I politely pulled forward the most comfortable of the wicker chairs.

"Thanks. You're an American, Mr. Wynn?" he asked.

"That's so," I said, wondering how he guessed it so soon.

We got on famously while we waited for Mary, chatting about England in general and Cornwall in particular. He'd been vicar of Morwen for over forty years.

I had to confess that I'd not seen much of the neighborhood at present, though I hoped to do so now I was better.

"It's the loveliest corner in England, sir!" he a.s.serted enthusiastically. "And there are some fine old houses about; you Americans are always interested in our old English country seats, aren't you? Well, you must go to Pencarrow,--a gem of its kind. It belongs to the Pendennis family, but--"

"Pendennis!" I exclaimed, sitting up in astonishment; "not Anthony Pendennis!"

He looked at me as if he thought I'd suddenly taken leave of my senses.

"Yes, Anthony Pendennis is the present owner; I knew him well as a young man. But he has lived abroad for many years. Do you know him?"

CHAPTER XXIX

LIGHT ON THE PAST

"Yes, I've met him once, under very strange circ.u.mstances," I answered.

"I'd like to tell them to you; but not now. I don't want my cousin to know anything about it," I added hastily, for I heard Mary's voice speaking to the maid, and knew she would be out in another minute.

"May I come and see you, Mr. Treherne? I've a very special reason for asking."

He must have thought me a polite lunatic, but he said courteously:

"I shall be delighted to see you at the vicarage, Mr. Wynn, and to hear any news you can give me concerning my old friend. Perhaps you could come this evening?"

I accepted the invitation with alacrity.

"Thanks; that's very good of you. I'll come round after dinner, then.

But please don't mention the Pendennises to my cousin, unless she does so first. I'll explain why, later."

There was no time for more, as Mary reappeared.

A splendid old gentleman was the Rev. George Treherne. Although he must certainly have been puzzled by my manner and my requests, he concealed the fact admirably, and steered clear of any reference to Pencarrow or its owner; though, of course, he talked a lot about his beloved Cornwall while we had tea.

"He's charming!" Mary declared, after he had gone. "Though why a man like that should be a bachelor beats me, when there are such hordes of nice women in England who would get married if they could, only there aren't enough men to go round! I guess I'll ask Jane Fraser."

She paused meditatively, chin on hand.

"No,--Jane's all right, but she'd just worry him to death; there's no repose about Jane! Margaret Haynes, now; she looks early Victorian, though she can't be much over thirty. She'd just suit him,--and that nice old vicarage. I'll write and ask her to come down for a week or two,--right now! What do you think, Maurice?"

"That you're the most inveterate little matchmaker in the world. Why can't you leave the poor old man in peace?" I answered, secretly relieved that she had, for the moment, forgotten her anxiety about Anne.

She laughed.

"Bachelorhood isn't peace; it's desolation!" she declared. "I'm sure he's lonely in that big house. What was that he said about expecting you to-night?"

"I'm going to call round after dinner and get hold of some facts on Cornish history," I said evasively.

I hadn't the faintest notion as to what I expected to learn from him, but the moment he had said he knew Anthony Pendennis the thought flashed to my mind that he might be able to give me some clue to the mystery that enveloped Anne and her father; and that might help me to shape my plans.

I would, of course, have to tell him the reason for my inquiries, and convince him that they were not prompted by mere curiosity. I was filled with a queer sense of suppressed excitement as I walked briskly up the steep lane and through the churchyard,--ghostly looking in the moonlight,--which was the shortest way to the vicarage, a picturesque old house that Mary and I had already viewed from the outside, and judged to be Jacobean in period. As I was shown into a low-ceiled room, panelled and furnished with black oak, where the vicar sat beside a log fire, blazing cheerily in the great open fireplace, I felt as if I'd been transported back to the seventeenth century. The only anachronisms were my host's costume and my own, and the box of cigars on the table beside him, companioning a decanter of wine and a couple of tall, slender gla.s.ses that would have rejoiced a connoisseur's heart.

Mr. Treherne welcomed me genially.

"You won't find the fire too much? There are very few nights in our West Country, here by the sea at any rate, when a fire isn't a comfort after sunset; a companion, too, for a lonely man, eh? It's very good of you to come round to-night, Mr. Wynn. I have very few visitors, as you may imagine. And so you have met my old friend, Anthony Pendennis?"

I was thankful of the opening he afforded me, and answered promptly.

"Yes; but only once, and in an extraordinary way. I'll tell you all about it, Mr. Treherne; and in return I ask you to give me every bit of information you may possess about him. I shall respect your confidence, as, I am sure, you will respect mine."

"Most certainly I shall do that, Mr. Wynn," he said with quiet emphasis, and forthwith I plunged into my story, refraining only from any allusion to Anne's connection with Ca.s.savetti's murder. That, I was determined, I would never mention to any living soul; determined also to deny it pointblank if any one should suggest it to me.

He listened with absorbed interest, and without any comment; only interposing a question now and then.

"It is astounding!" he said gravely at last. "And so that poor child has been drawn into the whirlpool of Russian politics, as her mother was before her,--to perish as she did!"

"Her mother?" I asked.

"Yes, did she--Anne Pendennis--never tell you, or your cousin, her mother's history?"

"Never. I doubt if she knew it herself. She cannot remember her mother at all; only an old nurse who died some years ago. Do you know her mother's history, sir?"

"Partly; I'll tell you all I do know, Mr. Wynn,--confidence for confidence, as you said just now. She was a Polish lady,--the Countess Anna Va.s.silitzi; I think that was the name, though after her marriage she dropped her t.i.tle, and was known here in England merely as Mrs.

Anthony Pendennis. Her father and brother were Polish n.o.blemen, who, like so many others of their race and rank, had been ruined by Russian aggression; but I believe that, at the time when Anthony met and fell in love with her,--not long before the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Tzar Alexander the Second,--the brother and sister at least were in considerable favor at the Russian Court; though whether they used their position there for the purpose of furthering the political intrigues in which, as transpired later, they were both involved, I really cannot say. I fear it is very probable.

"I remember well the distress of Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis,--Anthony's parents,--when he wrote and announced his engagement to the young countess. He was their only child, and they had all the old-fashioned English prejudice against 'foreigners' of every description. Still they did not withhold their consent; it would have been useless to do so, for Anthony was of age, and had ample means of his own. He did not bring his wife home, however, after their marriage; they remained in Russia for nearly a year, but at last, soon after the murder of the Tzar, they came to England,--to Pencarrow.

"They did not stay many weeks; but during that period I saw a good deal of them. Anthony and I had always been good friends, though he was several years my junior, and we were of entirely different temperaments; his was, and is, I have no doubt, a restless, romantic disposition. His people ought to have made a soldier or sailor of him, instead of expecting him to settle down to the humdrum life of a country gentleman!

While as for his wife--"

He paused and stared hard at the ruddy glow of the firelight, as if he could see something pictured therein, something that brought a strange wistfulness to his fine old face.

"She was the loveliest and most charming woman I've ever seen!" he resumed emphatically. "As witty as she was beautiful; a gracious wit,--not the wit that wounds, no, no! 'A perfect woman n.o.bly planned'--that was Anna Pendennis; to see her, to know her, was to love her! Did I say just now that she misused her influence at the Russian Court in the attempt to further what she believed to be a right and holy cause--the cause of freedom for an oppressed people? G.o.d forgive me if I did! At least she had no share in the diabolical plot that succeeded all too well,--the a.s.sa.s.sination of the only broad-minded and humane autocrat Russia has ever known. I'm a man of peace, sir, but I'd horsewhip any man who dared to say to my face that Anna Pendennis was a woman who lent herself to that devilry, or any other of the kind--yes, I'd do that even now, after the lapse of twenty-five years!"

"I know," I said huskily. "That's just how I feel about Anne. She must be very like her mother!"

CHAPTER x.x.x