George Manville Fenn (continued 8)

“Mrs Woodham does not seem to approve of the wedding,” he said to himself. “Not a cheerful woman.”

Then he looked round the room, and in imagination searched Gartram’s safe and cash receptacles for the hundredth time.

“No,” he said, giving one ear a vicious rub, “I can’t get it that way. It was someone who knew him and his ways pretty well stole that money, or there would have been some record left. All those thousands short. He never omitted keeping account of even trifling sums.”

“And Miss Dillon does not approve of the wedding,” he said to himself as Mary entered, her eyes plainly showing that she had been weeping.

“Good-morning,” she said, taking the chair placed for her with heavy courtesy. “My cousin is unwell, Mr Trevithick, and cannot see you. Will you either come over again or state your business to me?”

“I shall be only too glad,” he said, smiling.

“I thought you would,” replied Mary. “Of course you will make a charge for this journey.”

Trevithick looked at her aghast; and then flushed and perspired.

“I said I should be only too glad to discuss the business with you, Miss Dillon,” he said stiffly.

“No, you did not, Mr Trevithick.”

“I beg pardon. That is what I meant.”

“Oh! then please go on.”

“Why will she always be so sharp with me?” thought the lawyer, as he looked across the table wistfully.

“Yes, Mr Trevithick? I am all attention.”

“Yes; of course,” he said, suddenly becoming very business-like, for he could deal with her then. “The little matters of business can wait, or perhaps you could take the papers up for Miss Gartram’s signature.”

“Yes; of course,” said Mary, sharply. “Where are they?”

“Here,” he said, quietly; “but there is one, I might say two things, I should like Miss Gartram’s opinion upon. Will you tell her, please?”

“Do speak a little faster, Mr Trevithick, I have a great deal to do this morning.”

“I beg your pardon. Will you please tell Miss Gartram that I am, in spite of her commands, much exercised in mind about that missing money. Tell her, please, that I have studied it from every point of view, and I am compelled to say that it is her duty to Mr Gartram deceased—that most exact of business men—to instruct me to make further inquiries into the matter.”

“It would be of no use, Mr Trevithick. I am sure your cousin would not allow it. Is that all?”

“Will you not appeal to her from me?”

“No. I am sure she would not listen to any such suggestion. Now, is that all?”

Mary spoke in a quick, excited way, as if she wanted to get out of the room, and yet wished to stay.

“Well—no,” he answered softly, as he kept on taking up and laying down his papers in different order.

“Mr Trevithick!”

“Pray, give me time, Miss Dillon,” he protested. “The fact is I have heard very important news this morning.”

“Of course you have. You mean about my cousin’s approaching marriage.”

“Then it is true?”

“Of course it is.”

Trevithick sighed.

“Well, Mr Trevithick, is that all?”

“No, madam, I may say that I am very sorry.”

“Well, is that all?” cried Mary, impatiently.

“No. As the late Mr Gartram’s trusted, confidential adviser, I was aware that this was his wish, but, all the same, I am deeply grieved.”

“Of course, and so is everybody else,” said Mary passionately. “I mean,” she said, checking herself, “it seems sad for it to be so soon. That is all, I suppose.”

“No, Miss Dillon; this being so I should have liked to discuss with Miss Gartram the question of the settlements. I presume, as she has continued to trust me as her father trusted me, that she would wish me to see to all the legal matters connected with her fortune.”

“What a stupid question. Why, of course.”

“Well, forgive me; hardly a stupid question. Perhaps too retiring—for a lawyer.”

“Mr Trevithick, you are not half decided and prompt enough. Well, then; my cousin anticipated all this, and said, ‘tell Mr Trevithick to do what is right and just, and that I leave myself entirely in his hands. Tell him to do what he would have done had my father been alive.’”

“Ah!” said the lawyer slowly. “Yes; then I will proceed at once. It is a great responsibility, as Miss Gartram has neither relative nor executor to whom she could appeal. A very great responsibility, but I will do what is just and right in her interest, tying down her property as under the circumstances should be done.”

“Do—do Mr Trevithick—dear Mr Trevithick, pray do,” cried Mary, starting from her seat, and advancing to the table—her old, sharp manner gone, and an intense desire to hasten the lawyer’s proposals flashing from her eyes.

“I will,” he said firmly; and he held out his hand. “You will trust me, Mary Dillon, as your cousin trusts me?”

“Indeed, I will,” she said eagerly, and she placed her thin little white hand in his.

“Hah!” he ejaculated with a long expiration of the breath; and his great hand closed and prisoned the little one laid therein. “You told me just now that I was not decided and prompt enough.”

“Yes, I did. But you are holding my hand very tightly, Mr Trevithick.”

“Yes,” he said quietly, “I am. That is because you are wrong. I am very decided and prompt sometimes, and I am going to be now. Mary Dillon, will you be my wife?”

“What!” she cried, flushing scarlet, and struggling to release her hand, as her eyes flashed and seemed to be reading him through and through. “Absurd!”

“No—no,” he said gravely; “don’t say that, even if my way and manner are absurd.”

“I did not mean that,” she cried quickly. “I meant to—Oh, it is absurd!” she said again, though her heart was throbbing violently, and she struggled vainly to withdraw her hand. “Look at me—weak, misshapen, pitiful. Mr Trevithick, you are mad.”

“Don’t try to take your hand away,” he said slowly; it makes me afraid of hurting you; and don’t speak again like that—you hurt me very—very much.

“But, Mr Trevithick! It is too dreadful. I cannot—I must not listen to you.”

“Why? You are quite free; and you are not an heiress.”

“I!” she cried bitterly. “No; I have nothing but a pitiful few hundred pounds. Now you know the truth. Do you hear me? I am a pauper, dependent on my cousin’s charity.”

“I am very glad,” he said, gazing at her thoughtfully, and still speaking in his slow and deliberate way. “I was afraid that perhaps you had money of which I did not know. But you will say ‘yes’?”

“No; impossible. Are you blind? Look at me.”

“I might say, ‘Look at me,’” he retorted, with a frank, honest laugh, which lit up his countenance pleasantly. “I wish you could look at me as I do at you, and see there something that you could love. Yes,” he said, his genuine passion making him speak fluently and well; “for all these long, long months, Mary, I have always had your sweet, earnest eyes before me, and your clever, bright face. I have seemed to listen to your voice, and sometimes I have been sad as I have asked myself what a woman could find in me to love.”

“Ah!” ejaculated the trembling girl.

“And I’ve felt that, when you have said all those many sharp, hard things to me, that they were not quite real, and when your words have been most cruel, I’ve dared to fancy that your eyes seemed to be sorry that your tongue could be so bitter.”

“Mr Trevithick, pray!”

“And then I’ve hoped and waited, and thought of what you were.”

“Yes,” said Mary bitterly, as she made a gesture with one hand.

“Bah!” he cried, “what of that? An accident when you were a child. I would not have you different for worlds. I want those two dear eyes to look into mine, true and trustful and clever. You, to whom I can come home from my work for help and counsel, to be everything to me—my wife. Mary dear, in my slow and clumsy way I love you very dearly, and your cousin’s wedding has brought it all out. I didn’t think I could make love like that.”

He took her other hand, and gazed at her very fondly as she stood by his side, with the tears streaming down her cheeks.

“You are not angry with me, dear?”

“No,” she said gently; “I am sorry.”

“Why?”

“For you. See how the world will sneer.”

“What!” he cried eagerly. “Then you will?”

She looked at him searchingly, as if a lingering doubt were there, and a shadow of suspicion were making her try to see if he was truly in earnest.

“No, no,” she said, as a sob burst from her lips; “it is impossible.” And she struggled hard to get away.

“Impossible!” he said, as he tightened his grasp. “Tell me one thing, Mary. You knew I loved you?”

She nodded quickly.

“And—you don’t think me ridiculous?”

“I think you the truest, most honest gentleman I ever saw,” she sobbed; “but—”

“Ah!” he said, with a pleasant little satisfied laugh, “that settles it, then. The impossibility has gone like smoke. Mary dear, I never hoped to be so happy as you have made me now.”

His great arms enfolded her for a moment, during which she lay panting on his breast, then, struggling to free herself, she caught and kissed one of his hands.

“Hah!” he ejaculated, “now we must think of some one else.”

He led her gently back to her chair, and bent down to kiss her forehead. Then, returning to his seat as calmly as if nothing had happened—

“I can talk freely to you now, Mary,” he said. “Is not this a great mistake?”

“Yes,” she said, with an arch look, full of her newly-found joy.

“No, no; you know what I mean. We must be very serious now. I don’t like this Mr Glyddyr.”

“I hate him,” cried Mary.

“Well, that’s honest,” he said, smiling. “But it was her father’s wish, and I suppose it is to be.”

“Yes; it is to be. Nothing would turn her now.”

John Trevithick did not say, “And is this to be soon?” but he thought it, and set the idea aside.

“No,” he said to himself; “we must wait.” And soon after, calm, quiet and business-like, he went away to draw up the marriage settlements tightly on Claude’s behalf, and wandered whether he could ever manage to trace that missing cash.

He took out a pocket-book, and turned to a certain page covered with figures, and ran it down.

“Only a few of these notes have reached the bank. Well, some day I may come upon a clue in a way I least expect.

“Impossible, eh?” he said, with a smile of content. “Bless her sweet eyes! I won’t believe in the impossible now.”

Volume Three—Chapter Fourteen.

“And this is being Married.”

“You are sure you don’t mind me talking about it, sir?”

“Mind! Oh, no, Mrs Sarson, say what you like.”

“Well, you see, sir, even if one is a widow and growing old, one can’t help feeling interested in weddings. I suppose it’s being a woman. Everybody’s dreadfully disappointed.”

“Indeed,” said Chris coldly.

“And, yes, indeed, sir. No big party; no wedding breakfast and cake; no going away in chaises and fours. If poor Mr Gartram had been alive, it wouldn’t have been like this. Why, do you know, sir, the quarry folk were getting ready powder and going to fire guns, and make a big bonfire on the cliffs; but Mr Trevithick, the lawyer, went to them with a message from Miss Claude, sir, asking for them to do nothing; and they’re just going to the church and back to the big house, and not even going away.”

“Indeed!”

“Oh, yes, sir, and I did hear that Miss Claude actually wanted to be married in black, but Miss Mary Dillon persuaded her not. I heard it on the best of authority, sir.”

Chris made no reply, and, finding no encouragement, Mrs Sarson cleared her lodger’s breakfast things away, and left the room.

The moment he was alone, Chris started from his chair to stand with his back to the light; his teeth set hard and fists clenched as a spasm of mental agony for the moment mastered him.

“No,” he said, after a few moments, with a bitter laugh, “this won’t do. What is it to me? I can bear it now like a man. She shall see how indifferent I am.”

For it was the morning of the ill-starred wedding—a morning in which Nature seemed to be in the mood to make everything depressing, for the wind blew hard, bringing from the Atlantic a drenching shower, through which, with Gellow for his best man, Glyddyr would have to drive to the little church. Meanwhile, he was having so severe a shivering fit at the hotel where he had been staying, that his companion had become alarmed, and suggested calling in the doctor.

“Bah! nonsense! Ring for some brandy.”

“And I’ll take a flask to the church,” said Gellow to himself, “or the brute will breakdown. We’re going to have a jolly wedding seemingly. Only wants that confounded Frenchwoman to get scent of it, and come down, and then we should be perfect.”

“That’s better,” said Gellow, after the brandy had been brought. “But what a day! What a cheerful lookout! I say, Glyddyr, am I dreaming? Is it a wedding this morning or a funeral?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it looks more like the latter. I say: Young Lisle won’t come and have a pop at you in the church?”

Glyddyr turned ghastly.

“You—you don’t think—”

“Bah! My chaff. You are out of sorts; on your wedding-day, too. Hold hard with that brandy, or it will pop you off, and not Lisle. Steady, man, steady.”

“Gellow, it’s all over,” gasped the miserable man. “I shall never be able to go through with it.”

“Oh, if I can only get this morning over,” said Gellow to himself; and then aloud—

“Nonsense, my dear boy, you’re a bit nervous, that’s all. I suppose a man is when he’s going to be married. You’re all right. Come, have a devilled kidney or a snack of something. You don’t eat enough.”

“Eat?” said Glyddyr, with a shudder. “No; I seem to have no appetite now.”

“Come on, and let’s get it over. Here’s the carriage waiting. Steady, man, steady. No; not a drop more.”

“The carriage is at the door, sir,” said the waiter; and striving hard to be firm, and to master a tremulous sensation about his knees, Glyddyr walked out into the hall, where a buzzing sound that was heard suddenly ceased till the pair were in the carriage, from whose roof the rain was streaming. Then, after banging too the door, the waiter dashed back under shelter, the dripping horses started off, and the carriage disappeared in the misty rain.

“Looks as if he was going to execution,” said the man, with a laugh, as he dabbed the top of his head with his napkin. “Well, it do rain to-day.”

At the Fort everything had gone on that morning in a calm, subdued way that seemed to betoken no change. Claude came down to breakfast as usual, and sat looking dreamily before her, while Mary, red-eyed and sorrowful, had not the heart to speak.

Trevithick had slept there the previous night, and was the only guest, for Doctor Asher had declined to be present, on the score of professional calls.

“I’m afraid there is very little chance of its holding up,” said Trevithick, when they rose from the scarcely-touched breakfast.

“No, Mr Trevithick,” said Claude quietly. “I think we shall have a very wet day. Mary, dear, we must take our waterproofs. It is fifty yards from the lych-gate to the church door. Isn’t it time we went up to dress?”

She moved towards the door, but came back, and held out her hand to the lawyer.

“Forgive me for being so absent and strange with you,” she said, with a faint smile. “You have been very good and kind to me, but I dare say you think all this odd and unnatural.”

“Oh, no; not at all,” said Trevithick, colouring like a girl.

“It was the only thing in which I asked to have my way—to let the wedding be perfectly quiet. Don’t be long, Mary.”

Trevithick looked at his little betrothed as the door closed, and she looked up at him.

“I say, Mary, dear,” he said, “is she quite—you know what I mean. I feel almost as if I ought to interfere.”

“Oh, John, John,” cried the little thing, bursting into a passionate fit of weeping; “if we could only stop it even now!”

She sobbed on his breast for a few seconds, and then hastily wiped her eyes.

“There, I’m better now,” she said. “I’ve talked to her till I’m tired, but it’s of no use. ‘It’s my duty’ is all she will say. Oh! why did people ever invent the horrid word. Don’t say anything, John, dear. Let’s get it over, and hope for the best; but if there’s any chance of our wedding being like this, let’s shake hands like Christians, forgive one another, and say good-bye.”

She ran out of the room, and Trevithick sat watching the rain trickle down the window-panes, and tried to follow the course of a big ship struggling up Channel, its storm topsails dimly seen through the mist of rain.

“I wouldn’t be on that ship for all I’ve saved,” he said, shaking his head. “Looks as if there was going to be a wreck.

“So there is,” he said, after a pause, “a social wreck, and I’m going to assist. No, I’m not. I’m looking after the salvage. Poor girl! Gartram must have been mad.”

His meditations were broken in upon by the sound of wheels. Half-an-hour later the door was thrown open.

“Now, Mr Trevithick, please,” said Mary; and he hurried into the hall to find Claude ready and looking very calm and composed.

“Good-bye,” she was saying to first one and then another of the maids, who, catching the contagion, burst into tears.

“As if it wasn’t wet enough already,” said Reuben Brime, who stood with the footman by the carriage-door.

“Good-bye, Woodham, dear,” said Claude, holding out her hand, but snatching it back directly as she yielded to a sudden impulse, and threw her arms around the stern-looking woman’s neck. “Thank you for all that you have done.”

“Good-bye! Why did she say good-bye?” thought Woodham, as Trevithick handed the bride into the carriage, the drops from the edge of the portico falling like great tears upon her hair. “Yes: good-bye to youth and happiness and your sweet young life.”

The carriage-door was banged, and banged again, for the wet had made it hard to shut. Then, as the footman mounted to his place on the box, the gardener hurried round in front of the horses, and ran for the short cut over the cliffs to the church.

“Shouldn’t you go, Mrs Woodham?” said one of the maids.

Sarah Woodham shook her head.

“They will soon be back,” she said. “I’m going to stay to meet the new master.”

“Why does not something happen to stop this hateful match?” she muttered to herself. “My poor girl. My poor, dear girl.”

The carriage sped on through the driving rain, and the little party descended at the church gate, where a few fishermen were gathered in their yellow and black oilskins to follow them, dripping, into the little church, while it seemed to Claude that it was only the other day that her father was borne to his resting-place. And there they were, standing face to face before God’s altar, she pale, sad and composed, having to give her whole love and life to the pale trembling man who faced her, and who, though she knew it not, exhaled a strong odour of the spirits he had taken to enable him to go through the task.

But Claude saw nothing, realised nothing but the words of the clergyman, repeating every response in a low, earnest tone right on to the end, when, as the last words of the service was uttered, there was the sound of some one drawing a long, deep breath.

It was only Gellow’s way of congratulating himself on the fact that his money and much more were safe at last.

“Now!” he muttered, as he hugged himself. “Now you may have DT, or anything you like.”

The book was signed, and the few fishermen and women who had braved the storm began to go clattering out of the church as Glyddyr, making an effort to look happy and content, held his arm to his newly-made bride to lead her down the little nave.

“Father, dear, it was your wish,” said Claude softly, and, with a sigh, she raised her eyes towards the faint light which came through the west window.

Then she stopped short, gazing wildly at where Chris Lisle stood like a black silhouette against the dim lattice panes, as he had stood with folded arms right through the service.

He made no sign; he uttered no sound, his features hardly visible from the position against the light; but the sight of that figure was enough to bring like a flood the recollections of the past, and of what might have been, but for her irrevocable step; and, snatching her hand from her husband’s arm, Claude clasped her forehead as she uttered a low, faint cry, and fell heavily upon the floor.

“Keep back, all of you!” cried Glyddyr excitedly. “Do you hear, keep back. The carriage, there. Do you hear me? Keep back!”

He lifted Claude from where she lay, and bore her out, holding her tightly in his arms, as if he feared that she might be snatched away by him who had caused this shock.

“Curse him!” he muttered, as the carriage was driven back to the Fort at a canter; “but he’s too late. The dark horse has won, Chris Lisle, and the stakes are mine.”

Claude was still insensible when the carriage stopped, and Glyddyr resigned her to Sarah Woodham’s arms.

“A bit faint, that’s all,” he said, with a half laugh. “She’ll be better soon.”

“You—you are married, sir?” faltered the woman, looking at him wildly.

“You bet!” he snarled, as he turned away, and strode into the library, but came back looking ghastly and slamming the door. “Here, some one bring the spirits into the dining-room; not in there. Quick! don’t you see your mistress is taken ill?”

“Open the door,” whispered Woodham; “we’ll take her in there.”

“No; in the dining-room—anywhere,” cried Glyddyr. “Don’t take her there.

“And this is being married!” he muttered, as soon as he was alone. “The cad! The coward! But I’ve bested him, and I’m a free man once again, and master here.”

They had carried Claude into the dining-room; and, hardly caring where he went, Glyddyr had entered the drawing-room, thrown to the door, and was walking hurriedly up and down, till, as he uttered the last words, his eyes fell upon the large photograph of Gartram.

He stopped short, with his eyes showing a ring of white about the iris, and the cold sweat glistening upon his forehead till the spasm of dread passed away. Then dashing forward, he was about to tear the likeness from its easel and frame, but the door was suddenly opened, and he recovered himself, and turned to face Trevithick and his best man, for he had not heard the wheels as the second carriage stopped.

Volume Three—Chapter Fifteen.

“Only Wait.”

The occupants of the Fort were broken up into little parties on that eventful day. Claude seemed to go from one fit into another, and her cousin and Sarah Woodham did not leave her side.

Brime had been despatched for Doctor Asher, but had come back with a message that the doctor had been taken ill, and could not leave his home, but they were not to be alarmed. It was only hysteria, he wrote, and all needed was quiet and rest.

Trevithick had betaken himself to the library, where he sat alone, waiting for tidings, and had at last taken his note-book from his pocket, as if inspired by the place, and began to run over the numbers of the missing notes.

“I can’t go away till afternoon,” he had said to himself; “and till I have had a quiet few minutes with Mary.”

In the dining-room Glyddyr was now alone with Gellow, and there had been a scene.

“Look here,” said the latter, after partaking heartily of the breakfast, “I’m not a man who boasts, and I suppose my principles, as people call ’em, are not of the best, but, ’pon my soul, Glyddyr, if I couldn’t show up better after marrying a girl like that, I’d go and hang myself.”

“Bah!”

“No, you don’t; not a drop more,” continued Gellow, laying his hand upon a bottle of champagne that Glyddyr was about to take. “You’ve had too much now. When I’m gone, you can do as you like. You’re master here, but I won’t sit and see you go on like this.”

“It don’t hurt me. I’m as sober as you are.”

“P’r’aps so, now; but what will you be by-and-by? Hang it all, Glyd, you’ve got the girl, and the money, and you can pay me off. She’s a little darling, that’s what she is, and I’d turn over a fresh leaf—clean the slate and begin square now, I would, ’pon my soul. Do you hear?”

“Yes, I hear.”

“And now I think I’ll go back to the hotel; you don’t want me.”

“Eh! What? No, no; don’t go,” said Glyddyr excitedly.

“Not go?”

“No, man, no; don’t go and leave me here alone.”

“Well, upon my soul, Glyddyr, you are a one.”

“That fellow, Lisle. You saw him in the corner. He means mischief. I’m sure he does.”

“Let him. You’re King of the Castle now. Keep him out. Don’t be such a cur.”

“He’s half mad. I know he is. I don’t want a scene. I should kill him if he came.”

“Yes, you look as if you would.”

“And I haven’t done much for you yet. We shall want to talk business.”

“What, on your wedding-day! Nonsense. I’ll go back to the hotel.”

“No, no. There is plenty of room in the place—for a friend. You must stop here for a few days.”

“Oh, very well. Play policeman, eh, and keep t’other fellow off. I see your little game. Cheerful for me, though, all the same.”

“Help me to get rid of that lawyer; I don’t want him hanging about.—Gellow.”

“Well?”

“Why didn’t I insist upon going over to Paris or Baden as soon as we were married?”

“How should I know? I suppose I may light a cigar now. Your wife won’t object?”

“It was her doing,” said Glyddyr thoughtfully. “She insisted on staying.”

“No, you don’t. If I’m to play policeman, no more drink, or very little, do you have to-day.”

Gellow drew the bottle farther away again, and Glyddyr threw himself back in his chair and began gnawing his nails.

“Ugh!”

“What’s the matter now?” said Gellow, as Glyddyr shuddered.

“I don’t know. Somehow I don’t like this place.”

“Buy it off you, if you like. But, I say, hadn’t you better ring and ask after your wife?”

About this time, as John Trevithick sat cogitating over his memoranda, seeking for the light where all was dark, the door opened, and Mary came in.

“Ah! How is she now?”

“Very ill. I have left her for a few minutes in the drawing-room with Sarah Woodham,” said Mary, with a catching of the breath. “Oh, John, how cruel of Chris Lisle to come and do that.”

“I don’t know,” said Trevithick thoughtfully. “I’m afraid I should have acted the same. But there: the mischief is done. I’m glad you’ve come. I wanted to see you before I went.”

“Before you went? Oh!” exclaimed Mary, catching at his hand, “you must not go.”

“Not go? Oh, I’m not wanted here.”

“You don’t know,” cried Mary excitedly. “Don’t leave us, John. I’m frightened. It all seems so horrible. Suppose Chris Lisle were to come?”

“Chris Lisle would not be so mad.”

“I don’t know. I saw his face, poor fellow, and it looked dreadful, and I have just seen Mr Glyddyr. I went to the dining-room to see if you were there. He looks ghastly, and he has been drinking. For Claude’s sake, pray stay.”

“You do not know what you are saying, my dear,” said the big lawyer gently. “Mr Glyddyr is master here now. But I’m afraid you are right. He had been drinking before he came. I cannot interfere.”

“Not to protect her?”

“No, I have no right.”

“Then stop to protect me, John, dear,” she whispered.

“The law gives me no right,” he said slowly, “but if you put it in that way, why, hang the law!”

“And you will stay?”

“Yes, my dear, if I have to wring Parry Glyddyr’s neck.”

“Ah, now you are speaking like yourself,” cried Mary, drawing a breath full of relief. “I’m not a bit afraid now.”

Just then a bell rang, and Mary ran out of the room, to find Sarah Woodham anxiously awaiting her, for Claude was pacing the floor wildly, her face flushed, and the excitement from which she suffered finding vent in rapid, almost incoherent words.

She ran to Mary and clung to her, sobbing out—

“Don’t—don’t leave me again, dear. Stay with me. I cannot bear it. Oh, Mary, Mary, I must have been mad—I must have been mad.”

“Hush, darling! Be calm; try and be calm.”

“Calm! You do not know—you do not know. Stop!” she cried wildly, as she saw Woodham cross gently towards the drawing-room door. “Don’t leave me. If you care for me now, pray stay.”

“Claude, dear, this is terrible,” said Mary firmly. “You are acting like a child.”

Claude sank upon her knees and buried her face in her cousin’s dress.

“Don’t think me cruel or unfeeling to you, but what can we do or say? You are Mr Glyddyr’s wife.”

“Yes, I know,” wailed Claude. Then, looking excitedly in her cousin’s face, “I did not know then. I was blind to it all. Mary, what have I done? Tell me—that man—he has married me—for the fortune—tell him to take all and set me free.”

“My own darling cousin,” whispered Mary, sinking upon her knees, to draw Claude’s face to her breast. “No, no, no; all that is impossible. This fit will pass off, and you must be brave and strong. Try and think, dear, of what you said. It was poor uncle’s wish.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Claude wearily; and she struggled to her feet, to throw herself into one of the lounges and sit wringing her hands involuntarily, dragging at one finger until the little golden circle, lately placed there, passed over the joint, and at last flew off, to fall trinkling in the fender.

Claude uttered a faint cry, and covered her face with her hands, while Woodham and Mary stood gazing at each other till the former crossed softly and picked up the ring from where it lay.

“Claude, darling,” said Mary, as, after a little hesitation, she took the ring from Woodham, and gently drawing her cousins hand from her face, began to slip the little token back into its place.

There was no resistance, only a helpless, dazed expression in Claude’s face, as she dropped her hand into her lap, and sat back gazing down at her cousin’s act, shuddering slightly, and then closing her eyes.

They drew back, watching her for some time, and at last Woodham crept cautiously forward, peering anxiously into her mistress’s face, watching the regular rise and fall of her breast, and then gave Mary a satisfied nod, as they stole very softly away to the far end of the room, and sat down to watch.

“Exhausted, Miss Mary, asleep,” whispered Woodham. “Oh, my dear, what can we do?”

“Nothing,” whispered back Mary bitterly; “only wait.”

The wind increased, setting in more and more for one of the western gales. The rain beat at the windows and the storm came in fierce squalls, as if to tear down the unhappy house; but hours went by, and Claude had not moved, remaining plunged in a kind of stupor more than sleep.

And so the weary hours went on, broken only by the sound of an opening or closing-door, and faintly heard voices which made the watchers start and glance anxiously towards the door in anticipation of Glyddyr’s coming; but he did not leave the dining-room, and Trevithick remained still in the library, where, through Woodham’s forethought, refreshments had been taken to him twice.

As the night closed in, a lamp was lit, and a screen drawn before the table where it stood so as to leave the spot where Claude lay back in darkness, and once more the watchers sat waiting.

It was about eight o’clock, when, after for the twentieth time stealing across to her cousin’s side, and returning, Mary placed her lips to Woodham’s ear.

“I am getting frightened at her state,” she whispered; “surely we ought to send over for the doctor.”

“No, my dear,” said Woodham sadly. “Let her rest. It will be better than anything the doctor can do.”

“Woodham,” whispered Mary again, “it seems horrible to say, but I feel as if I could poison that man and set her free.”

Sarah Woodham’s jaw dropped, and as she sank back, Mary could see that her eyes were wide and staring.

“Sarah, you foolish woman, don’t take what I say like that.”

The woman struggled to recover herself, and she gasped—

“It was so horrible, Miss Mary; for thoughts like that came to me.”

“But, Sarah,” whispered Mary, “I did not think of it before; when she wakes, if she is wild like that again, there is some of poor uncle’s medicine in the library—there is a bottle of that chloral that had not been opened. Would it be wise to give her some of it to make her calm?”

“Miss Mary!” gasped Woodham, as she pressed her hand to her side. “Hush! Don’t! You—oh, pray, pray, don’t talk of that!”

Mary looked at her wonderingly, the woman’s excitement seemed so wild and strange.

“No, it would not be wise,” she said.

At that moment there was the sound of the dining-room door being opened, and Claude sprang to her feet.

“Mary! Woodham!” she panted. “He is coming.”

“Claude! Claude, darling!” cried Mary, with a sob, as she flew to her cousin’s arms.

“Keep Woodham here too. He’s coming! Do you hear?”

“But, Claude, dearest, he is master here. You made him so. You are his wife.”

“Yes, Mary. I was blind and mad. I forced myself to it, thinking it must be my father’s will—my duty to the dead. But it is too horrible. Chris could not have done this thing.”

“No, no, my poor darling; he could not have been so vile.”

And as the cousins clung together, Mary felt the heart that beat against hers fluttering like that of some prisoner bird. There was the sound of an angry voice in the hall, and then a door was opened.

“Oh, you’re there, are you?”

“Yes, Mr Glyddyr, I am here.”

“Then why didn’t you come into the dining-room like a man, not stop hiding there. What the hell do you mean?”

“Don’t go on like that, old fellow,” said another voice. “Here, come back into the dining-room. Mr Trevithick will join us, perhaps.”

“Hold your tongue, curse you! Here, you—you can go back into your hole; and as to you, Gellow, I know what I’m about. Come along.”

The voices died away, as if the speakers had gone back into the dining-room, and the door swung to.

“Ah!” ejaculated Claude, with a piteous sigh.

“I know what I’m about,” came loudly again, followed by the banging of a door and a step in the hall.

“Mary!”

“Claude, dear, you must. He is your husband.”

“And I love Chris still with all my heart.”

“Claude!” whispered Mary, as the door was thrown open, and Glyddyr strode in.

“Here, Claude, where are you? Why don’t you have more lights? Oh, there you are, and our little cousin, eh? Now, woman, you can go.”

Sarah Woodham gave her mistress one wild, pitying look, and then left the room.

“Ah, that’s better,” said Glyddyr, whose face was flushed, but his gait was steady, and there was an insolent smile upon his lips. “Only been obliged to entertain my best man,” he said, with a laugh; and he gave his head a shake, and suddenly stretched out a hand to steady himself. “But kept myself all right.”

It was plain to Mary that the man had been drinking heavily, and her spirit rose with indignation and horror, mingled with excitement at her cousin’s avowal.

“Mary, don’t leave me,” whispered Claude.

“Now, then, little one, you go and talk to the other fellows; I want to have a chat with my wife.”

He laughed in a low, chuckling way, for he had long ago mastered Gellow’s opposition, and been told to drink himself blind if he liked. And he had drunk till his miserable feeling of abject dread had been conquered for the moment, while, inured as he was to the use of brandy, he only seemed to be unsteady at times.

“Do you hear?” he said sharply. “Why don’t you go?”

“Claude, dearest, what shall I do?” whispered Mary.

“Stay with me, Mary, pray,” panted Claude. And she looked wildly round for a way of escape, her eyes resting last upon the window, which opened over a steep portion of the cliff.

“Oh! what are you thinking?” said Mary wildly.

“Ah!” exclaimed Glyddyr, with a savage expression crossing his face, “the window? No; he’s not there. Curse him! I could shoot him like a dog.”

Claude, covered her quivering face with her hands.

“Yes, madam, it’s time we came to a little explanation about that, and then we can go on happily. No trifling with me.—Now then,” he cried fiercely, “will you go?”

“No,” cried Mary, turning upon him so sharply that he dropped the hand he had raised to seize her by the shoulder. “How dare you come into my cousin’s presence like this? Shame upon you! She is ill—agitated—not fit to meet you now, and you dare to force your way to her like this—drunken as one of the quarrymen at his worst.”

“What!”

“Is this the gentleman who begged and pleaded and humbled himself to her? You shall not stop here now, master or no master—husband or no husband. She is my dear cousin, and—”

“She is my wife,” thundered Glyddyr. “My slave if I like; and as for you—”

“Oh, would that my uncle were alive to see his cruel work!”

Those last words were like a sharp blow in Glyddyr’s face, and he stepped back, looked quickly round, and a shudder ran through him as he turned pale. But it was momentary. The potent brandy was strong in its influence still, and he recovered himself.

“Bah! nonsense!” he cried, with the flush coming back into his face. “I’m not to be fooled like that. There; be off at once.”

He took a couple of steps forward.

“Come, Claude; there has been enough of this.”

Claude flinched away toward the window, and Mary sprang between them.

“Not while you are like this,” she cried.

Glyddyr uttered an angry snarl, seized Mary savagely by the arm, and gripped the frail limb so cruelly that, in spite of her determined courage, she uttered a piercing cry for help.

“Silence, you little vixen.—Hah!”

It was as if the arm of a giant had suddenly interposed, for Glyddyr was seized by John Trevithick, dashed staggering back, to totter three or four yards, catch at a little table to save himself, and drag it over with him in his fall.

“Curse you!” he roared, as he rose to his hands and knees; and then, uttering a wild cry of horror, he backed away from the picture he had dragged with him to the floor, one which had fallen, with its little velvet-covered table-easel to which it had been secured, on end, and close to his face.

It was as if Gartram had come back to him from the dead to interpose between him and his child; and, with that shriek of horror, Glyddyr fell over sidewise, his face contorted, his eyes staring, his teeth gnashing, and the foam gathering upon his lips.

“Take him away! take him away!” he shrieked, and then lay uttering strangely inhuman sounds as he writhed in the agonies of a fit.

Volume Three—Chapter Sixteen.

How John Trevithick hung about.

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.

The visitor took in her agitation directly.

“Sort of body who will try to screen him,” he said to himself.

“What is the meaning of this intrusion?” said Claude, trying to be calm.

“Business, ma’am. Sorry to trouble you. Where’s Mr Glyddyr?”

“Mr Glyddyr is out.”

The man smiled pityingly.

“You will excuse me, ma’am—Mrs Glyddyr?”

“Yes; I’m Mrs Glyddyr.”

“Servant did not say he was out. Too ill to go out. Where is he, please? You see I know.”

“I told you Mr Glyddyr was out. What do you want?”

“Business, ma’am—important business. Must see him at once.”

“You must call when he is at home.”

“Sorry to be rude to a lady, but your face, ma’am, says he is at home, and will not show up.”

“What do you want?”

The man looked sharply round, and his eyes rested on the ajar door of the safe, with its casing of books, its old purpose being now at an end.

“Way into another room,” he said to himself; “he’s there.—I want Mr Glyddyr,” he continued firmly. “Now, look here, ma’am; I can feel for you, though I am a police officer, but I have my duty to do.”

“Your duty?”

“Yes, ma’am, my duty; and Mr Glyddyr is in there; he may as well come out like a gentleman, and let it all be quietly done. He must know that the game is up, and that any attempt at getting away from me is worse than folly. Will you let me pass?”

“Stop!” cried Claude excitedly, as, like lightning, thought after thought flashed through her mind; for at that moment she heard a cough and a step that she recognised only too well. And this man—police—it must be to arrest.

“Tell me,” she cried quickly, “what is it? Why have you come?”

“I’ll tell Mr Glyddyr himself, ma’am, please. Stand aside. I don’t want to be rude, but I’ve got my duty to do, and do it I will.”

He passed Claude sharply, brushing against her arm, and seized the thick door to draw it open, while the thought flashed through her brain—

“I am his wife. I prayed for a way to win his love—to give him mine. This man will arrest him, and I must save him if I can.”

Without pausing to consider as to the folly of her impulse, she turned on the man as he threw open the door and bent forward, and, thrusting with all her might, she sent him staggering in.

The door closed upon him with a loud clang.

“He is my husband,” panted Claude, mad with dread and excitement. “O Heaven help me! what has he done?”

At that moment, wild with jealous rage and doubt, Glyddyr came into the room, and ended, as she clung to him, speechless with emotion, by striking her savagely with such force as he possessed.

Claude uttered a low moan, and fell insensible across the entrance to the safe; while, after wrenching out the key, Glyddyr hurried panting from the library, closed and locked the door, and stood thinking.

“Yes,” he said, with a malignant look; “I’ll do that. Witnesses—witnesses! They shall all know.”

He crossed the hall to the drawing-room, and dragged at the bell so violently that, as he returned, the servants came hurrying through the swing-door.

“Here, quick, I want you,” he said hoarsely. “Ah, just in time,” he cried, as at that moment the entrance door was darkened, and Mary Dillon entered, with Trevithick trying to detain her, and closely followed by Sarah Woodham. “Better and better,” he said, with a grin. “This way—this way, witnesses, please.”

He unlocked and threw open the library door, and drew back for the others to go past.

“John Trevithick, quick! there is something wrong,” cried Mary, as she ran in—to shriek wildly and loudly, “Help! he has murdered her!”

“You villain!” roared Trevithick, seizing Glyddyr, but he wrested himself free.

“Bah! great idiot!” he cried. “There, look, she is only fainting—with joy, can’t you see?” he continued, as Claude uttered a sigh, and moved one hand. “Now then, witnesses,” he cried, with a savage laugh, “I have been out; I have just returned. This is my dear wife, who wishes for a divorce; and this,” he almost yelled, as he threw open the great book-covered door of the safe, “is our dear friend Mr—”

He ceased speaking, with the malignant grin frozen upon his face, as the quick, stern-looking man staggered panting, half-suffocated from the safe, stared wildly for a few moments, and then, before Glyddyr could realise his position, recovered himself sufficiently to clap his hand upon the scoundrel’s shoulder.

“Mr Parry Glyddyr,” he cried, “you are my prisoner. I arrest you for murder!”

Volume Three—Chapter Nineteen.

Two Wives.

Chris Lisle caught Trevithick, too, by the shoulder as he was leaving Danmouth that day, and, half wild with excitement, implored him to say whether the rumour was true.

“True enough, Mr Lisle. Mr Glyddyr is arrested, and his friend, who is believed to be an accomplice, was taken yesterday in London.”

Chris fell back, staring like one who has received some mental shock, and then walked slowly along the main street of the place to get to the bridge and go up the glen, so as to try and think quietly of all that it might mean to him.

As he went along he became dimly conscious of the fact that first one and then another touched his cap, or gave him a friendly nod; but he was too much dazed to pay any heed, and he could only come to one conclusion: that there must be as great a mistake here as there was over the rumour about himself.

“It is too horrible to be true,” he said, with a shudder.

At the Fort, Claude lay prostrate, unable to realise the truth of what had taken place, and shuddering from time to time as the terrible scene kept coming back.

“I would have spared her if I could,” Trevithick had whispered to Mary before leaving; “but it was better that she should suffer sharply for a time than all her life.”

Mary could not speak—she dared not trust herself for fear of saying words of which she would afterwards repent, for there was a great joy in her heart now that she knew the reason for Trevithick’s silence, and she could not even go to Sarah Woodham’s side, lest she should open her heart there.

Then came days of wild excitement in the place, with event after event occurring to keep the gossip at white heat. There were the examinations of Glyddyr, at which he preserved a stubborn silence. And a fresh excitement in the presence, at the second examination, of a handsome, sharp-looking woman fashionably dressed, who took up her abode after the examination at the hotel.

She had seated herself in the court by the help of a friendly—made friendly—policeman, where she could face Glyddyr; and when, at last, their eyes met, he started and changed colour, but composed himself directly, for another trouble was but a trifle compared to that overhanging his life.

It was no friendly look that he had encountered, neither was the keen glance directed at Gellow, who, upon the second morning, was placed beside Glyddyr in the dock. For Denise showed her teeth slightly in the malicious smile, watching and listening intently to the end.

“I did not know that I should find him through the newspapers,” she said to herself. “I was fooled by that man into believing that he was gone abroad, when I might have come down and seen this madam whom he has married. But it is well.”

Then came fresh fuel to keep the excitement at white heat. A gentleman was down from London, and it was known that orders had been given from high quarters that Gartram’s remains were to be taken from the vault. That there was to be a post mortem examination, and a great chemist in London was to assist in bringing the crime home to the prisoner under remand.

This was true enough, and Doctor Asher and his colleague were called upon to assist. Two other doctors were also going to be present, on behalf of the prisoner and the Government.

When Asher received his instructions he shuddered, and the paper dropped from his hand.

“It is too horrible!” he muttered. “I will not be dragged into it again.” But he had hardly uttered the words when his colleague arrived to talk the matter over with him.

“It is as horrible as it is absurd,” Asher said.

“Yes, but we have received our instructions, and cannot refuse.”

“But we performed our examination for the inquest,” protested Asher. “It is so unnecessary. The man is innocent. We know well enough the cause of death.”

The other shrugged his shoulders, and finally went away; while the next night it was being whispered, with bated breath, that the examination had been made, and there was talk of sealed bottles and the analytical chemist in London.

A week later, while the prisoners were lying under remand at the county gaol, Mrs Sarson tapped softly at Chris Lisle’s door, and entered.

He did not move, for he was thinking deeply of how he would give the world if he dared go to the Fort as a friend and say a few words to Claude.

“And I can make no sign; I dare make no sign,” he was muttering, as his landlady’s hand was laid upon his arm.

“I thought you’d like to hear the news, sir,” she said respectfully.

“Yes. What news?”

“I have just heard, sir, that Mrs Glyddyr is going over to Toxeter this morning to see Mr Glyddyr. Mr Trevithick has come to fetch her.”

A spasm ran through Chris, and he turned away his head.

“Yes,” he said; “suppose it is her duty.”

“And Doctor Asher is very bad indeed, sir, this morning, and two other doctors are there. He is worse than when I spoke to you last night.”

“Did you speak to me about him last night?”

“Why, surely, sir, you don’t forget? But I have heard this morning what is the matter.”

“Yes?” said Chris vacantly.

“It is very horrible, sir; but the new doctor told one of his patients that Doctor Asher’s knife slipped during the terrible examination of Mr Gartram the other day, and the cut has gone bad with some name he called it.”

“Blood poisoning!” exclaimed Chris, startled by the news; “how shocking.”

“Shocking indeed, sir. I didn’t think poor little Danmouth could have had such trouble as all this; but the Lord be thanked that the whole truth has come out at last, and you can hold up your head once more. Poor fellow!” she muttered softly, “he don’t seem to hear a word I said.”

But Chris had heard; and, as soon as he was alone, he slipped a small glass in his pocket, and tramped out to the back of the place, and up the highest piece of cliff, where he could lie upon his breast and watch the Fort.

He did not wait long, for the carriage soon drew up to the front entrance, and directly after Trevithick appeared, leading out Claude, in deep mourning and thickly veiled. Then Mary came out, to step into the carriage; and it was driven away, while Sarah Woodham, thin and sallow-looking, stood on the steps watching till it had disappeared, and at last Chris saw her as she turned, holding her hands to her temples, as if they throbbed.

“Will she come back to-night?” said Chris to himself. “I’ll wait and see.”

A couple of hours later, Trevithick led Claude slowly up towards the prison gates, for his companion had to cling to his arm for support, and he could feel the struggle that was going on as she strove to perform this duty to her husband.

They were within about fifty yards of the place, when Claude reeled and would have fallen but for the lawyer’s strong arm.

“Take my advice,” he whispered gently. “You can do no good, and you are not strong enough to go through such an interview as this.”

“I am better now,” she said feebly. “A little faint, that is all.”

“Put it off till another day.”

“No,” she said more faintly. “It is a duty to him. I will not believe that it can be true.”

Trevithick was silent.

“Let us go on now,” she said; and they had nearly reached the prison gates when there was a quick step, and a tall, fashionably-dressed woman stepped before them.

“Where are you going?” she said sharply in a strangely accented way.

“To see Mr Glyddyr, madam,” said Claude, meekly. “I am his wife.”

“You! Bah! You are nothing, girl,” cried the woman, her dark eyes blazing with vindictive spite. “He is mine. He married me five years ago from his yacht, in Marseilles. Yes, I, Denise Leschalles. Yes. And you, my faith, what could I not do to you?”

Claude uttered a faint cry and threw up her veil, to gaze wildly at the woman.

“My faith, you look. Yes, I am his wife, I tell you again. You are nothing.”

“Woman, is this true?” said Trevithick sternly.

“Bah! I say it not again. Go ask him, but he will only lie. Aha! and he could leave me to marry that! She is poor and weak. Take her away. I have the power to go and see my husband. This woman shall not pass.”

“Tell me where you are staying,” whispered Trevithick quickly. “Ah, I remember now. I saw you at Danmouth, at the hotel.”

The woman made no reply, but went on up to the gate, while Claude clung to the strong arm which supported her.

“Mr Trevithick, can this be true?” she whispered.

“Heaven only knows,” he said; “but you cannot go there now.”

Chris Lisle’s watch proved to be far shorter than he could have hoped, his patience being rewarded by the sight of the young mistress of the Fort as she was supported back into her home.

Volume Three—Chapter Twenty.

The Truth.

The next day was a more eventful one still in the annals of Danmouth, and people stood in knots about the place discussing the new horror.

Doctor Asher was dying, and his colleague had sent for the nearest magistrate that morning, to take down the dying man’s deposition in the presence of witnesses, Trevithick being of those summoned to the bed.

The deposition was brief, but convincing, telling how the dying man had, when attending Gartram, found in his pocket-book sundry directions to his executors, explaining how his wealth was bestowed. The temptation had been too great for him, and after waiting long for an opportunity, he had taken advantage one evening of being at the house to add a certain drug to the chloral Gartram was in the habit of taking from time to time.

“As a dying man about to appear before my Maker,” he said, “I swear I had no intention of taking his life. I wished to make his sleep so sure that I could easily take what notes I wished, and this I did, to the amount of forty thousand pounds, but I did not calculate that the drug would be so strong, and I was horrified when I found that I could not bring him back from his deadly sleep.”

“What was the drug?” asked the magistrate, in the midst of a terrible silence.

“Better that it should not be known,” said the dying man feebly. “I have told the truth. The money is in the iron safe in my study. All but a few hundred pounds or so I sent abroad, and a note or two I passed beside. I gave Glyddyr that one by mistake, and—”

The words that would have followed were never uttered, for insensibility supervened, and Doctor Asher never spoke again.

The law moves slowly, but it is pretty sure, and in due course the two men accused of complicity in Gartram’s death were discharged without a stain upon their character, so it was said, but Glyddyr was re-arrested upon another charge.

A guilty conscience had kept him silent about the accusation of murder, for he had added to the draught Gartram was in the habit of taking, but other hands had thrown this away. Still, he had always suffered mentally from the idea that he had murdered the man who had chosen him as a son.

Against the charge of bigamy he fought savagely, for there was the impending punishment to dread, and the loss of an almost princely fortune; but Denise made good her claim. The pleas of her being an alien fell to the ground, and the law cut asunder the tie that held Claude Gartram to one who passed for ever from her sight. Glyddyr’s term of imprisonment was but short, for his health had been so shattered that he was shortly after set at liberty, to die in Denise’s arms.

Of the rest of the actors who played their parts in this life drama, no more need be said than is contained in the French proverb: Cela va sans dire.

The End.

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Volume 1 Chapter 1

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Volume 1 Chapter 2

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Volume 1 Chapter 3

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Volume 1 Chapter 4

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Volume 1 Chapter 5

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Volume 1 Chapter 6

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Volume 1 Chapter 7

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Volume 1 Chapter 8

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Volume 1 Chapter 9

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Volume 1 Chapter 10

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Volume 1 Chapter 11

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Volume 1 Chapter 12

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Volume 1 Chapter 13

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Volume 1 Chapter 14

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Volume 1 Chapter 15

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Volume 1 Chapter 16

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Volume 2 Chapter 1

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Volume 2 Chapter 2

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Volume 2 Chapter 3

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Volume 2 Chapter 4

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Volume 2 Chapter 5

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Volume 2 Chapter 6

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Volume 2 Chapter 7

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Volume 2 Chapter 8

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Volume 2 Chapter 9

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Volume 2 Chapter 10

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Volume 2 Chapter 11

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Volume 2 Chapter 12

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Volume 2 Chapter 13

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Volume 2 Chapter 14

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Volume 2 Chapter 15

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Volume 2 Chapter 16

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Volume 3 Chapter 1

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Volume 3 Chapter 2

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Volume 3 Chapter 3

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Volume 3 Chapter 4

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Volume 3 Chapter 5

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Volume 3 Chapter 6

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Volume 3 Chapter 7

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Volume 3 Chapter 8

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Volume 3 Chapter 9

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Volume 3 Chapter 10

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Volume 3 Chapter 11

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Volume 3 Chapter 12

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Volume 3 Chapter 13

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Volume 3 Chapter 14

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Volume 3 Chapter 15

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Volume 3 Chapter 16

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Volume 3 Chapter 17

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Volume 3 Chapter 18

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Volume 3 Chapter 19

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Volume 3 Chapter 20

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