For weeks Parry Glyddyr lay almost at the point of death, and there were times when Sarah Woodham shuddered and left the room, barring the door against all comers, as the poor wretch raved in his delirium about poison, and the dead coming back to torture him and drag him down.

His ravings were so frightful that at times the hard, stern woman was quite unnerved; but she refused all assistance, and returned to her post, keeping the young wife from being present at all such scenes.

Asher had sternly refused to attend him, after being present during one of Glyddyr’s fits of raving. So the rival from the upper part of the little Churchtown took his place, and after a week’s attendance laid before Claude and her friends the necessity for calling in further help.

The result was that the young wife insisted upon the presence of an eminent medical man from London, and was present afterwards when the great magnate had been in consultation.

“It is most painful, madam,” he said, “to have to speak out before you; but since you insist – ”

“Yes; I do insist,” said Claude firmly. “Let us all know the truth.”

“The truth is this, madam,” he said; “Mr Glyddyr – ”

He paused, and looked round the drawing-room, where Mary, Trevithick and Gellow were seated.

” – Mr Glyddyr, though apparently naturally of a good constitution, has completely shattered his health by terrible excesses in the use of stimulants. Our friend here, my brother practitioner, has done everything possible, and has accepted a few suggestions of mine which I hope will have good results.”

“But you will save his life, Doctor?” said Claude piteously.

“I hope yes, my dear madam. I think I can say you may rely upon our friend here. It will be a long and tedious recovery, no doubt, and afterwards it will rest with you to save him from the temptation of further indulgence. – And if he is not an idiot he will thank his stars for his fate,” added the great Doctor himself.

“And I will try so hard, so hard,” vowed Claude. “It was like a judgment upon me. Yes, I will try to be his good, true wife, and bring him back to a better life.”

Thus, on her knees that night, ere she lay down to rest.

“Talks, does he, of murder, eh?” said Gellow. “Yes, Mr Trevithick, they do at times. Never had DT, I suppose?”

“No, sir; I never had.”

“Good job for you. I had once, and that was enough for me. I didn’t swear off, but I swore a little way on. I’ve had ’em, sir. Snakes in your boots – blue-devils, things crawling all over you; it’s enough to make you shiver to think of it.”

“I suppose so.”

“You won’t believe me, but I couldn’t keep him away from the stuff.”

“Then he has been in the habit of drinking a great deal?”

“Great deal isn’t half big enough, sir.”

“Then don’t you think it would have been your duty to warn Miss Gartram of the character of the man she was about to wed?”

“Split on my friend; get up an action for slander; set the young lady against me; and perhaps have poor old Glyddyr knock me on the head. No, sir: I’m not that sort of man. There, good evening. If you want me, I shall be at the hotel. I seem to be the poor chap’s only friend, and I can’t go back to town till I see him safe.”

“I don’t like that man,” said Trevithick. “He has some hold on Glyddyr, I am sure.”

As the great doctor prophesied, it was a long, slow recovery, and there were returns of the delirium and horrible nights when Glyddyr appeared to be haunted by one who was always reproaching him for some deed, and Sarah Woodham would sit, looking at him wildly, and with the past and her oath to her dead husband slowly revolving in her mind.

Then the invalid began to mend, and became constant in his demands for Claude.

“Where is she?” he would ask with a quick, jealous eagerness if she were away from his room for an hour; and on her return from one of the walks necessary for her health, he would cross-examine her, gazing at her searchingly, as to where she had been and whom she had seen.

Claude had nothing to conceal, and she answered him quietly and without resentment; but she did not – and she knew it – allay the pang of mad jealousy in her husband’s breast.

“It is a judgment on me,” she used to say, “for I gave him cause.”

Time glided on, and Glyddyr began to be about, at first in an invalid chair, and then he was able to walk up and down a little on the terraces of the Fort; and as the rough fishermen of the place saw him, there was a quiet nudge passed on, as they said that the new King of the Castle was not like the old.

As he grew better, he looked a haggard, sallow being, with wild, restless eyes, which appeared to be always on the lookout for some anticipated danger or trouble, and the sight of Chris Lisle passing in the distance was sufficient at any time to make him turn angrily upon his wife, and, clinging to her arm, bid her help him in doors.

Claude never showed even that she was hurt, but bore his taunts and peevish remarks patiently, always with the same grave, calm pale face. But in the solitude of her own room, or when clasped in Mary’s arms, she sobbed wildly at times to relieve her overladen breast.

Trevithick had his legal business to transact at the Fort, but he never resented the sneers and snarls of its owner, who was constantly making allusions as to the probable length of his bill.

“And I deserve it all, Mary, dear,” Trevithick used to say. “I could do it all by means of letters, except when I wanted a signature witnessed; but of course I sha’n’t charge.”

“But why do you come?” asked Mary demurely; “I’m sure this place is miserable enough. It’s a perfect purgatory.”

“For shame!” he said, with a quiet, happy smile; “why, its a perfect paradise, dear, and unless I’m very hard at work, I’m wretched unless I’m here. – Mary, dear?”

“Yes.”

“When is it to be?”

“What?”

“Our wedding.”

“How can you ask me such a thing? As if I could ever think of leaving poor Claude. And besides, after such a lesson upon what matrimony really is, I wonder that you should ever renew the subject.”

“No, you don’t, dear,” he said, gaining possession of the little white hand, which pretended to escape, and then resigned itself to its fate, while Trevithick’s countenance told how truthful were his words.

“Tell me when it shall be,” he said in a whisper.

“When I can see Claude happy. – John, couldn’t she have a divorce?”

“For what reason?”

“Because she does not love him; and the way in which he treats her with his horrid jealousy is maddening.”

“That’s no reason.”

“No reason? Why, I thought people could be divorced if they could prove cruelty.”

“Yes – legal cruelty. No, my dear, jealousy and suspicion will not do.”

“Why did you come over to-day?”

“Business. I had to see old Mrs Sarson at the cottage where Mr Lisle lodges. She’s ill.”

“What for? You are not a doctor.”

“No,” he said, with a chuckle, “but about her affairs. She thinks it time to make a will and arrange about her savings. Curious old body.”

“Why?”

“Troubled with poor Mr Gartram’s complaint.”

“What do you mean?”

“Distrust. She has all her savings hoarded up, and next time I go she has promised to place them in my hands for investment.”

“Don’t talk about that. I hate the very name of money. I wish poor Claude hadn’t a shilling, and we were both free girls, able to do what we liked.”

Trevithick laughed.

“How can you be so cruel, sir?” cried Mary. “Oh, John, dear, that man is killing poor Claude. Seriously, can’t you discover some way to separate them?”

Trevithick shook his head.

“Then Claude will separate herself.”

“I wish she could. But how?” said Trevithick, with a sigh.

“By dying.”

“What?”

“Yes,” said Mary, with the tears in her eyes. “I can see beneath all that calm, patient way of hers. Her heart is broken, John; and before six months are over she will – ”

Poor Mary could not finish, but sank upon her knees at Trevithick’s feet, laid her face in her hands, and sobbed as if her heart would break.

Volume Three – Chapter Seventeen.
A Climax in Glyddyr’s Life

There was a scene one day at the Fort when, after finishing the business in connection with a heavy sum which had been raised to pay over to Gellow, the lawyer had taken upon himself to suggest that it was not fair to his old client’s daughter that such a heavy drain should be kept up on the fortune she had brought him.

This was sufficient to send Glyddyr into a fit of passion, with the result that Trevithick was ordered to give up all charge of the estate for the future, and hand his papers over to another solicitor, who was named.

“Very good, Mr Glyddyr,” said the lawyer quietly. “As far as you have claims I will do so; but I must remind you that I am your wife’s trustee, and even if she wished to obey you, I cannot be ousted from that.”

Claude suffered bitterly for this when the lawyer was gone, but she forbore to speak. She felt that she was forced to give up the hints and friendly counsel of one whom her father trusted, and she trembled lest there should be a breach with regard to Mary, and that she should lose her. Sarah Woodham had been abused and insulted almost beyond bearing a hundred times, and ordered to go, but she always smiled sadly in Claude’s face afterwards.

“Don’t you be afraid, my dear,” she used to say. “Let him say what he will, I’ll never leave you.”

One day Sarah Woodham entered the room to find Mary in tears, but as they were hastily dried, they were ignored.

“I beg pardon, miss; I thought Mr Trevithick was here.”

“Why should you think that?”

“Because I saw him at the hotel half-an-hour ago.”

“No; he has not been, and is not likely to come after such treatment as he received from Mr Glyddyr a fortnight ago.”

“Going out, miss?” said Sarah, as she saw Mary beginning to dress hurriedly.

“Yes. Where is your master – in the garden?”

“No, miss. He has gone down to the quarry.”

“With your mistress?”

“No, Miss Mary. She is in the garden.”

Mary shuddered as she thought of the future, and of Glyddyr’s recovery of his health.

“Are you cold, Miss Mary?” said Woodham earnestly.

“Yes – I mean no. That is – nothing. If Miss Claude – ”

She stopped short.

“I mean, if your mistress calls for me, say I have gone for a walk. No, no, no,” she cried passionately. “I must not go. If he knew that I had been out, it would cause trouble.”

Sarah Woodham sighed. The words were incontrovertible.

Mary began to take off her things, but changed her mind and put them on again.

“I will go. I must see him,” she said. “You shall go with me, Sarah. It would not look so then – would it?”

“I think, as Mr Trevithick cannot come here now, you have a perfect right to go and see him.”

“Mr Trevithick!” cried Mary, with her face aflame; “why do you say that? I did not speak of going to see Mr Trevithick.”

“No, Miss Mary – no, my dear; but do you think I did not know. And I’m very, very glad.”

Mary was looking at her with flashing eyes, but the flames were put out by her tears, and she caught and pressed Sarah’s hand.

“You don’t seem like a servant to us,” she whispered quickly. “Come with me, please.”

Five minutes later they were on their way down the slope to the beach, with Mary trembling at what she thought was her daring behaviour; and as she walked on everybody she passed seemed to know where she was going, and to crown her confusion, just as they were nearing Mrs Sarson’s, Chris Lisle came out, nodded to her, changing colour a little, and was about to pass her, but he stopped short.

It was the first time they had met for months.

“Will you shake hands, Mary?” he said, raising his own hesitatingly.

“You know I will,” she cried eagerly, as she placed hers in his, glad of the relief from her thoughts.

“I am very, very glad to speak to you again, dear,” he said, in a subdued way. “You look so well, too, with that colour. There, I will not keep you. Perhaps some day we may meet again, and be able to have a friendly chat. Good-bye!”

He walked hurriedly away, and the tears rose to her eyes.

“Poor dear Chris!” she said. “I always seemed to love him as if he were my brother.”

“Who could help liking him, Miss Mary?”

“Sarah?”

“Yes, miss. You were speaking aloud. Ah! poor lad, we don’t often see him about now. Look, miss; Mr Trevithick.”

Mary had already seen the lawyer as he stepped out of the hotel and came towards them slowly, till he appeared to see them suddenly, when he turned sharply upon his heel and went back to the hotel.

Mary crimsoned with mortification, and then felt as if she would sink beneath the weight of her misery. Nearly a fortnight had passed, and her lover had made no sign; and now, when they were on the point of meeting, he had openly avoided her.

Mary’s heart felt as if it sank down into the darkness. There could be but one interpretation, she said. He had repented of the engagement, and his eyes had been opened to what a poor, misshapen little thing she was.

“Sarah!” she whispered hoarsely, “I cannot see where I am going; please take me home quickly, so that I am not – ”

“No, no, my dear, let’s walk up here first and over the bridge into the glen. You are too agitated to be seen. Try and be firm, my dear – try and be firm.”

Totally unnerved, the poor girl clung to the sturdy woman by her side, and readily allowed her to guide her right away up into the calm, silent glen, where, making a sign, she let Sarah Woodham assist her to one of the detached rocks, where she sat down to let her tears of misery have full vent.

“And I was so happy,” she moaned at last, as she looked up piteously in Sarah Woodham’s face. “Is there real happiness, Sarah, for poor creatures such as we? Life appears to be all misery and care.”

It was only about the third walk that Glyddyr had taken alone, and he left home reluctantly, and with a shadow as it were following every step.

“I oughtn’t to have gone and left her,” he muttered. “It’s of no use trying to deceive myself; all that quiet, calm way means something, and I’m sure they meet – I could swear it. She never dares to look me straight in the face. I won’t stay away long. I won’t stay here long either. I see him; he’s always hanging about trying to catch sight of her. Does he think I’m blind? I know! I know!”

He walked on hurriedly toward the quarry, but he had over-rated his strength, and grinding his teeth with rage, he sat down and began to wipe his wet brow.

“This cursed weakness,” he groaned. “But I’m stronger and better now. If I could have a drop of brandy now and then – not much – I should soon be all right.”

“Yes,” he said, after a pause, during which he had been looking nervously round, “I’ll go away and take her on the Continent for our wedding trip. In another week I shall be strong and well enough, and we’ll go away, and Chris Lisle may grind his teeth, and say the grapes are sour.

“I wonder whether they ever have met while I was so ill and at my worst? He knows the way. He was found in the grounds that night. Would she dare?

“No, no,” he muttered, after a long pause. “She wouldn’t dare, but he might persuade her. Curse him! Why does he stay in the place?

“There, there; this won’t do. I’m getting hot and excited, and I can’t bear it yet. I’ll go on now and see what the scoundrels are doing with the stones. I know they rob me because I’m ill and don’t understand the trade; but I’ll startle some of them.

“Now, then, I’m better now. The old strength’s coming back, and – No,” he cried, with a whine of misery, “I can’t go on. If I go there it will seem as if he’s back and at my elbow always. It’s bad enough at home. He seems to haunt the cursed place, and I’m always fancying he’s there. That doctor does me no good; no good. I want strength, strength. There, I’ll go back.”

He was so weak that, short as the distance was, he was well-nigh spent, and had to sit down twice. But as he reached the end of the hollow road, overshadowed by trees, and came out in the open, where he could see the sea and feel the cool breeze, he recovered himself.

“Yes, there she lies,” he said, as he let his eyes rest upon his yacht. “What a time since I have been aboard! Yes, why not at once? We’ll go to-morrow and sail across to France, and coast down to the Pyrenees. Get away from here; curse the place. It will be long before I come back.”

He panted a little as he turned up the slope and passed through the gateway, to pause on the terrace, and look once more upon the yacht, as she lay about a quarter of a mile from where he stood.

“I was a fool not to think of it before. Get her right away; she daren’t refuse. No, no; not so bad as that. She wouldn’t have dared. And yet it would have been so easy while I was lying by.”

He entered the hall with curious thoughts buzzing through his brain.

“A miserable, puling, white-faced thing! Where is she? I’ll tell her to get ready. We will go to-morrow.”

He went into the drawing-room, but Claude was not there, and in an instant suspicion was master of his brain. Where was she?

He crossed the room and looked out through the open window, but no Claude. Then, hurrying to the dining-room, he saw that she was not there.

As he came out, he caught sight of a skirt just passing through a swing-door, and he dashed after it.

It was one of the maids.

“Here,” he said, in a half-whisper. “Your mistress – upstairs?”

“No, sir. In the library, I think. A gentleman came.”

“That’ll do,” he said sharply. “No; stop. Where is Miss Mary?”

“Gone out, sir, with Mrs Woodham.”

He turned quickly and swung to the door, with a look in his face that was diabolical.

“Gun – pistol?” he muttered. “No, no; not that – not murder. Better revenge. Lot of the money’s mine. Free, free! Let him take her – let him – curse him! I wish I was strong once more.”

As if impelled by the wave of passion that came over him, he walked quickly to the library door, and as he reached it, he heard a peculiar clang, as of the closing of the book-shelf doors which screened the iron safe.

A peculiar look of rage and cunning distorted his face; and, twisting the handle round, he threw open the door and rushed in, as, with her face wild from excitement, Claude turned towards him.

“Hah!” he cried, with a look of fierce triumph, as he caught her by the wrist, “I’ve come back.” And he uttered a low laugh as he pointed to the great safe.

Claude tried to speak, but no words would come, and she clung to the hand which held her to keep herself from falling.

“Didn’t expect me back, eh? Didn’t expect me back?”

“Come away quick; come away!” panted Claude, in a voice hardly above a whisper.

“Yes, of course,” he snarled, as he held her at arm’s-length, nearly fainting from terror and agony. “Come away, so as not to disturb our dear Chris!”

Claude looked at him wildly.

“Parry Glyddyr!” she cried, as a look of horror dilated her eyes, and she tried to cling to him and push him towards the door, for no further words words would come.

“Yes! Parry Glyddyr, your lawful husband,” he yelled. “Found out at last!”

Volume Three – Chapter Eighteen.
The Lawyer is Busy

John Trevithick would, in an ordinary way, have finished the little business in connection with Mrs Sarson’s savings in a very short time, but he quite fluttered the widow by the importance he attached to the deed, and the way in which he was going to invest the money.

“You will not have any savings left, Mrs Sarson, when he sends in his bill,” Chris said to her grimly; and, on Trevithick’s next visit, the poor woman, in an agitated way, touched upon the topic of the bill of costs.

“Nonsense!” said Trevithick, smiling. “My dear Mrs Sarson, I always charge what the legal men call pro rata.”

“Oh, do you, sir?” she said. “Then that way is not very expensive?”

“Certainly not. You don’t understand. If you were very rich, the bill would be high; but in your case, if you trust to me, your costs shall be very small indeed.”

“Thank you kindly, sir; and will you take the money to-day?”

“No; you have kept it safely so far, and a few days will not hurt. I’ll take it next time.”

When “next time” came, John Trevithick said the same, and at his next visit he once more put her off.

“What a shame!” he said to himself on his next visit to Danmouth. “It is imposing on the poor woman. I must find some other excuse for coming over. By George!”

He slapped his great knee, and laughed with delight at his happy thought.

“I’ll open an office here in Danmouth; take Mrs Sarson’s second parlour, and come over twice a week. Do her good and do me good, and, who knows, it may bring clients.”

Full of this idea, he called upon Mrs Sarson one morning about a fortnight before the incidents of the last chapter, and on being closeted with her, opened out his business at once in a quick, legal way.

“Now, then, my dear madam, if you will hand me that money, I’ll take charge of it, complete the little mortgage, and you can have the deeds of the premises upon which your money is to be lent at five per cent, or I will keep them for you – which you please.”

“Oh, I should like, if you don’t think it would be wrong, Mr Trevithick, to keep the deeds myself, as I shall not have the money.”

“Very good.”

Mrs Sarson, who had recovered from the rheumatic attack which had frightened her into making arrangements about her savings, rose from her chair, and, in a very feminine way, sought for the key, which was kept hidden in an under pocket – one of the make of a saddle bag – whose security depended on the strength of two tape strings.

The lawyer smiled to himself, and thought of his own iron safe, built in the wall of the office, as the widow brought out her key, and opened a large tea-caddy standing upon a side table.

“Not a very safe place, Mrs Sarson, eh?”

“Ah, you don’t know, sir,” said the woman, with a smile, as she threw up the lid, took up a large cut glass sugar basin full of white lumps from the centre compartment, and then first one and then the other of the two oblong receptacles, each well filled with fragrant black and green, for she opened them, and laughingly displayed their contents.

This done, she thrust her hand down into the round velvet-lined hole from which the sugar basin had been lifted, gave it a knock sideways, and then lifted out the whole of the internal fittings of the caddy, set it on the table, and held it on one side, showing that the bottom was the exact size of a Bank of England note, one for ten pounds being visible.

“There!” she said, with a sigh; “that was my dear husband’s idea. He was a cabinetmaker, sir, and he was quite right. They have always been safe.”

“Yes, Mrs Sarson,” said the lawyer; “but you have lost your interest.”

“Lost what, sir?”

“Your interest! How many years have they been lying here?”

“Oh, a many, sir. Some were put there by my poor husband, and I’ve gone on putting in more as often as I could save up another ten pounds, for I kept the sovereigns in my pocket till I had ten, and then I used to change them for notes.”

“Humph, yes!” said Trevithick, wetting a finger, bank-clerkly, and counting the notes. “Twenty-seven. All tens. Two hundred and seventy pounds. I only want two hundred and fifty, Mrs Sarson. You shall put two back for nest eggs.”

He took the two top notes off, before turning the parcel over and looking at the bottom note, one that looked old and yellow, and he read the date.

“Forty years old that one, Mrs Sarson.”

“Yes, sir; but that don’t matter, does it?”

“Oh, no; the Bank of England never refuses its paper. And this top one is dated – let me see. Ah! two years old, and pretty new – Good God!”

The number had struck his eye, and he had turned it over, and read a name written upon the back.

“Oh, Mr Trevithick! Don’t, pray don’t say it’s a bad one!”

“Eh? Bad?” cried the lawyer absently. “Where did you get this note?”

“From the hotel, sir,” cried the poor woman, in a broken voice. “They always change my gold for me there. But they shall give me a good one, for I can swear that I got it there.”

“Wait a moment,” cried Trevithick excitedly. “No; those are quite right.”

“Oh, thank goodness for that!” cried Mrs Sarson, who was trembling so that the notes she took back rustled in her hand. “But do, do look again at the others and see if they are good.”

“Yes, yes, all good, Mrs Sarson,” said Trevithick, looking over them hurriedly.

“Then give me that one, sir, and I’ll take it back to them at once.”

“No, no, Mrs Sarson, the note is quite good,” said the lawyer, putting on his business mask, and looking quite calm, though his heart was thumping heavily.

“Oh, dear! and you gave me such a fright, sir. You are sure it is a good one?”

“So good, Mrs Sarson, that I’d give you ten golden sovereigns for it. Five hundred if it were necessary,” he said to himself; and after being witness to the replacing of two notes in the caddy, and giving a receipt for those confided to his charge, he made his way back to Toxeter in a state of excitement that was new to him, and did not rest till he was locked up in his own private room.

“It seems impossible,” he thought, as he compared the note with the closely written figures he had in his pocket-book, and then examined the signature at the back.

“Yes; there’s the clue I have sought for so long – dropped into my hands like this. Oh!”

He sat back with the perspiration gathering on his forehead, and the look of excitement on his face changing slowly into horror as bit by bit the meaning of the name on the back of that note gradually unfolded itself till he was gazing upon a picture of horror that appalled him.

“No, no, no! It’s too shocking,” he cried at last, as he wiped his brow. The man could not be such a wretch.

“But he is a wretch! A cold-blooded, swearing, drinking brute; and with all his flash and show, and yacht, I know that he was always hard up for money, and being hunted by that usurious scoundrel Gellow.”

Trevithick wiped his brow again.

“Why, he must have had it all. Robbed the poor old man who had taken him to his hearth. Yes, I daresay to pay off that scoundrel and get time. Yes, there’s his name to the note. He must have changed it at the hotel. I knew that money was missing. Robbed him – the man who welcomed him as a son, and encouraged him to win his daughter. The black-hearted traitor. I always hated him. A cowardly, despicable thief, stealing the money that some day would have been his.”

Trevithick leaped from his seat, and in his excitement struck a penholder, and knocked over the ink.

“Good Heaven!” he exclaimed, “he murdered him!”

Trevithick stood with his hands pressed upon his brow, trying to think calmly, but his head became hotter as the idea grew strong.

“Yes,” he said, “died of an overdose of chloral, they said. He could never have taken that money without. He must have got to know, and – yes, he must have drugged him to death, so as to get the heavy sum. Christopher Lisle! Bah! This was the man!

“No, no; I’m growing wild – I must be calm.”

He caught a glass, and poured out some water from a table-filter, drank it hastily, and began to walk up and down the room for a time, till, feeling more himself, he took a seat to try and think the matter out, raising up every point strongly in Glyddyr’s favour.

“No man could be such a wretch as to murder another, and then marry his child,” he said at last firmly; but the accusation came more strongly, and with supporting evidence, as something began to whisper to him, “But what was the meaning of all that drinking – of that conduct on the wedding-day – of the abject dread of Gartram’s picture, and of the delirious wanderings about being haunted?

“He is the man!” cried Trevithick at last, as he brought his fist down heavily into his left palm. “Gartram was murdered – accidentally, perhaps – but murdered, and – Great Heavens! what shall I – what ought I to do?”

He sat long, turning the matter over and over, viewing it from every point, and at last coldly and clearly it all seemed to stand out before him.

“No,” he said, “I cannot keep silence. He is a curse to that poor girl. Poor blind old Gartram favoured him, and the fiend played upon the poor girls filial duty. Yes, I know that well enough. Poor Claude would almost give her life to be free from the wretch who is dissipating her property to clear off debts to Gellow. And is he an accomplice?

“Accomplice in forcing on the marriage; but that wretch must have done the deed, and, Heaven helping me, I’ll bring it home to him, and set the poor girl free.

“Stop. I’m going on too fast. It may be remorse and horror for the robbery. He could not have murdered Gartram. Poor fellow, he did indulge in chloral, and the doctor said it was an overdose. No, Gartram was too clever and experienced in his treatment of himself for that. I can’t help it; something seems to impel me. I must go.

“And Claude!

“I can’t help it. I feel so sure. Better the shock and be free, than be slowly tortured to death by a man who is little better than a devil.

“Yes,” he cried finally, “I am sure, but I’ll take other advice before I proceed very much further.”

The consequence was that poor Mrs Sarson was horrified at not receiving her mortgage deed to hide away, and shivered as she credited the lawyer with going off to London to spend her savings of a life, for she could only obtain from his office the news that he was out on business.

As shown, Mrs Sarson was not the only one who had misjudged Trevithick, for, in his abstraction and earnest following of the quest upon which he was now engaged, there were no more meetings with Mary; and his avoidance of her when they met was for very special reasons of his own.

“I can save her from the scene,” he had said, “though I cannot save poor Claude.”

He was wrong, for he found her hurrying back with Sarah Woodham, and when he hurriedly tried to stay her, she turned upon him angrily, and refused to hear.

And so it was that Claude was seated alone in the library that day, sick at heart, as she thought of her future, and asking herself what she could do to win her husband’s love and bring herself to love him, when one of the maids announced that a gentleman wanted to see master.

“Yes, Mr Glyddyr,” said a quiet, firm voice, and the man, who had followed the servant, stepped in, signed to the girl to go, closed the door after her, and then turned to face Claude, who had risen and was standing trembling, as if from a suspicion of some terrible trouble to come.