Instead of answering, he received his cup from her, filled up her tea-pot, and said--

"How long is it since you poured out tea for me, Ermine?"

"Thirteen years next June, when you and Harry used to come in from the cricket field, so late and hot that you were ashamed to present yourself in civilized society at the Great House."

"As if nobody from the Parsonage ever came down to look on at the cricket."

"Yes; being summoned by all the boys to see that nothing would teach a Scotchman cricket."

"Ah! you have got the last word, for here comes Ailie."

"Of course," said Alison, coming in; "Ermine has had the pith of the story, so I had better ask at once what it is."

"That the Beauchamp Eleven beat Her Majesty's --th Foot on Midsummer Day, 1846, is the pith of what I have as yet heard," said Ermine.

"And that Beauchamp ladies are every whit as full of mischief as they used to be in those days, is the sum of what I have told," added Colin.

"Yes," said Ermine, "he has most loyally kept his word of reserving all for you. He has not even said whether Mauleverer is taken."

"My story is grave and sad enough," said Colin, laying aside all his playfulness, and a serious expression coming over his features; but, at the same time, the landlady's sandy cat, which, like all other animals, was very fond of him, and had established herself on his knee as soon as Rose had left it vacant, was receiving a certain firm, hard, caressing stroking, which resulted in vehement purrs on her part, and was evidently an outlet of suppressed exaltation.

"Is he the same?" asked Alison.

"All in due time; unless, like Miss Rachel, you wish to tell me my story yourselves. By-the-bye, how is that poor girl to-day?"

"Thoroughly knocked down. There is a sort of feverish lassitude about her that makes them very anxious. They were hoping to persuade her to see Mr. Frampton when Lady Temple heard last."

"Poor thing! it has been a sad affair for her. Well, I told you I should go over this morning and see Mr. Grey, and judge if anything could be done. I got to the Abbey at about eleven o'clock, and found the policeman had just come back after serving the summons, with the news that Mauleverer was gone."

"Gone!"

"Clean gone! Absconded from his lodgings, and left no traces behind him.

But, as to the poor woman, the policeman reported that she had been left in terrible distress, with the child extremely ill, and not a penny, not a thing to eat in the house. He came back to ask Mr. Grey what was to be done; and as the suspicion of diphtheria made every one inclined to fight shy of the house, I thought I had better go down and see what was to be done. I knocked a good while in vain; but at last she looked out of window, and I told her I only wanted to know what could be done for her child, and would send a doctor. Then she told me how to open the door. Poor thing! I found her the picture of desolation, in the midst of the dreary kitchen, with the child gasping on her lap; all the pretence of widowhood gone, and her hair hanging loose about her face, which was quite white with hunger, and her great eyes looked wild, like the glare of a wild beast's in a den. I spoke to her by her own name, and she started and trembled, and said, 'Did Miss Alison tell you?' I said, 'Yes,' and explained who I was, and she caught me up half way: 'O yes, yes, my lady's nephew, that was engaged to Miss Ermine!' And she looked me full and searchingly in the face, Ermine, when I answered 'Yes.' Then she almost sobbed, 'And you are true to her;' and put her hands over her face in an agony. It was a very strange examination on one's constancy, and I put an end to it by asking if she had any friends at home that I could write to for her; but she cast that notion from her fiercely, and said she had no friend, no one. He had left her to her fate, because the child was too ill to be moved. And indeed the poor child was in such a state that there was no thinking of anything else, and I went at once to find a doctor and a nurse."

"Diphtheria again?"

"Yes; and she, poor thing, was in no state to give it the resolute care that is the only chance. Doctors could be easily found, but I was at my wit's end for a nurse, till I remembered that Mr. Mitchell had told me of a Sisterhood that have a Home at St. Norbert's, with a nursing establishment attached to it. So, in despair, I went there, and begged to see the Superior, and a most kind and sensible lady I found her, ready to do anything helpful. She lent me a nice little Sister, rather young, I thought; but who turned out thoroughly efficient, nearly as good as a doctor. Still, whether the child lives is very doubtful, though the mother was full of hope when I went in last. She insisted that I had saved it, when both she and it had been deserted by Maddox, for whom she had given up everything."

"Then she owned that he was Maddox?"

"She called him so, without my even putting the question to her. She had played his game long enough; and now his desertion has evidently put an end to all her regard for him. It was confusedly and shortly told; the child was in a state that prevented attention being given to anything else; but she knows that she had been made a tool of to ruin her master and you, and the sight of you, Ailie, had evidently stirred up much old affection, and remembrance of better days."

"Is she his wife?"

"No, or the evidence she promises could not be used against him. Do you know this, Ermine?" as he gave her a cover, with a seal upon it.

"The Saracen! the Saracen's head, Colin; it was made with the lost seal-ring!"

"The ring was taken from Edward's dressing-room the night when Rose was frightened with the phosphorus. Maria declares that she did not suspect the theft, or Maddox's purpose, till long after she had left her place.

He effected his practices under pretence of attachment to her, and then could not shake her off. She went abroad with him after the settlement of affairs; but he could not keep out of gambling speculation, and lost everything. Then he seems to have larked about, obtaining means she knew not how--as artist, lecturer, and what not--till the notable F. U. E. E.

was started. Most likely he would have collected the subscriptions and made off with them, if Rachel Curtis had not had just sense enough to trust him with nothing without seeing some result, so that he was forced to set the affair going with Maria at its head, as the only person who could co-operate with him. They kept themselves ready for a start whenever there should be symptoms of a discovery, but, in the meantime, he gambled away all that he got into his hands, and never gave her enough to feed the children. Thus she was absolutely driven to force work from them for subsistence; and she is a passionate creature, whom jealousy embittered more and more, so that she became more savage than she knew. Poor thing! She has her punishment. Maddox only came home, yesterday, too late for any train before the mail, and by that time the child was too ill to be moved. He must have thought it all up with him, and wished to be rid of both, for they quarrelled, and he left her to her misery."

"What, gone?"

"Yes, but she told us of his haunts--haunts that he thought she did not know--a fancy shop, kept by a Mrs. Dench at Bristol, where it seems that he plays the philanthropical lecturer, and probably has been trying to secure a snug berth for himself unknown, as he thought, to Maria; but she pried into his letters, and kept a keen watch upon him. He was to be inquired for there by his Mauleverer name, and, I have little doubt, will be captured."

"And then?"

"He will be committed for trial at the sessions; and, in the meantime, I must see Beauchamp and Dr. Long, and arrange that he should be prosecuted for the forgery, even though he should slip through our fingers at the sessions."

"Oh, could that be?"

"This Clever Woman has managed matters so sweetly, that they might just as well try her as him for obtaining money on false pretences; and the man seems to have been wonderfully sharp in avoiding committing himself.

Mrs. Curtis's man of business has been trying all day to get up the case, but he has made out nothing but a few more debts such as that which turned up yesterday; and it is very doubtful how far a case can be made out against him."

"And then we should lose him."

"That is exactly what I wish to avoid. I want to bring up my forces at once, and have him laid hold of at once for the forgery of those letters of Edward's. How long would it take to hear from Ekaterinburg? I suppose Edward could travel as fast as a letter."

Alison fairly sprang to her feet.

"O, Colin, Colin! you do not think that Edward would be here by the next sessions."

"He ought," said Colin. "I hope to induce Dr. Long and Harry to write him such letters as to bring him home at once."

Self-restrained Alison was fairly overcome. She stretched out both hands, pressed Colin's convulsively, then turned away her face, and, bursting into tears, ran out of the room.

"Poor dear Ailie," said Ermine; "she has suffered terribly. Her heart is full of Edward. Oh, I hope he will come."

"He must. He cannot be so senseless as to stay away."

"There is that unfortunate promise to his wife; and I fear that he is become so much estranged from English ways that he will hardly care to set himself straight here, after the pain that the universal suspicion gave him."

"He cannot but care. For the sake of all he must care," vehemently repeated Colin, with the punctilious honour of the nobly-born soldier.

"For his child's sake, this would be enough to bring him from his grave.

If he refused to return to the investigation, it would be almost enough to make me doubt him."

"I am glad you said almost," said Ermine, trying to smile; but he had absolutely brought tears into her eyes.

"Dear Ermine," he said, gently, "you need not fear my not trusting him to the utmost. I know that he has been too much crushed to revive easily, and that it may not be easy to make him appreciate our hopes from such a distance; but I think such a summons as this must bring him."

"I hope it will," said Ermine. "Otherwise we should not deserve that you should have any more to do with us."

"Ermine, Ermine, do you not know that nothing can make any difference between us?"

Ermine had collected herself while he spoke.

"I know," she said, "that all you are doing makes me thank and bless you--oh! more than I can speak."