Part 102

‘We are engaged to be married.’

‘Well done. I congratulate you.’ The speaker was about to proceed to further triumphant notes on the intelligence, when casting his eye upon the upper windows of the neighbouring villa, he appeared to reflect on what was within them, and checking himself, ‘When is the funeral to be?’

‘To-morrow,’ De Stancy replied. ‘It would be advisable for you not to come near me during the day.’

‘I will not. I will be a mere spectator. The old vault of our ancestors will be opened, I presume, captain?’

‘It is opened.’

‘I must see it--and ruminate on what we once were: it is a thing I like doing. The ghosts of our dead--Ah, what was that?’

‘I heard nothing.’

‘I thought I heard a footstep behind us.’

They stood still; but the road appeared to be quite deserted, and likely to continue so for the remainder of that evening. They walked on again, speaking in somewhat lower tones than before.

‘Will the late Sir William’s death delay the wedding much?’ asked the younger man curiously.

De Stancy languidly answered that he did not see why it should do so. Some little time would of course intervene, but, since there were several reasons for despatch, he should urge Miss Power and her relatives to consent to a virtually private wedding which might take place at a very early date; and he thought there would be a general consent on that point.

‘There are indeed reasons for despatch. Your title, Sir William, is a new safeguard over her heart, certainly; but there is many a slip, and you must not lose her now.’

‘I don’t mean to lose her!’ said De Stancy. ‘She is too good to be lost. And yet--since she gave her promise I have felt more than once that I would not engage in such a struggle again. It was not a thing of my beginning, though I was easily enough inflamed to follow. But I will not lose her now.--For God’s sake, keep that secret you have so foolishly pricked on your breast. It fills me with remorse to think what she with her scrupulous notions will feel, should she ever know of you and your history, and your relation to me!’

Dare made no reply till after a silence, when he said, ‘Of course mum’s the word till the wedding is over.’

‘And afterwards--promise that for her sake?’

‘And probably afterwards.’

Sir William De Stancy drew a dejected breath at the tone of the answer. They conversed but a little while longer, the captain hinting to Dare that it was time for them to part; not, however, before he had uttered a hope that the young man would turn over a new leaf and engage in some regular pursuit. Promising to call upon him at his lodgings De Stancy went indoors, and Dare briskly retraced his steps to Markton.

When his footfall had died away, and the door of the house opposite had been closed, another man appeared upon the scene. He came gently out of the hedge opposite Myrtle Villa, which he paused to regard for a moment. But instead of going townward, he turned his back upon the distant sprinkle of lights, and did not check his walk till he reached the lodge of Stancy Castle.

Here he pulled the wooden acorn beside the arch, and when the porter appeared his light revealed the pedestrian’s countenance to be scathed, as by lightning.

‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Power,’ said the porter with sudden deference as he opened the wicket. ‘But we wasn’t expecting anybody to-night, as there is nobody at home, and the servants on board wages; and that’s why I was so long a-coming.’

‘No matter, no matter,’ said Abner Power. ‘I have returned on sudden business, and have not come to stay longer than to-night. Your mistress is not with me. I meant to sleep in Markton, but have changed my mind.’

Mr. Power had brought no luggage with him beyond a small hand-bag, and as soon as a room could be got ready he retired to bed.

The next morning he passed in idly walking about the grounds and observing the progress which had been made in the works--now temporarily suspended. But that inspection was less his object in remaining there than meditation, was abundantly evident. When the bell began to toll from the neighbouring church to announce the burial of Sir William De Stancy, he passed through the castle, and went on foot in the direction indicated by the sound. Reaching the margin of the churchyard he looked over the wall, his presence being masked by bushes and a group of idlers from Markton who stood in front. Soon a funeral procession of simple--almost meagre and threadbare--character arrived, but Power did not join the people who followed the deceased into the church. De Stancy was the chief mourner and only relation present, the other followers of the broken-down old man being an ancient lawyer, a couple of faithful servants, and a bowed villager who had been page to the late Sir William’s father--the single living person left in the parish who remembered the De Stancys as people of wealth and influence, and who firmly believed that family would come into its rights ere long, and oust the uncircumcized Philistines who had taken possession of the old lands.

The funeral was over, and the rusty carriages had gone, together with many of the spectators; but Power lingered in the churchyard as if he were looking for some one. At length he entered the church, passing by the cavernous pitfall with descending steps which stood open outside the wall of the De Stancy aisle. Arrived within he scanned the few idlers of antiquarian tastes who had remained after the service to inspect the monuments; and beside a recumbent effigy--the effigy in alabaster whose features Paula had wiped with her handkerchief when there with Somerset--he beheld the man it had been his business to find. Abner Power went up and touched this person, who was Dare, on the shoulder.

‘Mr. Power--so it is!’ said the youth. ‘I have not seen you since we met in Carlsruhe.’

‘You shall see all the more of me now to make up for it. Shall we walk round the church?’

‘With all my heart,’ said Dare.

They walked round; and Abner Power began in a sardonic recitative: ‘I am a traveller, and it takes a good deal to astonish me. So I neither swooned nor screamed when I learnt a few hours ago what I had suspected for a week, that you are of the house and lineage of Jacob.’ He flung a nod towards the canopied tombs as he spoke.--‘In other words, that you are of the same breed as the De Stancys.’