CHAPTER XIII.
THE TABLES TURNED
Mildred had to go back for a time to Lady Dewsbury's. That lady's house and effects now lapsed to Sir Edward; but Sir Edward was abroad with his wife and children, and he begged Miss Arkell to remain in it, its mistress, until they could return. This was convenient for Mildred's plans. It afforded a change of scene for Lucy; and it gave the opportunity and time for the house in Westerbury to be renovated; in which she intended now to take up her abode. The house was Mildred's now: it came to her on the death of her brother, their father having so settled it; but for this settlement, poor Peter had disposed of it in his necessities long ago.
Charlotte Arkell married, and departed with her husband, Captain Anderson, for India, taking Sophy with her. The paying over her marriage portion of a thousand pounds—a very poor portion beside what she once might have expected—further crippled the resources of Mr. Arkell; and things seemed to be coming to a crisis.
And Travice? Travice succumbed. Hardly caring what became of him, he allowed himself to be baited—badgered—by his mother into offering himself to one of the "great brazen milkmaids." From the hour of Lucy's departure from the city, she let him have no peace, no rest.
One day—and it was the last feather in the scale, the little balance necessary to weigh it down—Mr. Arkell summoned his son to a private interview. It was only what Travice had been expecting.
"Travice, what is your objection to Miss Fauntleroy?"
"I can't bear the sight of her," returned Travice, curling his lips contemptuously. "Can you, sir?"
Mr. Arkell smiled. "There are some who would call her a fine woman, Travice: she is one."
"A fine vulgar woman," corrected Travice, with a marked stress upon the word. "I always had an instinctive dread of vulgar people myself. I certainly never could have believed I should voluntarily ally myself with one."
"Never marry for looks, my boy," said Mr. Arkell in an eager whisper. "Some, who have done so before you, have awoke to find they had made a cruel mistake."
"Most likely, sir, if they married for looks alone."
Mr. Arkell glanced keenly at his son. "Travice, have I your full confidence? I wish you would give it me."
"In what way?" inquired Travice. "Why do you ask that?"
"Am I right in suspecting that you have cherished a different attachment?"
The tell-tale blood dyed Travice Arkell's brow. Mr. Arkell little needed other answer.
"My boy, let there be no secrets between us. You know that your welfare and happiness—your happiness, Travice—lie nearest to my heart. Have you learnt to love Lucy Arkell?"
"Yes," said Travice; and there was a whole world of pain in the simple answer.
"I thought so. I thought I saw the signs of it a long while ago; but, Travice, it would never do."
"You would object to her?"
"Object to her!—to Lucy!—to Peter's child! No. She is one of the sweetest girls living; I am not sure but I love her more than I do my own: and I wish she could be my real daughter and your wife. But it cannot be, Travice. There are impediments in the way, on her side and on yours; and your own sense must tell you this as well as I can."
He could not gainsay it. The impediments were all too present to Travice every hour of his life.
"You cannot take a portionless wife. Lucy has nothing now, or in prospect, beyond any little trifle that may come to her hereafter at Mildred's death; but I don't suppose Mildred can have saved much. It is said, too, that Lucy is likely to marry Tom Palmer."
"I know she is," bitterly acquiesced Travice.
"Lucy, then, for both these reasons, is out of the question. Have you not realized to your own mind the fact that she is?"
"Oh yes."
"Then, Travice, the matter resolves itself into a very small compass. It stands alone; it has no extraneous drawbacks; it can rest upon its own merits or demerits. Will you, or will you not, marry Miss Fauntleroy?"
Travice remained silent.
"It will be well for me that you should, for the temporary use of money that would then be yours would save us, as you know, from a ruinous loss; but, Travice, I would not, for the wealth of worlds, put that consideration against your happiness; but there is another consideration that I cannot put away from me, and that is, that the marriage will make you independent. For your sake, I should like to see you marry Miss Fauntleroy."
"She–"
"Wait one moment while I tell you why I speak. I do not think you are doing quite the right thing by Miss Fauntleroy, in thus, as it were, trifling with her. She expects you to propose to her, and you are keeping her in suspense unwarrantably long. You should either make her an offer, or let it be unmistakably known that there exists no such intention on your part. It would be a good thing in all ways, if you can only make up your mind to it; but do as you please: I do not urge you either way."
"I may as well do it," muttered Travice to himself. "She has chosen another, and it little matters what becomes of me: look which way I will, there's nothing but darkness. As well go through life with Bab Fauntleroy at my side, like an incubus, as go through it without her."
And Travice Arkell—as if he feared his resolution might desert him—went out forthwith and offered himself to Miss Fauntleroy. Never, surely, did any similar proposal betray so much hauteur, so much indifference, so little courtesy in the offering. Barbara happened to be alone; she was sitting in a white muslin dress, looking as big as a house, and waiting in state for any visitors who might call. He spoke out immediately. She probably knew, he said, that he was a sort of bankrupt in self, purse, and heart; little worth the acceptance of any one; but if she would like to take him, such as he was, he would try and do his duty by her.
The offer was really couched in those terms; and he did not take shame to himself as he spoke them. Travice Arkell could not be a hypocrite: he knew that the girl was aware of the state of things and of his indifference; he believed she saw through his love for Lucy; and he hated her with a sort of resentful hatred for having fixed her liking and her hopes upon him. He had been an indulged son all his life—a sort of fortune's pet—and the turn that things had taken was an awful blow.
"Will she say she'll have me?" he thought as he concluded. "I don't believe any other woman would." But Barbara Fauntleroy did say she would have him; and she put out her hand to him in her hearty good-natured way, and told him she thought they should get on very well together when once they had "shaken down." Travice touched the hand; he shook it in a gingerly manner, and then dropped it; but he never kissed her—he never said a warmer word than "thank you." Perhaps Miss Fauntleroy did not look for it: sentiment is little understood by these matter-of-fact, unrefined natures, with their loud voices, and their demonstrative temperaments. Travice would have to kiss her some time, he supposed; but he was content to put off the evil until that time came.
"How odd that you should have come and made me an offer this morning, Mr. Travice," she said, with a laugh. "Lizzie has just had one."
"Has she?" languidly returned Travice. His mind was so absorbed in the thought just mentioned, that he had no idea whether the lady meant an offer or a kiss that her sister had received, and he did not trouble himself to ask. It was quite the same to Travice Arkell.
"It's from Ben Carr," proceeded Miss Fauntleroy. "He came over here this morning, bringing a great big nosegay from their hot-house, and he made Liz an offer. Liz was taken all of a heap; and I think, but for me, she'd have said yes then."
"I dare say she would," returned Travice, and then wished the words recalled. They and their haughty tone had certainly been prompted by the remembrance of the "yes," just said to him by another.
"Liz came flying into the next room to me, asking what she should do; he was very pressing, she said, and wanted her answer then. I'm certain she'd have given it, Mr. Travice, if I had not been there to stop her. I went into the room with her to Ben Carr, and I said, 'Mr. Ben, Liz won't say anything decided now, but she'll think of it for a few days; if you'll look in on Saturday, she'll give you her answer, yes or no.' Ben Carr stared at me angry enough; but Liz backed up what I had said, and he had to take it."
"Does she mean to accept him?" asked Travice.
"Well, she's on the waver. She does not dislike him, and she does not particularly like him. He's too old for her; he's twenty years older than Liz; but it's her first offer, and young women are apt to think when they get that, they had better accept it, lest they may never get another."
"Your sister need not fear that. Her money will get her offers, if nothing else does."
He spoke in the impulse of the moment; but it occurred to him instantly that it was not generous to say it.
"Perhaps so," said Miss Fauntleroy. "But Lizzie and I have always dreaded that. We would like to be married for ourselves, not for our money. Sometimes we say in joke to one another we wish we could bury it, or could have passed ourselves off to the world as being poor until the day after we were married, and then surprised our husbands by the news, and made them a present of the money."
She spoke the truth; Travice knew she did. Whatever were the failings of the Miss Fauntleroys, genuine good nature was with both a pre-eminent virtue.
"Ben Carr is not the choice I should make," remarked Travice. "Of course, it's no business of mine."
"Nor I. I don't much like Ben Carr. Liz thinks him handsome. Well, she has got till Saturday to make up her mind—thanks to me."
Travice rose, and gingerly touched the hand again. The thought struck him again that he ought to kiss her; that he ought to put an engagement-ring on one of those fair and substantial fingers; ought to do many other things. But he went out, and did none of them.
"I'll not deceive her," he said to himself, as he walked down the street, more intensely wretched than he had ever in his life felt. "I'll not play the hypocrite; I couldn't do it if it were to save myself from hanging. She shall see my feeling for her exactly as it is, and then she'll not reproach me afterwards with coldness. It is impossible that I can ever like her; it seems to me now impossible that I can ever endure her; but if she does marry me in the face of such evident feelings, I'll do my best for her. Duty she shall have, but there'll be no love."
A very satisfactory state in prospective! Others, however, besides Travice Arkell, have married to enter on the same.
Some few months insensibly passed away in London for Miss Arkell and Lucy, and when they returned to Westerbury the earth was glowing with the tints of autumn. They did not return alone. Mrs. Dundyke, a real widow now beyond dispute, came with them. Poor David Dundyke, never quite himself after his return, never again indulging in the yearning for the civic chair, which had made the day-dream of his industrious life, had died calmly and peacefully, attended to the last by those loving hands that would fain have kept him, shattered though he was. He was lying now in Nunhead Cemetery, from whence he would certainly never be resuscitated as he had been from his supposed grave in Switzerland. Mrs. Dundyke grieved after him still, and Mildred pressed her to go back with them to Westerbury, for a little change. She consented gladly.
But Mrs. Dundyke did not go down in the humble fashion that she had once gone as Betsey Travice. She sent on her carriage and her two men servants. That there was a little natural feeling of retaliation in this, cannot be denied. Charlotte had despised her all her life; but she should at least no longer despise her on the score of poverty. "I shall do it," she said to Mildred, "and the carriage will be useful to us. It can be kept at an inn, with the horses and coachman; and John will be useful in helping your two maids."
It was late when they arrived at Westerbury; Miss Arkell did not number herself amid those who like to start upon a journey at daybreak; and Lucy looked twice to see whether the old house was really her home: it was so entirely renovated inside and out, as to create the doubt. Miss Arkell had given her private orders, saying nothing to Lucy, and the change was great. Various embellishments had been added; every part of it put into ornamental repair; a great deal of the furniture had been replaced by new; and, for its size, it was now one of the most charming residences in Westerbury.
"Do you like the change, Lucy?" asked Miss Arkell, when they had gone through the house together, with Mrs. Dundyke.
"Of course I do, Aunt Mildred;" but the answer was given in a somewhat apathetic tone, as Lucy mostly spoke now. "It must have cost a great deal."
"Well, is it not the better for it? I may not remain in Westerbury for good, and I could let my house to greater advantage now than I could have done before."
"That's true," listlessly answered Lucy.
"Lucy," suddenly exclaimed Miss Arkell, "what is it that makes you appear so dispirited? I could account for it after your father's death; it was only reasonable then; but it seems to me quite unreasonable that it should continue. I begin to think it must be your natural manner."
Lucy's heart gave a bound of something like terror at the question. "I was always quiet, aunt," she said.
None had looked on with more wonder at the expense being lavished on the house than Mrs. Arkell. "So absurd!" she exclaimed, loftily. "But Mildred Arkell was always pretentious, for a lady's maid."
William Arkell called to see Mildred the morning after her arrival. Very much surprised indeed, was he, to see also Mrs. Dundyke. He carried the news home to his wife.
"Betsey down here!" she answered. "Why, what has brought her?"
"She told me she had accompanied Mildred for a little change. She is coming in to see you by-and-by, Charlotte."
"I hope she's not coming begging!" tartly responded Mrs. Arkell.
"Begging?"
"Yes; begging. It's a question whether she's left with enough to live upon. I'm sure we have none to spare, for her or for anybody else; and so I shall plainly tell her if she attempts to ask."
That they had none to spare, was an indisputable fact. Mrs. Arkell had done all in her power to hurry the marriage on with Miss Fauntleroy, but Travice held back unpardonably. His cheek grew bright with hectic, his whole time was spent in what his mother called "moping;" and he entered but upon rare occasions the house of his bride elect. Mr. Arkell would not urge him by a single word; but, in the delay, he had had to sacrifice another remnant of his property.
The first use that Mrs. Dundyke put her carriage to in Westerbury, was that of going in it to William Arkell's. Mildred declined to accompany her, and Lucy was obliged to go with her; Lucy, who would have given the whole world not to go. But she could not say so.
Mrs. Arkell was in the dining-room, when the carriage drove in at the court-yard gates. She wondered whose it was. A nice close carriage, the servants attending it in mourning. She did not recognise it as one she knew.
She heard the visitors shown into the drawing-room, and waited for the cards with some curiosity. But no cards came in. Mrs. Dundyke, the servant brought word, and she was with Miss Lucy Arkell.
Mrs. Dundyke! Wondering what on earth brought Betsey in that carriage, and where she had picked it up, Mrs. Arkell took a closer view of it through the window. It was too good a carriage to be anything but a private one, and those horses were never hired; and there were the servants. She looked at the crest. But it was not a crest. Only an enclosed cipher, D.D.
It did not lessen her curiosity, and she went to the drawing-room, wondering still; but she never once glanced at the possibility that it could be Mrs. Dundyke's; the thought occurred to her that it must belong to some member of the Dewsbury family, and had been lent to Mildred.
It was a stiff meeting. Mrs. Arkell, fully imbued with the persuasion that her sister was left badly off, that she was the same poor sister of other days, was less cordial than she might have been. She shook hands with her sister; she shook hands with Lucy; but in her manner there was a restraint that told. They spoke of general subjects, of Mr. Dundyke's strange adventure in Switzerland, and his subsequent real death; of Lucy's sojourn in London; of Charlotte's recent marriage; of the departure of Sophy with her for India—just, in fact, as might have been the case with ordinary guests.
"Travice is soon to be married, I hear," said Mrs. Dundyke.
"Yes; but he holds back unpardonably."
Had Mrs. Arkell not been thinking of something else, she had never given that tart, but true answer. She happened just then to be calculating the cost of Mrs. Dundyke's handsome mourning, and wondering how she got it.
"Why does he hold back?" quickly asked Mrs. Dundyke.
"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Arkell, with a gay, slighting laugh. "I suppose young men like to retain their bachelor liberty as long as they can. Does your aunt purpose to settle down in Westerbury, Lucy?"
"For the present."
"Does she think of going out again?"
"Oh no."
"Perhaps she has saved enough to keep herself without? She could not expect to find another such place as Lady Dewsbury's."
It was not a pleasant visit, and Mrs. Dundyke did not prolong it. As they were going out they met Travice.
"Oh, Aunt Betsey! How glad I am to see you!"
But he turned coldly enough to shake hands with Lucy. He cherished resentment against her in his heart. She saw he did not look well; but she was cold as he was. As he walked across the hall with his aunt, Mrs. Arkell drew Lucy back into the drawing-room. Her curiosity had been on the rack all the time.
"Whose carriage is that, Lucy? One belonging to the Dewsburys'?"
"It is Mrs. Dundyke's."
"Mrs.–what did you say? I asked whose carriage that is that you came in," added Mrs. Arkell, believing that Lucy had not heard aright.
"Yes, I understood. It is Mrs. Dundyke's. She sent it on, the day before yesterday, with her servants and horses."
"But—does—she—keep a carnage and servants?" reiterated Mrs. Arkell, hardly able to bring out the words in her perplexed amazement.
"Oh, yes."
"Then she must be left well off?"
"Very well. She is very rich. I believe her income is close upon two thousand a year."
"Two thou–" Mrs. Arkell wound up with a shriek of astonishment. Lucy had to leave her to recover it in the best way she could, for Mrs. Dundyke had got into the carriage and was waiting for her.
The poor, humble Betsey, whom she had so despised and slighted through life! Come to this fortune! While hers and her husband's was going down. How the tables were turned!
Yes, Mrs. Arkell. Tables always are on the turn in this life.
CHAPTER XIV.
A RECOGNITION
When the first vexation was overcome, the most prominent thought that remained to Mrs. Arkell was, what a fool she had been, not to treat Betsey better—one never knew what would turn up. All that could be done was, to begin to treat her well now: but it required diplomacy.
Mrs. Arkell began by being gracious to Mildred, by being quite motherly in her behaviour to Lucy; this took her often to Miss Arkell's, and consequently into the society of Mrs. Dundyke. Sisterly affection must not be displayed all at once; it should come by degrees.
As a preliminary, Mrs. Arkell introduced to her sister and Mildred as many of her influential friends in Westerbury as she could prevail upon them to receive. This was not many. Gentle at heart as both were, neither of them felt inclined to be patronized by Mrs. Arkell now, after her lifetime of neglect. They therefore declined the introductions, allowing an exception only in the persons of the Miss Fauntleroys, who were so soon, through the marriage of Travice and Barbara, to be allied to the family. Mrs. Dundyke was glad to renew her acquaintance with Mr. Prattleton and his daughter.
Both the Miss Fauntleroys were making preparations for their marriage, for the younger one had accepted Mr. Benjamin Carr. The old squire, so fond of money, was in an ecstacy at the match his fortunate son was going to make, and Ben had just now taken a run up to Birmingham to look at some furniture he had seen advertised. Ben had a good deal of the rover in his nature still, and was glad of an excuse for taking a run anywhere.
The Miss Fauntleroys grew rather intimate at Mildred's. Their bouncing forms and broad good-natured faces, were often to be seen at the door. They began rather to be liked there; their vulgarity lessened with custom, their well-meaning good humour won its own way. They invited Miss Arkell, her niece, and guest, to spend a long afternoon with them and help them with some plain work they were doing for the poor sewing-club—for they were adepts in useful sewing, were the Miss Fauntleroys—and to remain to dinner afterwards. Lucy would have given the whole world to refuse: but she had no ready plea; and she had not the courage to make one. So she went with the rest.
She was sitting at one of the windows of the large drawing-room with Lizzie Fauntleroy, both of them at work at the same article, a child's frock, when Travice Arkell entered. Lucy's was the first face he saw: and so entirely unexpected was the sight of it to him, that, for once in his life, he nearly lost his self-possession. No wonder; with the consciousness upon him of the tardy errand that had taken him there—that of asking his future bride to appoint a time for their union. Once more Mr. Arkell had spoken to his son: "You must not continue to act in this way, Travice; it is not right; it is not manly. Marry Miss Fauntleroy, or give her up; do which you decide to do, but it must be one or the other." And he came straight from the conference, as he had on the former occasion, to ask her when the wedding day should be. He could not sully his honour by choosing the other alternative.
A hesitating pause, he looking like one who has been caught in some guilty act, and then he walked on and shook hands with Miss Fauntleroy. He shook hands with them all in succession; with Lucy last: that is, he touched the tips of her fingers, turning his conscious face the other way.
"Have you brought me any message from Mrs. Arkell?" asked Miss Fauntleroy, for it was so unusual a thing for Travice to call in the day that she concluded he had come for some specific purpose.
"No. I—I came to speak to you myself," he answered. And his words were so hesitating, his manner so uncertain, that they looked at him in surprise; he who was usually self-possessed to a fault. Miss Fauntleroy rose and left the room with him.
She came back in about a quarter of an hour, giggling, laughing, her face more flushed than ordinary, her manner inviting inquiry. Lizzie Fauntleroy, with one of those unladylike, broad allusions she was given to use, said to the company that by the looks of Bab, she should think Mr. Travice Arkell had been asking her to name the day. There ensued a loud laugh on Barbara's part, some skirmishing with her sister, and then a tacit acknowledgment that the surmise was correct, and that she had named it. Lucy sat perfectly still: her head apparently as intent upon her work as were her hands.
"Liz may as well name it for herself," retorted Barbara. "Ben Carr has wanted her to do it before now."
"There's no hurry," said Lizzie. "For me, at any rate. When one's going to marry a man so much older than oneself, one is apt not to be over ardent for it."
They continued to work, an industrious party. Accidentally, as it seemed, the conversation turned upon the strange events which had occurred at Geneva: it was through Mrs. Dundyke's mentioning some embroidery she had just given to Mary Prattleton. The Miss Fauntleroys, who had only, as they phrased it, heard the story at second-hand, besought her to tell it to them. And she complied with the request.
They suspended their work as they listened. It is probable that not a single incident was mentioned that the Miss Fauntleroys had not heard before; but the circumstances altogether were of that nature that bear hearing—ay, and telling—over and over again, as most mysteries do. Their chief curiosity turned—it was only natural it should—on Mr. Hardcastle, and they asked a great many questions.
"I would have scoured the whole country but what I'd have found him," cried Barbara. "Genoa! Rely upon it, he and his wife turned their faces in just the contrary direction as soon as they left Geneva. A nice pair."
"Do you think," asked Lucy, in her quiet manner, raising her eyes to Mrs. Dundyke, "that Mr. Hardcastle followed him for the purpose of attacking and robbing him?"
"Ah, my dear, I cannot tell. It is a question that I often ask myself. I feel inclined to think that he did not. One thing I seem nearly sure of—that he did not intend to injure him. I have not the least doubt that Mr. Hardcastle was at his wit's end for money to pay his hotel bill, and that the thirty pounds my poor husband mentioned as having received that morning, was an almost irresistible temptation. There's no doubt he followed him to the borders of the lake; that he induced him, by some argument, to walk away with him, across the country; but whether he did this with the intention of–"
"Did Mr. Dundyke not clear this up after his return?" interrupted Lizzie Fauntleroy.
"Never clearly; his recollections remained so confused. I have thought at times, that the crime only came with the opportunity," continued Mrs. Dundyke, reverting to what she was saying. "It is possible that the heat of the day and the long walk, though why Mr. Hardcastle should have caused him to take that long walk, unless he had ulterior designs, I cannot tell—may have overpowered my husband with a faintness, and Mr. Hardcastle seized the opportunity to rifle his pocket-book."
"You seem to be more lenient in your judgment of Mr. Hardcastle than I should be," observed Lizzie Fauntleroy.
"I have thought of it so long and so often, that I believe I have grown to judge of the past impartially," was Mrs. Dundyke's answer. "At first I was very much incensed against the man; I am not sure but I thought hanging too good for him; but I grew by degrees to look at it more reasonably."
"And the pencil?"
"He must have taken it from the pocket-book in his hurry, when he took the money. That he did it all in haste, the not finding the two half-notes for fifty pounds proves."
"Suppose Mr. Dundyke had returned to Geneva the next day and confronted him. What then?"
"Ah, I don't know. Mr. Hardcastle relied, perhaps, upon being able to make good his own story, and he knew that David had the most unbounded faith in him."
"Well, take it in its best light—that Mr. Dundyke fainted from the heat of the sun—the man must have been a brute to leave him alone," concluded Lizzie Fauntleroy.
"Yes," was the answer, as a faint colour rose to Mrs. Dundyke's cheek; "that I can never forgive."
The afternoon and the work progressed satisfactorily, and dinner time arrived. Miss Fauntleroy had invited Travice to come and partake of it, but he said he had an engagement—which she did not half believe. The nearly bed-ridden old aunt came down to it, and was propped up to the table in an invalid chair. Miss Fauntleroy took the head; Miss Lizzie the foot. It was a well-spread board: Lawyer Fauntleroy's daughters liked good dinners. Their manners were more free at home than abroad, rather scaring Mildred. "How could Travice have chosen here?" she mentally asked.
"There's no gentlemen present, so I don't see why I should not give you a toast," suddenly exclaimed Lizzie Fauntleroy, as the servant was pouring out the first glass of champagne. "The bridegroom and bride elect. Mr. Travice Ar–"
Lizzie stopped in surprise. Peeping in at the door, in a half-jocular, half-deprecatory manner, as if he would ask pardon for entering at the unseasonable hour, was Mr. Benjamin Carr. His somewhat dusty appearance, and his over-coat on his arm, showed that he had then come from the station after his Birmingham journey. Lizzie, too hearty to be troubled with superfluous reticence or ceremony of any kind, started up with a shout of welcome.
Of course everything was dis-arranged. The visitors looked up with surprise; Barbara turned round and gave him her hand. Ben began an apology for sitting down in the state he was, and had handed his coat to a servant, when he found a firm hand laid upon his arm. He wheeled round, wondering who it was, and saw a widow's cap, and a face he did not in the first moment recognise.
"Mr. Hardcastle!"
With the words, the voice, the recognition came to him, and the past scenes at Geneva rose before his startled memory as a vivid dream. He might have brazened it out had he been taken less utterly by surprise, but that unnerved him: his face turned ashy white, his whole manner faltered. He looked to the door as if he would have bolted out of it; but somebody had closed it again.
Mrs. Dundyke turned her face to the amazed listeners, who had risen from their seats. But that it had lost its colour also, there was no trace in it of agitation: it was firm, rigid, earnest; and her voice was calm even to solemnity.
"Before heaven, I assert that this is the man who in Geneva called himself Mr. Hardcastle, who did that injury—much or little, he best knows—to my husband! He–"
"But this is Benjamin Carr!" interrupted the wondering Miss Fauntleroy.
"Yes; just so; Benjamin Carr," assented Mrs. Dundyke, in a tone that seemed to say she expected the words. "I recognised you, Benjamin Carr, on the last day of your stay in Geneva, when you were giving me that false order on Leadenhall Street. From the moment I first saw you, the morning after we arrived at Geneva, your eyes puzzled me. I knew I had seen them somewhere before, and I told my poor husband so; but I could not recollect where. In the hour of your leaving, the recollection came to me; and I knew that the eyes were those of Benjamin Carr, or eyes precisely similar to his. I thought it must be the latter; I could not suppose that Squire Carr's son, a gentleman born and reared–"