"But remember, sir, I want to possess this spot. I wish to be its owner--"

"To dispose of, of course, hereafter,--to make a clear three, four, or five thousand by the bargain, eh?"

"Nothing of the kind, Mr. Hankes. I mean to acquire enough--some one day or other--to go back and dwell there. I desire to have what I shall always, to myself at least, call mine--my home. It will be as a goal to win, the time I can come back and live there. It will be a resting-place for poor Jack when he returns to England."

Mr. Hankes paused. It was the first time Miss Kellett had referred to her own fortunes in such a way as permitted him to take advantage of the circumstance, and he deliberated with himself whether he ought not to profit by the accident. How would she receive a word of advice from him?

Would it be well taken? Might it possibly lead to something more? Would she be disposed to lean on his counsels; and, if so, what then? Ay, Mr.

Hankes, it was the "what then?" was the puzzle. It was true his late conduct presented but a sorry emblem of that life-long fidelity he thought of pledging; but if she were the clear-sighted, calm-reasoning intelligence he believed, she would lay little stress upon what, after all, was a mere trait of a man's temperament. Very rapidly, indeed, did these reflections pass through his mind; and then he stole a glance at her as she sat quietly sipping her tea, looking a very ideal of calm tranquillity. "This cottage," thought he, "has evidently taken a hold of her fancy. Let me see if I cannot turn the theme to my purpose."

And with this intention he again brought her back to speak of the spot, which she did with all the eagerness of true interest.

"As to the association with the gifted spirit of song," said Mr. Hankes, soaring proudly into the style he loved, "I conclude that to be somewhat doubtful of proof, eh?"

"Not at all, sir. Spenser lived at a place called Kilcoleman, from which he removed for two or three years, and returned. It was in this interval he inhabited the cottage. Curiously enough, some manuscript in his writing--part of a correspondence with the Lord-Deputy--was discovered yesterday when I was there. It was contained in a small oak casket with a variety of other papers, some in quaint French, some in Latin. The box was built in so as to form a portion of a curiously carved chimney-piece, and chance alone led to its discovery."

"I hope you secured the documents?" cried Hankes, eagerly.

"Yes, sir; here they are, box and all. The Rector advised me to carry them away for security' sake." And so saying, she laid upon the table a massively bound and strong-built box, of about a foot in length.

It was with no inexperienced hand that Mr. Hankes proceeded to investigate the contents. His well-practised eye rapidly caught the meaning of each paper as he lifted it up, and he continued to mutter to himself his comments upon them. "This document is an ancient grant of the lands of Cloughrennin to the monks of the Abbey of Castlerosse, and bears date 1104. It speaks of certain rights reserved to the Baron Hugh Pritchard Conway. Conway--Conway," mumbled he, twice or thrice; "that's the very name I tried and could not remember yesterday, Miss Kellett.

You asked me about a certain soldier whose daring capture of a Russian officer was going the round of the papers. The young fellow had but one arm too; now I remember, his name was Conway."

"Charles Conway! Was it Charles Conway?" cried she, eagerly; "but it could be no other,--he had lost his right arm."

"I 'm not sure which, but he had only one, and he was called an orderly on the staff of the Piedmontese General."

"Oh, the noble fellow! I could have sworn he would distinguish himself.

Tell me it all again, sir; where did it happen, and how, and when?"

Mr. Hankes's memory was now to be submitted to a very searching test, and he was called on to furnish details which might have puzzled "Our own Correspondent." Had Charles Conway been rewarded for his gallantry?

What notice had his bravery elicited? Was he promoted, and to what rank? Had he been decorated, and with what order? Were his wounds, as reported, only trifling? Where was he now?--was he in hospital or on service? She grew impatient at how little he knew,--how little the incident seemed to have impressed him. "Was it possible," she asked, "that heroism like this was so rife that a meagre paragraph was deemed enough to record it,--a paragraph, too, that forgot to state what had become of its hero?"

"Why, my dear Miss Kellett," interposed he, at length, "one reads a dozen such achievements every week."

"I deny it, sir," cried she, angrily. "Our soldiers are the bravest in the world; they possess a courage that asks no aid from the promptings of self-interest, nor the urgings of vanity; they are very lions in combat; but it needs the chivalrous ardor of the gentleman, the man of blood and lineage to conceive a feat like this. It was only a noble patriotism could suggest the thought of such an achievement."

"I must say," said Hankes, in confusion, "the young fellow acquitted himself admirably; but I would also beg to observe that there is nothing in the newspaper to lead to the conclusion you are disposed to draw.

There's not a word of his being a gentleman."

"But I know it, sir,--the fact is known to _me_. Charles Conway is a man of family; he was once a man of fortune: he had served as an officer in a Lancer regiment; he had been extravagant, wild, wasteful, if you will."

"Why, it can't be the Smasher you're talking of?--the great swell that used to drive the four chestnuts in the Park, and made the wager he 'd go in at one window of Stagg and Mantle's and out at t'other?"

"I don't care to hear of such follies, sir, when there are better things to be remembered. Besides, he is my brother's dearest friend, and I will not hear him spoken of but with respect. Take _my_ word for it, sir, I am but asking what you had done, without a hint, were he only present."

"I believe you,--by Jove, I believe you!" cried Hankes, with an honesty in the tone of his voice that actually made her smile. "And so this is Conway the Smasher!"

"Pray, Mr. Hankes, recall him by some other association. It is only fair to remember that he has given us the fitting occasion."

"Ay, very true,--what you say is perfectly just; and, as you say, he is your brother's friend. Who would have thought it!--who would have thought it!".

Without puzzling ourselves to inquire what it was that thus excited Mr.

Hankes's astonishment, let us observe that gentleman, as he turns over, one by one, the papers in the box, muttering his comments meanwhile to himself: "Old title-deeds,--very old indeed,--all the ancient contracts are recited. Sir Gwellem Conway must have been a man of mark and note in those days. Here we find him holding 'in capite' from the king, twelve thousand acres, with the condition that he builds a strong castle and a 'bawn.' And these are, apparently, Sir Gwellem's own letters. Ah!

and here we have him or his descendant called Baron of Ackroyd and Bedgellert, and claimant to the title of Lackington, in which he seems successful. This is the writ of summons calling him to the Lords as Viscount Lackington. Very curious and important these papers are,--more curious, perhaps, than important,--for in all likelihood there have been at least half a dozen confiscations of these lands since this time."

Mr. Hankes's observations were not well attended to, for Sybella was already deep in the perusal of a curious old letter from a certain Dame Marian Conway to her brother, then Sheriff of Cardigan, in which some very strange traits of Irish chieftain life were detailed.

"I have an antiquarian friend who'd set great store by these old documents, Miss Kellett," said Hankes, with a sort of easy indifference.

"They have no value save for such collectors; they serve to throw a passing light over a dark period of history, and perhaps explain a bygone custom or an obsolete usage. What do you mean to do with them?"

"Keep them. If I succeed in my plans about the cottage, these letters of Spenser to Sir Lawrence Esmond are in themselves a title. Of course, if I fail in my request, I mean to give them to Mr. Dunn."

"These were Welsh settlers, it would seem," cried Hankes, still bending over the papers. "They came originally from Abergedley."

"Abergedley!" repeated Sybella, three or four times over. "How strange!"

"What is strange, Miss Kellett?" asked Hankes, whose curiosity was eagerly excited by the expression of her features.

Instead of reply, however, she had taken a small notebook from her pocket, and sat with her eyes fixed upon a few words written in her own hand: "The Conways of Abergedley--of what family--if settled at any time in Ireland, and where?" These few words, and the day of the year when they were written, recalled to her mind a conversation she had once held with Terry Driscoll.

"What is puzzling you, Miss Kellett?" broke in Hankes; "I wish I could be of any assistance to its unravelment."

"I am thinking of 'long ago;' something that occurred years back. Didn't you mention," asked she, suddenly, "that Mr. Driscoll had been the former proprietor of thia cottage?"

"Yes, in so far as having paid part of the purchase-money. Does his name recall anything to interest you, Miss Kellett?"

If she heard she did not heed his question, but sat deep sunk in her own musings.

If there was any mood of the human mind that had an especial fascination for Mr. Hankes, it was that frame of thought which indicated the possession of some mysterious subject,--some deep and secret theme which the possessor retained for himself alone,--a measure of which none were to know the amount, to which none were to have the key. It would be ignoble to call this passion curiosity, for, in reality, it was less exercised by any desire to fathom the mystery than it was prompted by an intense jealousy of him who thus held in his own hands the solution of some portentous difficulty. To know on what schemes other men were bent, what hopes and fears filled them, by what subtle trains of reasoning they came to this conclusion or to that, were the daily exercises of his intelligence. He was eternally, as the phrase is, putting things together, comparing events, confronting this circumstance with that, and drawing inferences from every chance and accident of life. Now, it was clear to him Miss Kellett had a secret; or, at least, had the clew to one. Driscoll was "in it," and this cottage was "in it," and, not impossibly too, some of these Conway s were "in it." There was something in that note-book; how was he to obtain sight of it? The vaguest line---a word--would be enough for him. Mr. Hankes remembered how he had once committed himself and his health to the care of an unskilful physician simply because the man knew a fact which he wanted, and did worm out of him during his attendance. He had, at another time, undertaken a short voyage in a most unsafe craft, with a drunken captain, because the stewardess was possessed of a secret of which, even in his sea-sickness, he obtained the key. Over and over again had he assumed modes of life he detested, dissipation the most distasteful to him, to gain the confidence of men that were only assailable in these modes; and now he bethought him that if he only had a glimmering of his present suspicion, the precipice and the narrow path and the booming sea below had all been braved, and he would have followed her unflinchingly through every peril with this goal before him. Was it too late to reinstate himself in her esteem? He thought not; indeed, she did not seem to retain any memory of his defection. At all events, there was little semblance of it having influenced her in her manner towards him.

"We shall meet at Glengariff, Mr. Hankes," said Sybella, rising, and replacing the papers in the box. "I mean to return by the coast road, and will not ask you to accompany me."

"It is precisely what I was about to beg as a favor. I was poorly yesterday,--a nervous headache, an affection I am subject to; in short, I felt unequal to any exertion, or even excitement."

"Pray let me counsel you to spare yourself a journey of much fatigue with little to reward it. Frequency and long habit have deprived the mountain tract of all terror for me, but I own that to a stranger it is not without peril. The spot where we parted yesterday is the least dangerous of the difficulties, and so I would say be advised, and keep to the high-road."

Now, there was not the slightest trace of sarcasm in what she said; it was uttered in all sincerity and good faith, and yet Mr. Hankes could not help suspecting a covert mockery throughout.

"I 'm determined she shall see I am a man of courage," muttered he to himself; and then added, aloud, "You must permit me to disobey you, Miss Kellett. I am resolved to bear you company."

There was a dash of decision in his tone that made Sybella turn to look at him, and, to her astonishment, she saw a degree of purpose and determination in his face very unlike its former expression. If she did not possess the craft and subtlety which long years had polished to a high perfection in him, she had that far finer and more delicate tact by which a woman's nature reads man's coarser temperament. She watched his eye, too, and saw how it rested on the oaken box, and, even while awaiting her answer, never turned from that object.

"Yes," said she to herself, "there is a game to be played out between us, and yonder is the stake."

Did Mr. Hankes divine what was passing in her mind? I know not. All he said was,--

"May I order the horses, Miss Kellett?"

"Yes, I am ready."