The Reluctant Widow

Chapter IX

It was fully an hour later when the welcome sound of voices in the hall informed Elinor that the doctor had arrived at Highnoons. She had found time to dress herself. Mrs. Barrow had roused the obliging wench from the Hall and told her to make up the smoldering fire in the kitchen and to set water on it to boil, while she herself, taking a high tone with Nicky, bullied and coaxed him into permitting her to undress him and get him between sheets. He was so much discomfited by some of the more embarrassing reminiscences of his extreme youth which she saw fit to recall to his memory that his protests lacked conviction, and she had less trouble with him than might have been expected.

Dr. Greenlaw opened his eyes a little at sight of Elinor, but bowed to her very civilly before turning his attention to his patient.

Nicky smiled at him. “You are never done with us, Greenlaw!” he remarked.

“Very true, Mr. Nick, but I am sorry to find you in this case,” replied the doctor, beginning to unwind the bandages. “What scrape are you in now, pray?”

“The devil’s in it that I don’t precisely know,” Confessed Nicky. “But if only I had not missed the fellow I should not care!”

“Barrow has been babbling some nonsense about Frenchmen. Was it a housebreaker, sir?”

“Yes, of course,” Nicky said, with a warning glance cast in Elinor’s direction. “Well, what’s the damage? It’s only a scratch, isn’t it?”

“Ay, you were born under a lucky star, sir, as I have told you before,” said Greenlaw, opening a case of horrid-looking instruments.

“Yes, when I fell off the stable roof and broke my leg,” said Nicky, eying his preparations with some misgiving. “What are you meaning to do to me, you murderer?”

“I must extract the ball, Mr. Nicky, and I fear I shall hurt you a trifle. Some hot water, ma’am, if I might trouble you!”

“I have it here,” Elinor said, picking up the brass can from before the fire and hoping that she did not look as queasy as she was beginning to feel.

But she and Nicky alike underwent the ordeal with great fortitude, Elinor by dint of turning her eyes away from the doctor’s probing hands, and Nicky by gritting his teeth and bracing every muscle. The doctor encouraged them both with a gentle flow of irrelevant conversation to which neither attended. Elinor was glad to discover that he was deft and quick. The ball was not deeply lodged and was soon extracted, and the wound washed and dressed with basilicum powder. Greenlaw bound it up comfortably, measured out a cordial, and obliged Nicky to swallow it. “There, you will do very well, sir!” he said, drawing the bedclothes over his patient. “I shan’t bleed you.”

“No, that you won’t!” retorted Nicky, faint but indomitable.

“Until tomorrow,” finished Greenlaw grimly.

He then beckoned Elinor out of the room, gave her a few instructions, told her that as Nicky would in all probability sleep soundly now for several hours she might as well go back to her bed, and, after promising to return later in the day, took himself off. Nicky did indeed seem sleepy, so as soon as she had taken the precaution of locking the door into the room that gave access to the secret stair, Elinor retired to her own room again and once more went to bed.

It was long before she slept, however. Aside from his desperate behavior, the return of her mysterious visitor most seriously alarmed her. That he did indeed want something from Highnoons was now established, and since his conduct clearly indicated that he would stop at nothing to obtain it she was unable to view with the smallest equanimity a continued sojourn in the house. The scutter of a mouse across the floor made her jump nearly out of her skin, and she was kept awake for a long time by an uncontrollable anxiety to strain her ears on the chance of catching any alien noise in the house. Her dreams, when she did at last fall asleep, were troubled, and she arose in the morning feeling very little rested and considerably incensed with Carlyon for having placed her at Highnoons.

Nicky, whom she found sitting up in bed and partaking of a substantial breakfast, seemed to be little the worse for his adventure. Mrs. Barrow had fashioned a sling for his left arm and whenever he did not need the use of this arm he gratified her by slipping it into the sling. He too had been thinking over the night’s adventure, and he greeted Elinor with the pleasing suggestion that his assailant had been a French spy.

“A spy!” she exclaimed. “Oh, do not say so!”

““Well, one of Boney’s agents,” he amended. “John says he has any number of them and we do not know them all by any means.”

“But what should a French agent want with your cousin?”

“I don’t know, and, to tell you the truth, I should not have thought Eustace was the kind of fellow to be of the least use to anyone,” he replied. “But depend upon it, that is what it is!” He inserted a generous portion of cold beef into his mouth and added, somewhat thickly, “I dare say we have not seen the last of that fellow, not by a very long way. Why, for anything we know we have stumbled upon a really bang-up adventure!”

It was plain that he viewed the prospect with enthusiasm. Elinor could not share it. She said, with a shiver, “I wish you will not talk so! If it were true, only consider what might happen to us in this dreadful house!”

“Just what I was thinking,” nodded Nicky, spreading mustard over another portion of beef. “There is no saying indeed! I shall stay here.”

“Well, I shall not!” declared Elinor tartly. “I have no desire to lead a life of such adventure!”

“You would not like to catch one of Boney’s agents?” said Nicky incredulously.

“Not at all. I should not know what to do with him if I did. Yes, I should, though! I should set your horrid dog to guard him!”

“Yes, and he would do so, wouldn’t he?” grinned Nicky. “Oh, Cousin Elinor, would you be so very obliging as to let the old fellow out of the stables? I told Barrow to do so, but he would not. He is a paltry creature!”

“Will he bite me if I do?” demanded Elinor.

“Oh, I should not think he would do so!” Nicky said encouragingly. “But pray do not let him make off! I should not like Sir Matthew’s cursed keepers to shoot him.”

“I should!” retorted Elinor, going off to release the prisoner.

Bouncer, so far from offering to bite her, greeted her as a benefactress from whom he had been parted for years. He jumped up at her several times, barking on a high, ear-splitting note, dashed three times round the stable yard at speed, and finally brought her an unwieldy branch of wood which he seemed to think she might like to throw for him. She declined to enter upon a sport of which, she guessed, he would not readily tire, and invited him to accompany her to the house. Picking up his branch, he trotted along beside her. He would have carried his toy into the hall had she not prevented him. Since he remained deaf to her adjurations to him to drop it, she laid hold of one end and tried to pull it away from him. Pleased that she was ready to play a game he knew and liked, he threw himself wholeheartedly into a tug of war, growling in a bloodcurdling way and wagging his tail furiously. Fortunately, since Elinor was no match for him, the groom came round the corner of the house just then, and Bouncer, perceiving him, let go of the branch in order to chase him back to his proper quarters. Elinor hastily threw the branch into a thicket of brambles. Bouncer soon returned to her, prancing along in the manner of a dog who has acquitted himself well, and cocked his ears at her expectantly. He consented to accompany her into the house but obviously thought poorly of her taste in choosing to be indoors on a fine morning. But when she took him upstairs to Nicky’s room nothing could have exceeded his joy at being reunited with the master whom he had not seen for ten hours. He leaped up onto the bed, uttering screaming barks, and ecstatically licked Nicky’s face. After that, being forcibly adjured thereto, he jumped down again, cast himself down by the fire, and lay panting.

“What he needs, of course, is a good run,” said Nicky, fondly regarding him.

“Oh, yes?” said Elinor politely.

“I was only thinking, Cousin, that if you did happen to be going out for a walk you might like to take him with you,” he explained.

“I know that that is what you were thinking,” she returned. “I am well able to imagine what that walk would be like, I thank you!”

“Oh, but he is quite well behaved now!” Nicky assured her. “I have very nearly trained him not to. kill chickens or chase sheep, and if only you do not meet any other dogs you will not have the least trouble with him.”

“He has already had a very nice run, chasing the groom,” said Elinor hardheartedly. “And I do not mean to go out walking today.”

“Oh, well, I dare say I shall be able to take him myself presently!” he said.

“You will not get up today!”

“Not get up? Good God, of course I shall! There is nothing amiss with me beyond this hole in my shoulder!”

She extracted a promise that at least he would not get up until Dr. Greenlaw had seen him, and went off to confer with Mrs. Barrow. By the time she had emerged from the kitchen the doctor’s gig was at the door and he was taking off his greatcoat in the hall. She was able to give him a comfortable account of his patient, but begged him as she led him upstairs not to permit of Nicky’s leaving his bed that day. He said dryly that he doubted whether anyone could keep Nicky in bed if he had taken it into his head to get up.

“I wish his brother were here!” she said.

“Ay, Mr. Nicholas would mind him,” he agreed.

“I hold myself entirely to blame for what has happened!”

He looked surprised. “I am sure I do not know why you should, ma’am.”

She recollected that Nicky had not taken him into his confidence, and said quickly, “For permitting him to remain here last night, I mean!”

“Ah, well!” he said. “If it is not one thing with Mr. Nick, it must needs be another! He has taken no serious hurt, ma’am.”

When he saw Nicky, he found that the wound was healing quite as well as could be expected and that the pulse, though a little fast, was by no means tumultuous. He condemned in round terms the breakfast which he learned, upon inquiry, that Nicky had consumed, and said that he would bleed him, to be on the safe side.

“Oh, no, you will not!” Nicky said, drawing the bedclothes up to his chin.

“Ay, but I will, Mr. Nick,” said Greenlaw, once more getting out his bag of instruments. “We do not want to run the risk of any fever.”

“I have no fever, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you cup me!”

“Now, sir, you know I have often done so and you have been the better for it!”

Nicky would by no means allow it to have been so and vociferated his protests so loudly that Bouncer sat up, bristling. He had not so far paid any heed to the doctor, with whom he was acquainted, but he now clearly perceived that his attitude was menacing and with a growl of warning he bounded up onto the bed and stood astride Nicky’s legs, daring Greenlaw to touch him.

Nicky gave a shout of laughter and grasped him by the scruff of his neck. “Good dog, Bouncer! Sick him off, then!”

“Very well,” said Greenlaw, smiling reluctantly. “But if you are in a high fever by nightfall do not blame me, sir!”

After this episode, Elinor was not surprised, an hour later, to encounter Nicky somewhat shakily negotiating the stairs. He was wearing a dressing gown of such startling design and varied color that she blinked at him. He told her that he had bought it in Oxford and that it was all the crack. “Only fancy that old rascal’s wanting to bleed me!” he said. “Why, I must have lost pints already, for I’m as weak as a cat!”

“Of course you are, and you should be in bed!” she said. “You must lie on the sofa in the bookroom, and, mind! If you do not stay there quietly to bed you must and shall go!”

He made a face at her but he was glad enough to stretch himself out on the sofa and to allow her to rearrange his sling more comfortably. But he became; very recalcitrant when Barrow brought in a bowl of gruel, and said that if there was any ale in the house he would like a tankard of it, with a sandwich to eat with it. These being firmly denied him, he agreed to compromise with a bowl of chicken broth and a glass of white wine whey. Having disposed of this light repast, he then settled down to discuss exhaustively with Elinor what ought next to be done to entrap the foe. He had not pursued the subject very far however, when the front doorbell clanged in the distance, and Bouncer rose, growling.

Such was the irritation of nerves which Elinor labored under that she could not repress a start or banish from her mind the fear that whoever stood at the front door had come to the house with a fell purpose in view. Something of the same nature seemed to be in Nicky’s brain too, for he sat with his head a little tilted, listening intently. Bouncer padded over to the door and set his nose to the crack under it, tail and hackles well up. Barrow crossed the hall in his usual leisurely fashion, and a murmur of voices sounded. Bouncer’s bristles sank and he began to wag his tail and to snuff loudly .. “It’s Ned!” exclaimed Nicky, his face lightening.

“Oh, I do hope it is indeed!” cried Elinor, and ran to the door, and opened it.

She would not have believed, twenty-four hours earlier, that the sight of that tall figure in the long, many-caped driving coat could be so welcome to her. “Thank God you are come, my lord!” she uttered in accents of heartfelt relief. Then her eyes alighted on a little old lady standing beside Carlyon, in an old-fashioned bonnet and a drab pelisse over a plain, round gown and a spencer, and she cried out, “Becky!” and started forward to clasp the little lady in a warm embrace.

“My love!” said Miss Beccles. “My dear Mrs. Cheviot!”

“Oh, Becky, pray do not call me so!” Elinor begged. She turned to Carlyon, her cheeks in a glow. “I had no notion you meant to bring her to me so speedily, sir! I am so very much obliged to you! Oh, dear, it makes me wish more than ever that I had not served you such a trick—! I do not know what you will say when you hear of it, but indeed I never dreamed when I let him stay—But do pray come into the bookroom!”

He had been allowing Bouncer to tug at his gloves, but he looked up at that, his brows lifting. “My dear Mrs. Cheviot, how can you possibly have served me a trick? Is anything amiss?”

“Everything!” she declared.

He maintained his usual calm, merely looking a little surprised, and saying, “That is certainly comprehensive. I see you have Nicky here. Yes, that will do, Bouncer! Be quiet!”

Nicky at this moment appeared in the doorway of the bookroom, his left arm reposing interestingly in its sling. “I say, Ned, I’m devilish glad to see you!” he remarked. “We have had such a lark here!”

Carlyon regarded him without betraying either dismay or astonishment. “Now what have you been about?” he asked in a resigned tone.

“Well, I’ll tell you, but take off your coat and come in!”

“Very well, but make your bow to Miss Beccles. My youngest brother, ma’am.”

Miss Beccles dropped a curtsy, saying in her soft voice, “I am very happy to make your acquaintance, sir, but should you be standing there in the draft, do you think? Forgive me, but you do not look to me to be quite well!”

“No, of course he should not be standing there!” said Elinor, recalled to a sense of her responsibilities. “He should be in bed! I wish you will go back to the sofa, Nicky! What a tiresome boy you are!”

Carlyon looked a little amused. “Do as you are bid, Nicky! I think Miss Beccles would be glad of a bowl of soup, Mrs. Cheviot. It was cold during the drive.”

“Oh, no!” murmured the little lady, looking up at him gratefully. “I was so well wrapped up! Such a luxurious chaise, and every kind attention to my comfort!”

“Indeed you must have some soup and a glass of wine as well!” Elinor said, drawing her toward the bookroom. “Barrow, pray tell Mrs. Barrow! There is the chicken broth that was made for Mr. Nick. Come in, Becky dear!”

“By Jove, yes, she may have all my chicken broth and that white wine whey too!” said Nicky generously.

Miss Beccles walked over to the sofa and plumped up the cushions, smiling invitingly at him. He thanked her and lay down again on it. “I will make you a panada presently,” she said. “You will like that, sir.”

“Shall I?” he asked doubtfully.

“Yes,” she said with gentle certainty. She looked at Elinor and said, “My love, if you should desire to be private with his lordship I will go upstairs and set about unpacking my trunks.”

“No, no, Becky, do not go! I do not mean to remain another night in this dreadful house, but since you are come to it, it is only right that you should know what manner of things happen to one here!”

“You alarm me, Mrs. Cheviot,” interposed Carlyon. “Are you going to tell me that you have indeed encountered a headless specter?”

“Yes,” she said bitterly. “I might have known you would make light of it, sir!”

“I may do so, perhaps, but I will engage not to until I know what it is that has so much distressed you. How are you hurt, Nicky?”

“I was shot at!” replied Nicky impressively.

“You were shot at!”

“Yes, but the ball only lodged in my shoulder and Greenlaw soon dug it out.”

“But who shot at you, and why?”

“That’s just it, Ned! We haven’t a notion who it was! It is the most famous affair, and only think! If I had not been sent down it would not have happened and we might never have known anything about it!”

“I think,” said Carlyon, “that you had better tell me this story from the start if I am to understand it.”

“Well, the start of it was Cousin Elinor’s part of the adventure. I was not here. Tell him how it all began, Cousin!”

“Yes, pray do!” said Carlyon, walking over to the fire and standing with his back to it. “I am happy, at all events, to discover that you are so far reconciled to your lot, ma’am, as to accept the—er—relationship that exists between us.”

She was obliged to smile. “Well, I had rather be called by almost any other name than Cheviot!” she said.

“I will bear it in mind. Now, what has been the matter here?”

Beginning to feel, quite irrationally, that she had been making a mountain out of a molehill, she described as briefly as she could her encounter with the young Frenchman. He heard her in attentive silence. Miss Beccles quietly removed her bonnet and pelisse and sat down in a chair with her hands placidly folded in her lap.

“You say he was young and dark and spoke with only a slight accent, ma’am?”

She agreed to it, adding that the Frenchman was of medium height and slim build and wore neat side whiskers.

Carlyon opened his snuffbox and took a meditative pinch. “Then I fancy he must have been young De Castres,” he said.

Nicky sat up. “What, Louis de Castres?” he exclaimed. “But, Ned, he is quite the thing! Why, you may meet him everywhere!”

“Very true. Mrs. Cheviot seems even to have met him here.”

“No, dash it, Ned, he is not the kind of loose screw to be breaking into houses at dead of night! Because the story he told Cousin Elinor was a pack of lies! You do not know the whole yet!”

“Well, I may be mistaken,” Carlyon said. “I merely suppose it may have been he from the fact of my having once or twice seen him in Cheviot’s company.”

“Good God, I should not have thought he would have made a friend of a fellow like Eustace!” said Nicky, quite shocked. “I believe him to be tolerably well acquainted with Francis Cheviot, but there’s nothing in that, after all! I don’t care for Francis myself, but he is very good ton—all the crack, in fact!”

The door opened to admit Barrow who came in with a tray which he set down on the table at Miss Beccles’ elbow.

“Barrow,” said Carlyon, “do you know the name of any Frenchman whom Mr. Cheviot may have been acquainted with?”

“I did hear what his name was, my lord,” admitted Barrow. “But I didn’t take no account of it, not holding with Frenchies.”

“Was it De Castres?”

“Ay, that’ll be it,” nodded the henchman. “I knew it was something outlandish, my lord.”

“Well, by Jupiter!” ejaculated Nicky. “But—oh, wait till you hear the rest, Ned!”

Carlyon nodded dismissal to Barrow who went away again. Miss Beccles, drawing up her chair to the table, said, “Dear me, how commonplace it seems, to be sure, to be eating and drinking—such an excellent broth, too!—with so much excitement on hand!”

The placidity in her voice caused her late pupil to look at her reproachfully. “I do not desire any more such excitement, Becky!”

“No, my love, but I expect his lordship will know what is to be done. I am sure you may be quite easy in your mind.”

Elinor perceived that her old governess had fallen all too easily under the calming spell his lordship seemed to hold over his admirers, and gave a defiant sniff.

“But, Ned, listen to what followed!” interrupted Nicky. “When I rode over yesterday, as you bade me, Cousin Elinor told me the whole, and of course I remembered at once how it is said that Charles II hid in this house, and I thought very likely there might be a secret way into it—”

“Did you find it?”

The widow’s color rose. She fixed a pair of accusing eyes on Carlyon’s face and demanded, “My lord, answer me this, if you please! Did you know of that secret stair when you brought me here?”

“Yes, certainly I knew of it, but I thought it had been closed these many years,” he replied.

“Oh, this is too much!” Elinor cried. “And pray why did you not tell me of it?”

“I was afraid it might add to your distaste of the house,” he explained.

She struggled to maintain her composure. “Oh, no, how came you to think such a tiling?” she said sarcastically. “I am sure it was the only thing needed to make me quite comfortable!”

He smiled. “Indeed, you have cause to be vexed with me,”“ he acknowledged. “I beg your pardon! I collect that the stair is not, as I had supposed, closed?”

“Closed! Nothing of the sort! All kinds of desperate persons are at liberty to come up it any time they choose!”

“That is certainly quite undesirable,” he said imperturbably. “If you have not already attended to the matter, I think steps should be taken to secure that entrance.”

“You amaze me, my lord! I had not looked for so much consideration! Let me tell you that had I not allowed my judgment to be overborne by your brother’s pleading that door would have been sealed yesterday and he would not now be lying there with his arm in a sling! Nicky, do, pray, put it back! Dr. Greenlaw said you should keep it still, remember!”

“Oh, it’s no matter, Cousin! Ned, I am persuaded you would not have had me shut up that stair! The more I thought about the occurrence the more I became convinced that fellow—De Castres, I mean, if it really can have been he—had come for some secret purpose. I told Cousin Elinor we should seek to discover what that might be and I said I would spend the night in that little spare bedchamber where the trap door is, just on the chance of the fellow’s coming back to have another touch at it.” Carlyon nodded. “To own the truth,” Nicky confessed, “I did not above half expect that he would.”

“And I did not expect it at all!” interpolated Elinor. “I do beg of you to believe, sir, that nothing would have induced me to have allowed Nicky to prevail upon me to let him stay in that room had I had the least notion of what was to happen! I am so distressed! If you are angry with me I cannot blame you!”

“My dear ma’am, how should I be angry with you?”

“Ned, I know it has all gone awry, but I did right to leave the stair open, didn’t I?” Nicky demanded.

“Yes, quite right. I collect that your visitor did indeed return?”

“Yes, and I crept after him down the stairs. There was never anything like it! To think of such an adventure’s happening, and all because I was rusticated! I never expected any very particular good tocome from that, you know, but only fancy!”

“A very observable instance of the workings of Providence,” agreed Carlyon. “How came you to be shot?”

“Oh, that was the most cursed mischance! The fellow was making for this room, and I had reached the foot of the stairs, when all at once he stopped and looked about him. I stepped back quickly that he might not see me, and what must I do but fall over that stupid suit of armor Cousin Elinor must needs keep at the bottom of the stairs!”

“I do not keep it there!” said Elinor indignantly. “I found it there!”

“Well, I do not know how that may be but I should have thought you would have moved it to a better place. However, it’s no matter, except that it ruined all. I had your pearl-mounted pistol in my hand, Ned, and I shouted out to the fellow to stand, for I had him covered, but he fired at me before I well knew what he would be about, and over I went again. I shot at once and smashed the lantern he was carrying, but I don’t think I can have hit him, for he escaped by the front door before anyone could come to my aid. And the devil of it is that I still don’t know what it is that he wants, and I have a great fear that now he knows the game is up he will not come again. I have made wretched work of it!”

“Yes, it is a pity he should have discovered your presence,” agreed Carlyon. “However, it is of no use to repine over what cannot be mended. This is certainly very interesting, Nicky.”

“Yes, indeed! Was it not diverting?” struck in Elinor.

He looked at her thoughtfully, but said nothing.

“What are you thinking, Ned?” asked Nicky eagerly.

“I was wishing John had not gone back to London,” Carlyon replied unexpectedly. “Never mind! He will be here again the day after tomorrow!”

“John!” exclaimed Nicky. “Why, what use would he be, I should like to know?”

“He was telling me something which I cannot help feeling may have some bearing on this extraordinary event.”

Nicky’s face was alight. “Oh, Ned, do you think—Is it possible that—You know, I told Cousin Elinor this morning I thought very likely that fellow might be one of Boney’s agents, only then you said it was De Castres and J thought it had not been possible!”

“It is certainly unexpected. Yet I believe it would not be quite the first time a scion of one of these émigré families has thrown in his lot with Bonaparte.”

“How very shocking, to be sure!” said Miss Beccles, shaking her head. “It makes one feel so very particularly for their poor parents. But young persons are often very thoughtless, I fear.”

“It cannot be so!” Elinor said. “Why, I have in the past known several such families, and they would be disgusted by the very thought of such a thing!”

“No doubt the elder members of such families would be, ma’am, but there is no doubt that Bonaparte’s career and the regime he has set up have kindled an enthusiasm for his cause in some of the younger men’s breasts. It is no wonder, after all! They have little to hope for in England, and, one supposes, can find little to inspire them with hope in the Bourbon king and the set of men he keeps about him. But these are only surmises! We are running ahead a great deal too fast.”

Nicky, who had been sitting with knit brows, said, “It is very well, Ned, but how should Eustace have had anything to say to French spies? I never thought that he had even common sense!”

“A very unreliable agent, one would have said,” concurred Carlyon. He frowned down at the lid of his snuffbox. “And yet,” he said, “I will own that I have sometimes wondered where Eustace found the money to pay for some of his more expensive pleasures. This might be the answer.”

“A Bonapartist agent!” said Elinor. “Well, I thought I had known the worst of my bridegroom, but it seems I was at fault!”

“I should think,” said Carlyon, “that he was, rather, a go-between.”

“I do not see that that would make him any better!”

“On the contrary, decidedly worse.”

“Oh, what an abominable man you are!” cried Elinor, quite out of patience.

“Hush, my love!” interposed Miss Beccles in gentle reproof. “A lady should never be uncivil, you know. His lordship must be quite shocked to hear you express yourself with such unbecoming violence.”

“I wish I might shock him!” said Elinor bitterly.

“Well, I do not see why you should wish so!” said Nicky, firing up. “And Ned is not an abominable man!”

“A gentleman, Nicky,” said Carlyon, grave as a judge, “should never contradict a lady.”

Miss Beccles nodded her innocent agreement with this dictum. The widow eyed his lordship smolderingly but maintained a prudent silence.

Carlyon, after casting her a somewhat quizzical look, seemed to become wrapped in his own meditations. Nicky, fidgeting restlessly for a little while, at last burst out with, “Do you think we should shut up the secret way? I mean—”

“Oh, yes!” Carlyon replied absently. “I do not think we can hope for him to come by that way a third time.”

“Well, but, Ned, what must we do, then? It would be too flat to leave it as it now stands!”

“Certainly not. But as the matter appears to be of considerable urgency I hardly think that we should be permitted to leave it. Some new form of approach must be expected. Time will show what this may be.”

“Not to me!” said Elinor with resolution. “I will not spend another night in this house, and so I tell you!”

“Oh, Cousin Elinor, you would not be so poor-spirited!” Nicky cried incredulously. “Besides, what should you be afraid of when you will have me with you, and Miss Beccles and Bouncer too?”

“How you can have the effrontery, Nicky, to offer me that horrid dog as consolation is something that gives me a very poor idea of your chivalry!” retorted Elinor. “What is more, I am not so callous that I would ask my dear Becky to remain an hour in this place! It is not at all what she has been accustomed to, I assure you.”

“Very true, my love,” sighed Miss Beccles. “When I was young I used to wish very much that I could meet with an adventure, but none ever came my way, and in the end I did not think of it any more. And now it has come to me, and all through my lord, who so kindly brought me to you!”

“Becky, all my dependence is on you!” almost wailed Elinor. “You cannot wish to remain in this dreadful house!”

“But, my dear Mrs. Cheviot, it seems to me such a comfortable house! And now that my lord is to close up the secret door which, I own, I should not quite like to have open, I cannot see the least cause for you to leave it. And I am sure that if the dear doggie is to stay with us we must be quite safe.”

The intelligent hound, who had sat up at the first mention of his name, flattened his ears and lolled his tongue out gratefully.

“If you knew as much of the dear doggie as I do,” declared Elinor, “you would scarcely stay in the same room with him!” She turned to Carlyon, and added, “Upon being told to guard me, the creature kept me in my chair for the better part of a day!”

“Well, that was quite my fault!” argued Nicky. “He did not perfectly understand what I said to him. And you must own he stayed at his post like a regular bulldog!”

“Yes! And consumed a plate of meat and a large marrowbone, which he buried behind the sofa cushions!”

“Poor old fellow!” said Miss Beccles, in caressing accents.

Bouncer, recognizing a well-wisher, got up and thrust his cold, wet nose under her hand, assuming as he did so the soulful expression of a dog who takes but a benevolent interest in cats, livestock, and stray visitors. Miss Beccles stroked his head and murmured dulcetly to him.

Elinor fixed her eyes upon Carlyon. “My lord, do you expect me to remain here?” she asked straitly.

“Yes, Mrs. Cheviot, I do,” he replied.

“But I may be murdered in my bed!”

“Improbable, I think.”

She swallowed. “But what would you have me do?”

He looked consideringly at her. “I believe you would be well advised to set about the procuring of mourning clothes,” he said. “I appreciate that your time since I left you here has been a little taken up by other matters, but this should have been thought of. I will send my carriage over to be at your orders in case you should like to drive to Chichester. You will find a tolerable silk warehouse there, and may choose something suitable to your condition.”

“But who is to receive any French agents who may call while I am gone?” she retorted.

“Oh, I will do that!” grinned Nicky.

“My dear Nicky, I am about to convey you home. I dare say Mrs. Cheviot has had a surfeit of your company by this time.”

“Oh, Ned, no!” Nicky cried, aghast. “You could not ask me to leave Highnoons now! Why, anything might happen!”

“Nothing is likely to happen.”

“I do not know what makes you think so, my lord,” remarked Elinor. “A man who will twice break into a house and fire upon anyone who discovers him—”

“I am inclined to think that that was a mistake.”

“A mistake, was it!” said Nicky, ruefully feeling his shoulder.

“I dare say you startled him, my dear boy, and he fired before he had time to consider what he was about. He cannot have wished to make such a stir. In fact, his whole manner of conducting this affair appears to me to be the work of a novice. Depend upon it, someone must be behind De Castres, if De Castres it was.”

“Someone more cunning, I dare say?” said Elinor politely.

“Undoubtedly.”

“And who will perhaps descend upon me in his turn?”

He smiled. “Perhaps,” he agreed.

“And all the advice you have to give me is that I should go to Chichester to choose mourning clothes which I assure you I don’t mean to wear!”

“I hope you will think better of that decision, ma’am. It is always a pity to put up the backs of people. I see that you have already made this room at least more habitable. But there must still be a great deal of work to be done in the house, which should keep you occupied for some little time. I believe you have no need to feel any undue alarm. Violence cannot serve these people and they are unlikely to attempt anything in the same nature again. What we have now to look for is something a trifle more subtle.”

“Well then, Ned, don’t you think I should remain here?” urged Nicky. “Cousin Elinor will be more comfortable if I do, will you not, Cousin?”

“Of course there can be no question of your leaving while you are still so weak!” she said. “You will scarcely take him out in this cold when he ought to be in his bed, my lord! I assure you, Miss Beccles and I will take every care of him.”

“I have no doubt of that and am very much obliged to you both. Have either you or he looked through the contents of that desk on the chance of discovering any clue to your mystery?”

“No, but I would have done so!” said Nicky. “Cousin Elinor would not permit it, however.”

“Extremely proper. I am expecting Finsbury in Sussex tomorrow, and shall bring him here. But in the event, it will be wise to assure ourselves that no dangerous document lies in that desk.” He walked over to it as he spoke and sat down before it, pulling open the top drawer. A welter of “papers was disclosed which Carlyon sorted out, laying them in separate heaps. The other drawers were in much the same condition, and Nicky’s eagerly expressed conviction that the desk possessed a secret hiding place was found to be without foundation.

Carlyon restored the papers, saying calmly, “There is very little here beyond bills and vowels.”

“Good God!” said Elinor. “Then I suppose I may look next to be dunned! How sobering it is to reflect that had I never met you, my lord, I might even now be peacefully established in Mrs. Macclesfield’s house!”

“Sobering indeed. I am persuaded you would have discovered her to be an overbearing female, and the children all grossly indulged.”

“Nonsense! I dare say a most agreeable household,” said Elinor firmly.

“Now, my love, you know you had no very pleasant notion of Mrs. Macclesfield’s character!” Miss Beccles reminded her. “I have been telling his lordship how bravely you have borne all your reverses, and how thankful I am you are now in such good hands.”

“Good hands?” gasped the affronted widow. “Becky, are you in your senses? If you refer to Lord Carlyon, I really think you cannot be! I never did him the least injury, and only consider how he has served me! He forced me to marry a creature given over to every form of vice; he brought me to this house where everything is in dust and tatters, mice run across my bedchamber floor, and French agents walk in and out at will, shooting at anyone who dares to say them nay; he discloses to me with what I can only describe as the most callous unconcern imaginable that my late husband died apparently under a load of debt, which I shall no doubt be called upon to settle; and when I ask him what I am to do, all he can think of is to suggest that I should buy myself mourning clothes!”

Miss Beccles smiled at his lordship. “Dear Elinor was always such a lively girl!” she murmured. “So spirited! I know your lordship will make allowances.”

“I should be happy to do so,” he returned. “But I do not find her at all spirited. On the contrary, she appears to me to take an unnecessarily despondent view of her situation. There is really no need that I am aware of, Mrs. Cheviot, for you to put yourself in a fret.”

“Oh, she is not as chickenhearted as you would suppose, Ned!” Nicky said blithely.

Mrs. Cheviot, speech failing her, rose and took several agitated turns about the room. Carlyon went to her and took her hand. “Come!” he said reassuringly. “I should not leave you here, you know, if I thought you stood in any danger. To run away must be nonsensical. By remaining, like a sensible woman, you may be very helpful. I am persuaded you must see, in the light of what has happened, that my placing you in charge here was a very lucky chance.”

Elinor gazed at him. “A very lucky chance!” she echoed faintly. “My lord, when I first encountered you the suspicion crossed my mind that your intellect was disordered. I am now certain that this is so!”