no real right to it whatever, and I hope I shall speedily produce proof that it is mine, and so put an end to any heartburning. I suppose," he added, reverting to the one subject, "that you are quite sure the marriage did not take place before they left Westerbury?"

"You may put that idea entirely aside," replied Mr. Arkell. "There's no doubt that their going away was in consequence of a bitter quarrel Robert had with his father; that it was unpremeditated until the night previous to their departure. In Westerbury they were not married, could not have been; but perhaps they were in London. It is true, I believe, they did not stay there anything like three weeks—and you heard what Mr. Fauntleroy said; but I suppose it is possible to evade the law, which exacts a residence of that length of time in a place, before the ceremony can be performed."

"Yes, there's no doubt they were married in London," concluded Robert Carr. "I must ascertain what parish they stayed in there; and the rest will be easy."

Not another word was said. Robert Carr walked on in silence, and Mr. Arkell did not interrupt it. Mr. Arkell took him into his house. In the dining-room, the old familiar room you have so often seen, sat a lady, languidly looking over a parcel of books just come in. By her side, leaning over her chair, grasping the books more eagerly than she, the stranger saw a young man of about his own age—tall, slender, gentlemanly—with a face of peculiar refinement, and a sweet smile.

"Now, I wonder what they mean by their negligence? The two books I ordered are not here. I wish they knew what it was to have these fine starry nights, and be without a book of reference; they——"

"Travice," interrupted Mr. Arkell, "I have brought you a visitor, the son of a once close friend of mine. My wife, Mrs. Arkell. Charlotte, this is Mr. Robert Carr, Mr. Carr's grandson."

Mrs. Arkell turned and received him with a curtsey and a dubious look. Always inclined to judge on the uncharitable side, she had had nothing but indifferent scorn to cast to the rumour that Robert Carr's children were going to lay claim to the property, just as she had scorned Robert Carr himself in the old days. She knew that this must be one of the children.

Travice went up at once and shook him warmly by the hand, his pleasant face smiling its own welcome. "I have often heard my father speak of yours," he said; "I am so pleased to see you."

Very little was said in the presence of Mrs. Arkell, touching the business that had brought Robert Carr to Westerbury; but one subject led to another, and Robert Carr told, as one of the strange occurrences of the world, that which had made so strong an impression on himself—the story of the disappearance of Mr. Dundyke. He told it as to strangers; and not, until he had related his own meeting with them at Grenoble, and his visit to Mrs. Dundyke on the night of her return to London, did he find that Mrs. Arkell was her sister. It was Travice Arkell's impetuosity that brought it out then; Mrs. Arkell had been better pleased that it should remain a secret.

"We have heard it all," said Travice; "and Mrs. Dundyke is my aunt and my godmother. She and my mother are sisters."

"I was not aware of it," said Robert Carr. "Is it not a strange tale?"

"Strange!" repeated Travice, "I never heard of anything half so strange. I have been waylaying Mr. Prattleton as he came out of college, wanting to hear more than my mother could tell me. I wish I had been at Geneva!"

"So do I," said Robert Carr.

Robert Carr remained to dinner. He still expressed a wish to make himself known to his relatives, the Carrs; and Mr. Arkell offered to drive him to Eckford on the following morning. A railway now went near the place; but the seven miles' drive was pleasanter than the ten of rail, and Squire Carr's house was a good mile and a half from the Eckford station. So it was arranged.

"Travice," said Mr. Arkell, as Robert Carr took his departure, "I was glad to see your reception of this gentleman. Be to him a friend in any way that you can. It may be, that he will not find too many of them in Westerbury."

Mrs. Arkell tossed her head. "I am rather surprised that you should bring him here, and introduce him on this familiar footing. The past history of the father is not a passport for the son. I should not have cared so much had Charlotte and Sophy been away."

"Charlotte and Sophy! He'll not poison them. What are you thinking of, Charlotte? He has been reared a gentleman; he is a clergyman of the Church of England. Whatever may have been the truth of the past, he is not to blame for it."

Travice Arkell was full of sympathy. "How ill he looks!" he exclaimed; "though he seems to think nothing of it, and says it is the result of a hurt. Is it not curious that he should have met with Mrs. Dundyke? He says his mother was in some way related to the Dundykes."

"There, that will do, Travice," interposed Mrs. Arkell. "I shall dream of that Geneva lake to-night, and of seeing dead men in it. But, William," she added in a lower tone to her husband, "what a misfortune it will be for Betsey, should she have nothing left to live upon! She would have to go out as a housekeeper, or something of that sort."

Squire Carr's residence was a low, rambling, red-brick building, with a quantity of outhouses lying around it, and an avenue of oaks leading almost up to the low-porched entrance door. Pacing before this porch, a clay pipe in his mouth, and his dark hair uncovered to the September sun, was Benjamin Carr. He seemed in a moody study, from which the sound of wheels aroused him, and he saw Mr. Arkell driving up in his open carriage, a stranger sitting with him, and the groom in the back seat. Benjamin Carr wore a short velveteen shooting-coat—it set off his tall form to advantage; and Robert Carr thought what a fine man he was.

"Why, Benjamin, I did not know you were at home."

"I got here a day or two ago," returned Benjamin, putting aside his pipe, and shaking hands with Mr. Arkell. "The squire's slice of luck brought me. One of the girls wrote me word of it; so I've come to see whether I can't drop in for a few of the pickings."

It was an awkward answer, considering that Robert Carr was listening; perhaps he did not understand it. Mr. Arkell made rather a bustle of getting out, and of standing aside for Robert, telling his groom to take the horse round to the stables. "Is your father in, Benjamin?" he asked.

"For all I know. I have seen none of them since breakfast. Valentine's gone over to Eckford, I believe; but—here's the squire."

The squire, attracted by the sounds of the arrival, was peeping forth from the house door. He wore a shabby old coat, and his poor shrunken clothes looked altogether too small even for his miserable little figure. Robert Carr was struck with the contrast to his fine son.

A word or two of explanation from Mr. Arkell, delivered in a low tone, a prolonged, astonished stare from Benjamin, and the squire, in a bewilderment of surprise, was shaking hands with Robert Carr.

"It is the first visit I have made to my father's native place, and though unpleasant circumstances have brought me, I do not see that they need be any reason for my shunning my relatives; I daresay we only wish, on both sides, all that is fair and right," began Robert Carr. "I expressed a wish to come and see you, sir, and Mr. Arkell kindly offered to drive me over."

Had the squire followed his first impulse, he might possibly have ordered Mr. Robert Carr off his premises again; for he could only look upon him as a secret enemy, who had very nearly wrested from him a brave inheritance. But his policy throughout life had been to conciliate, no matter at what expense of hypocrisy. It was the safest course, he held; and he pursued it now. Besides, if there was one man that the squire did not care to stand altogether a sneak before, it was William Arkell with his well-known uprightness.

The squire led the way to his study, turning over in his mind what secret end Robert Carr could hope to answer by coming over and spying into the enemy's quarters. That he had come as a spy, or in some character as base, it was out of the squire's nature to do other than believe. Benjamin followed, in a state of wonder. As they went along the stone passage, Robert Carr caught sight of some pretty girls peeping here and there like scared pheasants; but the squire raised his finger meaningly, and they scuttered away.

The visit was not a pleasant one, after all; and perhaps it was a mistake to have made it. The restraint was too visibly evident. Robert himself spoke of the inheritance—spoke openly, as one honourable, or we may as well say, indifferent, man would discuss it with another. There could be no possible doubt that his father and mother were married, he said; and he hoped the property of all sorts would be allowed to rest in abeyance until the fact was ascertained, which might be done in a week's time.

The squire was rather taken aback, especially at the easy, confident tone; not a boasting tone—one of quiet, calm surety. "Why, how do you think to ascertain it?" he asked.

"I shall search the registers of the London churches."

The squire burst into a laugh. Had Robert Carr told him he was going to search the moon, it could not have struck upon his ear as a more absurd proceeding. Squire Carr was as sure that there had been no marriage as that the sun was then shining on his visitor's head; he had been sure of it, to his cost, all these long years.

"Well," said he, "you'll do as you like, of course, but don't go to much expense over it."

"Why?"

"Because you will never find what you are looking for, and it's a sin to throw away good money. I asked your father myself whether he had been married to the girl in London, and he told me he had not, that he had never been inside a church in London in his life; he told me also that he never should marry her. He spoke on his honour, and therefore I know he spoke the truth."

There was an unpleasant silence. Robert Carr began to feel that the topic could not be pursued.

"Look here, Mr. Carr," resumed the squire, in his piping voice: "you, as a university man, must be in a degree a man of the world, and must know that what's fair for the goose is fair for the gander. Had Marmaduke Carr's son lived and come over here to take possession, he would have taken it, uninterfered with by us; it would have been his own, and we should have wished him joy. But he did not live, he died; he died, in the eyes of the law, childless, and I am the inheritor. As good tell me you lay claim to this house of mine here, as to the property I have just come into of my uncle Marmaduke's."

"You will not allow it to lie in abeyance for a while?"

"Most certainly not. Nobody else would: and you must be a very young man to ask it. I have the law on my side: you cannot in England act contrary to the law, Mr. Carr."

"Well, I daresay you think you are right," said Robert Carr in a tolerant spirit. "Let us drop the subject. I did not, I assure you, come here to enter upon it; I came to make acquaintance with you, my relatives, and to say, but in no spirit of anger or contention, that I intend to establish and maintain my rights. We need not be enemies, or speak as such."

"Very well," said the squire, "I'll ask you one thing, and then we'll drop it, as you say; and it was not I who began it, mind. How came you to think of advancing your claim to my uncle Marmaduke's property? What put it in your head?"

"I believe it to be my property—that I have succeeded to it, with my brother and sister, in consequence of the death of my father. You must understand, Squire Carr, it is only now, since this question arose, that I have heard there was any doubt cast upon our birth."

"I see. Robert kept it from you. He was a simpleton for his pains; and you must not mind my being plain enough to say it. Next to the wrong itself, the worst wrong that parents can inflict is the keeping it a secret from their children. And now let us go to luncheon. I told them to lay it. Never mind about its being early: you shall not go back without first taking something to eat."

"If you go away without partaking of our bread and salt, we shall think you bear us malice," said Benjamin, courteously, as he walked on to the dining-room with the clergyman.

Mr. Arkell was following, but the squire laid his finger on his arm to detain him. "Don't let him do it," he whispered.

"Do what?" asked Mr. Arkell.

"All this searching of registers and stuff that he talks of. Mind! I am not speaking in a selfish spirit, as I might if I were afraid of it,"—and for once the squire's earnest tones, and eyes, raised full in Mr. Arkell's face, proved that he was really speaking truth. "I am sorry for the young man; he is evidently a gentleman, and he looks sickly; and his father has done an ill part by him in letting this come upon him as a blow. There's not the smallest probability that they were married; I know what Robert said to me, and I would stake my life that they were not. If he searches every register in the three kingdoms, he'll never find its record; and it is a pity he should spend his money, and his time, and his hopes over it. Don't let him do it."

"That he will do it, I am quite certain," was the reply of Mr. Arkell. "He seems perfectly to reverence the memory of his mother; and it is as much to vindicate her fame that he will make the search, as for the sake of the inheritance. Robert Carr was grievously to blame to let it come to this. He ought to have set the question at rest, one way or the other, before his death."

"The fact is, Robert overreached himself," said Squire Carr. "I can see it plainly. He did not marry the girl, because it would have been the means of forfeiting his father's property—for old Marmaduke would have kept his word. He wanted to come into that property, and then to have made a will and left it to these children, relying on their foreign birth and residence to keep always the fact of their illegitimacy from them. But he died suddenly, you see, before he had come into it, and therefore the property goes from them. Robert overreached himself."

Mr. Arkell nodded his head. His opinion coincided with Squire Carr's.