"When was that, sir--t' second lot o' advertis.e.m.e.nts, I mean?" asked John.

"Quite a year after Mrs. Grant's death."

Bolland stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"I remember," he said, "a man at Malton fair sayin' summat aboot an inquiry for me. But yan o' t' hands rode twenty miles across counthry te tell me that Martin had gotten t' measles, an' I kem yam that neet."

"Naturally, I can give you every proof of my statements," said Mr.

Dobson. "They are all here----"

"Mebbe ye'll know this writin'," interrupted Martha, laying down the miniature for the first time. She unlocked a drawer, took out a small tin box, and from its depths produced, among other articles, a crumbling sheet of note paper. On it was written:

"My name is not Martineau. I have killed myself and my boy. If he dies with his unhappy mother he will never know the miseries of this life."

It was unsigned, undated, a hurried scrawl in faded ink.

"Margaret's handwriting," said Colonel Grant, looking at the pathetic message with sorrow-laden eyes.

"It was found on t' poor leddy's dressin'-table, fastened wi' a hatpin.

An' these are t' clothes Martin wore when he fell into John's arms. Nay, sir," she added, as Colonel Grant began examining the little frock, "she took good care, poor thing, that nebody should find oot whe she was.

Ivvery mark hez bin picked off."

"Martin is his feyther's son, or I ken nowt aboot stock," cried John Bolland, making a fine effort to dispel the depression which again possessed the little gathering at sight of these mournful mementoes of the dead past. "Coom, gentlemen, sit ye doon an' hev some tea. Ye'll not be for takkin' Martin away by t' next train. Martha, what's t' matter wi' ye? I've nivver known folk be so lang i' t' hoose afore an' not be asked if they had a mooth."

"Ye're on t' wrang gait this time, John," she retorted. "I axed 'em afore ye kem in. By this time, sure-ly, ye'll be wantin' soom ham an'

eggs?" she added to the visitors.

"By Jove! I believe I could eat some," laughed the colonel.

Martha smiled once more. She liked Martin's father. Each moment the first favorable impression was deepening. She was on the point of bustling away to the back kitchen, when they all heard the patter of feet, in desperate haste, approaching the front door. Elsie Herbert dashed in. She was hatless. Her long brown hair was floating in confusion over her shoulders and down her back. She was crying in great gulps and gasping for breath.

"Oh, Mr. Bolland!" she wailed. "Oh, Mrs. Bolland!--what shall I say?

Martin is hurt. He fell off the swing. Angle did it! I'll kill her!

I'll tear her face with my hands! Oh, come, someone, and help father. He is trying to bring back Martin's senses. What shall I do?--it was all on my account. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

And she sank fainting to the floor.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE SEVEN FULL YEARS

But Martin was not dead, nor even seriously injured. At first, the affair looked so ugly--its main features were so incomprehensible--that Mr. Herbert was startled into somewhat panic-stricken action. Here was Martin lying unconscious on the ground, with Elsie kneeling by his side, pa.s.sionately beseeching him in one breath to speak to her, and in the next accusing Angle Saumarez of murder.

The vicar was not blameworthy, in that he failed to grasp either the nature of the accusation or its seeming unreasonableness.

The single rope of the gymnastic swing erected in the garden for Elsie's benefit had been cut deliberately with a sharp knife a few inches above the small bar on which the user's weight was supported by both hands. Of the cutting there could be no manner of doubt. The jagged edges of the few strands left by a devilish ingenuity--so that the swing must need be in violent motion before the rope snapped--were clearly visible at the point of severance. But who had done this thing, and with what deadly object in view? And why did Elsie pitch on Angle Saumarez so readily, glaring at her with such eyes of vengeance that the vicar was constrained to order, with the utmost sternness of which he was capable, that the torrent of words should cease. Indeed, he dispatched her to acquaint the Bollands with tidings of the disaster as a haphazard pretext to get her out of the way. Apart from sensing the accident's inexplicable motive, its history was simple enough.

Before tea was served, Martin and Elsie were using the swing alternately, vying with each other in the effort to touch with their toes the leaves of a tree nearly twenty feet distant from the vertical line of the rope. Angle, of course, took no part in this contest; she contented herself with a sarcastic incredulity when Elsie vowed that she had accomplished the feat twice already.

Martin, stronger, but less skilled in the trick of the swing than the girl, strove hard to excel her. Yet he, too, fell short by a few inches time after time. At last, Elsie vowed that when she was rested after tea she would prove her words, and threw a pebble at the branch which she claimed to have reached a week ago.

Neither Mrs. Saumarez nor the vicar attached any weight to the somewhat emphatic argument between the two girls. It was a splendid contest between Martin and Elsie. It interested the elders for conflicting reasons.

To see the graceful girl propelling herself through the air in a curve of nearly forty feet at each pendulum stroke of the swing was a pleasing sight to her father, but it caused Mrs. Saumarez to regret again that her daughter had not been taught to think more of athletic exercises and less of dress.

While the young people were following their seniors to the drawing-room, Angle said to Elsie:

"I think I could do that myself with a little practice."

"You are not tall enough," was the uncompromising answer, for Elsie's temper was ruffled by the simpering unbelief with which the other treated her a.s.surances.

"Not so tall, no; but I can bend back like this, and you cannot."

Without a second's hesitation Angle twisted her head and shoulders around until her chin was in a line with her heels. Then she dropped lightly so that her hands rested on the gra.s.s of the lawn, straightening herself with equal ease. The contortion was performed so quickly that neither Mr. Herbert nor Mrs. Saumarez was aware of it. It was a display not suited to the conditions of ordinary costume, and it necessarily exhibited portions of the attire not usually in evidence.

Martin had eyes only for the girl's acrobatic agility, but Elsie blushed.

"I don't like that," she said.

"I can stand on my head and walk on my hands," cried Angle instantly.

"Martin, some day I'll show you."

Conscious though she was that these things were said to annoy her, Elsie remembered that Angle was a guest.

"How did you learn?" she asked. "Were you taught in school?"

"School! Me! I have never been to school. Education is the curse of children's lives. I never leave mamma. One day in Nice I saw a circus girl doing tricks of that sort. I practiced in my bedroom."

"Does your mother wish that?"

"She doesn't know."

"I wonder you haven't broken your neck," said the practical Martin, who felt his bones creaking at the mere notion of such twisting.

Angle laughed.

"It is quite easy, when you are slim and elegant."

Her vanity amused the boy.

"You speak as though Elsie were as stiff as a board," he said. "If you had watched her carefully, Angle, you would have seen that she is quite as supple as you, only in a different way. And she is strong, too. I dare say she could swing with one hand and carry you in the other, if she had a mind to try."

This ready advocacy of a new-found divinity angered Angle beyond measure. Possibly she meant no greater harm than the disconcerting of a rival; but she slipped out of the room when Mr. Herbert sent Elsie to the library to bring a portfolio of old prints which he wished to show Mrs. Saumarez. Although it was never definitely proved against Angle, someone tampered with the rope before a move was made to the garden after tea. The cause, the effect, were equally clear; the human agent remained unknown.

"Now, I'll prove my words," cried Elsie, darting across the lawn in front of the others.