"Never had any creature more need of your protection than my child has," said Honoria. "This young life and mine are the sole obstacles that stand between Sir Reginald Eversleigh and fortune. You know what baseness and treachery he and his ally are capable of committing. You cannot, therefore, wonder if I imagine all kinds of dangers for my darling."

"No," replied the captain; "I can only wonder that you consent to leave her."

"Ah, you do not understand. Can you not see that, so long as those two men exist, their crimes undiscovered, their real nature unsuspected in the world in which they live, there is perpetual danger for my child?

The task which I have set myself is the task of watching these two men; and I will do it without flinching. When the hour of retribution approaches, I may need your aid; but till then let me do my work alone, and in secret."

This was the utmost that Lady Eversleigh told Captain Copplestone respecting the motive of her absence from the castle. She placed her child in his care, trusting in him, under Providence, for the guardianship of that innocent life; and then she tore herself away.

Nothing could exceed the care which the veteran soldier bestowed upon his youthful charge.

It may be imagined, therefore, that nothing short of absolute necessity would have induced him to leave the neighbourhood of Raynham during the absence of Lady Eversleigh.

Unhappily this necessity arose. Within a fortnight after the night on which Black Milsom had been invited to supper in the servants'-hall, Captain Copplestone quitted Raynham Castle for an indefinite period, for the first time since Lady Eversleigh's departure.

He was seated at breakfast in the pretty sitting-room in the south wing, which he occupied in common with the heiress and her governess, when a letter was brought to him by one of the castle servants.

"Ben Simmons has just brought this up from the 'Hen and Chickens,'

sir," said the man. "It came by the mail-coach that passes through Raynham at six o'clock in the morning."

Captain Copplestone gazed at the superscription of the letter with considerable surprise. The handwriting was that of Lady Eversleigh, and the letter was marked _Immediate and important_.

In those days there was no electric telegraph; and a letter conveyed thus had pretty much the same effect upon the captain's mind that a telegram would now-a-days exercise. It was something special--out of the common rule. He tore open the missive hastily. It contained only a few lines in Honoria's hand; but the hand was uncertain, and the letter scrawled and blotted, as if written in extreme haste and agitation of mind.

"_Come to me at once, I entreat. I have immediate need of your help.

Pray come, my dear friend. I shall not detain you long. Let the child remain in the castle during your absence. She will be safe with Mrs.

Morden_.

"_Clarendon Hotel, London_."

This, and the date, was all.

Captain Copplestone sat for some moments staring at this document with a look of unmitigated perplexity.

"I can't make it out," he muttered to himself.

Presently he said aloud to Mrs. Morden--

"What a pity it is you women all write so much alike that it's uncommonly difficult to swear to your writing. I'm perplexed by this letter. I can't quite understand being summoned away from my pet. I think you know Lady Eversleigh's hand?"

"Yes," answered the lady; "I received two letters from her before coming here. I could scarcely be mistaken in her handwriting."

"You think not? Very well, then, please tell me if that is her hand,"

said the captain showing Mrs. Morden the address of the missive he had just received.

"I should say decidedly, yes, that is her hand."

"Humph!" muttered the captain; "she said something about wanting me when the hour of retribution drew near. Perhaps she has succeeded in her schemes more rapidly than she expected, and the time is come."

The little girl had just quitted the room with her nurse, to be dressed for her morning run in the gardens. Mrs. Morden and the captain were alone.

"Lady Eversleigh asks me to go up to London," he said, at last; "and I suppose I must do what she wishes. But, upon my word, I've watched over little Gertrude so closely, and I've grown so foolishly fond of her, that I don't like the idea of leaving her, even for twenty-four hours, though, of course, I know I leave her in the best possible care."

"What danger can approach her here?"

"Ah; what danger, indeed!" returned the captain, thoughtfully. "Within these walls she must be secure."

"The child shall not leave the castle, nor shall she quit my sight during your absence," said Mrs. Morden. "But I hope you will not stay away long."

"Rely upon it that I shall not remain away an hour longer than necessary," answered the captain.

An hour afterwards he departed from Raynham in a post-chaise.

He left without having taken any farewell of Gertrude Eversleigh. He could not trust himself to see her.

This grim, weather-beaten old soldier had surrendered his heart entirely to the child of his dead friend. He travelled Londonwards as fast as continual relays of post-horses could convey him; and on the morning after he had received the letter from Lady Eversleigh, a post-chaise covered with the dust of the roads, rattled up to the Clarendon Hotel, and the traveller sprang out, after a sleepless night of impatience and anxiety.

"Show me to Lady Eversleigh's rooms at once," he said to one of the servants in the hall.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the man; "what name did you say?"

"Lady Eversleigh--Eversleigh--a widow-lady, staying in this house."

"There must be some mistake, sir. There is no one of that name at present staying in the hotel," answered the man.

The housekeeper had emerged from a little sitting-room, and had overheard this conversation.

"No, sir," she said, "we have no one here of that name."

Captain Copplestone's dark face grew deadly pale.

"A trap!" he muttered to himself; "a snare! That letter was a forgery!"

And without a word to the people of the house, he darted back to the street, sprang into the chaise, crying to the postillions,

"Don't lose a minute in getting a change of horses. I am going back to Yorkshire."

The intimacy with the household of Raynham Castle, begun by Mr.

Maunders at the supper in the servants'-hall, strengthened as time went by, and there was no member of the castle household for whom Mr.

Maunders entertained so warm a friendship as that which he felt for Matthew Brook, the coachman. Matthew began to divide his custom between the rival taverns of Raynham, spending an evening occasionally at the "Cat and Fiddle," and appearing to enjoy himself very much at that Inferior hostelry.

About a fortnight had elapsed after the comfortable supper-party at the castle, when Mr. Milsom took it into his head to make a formal return for the hospitalities he had received on that occasion.

It happened that the evening chosen for this humble but comfortable entertainment was the evening after Captain Copplestone's departure from the castle.

The supper was well cooked, and neatly placed on the table. A foaming tankard of ale flanked the large dish of hissing steaks; and the gentlemen from the castle set to work with a good will to do justice to Mr. Maunders's entertainment.

When the table had been cleared of all except a bowl of punch and a tray of glasses, it is scarcely a matter for wonder if the quartette had grown rather noisy, with a tendency to become still louder in its mirth with every glass of Mr. Milsom's excellent compound.

They were enjoying themselves as much as it is in the power of human nature to enjoy itself; they had proposed all manner of toasts, and had drunk them with cheers, and the mirth was at its loudest when the clock of the village church boomed out solemnly upon the stillness of night, and tolled the hour of ten.