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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 Microsoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/foundoutstoryOOmathrich 
 
FOUND OUT 
 
FOUND OUT 
 
 A STORY 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF 
 "COMIN* THRO' THE RYE.' 
 
 LONDON 
 FREDERICK WARNE AND CO 
 
 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND. 
 
 {All Rights Reserved.) 
 
LOAN STACK 
 
 ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL 
 
 January 17, 1885 
 
 (!)>u+-* 
 
FOUND OUT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The love that I hae chosen, 
 
 I'll therewith be content, 
 The saut sea shall be frozen, 
 
 Before that I repent. . . . 
 Repent it shall I never, until the day I dee. 
 
 The windows of Mallinger Towers struck out north, 
 south, east and west, bright shafts of light which 
 announced to all whom it might concern that its 
 master was at home, and about to hold one of those 
 elegant revels with which he occasionally delighted 
 the county. One room alone in all the vast pile 
 threw out no beams upon the darkness, nor did it 
 boast any light within, save what was furnished by 
 some pallid moonbeams that struggled through the 
 upper part of a window from which the shutter had 
 fotted, and so made partly visible the desolation of a 
 spot that seemed to be alike shunned by the eye and 
 foot of man. 
 
 An indescribable sense of rust and disuse was in 
 
 B 
 
 901 
 
2 FOUND OUT. 
 
 the air, unutterably bleak and forlorn looked tbc long 
 vista of polished boards upon which no scrap of 
 furniture rested, no sign of human occupation or life 
 showed, offering a startling contrast to the lofty walls 
 that were peopled, and panoplied, and most richly set 
 forth by the dead. For here were whole groups of 
 arms and armour, varying in age from the stone 
 period with its simple knife, axe, and arrow fashioned 
 out of flint, down to those equally simple, but more 
 deadly weapons with which science enables man the 
 more readily to slay his brother. Here were no 
 dummies, no show-pieces bought for their curiosity 
 and beauty; each portion of armour had been worn, 
 each arm had been used, and a virtuoso would have 
 spent years in the due appreciation of a collection 
 that one man of taste alone had gathered together, 
 and another man of genius had arranged. 
 
 If a spy could have cut off his feet, and got a 
 fellow spy to hook him to the wall, then there would 
 be no reason why half a hundred men should not 
 look out upon the deserted chamber, and overhear any 
 ghostly secrets that might be flitting abroad ; but as 
 it was, no living thing bigger than a rat could have 
 hid itself in the room, or been for a second concealed 
 from any one who entered. « 
 
 Flint, bronze, iron and steel, beautiful were the 
 effects produced by their arrangement ; each sheaf of 
 weapons with its appropriate suit of armour below, 
 however rude and faulty in some instances : but reach- 
 ing its maximum of perfection in the cuirass of a 
 Boman, so exquisitely moulded to the form that when 
 represented in sculpture, it is hardly possible to dis* 
 tinguish it from the nude figure. 
 
FOUND OUT. 3 
 
 Here the moonlight touched an Assyrian's shield and 
 justaucorpSy there an axe-head that thrust by a Ganl 
 into the cleft branch of a growing tree, became so 
 firmly a part of the bough, that flint and wood were 
 welded together into a weapon with which he might 
 defy his enemies ; yonder one saw those Grecian arms 
 with whose aim and clamour Homer has filled the 
 earth ; not a nation was left unrepresented, not a 
 missile discovered from former ages was absent from 
 this room, the richest in historic wealth, as it was the 
 most shunned, of the whole house. And so it hap- 
 pened that miracles of industry, beauty, and splendid 
 memories of by-gone heroes, rusted unnoticed, and all 
 the art of the man who had grouped them was lost ; 
 and this because a trivial thing enough had happened 
 here twenty years ago — the death of a man by his 
 own hand. 
 
 Be sure that from beneath many a strangely 
 fashioned helm the spirit of a brave man looked out 
 and despised him as he fell, though his nearest and 
 dearest may have wept over him as bitterly as if he 
 had been carried home from a battle in which he had 
 lost himself only to secure victory to his cause. 
 
 Ay, here a coward had slain himself, and under 
 such circumstances that perhaps he would have done 
 worse for himself and his, had he left the room alive. 
 Only from that day forth the fencing-room was closed, 
 and none were known to cross its threshold save the 
 master of the house, who came now and again to 
 practise alone that rapier play in which he had been 
 engaged with his friend, when that friend had slipped 
 the button from his foil, and turning it against his 
 own breast — died. 
 
 b2 
 
4 FOUND OUT. 
 
 The master of the house was an adept in the use 
 of arms, and to this extraordinary proficiency might 
 be due the ease, grace and elegance of all his move- 
 ments, and that look and gesture of vigorous alertness 
 which the constant use of the foil and broadsword 
 invariably bestow ; but of late years he had somewhat 
 neglected the practice, and had not in fact entered 
 this room for many months. 
 
 But what is that faint sound yonder but the click 
 of a closing panel ? And is there not a presence, a step, 
 a flutter as of movement in the deserted place ? What 
 is this tall shape, that shrouded in black steals from 
 the shadow of the wall into the moonbeams, and 
 trembling, palpitating, gazes fearfully around as if in 
 search of it knows not whom, in horror of it knows 
 not what ! It shrinks as it reaches the centre of the 
 room, and looks down as if in search of the blood- 
 stain it knows to be there, then lifts its hand in an 
 attitude of listening to the ghostly tapping of a 
 branch outside the window, then glances over its 
 shoulder to where — see, is not that a rat stealing 
 towards her ? 
 
 For it is a woman, and with a stifled cry, she stoops, 
 and with one bare arm sweeps her draperies clear of 
 the floor, then retreats backwards to the wall, where 
 beneath a magnificent Mascaron sword that seems in 
 the very act of descending on her head, she cowers 
 and listens with her whole soul ! But there was only 
 the tap, tap of the bough on the pane, the scurrying 
 of invisible armies of rats behind the wainscot, the 
 play of the moonbeams on dinted sword, and battered 
 shield, on helmets that gasped, grinned, showed here 
 a dolphin's head outline, and there a pig's snout, anon 
 
FOUND OUT. 5 
 
 a pot-de-fer worn by one of Louis XIV/s soldiers, 
 and now a Russian's, misshapen, with the face of a 
 gargoyle, and seeming to watch with a malevolent leer 
 the shrinking girl whose eyes it had caught. And she 
 was a-cold, a- cold — the very love-warmth within was 
 failing her, and the courage that had brought her hither 
 seemed to her superhuman now that in chill blood she 
 reflected upon it, knowing that any moment the panel 
 might unclose to admit her father. 
 
 But whence came this icy stream of wind that she 
 suddenly felt play over her, and who was . this that 
 having entered by the window, closed it, and replaced 
 the shutters, then came swiftly up the room, holding 
 out impatient arms into which the girl ran as for her 
 very life ? 
 
 " Oh, Jack, the rats ! * 
 
 " Oh, Kitty, you ! " 
 
 They were warm now, and safe. " Imparadised in 
 one another's arms/'' and then — for surely a young 
 man is a fool who does not put his kisses first, and his 
 words afterwards — he gave neither himself nor her a 
 chance of speech for a full minute, though of course 
 it was the woman who recovered her voice first. 
 
 " This is very wrong, Jack \ v she said, reproachfully, 
 hiding her head on his shoulder to avoid a new on- 
 slaught. 
 
 " Very/' said Jack, u and as delicious as it's wrong. 
 Oh, Kitty, Kitty ! Dearest, sweetest, loveliest, truest, 
 truest Kitty, to think that I have got you here ia my 
 arms, and that I have not seen you these two years, 
 and that you love me, and by to-morrow — O ! was 
 there ever such a lucky, miserable wretch on 
 earth?" 
 
6 FOUND OUT. 
 
 "Yes," she said, softly, "for I am just such 
 another. Even if you had not been going away to- 
 morrow, I could not meet you again as I am meeting 
 you here to night." 
 
 "What?" he said, then put her back, and framing 
 her face in his hands, turned it so as to face the 
 moonlight. " And have you made him a promise?" 
 
 " When he brought me from school," she said, 
 gently, " I promised him that I would not write to you, 
 or send you a message, or even speak to you, if by 
 accident I met you outside Mallinger gates, and he 
 said he would make it his business that I should 
 not meet you inside them, and I am breaking the 
 spirit of my agreement by meeting you here to- 
 night." 
 
 "So there was an agreement?" said Jack, swiftly. 
 
 "Yes. That if I made no attempt to see or 
 marry you, I should not on the other hand be asked 
 to marry any one else — without my consent." 
 
 u And that no man living shall get," said Jack, 
 fiercely. " But do you mean to say that we are to go 
 on dying of love for each other indefinitely?" 
 
 " It is only for a year and a half," said Kitty, a 
 smile breaking over all her face. "You would not 
 let me finish the story — my promises of good beha- 
 viour were only to last till I was twenty-one ! And 
 so you really think I am dying for you, Jack ?" 
 
 " If you are not, you ought to be," he said, giving 
 her arm a little shake. " Just think of what these 
 two years have been for me, without a word or a sign 
 from you, not even knowing your whereabouts — or 
 that fifty men might not be as crazy to marry you as 
 lam!" 
 
FOUND OUT. 7 
 
 €t Oh ! " said . Kitty, with a rueful smile ; " there 
 were no men — only masters, you know — and in the 
 holidays there were not even those — only father, who 
 came twice in every year to make sure that you had 
 not found me out !" '* .. 
 
 "And he made all sure by swearing you to a 
 promise/' said Jack, bitterly; "and he has his spies 
 everywhere — that's why I asked you to meet me here 
 to-night, because there isn't a servant in the place 
 that dares put his head inside the door." 
 
 " But he dares," said Kitty, with a glance of fear 
 at the distance ; u and he said, Jack, and that is why I 
 came — at least, partly — that if he caught you here, he 
 would treat you like any other burglar who came 
 clandestinely about his house !" 
 
 " Let him catch me first," said Jack, with vigour ; 
 then seeing how her head drooped, suddenly snatched 
 her in his strong young arms and so crushed her that 
 she cried out, 
 
 " Oh, Jack, Jack, my ball- dress ! " 
 
 He put her down hastily ; he had seen only the black 
 cloak, felt only the milk-white arms round his neck ; 
 but now he found the moonlight insufficient, and won- 
 dered that he could have, satisfied himself with so pale 
 a glimpse of her. 
 
 " Let me look at you/' he said, and struck a match 
 and held it above her in the one hand, while with 
 the other he unfastened her cloak, masterfully as any 
 bridegroom to whom has willingly come his bride. 
 The clasps yielded, the cloak slipped down, and lay in 
 a heap, while out of it the girl shone like an angel in 
 white, to which a hoar-frost of diamonds had clung 
 as she descended to mother earth. The match went 
 
8 FOUND OUT. 
 
 out, but the moonlight did here more lovely service 
 surely as she stood silent before him, and he said 
 slowly : 
 
 " You are altered, Kitty, and grown." 
 
 " Am I too tall, Jack ?" she said, looking up at 
 him proudly, and thinking that never had girl so 
 brave a wooer as this blue-eyed, sunny-haired young 
 soldier of six feet, for a sight of whom her heart had 
 ached so bitterly during the past two years. 
 
 " Am i" too tall, Kitty ?" he said, catching that 
 tender glow of love and pride in him, in her eyes. 
 
 " You — you are Jack."" 
 
 " And you,'-' he said, " oh, there is no name for you, 
 but Kitty — just Kitty — and you shall be that to no 
 other man living so long as I am above earth, " and 
 he crushed her once more in an embrace that took 
 her breath away, and in its despair startled her with a 
 foreboding of coming evil. 
 
 " What is it, Jack ? " she whispered. " We are true 
 as death to one another — and the year and a half will 
 soon be up — and if I can wait that little time, cannot 
 you t" 
 
 " You may have to wait too long," he said, " for we 
 are ordered abroad on active service, and every day 
 expect to get orders to sail. It was with the utmost 
 difficulty I got here to-night — contriving the whole 
 plan of seeing you on my way — but I have seen you, 
 Kitty, and come what may, we have had this one half- 
 hour together." 
 
 She shivered a little as if she felt the loss of 
 her cloak, then slipped out of his arms to stoop and 
 find it ; but her eyes were dim, and it was Jack's 
 hand that drew it about her, slowly and grudgingly 
 
FOUND OUT. 9 
 
 hiding from his eyes the exquisite shape that half a 
 hundred men's eyes would be privileged to gaze on that 
 night. 
 
 As he fastened the clasps beneath her chin, their 
 eyes met, and one gentle hand stole out and rested 
 like a snowflake on his breast. 
 
 " Jack/ 7 she said, " I could brave anything now that 
 I have seen you, and if you do not come back, I shall 
 remember you/ -5 
 
 And then she kissed him, for the first time perhaps 
 in her life of her own free will, and moved as if to 
 leave him. He could not stay her , he knew that 
 those precious minutes, calculated by him like a miser, 
 were up, and that if after the dressing-bell, an hour 
 was her own, the ringing of the dinner one must 
 summon her to the room which held her father, pos- 
 sibly already suspicious of her absence. 
 
 « Good-bye, Jack ! " 
 
 « Good-bye ! » 
 
 Even the Russian helm seemed to grin with less 
 malevolence as it looked clown upon the kiss that 
 might be the very last in which the two pairs of 
 beautiful young lips would meet. 
 
CHAPTER IT. 
 
 And when lie came to that castle, 
 
 They were sat down to dine, 
 A score o' nobles there he saw, 
 
 Sat drinkin' at the wine. 
 
 Mallinger Dash wood happened to be the only person 
 in the white drawing-room when his daughter entered 
 it, and he came to meet her with as cold and polished 
 a courtesy as if she had been his guest. 
 
 She met him in his own spirit ; and seen side by 
 side the resemblance between father and daughter was 
 very striking, for both were hazel- eyed and brown- 
 haired, both had that stag-like carriage of the head, 
 and perfect symmetry of limb that marked them out 
 as uncommon in a crowd, and dwarfed all other men 
 and women to insignificance beside them — though here 
 the likeness ceased, for in heart and expression there 
 could not be found a greater contrast than between 
 Mallinger and Katharine Dashwood. 
 
 " Your dress is in excellent taste/" he said, his cold 
 eyes scanning her from head to foot. u You have 
 dropped the school-girl, and yet you do not flaunt the 
 heiress ; but surely that is a tear upon your cheek ? 
 Allow me" — and he removed it — " I would advise you 
 in future to confine them to your pillow ; they are out 
 of place in a ball-room " 
 
 " Like my heart," said his daughter, as the door 
 opened, and a lady came fluttering in, whose attire 
 
FOUND OUT. ii 
 
 seemed to consist of a few cerulean clouds,, loosely 
 clasped together with pearls. 
 
 " Ah ! Mrs. Vivien ! " said her host, as he went to 
 meet her, " you bring us summer skies — and this is my 
 daughter, fresh from school, and dancing to-night at 
 her first ball." 
 
 Mrs. Vivien opened her blue eyes with some astonish- 
 ment, and as they slowly travelled up to the crown of 
 Katharine's stately head, they said, as if she had spoken, 
 u Too tall!" but in her heart she thought, " Too young, 
 too fresh ! " 
 
 " And so your cousin could not come/'' said Mr. 
 Dashwood, as he left her to meet half a dozen people 
 who now came in, followed so quickly by others that 
 in a few minutes the twenty or so of dinner guests 
 were assembled, and the women were taking languid 
 stock of one another, and all the men were looking at 
 Katharine. 
 
 Now there showed one uncommon feature in this 
 company, that there was not a single plain or unin- 
 teresting person in it ; for Dashwood asked his guests 
 to please himself, and was himself entertained by the 
 beauty, wit and agreeability with which he furnished 
 his house for the time being. 
 
 It was his habit to send with each invitation a 
 printed menu of the proposed guests, so that all such 
 awkward accidents as the meeting of a lady with a 
 former admirer, or of a gentleman with a lady who 
 was only vice-regent of his affections, were entirely 
 averted ; and an invitation from royalty was not 
 coveted so eagerly as one that carried its cachet of 
 beauty to every woman who received it. 
 
 The men might be wits if they pleased, so might 
 
12 FOUND OUT. 
 
 the women; but intellect without good looks was 
 rigorously excluded, perhaps because so large a por- 
 tion of the wit was furnished by the master of the 
 house himself. 
 
 The men of the county came eagerly when invited 
 by Dashwood — came to look, to sigh, to get a whole 
 liberal education from the contemplation of such 
 charms as they had never dreamed of; and the 
 best-looking women of the county, however seldom 
 asked, came also, only to retire with secret tears, 
 and a deadly hatred for the milliners who had 
 betrayed them. 
 
 They had no stones to sling at the heads of these 
 smart people, who all spoke affectionately of their 
 absent lords, and to every one of whom had befallen 
 that accident from which even the most fashionable 
 fine lady is not exempt — viz., a baby; they did not 
 know their inner lives, but could only gauge them by 
 the perfection of their clothes, which they found im- 
 mortal. 
 
 u Do we wait for any one ? * said Lady Becky 
 Selwyn, looking up at her host, " and we are all so 
 hungry !" 
 
 " Mr. B is not here," said Dashwood, "we 
 
 will give him one minute more of grace — in which I 
 may smell your roses/' he added, and stooped to the 
 yellow cluster that adorned the breast of her white 
 velvet gown. 
 
 " Mr. B •- and Mr. Velasquez/' announced the 
 
 butler from the door, and Mallinger Dashwood looked 
 up to see the great man approaching, with a far 
 younger and taller man beside hirn, at sight of whom 
 he started violently, and put out his hand as if to 
 
FOUND OUT. 13 
 
 wave him back, but the next moment he had met and 
 welcomed the pair. 
 
 "My secretary, Mr. Velasquez/' the great man 
 said ; though if he had introduced him as one of his 
 secretaries, he would have spoken nearer the truth. 
 But when the host moved to introduce the two men 
 to his daughter, it was the turn of Mr. Velasquez to 
 start, to change colour, as his hand touched hers, 
 while something looked at her out of his black eyes 
 that she nevei forgot, aud never understood until — 
 until— 
 
 " Dinner is served," said the butler ; and the great 
 man, on the tiptoe of ecstasy at having so many pretty 
 souls on which to gaze, offered Katharine his arm, and 
 strutted out with her, resolved that queen and country 
 notwithstanding, he would throw statesmanship to the 
 dogs, and remain here a whole week. 
 
 Mr. Velasquez fell to the lot of Mrs. Vivien, and 
 proved himself unusually quiet for a young man of 
 such extraordinary personal attractions. 
 
 To the richness, colour and grace given by Southern 
 blood, he united the splendid stature and build of the 
 best style of Englishman ; his manners and gestures 
 too were thoroughly British, but not so the sadness of 
 his eyes, and a curious quietude of features, that to 
 close observers suggested a volcano of slumbering pas- 
 sion beneath. 
 
 u A brown beauty," said Mrs. Vivien, her eyes fol- 
 lowing his to Katharine, who sat opposite her father 
 at the middle of the long oval table. 
 
 " No, a hazel one, I think," he said, " she is so ex- 
 tremely fair. She is Mr. Dash wood's only daughter V 3 
 
 " Yes, and his heiress, if she marries with his con- 
 
14 FOUND OUT. 
 
 sent. But he is evidently in no hurry, for there is 
 not a man here he would accept as a son-in-law." 
 
 " No/' said Mr. Velasquez, looking round, "they all 
 seem more or less attached." 
 
 " I have never met you in society," said Mrs. 
 Vivien, flashing a pair of scornful turquoise eyes on the 
 insensibility of his black velvet ones, " so how do you 
 know how we live — nous autres ? 
 
 " Private secretaries have opportunities," he said ; 
 then paused and looked, as if by accident, at a man 
 opposite who was regarding Mrs. Vivien's animated 
 manner with very decided dissatisfaction. 
 
 " Ah ! poor Noll ! " she said, lightly, " but he is 
 beginning to tire me. Mallinger made a mistake in 
 asking us here together. It is our future admirers, 
 not our present ones, who should be asked to meet 
 us ! 
 
 " Is there a single husband here, par hazard ? " 
 said Mr. Velasquez, looking round. 
 
 But Mrs. Vivien at that moment made Noll, other- 
 wise Lord Oliver, happy by turning her back upon 
 Mr. Velasquez and concerning herself solely with her 
 dinner. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Bhyning was the painted ha 9 
 
 Wi' gladsum torches bricht 
 
 Full twenty gowden dames sate there 
 
 And ilk ane by a hnicht : 
 
 Wi' music cheer 
 
 To please the ear, 
 
 When bewtie pleased the sicht. 
 
 The "host and the private secretary did not approach 
 each other until the gentlemen left the dinner for the 
 ball-room, and then it was at once visible that they 
 were the two handsomest men in it, though a difference 
 of five-and-twenty years lay between them. 
 
 Their rapprochement was in so far curious that each 
 waited for the other to speak, and over the eyes of both 
 an invisible curtain seemed suddenly drawn, leaving 
 them blank of speculation, or even natural inquiry as 
 they looked at each other. 
 
 "You remind me of some one I once knew, Mr. 
 Velasquez/' said his host, after a moment or two of 
 silence, in which there was yet no hesitation. 
 
 " A lady ? " said Velasquez. 
 
 " A lady. She lived in this neighbourhood for many 
 years ,} 
 
 {< And her name ? " said Velasquez, his sombre eyes 
 rayless as pools of ink. 
 
 " Mrs. Fitzhugh, the wife of my friend." 
 
 " I have heard the story," said Mr. Velasquez; and 
 then Mr. Dashwood's duties took him away, and in a 
 few minutes the dance had begun. 
 
 Perhaps those present numbered a hundred souls, 
 
16 FOUND OUT. 
 
 all told — all pleasant to the eye, all bent on dancing 
 the old year out and the new year in, and all as 
 heathenishly oblivious to the sins of the past year, as 
 they were ready to commit them over again in the 
 coming one. 
 
 All save two persons, one of whom was dancing 
 with Katharine; for seeing him quite alone, she had 
 asked if she should find him a partner ? Whereupon 
 he had taken her, and Mallinger Dash wood had smiled, 
 
 then at the first opportunity asked Mr. B where 
 
 he had picked up his secretary. 
 
 He found the great man happy, his eagle eye roving 
 from charm to charm, and wishing that like the 
 census he could embrace them all, and only in the 
 interval of his spasms of admiration could be extracted 
 any information as to Mr. Velasquez. 
 
 "Yes — yes, a handsome fellow — and I know that 
 you like handsome fellows ; but look at that woman's 
 back — and this one's shoulders — and there's an arm ! 
 where did I pick him up ? Oh ! he's a protege of my 
 wife — and he does light work for me — his parents are 
 dead — look at that goddess in amber ! Introduce me, 
 for Heaven's sake — and if her husband isn't a peer, 
 I'll make him one ! " 
 
 "But she must make you happy first," said Mr. 
 Dashwood with a slight smile, as he moved away ; and 
 having effected the introduction, glanced cynically 
 around on an assemblage out of which he would only 
 have owned one as daughter, and not one as wife. 
 
 Not that there was a woman present that the most 
 tight-laced dowager in society could have presumed to 
 flout, or refuse to introduce to her young daughters. 
 No reckless Mcenad flung her arms aloft here, no 
 Bacchanal with roving glances swam in the dance ; 
 
FOUND OUT. 17 
 
 the only difference between this ball room (apart from 
 its planning) and any other in the county, lay in the 
 loveliness of the women, and the perfection of their 
 adorning; but this seemed a a great deal to the 
 handsome outsiders present that night. 
 
 Perhaps the room helped them — for Mallingcr 
 Dashwood had too keen a perception of the beauty 
 of a woman's skin to offer it a light background, and 
 so gave it a foil in a wainscoting of black oak to the 
 height of twenty feet ; but set the wax lights some- 
 what low, leaving such curious eyes as could raise 
 themselves so high, to follow the friskings of those 
 gods or goddesses who, whether on the upper walls or 
 ceiling, seemed never to have frisked enough for their 
 own and lovers' content. 
 
 Few men lifted their eyes so high, the flesh and 
 blood charms below contented them so well ; but to- 
 night a girl looked up, and her partner's eyes followed, 
 for already it seemed natural to him to note her every 
 word and glance, just as he and she seemed the only 
 pair possible to each other out of the whole room. 
 
 The women said, with a sneer, that she danced with 
 him because, save her father, there was not another 
 man present by whom her stature would not look 
 uncouth; but Katharine had scarcely noticed her 
 partner's looks, she had only felt drawn to him by one 
 of those curious instincts of natural affinity, of like 
 towards like, that reveals itself when two persons meet 
 in the midst of surroundings that in each of them 
 equally arouse mistrust or fear. 
 
 "The ceiling is beautiful," said Mr. Velasquez, 
 " but the room above it must be more beautiful still." 
 
 She started violently, and looked at him with a 
 
18 FOUND OUT. 
 
 lightning dread, suspicion, and tremor all in one. In 
 some subtle way she felt him to understand — so 
 that for a minute the two stood gazing at each other, 
 with an expression curiously out of place in the ball- 
 room, and offering a target to the eyes and words of 
 the lookers-on. 
 
 " Are your thoughts of heaven ?" said a woman's 
 voice beside Mallinger, and the tap of a flower fell on 
 his arm, " for surely the young pair you are watchiog 
 have found it ! " 
 
 " No," said her host, " I was thinking at that 
 moment of Providence — how it brings all things 
 to those who wait — even revenge. And as a 
 case in point, see this lace flounce in tatters; and 
 now Mrs. Vivien is happy — for Providence has 
 destroyed the only stumbling-block to her being the 
 best dressed woman in the room." 
 
 u Next to your daughter/'' said Lady Alice, ruefully. 
 " Dear Dashwood, if you must have her here to eclipse 
 us all, why on earth could you not leave her to the 
 mercies of a country dressmaker? All our men are 
 in love with her, but not one of them dare go near 
 her for fear of offending us !" 
 
 " There is safety in numbers," said Mallinger, care- 
 lessly. 
 
 " But not with a Mr. Velasquez," said Lady Alice, 
 gathering her tatters around her preparatory to flight. 
 " Can't you see that on both sides it is a case of love 
 at first sight ?" 
 
 " Is it ?" said Dashwood, and smiled as the lady 
 fluttered away — then his face changed, an extraordinary 
 expression playing upon it, but inscrutable to the eyes 
 that at intervals had intently watched him throughout 
 the evening. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The sword was sharp, and sore did bite, 
 
 I tell you in certain ; 
 
 To the heart he did him smite. . . . 
 
 "When Mr. Dashwood went next morning an hour 
 or so after breakfast to look for his guests, he found 
 them with one consent in the picture-gallery, engaged 
 in the noble pursuit of a " fly-hunt."" The great man 
 himself was standing on a chair, and puffing his cheeks 
 out in his efforts to keep aloft a descending scrap of 
 white paper, the while he steadied himself by the waist 
 of the nearest lady, while the rest of the men and 
 women (with two exceptions) were rushing hither and 
 thither, pell-mell, their bodies bent backwards and 
 upwards, blowing like cherubs towards the descending 
 atoms that not ill resembled snow, and being beaten 
 backward by those vigorous breaths from below, 
 retreated only to flutter down again on the heads and 
 faces of the struggling host. 
 
 Lord Noll's head had just met Lady Becky's in a 
 sounding crack that eclipsed the deeper anguish of 
 Lord Dolly, whose toes had just been danced upon by 
 the finest and heaviest romper present ; Jack St. 
 Leger had nearly got his teeth knocked out by the 
 agile bound of a portly Venus just beneath his chin. 
 The great man at this moment overbalanced himself, 
 but with the grace of second childhood tumbled plump 
 into a beauty's arms ; two lovers had shown such 
 heartless indifference to each, other's bruises, that 
 
 c2 
 
20 FOUND OUT. 
 
 already a change of cicisbeo floated in the lady's mind ; 
 and all were growing hot and dishevelled (however 
 freely Hogarth's line of beauty might be displayed) 
 when a cool, inquiring voice was heard to say, " Is 
 this a new intellectual amusement ?" and the fly- 
 catchers brought their chins down with a haste that 
 nearly dislocated them. 
 
 " It is a fly-hunt/' said Mrs. Vivien, who had been 
 giving only the faintest possible puffs upwards, " an 
 invention of my own, and splendid exercise" — she 
 looked sweetly round on the flushed countenances, the 
 disordered tresses of her dearest friends, as they threw 
 themselves down on the nearest chairs — (C and we are 
 all rather hot — I fear we have made a good deal of 
 noise.'" 
 
 She was not in the least hot herself, and had not a 
 curl out of place, and Mallinger Dashwood smiled 
 cynically as he glanced at her, then at the only 
 other cool woman in the room — his daughter. She 
 was standing at a farther window, looking out, and 
 with her was Mr. Velasquez. Long ago they had 
 turned their backs on the vulgar romp, and now were 
 gazing down at a long avenue that in the night had 
 become so beautifully frosted over with snow, that as 
 one gazed, one almost expected an invisible horn to 
 sound, and to see a multitude of fairies and merry- 
 men sweep up the long arcade, vanishing away like 
 morning dew as they neared the house ! 
 
 "The secretary's duties are light/*' said Mrs. Vivien, 
 glancing at the pair by the window. 
 
 " And your rule is heavy," said her host, as his 
 eyes travelled from one distressed group of fly-catchers 
 to another. 
 
FOUND OUT. 21 
 
 " Oh ! I have a better amusement for the evening/' 7 
 she said airily, " it does not make you so hot, and it 
 is much more amusing." 
 
 " What is that ? " said Lord Dolly, who sat at her 
 elbow, and punished his face with a red silk handkerchief. 
 
 " You light a candle," said Mrs. Vivien, " and put 
 it on a table. Then you go four paces away from the 
 candle and have your eyes bandaged. Then you go 
 straight ahead and blow the candle out." 
 
 " But do you ? " said Lord Dolly. 
 
 " I never knew but one person who did," said Mrs. 
 Vivien, placidly, "and she was a woman — and of course 
 peeped — but if we all try to-night, somebody may be 
 honestly lucky ! " 
 
 "No more waste of breath for me," said Lord 
 Dolly, piously, " and I think Miss Dashwood's very 
 wise," he added, " to keep out of it/' 
 
 " Perhaps she preferred Mr. Velasquez's sighs to 
 his puffs," said Mrs. Vivien languidly, then turned her 
 back on Lord Doily, as another man approached. 
 
 His collar was limp, he too was flourishing a hand- 
 kerchief like a towel, and he had an exhausted air as 
 he sank down beside her. 
 
 (f I know a better game than that," he said, between 
 gasps ; " you all shut your eyes and draw a pig — then 
 compare your pigs afterwards — and it's more 4un, and 
 less loss of breath ! '* 
 
 " That will suit some of these people better," said 
 Mrs. Vivien, glancing round on the more or less 
 prostrate charms scattered through the room, "mean- 
 while we must amuse ourselves. Go and tell Mr. 
 Dashwood I want to see that splendid collection of 
 armour he has got in the fencing-room." 
 
22 FOUND OUT. 
 
 Lord Dolly stared,, but went, and had to go pretty 
 far as Mr. Dashwood had just reached the isolated 
 couple by the window, and was politely asking them if 
 they did not feel the cold. Neither had time to answer 
 before Lord Dolly came up, and delivered his message 
 verbatim. 
 
 " To be sure/ 3 said Mallinger Dashwood, but with- 
 out turning, and his eyes full on Mr. Velasquez. 
 
 If he had been looking at his daughter, if her dress 
 even had touched him, he must have seen the change, 
 or felt the shock that thrilled her ; but he saw only 
 Velasquez, who stood as one to whom his host's words 
 had no concern, and in another moment Dashwood 
 had turned on his heel, and rejoined Mrs. Vivien. 
 
 " It is too cold to go out," she said, with a sarcastic 
 glance at the ruffled female plumage around her, " and 
 I have heard so much about your beautiful armour — 
 will you take us to see it ? " 
 
 Some of those who heard her, held their breath at 
 her audacity — was she not aware that this was the one 
 closed chamber in the house, and to which reference 
 was profoundly shunned ? 
 
 For a moment Mrs. Vivien's and Mallinger Dash- 
 wood's eyes met like flint and steel ; then with a 
 backward look at the young pair by the window, and 
 with an* odd gesture that combined impatience and 
 invitation, he said : 
 
 " Come." 
 
 And they did come, flashing after him like a gay 
 company of paroquets, rejoicing in the coolness that 
 met them as they traversed endless corridors, coming 
 at last to a heavily moulded door, of which the key 
 was in the host's pocket. 
 
FOUND OUT. 23 
 
 " So you come here yourself sometimes/' said Lady 
 Becky as he produced it, iu her clear penetrating voice. 
 
 " To be sure, why not ? I have nothing to fear ; " 
 but some one within earshot shuddered as he stepped 
 over the threshold, for in the clear morning light 
 would not those late footprints in the dust show 
 visibly, or perchance a shutter half drawn betray the 
 visitor of over-night. 
 
 But the ladies' whisking skirts, as they spread 
 through the room, quickly obliterated those guilty 
 traces, t and Katharine dared to breathe when Lord 
 Oliver at the one end, and Mr. Velasquez at the 
 other opened the shutters, and let in a flood of light 
 on the desolate, lovely room. 
 
 In the exclamations of delight that rose like a 
 gently increasing storm, the curiosity of Mr.Yelasquez, 
 as to the fastenings, position and surroundings of the 
 window he had just unshuttered were unobserved; 
 even Katharine stood unnoticed, as her eyes rested on 
 the spot were yesternight two lovers had possibly 
 spoken their last good-bye, and where now a crowd of 
 fine ladies trooped and screamed, suspecting rats, and 
 furtively searching for that death-stain which, on some 
 portion of the polished boards, was known to exist. 
 
 Mrs. Vivien did not hunt; she had been intently 
 watching Dashwood's face ever since she entered, and 
 presently approached him. 
 
 " Where is it ? n she said. 
 
 1 c What ? ". questioned her host. 
 
 "The blood-stain — for I suppose there was one?" 
 
 "Here," said Mallinger Dashwood; but it was at 
 Mr. Velasquez that he looked, as he moved to the 
 centre of the room. 
 
24 FOUND OUT. 
 
 All gathered round and peeped, some of the men 
 over the women's shoulders, Mr. Velasquez scarcely 
 so long as the rest; then first one woman shivered, 
 then another, and some with fear and some with a 
 natural revulsion of cold, after the violent heat into 
 which they had romped themselves, so that within 
 three minutes the room was empty; but though Mr. 
 Dashwood locked the door and replaced the key, it 
 somehow happened, in the general scrimmage, that 
 the barring and shuttering of the two great windows 
 was forgotten. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 To ride, to run, to rant, to roar, 
 To always spend and never spare ; 
 I wot, an' lie were the king Mmsel, 
 Of gold and fee he mot be bare. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, say something amusing ! w said 
 Mrs. Vivien, addressing indifferently the dozen or so 
 of men and women who sat round, the drawing-room 
 fire one evening a couple of hours after dinner. 
 
 " I will/' said Lord Dolly, opening his mouth in- 
 stantly. " A man threw a stone at a she- wolf, and 
 hit his mother-in-law, whereupon he remarked, ' Not 
 so bad ! ' This comes direct to us from the ancients.'' 
 
 " Listen," said Lady Becky, when some laughter 
 had subsided, " I will tell you something too. The 
 widow of a fireworks-maker wished to place a suitable 
 epitaph on his tomb, and haunted the surrounding 
 churchyards in search of a hint. She found at last 
 an inscription above an eminent sculptor that exactly 
 suited her taste, and with a trifling alteration caused 
 it to be inscribed on the marble. And this is how it 
 ran ? ' He has gone to a place where alone his ^re- 
 works can be excelled.' M 
 
 " Not so good as Mother-in-law," said Major 
 Beaumont, holding his head in both hands in his 
 effort to extract an idea, " but I know a story " 
 
 " Without middle, beginning, or tail ! M said Mrs. 
 Vivien, cutting him short, " but there is one story I 
 should like to hear " — she glanced hastily round as if 
 
26 FOUND OUT. 
 
 to make sure that no one present was concerned in it — 
 "only unluckily there's not a soul here who knows 
 it!" 
 
 " What is the story ? " said the only outsider pre- 
 sent, a man who had driven twenty miles to dine and 
 stay the night, and who felt himself well rewarded for 
 his trouble. 
 
 " Are you not playing billiards with the rest ? n 
 said Mrs. Vivien, dropping her cold eyes on him as he 
 sat in the background ; " but since you live in the 
 neighbourhood you may know all about it — what 
 happened in the fencing-room here, and why our host 
 shuns it ? M 
 
 " Yes, I know it," said Geoffrey Lang worthy, slowly, 
 " but it is not a pretty tale, and you would not thank 
 me for telling it you. Besides, Dashwood might come 
 in at any moment — or his daughter.*' 
 
 " She has gone to bed, with a headache," said Mrs. 
 Vivien, "and no earthly power would bring him out 
 of the billiard-room before midnight. It is now just 
 eleven — and we are all waiting ! " she added, as she 
 put both arms comfortably behind her head. 
 
 The Other women had also composed themselves to 
 listen, and the fire of bright eyes turned upon him 
 might have discomposed a more accomplished man 
 of the world than Geoffrey. 
 
 " Cheer up, old chap ! " said Lord Noll, encourag- 
 ingly, " they'll all be asleep in two minutes — they 
 only want to get a beauty-sleep for a change ! " 
 
 " But where am I to begin ? n said Mr. Langworthy, 
 helplessly ; " with the old friendship between the two 
 men, or with what happened on a certain day up- 
 stairs ? " 
 
FOUND OUT. 27 
 
 u Begin from the very beginning," said Mrs. Vivien, 
 turning upon him compelling eyes that scattered his 
 wits, then forced him to pick them up again on the 
 spot. 
 
 "They were old friends and neighbours/' began 
 Mr. Langworthy, feebly, " had been at school to- 
 gether, seen life together, travelled everywhere in each 
 other's company, and at last came home to settle 
 down only a few miles apart — only one brought home 
 a wife/'' 
 
 " His name ? " said Lady Becky. 
 
 " Fitzhugh." 
 
 " Ah ! " she said, slowly, " I remember part of the 
 story now — go on.-" 
 
 " She was very lovely, and of Spanish blood, and 
 the friendship between the two men was as unbroken 
 as ever ; but it was well known that Mrs. Fitzhugh 
 did all in her power to keep them apart, and that she 
 would neither visit Malliuger Dash wood in his own 
 house, nor receive him in her husband's/' 
 
 Mr. Langworthy turned with a start, for some one 
 had entered ; but it was only Mr. Velasquez, who 
 took up an attitude of listening a little way off, lean- 
 ing his elbow against a tall majolica jar, evincing no 
 curiosity in the tale. 
 
 " I don't like talking about a fellow in his own 
 house," broke out Langworthy abruptly ; " but there 
 is nothing but good to be told of this one in the 
 story, and he behaved splendidly all through — as every- 
 body thought, excepting Mrs. Fitzhugh." 
 
 " But that comes later," said Mrs. Vivien, impa- 
 tiently, " you left off where Mrs. Fitzhugh came home, 
 and tried to make the men quarrel — she couldn't have 
 
28 FOUND OUT. 
 
 been a very wonderful woman, or she would have 
 done it/' 
 
 "At any rate she did not separate them/'' said 
 Geoffrey, " they were always together, and ran neck- 
 and-neck in their sports and expenses, though Fitzhugh 
 was on his last legs of credit, and Dashwood as wealthy 
 as he is now. They were still known as the two 
 handsomest men in the county, and with the two hand- 
 somest wives, for within three years of Fitzhugh/s 
 marriage, Dashwood himself married; only there was 
 this difference in their wives — that while Fitzhugh was 
 known to adore Ms, Dash wood's wife was known to 
 publicly adore him, and welcomed his friends just as 
 cordially as Mrs. Fitzhugh went out of her way to 
 avoid and dissever them from her husband. ! 
 
 " Oddly enough the two women became friends and 
 met often, but always abroad, or at the house of Fitz- 
 hugh ; and both were so lovely that men would ride 
 fifty miles to see in the same ball-room the two who 
 went by the names of Darkness and Light. " 
 
 " Katharine Dashwood is dark," said Mrs. Vivien, 
 abruptly, " was her mother the Darkness ? w 
 
 " Miss Dashwood is very fair," said Mr. Langwortliy, 
 imperturbably ; " only her hair and eyes lean to dark- 
 ness — and her mother was fairer still, with blue eyes 
 and chestnut hair, while Mrs. Fitzhugh had the colour- 
 ing of — of — " he glanced around as if for inspiration, 
 and his eyes fell on a living illustration of his thought, 
 — u of Mr. Velasquez,"" he said, almost unconsciously. 
 
 " Then she must have been very beautiful," said the 
 greatest lady present, with all the insolence of her 
 rank, and looking at the young man; "and is Mr 
 Velasquez by chance — a relation ? w 
 
FOUND OUT. 29 
 
 But as Mr. Velasquez neither stirred nor spoke, tlie 
 halting story was again begun, though with consider- 
 able doubt as to the point from which it started. 
 
 " But the dark beauty always cut the fair one out, 
 and some people said that one of the husbands did not 
 like it ; but Dashwood had been married scarcely a 
 year when all rivalries between the two women were 
 over, and the end came." 
 
 " And one woman or the other was at the bottom 
 of it !" said Lady Becky. 
 
 " No one was ever sure of it," said the story-teller, 
 nervously, and at once thrown out of his bearings ; 
 "women don't always tell the truth, you know, when 
 they are mad with grief?" 
 
 " Or at any other time 7" said Lord Dolly, with an 
 air of inquiry. 
 
 " We are getting the story in shreds and tatters/' 
 cried Mrs. Vivien, angrily, ic will everybody hold his 
 tongue till it is told?" 
 
 The men felt the insult inflicted by Mrs. Vivien's 
 masculine pronoun, but the women resolved to deserve 
 the honour, and buttoned their lips up tight, so that the 
 story now went on almost undisturbed to its close. 
 
 " The end came," said Mr. Langworthy (girding up 
 his loins to the task), " when Fitzhugh came over one 
 morning to see Dashwood, and being pressed by his 
 host to remain, he consented, then wrote a letter to 
 his wife accounting for his absence, and this letter was 
 duly sent and delivered. Now Dashwood had a pas- 
 sion for all exercises of the sword, and would spend 
 hours in the fencing-room practising alone ; and so 
 angry was he at interruption that no one had the right 
 of entree to it save his friend Fitzhugh, and his butler. 
 
3 o FOUND OUT, 
 
 u It was to this room that the two friends adjourned 
 later, and hither the butler presently brought a letter 
 addressed to his master. 
 
 lc He found the two gentlemen fencing, and appar- 
 ently not in the best of humours ; indeed, their play 
 struck him as so dangerous that he was glad to stop 
 it, and at the first pause, presented the letter and re- 
 tired, but only to the other side of the door, which was 
 thick. 
 
 " For a while he heard nothing, then only the 
 murmur of voices, then something louder ; and at last 
 a cry in his master's voice that made him rush in, to 
 see Fitzhugh in the act of plunging a rapier through 
 his breast, and sink backwards to the floor. 
 
 u Even in that moment of horror, the man thought 
 he observed a scrap of white close to the rapier's hilt, 
 but when he returned from the search for help on 
 which his master sent him, the rapier was clean, save 
 of blood, and only an open letter lay beside him. He 
 picked it up, and at the iD quest the letter was pro- 
 duced." 
 
 "A love-letter from his wife to his friend, probably/* 
 said Lady Alice, cynically. 
 
 " No — a letter from Dashwood's banker.'* 
 
 " Could any one prove that the letter Mr. Dash- 
 wood received, and the letter produced, were one and 
 the same ? ** said Mr. Velasquez, quietly. 
 
 « "Why, what farther proof would you have ? ■' said 
 Langworthy, wheeling round to look at the young 
 man, " a messenger from a bank brought it, the butler 
 delivered it, and the very same letter and envelope 
 were found by Fitzhugh — besides, his own wife had 
 cashed the cheque ! " 
 
FOUND OUT. 31 
 
 "But the butler spoke of something white — prob- 
 ably some scrap of paper — on his rapier," said Mr. 
 Velasquez, in the same quiet tone ; may not two letters 
 on totally different subjects have got mixed on that 
 fatal occasion ? " 
 
 " There was never any such question of such an 
 accident/' said Mr. Langworthy, coldly, " nor could 
 even the idea occur to any sane man. Circumstantial 
 evidence so entirely supported that of Mr. Dashwood 
 at the inquest that, had he given any other, he must 
 have been proved. a liar. He gave that evidence re- 
 luctantly enough, but without the slightest hesitation, 
 to the following effect : 
 
 " On the day in question Fitzhugh had ridden over 
 to see him, soon after breakfast, and in the course of 
 the morning they had a conversation about a small 
 piece of land Fitzhugh wished to sell, and that he 
 wished to buy ; and having agreed as to terms, he 
 wrote a cheque for the amount and gave it to his 
 friend, asking him to stay and dine with him that 
 evening, Mrs. Dashwood being then ill upstairs, and 
 in some danger, from a chill she had taken after her 
 confinement. 
 
 " Fitzhugh assented, but said he must write to his 
 wife not to expect him home, and he went into the 
 library for that purpose, whither presently Dashwood 
 followed him, and the letter being ready, a servant 
 was rung for, and a mounted messenger despatched 
 with it, the time being about half-past one o'clock. 
 
 " They then lunched together and went to the 
 stables, afterwards playing billiards, and finally went 
 to the fencing-room, where they had been practising 
 rapier play for about half an hour, when the butler 
 
32 FOUND OUT. 
 
 brou glit him a letter from the manager of his bank, 
 who wrote that a cheque for a very large amount 
 signed by Mr. Dashwood had been presented by Mrs. 
 Fitzhugh, and cashed within the last hour, but after 
 her departure, something unusual about the signature 
 attracted the cashier's attention, and he had come to 
 him with the cheque, which was for £3,000. The 
 cheque handed to Fitzhugh that morning in payment 
 of the piece of land was £300 (the exact price that 
 had, for some weeks past, been placed on it by the 
 seller), and Mr. Dashwood's first impression was that 
 he had made some mistake in the figures in filling in 
 the cheque; and he at once handed the letter to 
 Fitzhugh, asking him at the same time if he had 
 looked at the cheque before enclosing it in the note 
 he had sent to his wife." 
 
 Mr. Langworthy paused, and a quick breath ran 
 like a sigh round the listening circle, while into Mr. 
 Velasquez's eyes leaped a fire that made a curious 
 contrast with the quietude of his manner, as he 
 said : 
 
 " Docs this account rest solely on Mr. Dashwood's 
 testimony ? " 
 
 " It does/' said Mr. Langworthy. " On the testi- 
 mony of a man of unblemished honour, and whose 
 every word, as I have before said, is substantiated 
 by facts/' 
 
 "If the dead could speak, they might possibly tell 
 a different tale," said Mr. Velasquez, tranquilly. 
 
 " I doubt it," said Geoffrey, " and as Mr. Dash- 
 wood's guest, you would do well to keep such doubts 
 to yourself." 
 
 "I am not his guest," replied the young man, 
 
FOUND OUT. S3 
 
 quietly; a I am here as Mr. B.'s servant, and provided 
 for like any other of his goods and chattels." 
 
 " Pretty cool that, for a man who aspires to Mr. 
 Dashwood's most valuable belonging ! " whispered 
 Lady Becky, in an audible aside to Lord Oliver. 
 
 " Why will you talk ? " cried Mrs. Vivien, impa- 
 tiently, " we shall have Dashwood himself walking in 
 before the tale is half over ! What did Pitzhugh say 
 when he confronted him with the letter ? " 
 
 " At first he said it was a mistake — then confessed 
 that being on the verge of ruin, the thought had 
 struck him as he was enclosing the cheque to his wife 
 to substitute for it another, and Dashwood's cheque- 
 book lying beside him, he had torn one out, and in a 
 moment of madness had filled it in and forged the sig- 
 nature, then endorsing the cheque in his own hand- 
 writing, despatched it to his wife with a request that 
 she would drive at once to the bank and get it cashed. 
 He had not expected discovery to come so soon ; but 
 now it was here, he threw himself on his friend's 
 mercy, promising to refund the money if Dashwood 
 would acknowledge the signature to be his own.'' 
 
 A slight sound in the background made the ladies 
 start and look round to see Mr. Velasquez, pale, with 
 flaming eyes, his lofty figure towering above them all 
 in the rage and passion that swelled him. 
 
 " A Fitzhugh beg like a craven to a Dashwood ! " 
 he said, in low intense tones before which the women 
 shrunk — " was ever there such a clumsily concocted, 
 preposterous tale?" 
 
 " Pray, sir," said Mr. Langworthy, on looking round, 
 fi are you a relation ? " 
 
 P Perhaps," said Mr. Velasquez carelessly ; " but I 
 
 D 
 
34 FOUND OUT. 
 
 should like to hear the end of this romance. After 
 Mr. Fitzhugh had gone down on his knees to Mr. 
 Dashwood, what happened?" 
 
 "What happened was witnessed by the butler," 
 said Mr. Langworthy, turning his back on the young 
 man; " what went before occupied a very few moments. 
 As Dashwood for a moment hesitated, appalled at his 
 friend's guilt, Fitzhugh suddenly slipped the button 
 from his foil, and ran himself through the heart, 
 falling backwards at the very moment that the servant 
 rushed in, startled at the cry Dashwood had uttered, 
 when too late he perceived Fitzhugh's intention." 
 
 "But the man who would rather die than face 
 dishonour was scarcely the man to forge his friend's 
 name," said Mrs. Vivien, thoughtfully ; " it is a curious 
 story, and the only explanation of it is — a woman. 
 How did Mrs. Fitzhugh take it ? " she added, 
 abruptly. 
 
 When they came to tell her that he was dead, 
 they found her sitting beside a table on which was 
 thrown down in a heap a mass of bank-notes and 
 gold, at which she seemed to look in loathing, as they 
 entered. 
 
 "When they (old her the truth, she said, 'It was 
 well for him to die, since he could take alms from his 
 enemy ! ' and those around said her face was not half 
 so terrible then, as when, two hours before, she had 
 returned from that errand which her husband had 
 begged of her to undertake. 
 
 " Then even as she spoke — they said — her face 
 changed, and she threw up her arms, called upon him 
 as if she knew he lived to answer, then like a mad- 
 woman fled out, and across the whole three miles of 
 
j FOUND OUT. 35 
 
 country till she reached the Towers, and all stood back 
 as she went straight to the fencing-room where her 
 husband still lay, and Dash wood still stood, in his soul 
 lamenting that he had not been quicker with the word 
 and look of forgiveness that might have saved his 
 friend's life." 
 
 Mr. Velasquez laughed, and Mr. Langworthy swore 
 beneath his breath. 
 
 " Go on/'' said Mrs. Vivien, imperiously. 
 
 " She threw herself down by that scarcely cold body 
 and implored him to speak to her, to forgive her for 
 being angry with him ; then, as she realized that he 
 was dead, rose up and raved like a madwoman at 
 Dashwood, accusing him of having murdered his 
 friend ; then when they showed her the poor hand 
 already stiffened on the rapier as he lay, she cried out 
 that Dashwood had worked upon him by some lies or 
 devilish arts, and added certain wild accusations that 
 no one heeded, and wdiich in truth reflected but little 
 credit on herself/'' 
 
 " What were the accusations ? " said Mr. Velasquez 
 and Mrs. Vivien, simultaneously. 
 
 " She accused him of having made love to her/' 
 said Geoffrey, dryly, " both before and since her 
 marriage — particularly since. She said he had himself 
 contrived to get the cheque forged, and that poor as 
 her husband was, he would have died rather than 
 accept charity from Dashwood. - " 
 
 u And she spoke the truth," said Velasquez. 
 
 " They were the ravings of a madwoman/'' went on 
 Langworthy, in a matter-of-fact tone, " crazed by her 
 loss, and probably were repented as soon as uttered ; 
 for soon she went away quietly with her dead, and 
 
36 FOUND OUT. 
 
 when he was buried — and in Christian ground,, for the 
 verdict was mercifully brought in as death through 
 misadventure — she departed with her only child, a 
 son, and has not been heard of since. Fitzhugh 
 Court was mortgaged to its last acre, and passed at 
 once into other hands ; but to the very end Dash wood 
 tried to help the deluded woman ; and even when his 
 wife lay dead in the house, for her illness had termi- 
 nated fatally, he repeatedly sought an interview with 
 Mrs. Fitzhugh, which was invariably and violently 
 denied. So there the story ends," added Mr. Lang- 
 worthy, in a tone of relief, " and I've told it about 
 as badly as a tale could be told." 
 
 " No, it doesn't end there," said Lady Becky, sharply; 
 €< there is something behind it all — something that will 
 come out one of these days, or I am much mistaken." 
 
 " I think it will," said Mr. Velasquez, quietly. 
 
 " What ? " said a voice not far distant, and the 
 master of the house advanced into the charmed circle 
 that sat by the fireside, but which broke up hastily at 
 his approach. 
 
 " Oh, nothing ! we have only been telling stories," 
 said Mrs. Vivien, stifling a yawn, " and we are all 
 ready for bed" — and in another minute, like a broken 
 string of bright- coloured beads, the ladies had passed 
 up the staircase and out of sight. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Untie is a honnie lird, 
 
 And often flees frae off its nest ; 
 Sae all the world may plainly see 
 
 They're far dwa' that I love hesl. 
 
 "Where is Mr. B ?" said the master of 
 
 Mallinger Towers, as he glanced round the breakfast 
 table next morning, finding enough beauty there to 
 excuse the absence of one who had never contributed 
 so much to the good looks as to the wit of the com- 
 pany. 
 
 Every one looked at Mr. Velasquez, whose office 
 was supposed to be a sinecure ; but he continued his 
 conversation with Katharine, as if he and she were 
 tete-a-tete on a desert island. 
 
 " I beg pardon, sir," said the butler, advancing, 
 " but Mr. B. went out early this morning, and found 
 a deal of young women in the neighbourhood who 
 want their souls saved — and he's praying with them 
 now, and has sent word that if he's very deeply 
 engaged, he may not be home to-night." 
 
 A smile ran round the table, and Lady Becky said, 
 with an innocent air : 
 
 " Did you not know that he was exploring the 
 beauties of the neighbourhood? He has wearied of 
 ours already ! " 
 
 "And how about the business of his country?" 
 said Lord Dolly. 
 
 " Oh! it can wait \" said Lady Becky, " his despatch- 
 
33 FOUND OUT. 
 
 • 
 
 boxes arc in his dressing-room — his Sovereign can 
 
 wait, his country go to perdition, but meanwhile he 
 
 — and his secretary w — she added, softly, " enjoy 
 
 themselves ! " 
 
 "The object for which man was born," said Mallin- 
 ger Dashwood, " and the better to carry it out, I have 
 devised a new amusement for this evening. The mere 
 is frozen, and we will hold a bal masque there instead 
 of in the house/'' 
 
 " Delightful ! ;? cried the women who could skate, 
 and to whom mask and domino meant an intrigue, 
 
 " But we are too small a party to practise deceptions 
 among ourselves," said Lady Becky ; i( and pray, where 
 are the masks and dominoes ? w 
 
 w Oh ! I have bidden the guests," said the host, 
 carelessly, " and you will all find your war-paint 
 in your dressing-rooms, when you go upstairs 
 presently. All the ladies dominces are white, the 
 men's black ; but at supper every one must wear a 
 mask." 
 
 " And where are we to sup ? " asked Mrs. \ ivien, 
 with a shiver ; (c on the mere ? why, we shall be frozen 
 long before supper-time ! " 
 
 " The summer bath-room opens on to the mere/' 
 said Mr. Dashwood ; " it has been boarded over, and 
 makes an excellent ball-room, and behind it is erected 
 the supper tent." 
 
 " We are having too much dancing ! " said Mrs. 
 Vivien, who hated to be taken by surprise ; " why, we 
 have hardly yet got over the fatigue of the other 
 night ! * 
 
 " But you will like this," said Mr. Dashwood. 
 " Let me take you down to the mere presently, then 
 
FOUND OUT. 39 
 
 you will understand the arrangements better ; if there 
 is anything you object to — pray alter it." 
 
 " May I ? " said Mrs. Vivien, colouring a little, and 
 turning to the young lady, who indeed headed her 
 father's table, but showed so few hostess-like airs that 
 there was nothing to distinguish her from any guest 
 present. 
 
 " Of course," said Katharine, in that indifferent 
 voice which so curiously contrasted with her youth, 
 and which, somehow, matched the composure of 
 Mr. Velasquez, suggesting the idea that both were 
 living introspective lives just then, save but for one 
 sole peep-hole on the world — out of which they looked 
 upon one another. 
 
 " I don't think I shall venture on the ice," said 
 Mrs. Beaumanoir, a delicate beauty who rarely courted 
 those rude exercises to which more vigorous beauties 
 were addicted ; " after all, I have a good many letters 
 to write, and think I shall spend the evening in my 
 boudoir ! " 
 
 " What does it matter if we are cold—and do get 
 red noses ? " said , Lady Alice, gaily, yet not without 
 malicious intent, " for my part I intend to work all 
 the havoc I can on the neighbouring squires, and 
 whisper all sorts of scandalous stories of them into 
 their wives' ears! " 
 
 " Only first we must get up some information about 
 their characters," said Lady Becky, briskly, " and I 
 give notice that I shall impound Mr. Langworthy for 
 that purpose. You shall take me to the mere now," 
 she added, to that gentleman, " and put me up to 
 everything, and at supper-time you shall see some fine 
 studies of rage depicted on bucolic countenances !" 
 
40 FOUND OUT. 
 
 " I did not know Langworthy was custodian of the 
 secrets of the county/' said Mr. Dashwood, with a 
 look at his neighbour beneath which the latter coloured, 
 but said, " Since you have none, Dashwood, you need 
 not fear me •" and then the breakfast party broke up, 
 half the women to try on their dominoes, and see if 
 their masks fitted, the other half to wrap up for that 
 pilgrimage to the mere which curiosity dictated. 
 
 After all it was an easy descent, and a surprise to 
 those who made it, snugly covered in from the winds, 
 and softly cushioned so as to make it a pleasant alley 
 for those who chose to linger on the way, heedless of 
 the exclamations of surprise uttered by those who 
 went before, and announced fresh wonders at each 
 step. Mallinger Towers stood on the summit of a 
 gently rising hill, and at its back, and below it, was 
 the summer bath-room, a long and beautiful building, 
 composed almost entirely of white marble, whose 
 eighteen windows looked out on the mere, so that a 
 bather might leap from the bath to the water beyond, 
 and, indeed, many fine ladies and gentlemen frolicked 
 here in time of summer, dressed with as much care as 
 for a reception. 
 
 But to-day no nymphs disported themselves, no 
 floor of marble shone, but only waxed and polished 
 boards ; and each closed alcove that had served as 
 beauty's dressing-bower, now showed a little interior, 
 half visible through curtains of scarlet silk, while 
 against the marble walls a trellis- work of ivy had been 
 attached that in turn supported brackets, whence 
 depended clusters of exotics that sent a breath of 
 sweetness through the warm air, and seemed to 
 mingle with the splash of a fountain that from a bed 
 
FOUND OUT. 41 
 
 of ferns tossed itself high as the archway that closed 
 it in. 
 
 " I like the mere best," said Katharine to Velas- 
 quez, as they turned their backs on the guests and 
 workmen, and side by side stood looking out on the 
 sheet of frozen water before them. 
 
 " One can breathe here/' he said ; " and you will 
 skate to-night ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Her voice was lifeless — how could he tell that at 
 heart she was passionately crying out, " Jack, Jack — 
 my Jack " — how know that in the paper of that 
 morning she had seen something which perhaps meant 
 good-bye for ever to the one, the only sweetheart of 
 her life ? 
 
 Her gaze wandered out over the ice and snow with 
 a deepening of that curious look which made 
 Katharine Dashwood's eyes to strangers at once so 
 lovely and so haunting that they never forgot them — 
 the look that had slowly been growing into them year 
 by year ; just as into the eyes of those who dwell for 
 long months on water, and seldom come into port, is 
 gradually washed a look of the sea, but in its quietude, 
 not its storms. And with Kitty it was the thought 
 of Jack, always Jack, that abode with her, and shaped 
 her life, so that perchance, though she should know 
 him dead, his living presence would remain with her 
 to her dying day. 
 
 "Do you skate, Mr. Velasquez?" said Mrs. Vivien, 
 approaching the silent young pair; "and do you?" 
 she added, turning to Kitty. 
 
 They both answered, " Yes." 
 
 " And every one will know you by your height," 
 
42 FOUND OUT. 
 
 said Mrs. "Vivien, carelessly, " but / shall be able 
 to glide in and out like a wasp — so look out for 
 stings ! " she added, addressing Mr. Velasquez. 
 
 " Or for violent colds," said Mrs. Beaumanoir's 
 discontented voice beside them, " though pray who 
 could put on a fur cloak under a domino without 
 looking perfectly ridiculous ? And if all those win- 
 dows are to be open, how are we to venture in there 
 in ball dresses and a domino only ? M 
 
 "No windows will be open," said Mrs. Vivien, 
 u or so the carpenters say. Those who wish to skate 
 will pass out of the room by a door at the end which 
 is hidden behind a screen." 
 
 " The corner of which I shall take excellent care 
 not to turn ! " said Mrs. Beaumanoir, as with a re- 
 assured air she turned to reascend the incline to the 
 house. 
 
 "And I," thought Mrs. Vivien, "will turn that 
 corner to some advantage to-night, and if all goes 
 well, by this time to-morrow Mallinger Dashwood will 
 be in my power." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 And he was stout and proud-hearted, 
 
 And thought o't bitterlie ; 
 And he's ga'en by the wan moonlight 
 
 To meet his Marjorie. 
 
 At dinner that evening the great man unexpectedly 
 appeared, and complained a little to his host that it 
 was only by merest accident he had heard of the 
 festivity to be held that night. 
 
 " It was a sudden thought/' said Mr. Dashwood, 
 "and my people have been quick in carrying the 
 idea out, and scouring the country for guests, for 
 they are all coming." 
 
 "Even the milkmails!" said Lady Becky, inno- 
 cently, "for I hear, sir (and she pointed a look at 
 the great man), you have been taking lessons in 
 milking lately/' 
 
 " Oh ! one or two/' said Mr. B. with a wave of 
 the hand, as one who puts behind him past follies. 
 "But I have found the farmers' daughters in the 
 neighbourhood very handsome, and very much in 
 need of spiritual information." 
 
 iC Also the housemaids," said Mrs. Vivian, in an 
 audible aside. 
 
 But roused by abstinence to a keener appreciation 
 of the good things around him, the great man pre- 
 sently awoke to the consciousness of unusual beauty 
 in the air, and skipped into his mask and domino 
 with a grace and vigour beyond the scope of a mere 
 
44 FOUND GUT, 
 
 ordinary Apollo a trifle beyond seventy years of 
 age. 
 
 "Remember/'' said Mr. Dashwood to the ladies, 
 before they went upstairs to spend an hour or so in 
 putting on what might be adjusted in ten seconds, 
 u there are to be no scraps of ribbon — no rosebuds 
 or secret signs — we are all to be entire strangers to 
 each other." 
 
 u And say the most cutting thing we can concoct," 
 said Mrs. Beaumanoir ; " but so far as the mere is 
 concerned, everybody is safe from me ! So you are 
 wise," she said to Mrs. Vivien, as they went up the 
 staircase together, and she glanced at the other's 
 evening dress. 
 
 Mrs. Vivien laughed, and there was more laughter 
 in her room later, only of a smothered kind, and of 
 delicious quality, to judge by the way her maid and 
 she enjoyed it. 
 
 No one took longer over the simple process of 
 tying on cloak and mask that night than Mrs. Vivien, 
 unless it might be an unfortunate gentleman whose 
 black domino had disappeared from his dressing-room, 
 a white one appearing in its place, with a white silk 
 mask laid beside it. 
 
 Though small of stature, he was a true Briton in 
 his way, and when he found that there was not a 
 spare black domino to be had for love or money, he 
 sent his valet on an embassy to a lady's maid, from 
 which the man at length returned triumphant, 
 bearing a much-flounced lady's skirt, and a pair of 
 silk stockings and satin shoes. 
 
 To shave off a little golden moustache was the 
 work of a few seconds, though this entailed consider- 
 
FOUND OUT. 45 
 
 able sorrow. But oddly enough, as the valet opened 
 the door for the lady's exit, a lady's maid a few 
 doors distant, covertly opened her lady's door to let 
 out a gentleman. 
 
 Already from below arose sounds as of rapidly 
 succeeding arrivals, but not a single voice. The 
 many servants wore masks, and with dumb show 
 pointed to the descent to the ball-room, or to those 
 other brilliantly-lit rooms, in the house itself, that 
 were open to all who chose to enter. Men and 
 women came in like ghosts, fluttered about a little 
 while apart or in company, then separated, probably 
 not to meet again till supper, for the perpetual 
 recurrence of black and white forms bewildered the 
 gazers, and made them wish that colours had been 
 permitted. 
 
 Half the county women came that night un- 
 willingly, coerced thereto by their lords — the other 
 half gladly, and resolved upon an evening of amuse- 
 ment that would afterwards show in their sober lives 
 like a page torn out of the " Arabian Nights." 
 
 Even in the country, gentlemen are sometimes 
 known to have their wits about them; and a patch 
 here, a bow on the slipper there, may have been as 
 cleverly followed up by them as those subtle hints 
 that almost every great lady present had contrived 
 to introduce into her attire. 
 
 But soon it became evident that Mr. Dashwood 
 had not been wrong in his estimate of the attractions 
 of the mere, for by eleven o'clock at least a couple of 
 hundred guests, leaving the brilliant back- ground 
 of the ball-room behind them, had stolen behind the 
 screen and out to the half-lit darkness where masked 
 
46 FOUND OUT. 
 
 attendants silently strapped on their skates, then 
 away ! away ! like a swallow upon air, would stream 
 out the white domino, and swift as it, the blaek one 
 would stretch out in pursuit ; and the real vigour, life 
 and enjoyment of the ball that night was under the 
 clear stars, and not in the atmosphere that Mrs. 
 Beaumanoir alone found supportable. The sound of 
 music came faintly from within, through the clouded 
 panes of the long windows, a hurly-burly of revolving 
 figures showed to the skaters without; beyond, and 
 flanked by the hill, showed the thousand lights of 
 Mallinger Towers, though none were visible in the 
 window whence Katharine looked out on the scene 
 below. The moon had turned to solid silver all the 
 objects on her dressing table, and the mask and 
 domino that lay beside her; but why should she 
 hurry to don them? 
 
 No hostess was needed, as no host was visible, and 
 she might dream here for another two hours, so long 
 as she appeared in her place at supper, and the 
 carnival would wag no whit the slower or the faster 
 for her presence. She had no secrets to hear 
 from any one ; the one sign of interest in her would 
 be from one as lonely as herself — Mr. Velasquez. 
 And to-morrow in early morning, Jack, the worthiest 
 of all to be among the guests below, would embark iu 
 the midst of the cold and the snow. 
 
 The thought suffocated her ; she sprang up, fastened 
 on her mask, tied her domino about her, then with- 
 out a conjecture as to her looks, ran down the stairs, 
 and mingled with the black and white crowd below. 
 
 A Jesuit might have said that Mr. Dashwood had 
 a special purpose in making all men and women alike 
 
FOUND OUT. 47 
 
 that night; but nobody knew the cost, skill, and 
 thought necessary to produce this company at forty- 
 eight hours' notice — for only on the night of Mr. 
 Velasquez's arrival, had he resolved upon this enter- 
 tainment. 
 
 Time was short, the great man's visit might per- 
 force end on the morrow ; to-night was Mr. Dash- 
 wood's opportunity, and he meant to use it. 
 
 In and out among the winged feet on the ice he 
 flew, with a grace and skill that might have betrayed 
 him to those who knew him best.; but the black 
 domino he pursued out-matched him, even as there 
 always gained upon him a skater who had not for a 
 moment lost sight of him since the ball began. Then 
 Katharine stole out, and with skates adjusted, rushed 
 forward with a buoyant feeling as of wings after 
 stifling air. She was presently found by the man 
 pursued by her father, and in Mr. Dashwood's momen- 
 tary slackening of pace, he found himself overtaken, 
 and with a disguised voice in his ear. 
 
 " Who is Mr. Velasquez ? Why do you fear him ?" 
 
 Mr. Dashwood looked down at the inquirer, a 
 black domino that hardly reached his shoulder, then in 
 an equally disguised voice said,. " I believe he is the 
 guest of our host, and a very handsome young man." 
 
 " So your daughter seems to think — look! Their 
 height makes it impossible to mistake them ! Do 
 you mean to let him marry her V* 
 
 « That is her father's affair." 
 
 " Which is yours ! Now there is some secret 
 connected with that young man, and the story told in 
 the drawing-room last night." 
 
 "Whose drawimr-room?" 
 
48 FOUND OUT. 
 
 « Yours." 
 
 "Was I present?" 
 
 " No — or it would never have been told." 
 
 " Was it to his discredit ?" 
 
 " The world has accepted it as truth. But there 
 are discrepancies in it — and a woman is at the 
 bottom of it." 
 
 "What woman?" 
 
 " Fitzhugh's wife." 
 
 " I have heard that she adored her husband." 
 
 « And hated his friend. Why ?" 
 
 tt Probably a pure matter of taste." 
 
 " She must have had reason. What did you say 
 to him in the fencing-room ? And what became of 
 the letter that the butler saw pinned by the rapier 
 to his breast ? There was no blood- stain on the one 
 found beside him." 
 
 " You are better acquainted with the details than 
 I am." 
 
 u They will be burnt in on your heart before all is 
 done. Why did Mrs. Fitzhugh hate you ? Because 
 she felt your passion for her a dishonour. - " 
 
 " Did such a passion exist ? " said Dashwood, still 
 in disguised tones. " His marriage did not point to 
 such a conclusion." 
 
 " A marriage of pique, and one that his wife did 
 not long survive." 
 
 " I have heard that she died of a chill." 
 
 " To her heart, probably. Supposing that you had 
 been the poor man and Fitzhugh the rich, would the 
 story you swore upon your oath at the inquiry be 
 accepted ? " 
 
 "The farce becomes tiresome/' said the man 
 
FOUND OUT. 49 
 
 addressed, and the next moment was swallowed up in 
 the crowd. 
 
 But before long, the one left behind came up with 
 Katharine and Velasquez, and whispered into the ear 
 of the latter, " What is your secret errand here ? 
 How are you concerned in the story told in the 
 drawing-room last night ? ,J 
 
 Katharine heard the voice, but not the words ; she 
 felt the hand that held hers close on it violently, and 
 at the same moment something was crushed into her 
 other by a black domino who flew past her and out of 
 sight in a second. 
 
 Then she discovered herself to be alone — deserted 
 by Velasquez, but being quickly approached on both 
 sides. She broke swiftly away, nor seemed to draw 
 breath till she gained her chamber. Then with 
 madly beating heart she held the scrap of paper to the 
 light, and knew that her instinct was true, and the 
 message was from Jack. 
 
 "Kitty," it said, " if you are not as false and faithless 
 as you seem, meet me in the fencing-room at one o'clock 
 to-night. Jack. 
 
 She kissed the letter with a sob of joy. What 
 mattered his unjust thoughts of her, when a word 
 from her lips, the cling of her arms round his neck, 
 would silence his doubts for ever ? 
 
 And surely this visit meant that his orders for 
 abroad were countermanded, that war was averted, 
 and he would in the immediate future have the power, 
 if not the will, to seek her, though it might be years 
 before heart and will alike permitted her to beckon 
 him. 
 
 £ 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 He turned Mm richt and round about, 
 As will a, woman's son; 
 Then minded Mm on a little wee hey, 
 That his mither left to Mm. 
 
 5)P w w ^* *lP 
 
 She bade Mm heep tMs little ivee hey 
 Till heivas niaist in need. 
 
 Mr. Velasquez had spent one unprofitable quarter of 
 an hour in search of the domino whose words had so 
 moved him as to drop Katharine's hand, but soon he 
 became aware that he was himself followed, and was 
 shortly addressed in language curiously in unison with 
 his thoughts. 
 
 " Why are you masquerading here ? " said a care- 
 fully disguised voice, " are you ashamed to bear your 
 father's name ? " 
 
 " It is one that I am proud to bear/'' said Velasquez. 
 
 " His death spoke his elegy/' said the hollow voice. 
 
 "No/' said Mr. Velasquez, as one stung at una- 
 wares, and abandoning caution, " it is left to his wife 
 and son to speak the true one." 
 
 " So you are his son ? " 
 
 "I am my father's son." 
 
 " And you love your host's daughter ? ** 
 
 Velasquez did not reply. 
 
 " And our host loved Mrs. Fitzhugh," said a voice in 
 the ear of the man who addressed Velasquez ; " a 
 woman was at the bottom of the fencing-room busi- 
 ness, and perhaps a woman will bring the truth to 
 light yet." 
 
FOUND OUT. 51 
 
 " In the devil's name/'' cried Dashwood, in his 
 natural voice, and trying to seize the black domino, 
 " who are you ? " 
 
 But his hand grasped thin air. Velasquez, too, had 
 vanished in the crowd that each moment was aug- 
 mented by fresh stragglers from the ball-room. 
 
 Black dominoes grew bolder and white ones more 
 timid, as the moment of unmasking quickly approached; 
 but one notable example of each disappeared from 
 the scene of action at a quarter to twelve, though 
 shortly afterwards a lady and gentleman in plain 
 evening dress, but masked, might have been seen 
 descending the stairs from their chambers to the 
 supper-room, and mingling with the crowd already 
 assembled. 
 
 It was brilliantly lighted, and as one o'clock struck, 
 the tallest black domino present lifted his mask, and 
 about five hundred people followed his example. 
 
 Then broke out a sharp fire of exclamation, laugh- 
 ter, reproach, and there showed out a brilliant dazzle 
 of lovely necks, and of faces all flushed with exercise 
 and mischief, so that such a galaxy of beauty was per- 
 haps never before met together in that one room. 
 
 But the host concerned himself principally in re- 
 marking, not the crowds present, but the disappearance 
 of one important and one unimportant individual, to 
 wit, his daughter and Mr. Velasquez. 
 
 Probably their absence was observed by no one but 
 himself, as his hungry guests closed round the tables, 
 and Mrs. Vivien's clear voice congratulated him on 
 the success of the evening. 
 
 He looked at her keenly, but her eyes were inno- 
 cent, her ball-dress crumpled, and as if it had been 
 
 e 2 
 
52 FOUND OUT. 
 
 worn under a domino for hours,, till he began to doubt 
 his own conviction, that this woman who had loved 
 him fruitlessly for years, was trying to secure him 
 irrevocably by her knowledge of the most secret pas- 
 sage of his life. 
 
 " Have you seen my daughter ? " he said, " but no 
 — you have not been skating — and I thought I met 
 her once with Mr. Velasquez." 
 
 "And where are the two young people?" said 
 Mrs. Vivien, glancing down the length of the brilliant 
 room. " I usually find them out by their crowns, *br 
 sitting or standing they are nearly a foot higher than 
 the tallest of either sex present ! M 
 
 "They are wise, and avoid extremes of cold and 
 heat/' said Mr. Dashwood. " No doubt they will 
 appear presently." 
 
 " But are not these extremes met in each other ? n 
 she said, innocently, " though surely Mr. Dashwood 
 has other intentions for his heiress.''' 
 
 " Possibly Miss Dashwood has other intentions for 
 herself/' 
 
 u Probably. But in the absence of an old lover, 
 there is sometimes as much danger in the presence 
 of a new one. And, there is something odd about Mr. 
 Velasquez. Is he here in his father's name, or his 
 mother's ? " 
 
 " I never asked him." 
 
 ,f But to-night he has been recognized," said Mrs. 
 Vivien, " and I suppose by some false resemblance, for 
 I have heard him twice addressed as Fitzhugh by men 
 who pretended to know his father." 
 
 Mallinger Dashwood shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " What will not old men say or do ? p he said,. 
 
FOUND OUT. S3 
 
 " look at our greatest man — is he responsible for his 
 
 actions? And they must be madmen, indeed, -who 
 
 recognize in his private secretary my old friend Fitz- 
 
 hugh." 
 
 " His skin is dark/'' said Mrs. Vivien, " but his 
 
 height and the shape of his face — especially the mouth 
 
 and chin — are English/'' 
 
 " And what, my dear lady, has this to do with me ? " 
 " You had a good deal to do with him in life — and 
 
 death ; and perhaps with his widow — or wife." 
 
 * On the contrary, so little that as wife I rarely met 
 
 her — and only as widow once when she forced herself 
 
 upon me." 
 
 " And as a maid you never loved her ? " 
 
 But Mr. Dashwood's reply was lost in a burst of 
 
 music that just then floated through the doorway of 
 
 the temporary banqueting hall, summoning the was- 
 
 sailers to far wilder revels than had preceded the hour 
 
 of supper. 
 
CHAPTETMX. 
 
 Tis not the frost that freezes fell, 
 Nor blaiving snatv's inclemencie, 
 'Tis nae sic cauld that makes me cry, 
 But my love's heart grown cauld to me. 
 
 When Katharine Dashwood stepped over the thres- 
 hold of the fencing-room she found it in almost total 
 gloom ; but as she advanced, a step seemed to meet 
 hers, and she ran forward to throw her arms round a 
 ■wholly irresponsive figure, that by its very immobility 
 astounded her. She had expected some coldness, but 
 not to have her maidenly largesse so abruptly thrown 
 back in her face ; and she retreated into the dark- 
 ness without a sound, though while pride dictated a 
 total disappearance, love held her feet fast, and stayed 
 her. 
 
 Only vaguely could she make out the profile of the 
 man who stood motionless in an attitude of listening, 
 and who wore the black domino and mask that had 
 been de rigueur with all Mr. Dashwood' s male guests 
 that night. 
 
 The height of the figure, an indescribable something 
 in its bearing that Jack had as surely inherited from 
 his Fitzhugh mother, as Katharine had inherited her 
 carriage from her father, made the girl strain her eyes 
 upon the figure, fighting against the counter-conviction 
 that she had made a mistake, and stolen hither but to 
 be met by a stranger. She still wore her white dom- 
 ino and her mask ; but her mouth was young, and the 
 
FOUND OUT. 55 
 
 muscles about it quivered yet, as she stood apart, her 
 head bowed so that her height deceived the man, and 
 he took her for one of those ladies whose advances, 
 more or less bold, he had silently repelled during the 
 past few days; or he had unwittingly intruded on 
 some stolen meeting appointed by two persons who 
 supposed the room to be the most secure from inter- 
 ruption of any in the house, so he turned quickly to 
 efface himself. 
 
 But a peculiar swing of the shoulders, the very way 
 he planted his step, convinced her that this was Jack 
 indeed — as angry perhaps as he was jealous, and with 
 some fresh cause of offence against her since he had 
 pressed the note into her hand on the mere. And who 
 else save her father knew how entrance could be 
 effected to the room ? — or who else would have the 
 courage to come hither alone ? 
 
 A sob broke from her throat ; involuntarily she 
 stretched out her hand as if to stay him, yet when he 
 paused found no words, till once more he moved away 
 —then she half-cried, half-faltered out — 
 
 " Would you leave me so ? And when you know 
 how I lo-love you \" 
 
 The man stood still- — as one petrified body and 
 soul. 
 
 " Why are you so angry with me ? " she said. " I 
 have to please my father, and consider his guests ; but 
 it is of you only that I think night and day." 
 
 Still he did not stir, but stood as one who doubts 
 his own ears and heart ; yet why should not this 
 miracle be, that a young maid should fall in love as 
 irrevocably, as hopelessly at first sight with a young 
 man, as in this same moment he had fallen in love with 
 
$6 FOUND GUT. 
 
 her; and why should she be more proud than Juliet, 
 or take shame to herself for owning it? Yet this was 
 not the Katharine whom he had worshipped, and with 
 no more hope of her stooping to him than a star from 
 heaven — and perhaps something of her preciousness and 
 beauty faded in his eyes, as in the gloom he moved 
 towards her, and took her hand. 
 
 The grasp was warm, as was the kiss he pressed 
 upon it, but surely she found them cold, or perhaps 
 the shelter of his arms would have satisfied her better ; 
 for she shivered, then put up a timid hand as if to 
 remove his mask, but he caught and held it with the 
 other. 
 
 " I shall see you no more after to-night," she said. 
 u Something tells me that you will never come back. 
 However cold and angry you may be now, to-morrow 
 you will remember that I love you — that I never 
 loved any man but you — and that not my father nor 
 any other, but only death, has power to part us." 
 
 " Have you been jealous, dear ? J3 she went on after 
 a moment's pause, and still he stood with bowed head 
 before her, " indeed you need not be," — and from 
 under the white domino stole a white arm, and lifted 
 itself to its shoulder, for she was hungry — Oh ! so 
 hungry — for a kiss of his mouth, and perhaps heaven 
 seemed close to her, as he stooped as if about to give 
 it, when a grinding noise, as of a key turning pain- 
 fully in the lock, made them start violently apart, and 
 with a terrified whisper of " The fire-place ! " the 
 girl stepped noiselessly and swift as lightning to the 
 wall, and in the same moment that between two suits 
 of armour a panel slid back, and gave exit to his 
 daughter, Mallinger Dashwood stepped into the room. 
 
FOUND OUT. 57 
 
 He locked the door behind him, then advanced to 
 the centre of the room, and listened iutently. A 
 moment ago he could have sworn he heard a step, but 
 the faint light showed only the desolate perspective of 
 floor, the richly beautiful walls upon which here and 
 there a glint of moonlight strayed. 
 
 He wore the exact evening dress of Henry Irving 
 in the "Corsican Brothers," a dress but little in excess 
 of the present fashion, and his clear, cold features 
 showed more distinctly in the half-light, than had any 
 visible there to-night. 
 
 " So the young pair of fools have found a more 
 agreeable place of meeting than I suspected," he 
 said aloud, and with a carelessness that showed 
 how habitual was his sense of immunity from all 
 scrutiny or eavesdropping here. His voice, though 
 low, travelled far, for he spoke as distinctly as he 
 thought, and his worst enemy could not at any period of 
 his life have applied to him the epithet of "unready." 
 
 He began to pace the room slowly, and on reaching 
 the window at its end, looked out through the un- 
 shuttered pane at the crowd on the mere far below. 
 
 White and black — black and white; the eddying 
 circles upon which the flambeaux flickered, produced 
 the same feeling of monotony on his mind that they 
 had long ago done on some of his guests ; yet it was 
 with a slight shrug of satisfaction that he turned at 
 last from the scene, and resumed his measured walk. 
 
 Beside the fire-place he stopped and looked for 
 some moments into the yawning darkness, then his 
 slow steps passed on, and he paced the room twice 
 before he again spoke, pausing close by the stain that 
 faced the fire-place in the long, narrow room. 
 
53 FOUND OUT. 
 
 " So the fool has fallen in love with my daughter/' 
 he said, deliberately, " and she has proved as faithful 
 as the rest of her charming sex. And the men are 
 cousins — and curiously alike in height and carriage. 
 Tita's son — poor Tita ! (his voice took an indescribable 
 accent) — thus goes your last hope of vengeance. Ap- 
 parently he never shared your hopes — for his presence 
 here is a mere accident, though perhaps you may 
 have thought it a lucky one. Shall I let the pair 
 marry — stab you through the heart a second time — ■ 
 take away your son as I stole from you your husband ? 
 What if he did love you — I had his company in every 
 daylight and evening hour he could command. What 
 if you influenced him— yet your utmost influence could 
 not keep him for a moment from my side. You 
 could never bend issues to your will, poor Tita ; you 
 could not even turn a man's love for you into hatred, 
 though you tried as desperately as a starving man 
 might strive for bread. When you scorned me most, 
 I loved you best ; when, with my wife's hand often on 
 your arm, you met me abroad face to face, and passed 
 me by as if I were no more, no less, than the most 
 indifferent stranger present, I swore to break your 
 defiance, to make you, if but for one brief moment, 
 mine ; you were something to beat — to subjugate — 
 and after all, perhaps, I got the vital part of you when 
 I took into my hand Fitzhugh's honour and his life 
 — and the future of his young son. If I never loved 
 you more than on the day when I asked you to 
 be my wife, five minutes after Fitzhugh had spoken, 
 and your transfigured face told all that I had lost 
 and he had won, I never coveted you so much as 
 when here in this room you cursed me, and with 
 
tOUND OUT. 59 
 
 your foot on the stain his blood had made, accused 
 me of having murdered your husband. Did you 
 believe it ? 
 
 " And my wife must needs love you — poor Alicia, 
 whose, beauty was as water to the wine of yours — 
 and in your fierce, grand way you loved her too, and 
 pitied her — but, thank God, you never pitied me. I 
 think that toward the last, some faint contempt stirred 
 in you for Fitzhugh — I wish I had been by to see the 
 blaze in your eyes when you dashed down the money on 
 the table, and sat waiting his return. I think if they 
 had not come to tell you he was dead, that if he had 
 come himself, you would have hated him, and my game 
 been won. The man who has power to rouse such 
 force of hatred in a woman, has power to move her 
 just as violently in an opposite direction ; and once I 
 had mastered you, you must have loved me. There 
 was no pretence in your hatred — no touch of coquetry 
 in your composition — you had not needed to learn a 
 woman's first lesson, that it is only while she holds 
 herself out of his reach, that a man will madden him- 
 self about her. 
 
 u And the woman below — that syllabub in petti- 
 coats, that froth in tulle — thinks not only to take 
 your place in my heart, Tita, but to sit down by my 
 hearth as my wife. She has some false clue — pos- 
 sibly given to her by your son. What does she expect 
 to discover, or what does he ? But if I could find 
 you, Tita " 
 
 His voice ceased abruptly, and with it died the 
 note of human passion that might have made his 
 every word a revelation to one who had seen only 
 the callous, polished man of the world — the enemy 
 
60 FOUND OUT. 
 
 even of his daughter, if her interests collided with his 
 own. 
 
 When next he spoke, he was the self known to his 
 acquaintances, probably to every one save the beloved 
 woman whose image was so deeply imprinted in his 
 heart that a lifetime had not been able to obliterate 
 it. Think you there is no green spot in the most arid 
 heart ? Find me one such heart, and I will give you 
 for it a kingdom. For there is no such heart on 
 earth, or perchance I might find the kingdom to give 
 in exchange. 
 
 " A saturnalia has set in by now — I am wanted 
 below," he said ; and in a few moments he had locked 
 the door on two men, both masked, and both in 
 dominoes, who issued simultaneously from the fire- 
 place, then in the faint light removed their masks to 
 glare upon one another. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 If I had lenown she was beloved, 
 She had never been loved by me. 
 
 But if both unmasked on the instant, only one threw 
 off his domino as if it suffocated him, or as if he 
 wanted the free use of his right arm. 
 
 Thus disclosed, Velasquez saw a stranger, yet one 
 whose features were curiously familiar, while Jack 
 started violently ; for in spite of the Spanish colour- 
 ing, there was the mouth and chin, the height and 
 noble air of that very Fitzhugh whose blood stained 
 the boards upon which they stood. 
 
 " I fear I have intruded on an assignation," said 
 Jack, fiercely, "but no doubt the lady will return — 
 meanwhile I will withdraw." 
 
 " I had no appointment with any lady here to- 
 night," said Velasquez. 
 
 " Then you are happier still — since she loved you 
 sufficiently to follow you hither." 
 
 " That, sir, is none of your business." 
 
 " It may be more so than you suppose." 
 
 " I am open to conviction. Prove your right, and 
 I will leave you to await the lady's return." 
 
 Jack laughed. To mental shock had succeeded 
 sober reason ; and if jealousy still swayed him, if he 
 suspected that he had thrust his billet into the wrong 
 hand (while Katharine's visit to the fencing-room was 
 •a prcuous arrangement with Velasquez), he was yet 
 
62 FOUND OUT. 
 
 resolved to await the issue of events, and learn the 
 truth with his own eyes and ears from the sweet lips 
 of Kitty, whom to doubt were worse than death. 
 
 " We will place ourselves in the hands of the lady," 
 said Jack ; " she shall choose between us, and you 
 shall have the first chance. I will return to the fire- 
 place — a roomy retreat, if ignominious — as soon a3 
 the least sign of her shall appear/' 
 
 Velasquez stood mask in hand, outwardly cold a3 
 ice, inwardly a prey to the wildest emotions that can 
 convulse a man's soul. To the intoxicating joy that 
 Katharine's confession of love had given him, the 
 touch of her hand, the very kiss that had offered itself 
 like heaven to his lips, had rudely succeeded the shock 
 of Dashwood's imminent approach, the hurried flight 
 to a place of concealment, whence, every nerve on 
 stretch from fear of detection, he had listened to 
 the soliloquy that had but just stopped short of the 
 truth. 
 
 The fire-place was large, the presence of another 
 man unsuspected in that turmoil of excitement which 
 for the moment closed his senses against everything 
 save Dashwood's voice; and when he emerged into 
 the room, and Jack Stormonth followed, it was with 
 difficulty he strangled a cry. Now he was confronted 
 with a man whom instinct told him was Kitty's lover, 
 and the splendid gift she had but now seemed to 
 ravish on him, dwindled to ashes when he saw himself 
 as the false recipient, not the true. 
 
 " As you please," he said at last, so carelessly that 
 Jack's jealous heart sank ; for was not the calm 
 strength of confidence in his rival's tone ? And that 
 this was his rival he knew well enough ; had he not 
 
FOUND OUT. 63 
 
 from outside the ball-room witnessed Kitty's absorp- 
 tion in the young man on the first night they met? 
 Had he not on the mere to-night seen how they 
 were never more than a few minutes apart, and 
 being named openly as lovers by the masqueradcrs 
 around ? 
 
 " I don't think I will retire just yet/' said Jack, 
 coolly. "Time scarcely passes so agreeably when 
 one is waiting for another man's possible sweetheart 
 as for his own. But I think I have met you before," 
 and he looked hard at the young man with an odd 
 feeling that some obliquity of vision gave him back his 
 own face, but altered, as in a cracked looking-glass. 
 
 " I am Tito Velasquez^ — at your service.'' 
 
 " And my uncle Fitzhugh married Tita Velasquez," 
 said Jack, in a startled voice, " so that accounts for 
 the resemblance — and his soliloquy just now." 
 
 " And you are a Fitzlmgh ? " exclaimed Velasquez, 
 stepping back. 
 
 " No — I am Jack Stormonth ; my mother was a 
 Fitzhugh — sister to the man who — died." 
 
 "But by his own hand?" 
 
 « Undoubtedly." 
 
 " There may have been a moral force that guided his 
 will, as surely as if a physical one snatched the rapier 
 from his hand and despatched him," said Velasquez, 
 " and in thought and deed I hold Malliuger Dashwood 
 guilty of my father's death." 
 
 " You have no proof," said Jack Stormonth — " in 
 fact every tittle of evidence points the other way — 
 even to the confidence to which we were eavesdroppers 
 just now. I hate the man as much as — " he paused 
 abruptly. 
 
64 FOUND OUT. 
 
 "You love the daughter/' said Velasquez, " and I 
 love her too." 
 
 Jack laughed again. 
 
 " Let us be frank," he said, " though our courtship 
 need not hinder our being enemies — presently. 
 Three days ago she loved me — if you have changed 
 her fancy in that time, keep her, and try to discern 
 your good fortune. If she has a heart — and I know 
 she has one — she will presently come stealing back — 
 and she shall choose between us." 
 
 Velasquez made no answer — the bitter truth was 
 sinking into a soul inured to suffering, that in the 
 very moment of his foregoing vengeance for the sake 
 of love, love itself had passed him by, leaving him 
 poorer far than when he had crossed the threshold of 
 the room in which his father had met his death. 
 
 Katharine had fooled him — unwittingly, perhaps, 
 but still she had fooled him — and the tide of bitter- 
 ness that her supposed love for him had stayed, 
 rushed back with overwhelming vehemence upon a 
 heart that almost from its first beat had known but 
 sorrow. 
 
 " There can be no question of choice between us," 
 he said, haughtily ; u probably Miss Dashwood would 
 be as surprised at the idea as if one of her father's 
 lackeys pitted himself against you. I entered this 
 room as a spy — and I have met the fate that every 
 spy deserves — detection and disgrace." 
 
 " Not disgrace !" cried Jack, touched in spite of 
 himself, and not yet purged of some lingering doubts 
 of his Kitty. " You came here to seek some key to 
 the riddle of your father's death. And your mother 
 was not the only one who swore it had never been 
 
FOUND OUT. 65 
 
 solved — for mine persists in it to this day that in 
 spite of all the circumstantial evidence, the real truth 
 about his death was never known." 
 
 " But it shall be/' said Velasquez in a hard 
 voice. 
 
 u How will you arrive at it ? " said Jack. " You 
 can't force him to speak — and by what letters or 
 
 ?" 
 
 documents is it possible to convict him r 
 
 " One letter only is needed," said Velasquez, " the 
 letter through which my father ran his rapier, and his 
 rapier through his heart. If this letter be destroyed 
 there is no proof — unless a confession can be wrung 
 from Mallinger Dashwood's lips." 
 
 " What was in the letter ?" said Jack. 
 
 " Two persons only know that — a dead man and a 
 living one. But my mother is convinced that it was 
 forged by Dashwood in her handwriting, and substi- 
 tuted by him for the one brought by the butler to 
 this room, that by some devilish ingenuity he con- 
 trived for my father to see it, and that finding in it 
 proofs of my mother's faithlessness, and unabte to 
 survive his dishonour, he slew himself." 
 
 11 This is an extraordinary theory," exclaimed Jack, 
 startled into forgetting to listen for Kitty's step, i{ one 
 that only a woman's brain could originate. I never 
 knew until to-night there had been any question of 
 love between them." 
 
 u The love was all on his side — if love it could be 
 called," said Velasquez. " He asked her to be his 
 wife, and after her marriage to his friend, pursued her 
 with a guilty passion that seemed only intensified by 
 her scorn of him ; until at last the desperate expe- 
 dient seems to have occurred to him to so humiliate 
 
66 FOUND OUT. 
 
 my father in her eyes, that disgust for him would 
 throw her into the arms of her lover." 
 
 " But the cheque/' cried Jack, " the forged 
 cheque " 
 
 " Was forged by the hand that wrote the letter," 
 said Velasquez. u How easy for Dashwood to open 
 the envelope addressed to my mother, take out the 
 cheque enclosed in the note, and substitute another — 
 how easy for him later to remove my mother's (sup- 
 posed) letter from my father's dead body, and leave 
 in its place the banker's, in which the signature to 
 the cheque was denounced as a forgery ! " 
 
 " But he swore on his oath that he had never 
 signed the cheque," said Jack, who felt himself 
 plunged into an unreal world, and that even Mallin- 
 ger Dashwood's sudden entry would not much disturb 
 
 him and hist ! what goes there ? does not a shadow 
 
 move close to the wall out yonder ? And whose but 
 a woman's foot should fall so lightly that scarce can 
 it be heard ? And which of the two figures that she 
 so softly approaches slips noiselessly towards the fire- 
 place, so that when her eyes have pierced the gloom, 
 she stands doubting and trembling, her heart sinking 
 with the thought that once again she is doomed to a 
 bitter disappointment ? 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 She says — " I had rather have a kiss, 
 
 Childe Waters, of thy mouth, 
 Than I would have Cheshire and Lancashire both, 
 
 That lie by north and south. ,} 
 
 I wonder if a whirlwind, or a deluge, or an earthquake, 
 or even the abstraction of all her clothes by a vigilant 
 guardian will hinder a woman from keeping a love 
 tryst, if her heart be set upon it ? All throbbing 
 with love, she will meet every obstacle only stubbornly 
 to surmount it ; and the more she is hindered, the 
 more swiftly she will hurry, and the greater the 
 danger, then the more valiantly she will cast her 
 woman's fears behind her, and go forth to face it. 
 
 Perhaps a timid doubt that delay has made her 
 late — too late — makes her step falter as at last she 
 reaches the spot, but what are her feelings, think you, 
 when, instead of the beloved face she has braved all to 
 see, a stranger's features are turned upon her ? 
 
 Katharine Dashwood's heart seemed to freeze under 
 the grasp of an icy hand, as the gaze of Velasquez 
 met her own. 
 
 If he had doubted — if for a moment he had clung 
 to the thought that she might have forgotten Jack 
 Stormonth for him, the hope died as, half sobbing, 
 she stepped back. 
 
 There was a mortal ache in Kitty's heart as, 
 
 F 2 
 
68 FOUND OUT. 
 
 drawing her mask up to hide her face, she stood erect, 
 knowing that by some hand, possibly this man's, she 
 had been twice fooled that night. 
 
 " How dared you do it ? " she cried a moment or 
 two later, " to bring me here supposing I was to find 
 Jack — my Jack .... and because you know that, 
 you have dared to play this jest upon me. O ! Jack, 
 Jack ! " 
 
 That cry might have summoned any lover, how- 
 ever backward, out of a hiding place less ignominious 
 than a fireplace; but Jack had promised to give 
 Velasquez a chance, and he checked himself as the 
 latter spoke. 
 
 " I have played no jest upon you, but my presence 
 in this room is dishonourable. I came here as a spy 
 — on a bad errand to your father, and" — he paused — 
 u by accident you came also, and mistook me for the 
 man you love." 
 
 Her head was bowed ; he could not see the slow 
 tears that fell as he spoke. 
 
 Ci I loved you," he went on, after a second's pause, 
 " from the moment that I first saw you. I loved 
 you. I forgot revenge " 
 
 " What revenge?" interrupted Katharine, lifting 
 her face. 
 
 Velasquez looked at her. In one lightning 
 moment the traditions of a lifetime, the first pure 
 passion of a man, were pitted against each other, and 
 vengeance might be sweet, but to be magnanimous, 
 to earn but the humblest corner in her heart, were 
 sweeter. Some day perhaps she would know — taught 
 by her lover's lips, meanwhile 
 
 We decide the supreme issues of our life more 
 
FOUND OUT. 69 
 
 easily than we choose a pair of gloves, or a colour 
 that we fancy may suit our complexion; and there 
 was hardly a perceptible pause between Katharine's 
 gesture, and Velasquez's reply. 
 
 " Your father has earned my hatred/' he said, 
 " but from to-night I bear him no malice — I plot 
 against him no more — but my condition with him 
 shall be that he makes you happy with — Jack." 
 
 Kitty's gratitude came in a storm of sobs. 
 
 " I shall never see him again," she said, " and you 
 are noble .... and I am grateful .... but you are 
 not Jack .... and that is why I have liked you so ; 
 because we were both so miserable, and I supposed 
 your case was like my own." 
 
 Velasquez took her hand very gently and reverently, 
 and as they so stood, the sound of a key in the lock 
 made them start, and involuntarily tighten their clasp, 
 while their two faces turned pale and ghostly towards 
 the intruder. 
 
 It was Mallinger Dashwood, who had returned, and 
 closing without locking the door behind him, ap 
 proached with leisurely step the two who stood full in 
 the moonbeams, their hands tightly locked together. 
 
 He came close, politely saluted them as strangers, 
 then affected surprise at recognizing his daughter, 
 but there was little of the angry father in the glance 
 he turned on Velasquez. 
 
 " You are fond of armour ? " he said, " and fortu- 
 nately there is a moon, by which to see it. But I 
 should recommend your coming by daylight — anything 
 interesting of which you may be in search is better 
 discovered by day than by night.'' 
 
 Velasquez bowed. 
 
70 FOUND OUT. 
 
 " I have learned here to-night, as much as I have 
 now the wish to learn/' he said, and led Katharine to 
 the door. 
 
 Her cloak had slipped back, his domino had been 
 cast aside, and as slowly, as statelily as if they were 
 about to dance a minuet together, the beautiful young 
 pair passed hand in hand out of sight. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " No'W Christ's curse on my head," lie said, 
 M But I did lose by that bargain." 
 
 Mallinger Dashwood stood for a minute in an 
 attitude of listening, after the door closed, then he 
 crossed over and locked it, observing as he did so 
 some obstacle lying close to the wall that, on stooping 
 to look at, he found to be a black domino. 
 
 Had he touched the ample garment, even with his 
 foot, the issue of this story might have been different, 
 but he saw a cloak only, shrugged his shoulders as 
 if at a visible fool's presence, and came slowly back 
 to the fireplace. 
 
 " So I was right/' he said aloud, as he leaned one 
 elbow on the chimney-piece ; " and for some whim, 
 probably his, they must meet here of all places ; and 
 he forgoes his vengeance for love, for love, poor 
 wretch ! He must have been here when I came 
 first ; I felt a presence in the room, but he heard no 
 more than Tita may have told him" — he turned 
 sharply as at some sudden thought, and touched a 
 Russian helmet that hung close to his right hand, 
 and from whose misshapen jaws he drew a paper, and 
 stood looking down on it fixedly. The characters 
 traced upon it would have been faint by day, and in 
 this dim light were quite undecipherable, even if a 
 
72 FOUND OUT. 
 
 broad stain (torn through its centre) did not mar 
 them. 
 
 u And if the fool had found it, what then ? " he 
 said, half aloud, ie what then ? It could have proved 
 nothing, and as it is, Tita's son knows as little as 
 Tito's mother/' 
 
 He replaced the paper, the jaws closing on it with 
 a peculiar snapping sound — a sound carefully com- 
 mitted to aural memory by an unseen auditor. 
 
 " A spy — and she stoops to flirt with him. And 
 Jack Stormonth " — he laughed aloud — (i odd that 
 he should be cut out by his own cousin. So there's 
 another unfaithful woman — yet I could have sworn 
 she was immovable as I, both in love and hate. If 
 she reads her paper, she must beware that he sails with 
 his regiment at any moment, but knowing the im- 
 possibility of their meeting, she feels no more divided 
 from him thus, than if he remained in England. 
 Meanwhile — elle s amuse. And Jack Stormonth is 
 scarcely the man to go shares with another in a 
 woman's favour. He shall have some news before 
 long of his Kitty — and you, Tita, will receive some 
 of your son. Mr. B. goes to-morrow, but he will 
 leave here — Mr. Velasquez.'' 
 
 He moved towards the centre of the room, and 
 stood looking down angrily at the invisible stain at 
 his feet. 
 
 " A coward's blood ! " he said with an accent of 
 bitter contempt ; " you left her alone ; you almost 
 deserted, while you loved her, and then you must put 
 a shameful end to your existence, and leave her to 
 bear the dishonour of it. Tita, Tita ! I would have 
 loved you better, I would have shielded you better 
 
FOUND OUT. 73 
 
 than that ! And you remember me — the undying 
 hate that looks at me out of your son's eyes tells me 
 that. I can move you yet, I can make your heart 
 throb, and your eyes flash — while perhaps, little by 
 little, gradually shrouded in a faint contempt, a chill 
 pity, you have forgotten — him. I will see that look, 
 I will hear your voice before I am many days older ; 
 your son's presence here gives me the clue to you that 
 for twenty-three years I have sought in vain. You 
 must be nearly forty years old ; perhaps you are not 
 beautiful now, but you are Tita." 
 
 He walked to the window, and looked out. The 
 mere was deserted, and only the waning light of the 
 moon glimmered coldly over its expanse ; early morning 
 was at hand, but without a visible streak of day- 
 light. 
 
 " To-morrow this rotting shutter shall be replaced 
 with a whole one/' he said, still speaking in the soli- 
 loquy that he habitually indulged in here. " The door 
 shall be barred, the panel securely closed against 
 sweethearts and spies." 
 
 Near the door he paused, and looked down on the 
 dim outlines of the voluminous black domino, flung 
 down as in haste against the wall. 
 
 " Fool ! " he muttered, then unlocked the door and 
 passed out on the other side ; the key grated in the 
 lock, and once more the fencing-room was silent as 
 the grave. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 He neither hist her when he cam? 
 
 Nor clcvppit her when he gaed, 
 And in and out at her bower window 
 
 The moon shone like the gleed. 
 
 Scarcely was the silence established than once more 
 it was broken. 
 
 Not by Jack j he still knelt on one knee, half 
 expecting Dashwood's return, with one intense bitter 
 feeling dominating all the confusion of his mind — 
 that Kitty had come, had gone, had spoken with his 
 rival once, twice, and he, poor fool, poorer Jack, had 
 not even spoken to her, had not even kissed her ! 
 And within two hours he must be at the railway 
 station ; within twenty-four he might have embarked, 
 and he was as powerless to reach her by word or 
 letter as if already the bullet she had feared for him 
 were buried in his breast. 
 
 " Kitty ! " he whispered passionately, and cursed 
 himself for having put Velasquez forward, wasting in 
 doubt of her the precious moments that she should 
 have passed in his arms; and then his pulse stood 
 still, his limbs became rigid as light steps approached 
 the fireplace, and a figure (how in that moment could 
 he tell if it were short or tall?) advanced almost to 
 within reach of his hand. 
 
 But in the next second he knew that this was not 
 
FOUND OUT. 7$ 
 
 Katharine. The bodily sense of that one beloved 
 presence was absent, and mingled with the bitter dis- 
 appointment of his rashly kindled hopes came the 
 impatient thought that he might as well have chosen 
 the ball-room to-night for a trysting-place, as this 
 desolate spot, to which all the world seemed to be 
 hurrying on each other's heels ! 
 
 If love had brought three young people hither, 
 and fear or habit, Mallinger Dashwood, it was clear 
 that neither love nor fear swayed the mind of this, 
 new visitor, but rather an apish curiosity as to the 
 insides of the gaping and grinning helmets, and pots- 
 de-fer securely fastened to the wall and against 
 the mantel-shelf. He heard a match struck, saw a 
 flicker of its light on a man's domino that swept the 
 floor, caught the click and jar of more than one lifted 
 and falling visor, then, as the match died out, heard 
 a sharp, half-stifled exclamation, and the faint rustle 
 of paper, followed by a snapping sound as of steel 
 meeting steel. 
 
 The next moment flesh met flesh, for another hand 
 had folded over the one that held the paper, and as, 
 with a half shriek, the thief struggled to get free, 
 Jack issued from the fireplace and dragged the figure 
 along with him to the window. 
 
 " So you are one of Dashwood's spies ? " said a 
 voice surprisingly clear and high, considering the 
 male garb visible beneath the domino, while a dis- 
 engaged hand fetched him the soundest box on the 
 ear that he had enjoyed since childhood. 
 
 " No — Fm only going to be his son-in-law," said 
 Jack, imperturbably ; " and so you're a woman," he 
 added, looking at the man's hat, the close hair, 
 
76 FOUND OUT. 
 
 the mask and domino — all masculine save the voice 
 that revealed,, and the woman's temper that betrayed 
 her. 
 
 " How do you know that ? M she said, sullenly. 
 
 " Men never box other men's ears, and women 
 always tuck their thumbs inside their fingers when 
 they hit out — not from the shoulder. Allow me " — 
 and he took the little rosy hand, turning it palm 
 upwards, in which the nails were clenched over the 
 , stolen papers — " I must unlock these, and you can 
 punish me with the other hand at your leisure." 
 
 " They are no more yours than mine," she said, 
 between her teeth, "and you are telling me a lie — 
 she loves Mr. Velasquez." 
 
 Jack laughed. 
 
 " How long have you been here ? " he said, still 
 keeping a firm grasp of her hand. 
 
 She neither moved nor spoke. 
 
 " Probably it was you who brought Mr. Velasquez 
 here to-night,''' he said slowly, as one who thinks 
 aloud, " and perhaps he came as no spy — but only by 
 accident, to hinder me and my sweet Kitty from being 
 happy." 
 
 " You have little care for the young lady's reputa- 
 tion," said the black domino, with a sneer„ 
 
 '" It needs none," said Jack, carelessly : " if all the 
 women on earth disgraced their names, there would 
 be one exception to the rule, and that would be my 
 Kitty. And in the interests of Kitty's father " — he 
 dexterously unlocked her fingers — " I will relieve you 
 of these." 
 
 She stamped her foot with fury as she felt her hand 
 empty, and knew that the secret knowledge by 
 
FOUND OUT. 77 
 
 which she had meant to coerce Dashwood to her will, 
 had been snatched from her before she had even 
 mastered it. 
 
 " If you had a knife in your hand, you would kill 
 me now/'' he said, laughing, though with little mirth, 
 " but before I go, I should like to know if you are 
 in love with Velasquez — or with my future father-in- 
 law?" 
 
 " You are rash/" she said, sullenly, " for I can do 
 her, and you, more harm than you suppose." 
 
 " You can't," he said, carelessly, " for she is Kitty, 
 and I am Jack — and as we've got each other's good 
 opinions, we don't trouble ourselves about other 
 people's." 
 
 He threw open the window as he spoke, and making 
 as if to get out, he turned suddenly, and had removed 
 the mask and was peering into her face before she 
 guessed his intention. 
 
 " I like to know Kitty's enemies and mine," he 
 said, " and so good-night — and I wish — I wish to God 
 you were Kitty." 
 
 Then he shut the window between them, and hang- 
 ing to the tough ivy, began that precipitous descent 
 to the ground upon which none but a man with surest 
 eye and foot might venture, but swiftly as he went, 
 it seemed to him that he had made the ascent more 
 swiftly still, with the heart bounding in his breast at 
 the thought of Kitty, while now it lay icy and starved 
 as a babe that famishes for want in its cold and 
 deserted cradle. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The hose and shoon were git, my man's, 
 
 They cam' first to my hand; 
 And I've ravelled a' my yelloiv hair, 
 
 Coming against the wind. 
 
 At breakfast next morning Mr. B. announced his 
 imminent departure, but as lie was bent on returning, 
 if only for a day or two, before the party broke up, he 
 ventured to commit Mr. Velasquez to the kind hospi- 
 tality of his host during the few days that would intervene. 
 
 " You could not leave my daughter and myself a 
 more charming hostage for your return," said Dash- 
 wood, and Velasquez bowed, and Katharine looked at 
 her father. 
 
 {i By the way," said Mrs. Vivien, turning her languid 
 eyes on the two young people, who, as usual, sat side 
 by side, " how does the fencing-room look by moon- 
 light — by very shabby moonlight — for it mast have 
 been almost morning when I saw you both returning 
 from an inspection of the armour ? " 
 
 " It was only half-past three," said Dashwood. " I 
 looked at my watch when they left me/' 
 
 All within ear-shot glanced at Katharine and 
 Velasquez. Mrs. Vivien shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " Chacun a son gout, 3 ' she said, " but I should 
 scarcely have thought a room where a murder — or 
 was it a suicide ? — had been committed, was a cheer- 
 ful spot for a promenade on a freezing January night ! " 
 
FOUND OUT. 79 
 
 " I fancy a good many people feel chilled inside 
 this morning," said Lord Noll, cheerfully. " Put a 
 mask and domino on some people and they turn into 
 wasps, and go about stinging everybody. At supper 
 some of the faces were as long as hatchets ! " 
 
 Mrs. Vivien laughed. 
 
 " Was yours one of them ? " she said. 
 
 " Oh no ! Somebody told me I was a fool ; I said 
 I knew it ; another, that without my mask I was ugly 
 enough to frighten a horse. I told him I did not 
 possess a looking-glass for nothing. A third informed 
 me that my grandfather was a greengrocer. I gave 
 him my word of honour that he was a tallow-chandler. 
 A fourth accused me of trifling with the feelings of a 
 lady for whom I have a — a great respect, and trans- 
 ferring them to a lady who — who " — in spite of him- 
 self he stole a look at Katharine, who seemed lost in 
 thought. 
 
 " Doesn't want them," said Mrs. Vivien ; " and 
 you/'' she added, turning to her host, " were any 
 home-truths fired off at you ? " 
 
 " No ; only some clumsy guesses," he said negli- 
 gently ; " but can any one tell me who was the lady 
 in a man's mask and domino, and who the gentleman 
 disguised as a lady last night ? " He had raised his 
 voice a little, and his voice travelled to the end of the 
 long table and checked the conversation then going 
 forward, producing a violent increase of colour in the 
 face of a gallant warrior who had mysteriously lost all 
 hirsute appendages since yesterday. 
 
 A burst of laughter greeted this spontaneous con- 
 fession of his guilt, and Lady Becky exclaimed : 
 
 " So that explains it ! " 
 
?o FOUND OUT. 
 
 "What ? " said Mrs. Vivien. 
 
 " I hope you didn't find my cheek very rough, sir/' 
 said the young man, turning to Mr. B., who had 
 suddenly devoted himself to his plate ; " but I assure 
 you M 
 
 " That more than one lady present might have 
 envied you," said Lady Becky, maliciously ; " but if 
 you were the lady, pray who was the gentleman ? n 
 and she glanced round the table. 
 
 "I don't know/' said the perplexed warrior. " All 
 I can say is, my man found my mask and domino 
 gone, and a woman's white one laid out instead, and 
 rather than stay upstairs during the fun, I accepted 
 the situation." 
 
 " But your petticoats ? " cried one. 
 
 u Your wig ? " ejaculated another. 
 
 " Your shoes ? " 
 
 " One of the ladies' maids found the first, the house- 
 keeper the second, but the third was a twister, though 
 we got over that in time." 
 
 " Does any woman here own to number seven 
 shoes ? " said Lady Becky, darting an impertinent 
 smile at a beautiful blonde who was present, perfect 
 as far as one could see, and who might even have 
 perfect feet — had the world ever been privileged to 
 behold them. 
 
 " They were black satin," continued the warrior, 
 " and when they burst, which of course they did, 
 it didn't matter much, as I'd got on black silk 
 stockings " 
 
 " By Jove you had ! " said Lord Dolly, in an 
 audible aside, " that stuck halfway up your leg." 
 
 " I'm afraid they showed," said the son of Mars, 
 
FOUND OUT. 81 
 
 apologetically ; " you see, when I saw people being 
 spilled right and left, I naturally skated off to assist 
 — and of course I hitched up the petticoats — and that 
 domino was so confoundedly short ! " 
 
 " And which sex profited most by your assistance ? " 
 said Lady Becky. 
 
 " Oh ! yours/'' he said readily. " I went to them 
 by instinct — and none of them were in the least 
 grateful. One woman, as soon as she regained her 
 feet, slapped my face." 
 
 **■ But Mr. B. consoled you," said Mrs. Vivien, 
 sweetly. 
 
 " It was only a temporary infidelity to the milk- 
 maid/'' whispered Lord Noll in her ear. " He was 
 up at seven this morning to assist her in the dairy." 
 
 " But what became of your domino ? " cut in Mrs. 
 Vivien sharply, "and which of us women had the bad 
 taste — and the height — to wear it ? " 
 
 u I think her maid took tucks in it," said the 
 warrior in perfect good faith; then looking around 
 and catching the feminine glances — some indignant, 
 some hurt, and all with one exception sincerely inno- 
 cent — turned upon him, he coloured to his brows, and 
 looked the picture of misery. 
 
 " Why are you all so angry with me ? " he said. 
 " It was a good joke — and which ever of you did it, 
 carried the thing out with uncommon spirit ! " 
 
 " It must have been one of our maids," said Mrs. 
 Vivien, serenely, u but it could not have been mine. 
 She waited on me more than once during the evening. 
 And no doubt in the servants' hall, enough county 
 scandal is discussed to enable one of these people to 
 plant a sting where it was certain to be felt." 
 
 G 
 
82 FOUND OUT. 
 
 " But wasps sometimes sting from mere fury — or 
 folly," said Dashwood. 
 
 " This one didn't/' said Lord Noll, with a chuckle. 
 " I shall never forget one country matron who 
 nearly choked after a whisper in her ear, and stamp- 
 ing her skate, cried out, ' Me ! the mother of nine 
 children ! ' And she upset herself, and I picked her 
 up — and she swore that / was the woman who had 
 uttered the vile calumny," said the unwilling victim 
 to petticoats, u and she nearly had my wig and mask 
 off before I could back out ! " 
 
 " But of course you didn't venture to speak ? " said 
 Lady Becky, with some curiosity. 
 
 " Not I. I nodded, giggled — once or twice forgot 
 to be ladylike, and punched one or two heads. I'm 
 afraid I punched yours, sir," he added, turning to 
 Mr. B., not without malicious intent, but the great 
 man's chair was empty; he had noiselessly with- 
 drawn. 
 
 " He has gone to say good-by to the milkmaid," 
 said Lady Becky. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Oh gin I had a bonny ship, 
 
 And men to sail ivi' me/ 
 IPs I iv ad gang to my true love, 
 
 Sin' he winna come to me ! 
 
 At Mallinger Towers nothing but the unexpected was 
 permitted to happen, so that when after the great 
 man's departure, a servant announced that donkeys 
 were at the door, no one expressed surprise, and all 
 the women went to put on their hats and jackets, 
 while each man went to pick out the best beast for 
 his present charmer. 
 
 Velasquez was the first in the field, and had 
 secured the strongest and handsomest animal long 
 before Katharine appeared : Lord Noll was the next 
 luckiest, and so by infinitesimal degrees of excellence 
 (for they were all nearly as big as mules), each ass 
 found a temporary owner, and when the ladies de- 
 scended, they found as smart a set of grooms in waiting 
 as they could well have wished. 
 
 Only Mrs. Vivien frowned when she saw Noll at 
 her bridle-rein, and she turned quickly to their host, 
 exclaiming : 
 
 " Don't you come with us ? " 
 
 " I join you later," he said, as he settled her in 
 the saddle, " and hope to find fresh roses in your 
 cheeks. Your steed is humble," he added, with a 
 
 G 2 
 
84 FOUND OUT, 
 
 slight smile, " but a more ambitious one could not 
 have kept his feet a moment on the iron-bound roads . 
 
 He moved away as he spoke, and almost immedi- 
 ately the cavalcade started, and without confusion, 
 since every cicisbeo held his lady's bridle-rein, and if 
 more than one errant glance strayed to Velasquez in 
 envy, he did not know it, as he led Katharine's beast 
 slowly down the hill. 
 
 Probably conversation can never be more agreeably 
 conducted that when a woman rides at ease, and a man 
 walks beside her, his head about on a level with her 
 shoulder. They are alone, but they enjoy the plea- 
 sure of movement ; the air, the changing scene, act 
 as a gentle stimulus to their thoughts and looks ; 
 and no better opportunity could be found in which 
 to converse, in the real sense of the word, or to 
 murmur those words of folly that sometimes outweigh 
 in value the whole world's riches. 
 
 I think I should reckon real conversation as the 
 chief intellectual pleasure in life. To hear, to see, to 
 receive ; to have lips, eyes, soul, all speaking to you 
 at once, and to feel the power in yourself to respond 
 to, to echo such speech ; to be swayed by a brilliant 
 fancy, thrilled by a noble thought, satisfied by a 
 happy allusion — Ah ! How dull after such reading 
 is the printed page, how unsatisfying Nature's most 
 perfect one, since, into it there is breathed no heart ! 
 
 But conversation as an art did not flourish among 
 Mallinger Dashwood's guests. They could easily flirt 
 without speaking, but few of them could speak without 
 flirting, and perhaps the only two who occasionally 
 conversed were Velasquez and Katharine. From the 
 first moment of their meeting there had been a 
 
FOUND OUT. 85 
 
 curious bond between them, and whether they re- 
 mained silent when together, or spoke little or often, 
 there was a sense of repose, of pleasure, that each 
 found missing in the society of others. 
 
 But the man's heart had spoken out boldly to his 
 face from the first moment in which he beheld 
 Katharine, and was he to be blamed if her gentle, 
 serious attitude of liking towards him seemed to 
 indicate dawning love ? He had never heard of Jack 
 Stormonth, and within five minutes of his introduction 
 to her, a male gossip had told him she was fresh from 
 school. 
 
 Some men might have wondered at a girl's school 
 fetters lasting till she was nineteen and a half, but 
 Velasquez realized nothing save that she was his 
 enemy's daughter, and that at first sight he had 
 fallen in love with her. How could he tell that her 
 withdrawal from the frivolous society around, was the 
 natural shrinking from interruption of a preoccupied 
 mind, or that in his quiet strength and reserve she 
 found a haven to which she might flee, and be at 
 leisure to think 1 
 
 Perhaps if men knew how much more they charm 
 women by their reticence than by their foolish vows, 
 they would for the greater part become mute, and 
 practise eloquence by their features alone. The 
 silence that is without stupidity, the look that needs 
 no word to second it, is better than any language 
 ever spoken, and Katharine had unconsciously turned 
 from uncongenial surroundings to repose herself men- 
 tally upon one who never taxed, and never wearied her, 
 
 Those other men whose bold glances pursued her, 
 only awoke in her a cold, proud anger that she 4 
 
86 FOUND OUT. 
 
 scorned to display, and her manner had already- 
 assumed the dignity of a middle-aged woman rather 
 than the spontaneous gaiety of a girl. But while 
 the women said u She is dull ! 9i each man thought of 
 how glorious the awakening would be for — Velasquez. 
 
 More silent than usual were the two who led the 
 way down the hill, and through the village, where 
 every cottage furnished its contingent to behold the 
 latest of Mallinger Dashwood's " whims." 
 
 The clear air, the smalt blue sky above, and the 
 whiteness all around and below, made a brilliant set- 
 off to the costumes that, sufficiently good for asses, 
 lent more colour to the scene than if the stereotyped 
 hat and habit were alone visible. 
 
 " Lord ! " said one of the village women, " it 
 minds me of the times when ladies always wore their 
 best bonnets when they went a-horseback — and a deal 
 decenter and handsomer they looked with their strings 
 tied under their chins, than in the men's 'ats they wear 
 now-a-days ! " 
 
 But there was not a village maid present that day 
 who would not cheerfully have worn a bonnet, and 
 ridden an animal that she profoundly despised, if its 
 bridle-rein were held by such a swain as now strode 
 merrily beside it. 
 
 All the women save Katharine were laughing at 
 the novelty of the situation. The cold had brought 
 bloom to their cheeks, and fresh lustre to their eyes ; 
 their coquettish hats and braided jackets, of dark 
 blue, of red, of white, the charming little feet revealed 
 by their short skirts, all combined to render them 
 more dangerous in this unexpected guise than when 
 most fully equipped for conquest. 
 
FOUND OUT. 87 
 
 Not a soul, save Katharine, knew where the ride 
 was to end. There was an Arcadian air of simplicity 
 over the jaunt that deceived even some of those 
 worldly people into thinking that such primitive 
 amusement was preferable to the mechanical rise and 
 fall, the measured beat of fashionable life, and senti- 
 ments that would have been virtuous if directed 
 towards the right quarter, began to animate more than 
 one fair breast. 
 
 " What a good woman I could have been, Noll," 
 said Mrs. Vivien, sighing, " if I had married a man 
 like Dashwood, with the village people to look after, 
 and a donkey to ride now and then ! " 
 
 " You're much better as you are," said Lord Noll, 
 tersely, and Mrs. Vivien sighed, perhaps with some real 
 compunction, at the thought of an announcement she 
 would probably have to make to him within a few days. 
 
 Low ripples of laughter, a hum of pleasant voices 
 followed Velasquez and Katharine as they ascended 
 the slight hill that gave exit from the village, but not 
 a word passed between the pair till the level road was 
 reached, and only the white hedge-rows stood on either 
 hand to listen. 
 
 Then Katharine spoke. 
 
 " Why do you stay ? " she said, abruptly. 
 
 He made her no reply, but looked straight before 
 him. 
 
 " We have been friends/' she said, slowly ; " from 
 the first moment that we met, I think that we were 
 friends, and yet you are here as my father's enemy, 
 and as a spy." 
 
 He bowed his head as if in assent, but still preserved 
 silence. 
 
88 FOUND OUT. 
 
 " And pray/ 5 she went on with a ring of anger in 
 her proud voice, " what could you know about — Jack? 
 I suppose some of the people here must have gossipped 
 to you, and perhaps you thought it a fine thing to 
 decoy me to the fencing-room/' 
 
 Velasquez turned and faced her with eyes as proud 
 as her own. 
 
 iC No," -he said, " I did nothing to bring you there; 
 and the room is yours. You have the right to enter it 
 any hour of the day or night, but I — have no right/' 
 
 "Then who forged the letter?" cried Katharine. 
 " The letter in his dear handwriting, and thrust into 
 my hand on the mere by a man taller than any other 
 present, save you and my father?" 
 
 " Perhaps it was your father," said Velasquez, who, 
 after long and stubborn thought, had resolved that 
 he would not put Katharine to the torment of 
 knowing that Jack had been waiting for her last 
 night, so that only by unlucky accident they had 
 escaped the mingled bliss and misery of being clasped 
 in each other's arms. 
 
 She started violently at Velasquez's suggestion, 
 and turned white as the snow around them. 
 
 "Then he knew — he knew it all along,'' she half 
 whispered aloud, " and there is a year and a half to 
 wait — and if he is not killed in battle, and comes 
 back, there is nowhere that I can see him, that I 
 can speak to him. Jack — Jack !" 
 
 Her lips trembled, her cheeks paled, great tears 
 of longing dimmed her lovely eyes; then her head 
 sank, and in a gentle, timid voice she said : 
 
 " Have I ever said, or looked, or done anything to 
 make you suppose that I should speak to you as I 
 
FOUND OUT. 89 
 
 spoke last night — unless I had thought you were 
 somebody else?" 
 
 In spite of his wretchedness, Velasquez smiled at 
 the naivete and confusion of the question. 
 
 "You have never given me the faintest hope of 
 such good fortune as seemed to fall to my lot last 
 night," he said gravely, "but to the man who loves, 
 all things are possible, even to the belief that a 
 woman is as capable of a sudden and faithful a passion 
 as himself." 
 
 " Perhaps that is true," said Katharine, in a low 
 voice : " and a woman's pride is melted in her love ; 
 but only when he has declared his. And when I 
 sued to you" (the hot blood painted all her face) 
 iC did you not feel a sense of shame and disappoint- 
 ment in me, ranking me with those — those women 
 who are following us?" 
 
 " They are not women ; they are butterflies," said 
 Velasquez, with contempt. Then with a sudden 
 change of voice, u I only thought — O, madman !- — that 
 knowing me so far beneath you, it had pleased you 
 to stoop, like the angel that you are, and save me 
 from those schemes of hatred and revenge that have 
 embittered and overshadowed my life." 
 
 Katharine's self-consciousness faded; her colour 
 sank; she forgot the burning sense of shame for 
 herself, of irritation against him that had succeeded 
 her gentle attitude to him the night before; and 
 looking at him, she was struck with, the traces of 
 habitual suffering that his face betrayed. 
 
 iC My father has inflicted some wrong on you or 
 yours?" she said, slowly. 
 
 " I cannot tell you," he answered in the same 
 
90 FOUND OUT, 
 
 tone. " But henceforward I work for you and 
 Stormonth ; and my revenge, if I ever take it, will 
 touch neither your happiness nor his." 
 
 Katharine bent her brows as one puzzled; at last 
 she spoke : 
 
 " 1 am trying to understand/'' she said. " When 
 last night I — I made love to you, thinking you were 
 Jack, you — you were on the point of returning my 
 advances, when my father's approach separated us. 
 When I returned later (and surely it is a shameful 
 thing for a girl to go twice in the dead of night to 
 meet her lover) you had changed; you had no happy 
 airs; you seemed to find it natural that I had mis- 
 taken you for Jack; and, accepting the situation, 
 you even swore to help us." She paused, then 
 added in a lower tone, " Such conduct w r as not 
 natural." 
 
 Velasquez turned and looked at her. For a moment 
 all the fierce, passionate love he had for her surged 
 upwards from his heart to his eyes, and he said to 
 himself that he would respect neither Jack Stormonth's 
 rights, nor any other man's, but win her — ay, and 
 keep her in the face of all. 
 
 But those eyes of Kitty's, so proud, so true, checked 
 his madnesss. He knew that it was only for Jack 
 she looked thus. Had not a new sweetness, an adora- 
 ble loveliness come to her when she had lifted her 
 arms to draw him towards her, for that kiss which now 
 was as far away from him as if worlds divided them ? 
 " You are right," he said ; " such conduct was 
 unnatural. Some day, perhaps, I may be able to 
 explain it. You asked me just now why I remain 
 here, and others must share your surprise. To be 
 left behind as Mr. B.'s paid servant, minding his 
 
FOUND OUT. 91 
 
 goods and chattels like any extra or casual valet, and 
 with less than a valet's welcome." 
 
 " Yon were not born to be the servant of any man," 
 said Katharine, looking at him, haunted by some 
 vague resemblance to Jack, that extended even further 
 than the similar carriage of the shoulders, and the 
 height that had deceived her overnight. 
 
 " No," he said, " I was born to something worse 
 — dishonour \" 
 
 She barely caught the last word, for it was almost 
 drowned in a shout of "Velasquez! Velasquez!" 
 from the nearest cicisbeo in the rear. 
 
 Katharine turned in her saddle, and looked back. 
 The bright cavalcade moved more slowly than at 
 starting; most of the women were tired of a new 
 sensation, and only hedgerows were there to admire, 
 and the keen air had made them eager for luncheon, 
 though it was not yet one o'clock. 
 
 "Where are we going?" cried out Lord Dolly. 
 
 " Here," said Katharine, and Velesquez stopped to 
 unfasten a gate that led by a narrow road, deep with 
 ruts, to a farm-house visible in the distance. 
 
 Then ensued cries, exclamations, convulsive clutches 
 at support more substantial than bridal-reins, as the 
 asses floundered, and stumbled in the ruts, so that 
 Mallinger's guests reached the farm-house in various 
 graceful attitudes of affection, to the delight of the 
 farm servants, who had no idea that "quality" 
 husbands could be so attentive to their wives. 
 
 Katharine alone required no assistance, and had 
 shaken hands with the house-mistress before the others 
 came up. 
 
 Half a dozen of Dashwood's servants were in 
 waiting, and hurried forward. 
 
92 FOUND OUT. 
 
 Beyond the ample house-place showed a large and 
 cheerful kitchen, with a blazing fire that seemed to 
 throw red lights on the crystal and silver of the long 
 table that faced it, and more than one woman uttered 
 a sigh of relief as she lifted her skirts to warm her 
 feet by the burning logs. Soon hats were removed, 
 and the splendid chevelures of gold, of black, of brown, 
 and bronze, struck admiration into the soul of the 
 farmer's daughter, as in the background she gazed upon 
 them. 
 
 Meanwhile, the strings of immense onions festooned 
 from the roof, the half-cured hams, the great flitches 
 of bacon, the evidences on all sides of the rough 
 plenty that the house contained, amused these fine 
 ladies to the temporary oblivion of their appetites, 
 and they flitted about like birds, and would have 
 extended their researches to the dairy had not one of 
 the servants advanced to inform them that luncheon 
 was served. 
 
 ' f Do we not wait for Dashwood?" said Mrs. 
 Vivien, raising her brows as Katharine seated herself, 
 and Velasquez took the place at her right hand. 
 
 Perhaps the cold had made Katharine a little deaf, 
 for she did not answer the question, busying herself 
 entirely with those slight duties, as hostess, that at 
 the Towers she scarcely needed to exercise at all. 
 But to-day, in her father's absence, she chose to 
 assume them with as much heartiness as grace. She 
 recommended certain excellent farm-house dishes 
 to her guests, and echoed the murmured delight of 
 the farmer's wife, when her guests screamed at the 
 sight of, but found sucking-pig, delicious. 
 
 It was in the midst of a burst of laughter that 
 
FOUND OUT. 93 
 
 the door unclosed, and Dashwood, pale in his dark 
 riding dress, stood before them. Beyond the open 
 house-place his black horse, necked with foam and 
 streaming with perspiration, was visible, its bridle 
 secured to the wood-work of the porch. 
 
 " You are late," cried Mrs. Vivien, gaily ; " come 
 and sit beside me, and you shall have some pig." 
 
 He nodded to his daughter, but did not look at 
 Velasquez as he sat down by Mrs. Vivien, and declin- 
 ing her offers of a newly discovered delicacy, asked 
 for one of those everyday articles of diet to which he 
 was accustomed. 
 
 The servants had forgotten nothing, and served 
 their master as perfectly as if he sat at his own table ; 
 but more than one of those discreet servitors saw 
 mischief in his air, and in the glance that from time 
 to time he turned on Katharine and Velasquez in the 
 midst of the light talk he scattered around him. 
 
 Soon the party broke up into little groups, and 
 began to explore the farm-house and its surroundings. 
 The servants had withdrawn, and only Dash wood and 
 Mrs. Vivien were left in the kitchen, standiug on 
 opposite sides of the hearth, and as the door closed, 
 their eyes met. 
 
 " And how do you find the fencing-room by moon- 
 light ? " he said. 
 
 For a moment her colour faded, though her glance 
 did not quail before him, then she said : 
 
 " I find it very well. But if one did not know the 
 trick of the sliding panel, one might find it awkward 
 to be locked in — by one's host." 
 
 Did a lightning expression of! relief cross his 
 features as she spoke? She could scarcely tell, con- 
 
94 FOUND OUT. 
 
 founded as she was by the unexpectedness of the 
 attack, and with all her previously laid plans routed 
 by some intelligence she had gathered from the news- 
 paper just before starting that morning. 
 
 " I have sent your domino to your maid/' he said, 
 negligently. " I think it must be the one — with a 
 great many tucks in it — that Major Georges was 
 speaking of at breakfast. " 
 
 She made no reply ; he could only see her profile 
 as she stood looking down at the blazing logs at their 
 feet. 
 
 " Had I known that you intended to honour my 
 poor room, I would have provided a fire for you, and 
 a chair/'' he said, " or rather three chairs, as, like 
 yourself, Mr. Velasquez and my daughter seemed 
 bitten with a taste for observing my armour last 
 night." 
 
 " It is very beautiful," she murmured, " and I have 
 a weakness for observing armour — and lovers, so I 
 followed Mr. Velasquez and your daughter in. Natu- 
 rally they were too much engaged with each other to 
 hear or perceive my entrance, and I had no idea of 
 intruding on their conversation. My domino was 
 large — and I am small — I wrapped myself in its folds, 
 meaning to lie perdu until the room should be vacant. 
 But my hearing is acute ; I heard all, while I saw 
 nothing. And then you entered," She paused, and 
 for the first time since she had begun to speak, looked 
 at him. 
 
 u And your hearing being so acute, and my voice 
 even more distinct than my daughter's, you kindly 
 listened to my — wanderings," he said, " and no doubU 
 modesty hindered your coming forward to give me the 
 

 FOUND OUT. 95 
 
 pleasure of your company. For you know I am a 
 little fastidious about women, and their charm is gone 
 when I see them masquerading as men/' 
 
 Their eyes were held together now in a keen, 
 searching look. Long ago he and she had measured 
 swords, and a quite inadequate bargain had been 
 struck between them, for if she had once slightly fixed 
 his fancy, he had fixed her regard, and while he had 
 forgotten, she had remembered, with the one supreme 
 passion of a lifetime. 
 
 But if love could not hold him, a secret power 
 might, and after many years of seeking for the one 
 vulnerable spot in his soul, she thought she had 
 discovered it on the evening when he came face to 
 face with Mr. Velasquez. 
 
 " Why will you treat me as an enemy ? " she said 
 at last, in the voice of one who rather supplicates, 
 than imposes conditions. 
 
 " I could never be yours/' he said gravely ; " but 
 you treated me as one, when, under cover of a disguise, 
 you crept constantly to my elbow last night, whisper- 
 ing mysterious questions, innuendoes, doubts." 
 
 il But the doubts are at an end/' she said, boldly, 
 " and a scrap of paper taken from a Russian helm " 
 
 " Is quite at your service/' said Dashwood, adding, 
 as the door opened, and a confusion of voices and 
 approaching steps became audible, " a lady's thefts arc 
 always forgotten." 
 
 " Not if her theft included his honour," said Mrs. 
 Vivien, in a very low voice. 
 
 " No man could wish to place his honour in safer 
 hands," said Dashwood, as he turned to look at the 
 first person who entered, a beautiful young girl carry- 
 
96 FOUND OUT. 
 
 ing carefully a dish of curds and whey, which she 
 almost dropped on discovering the presence of the lord 
 of the manor. She managed, however, to courtesy 
 very gracefully, and to deposit the bowl on the table 
 without any of the male assistance, that was so 
 perseveringly offered by Major Georges and Lord 
 Dolly. Her eyes were bright with anger, and her 
 round soft cheeks rosy with rage ; if she had dared, 
 she would have soundly cracked these gentlemen's 
 heads with her wooden ladle, for they had been 
 chaffing her, and she was no match for their satirical 
 banter. They had found out that she was one of the 
 objects of the great man's admiration, and that her 
 soul stood in ardent need of his prayers, personally 
 conducted of course, but that her mother objected to 
 such intercessions, and had actuallv threatened him 
 with a broomstick if he came " loping round " any 
 more. 
 
 " With eyes like gimlets, and his trousers trodden 
 into rags at his heels, Miss Katharine/'' said the 
 farmer's wife, " to come round my Dolly like as if he 
 was courting her, and he an old gentleman who ought 
 to be saying prayers for himself, or for the country 
 he's tried to be the ruin of ! " 
 
 Katharine laughed. 
 
 u . Dolly can take care of herself," she said ; (S and 
 he is very harmless, both in politics and love." 
 
 They had lingered in the dairy together, and this 
 was the first word they had got alone that day, and 
 now the old servant whispered : 
 
 u And as for love, Miss, have you and Master Jack 
 kept true to each other ? " 
 
 " Yes/' said Kitty, softly. 
 
FOUND OUT. 97 
 
 < c And is the master as much against it as ever ? " 
 
 11 He is just the same." 
 
 " And have you seen him since you came back, 
 Miss ? " 
 
 " Once .... and, and I shall never see him again." 
 
 " You haven't quarrelled, Miss Kitty ? w said the 
 woman, anxiously. 
 
 " No, but have you not heard ? His regiment is 
 ordered abroad on active service." 
 
 " Yes, Miss, yes" said the farmer's wife, briskly ; 
 t: but haven't you got the news this morning ? " 
 
 " What news ? " said Katharine, stopping short 
 with hand pressed to her heart. 
 
 " The war's over, so Master Jack needn't go. My 
 man got it from Stormonth Hall an hour before you 
 came." 
 
 " Oh ! " sighed Kitty, in a long, long sigh of joy. 
 Then she put both arms around the woman's neck, and 
 kissed her. 
 
 " Thank you, Miss Kitty," said the latter, gently. 
 " I'll tell Master Jack that when I see him. And 
 perhaps you'll be seeing him yourself soon." 
 
 " Across the width of a church, perhaps," said 
 Kitty, rather ruefully, "but nowhere else. I have 
 made a promise, Mary, and I must neither send him 
 a message, nor write him a letter, nor make a tryst 
 with him " 
 
 " Nor yet keep one ? " said Mary, her shrewd, kind 
 eyes fixed on the girl's face ; " but if you break your 
 word or no, I'm glad you kept that one in the fencing- 
 room the other night." 
 
 " Did Mr. Stormonth tell you that? " said Katha- 
 rine, proudly. 
 
98 FOUND OUT. 
 
 " How else could he have got to you, Miss, except 
 through me ? Who but me, having lived in service 
 fifteen years at the Towers, knows the ins and outs of 
 the fencing-room, or how 'twas possible for Master 
 Jack to get into it ? And who but me could have 
 got the letter safe to your hand, when every servant 
 in the house has got his orders about you ? ■' 
 
 Katharine coloured brilliantly. 
 
 " So my father does not trust me," she said half 
 aloud. 
 
 "Well, Miss Kitty/' said Mary, "when Master 
 Jack rushed in here all pale and distracted about five 
 o'clock that afternoon, and said he must see you or 
 die before he went abroad, (for he only got my letter 
 that morning saying master had brought you back to 
 the Towers), and how there was only one safe place 
 he knew of, and that was the fencing-room, and 
 could I get a note to your hand within an hour, 
 I put on my cloak and hood, and he just hitched me 
 up on his arm, and bundled me along through the 
 snow, for it was dark as pitch. So that I was breath- 
 less when I got into the housekeeper's room, with his 
 letter safe in my pocket. I knew that if the master 
 caught me taking anything to you, he would turn my 
 man out of the farm at the first opportunity, so I 
 was puzzled how to manage it, for your maid might 
 find it first if I hid it among your clothes, or put it 
 on your table. Just then your little pug trotted 
 into the room, and a thought struck me. The house- 
 keeper had been called away, and picking up the dog 
 I stole, by ways I knew of, to your corridor and 
 knocked at your door. You said, ' Come in ! ' and I 
 half opened it and said, f k Are you alone, Miss ? ' and 
 
FOUND OUT. 99 
 
 you said, ' Yes/ Then I put the letter into the 
 dog's mouth, and pushed him into the room. I heard 
 you get up and make an exclamation ; then I pulled 
 the door close, and ran down for my life. After I 
 came down, the housekeeper said, ' Miss Katharine will 
 be vexed not to have seen you, Mary, but master 
 does not allow any one to see her without his express 
 permission/ But I told her I had no doubt you 
 would be coming to see me one of these, days, little 
 thinking how soon that would be. But all last night 
 I was quaking for fear lest he'd be caught up at the 
 Towers/' 
 
 " Last night V 3 said Kitty, turning very pale ; " but 
 he had gone back to rejoin his regiment, and men do 
 not get leave when they are under marching orders. 
 I could not think how he got that one night/' 
 
 " His Colonel and General Stormonth are old friends/' 
 said Mary. " Perhaps that accounts for it. But the 
 morning after Master Jack got back to his regiment, 
 a telegram came saying the General was dying, so oif 
 he started here again, but by the time he gets to the 
 Hall, the General is better, and quite out of danger." 
 
 Katharine stood pale and breathless, looking 
 through the diamond-shaped panes of glass at the 
 afternoon now quickly closing in, that a few moments 
 ago had shown to her like the opening of a fresh 
 spring morning. 
 
 " I was sitting by the fire knitting," went on Mary, 
 " about nine o'clock last night, when the door opened, 
 and who should walk in but Master Jack ! He'd 
 got on a coat above his evening dress, and over his 
 arm some loose black thing that he told me was a 
 domino, and then he showed me a mask, and said he 
 
ioo FOUND OUT. 
 
 was going up to the Towers to join in the masked 
 ball, where he could get a word with you, and nobody 
 be the wiser. He looked pale, and said, f It's a fine 
 thing to go straight from a sick-bed to a ball, isn't it, 
 Mary ? But the dear old father's better, and she is 
 first, she always must be first with me.' Then he 
 went away, and when I got the message this morning 
 from the Towers that the house party would require 
 the use of the kitchen for luncheon, my heart sank, 
 for I thought the master had found it all out, and 
 was coming here to punish me. But I saw at once 
 by your face that it was all right," added Mary, 
 briskly ; " and now you'll be happy, knowing he is 
 safe at home." 
 
 Katharine turned suddenly. Mr. Velasquez was 
 on the threshold ; apparently he had been waiting 
 without for her during this interview, and his 
 patience was growing exhausted. For the first time 
 the patient, steady attendance on her that both he 
 and she had come to accept as natural, jarred sud- 
 denly and violently on Katharine, and showed her in 
 a false position to her own eyes. 
 
 "1 will come presently," she said coldly, and he 
 bowed and went out. 
 
 " Who is that gentleman, Miss Kitty ? " exclaimed 
 Mary, sharply; "but there's no need to ask his name, 
 only how came he to be stopping in your father's 
 house?" 
 
 " That is Mr. Velasquez," said Kitty, too absorbed 
 in her thoughts to notice Mary's tone. 
 
 " No, it is Mr. Fitzhugh," said Mary, with growing 
 excitement j 4f whatever he may call himself, he's a 
 Fitzhugh. Don't I know their faces as well, and 
 
FOUND OUT. 101 
 
 even better than the Dashwoods' ? And that gentle- 
 man is the living image, except for complexion and 
 black eyes, of the Fitzhugh who was killed — who 
 died, I mean, in the fencing-room at the Towers. 
 And I'll swear that he is of the same blood and race 
 as Master Jack." 
 
 Katharine started. For a minute she stood looking 
 down, and thinking deeply, then a light flashed over 
 all her features, and she coloured as if with shame, 
 but not for herself, and lifted her head proudly. 
 
 " If he is a Fitzhugh, Mary, he has different ideas 
 of honour to — Master Jack. Perhaps he takes after 
 
 his father " and then she stopped, hating herself for 
 
 the ungenerous speech, and moved to return to the 
 house. 
 
 " Are you quite so sure, Miss Kitty, that he was 
 so dishonoured?" said Mary, curiously. " I was your 
 
 mother's maid then, and I saw him often " she 
 
 paused, and a peculiar expression crossed her face. 
 
 " Let us go in/' said Katharine, " or my father will 
 suspect us." 
 
 At the kitchen door they parted, and Velasquez 
 followed her in. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Ye thocht that I was like yourself 
 And loving ilk ane I did see : 
 Btd here I sivear by the Heaven's dear, 
 I never loved a man but thee. 
 
 All the ladies retired to their rooms on the return 
 from the farm-house, for the frosty air had tired them, 
 and below stairs the men made merry after their 
 kind in the smoking-room, and thanked Heaven to be 
 saved afternoon tea. Two of the women dismissed 
 their maids quickly, and drank no tea that afternoon, 
 and both, though from very different points of view, 
 were eagerly reviewing the scenes enacted in the 
 fencing-room overnight. 
 
 Let us yield the pas to the guest of the house, as 
 she sits thinking, thinking, as never in all her frivo- 
 lous life has she thought before. Like a panorama the 
 last ten years of her life unrolled, and she saw herself, 
 as maid, wife, and widow, preferring Dashwood to any 
 other man she had ever met, but always conscious 
 that, however she might attract him, she had no talis- 
 man by which to reach his heart. It was notorious 
 that he had not loved his wife, and, if he amused him- 
 self, it was so negligently that he seemed to feel the 
 trouble more than the pleasure of his ties, and she had 
 never suspected the deeply rooted influence of any 
 other woman in his life until she had heard Fitzhuglr's 
 story, told by Dashwood's neighbour. Then, at a 
 
FOUND OUT. 103 
 
 bound, she had leaped to the truth, and later, with a 
 still bolder flight, made up her mind that Velasquez 
 was Fitzhugh's son. 
 
 It was on these convictions that she had acted at 
 the masked ball, and in her male disguise stolen hither 
 and thither, whispering her doubts and suspicions, but 
 it was only by seeing the curious effect her words had 
 on both Dashwood and Velasquez, that she began to 
 seriously suspect the former of having, by false means, 
 brought about his friend's self-destruction. Later, as 
 she was trying to regain her bedroom unperceived, she 
 found herself entangled in dark corridors, from which 
 she strove to escape, until she heard steps approaching, 
 when she drew back, but to her terror they halted 
 opposite her. The next moment she heard a grating, 
 sliding sound, a step or two forward as through a door, 
 and then the same sliding sound, and she knew herself 
 alone. 
 
 But she had scarcely recovered, when a lighter 
 footfall seemed to approach, and the flicker of a 
 candle showed, and soon, looking neither to the right 
 nor left, a tall figure in a white silk mask and domino 
 paused at the same spot opposite the hider, and with 
 one trembling hand shading the light so that it fell on 
 a particular panel, pressed a thumb on it, and at the 
 same moment the light went out, and a cold current 
 of wind rushed to meet Mrs. Vivien as, without a 
 moment's hesitation, she stepped noiselessly through 
 the aperture close to Katharine, an<ji into the thick 
 darkness immediately beyond. 
 
 In the turmoil and excitement of her nerves, 
 strained towards one point, Katharine heard and felt 
 nothing ; she swiftly closed the panel, and ran forward 
 
104 FOUND OUT. 
 
 to meet her lover, but met instead — Velasquez. 
 Scarcely a word uttered in the room that night was 
 lost on Mrs. Vivien ; lying shrouded in her cloak 
 against the wall she heard all, and, like another Jael, 
 felt that another Sisera was given over into her hand 
 when she found herself in possession of the scrap of 
 paper that she felt certain held the clue to the real 
 truth of the tragedy consummated in that room. 
 
 But the clue had been snatched from her before 
 she had properly seized it. She shuddered even now at 
 the thought of the cold hand that had touched hers, 
 and which she took to be that of the dead man's .... 
 but she wished now that it had been his, or that of 
 any living man save Jack Stormonth. Here was a 
 power by which he could compel Dashwood to give 
 him Katharine, and was it likely the lover would fail 
 to turn his knowledge to such profit? Then her 
 chances were ruined. If the young fool had gone 
 abroad, she might yet have made her game, but with 
 him at home, perhaps in the immediate neighbourhood, 
 she could not be safe for a moment. And without 
 that scrap of paper she could prove nothing, and all 
 her suppositions would be laughed to scorn by all 
 reasonable people, while Dashwood would smile at, and 
 defy her. Nevertheless — and here she set her teeth 
 hard — she would play out her cards as gaily as if the 
 most intrepid heart, certain of success, beat in her 
 breast, and by the time the first dressing-bell rang 
 she had settled her plan of action, and decided on the 
 moment (not far distant) when she should commence 
 the attack. 
 
 And naturally she had never been so fastidious before 
 as to the shape of her gown, and the complexion of 
 
FOUND OUT. 105 
 
 her looks, so that her maid wondered if she had found 
 fresh swains to conquer, and presently inquired in the 
 servants' hall what new gentlemen were expected that 
 night. 
 
 Meanwhile Katharine, too, was alone, divided be- 
 tween joy that Jack was not going away, and terror 
 lest he should have supposed her to have made an 
 assignation with Mr. Velasquez in the fencing-room 
 before she received his letter. 
 
 For surely he had been angry with her, or why did 
 he not come forward, even though a stranger was 
 present ? Why did he let her lift up her arms, even 
 hold up her face (oh ! how that poor face blushed at 
 the thought), to Velasquez as her lover, when a few 
 steps would have brought him to her side ? He must 
 have doubted her — doubted her ! She wrung her 
 hands at the thought. And he must have been in- 
 flexible in his anger, or why, when she stole there for 
 the second time, did he not come to meet her ? But 
 bitterest, cruellest thought of all, she had been so 
 near to the bliss of his voice, his touch, yet had missed 
 both, and she could have sobbed for the loss of that 
 hour of happiness, the sole one, perhaps, that she 
 might have a chance of, before she came of age ! 
 
 Then her tears turned to anger against Mr. Velas- 
 quez, that he must have known Jack was there, but 
 held his peace both then, and during their conversation 
 this morning. Perhaps he looked upon this affair as 
 so purely clandestine that, from a sense of delicacy and 
 regard for her feelings, he did not allude to it, and if 
 her opinion of him was bad, pray what must his be of 
 her ? 
 
 Yet never had she carried her head higher than 
 
106 FOUND OUT. 
 
 when, full ten minutes before the dinner hour, she 
 descended to the drawing-room, intent on having a 
 few words alone with her father. It was his habit to 
 enter the room some minutes before his guests, and 
 his daughter found him there to-night, rather near 
 the door, and bending over some portraits in enamel 
 of the most famous beauties of his house. She ap- 
 proached him j as he looked np, she said, in a low, 
 clear voice : 
 
 u Father, I have broken my promise to you, in the 
 spirit if not in the letter of our agreement. I have 
 met Jack Stormonth once, and should have met him 
 a second time had he kept the appointment." 
 
 "Where did yon meet him?" said Dashwood, 
 turning sharply on his daughter. 
 
 u In the fencing-room." 
 
 He put his hand to his breast as if in momentary 
 pain ; then he said, in his usual cynical tones : 
 
 " Could you not have found a more agreeable ren- 
 dezvous ? And may I inquire the dates of these meet- 
 ings ? " 
 
 " The first was on the evening that your guests 
 arrived ; the second was to have been last night." 
 
 A shade of pallor crept around Dashwood's thin 
 lips, but his voice was as usual when he said, " Since 
 you are so explicit, may I ask during what hours Mr. 
 Stormonth enjoyed the shelter of my roof last night ? " 
 
 " I cannot tell you," said Katharine, with perfect 
 calmness ; " when I arrived, I found the rooms occu- 
 pied to all appearances by Mr. Velasquez only. But 
 I wish to say to you, that if I was hurried by excite- 
 ment into meeting him the first time, nothing can 
 excnse my willingness to do so on a second occasion, 
 
FOUND OUT. 107 
 
 and you need not bolt and bar the door of the fencing 
 or any other room against me, for I will make or 
 keen no other tryst with Mr. Stormonth until " (her 
 voice sank to one of purest love) "my twenty-first 
 birthday." 
 
 " Your assurances come too late/' said Dash wood, 
 in a low voice that seemed to freeze her, so full of 
 menace, of hatred, of even despair, was it ; but the 
 next moment he had advanced to meet Mrs. Vivien, 
 who looked even more lovely and listless than usual. 
 
 " Do I interrupt an interesting conversation ? " 
 she said, looking from one to the other, and acutely 
 realizing what a mistake she had made in neglecting 
 to take Katharine into her calculations. 
 
 (e We were discussing a topic that threatens to be- 
 come tiresome by repetition/'' said Dashwood; then, 
 turning to Katharine, added, " Did you feel any angelic 
 presence near you last night ? Because, though in- 
 visible, Mrs. Vivien was in your company for a con- 
 siderable time in the fencing-room." 
 
 Both women turned white as the dresses they wore, 
 but Katharine's was the pallor of deep humiliation, 
 while Mrs. Vivien's eyes were fixed on Dashwood with 
 so curious a gaze that the girl felt as one suddenly 
 thrust outside some drama in which, up to that 
 moment, she had been taking no insignificant part, and 
 she moved away, leaving her father and his guest face 
 to face. 
 
 " So you defy me, Dashwood ? " said Mrs. Vivien. 
 
 " My dear lady/' he said, " why will you be so 
 melodramatic, and make a tragedy out of a trifle? 
 You hear a story, you get certain suspicions into your 
 charming head, you put on a very uncomfortable dress 
 
108 FOUND OUT. 
 
 in order to confide those suspicions, then you lie for 
 some hours in a very uncomfortable position in order 
 to verify them ; but you only surprise two lovers, both 
 in love, though not necessarily with one another, and 
 you overhear the soliloquy of an elderly gentleman, 
 and connect it with a scrap of paper that, for whim's 
 sake, he keeps in a battered Russian helmet. With 
 the acquisitiveness of your lovely sex, you proceed to 
 confiscate this bit of paper as soon as my back is 
 
 turned w he paused, then with an abrupt change of 
 
 voice and countenance, added, u or did Storm onth 
 take it ? " 
 
 The question stabbed her like a sword- thrust unex- 
 pectedly delivered, and for a moment she staggered 
 under it, then she said : 
 
 " Pray, who is Mr. Stormonth, and what should I 
 know of his doings? V 
 
 But Dashwood had discovered all that he desired, or 
 that he did not desire, to know. 
 
 Fury raged in his heart, as he smiled and left her, 
 to welcome some new guests who had arrived from 
 town that afternoon, and whom he now introduced to 
 his daughter. 
 
 All the women, with two exceptions, were in high 
 spirits that evening, and their complexions so fresh 
 that another donkey ride might have been projected 
 had not some signs of a thaw set in, rejoicing the 
 men's hearts and holding up a lively prospect of scarlet 
 coats and a run with the hounds very shortly. 
 
 It so happened that Mrs. Vivien and Mr. Velasquez 
 were placed side by side, and the opportunity she had 
 desired came. 
 
 " How do you like Mr. Stormonth ? " she said as 
 

 FOUND OUT. 109 
 
 coolly as if she had asked how he liked the change in 
 the weather. 
 
 " He seems a very good fellow," said Mr. Velasquez, 
 after a moment's pause ; " no doubt you arc acquainted 
 with him in town ? n 
 
 " Not I" said Mrs. Vivien ; t€ my acquaintance 
 with him is limited to an interview, very brief, in the 
 fencing-room last night." 
 
 Velasquez started, and looked at her. 
 " Then you arrived there after I left ? n he said, 
 quietly. 
 
 " On the contrary, I arrived early, and, expecting 
 nothing, found a vast deal to interest and — enlighten 
 me." 
 
 , "It was fortunate," said Velasquez, coldly, "that 
 other persons — and matters — .than yourself were dis- 
 cussed. You will pardon my reminding you of the 
 
 old adage " 
 
 " There is another," retorted Mrs. Vivien, " that I 
 prefer. It runs thus : f Two is company, three is 
 trumpery/ " 
 
 " In this instance there would seem to be four, or 
 perhaps six," said Mr. Velasquez, with perfect com- 
 posure, " for to my knowledge you are the fifth 
 person who was present last night." 
 
 "Who knows how many followed us ? " said Mrs. 
 Vivien, shrugging her shoulders ; " but I have a word 
 of advice for you. Don't give Katharine Dashwood 
 up because there has been some boy and girl nonsense 
 between her and Stormonth." Then she turned to 
 the man next her, and left Velasquez to recover from 
 the disagreeable shock of knowing that the pro- 
 foundest secrets of his life were bared to the eyes of a 
 
no FOUND OUT. 
 
 woman to whom the keeping of a secret was probably- 
 impossible. 
 
 Across the pure white flowers that decorated the 
 table, he had more than once sought in vain to catch 
 Katharine's glance, but she seemed engrossed with 
 the new arrival from town, and had never showed so 
 brilliantly, or in such good spirits, as to-night. 
 
 Long ago the men in the house had fitted her 
 with the title of a " contemplative charmer," and by 
 this they did not mean that she contemplated them, 
 but herself. Now there is a story told of a gentle- 
 man of colour who was so enamoured of his own 
 beauty that he spent his whole time gazing into a 
 pool, until his mistress, burning with pity at her own 
 neglected charms, broke his repose by rudely bounc- 
 ing into his looking-glass, and so muddying its waters 
 that his own image disappeared, and he was forced to 
 the contemplation of hers. 
 
 No such interruption had apparently come to dis- 
 turb our charmer in that quiet self-contemplation, or 
 rather, self-communing, that made her move like one 
 apart in the midst of the gaiety around her ; even her 
 constant companionship with Velasquez did not 
 suggest, save to very superficial eyes, any serious 
 interest in him, and one by one the men ceased to 
 concern themselves about so cold and preoccupied a 
 Diana. 
 
 But Katharine, bright, alive, with joy in her eyes 
 to match the roses in her cheeks, with words of wit 
 on her lips, and music in the happy voice whose 
 laughter was frequently heard during dinner, was a 
 creature so radiant and lovely that, as lesser lights pale 
 when the fair queen of night rises on the horizon, so 
 
FOUND OUT. in 
 
 did she outshine all others present, -wherefore jealousy- 
 ruled the female, and admiration the male, bosoms, 
 that surrounded Dashwood's table that night. 
 
 He alone appeared to notice no difference in his 
 daughter, and was his usual self, neither gayer nor 
 sadder than usual, and no one could have guessed the 
 thoughts that came and went in his brain, or see the 
 spectre that stood behind his chair, and whispered a 
 single word over and over again into his ear. 
 
 In the drawing-room Katharine's manner changed, 
 as if under a freezing influence. She did not pretend 
 to understand these fine ladies, nor their shib- 
 boleth, nor their stories, nor the absence of their 
 lords, but she had disapproved less of Mrs. Vivien 
 than the rest, since she was a widow, and free to 
 follow her own devices, even though they might be of 
 no very elevated kind. 
 
 But to-night Katharine felt only indignation 
 against a woman who could so easily play the part of 
 an eavesdropper, and her eyes expressed a very sincere 
 contempt as Mrs. Vivien presently approached, and 
 took the vacant place beside her. 
 
 " Miss Dashwood," she said, " you are angry, and 
 justly so. But it was with no thought of spying on 
 you that I went to the fencing-room last night." 
 
 "Yet you remained to listen," said Katharine, 
 coldly. 
 
 " Because retreat was next to impossible." 
 
 " Then I should have advanced," said Katharine, 
 more coldly still, but longing wildly to ask Mrs. 
 Vivien if she had seen Jack. 
 
 Mrs. Vivien shrugged her shoulders. " There are 
 positions," she said, " where masterly inactivity is the 
 
ii2 FOUND OUT. 
 
 best policy, and this was one of them. But I was 
 sorry/' she went on, in a different and gentler tone, 
 " that your father should have come and spoiled your 
 tryst/' 
 
 " Did Jack come after I left ? " cried Katharine, 
 the words springing irrepressibly from her lips. 
 
 " Is Mr. "Velasquez' name Jack ? " said Mrs. 
 Vivien, opening her eyes. 
 
 " I meant Mr. Stormonth, the man to whom I am 
 engaged/' said Katharine, proudly. 
 
 u A-h \" said Mrs. Vivien, with a peculiar change 
 of countenance. 
 
 " Do you know him ? " said Katharine, feeling a 
 little cold, she knew not why. 
 
 a No, but I hear of him very often. Ts he not in 
 the - — th regiment ? " 
 "Yes." 
 
 u About the fastest regiment in the line. And you 
 are engaged to him ? " added Mrs. Vivien, in a ton^ 
 of incredulity. 
 
 " Is there any reason why I should not be ? " said 
 Katharine, haughtily. 
 
 " None that I know of/' said Mrs. Vivien, adding 
 in a half aside, t: and Miss Dashwood is an heiress ! " 
 
 " Have you been engaged long ? " turning her blue 
 eyes full of pity upon Katharine, who had scorned to 
 notice her Jast words. 
 
 "I think that you need not concern yourself about 
 that matter in the least, Mrs. Vivien." 
 
 " Really ? But it may concern a friend of mine, 
 the prettiest creature in a furiously dark style that I 
 ever saw. And I believe she had good reasons for 
 believing herself as good as engaged to Mr. Stor- 
 
FOUND OUT. 113 
 
 month a month ago. You see she lives at Farnbro' ; 
 and with men, absence does not make the heart grow 
 fonder, and I think your father said you had been at 
 school abroad for the last two years ? " 
 
 But Katharine had moved away, and soon was the 
 centre of a knot of men, not one of whom found it 
 possible to leave her, for she had suddenly developed 
 some airs of a coquette, however stately, and when 
 the party presently sat down to "nap," she was the 
 life and soul of the game. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 " Leave aff your 'pride, Margaret" lie says, 
 " Use it not ony mair, 
 
 Or, when ye come ivhere I hae been, 
 
 You ivill repent it saw." 
 
 The frost had broken up with a will, and a hunt 
 breakfast was going forward at Mallinger Towers. 
 
 The scene was one of indescribable bustle, move- 
 ment, and colour ; the rapid arrivals, the hearty greet- 
 ings, mingling with the hum of talk among those 
 already seated, the quickly moving servants, and the 
 now dull, now brilliant, scarlet of the men's coats, 
 lighting up the Lincoln green or the sober blue of the 
 women's habits ; the blackened oak serving as foil to 
 the massive silver that flanked the sideboard, or shone 
 in brighter shape among flowers upon the long table 
 so richly spread with all that hungry men could desire, 
 and over all a brilliant January sun streaming in 
 through the broad window, of which the upper panes 
 were of red, and gold, and purple. 
 
 Dashwood was in his place as host ; apparently care- 
 less, but overlooking nothing and nobody, he fulfilled 
 his duties with a grace and cordiality that made him 
 appear more than ever distinct from the ordinary men 
 who surrounded him, the only one present who 
 touched, but did not surpass, him, being Mr. 
 Velasquez. 
 
 More than one puzzled glance was turned on that 
 
FOUND OUT. 115 
 
 young man as he assisted Katharine at her tea equip- 
 age, and more than one country neighbour said to 
 another, f What an extraordinary resemblance, by 
 Jove ! " but on hearing his name, concluded himself 
 mistaken, and returned to the pleasures of the table. 
 Each moment brought fresh arrivals, fresh greetings ; 
 the room at last was so crowded that it was a relief 
 when the movement for a start was made, and all got 
 to horse, and rode away. 
 
 The a meet " was held at about a mile's distance 
 from the Towers, and as Katharine trotted between 
 Mr. Velasquez and a neighbouring squire, she began to 
 understand why Englishmen love fox-hunting, and how 
 the typical fox-hunter, the object of cultured persons' 
 disdain, is thoroughly happy, and with good reason. 
 If his face is round, and his body is rounder, he has 
 eyes and soul enough to rejoice in the dewy morning, 
 the fresh smell of the earth, and the aromatic scent 
 of the plants he treads underfoot; he sniffs up the 
 air, now keen, now soft, as if it were Nature's physic, 
 and he feels no care as he jogs along the lanes, 
 perhaps to a hunt breakfast (though such a treat is 
 rare), but always with the certainty that he will find 
 pleasant company when he reaches his destination, 
 while the hopes of good sport animate his honest 
 breast. He meets his neighbours, there is some 
 tedious waiting perhaps, beguiled by a pull from a 
 flask, then at that most melodious cry of " Gone 
 away ! :3 he settles down in his saddle, lets his horse 
 go, and enjoys himself more in the next twenty 
 minutes (if the run is good) than did ever any pale 
 student in most ardent pursuit of a discovery. 
 Perhaps there is no "find" at all, only a tiresome 
 
 1 2 
 
n6 FOUND OUT. 
 
 series of " baulks," and he goes home at the close 
 of the short winter's day without having seen even 
 the tip of Reynard's tail ; but no matter ! He has 
 lived the day, he has breathed the air, and he is 
 happy as he wends his way homeward to a good 
 sound dinner followed by a sounder sleep, in which 
 he dreams of better sport on the morrow. 
 
 " So you haven't forgotten how to ride, Miss 
 Kitty ? n said Squire Dalgety, regarding her with 
 entire approbation. 
 
 " Didn't you teach me ? M she said, turning so 
 fresh a face upon her old friend as should have 
 blinded him to the trouble in her eyes, but his own 
 were keen, and he saw it, and perhaps was not sorry. 
 
 ,e Didn't I teach you both?" said the Squire, 
 lowering his voice, although (for the lane was narrow) 
 Velasquez had dropped behind. 
 
 " Who was the other ? " said Kitty. 
 
 "Who else?" cried Squire Dalgety, growing 
 warm ; " who got you packed off to school when 
 you were over seventeen years old, because he wanted 
 to marry you, and you him ; who has been waiting 
 for you, like patience on a monument, these two 
 years, and would wait a dozen more; who else, pray, 
 but Jack Stormonth ? " 
 
 « Oh, Jack ! " said Kitty, slightingly. 
 
 " And pray, Miss Kitty," said the Squire, facing 
 round, " what has he done to offend you ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing ! " said Kitty, in the tone that implies 
 " everything." 
 
 " Perhaps you've changed your mind/'' said Squire 
 Dalgety, dryly, " and that handsome fellow riding 
 behind us has "something to do with it. He is con- 
 
FOUND OUT. 117 
 
 foundedly like the Fitzhughs, though, if he is one, it's 
 precious bad taste his showing up in this neigh- 
 bourhood." 
 
 w Hush ! " said Kitty, for during the past few days, 
 in which Mrs. Vivien had contrived to distil some 
 more drops of venom into her mind, the girl had gone 
 back to her first friendship for, and trust in, Velas- 
 quez, and tinctured too by a warmer sentiment, the 
 sentiment of pity. 
 
 " Then if Jack's to be thrown overboard," said 
 Squire Dalgety, nodding angrily, " I wish that, while 
 he has been kicking his heels waiting for you, he had 
 amused himself better. There are girls hereabouts 
 that " 
 
 " Perhaps he preferred to amuse himself in town," 
 said Kitty, serenely ; and then no more was said, for 
 Velasquez joined them, and in a few minutes they had 
 reached the scene of the " meet." 
 
 A scratch assemblage had gathered outside a village 
 public-house situated on a gently rising ascent, whence 
 at some distance branched off roads and lanes, and the 
 usual riff-raff of the idle neighbourhood attended, 
 watching with avid interest the huntsman with his 
 hounds, and the people who, irrespective of the party 
 from the Towers, constituted the " meet " that day. 
 
 These persons were, first, a farmer on a cob ; 
 secondly, a woman in honest petticoats and a jacket, 
 on a stout pony; thirdly, a boy on a Shetland; and 
 fourthly, a young man who sat his magnificent bay 
 squarely, and with a sturdy look that signified it 
 would take a good deal to move him from his present 
 situation. 
 
 He was not in scarlet, and, in point of fact, his 
 
n8' ' FOUND OUT. 
 
 father was very ill at that moment, but he saw in 
 this no reason why he should not be present; for 
 Kitty was first, and he would see her, and get a 
 glint of her bright eyes, if nothing more ; so there he 
 sat sturdily, and cared for nobody — but Kitty. 
 
 Yet when the van of the bright cavalcade from the 
 Towers, numbering in all about two hundred, had 
 come up quickly, and gradually scattered hither and 
 thither, but left a clear space to the humble followers 
 of the chase before mentioned, though many a greeting 
 was sung out to Jack Stormonth, he replied but by a 
 nod, or a touch of his whip to his hat, for he was 
 watching for Katharine, who, when she came, Velas- 
 quez at her side, did not see him. 
 
 Did she see him ? Is love so blind as we think ? 
 Does he not make us hear when we cannot see, and 
 feel when we cannot hear ? 
 
 Jack sat immovable, hardly knowing if he were 
 most angry or most hurt. She seemed so really 
 unconscious of his presence that he could not 
 ascribe her absorption in Velasquez to coquetry, 
 and as the minute or two of waiting before the start 
 passed, he felt the more convinced that she had not 
 seen him, but resolved to make her look at him before 
 the day was done. 
 
 He had not meant to follow the hounds, but only 
 to see her; to exchange one long look, and ride 
 away ; but now he had changed his mind, and fell in 
 with the rest when the huntsman galloped forward, 
 leading the way to Dingley woods. 
 
 U Why, man ! " cried a cheery voice near him, 
 " are you going to your own funeral ? " and Jack 
 turned to find Squire Dalgety's face at his elbow. 
 
FOUND OUT. 119 
 
 " Not 1" said Jack, laughing ; " but I dare say I 
 shall get a spill. I always do, you know." 
 
 " How is your father ? n 
 
 " Better, but still very ill." 
 
 " Humph ! " grunted Squire Dalgety, " then why 
 are you here ? " 
 
 " I came to see a young lady," said Jack, auda- 
 ciously. 
 
 " And the young lady won't see you," said the 
 Squire, with another grunt of dissatisfaction ; u what 
 have you been up to in town, young man ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing, sir, nothing ! " 
 
 There was a slight flush on Jack's check, that 
 seemed to belie his words, and the Squire shook his 
 head. 
 
 " Dash wood's a fool," he said, " to keep you so 
 long apart; but I should have thought almost any 
 man might have kept straight for the sake of a 
 Kitty Dashwood. And I can't make that fellow 
 out," he added, nodding at Velasquez, who, with 
 Katharine, was far ahead ; " he calls himself by a 
 foreign name, and looks every inch a Fitzhugh. Yet 
 Dashwood receives him, and lets the young people be 
 together to their hearts' content. Is he afraid of the 
 fellow ? " added the Squire, turning sharply, and 
 fixing suspicious eyes on Jack. 
 
 The young man hesitated. He could not betray 
 his cousin, whose secret was his own, but he did feel 
 that he hated him very heartily as he looked at the 
 two dwindling backs before him, and the demon of 
 jealousy was gnawing at his heart each moment with 
 sharper fangs. 
 
 " I don't think Mr. Dashwood is in the habit of 
 
i2o FOUND OUT. 
 
 being afraid of anybody," he said, "and I think you are 
 judging Kitty — Miss Dashwood — without a hearing/' 
 
 " Humph ! " said the Squire again, " I am not so 
 sure about that. I rode up with her, and she 
 dropped a word or two, and I gave her a hearing of 
 course, and unsatisfactory enough it was." 
 
 u She was faithful enough to me less than a week 
 ago," said Jack, stoutly, then checked himself, and 
 by the friskings of his horse contrived to put a space 
 between himself and the Squire that rendered further 
 conversation impossible. In the halt outside the 
 woods he found himself so close to Katharine that he 
 could hear her voice, and admire, as he willed, the 
 exquisite shape in its grey habit, the lovely face 
 beneath the grey hat, and the skill with which she 
 managed the fiery black horse that not another woman 
 present could have ridden. But in point of fact he 
 did not admire her at all just then. " If she be 
 not fair for me, what care I how fair she be ? " and 
 he longed to give her a good shaking, and a large piece 
 of his mind. 
 
 A good many women present had been wondering 
 who was this handsome, determined-looking young 
 man who seemed to know so many people, yet had 
 not been included in the invitations to the hunt 
 breakfast at the Towers. More than one roving 
 glance of admiration played on him, and perhaps he 
 was not quite unconscious of the unwonted loveliness 
 around him, but for the present, at least, he would 
 leave the honours of jilting with the faithless Kitty, 
 and take his own revenge by-and-by. 
 
 A woman who did not cast eyes at him, or, indeed, 
 seem to be aware of his presence, was Mrs. Vivien ; 
 
FOUND OUT. 121 
 
 yet by imperceptible degrees she contrived to get so 
 near to him that she was only a few yards behind 
 when the deep baying of the hounds proclaimed a 
 " find/' and without ceremony the field pushed for- 
 ward to follow. 
 
 But whoever followed Jack Stormonth that day 
 must have ridden far and fast, though not fast enough 
 to overtake a certain grey habit that fluttered almost 
 recklessly in the very van of the field, and later came 
 in at the death, of one of the best runs of the season. 
 
 Stormonth might have been present but that, after 
 leaping a brook, a female voice in accents of distress 
 pursued him, and he turned back to find Mrs. Vivien 
 seated on the ground, nursing her ankle, while from 
 the other side of the water her steed gazed at her as 
 if deploring the accident that had taken her over, but 
 left himself behind. 
 
 " That brute has thrown me," said the lady, with a 
 very good imitation of tears in her eyes, " and I 
 believe my ankle is twisted or broken, and how am I 
 to get home ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Jack, " I remember you." 
 
 " It would be more to the point, sir," she said 
 tartly, " if you were to assist me." 
 
 He groaned inwardly as he turned and saw the last 
 straggler of the hunt disappearing ; in a few moments 
 his chance would be over of seeing Kitty again that 
 day, and he did not believe this woman was hurt in 
 the least. 
 
 " If you will let me put you on my horse, I will 
 lead him round to where you can mount your own/' 
 said Jack, adding rather heartlessly, " and then no 
 doubt yon will be able to follow with the rest." 
 
122 FOUND OUT. 
 
 " Brute ! M said Mrs. Vivien, with a flash of the 
 eye that should have slain him, but he only picked 
 her up as if she were a child, set her in the saddle, 
 and, putting his arm through the reins, brought her 
 by a somewhat roundabout way to the spot where her 
 steed should have been, but was not. 
 
 " Confound it ! " said Jack under his breath 
 heartily, and Mrs. Vivien turned her head aside to 
 avoid a smile. At the distance of a couple of fields 
 her smart nag was making a bee line for the Towers, 
 having evidently hunted to his stomach's content. 
 
 " What is to be done ? " said Mrs. Vivien, turning 
 a concerned face on the young man. " I have spoiled 
 your day, and 1 have got your horse, and how are you 
 to walk all that way back on foot ? " 
 
 Jack's good-humour was returning. To be sure, 
 his chance of seeing Kitty was gone, but, on the 
 other hand, he had ardently wished for the opportunity 
 of meeting Mrs. Vivien again, and now he had 
 got it. 
 
 " I can manage the walking/' he said, " if you can 
 manage the saddle." Then, in stooping to shorten 
 the left stirrup, he discovered that the lady had as 
 remarkably pretty a foot as he had already discovered 
 her to be a remarkably lovely woman. 
 
 " What is her game ? " he thought as he gave her the 
 reins, and walked beside her on the thick wet grass, 
 while she looked at him over her shoulder, and 
 wondered if he had about his person that precious bit 
 of paper which she coveted above everything in the 
 world. 
 
 " Do you know that you are in my debt ? " she 
 said to him suddenly. 
 
FOUND OUT. 123 
 
 " Only for the honour of your company/' said 
 Jack, " on this and a former occasion." 
 
 " And on the former occasion," said Mrs. Vivien, 
 "you snatched (and it's not a pretty word, but it 
 exactly expresses the truth) a paper from me, and I 
 ask you as a gentleman, to give me that paper back." 
 
 " Unfortunately," said Jack, dryly, cs I was auditor, 
 if not actual witness, to the theft of that paper from a 
 place where Mr. Dashwood had a few minutes before 
 placed it for safety. I therefore consider it my duty 
 to restore it to him as the real owner." 
 
 She could have struck him with her gauntleted 
 hand as he walked beside her; if he had turned, he 
 must have seen the passion that deformed her face, 
 but he was looking straight before him, and her voice 
 was natural when she said : 
 
 u You know the contents of the paper, of course ? " 
 
 " Do you ? " he said, turning his head to look at her. 
 
 " Mallinger Dashwood and I have few secrets from 
 each other," she said calmly, "but this I can tell 
 you, that your giving him back that paper will make 
 you impossible to him as a son-in-law." 
 
 " And why ? " exclaimed Jack, startled. 
 
 " Is he a man to be forced to anything at the 
 sword's point ? Let alone, he may relent long before 
 his daughter is of age, but show him that you think 
 you have him in your power, and he will allow her to 
 drift into a marriage with Mr. Velasquez." 
 
 " Impossible ! " cried Jack ; " there are reasons " 
 
 he checked himself, then said : " and you appear to 
 be reckoning without Miss Dashwood's consent." 
 
 He was looking hard at Mrs. Vivien now, and he 
 caught the flutter of the eyelids, the faint drooping of 
 
124 FOUND OUT. 
 
 the lips, and other intangible signs by which a woman 
 expresses so much more than she dares to say. 
 
 " You mean that her consent would be forthcom- 
 ing ? " said poor Jack, hoarsely, and stopping short in 
 the midst of the ploughed field into which he had 
 plunged. 
 
 " He is very good-looking," said Mrs. Vivien, 
 thoughtfully, u and very fascinating, and he is always 
 beside her, and you are always away." 
 
 Jack laughed, and tossed his head high in the air. 
 
 " You don't know Kitty/' he said. " Nobody docs 
 as well as I do." 
 
 " So you won't give me that bit of paper?" said 
 Mrs. Vivien, as they reached the road, and a clatter 
 of approaching hoofs threatened to disturb their tete- 
 a-tete. 
 
 " No ! I'll keep it for the present." 
 
 A moment later and Mallinger Dashwood came into 
 view, splashed and miry, as one who had ridden in hot 
 haste. 
 
 " My dear lady," he cried, at sight of her, and 
 without noticing Stormonth, "what has happened? 
 I missed you and rode back at once ; but I see you 
 have been taken good care of," and he bowed to Jack 
 as a stranger, then recognition seemed to quicken in 
 his eyes, and he said, " Mr. Stormonth ? " 
 
 Jack nodded, and, raising his hat to Mrs. Vivien, 
 walked away. 
 
 The situation had a touch of the grotesque in it, 
 and Mrs. Vivien laughed. 
 
 " You had met before ? " said Dashwood, arguing 
 quite wrongly from her mirth, and with a curious 
 sense of relief. 
 
FOUND OUT. 125 
 
 " Why not ? " she said, preserving her gay non- 
 chalant bearing, " and of course I am interested in 
 him as your daughter's suitor." 
 
 " An unacceptable one/'' said Dash wood, care- 
 lessly. 
 
 " You prefer Mr. Eitz — I mean Mr. Velasquez ? " 
 
 " I prefer neither. Shall we turn homeward now ? 
 You cannot be very comfortable in that saddle." 
 
 " It is as comfortable as an arm-chair." She 
 leaned over, and patted the glossy neck of the magni- 
 ficent horse, that, while all fire with his master, now 
 carried her with the gentleness of a lamb. 
 
 " Dear Dashwood," she said, " why should not your 
 daughter and Mr. Stormonth marry ? She will never 
 love any other man. She is like her father — faith- 
 ful." 
 
 " A bad complaint," he said, as he opened a gate 
 with his whip for her to pass through. 
 
 " But it is worse for the woman than the man," 
 said Mrs. Vivien, bitterly, when he had joined her. 
 u Perhaps her faithfulness is the one thing in her life, 
 and to a man it is only one of many, and recurring 
 only by fits and starts." 
 
 "You should not quarrel with a man's idea of it/' 
 he said ; " you, who have had so much — and not by 
 fits and starts. There is poor Noll " 
 
 " Oh ! Noll ! " she said. " He is a spaniel — with 
 a spaniel's attributes." 
 
 " Yet as you value faithfulness so much," said 
 Dashwood, dryly, "you should value him." 
 
 " I do not want it," she cried passionately ; " I 
 want love — love, your love, Dashwood, and you will 
 not give it me ! " 
 
126 FOUND OUT. 
 
 11 You are my dearest friend/' lie said,, lifting her 
 Land to his lips. " I am too old for love now/'' 
 
 "No, no," she cried, and drew his palm upwards 
 until it touched her cheek, down which the tears were 
 falling. " You loved me once — I could make you 
 love me again .... and you would forget your 
 Tita . . '* ." 
 
 He knew that she was not acting now ; that, how- 
 ever she might have schemed, and used finesse to get 
 him in her power, it had been solely because she loved 
 him, not that she might work him harm. And yet a 
 woman scorned is a dangerous thing, and he must 
 dispossess her of all such power, no matter how, for in 
 his opinion the end justified the means. 
 
 " Alice," he said, and her heart leaped (it was five 
 years now since he had called her by that name), 
 " if you still honour me with your affection, you have 
 lately taken a strange way of showing it." 
 
 The grave voice, so unlike his usual satirical 
 polished tones, the kindled glance of the habitually 
 cold eyes, moved her more powerfully than a declara- 
 tion of love from his lips could have done ; she bent 
 her head lower over his hand, and her tears fell on it 
 like rain. 
 
 She had not taken into consideration the frightful 
 disadvantage under which a woman labours when she 
 sits down to play a game at skill with the man whom 
 she passionately loves; yet even while she laid her 
 weapons down, she felt a trembling happiness to which 
 her worldly heart had never before been sensible. 
 
 " I will tell you the truth," she said almost below 
 her breath, as the horses went at a foot-pace along 
 the uneven lane, with the ragged hedges, upon which 
 
FOUND OUT. 127 
 
 patches of snow still lingered, shutting them in. " I 
 was struck by something in your face when you met 
 Mr. Velasquez, and by something in his manner when 
 the story of the fencing-room was told in the drawing- 
 room one evening. You had been cold to me, colder 
 than usual, and I longed to make you feel my power, 
 and at the masked ball I hazarded wild guesses, trying 
 to produce an effect upon you, but it was by accident 
 more than intent that I got into the fencing-room 
 that night." 
 
 She paused, and Dashwood's right hand closed on 
 his whip and reins like a vice. 
 
 " I heard it all," she said at last, and looking away 
 from him, " all that Mr. Velasquez said to Mr. Stor- 
 month, and how he was sure, and how his mother was 
 sure, that something had passed between you and 
 Mr. Fitzhugh in the fencing-room — something besides 
 the letter that came to you from the bank." 
 
 She paused again, not daring to look at the man 
 upon whose honour no speck or stain had ever rested, 
 and did not resist when he drew his hand out of hers, 
 and let it fall to his side. 
 
 Perhaps she knew that the bitterness of death was 
 in his heart, but thought that the fount of love in her 
 own might quench it, for love is mighty, and barely 
 sees the obstacles that it hews out of its path. Yet 
 she trembled as she said : 
 
 " And so I stole the scrap of paper out of the 
 helmet, after you went away." 
 
 She dared to look at him now, and found that his 
 eyes were searching every line of her face, then he 
 said : 
 
 " And what did you find in it ? " 
 
128 FOUND OUT. 
 
 " Something that Tita did not write," said Mrs. 
 Vivien, boldly. 
 
 The shot told ; Tor a moment a film seemed stretched 
 before the eagle eyes turned upon her, then something 
 in her face, a shrinking, a tremor, fixed his attention, 
 and he knew that she was deceiving him. 
 
 " You will repeat to me the exact words of that 
 letter ?" he said, gently. 
 
 "No," she said, sullenly, " I will not." 
 
 For a moment or two he watched the averted 
 profile, then he accepted his fate. He knew now that 
 his honour was no longer in the hands of a woman who 
 loved him, but probably in those of an enemy who 
 was not likely to spare him. 
 
 u Poor Alice \ 3i he said, and smiled. 
 
 Then she knew herself detected, and burst into a 
 passion of tears. 
 
 " Oh ! Dashwood," she said, between her sobs, 
 " how can I get it back ? That wretch stole it from 
 me." 
 
 " Velasquez ? " 
 
 " No, it was " 
 
 " Don't tell me," said Dashwood, interrupting her ; 
 " but I think you are mistaken about the contents of 
 that paper. You have not read it, and I have." 
 
 She did not reply — they were now entering the 
 village that led to the Towers, and she had dried her 
 eyes, straightened herself, and was as fine and indiffer- 
 ent a lady as ever, before they had gone twenty paces 
 farther, and if the spectacle of a woman on a man's 
 saddle was unusual, why, she supported the situation 
 with unusual grace. 
 
 But when an hour later Jack Stormonth's horse 
 
FOUND OUT. 129 
 
 was sent back to the Hall, there went with him 
 a letter from Mallinger Dashwood that ran as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Dear Mr. Stormonth, — 
 
 " My guest, Mrs. Vivien, would like to thank you 
 more fully for your kindness in taking care of her to- 
 day ; and my daughter and I will be happy to see you 
 at dinner to-mcrrow at eight o'clock, if you will honour 
 us with your company. 
 
 " Believe me your faithful servant, 
 
 " Mallinger Dashwood." 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 And fair Margaret, and rare Margaret, 
 
 And Margaret o' veritie 
 Gin e 9 er ye love another man, 
 
 Ne'er love him as ye did me. 
 
 Mary Martin sat knitting in her ingle-nook, the 
 work of the day being done, and the labourers abroad, 
 when the tap of a riding-whip was heard on the door, 
 and Jack Stourmonth came in. 
 
 He looked weary and dispirited, and was splashed 
 with mire, as if he had walked far, and the good 
 woman rose in anxiety to meet him. 
 
 " Is the Squire worse, sir ? " she said, when she 
 had brought a jug of ale and served him. 
 
 "No — but Kitty — Kitty'-' (he spoke with intense 
 bitterness) "is as bad as bad can be."" 
 
 tc She is illy Master Jack?" cried Mary, turning 
 very pale. 
 
 u Oh ! yes — as ill as she can be — in her temper, 
 and her manners, and her morals; in fact, I don't 
 believe there's one sound virtuous bit of your Miss 
 Kitty left." 
 
 " There's plenty, sir," said Mary, wrathfully, " and 
 I won't hear my young lady abused like that. And 
 pray what has she done now ? " 
 
 a Only thrown me over for Mr. Velasquez," said 
 Jack, savagely. 
 
 " You mean Mr. Fitzhugh ? " said Mary. 
 

 FOUND OUT. 131 
 
 Jack turned a startled gaze on his old friend, and 
 exclaimed : 
 
 " How do you know that 1 " 
 
 " You can't rub out Nature's handwriting/' said 
 Mary, showing curious agitation, " and I saw his 
 father's face too often at the Towers not to know this 
 one." 
 
 " Mary/' said Jack, abruptly, " you know how Miss 
 Kitty and I loved each other as children long before 
 we understood the feud between our families, for Mr. 
 Dashwood was abroad then, and you had not the 
 heart to keep us apart; but when he came back, he 
 separated us, but could not hinder our meeting years 
 later, when we loved, and parted, but vowed to keep 
 true to one another." 
 
 " And she is true now, Master Jack/' said Mary 
 stoutly, but with an anxious look at the handsome 
 young man who seemed to have grown haggard in a day. 
 <c And I say that she is not/' he replied, stubbornly, 
 "it is not from what I have heard to-day, but from 
 her own acts that I judge her. Would you believe 
 it, Mary, that she could cut me before the whole 
 field?"' 
 
 " Perhaps her father was by, and she daren't notice 
 you." 
 
 ie Did her father's presence compel her to flirt — 
 Oh ! Heavens ! to think that she can flirt ! — with 
 another man under my very nose ! " 
 " All love," said Mary, nodding. 
 " Then I'd rather have her hate," said Jack, getting 
 up and striding about, " it's all very well for men to 
 flirt, but I'll be hanged if I will let my wife do it." 
 " She won't want to," said Mary, briskly, " and as 
 
 K 2 
 
i 3 2 FOUND OUT. 
 
 to her being kind to the poor young man. how do you 
 know that it isn't just pity and no more ? " 
 
 " Why should she pity him ? " said Jack shortly, as 
 he came to a full stop. " He has every attribute of 
 success. He has influence through a great man 
 whose wife has taken him up ; he has good looks 
 enough to bring any woman to his feet — even my 
 Kitty ;" he added bitterly : " he can marry as high as 
 he pleases, and what more does he want ? " 
 
 '" Only his father's good name, so that he can wear 
 his own/' said Mary. , 
 
 (t And how can he get that ? " cried Jack, im- 
 patiently, " he has no facts to go upon — it is all pure 
 
 guess-work — all except-* •' His hand involuntarily 
 
 touched his breast pocket, and he recommenced his 
 stride. 
 
 Mary had laid down her knitting, and her comely 
 face was working strangely. 
 
 " Master Jack," she said, " don't set yourself against 
 him, he is your own cousin ; and I befear me, his father 
 was most grievously wronged." 
 
 " You mean that his death was brought about by 
 foul means ? " said Jack, facing round. 
 
 Mary made no answer, but went on knitting, 
 though her hands trembled. 
 
 Jack looked at her awhile, then went to her, and 
 took knitting and hands into his strong grasp. 
 " What do you know, Mary ? '* he said. " Though I 
 may hate him — and I do — I would not keep back a 
 scrap of evidence that could clear his father's name. 
 And you'll tell me everything." 
 
 Mary looked up at the resolute young face, her 
 mind struggling against him yet. 
 
FOUND OUT. 133 
 
 w It's so long ago," she said, " nigh upon nineteen 
 and a half years — and I haven't held my peace so long 
 to break it now." 
 
 Jack let go her hands, fetched a chair, and sat 
 down beside her. 
 
 " Now, Mary," he said, c< begin." 
 u I can't," she said in a whisper, " there's those 
 living now, that would blame me for keeping silence 
 then — and Mr. Dashwood he'd turn my master and me 
 out of the farm as soon as look." 
 
 "There is more than one farm on my father's 
 estate that you shall have when you want it," said 
 Jack, impatiently, "though I don't know that what 
 you tell me will go any farther, for we want facts, 
 not suppositions." 
 
 Mary sate silent, winding and unwinding her ball 
 of wool. 
 
 " Why do you want to know ? " she said at last ; 
 " if you clear his father, you give him a better chance 
 with Miss Kitty — though I don't believe he ever had 
 any." 
 
 " You have got to tell me, Mary, and you know 
 it," said Jack, " so the sooner you begin the better." 
 
 Mary looked half-fearfully around. The day was 
 closing in, the blaze from the hearth made the out- 
 look from the windows almost dark, and a curious 
 sense of silence reigned in the place. 
 
 " I was first maid to Lady Alicia, after Mr. Dash- 
 wood brought her home from the foreign tour they 
 had taken on their marriage. She sent her French- 
 woman away, and hired me instead, and I was quite 
 happy in her service. She was young, gay, beautiful, 
 and she loved her husband to her heart's content, if 
 
134 FOUND OUT. 
 
 not to his. She saw no lack in him, and I never 
 suspected any, till one day when I saw him in the 
 company of Mrs. Fitzhugh. I had never seen her 
 before, though her husband was constantly at the 
 Towers, but I had to attend my mistress to an archery 
 meeting, and on following her with a wrap, I lost 
 sight of her, and found myself in a tent where two 
 people were standing, my master and Mrs. Fitzhugh. 
 She was so beautiful that she took my breath away — 
 and only afterwards I seemed to recollect what he was 
 saying. ' Tita,' he said, ' can't we be friends ? ' 
 
 " ' No/ she said, and on the moment my mistress 
 came in, looking faint and ill, supported by Mr. Fitz- 
 hugh, and I saw Mrs. Fitzhugh look at her hard, then 
 she went forward quickly, and caught her in her arms. 
 It was a long swoon — and I managed to get both the 
 men away. But when it was over, and she had come 
 to life again, the two ladies were friends. One was 
 ignorant, and one knew — and Mrs. Fitzhugh had the 
 lead, and kept it. She would have my mistress go to 
 her house, though she would never set foot in my 
 master's, and I used to think Mrs. Dashwood showed 
 little pride in going to a place where her husband was 
 not received, and I never could think what excuse her 
 friend made to her for not receiving him. It was an 
 odd thing to see Mr. Fitzhugh constantly at the 
 Towers, my mistress constantly away with Mrs. Fitz- 
 hugh, it seemed as if the two ladies were just as fond 
 of each other's company as the two gentlemen were 
 of one another's, and if people talked and gossipped a 
 bit at the queer terms the families were on, not one of 
 these four seemed to care. And so things went on for 
 close upon a year, and when my mistress was not able 
 
FOUND OUT. 135 
 
 to go out so much, though she begged and prayed 
 Mrs. Fitzhugh to come to the Towers, she could never 
 persuade her — but after all Mrs. Fitzhugh did set foot 
 in the place — once." 
 
 Mary paused, and looked anxiously at the door, as 
 if she expected it to open, and admit some one of 
 whom she was afraid. 
 
 "And now, Master Jack, Fm going to tell you 
 something queer — and perhaps you'll piece it together 
 with what followed afterwards — but perhaps you'll 
 piece it differently to how I did. About a week before 
 her confinement, she called me to her one day as I 
 sate with my sewing in an outer room, and said, ' Look, 
 Martin ! did you ever see any one as clever as I am 
 at imitating handwriting ? * and she held up an enve- 
 lope, with the ink wet, addressed to Mrs. Fitzhugh, 
 that I could have sworn was in my master's hand. I 
 said, c Indeed, my lady, no one would have it for 
 yours/ and she laughed, and said, f I can sign cheques 
 too, and write Mr. Dashwood's name at the end, so 
 that even he can't tell it from his own signature ! J 
 I felt uneasy when she said this, and exclaimed, e Oh ! 
 my lady, that is forgery ! ' but she only laughed again, 
 and said, f Why you stupid, Mary, your master saw. 
 me do it, and of course he tore the cheques up — 3 and 
 she pointed at some pieces of pink paper, torn very 
 small that lay in the waste-paper basket. I thought 
 no more about it, until certain things happened that 
 
 forced me to recollect it About a week after, 
 
 as I said, the baby Miss Katharine was born, and the 
 mother did well for a few days, then she had some 
 feverish signs, and it was on the day that she began 
 to be really ill, that the dreadful thing happened in 
 
136 FOUND OUT. 
 
 the fencing-room — but I haven't come to that yet. 
 Mr. Dashwood had not been up to see her since eleven 
 o'clock,, and between one and two she sent me for 
 him, and I went downstairs, and to the library, where 
 the butler said I should find him. 
 
 " I knocked gently, and thought he said, c come in/ 
 but he did not look up as I entered, and as I saw he 
 was busy at his writing-table, I stood still in the 
 background waiting for him to speak. In the smoking- 
 room beyond, I could see the back of Mr. Fitzhugh's 
 head above his easy-chair, and I thought from his 
 attitude that he was asleep. 
 
 " My master was sitting sideways to me, and I 
 could plainly see what he was doing — opening care- 
 fully, so as not to tear or deface it, a closed letter. 
 He used a thin ivory paper-knife for the purpose, and 
 when it was quite open, he took out a letter that con- 
 tained a pink slip of paper, laid it on the table, and 
 took from beneath the blotting-pad another and 
 similar pink slip, this he put inside the letter, 
 replaced it in the envelope, and fastened it down. 
 The cheque he had removed he placed in his pocket- 
 book. Then he rose and moved towards the bell, 
 and at the same moment discovered me. I thought 
 he started, then he asked my errand, and said he 
 would be upstairs directly, and I heard the bell ring 
 as I went out. He came up almost immediately, 
 but did not remain long, and having sent for the 
 doctor, and reassured her, he went down again, and 
 presently I saw him walking with Mr. Fitzhugh in 
 the grounds. 
 
 " Mary/' said Jack, sternly, u why did you not tell 
 all this at the inquest?" 
 
FOUND OUT. 137 
 
 " I wasn't called as a witness/' she said, trembling, 
 " besides I hadn't put it all together in my mind then, 
 it was only bit by bit I did that — after. But you'll 
 blame me more when you hear the rest." She 
 paused as one who has not courage to continue, and 
 her comely face had become very pale when she 
 said ; 
 
 " Early in the afternoon, Lady Alicia got worse, 
 and sent me again for my master. Her love for him 
 was so great, that she would always have kept him 
 in her sight if it were possible. I felt pretty sure of 
 finding them in the fencing-room at their rapier play, 
 so did not go down to inquire, but went straight 
 there, and seeing the panel a few inches open, I went 
 close to it, meaning to knock at it, and call my master. 
 I could see in quite plainly, the gentlemen had just 
 stripped to their shirt-sleeves, and Mr. Dashwood 
 was at that moment stooping to pick up a lady's 
 handkerchief of white silk with a large scarlet mono- 
 gram in the corner. It was not one of my mistress's, 
 I had never seen it before. I noticed that he picked 
 it up awkwardly, and thrust it at once inside the bosom 
 of his shirt as he rose, and I thought Mr. Fitzhugh 
 looked at him strangely as their play began. I can't 
 say what it was that kept me standing there, staring 
 without speaking, but I was just fascinated by the 
 two, they made such a splendid pair, and they played 
 so magnificently — I'd seen them at it before many a 
 time when I was in attendance on my lady, but I 
 never saw them show such skill and fire as they showed 
 that day. Suddenly Mr. Fitzhugh stopped, and said 
 in a very odd voice, c You will lend me your handker- 
 chief ?' My master gave him his own. f No, the 
 
138 FOUND OUT. 
 
 other/ said Mr. Fitzhugh, he spoke in a tone that 
 might have roused any man's blood. 
 
 " ' One does not part with a gage $ amour? said my 
 master insolently, and he smiled. 
 
 " ' You stole it from my wife's waiting-maid/ said 
 Mr. ritzhugh, who had gone pale as death. 
 
 " ' No/ said Mr. Dashwood, ' I never steal from 
 waiting-maids what their mistresses give/ 
 
 " ' On guard ! ' cried Mr. Fitzhugh, and rushed 
 at him, and as they thrust fiercely at each other, I had 
 some wild thought of running in between them, but 
 just then I heard the butler's step approaching, and 
 in a panic of fear I got away out of sight, and went 
 back to poor Lady Alicia. I made some excuse, and 
 then sat down like the coward that I was, shaking in 
 every limb, and listening with all my soul for I did 
 not know what — but I had not to wait long. Within 
 a quarter of an hour my master came into the room, 
 kissed Lady Alicia, and spoke soothingly to her, but 
 though she did not see anything amiss, I knew by 
 one look at his face that Mr. Fitzhugh was dead. 
 He went away presently, and the doctor came, he 
 looked as if he had got a shock, and at me as if he 
 wanted to know what had happened, but I gave no 
 sign then or at any other time, of knowing anything 
 more than what I was told. My mistress grew much 
 worse, and I never left her — somehow I had a horror 
 of crossing the threshold, and a still greater horror of 
 seeing my master cross it again. The nurse was in 
 the next room with the baby. She had always 
 disliked me because I was not a gossip like herself. 
 Late in the afternoon I heard a very quiet knock at 
 the door, and I found the butler standing outside. 
 He looked pale and ill, and his hand trembled as he 
 
FOUND OUT 139 
 
 beckoned me out, and then he told me that Mr. 
 Fitzhugh had committed suicide in the fencing-room 
 a few hours ago. He said that he had gone there 
 with a letter, and had found the gentlemen fencing 
 very fiercely, and suspected mischief, but they paused 
 when he appeared, and he saw his master walk to a 
 little distance to read the letter, and he came away. 
 He had hardly got to the end of the corridor when 
 he heard himself suddenly and violently called back, 
 and he rushed into the fencing-room just in time to see 
 Mr. Fitzhugh falling to the ground, his right hand grasp- 
 ing the rapier that he had driven through his breast." 
 " But the butler on giving his evidence said there 
 was something white — a letter, he thought, pinned 
 by the rapier to his breast," cried Jack in great 
 excitement. 
 
 " And so there was," said Mary in a very low 
 voice, ' { but it was gone when the butler came back 
 with help. The banker's letter about the forgery was 
 by his side. Nobody seemed to think much of it at 
 the inquiry held on the death, and the butler con- 
 tradicted himself, and said at last he would not swear 
 to having seen it — he was so flustered he might have 
 been mistaken. But, Master Jack," and Mary laid 
 her hand on the young man's arm, " if we could see 
 that letter, we should find in it the real truth about 
 Mr. Fitzhugh's death." 
 
 " I have it here," said Jack, and he took out a 
 pocket-book, and produced from it a discoloured scrap 
 of paper, "here is the last link that completes the 
 chain of evidence against — Kitty's father." 
 
 Mary had fallen back breathless with astonishment 
 at sight of the paper, but the shame and bitterness of 
 his voice moved her powerfully, and she said : 
 
!4o FOUND OUT. 
 
 " There's no dishonour '11 rest upon her — and who's 
 to know it except our two selves ? I guess he's been 
 punished enough, carrying about a hell in his heart all 
 these years/' 
 
 " But don't you see, Mary/' said Jack, impatiently, 
 " that with all this evidence in our hands, it would 
 be most dishonourable both to the dead father, and the 
 living son, not to clear their name from the stain that 
 rests on it ? " 
 
 " Oh ! Master Jack ! " cried Mary in horror, 
 u you're not going to try and make me tell to other 
 folks what I've told you here to-night ? " 
 
 " I think so," he said, and his handsome face looked 
 very stern and pale as he turned it on her ; il you 
 shirked your duty nearly twenty years ago, Mary, but 
 you will have to do it now." 
 
 " My duty ! " cried Mary, angrily, " my duty was 
 to my mistress first — the least hint of it might have 
 killed her then." 
 
 " But she died soon after — why did you not do 
 your duty then ? " 
 
 " There was the child," said Mary, " why should I 
 try and foul her name and her father's, when most 
 likely 'twould only end in my muddying myself? Who 
 would have believed me ? And Mr. Fitzhu gh did kill 
 himself — master had no hand in that — and the man 
 was a fool and a coward to go out of the world in a 
 fit of jealous madness." 
 
 " The truth shall be told — it must be told," said 
 Jack doggedly, " it will be for Mr. Velasquez to 
 decide whether he will publish it or not." 
 
 "And my man will never forgive me," said Mary, 
 with bitter tears in her eyes, " and we shall be turned 
 out of here — and there's my pretty Molly " 
 
FOUND OUT. 141 
 
 "Did you ever tell Martin all this ?" saidJack sharply. 
 " Not I — not a word of it has ever crossed my lips 
 till to-night." 
 
 " He would be the first to bid you speak," said the 
 young man, as he took out his pocket-book to replace 
 the paper. 
 
 H Let me see it, Master Jack," she cried, eagerly. 
 " Fve guessed such many times what could have been 
 
 in it " 
 
 " No, Mary," said Jack, " I won't trust it in your 
 hands — but I'll tell you its contents. It is a love- 
 letter from Mrs. Fitzhugh to Mr. Dash wood, but unless 
 she was the most deceitful woman on earth, I should 
 say this letter was forged." 
 
 " She write a love-letter to him ! " cried Mary ; 
 " why she came to the place where her husband's dead 
 body lay, and cursed Mr. Dashwood, and swore he was 
 a murderer, and she would never rest till she'd brought 
 him to justice ! The butler said it made his blood 
 run cold to hear her, and then she fell down in a fit 
 on Mr. Fitzhugh's body, and so the living and the 
 dead were carried back to their home together." 
 
 " It was a foul cowardly murder" said Jack 
 betw een his teeth, " and to think that such a man 
 should be father of my good, sweet — no, not true Kitty," 
 he added as one stabbed by a sudden recollection, 
 " and no doubt now, rather than have his disgrace 
 published, he will give her to that fellow — and every 
 one will be satisfied — except me." 
 
 Mary had long ago ceased to knit, the flame from 
 the hearth showed her face to be very pale, and she 
 started violently as at that moment a knock was heard, 
 and the next moment a dark figure gloomed in the 
 doorway — it was Mr. Velasquez. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Ha d I hut had the wit yestreen 
 
 That I hae coft this day, 
 Td paid my hane seven times to hell, 
 
 Ere you'd been toon aw ay / 
 
 Mr. Velasquez advanced immediately, and the cheer- 
 ful blaze of the hearth showed that in one hand he 
 carried a bit of white that looked like a letter. He 
 bowed gravely to Jack, who did not rise, but bowed 
 with equal ceremony in return, then he turned to Mrs. 
 Martin, who was standing, and gave her the small 
 twisted-up note, saying, " Miss Dashwood asked me to 
 deliver this to you.'' 
 
 Mary curtsied and went nearer the fire to read 
 it, but her hands trembled so violently that she only 
 fumbled with, but did not open it. The two men 
 looked at one another, then Jack spoke : 
 
 " You could not have come at a more opportune 
 time," he said. " Mrs. Martin and I Were just talking 
 about you." 
 
 Mr. Velasquez looked towards the farmer's wife with 
 some haughtiness. 
 
 a I am not aware that my affairs can in any way 
 nterest — Mrs*. Martin." 
 
 " On the contrary," said Jack, carelessly, u I don't 
 know any one who could tell you so much about them. 
 Mary," he added, " come here." 
 
 Mary came sullenly, and stood before the two men 
 with the note half untwisted in her hands. 
 
FOUND OUT. 143 
 
 " Tell Mr. Velasquez all you have told me." 
 
 " I won't," said Mary, sitting down with a stubborn 
 look on her face as Jack rose. 
 
 " Then I will take the telling of the story on 
 myself," said Jack, u and if I make any mistakes, you'll 
 correct me." 
 
 He turned to Mr. Velasquez, whose features were 
 quite calm, but his eyes extraordinarily bright. 
 
 " Mrs. Martin, sir, was maid to Lady Alicia Dash- 
 wood some twenty years ago, and became acquainted 
 with the fact that her mistress could copy her 
 husband's writing so exactly, that she even signed 
 some cheques one day with his signature and his 
 knowledge, and triumphantly told her maid of it 
 afterwards. She pointed to the torn pieces in the 
 waste-paper basket, but judging by subsequent events 
 one of these cheques was — saved. On the day of the 
 tragedy in the fencing-room, Mrs. Martin had occasion 
 to go to the library, and, herself unobserved, saw 
 Mr. Dashwood unfasten a letter in such a way as 
 to leave no signs of its having been opened, take 
 out a cheque, replace it with another, then re- 
 fasten it, and rise as if to despatch it. Your father, 
 Mr. Fitzhugh, was at the time asleep in the next 
 room. It is clear now that Mr. Fitzhugh in 
 writing to his wife had enclosed the cheque actually 
 given by Mr. Dashwood in payment for the bit of land 
 for which they had been bargaining, and that Mr. 
 Dashwood had substituted for it one of the blank 
 cheques signed by his wife, that he had filled in the 
 date and amount, forged Fitzhugh's endorsement at 
 the back, then sent it by a mounted messenger to 
 Mrs. Fitzhugh. Later in the day Mrs. Martin was 
 
144 FOUND OUT. 
 
 again sent in search of her master, and found him with 
 Mr. Fitzhugh in the fencing-room. Mr. Dashwood 
 was in the act of stooping to pick up a lady's hand- 
 kerchief, in the corner of which was a large monogram 
 in blue " 
 
 " In scarlet/' said Mary, curtly. 
 
 " Then tell that part of the story/' he said, turning 
 on her sharply ; and startled out of herself, and 
 perhaps seeing that she had gone too far to retreat, 
 Mary told it — so far as what she saw and heard in 
 the fencing-room was concerned. 
 
 iC Mr. Stormonth can tell you the rest/' she said, 
 in a voice of mingled anger and fear as she con- 
 cluded, " he knows what's inside that bit of paper — 
 and I don't." 
 
 Jack explained, then produced the scrap of paper, 
 and handed it to Mr. Velasquez. He saw how the 
 hand of his enemy shook as it held the paper, saw 
 that the gaze of the dark eyes fixed upon it beheld 
 nothing, and mechanically stretched out his hand for 
 it, meaning to read it aloud. 
 
 " No ! " shouted Velasquez, and put his arm behind 
 his back. 
 
 " Why, damn you, sir," cried Jack with flashing 
 eyes, li what more do you want to steal ? A dishonour- 
 able fellow who comes on false pretences to a house, 
 and tries to seduce from him another man's sweet- 
 heart, because he knows the man she loves is forbidden 
 the place ** 
 
 " If she loves him, there is no danger/' interrupted 
 Mr. Velasquez, drily. 
 
 " Why, he is sneak enough for anything ! " con- 
 cluded Jack, " and for my part I should love to kick 
 him ! " 
 
FOUND OUT. 145 
 
 n Pray try," said Mr. Velasquez, grimly. 
 
 " Sir, sir/' cried Mrs. Martin, her own small passions 
 forgotten in fear of a conflict of the two men, " do 
 you know it's all Mr. Stormonth's doing, and by his 
 forcing me to speak out on your behalf, that you've 
 heard any bit of the truth this day ? " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Mary/' said Jack, roughly, 
 "he shall have every chance given him — I, for one, 
 won't step in to hinder him." 
 
 And he dashed his hat on his head, and had crossed 
 the kitchen, and was out at the door before Mary had 
 time to draw breath. 
 
 Mr. Velasquez's eyes followed him, though he did 
 not stir. Since last he saw Jack his feelings and 
 ideas had undergone a thorough change. He was 
 not prepared to give up Kitty now — and Kitty's own 
 behaviour was the cause. 
 
 He drew his pocket-book from his breast, and 
 slowly, with his eyes on Mary, placed the precious 
 scrap of paper inside it. 
 
 " Is there any answer to your young lady's letter ? " 
 he said. 
 
 " No," she answered, and that was true enough, for 
 she had not read it. 
 
 Then he went away,- and she kn^w that he knew 
 her for his enemy. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Nae wonder, nae ivonder, Gil Morrice, 
 
 My lady lo'es thee weel ; 
 For the whitest part o' my body 
 
 Is blacker than thy heel. 
 
 " My dear/' whispered Mrs. Vivien in Katharine's 
 ear just before dinner that night, " your Jack Stor- 
 month is the most charming love-maker that I ever 
 met — no wonder you and poor Nina, with hosts of 
 others, succumbed to him ! ; ' 
 
 " Did you ? " said Katharine, too proud to inquire, 
 yet having already coupled the simultaneous dis- 
 appearance of the lady and Jack from the hunt. 
 
 " Of course he came to see you/' said Mrs. Vivien, 
 shrugging her shoulders, " but when he found you so 
 taken up with Mr. Velasquez, he speedily consoled 
 himself." 
 
 a He is more than welcome," said Katharine, 
 coldly. 
 
 li But still, my dear, I really believe that in his 
 heart he prefers you to Nina, or to any of the rest 
 of us who help him to while away an idle hour ! * 
 
 " I am honoured by his supposed preference/' said 
 Katharine, smiling, as she moved away, followed by a 
 dark look from the blue eyes that had shed such 
 bitter tears of love and disappointment that day. 
 
 No one could accuse Mr. Dashwood's daughter 
 now of being tame and spiritless ; the very character 
 
FOUND OUT. 147 
 
 of her beauty had changed, and she had developed 
 from a contemplative to a brilliant charmer with a 
 single bound. What if her cheek were pale, were not 
 her smiles all the sweeter ? What if her wit were 
 keen, did not the softness of her voice make amends? 
 And what if she flirted a little — if a woman may be 
 said to flirt, who merely unmasks the whole battery of 
 her charms, and lets them play upon all alike with- 
 out caring to watch the effect — was not every man 
 there the happier for a look, a word, some slight 
 favour bestowed with consummate grace ? Already 
 the women suspected her, but she had no idea of 
 taking their lovers from them, she gave the greater 
 part of her time to Mr. Velasquez, and all her thoughts 
 to Jack. If this form of reprisal on her faithless 
 knight were a cruel one to Mr. Velasquez, she did 
 not care, and the fact that the two men were cousins 
 increased her recklessness. She had been wounded 
 through the softest, truest depths of her heart, poor, 
 faithful, trusting Kitty ! and she had openly been 
 stabbed in her pride, and she could not sit down and 
 bear her pain patiently, but she must thrust it away 
 from her and revenge it, though it recoiled upon her 
 with a deeper anguish than before. 
 
 And from a woman so proud, so pure, so cold as 
 Kitty, a very little encouragement went a long way, 
 and who can blame Velasquez if, long accustomed to 
 be adored by women, he misread her, and thought 
 that her school-girl fancy for Jack had paled in the 
 dawn of a woman's passion for himself ? 
 
 That night, when all the house was silent, he stood 
 alone in his chamber, and with a sudden exultant 
 movement of his arms upwards looked straight before 
 
 l 2 
 
148 FOUND OUT, 
 
 him as if he saw something for which he had struggled 
 hopelessly, and at last won. 
 
 But it was not upon his restored birthright of 
 honour, upon the removal of the stain from his 
 father's name, that his thoughts rested ; it was upon 
 Katharine, radiant, lovely, unfaithful to another man 
 so that she might be faithful to him — Katharine, the 
 only woman on earth he had ever loved, and whom 
 he had loved at first sight, and would love to the last 
 breath of his body and soul. 
 
 He had been no better than a madman when, in 
 the shock of discovering her girlish love for Jack, he 
 Lad resolved to sacrifice himself for her, and use •what- 
 ever power he might have over her father to secure 
 her happiness with that young man. To-night the 
 virile selfishness in him rose up, and flung all scruples, 
 all self-renunciation by, and cried out that having 
 won Kitty's love he would keep it, that having dis- 
 covered his rights he would use them, and that even 
 if she showed some faint relentings towards her 
 former lover, he would crush them through her father, 
 by the might of a certain scrap of paper that he held 
 in his possession. 
 
 And did she not love him ! Had she not during 
 the past few days given him enough encouragement 
 to satisfy a bolder man ? Had she not at the " meet" 
 that morning cut Jack Stormonth more than once as 
 coldly, as deliberately, as if she had looked him 
 straight in the eyes and turned away ? Perhaps she 
 had felt the difference between the love of a boy and 
 the worship of a man, and she had yielded as swiftly 
 to the charm as he had yielded to her. And pray, 
 since the world began, was there ever a lover who con- 
 
FOUND OUT. 149 
 
 sidered it unnatural that his passion should be reci- 
 procated with the rapidity of lightning ? 
 
 Poor Stormonth, poor fellow ! And he had behaved 
 like a boor, and like the beaten man that he knew 
 himself that afternoon. Yet he had been honest in 
 telling all he knew to his cousin's advantage, and 
 honest too in giving his opinion to the reverse. 
 
 " To-morrow/' said Mr. Velasquez as he sat down 
 at the table upon which a lamp stood, i{ to-morrow 
 shall decide it, and next day Mr. B. comes, and for 
 the present I must leave her/' 
 
 He took from his breast a pocket-book, out of 
 which he drew some closely written sheets in the 
 handwriting of his mother. He perused them care- 
 fully ; they ran as follows : — 
 
 " When Mr. Fitzhugh asked me to marry him, I 
 had for months been pursued by the attentions of his 
 friend, Mallinger Dashwood. There was no compari- 
 son between the men, the one all generosity, fire, and 
 honour, passionate to an extreme ; the other cold, 
 polished, fascinating, with an evil heart that some- 
 times looked out of his eyes, and appalled you. 
 Perhaps he loved me — in a bad man's life there is 
 usually one attachment that at its rise was pure, but 
 there can be no purity in the love that persists in its 
 suit when all hope of its honourable fulfilment is over, 
 and when its declaration becomes a crime. I think 
 that some men make love because they happen to be 
 in the mood, and a woman is near; others take a 
 violent fancy, and sicken of it as quickly ; others, again, 
 sit down deliberately to woo a woman, and the more 
 they hate her that she will not yield, the more they 
 love her. 
 
ISO FOUND OUT. 
 
 " It was after my marriage that Mallinger Dashwood 
 began his most determined siege, and I had to endure 
 it silently, for I would not betray him to his friend — 
 my husband. "We were abroad for two years, and no 
 matter where we went, he was there, but before we 
 returned to England, I spoke to him. 
 
 " ' Do not dare to cross the threshold of Queen 
 Una's Palace when we go there/ I said, ' or I will 
 tell my husband of every word and look you have 
 given me/ 
 
 " He only smiled, and said, as he turned away, c You 
 will change/ but he never came to our house from 
 that day to this, though his wife, God bless her ! 
 often did. I was very happy when we settled down 
 in our new home, and my only cause of discontent 
 was my husband's constant companionship with Mal- 
 linger Dashwood; but as I would not receive our 
 neighbour, or even give my reasons for disliking 
 him, Fitzhugh became silent on the subject, and 
 set down my dislike of him to a young wife's usual 
 distaste for the bachelor friends who take her 
 husband away from her. And yet we met, more or 
 less constantly, at other people's houses, and he 
 never ceased, by some sign or look, to remind me that 
 he loved me, and that he pitied me. I felt the lash 
 of his pity — for I knew that, however dear I was to 
 Fitzhugh, I was powerless to keep him at my side 
 when Mallinger Dashwood beckoned, and for many 
 lonely days and many lonely nights I had to thank 
 the man whose supremacy of will and charm every 
 one bowed to save myself. 
 
 " When I heard that he was about to marry, I re- 
 joiced, for I thought, f He is tired at last.' But 
 
FOUND OUT. 151 
 
 when he brought her home, and I met her abroad— a 
 fair, fragile, loving creature who clung to his arm, and 
 found her heaven in his eyes — I knew that he was un- 
 changed, and that she would not change him. One 
 day at some affair, he caught me alone, and asked if 
 we might not be friends? I said, 'No!' and just 
 after, his wife came in fainting, and I helped to re- 
 cover her — after that we were friends. I never went 
 to her house, but she often came to mine, and, though 
 she loved me so much, she never had courage to ask 
 me why I disliked her husband. I believe she 
 thought I was jealous of his influence over Fitzhugh, 
 and perhaps she shared in my feelings, since Dash- 
 wood in his turn was so constantly away from her, 
 and she grudged every hour he passed out of her 
 sight. I had one drop of sweet in my cup that even 
 Mallinger Dashwood could not embitter — it was my 
 little son. He was two and a half years old when 
 Lady Alicia came to the Towers, and we would often 
 play together with him, and months later she would 
 say how she hoped her child would be a boy as Mal- 
 linger Dashwood wished. I thought then that his 
 character might change when he had a child of his 
 own, and that some day he and I might clasp hands 
 as friends, but the day after his little daughter was 
 born, I met him accidentally out walking, and he never 
 behaved worse, or spoke worse than then. I could not 
 go to poor Alicia, though I soon heard that she had 
 been very ill, and it was because I was anxious to get 
 news of her, that I did not try and hinder my husband 
 from riding over to the Towers on the day when he 
 met his death. I have thought since that my last 
 words prepared the weapon that destroyed him, for I 
 
152 FOUND OUT. 
 
 said, ' I want some money so badly, Fitz ; there are 
 the servants and the household bills to pay. Have you 
 anything coming in soon ? ' 
 
 " He kissed me and said, l Don't worry, Tita, I am 
 selling a bit of land to Dashwood, and no doubt he'll 
 conclude the purchase this afternoon ; it's only a hun- 
 dred and fifty, but better than nothing/ 
 
 " I kissed him too before he rode away — O ! how cold 
 that kiss seemed to me afterwards, but I was angry 
 with him that he could sell a rood of his ground, or 
 take a shilling from Mallinger Dashwood. * Poor 
 though we might be, we were of the haute noblesse of 
 the county, and the Dashwoods were mushrooms of 
 less than a hundred years' growth, and in every game 
 of chance, of skill, of strength, of love even, no Fitz- 
 hugh had ever been beaten by a Dashwood. 
 
 " Only a few hours had elapsed when a servant 
 brought me a letter addressed in my husband's hand, 
 and as I opened the envelope an enclosure fell out — 
 it was a cheque. The mere touch of it seemed to 
 burn me, I shook it from my knee, and read the letter. 
 There were just a few loving lines to say he found 
 Dashwood very lonely and that he was going to stay 
 the afternoon, and dine with him, and added in a 
 postscript that Lady Alicia was no worse ; and just 
 under this he had scratched, as if with another pen, 
 ? I enclose a cheque — get it cashed at once,' and I 
 thought it was just like him to send it me at once, 
 not liking me to be worried about money a moment 
 longer than he could help. But he did not know how 
 I would rather have starved than see him sell his land 
 to his friend, and when at lastl picked the cheque up, 
 T would not even look at it, but thrust it into my 
 
FOUND OU'I. 153 
 
 purse, and when my ponies came round, I drove into 
 the town to the bank, and cashed it. I thought the 
 man looked oddly at me when he asked how I would 
 take the money, and I said mechanically, f Notes and 
 gold/ and when he said he would give me a hundred 
 in gold, I stared at him, but he was counting them 
 out and presently gave them to me in a bag, with 
 fourteen bank notes, and asked me to look them over 
 and see that they were right. I glanced at them, the 
 top note was for a hundred, the second was for a 
 hundred, so was the third — but I looked no farther, 
 something chilled me to the very heart, and for the 
 first time I felt the icy breath of dishonour. I 
 gathered up the notes and gold and came away, but I 
 do not know how I drove home. I remember nothing 
 until I found myself sitting by a table upon which 
 I had dashed all the money down, and sat staring at 
 it — for my husband's honour was in its midst. He 
 had no land to sell of the value of fifteen hundred 
 pounds ; with the exception of a few fields that he had 
 inherited from his mother he had no power to sell a 
 rood of the ground that he called his own. So Mal- 
 linger Dashwood must have lent nearly the whole of 
 this money — and a Fitzhugh had stooped to accept it ! 
 Oh ! my love, my dear, to think that I could have 
 hated you then — and at that very moment you were 
 lying dead, doomed to your death by the enemy who 
 always called you his friend. I don't know how long 
 it was before people came to me, and told me that he 
 was dead, and how he died. I think that in my mad- 
 ness of shame for him I was glad at first when they 
 told me ; for I thought, f He had some pride left, and 
 so he died.' But all at once it came home to me 
 
154 FOUND OUT. 
 
 that he was dead — that I should never see my blue- 
 eyed, bright-haired Alan again — and I broke away 
 from them all, and I ran or stumbled every step of 
 the way to Mallinger Towers with those behind who 
 could not overtake me, and when I got to the house, 
 I bade one of the servants take me to the fencing- 
 room, and he stared, but guided me there .... and 
 on the ground with a rapier through his heart, and 
 his frozen blue eyes looking upwards, lay Alan, with a 
 dark frown of horror, shame, and agony imprinted on 
 his face. By his side stood Mallinger Dashwood, look- 
 ing down on him, but as across that body our eyes met, I 
 read triumph in his, and something devilish, mocking, 
 triumphant — and I knew that in some hideous un- 
 known way he had brought about my husband's death. 
 " Then I knelt down and put my arms round the 
 poor clay, that lay slanting, with the bright steel of 
 the rapier showing far behind his back, and I put my 
 mouth to his, and I swore that I would bring his guilt 
 home to the man whose will had guided the weapon, 
 even if his hand had not driven it there. For I saw 
 imprinted on my husband's face an expression of un- 
 utterable shame and horror, and mingling with it a 
 grievous look, as if with his last breath he reproached 
 some one who had betrayed him .... I have seen 
 such a look before in a child's face when it is cruelly 
 wronged, and yet cannot speak to defend itself .... 
 and somehow I knew that he had died with his faith 
 in me broken, and that the man he called his friend 
 had broken it. You will say he was a coward to die 
 so, but he was fiery and passionate, he could not live 
 without honour, he could not live without me, and so 
 — he died. 
 
FOUND OUT. 155 
 
 H God knows what words I said to Mallinger Dash- 
 wood then, but I remember how he looked, and how 
 my curses beat against him, and recoiled as if from 
 stone, and then an awful sense of his implacable 
 power seized me, and I fell down with my arms round 
 that poor murdered body, and so, locked together, we 
 were carried away from the house. When I came to 
 my senses I was still beside him, but they had washed 
 and stretched my bonnie love, my bridegroom, only 
 they could not smooth out the expression stamped on 
 his face, or hide the rift that yawned in his side. 
 Night and day I was with him, and sometimes fell 
 into an exhausted sleep, with my head upon his breast ; 
 but whenever I was not thinking of the days that had 
 gone by, I was struggling to find out some way by 
 which I could discover the real truth as to how and 
 why he died. A sufficient reason seemed to be found 
 when my friends came to me, and told me that the 
 signature to the cheque I had cashed by his desire was 
 a forgery, and that he had forged it. They gave me 
 all the details, and the servant's evidence. Do you 
 think that for one moment I listened to or believed 
 it? Did I not know that his dead hand was as 
 clean as mine, and that in life it was incapable of such 
 a deed ? They did not understand my Alan — and I 
 laughed at them, and they went away saying that 
 I was mad, and how it was Mallinger Dashwood 
 who had been wronged, not my husband. When 
 they had all gone, I knelt down beside him, and 
 twined his cold hand round my neck, and I whispered 
 to him : ' Love, husband, can't you tell me, can't you 
 give me a clue ? 3 But I got no answer, only I thought 
 that grievous look of betrayal grew fainter as I gazed 
 
156 FOUND OUT. 
 
 at him, and the fancy seized me that perhaps,, in some 
 other state of existence, he knew, and that when I 
 went to him, he would come to meet me, knowing 
 me for his true, his faithful Tita .... but though 
 he could not speak, something seemed to pass from 
 his dead heart to my living one as I pressed it 
 against his breast, and as it took form and shape I 
 thought I saw enacted before me the following 
 scene : — 
 
 " Two men were fencing in a room lined with 
 magnificent armour, fencing with fury, though the 
 buttons on their foils showed that they had commenced 
 to play for amusement only. They paused as a 
 servant entered, and delivered to one of them a letter 
 which he read with his back to his adversary, but 
 when he turned, it was with a look of pointed signifi- 
 cance, and an evil sneer curled his mouth as he thrust 
 the letter into his breast, and took up his rapier to 
 resume the game. I saw the second man stride 
 forward, and with threatening gestures demand the 
 letter. I saw the first hesitate, and fall back as if he 
 simulated fear, but he offered no resistance when the 
 other snatched from his breast the letter, and, rapier 
 still in hand, read it. I saw a mortal change over- 
 spread his face, I saw a woman's writing, my own, on 
 the page before him, then, without a word, without 
 moving a step from where he stood, he ran the letter 
 through his rapier, and the rapier through his heart 
 — and died. 
 
 " I came out of my trance almost as cold and stiff 
 as the dead in my arms, but with every detail of the 
 scene stamped upon my brain, and by an effort of 
 
FOUND OUT. 157 
 
 will, I can at any moment recall it, like any other 
 event that I have actually witnessed. 
 
 " Did any one hearken to me when I cried aloud for 
 vengeance on that innocent blood ? Was I reckoned 
 anything but a madwoman when I accused Mallinger 
 Dashwood ' of substituting another letter — a letter 
 forged in my handwriting — for the one that had come 
 from the bank, and that my husband never saw? 
 No ! I was only a degree less infamous than my 
 husband, and in one respect more infamous still, since 
 by my accusations I revealed the fact that Mallinger 
 Dashwood had been my lover, both before and since 
 my marriage. Not a woman in the county but believed 
 I must have given him some encouragement for the 
 guilty suit that I published, not a man but reckoned 
 the name of Alan Fitzhugh a hopelessly stained one, 
 and that for him it were better to be dead than living:. 
 I could make no fight against his enemy, I could only 
 rail like a woman in the teeth of evidence that all 
 others accepted, nor could even construe into guilt a 
 letter that I received from him before I left Queen 
 Una's Palace — a letter in which he asked me to be 
 his wife. The poor Alicia was dead, leaving her little 
 baby behind her, and I had wept for her the tears 
 that I could not shed above my dead sweetheart. I 
 tore the letter in two halves, and sent it back to him, 
 I refused to look upon his face when he tried to force 
 himself upon me, but I grew nervous at last, and 
 resolved to go away, somewhere that he could not 
 find me, or persecute me with his hateful love. 
 
 "My lawyer pitied me, while he despised my illu- 
 sions, and privately he found a tenant for Queen 
 Una's Palace, and a quiet home abroad for my boy 
 
158 FOUND OUT. 
 
 and me, to which we went in secret, under my mother's 
 maiden name of Velasquez. Have I said but little of 
 my boy, my Tito, his father's likeness in height and 
 strength, in feature even, save that he had my dark 
 colouring, and hair and eyes ? It is not that I did 
 not love him at that dreadful time, but that I loved 
 his father more, and even now when I write of these 
 things, my blood burns, my limbs tremble, I see once 
 more the tragedy in the fencing-room, I am torn 
 again by the fierce longing to clear my darling's 
 name in the eyes of those who believed in his guilt, 
 and to bring home his death to the man who caused 
 it. If the letter is in existence, it would prove much, 
 but to obtain possession of that letter is as unlikely 
 as that Mallinger Bashwood still possesses it. 
 
 " Let me confess here that one mad, sinful way of 
 arriving at the truth did, in the earlier days, of my 
 widowhood, suggest itself to me. I would accept his 
 suit, simulate love for him, then, when he was weak 
 as water in my hands, I would draw from him the 
 whole story and betray him. But such desperate 
 counsels soon left me, and in the training up of my 
 young son, in watching over his childhood, his youth, 
 and early manhood, much of the bitterness has been 
 washed out of my heart, and my lips now would 
 refuse to utter the curses that I once poured out 
 upon the murderer of my husband." 
 
 $? , W "ft" TS* TP 
 
 The page ended there : on the other side were 
 some lines in fresher ink, that had apparently been 
 added recently : — 
 
 " My son has obtained the post of private secretary, 
 or rather one of the secretaries, to Mr. E. The 
 
POUND OUT. 159 
 
 great man brought his wife here to drink the waters, 
 she took a fancy to Tito, and the thing was done. 
 He has left me often before, so why do I trouble at 
 his leaving me now ? It is because he will probably 
 meet Mallinger Dash wood in Mr. B.'s circle, may even 
 go with Mr. B. to stay at the Towers, as I find the 
 two men are on terms of intimacy; he may even stand 
 in the room where his father died, and have at his 
 very elbow the evidence that might clear that father, 
 yet I expect nothing from his discoveries, but some 
 harm done to his future when Mallinger Dash wood 
 sees in him Alan Fitzhugh's son." 
 
 Here the entries ceased, but beneath the sheets 
 was a letter, dated only the week previously. 
 
 "My son," it said, "you know the secret of the 
 sliding panel in the fencing-room — I told you of it 
 before you left me, as long ago your father told 
 me — go there as soon as possible, and look inside the 
 helms above the mantel-shelf. In a dream last night 
 I saw Mallinger Dash wood stand before one of them, 
 and draw from it a discoloured piece of paper that he 
 read, and presently replaced. In my dream I saw the 
 handwriting — it was mine in appearance, but it was 
 a forgery. 
 
 " I cannot remain here in suspense, and to-morrow I 
 set out for London, and will write you my address 
 from there." 
 
 Here the letter ended abruptly, the characters of 
 the writing had become shaky and confused. Mr 
 Velasquez folded the sheets, and laid them down. 
 Then he drew from his breast pocket a scrap of paper, 
 
i6o FOUND OUT. 
 
 discoloured in its centre, but with certain characters 
 on it easily legible. They ran as follows : — 
 
 " / can endure this existence no longer. I am sick 
 of keeping up in public the pretence of hating you, and 
 some day I shall betray myself, and that poor hood- 
 ivinked fool of mine will kill us both — before we have 
 been happy. You have often prayed me to go away 
 loith you — 1 will go. Meet me at the usual place at 
 six o'clock to-morrow morning, and we will settle 
 everything. — Your Tita." 
 
 " And could my father," thought Velasquez, " a 
 
 most true and honourable gentleman, believe that my 
 
 mother wrote that infamous letter ? Would not 
 
 a moment's reflection have convinced him of such 
 
 impossibility, bad not Dashwood's face, with its devilish 
 
 suggestions, its jeering triumph, seconded with hideous 
 
 force the words that he saw traced by her hand? 
 
 What wonder if, in that blinding moment of betrayal 
 
 by wife and friend, his great heart broke, his wits 
 
 left him, and, stunned, confused, with only one sense, 
 
 and that of dishonour, he turned his weapon against 
 
 his breast, escaping, by the only gate open to him, 
 
 from his intolerable disgrace ! And yet if he had 
 
 kept his head, if he had gone straight to my mother 
 
 with the letter in his hand, Dashwood must have been 
 
 revealed, and his last desperate stake lost; but no 
 
 doubt he had reckoned on the fiery temperament 
 
 of the Fitzhughs, and possibly, when he saw my father 
 
 dead at his feet, he anticipated but little difficulty in 
 
 consoling a widow who would shrink from, and scorn 
 
 the man who could commit a forgery, and take his own 
 
 life when detected in the crime. 
 
FOUND OUT. 161 
 
 " It was an extraordinary piece of good fortune for 
 Mr. Dashwood that his servant should bring the 
 banker's letter to him so quickly after he had, by the 
 handkerchief, aroused my father's suspicions, and it 
 was so easy to change it for another that had long 
 ago been prepared for such a chance as this — and so 
 easy, when my father was dead, to lay the blame on 
 the open letter found by his side." 
 
 Mr. Velasquez got up from his chair, and began to 
 walk restlessly to and fro. " Poor mother ! " he said 
 at last, " the fiercest desire, the most coveted aim of 
 your life, is granted, is achieved — and yet you will 
 have no public triumph, no just revenge, and, instead of 
 heaping retribution on your enemy, I shall ask you to 
 take to your heart your enemy's daughter. It is pos- 
 sible that you will never know the truth, and yet — 
 is there not something akin to dishonour in snatching 
 love at the cost of a father's good name ? No ! for 
 there is only one Katharine in the world, and she is 
 worth more than ever was paid for a king's ransom." 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Love strikes one hour — LO VE. 
 Those never loved, 
 Who dream that they loved — ONCE. 
 
 Among the heap of letters by Mallinger Dashwood's 
 plate at breakfast next morning was one addressed in 
 the hand of Mr. Jack Stormonth, and he read this 
 last, not without a curious glance first at his daughter. 
 The letter ran : — 
 
 " Dear Mr. Dashwood, 
 
 " I am sorry that I cannot accept your invita- 
 tion for dinner to-morrow night. But I shall be 
 obliged if you will grant me a few minutes' private 
 conversation (not with reference to Miss Dashwood) 
 at your own time and place. 
 
 " Believe me, 
 
 tc Your faithful servant, 
 
 "John Stormonth. 
 " Wednesday night." 
 
 As Mr. Dashwood replaced this letter in its en- 
 velope, he happened to catch Mr. Velasquez' eye, and 
 he considered the young man attentively. 
 
 There was always an unusual, even original air 
 about the private secretary that not even all the 
 quietude of his perfect breeding could efface, but to- 
 day there was a look of power, of supremacy about 
 
FOUND OUT, 163 
 
 him so that a close observer would have said, i( that 
 man has a scheme, probably a dangerous one, in his 
 head — and he will win." 
 
 As the eyes of the two men met, one of those 
 curious chills that old wives connect with the footstep 
 gliding across a man's unmade grave, passed over 
 Mr. Dashwood, and he knew that it was beyond 
 John Stormonth/s power to aid him now. Ay, but 
 his daughter was potent yet, and the ghastly shadow 
 that of late had scarcely left his elbow, stole back a 
 little farther, as certain thoughts passed through his 
 brain. 
 
 The great man was expected to return that after- 
 noon for two days' stay only, then the party would 
 break up, so far as those present were concerned, to 
 be immediately followed by an entirely fresh one — 
 with the exception of one of the guests now present 
 at the table. But he had not yet been invited to 
 remain, and Mr. B. would have to be consulted in the 
 matter. 
 
 There was no " meet " that day. Some of the men 
 went in for a little desultory shooting, others for a 
 game at rackets; others again, fatigued by their 
 exploits across country, danced attendance on the 
 women, and held skeins of wool, or walked in the 
 grounds — and wondered where was Kitty. Mr. Velas- 
 quez was visible enough, and Mallinger Dashwood 
 had no fear of her unlawful proximity to Jack S tor- 
 month, when he wrote a letter to that young gentleman, 
 fixing an appointment with him for the following 
 day : time, ten o'clock in the evening ; place, the 
 fencing-room. Then he sealed and despatched it, 
 but would not go out, because he knew that Mrs. 
 
 m 2 
 
164 FOUND OUT. 
 
 Vivien was watching for him, and he could neither be 
 brute enough to be rude to her, nor hypocrite enough 
 to pretend to love her. There are times when a 
 man passively submits to a woman's devotion, and 
 experiences no discomfort from it ; there are others 
 when it becomes a perpetual blister, and he would 
 eagerly exchange it for her hatred. Meanwhile, 
 Katharine, with a heavy heart and angry brain, was 
 hastening on foot to her friend Mary, having sent 
 overnight by Mr. Velasquez the note that announced 
 her coming. The way was rough, and somewhat 
 long, but she hurried along it so fast that often she 
 stumbled, and more than once she sobbed aloud, for 
 there was no one by to hear her. 
 
 Poor Kitty, proud Kitty, wretched Kitty ! had any 
 one, she wondered, as heavy a heart as lay in her 
 breast that day? But even at her journey's end 
 she might not ease it, for Mary's kitchen was full of 
 bustle and work that could not be put by for even 
 the young lady, and there was an unwonted shadow 
 on Mary's forehead, and a sharpened, anxious ring in 
 her voice as she met Katharine with a curtsey, and 
 a request that she would step into the parlour, where 
 she would come to her as soon as possible. But 
 Miss Dashwood refused to be thus stifled, and went 
 to the dairy instead, where was coolness in plenty, 
 and an innocent, sweet smell that refreshed her, and 
 sped her memory back to the days — two years ago — 
 when she had helped Jack to milk out of one of these 
 very bowls. She took up a spoon idly, as if to skim 
 one of those golden surfaces, and as she did so, the 
 door opened behind her, and some one came softly 
 in. 
 
FOUND OUT, 165 
 
 She thought it was Mary, and did not turn her 
 head; but as she slipped the spoon beneath the 
 cream, she said, " Your Mister Jack is a villain, 
 Mary, and I-— I hate him ! " 
 
 Then she dropped the spoon, the better to cover 
 her face with her hands, and she did not think it 
 strange, or a liberty on Mary's part, when she felt a 
 gentle pat on her shoulder, which, no doubt, was 
 meant to convey comfort. But she shook it off 
 nevertheless, and tried to catch her voice between 
 her sobs, yet could not for half a minute ; then she 
 said : 
 
 " He has been flirting and carrying on — oh ! ever 
 since he was born — and I thought he loved me ! 
 And to think of how, for the last two years, I have 
 never looked at a man — not that there were any to 
 look at — only I never thought about them, because my 
 eyes were so full of Jack ! But he shall never know 
 it — I will die before he shall know it, and I will 
 marry Mr. Velasquez, or Mr. Somebody, just to see 
 how he will look, and if he will be sorry .... he 
 did not look sorry yesterday, only obstinate, and I 
 dare say he had got a letter that morning from his 
 Nina, hugged up in his breast pocket .... and he 
 never did admire dark women till he forgot me V" 
 
 " I don't now," said Jack's own voice in her ear, 
 and then Kitty's heart and sobs stopped together, 
 but only for a few seconds, then she flashed round 
 on him like a fury. 
 
 " How dare you ? " she cried, and clenched her 
 slender hand, then dropped it, and said haughtily : 
 
 " Is eavesdroppiny another of your accomplish- 
 ments ? " 
 
166 FOUND OUT. 
 
 " Yes, Miss Kitty, it is/' said Jack, with spirit, 
 " and you may thank your stars that I am able to 
 hear as well as see, for if I had gone by my sight 
 alone in the fencing-room the other night, I should 
 never have taken the trouble to try and speak to you 
 again." 
 
 " It is a trouble I could have dispensed with, sir," 
 said Kitty, her head up, the tears on her cheeks 
 conspicuously visible, " though it matters very little 
 what you say, or what you think." 
 
 " I never think much about anything," said Jack, 
 coolly, " I usually act. And I can assure you that 
 it is by the merest accident I am at the farm this 
 morning, and only through the officious zeal of our 
 kind friend Mary that I find myself in your company 
 at this moment." 
 
 " The last unfortunate accident, sir," said Kitty, 
 
 with flashing eyes, " is easily mended- " and she 
 
 moved to pass him, but he was too quick for her, and 
 retreating to the door set his broad shoulders against 
 it, then folded his arms, and looked at her. 
 
 She stood trembling with anger and outraged pride. 
 Ah ! where was his trusting, loving Kitty now ? What 
 looks were these darting from those eyes but a little 
 while ago so full of love; what words were springing 
 to the lips, that had clung to his but lately with such 
 passionate abandonment of despair ? 
 
 She put one slender hand upon her mouth, as if to 
 force back the torrent that rose, then said in a low 
 voice that trembled : 
 
 " I am fitly punished for having so far forgotten 
 myself as to meet you in a clandestine manner— to 
 come at your bidding not once, but twice — like any 
 
FOUND OUT. 167 
 
 housemaid, to whom her sweetheart has whistled. 
 But, even if I had not found out what a — wretch — you 
 are, I did not intend to meet you again, and I told 
 my father so." 
 
 " And so I am a wretch," said Jack, looking at the 
 young lady, habited in deep blue velvet and black fur 
 from head to foot, with only the bloom and fairness of 
 her face showing out delicately from that dark rich- 
 ness of colour. 
 
 " And if you had not got a lot of nonsense into your 
 head, you still did not mean to meet me again V 9 
 
 " That is so," said Kitty, coldly, " and now will 
 you allow me to pass? My visit here this morning 
 was to Mrs. Martin — not to Mr. John Stormonth." 
 
 " You shall pass, Miss Kitty," said Jack, doggedly, 
 (i when you have answered me one or two questions 
 — and not before. Are you in love with Mr. Velas- 
 quez ? " 
 
 No answer. Kitty had turned her back, and re- 
 sumed the spoon that she had laid down a few 
 minutes ago. Jack marched up to get a look at 
 her face, but she turned it slowly away, and when 
 he came round to the other side, she repeated the 
 manoeuvre, so that it was only by taking her two 
 hands and turning her bodily, that at last he forced 
 her to look at him. 
 
 " You are not blushing," he said, " so you don't 
 love him — which makes your conduct all the more 
 cold-blooded and disgraceful. What right have you 
 to make him fall in love with you, and deceive him 
 with your flirtatious ways, just because you are jealous 
 of me?" 
 
 " Oh ! " said Kitty, and gasped, u to think that 
 
1 68 FOUND OUT. 
 
 you should have become such a ruffian — and to think 
 that I lo — oved you once ! " 
 
 " Not half so much as you do now/' said Jack, 
 looking round, and spying behind him a wooden chair, 
 upon which he sat down abruptly, and had snatched 
 Kitty and got her firmly on his knee, before she could 
 draw a breath. 
 
 l< Oh ! this is downright insult ! " cried Kitty, 
 struggling with all her might against the two strong 
 arms that held her, and drawing her body back as far 
 as possible from contact with him. " I'll tell — I'll tell 
 my father when I get home ! " 
 
 " Do/' he said, " and Mr. Velasquez too, if you 
 like. Now if I let go these pretty little fists " — he 
 stooped and kissed, them as they lay powerless in his 
 grasp — " what will you do with them ? " 
 " Beat you." 
 
 " Then I shall give you a kiss for every blow." 
 He released them as he spoke, but they lay very 
 quiet in Katharine's lap, and a furtive smile was 
 beginning to dimple round her lips as she met Jack's 
 eyes. 
 
 " Kitty," he said gravely, " what has turned you 
 into such an abominable flirt ?," 
 
 This was too much. Kitty bounded on his knee, and 
 once more tried to escape. But he held her fast, and 
 repeated his question. 
 
 u How can you have the audacity," she said, after 
 a deep-drawn sigh of amazement, " to talk of my 
 flirting — you — the most disgraceful flirt in all your 
 
 regiment " 
 
 " That is another pair of shoes," said Jack, coolly, 
 "but who told you that?" 
 
FOUND OUT. 169 
 
 " A lady ; and I know all about your Nina — and 
 you may marry her to-morrow if you please." 
 
 " Thank you. And who will you marry ? " 
 
 Kitty did not condescend to reply. 
 
 " But you have not answered my question." 
 
 " About my being a flirt ? I suppose I was born 
 so. I had no idea I could do it till I tried ! But 
 no doubt, with practice, I shall become nearly as great 
 a proficient as yourself." 
 
 " I'll soon make you forget all such tricks, Miss, 
 when you marry me. But until then I will have you 
 behave yourself, and remember that Jack Stormonth 
 expects his sweetheart to behave as well as his wife." 
 
 The stone was quite rolled away from Kitty's heart 
 by now. She could not hide the happiness that 
 breathed through her hazel eyes, and the translucent 
 tints of her skin ; that played on the mouth, tender and 
 fresh as a child's when the morning sun shines on it. 
 
 Yet her lover did not seek to touch those lovely lips, 
 he even seemed to hold her a little farther away as 
 he said, with eyes that she found stern : 
 
 " Could you not trust me, Kitty, or at any rate 
 make sure that the gossip you had heard was truth, 
 before you lowered yourself and me, by flirting with 
 Mr. Velasquez ? " 
 
 Kitty hung her head, and looked down at the 
 flagged stones at their feet. 
 
 "It was not flirtation — exactly," she said, her 
 penitent air but a thin cloak through which her happi- 
 ness shone; " I liked him from the first — and I like 
 him now." 
 
 " Perhaps you would prefer him to me, Miss," said 
 Jack, giving her shoulder a little shake. 
 
170 FOUND OUT. 
 
 " He is better-looking that you are, I think/' said 
 Kitty, with a glance over Jack, meant to be judicial, 
 u and then he is never rude — like you — and he 
 doesn't flirt, so far as I know, with anybody but me ! M 
 
 " Indeed," said Jack, with a ferocious sneer, " Fm 
 much obliged to him for condescending to flirt with 
 my property, but if I catch him at it after to-day, I'll 
 break every bone in his skin." 
 
 " Perhaps Miss Nina has some kind friend who 
 will perform the same office by you/' said Kitty. a And 
 pray, sir, don't you call it a very wrong, a very wicked 
 thing to win a young woman's affections, when you 
 are engaged to quite another person ? " 
 
 " Not half so bad as for an engaged woman to flirt," 
 said Jack, with decision ; " and now listen to me, Kitty, 
 and then put all that nonsense out of your head for 
 ever. Nina and I are very good friends — but no 
 more, and whoever has been making mischief about 
 her is some tattling toad who likes Mr. Velasquez 
 better than she likes me." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Kitty, with a long, soft sigh, u and did 
 you ever — ever kiss her ? " 
 
 « No." 
 
 " And did she ever — kiss you ? " 
 
 " Girls don't kiss men without encouragement, 
 Kitty ! " 
 
 " And did you never — encourage her ? " 
 
 " Now, Kitty — you know my sex is so much more 
 honourable in matters of that sort, than yours ! " 
 
 She looked at "him sideways, like a pretty inquisi- 
 tive bird, but there was anxiety too in the glance, 
 and he caught it. 
 
 " Kitty," he said, " if you ask me if I haven't 
 
FOUND OUT. 171 
 
 looked at girls, I have — but as to loving 'em, I always 
 said ' there's my Kitty. 3 " 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Kitty, " you can speak of them in 
 the .plural ! " 
 
 " And, I've kept you in my heart," went on Jack 
 stolidly, " and kept that as clean as I could for your 
 sake." 
 
 " Did either of them ever — ever sit on your knee ?" 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because I could never sit there again, you know, 
 if she had ! n 
 
 " Couldn't you ? " said Jack, " but Fd make you. 
 And pray, did Mr. Velasquez ever kiss you ? " 
 
 " Oh, Jack ! " she said, and shrank back with so 
 hurt and shamed a face, that he implored her to forgive 
 him, and by way of testing the purity of those lips 
 seized them himself, and so with their arms round 
 one another, they were for a brief space in heaven, 
 and might have remained there some precious mo- 
 ments longer, had not the door opened, and showed 
 Mr. Velasquez standing on the threshold. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 " Fight on, my men" Sir Andrew says, 
 " A liitle I'm hurt, but not yet slain ; 
 III lie but down and bleed aivhile, 
 And then Til rise and fight again." 
 
 If the outside of a dairy-door could speak, aud chron- 
 icle its impressions of a human face, it would have 
 said that no such happy, brilliant, successful an one 
 had approached it these twenty years than that of 
 Mr. Velasquez. Mary Martin herself had guided 
 him part of the way to her young lady, and with 
 bitter satisfaction — left him. But I think no young 
 man of three- and -twenty, however old for his years, 
 can behold unmoved the spectacle of his beloved, safe 
 and happy in another man's arms, especially when he 
 was on the point of securing her in his own. So Mr. 
 Velasquez stood there, looking, with all the colour and 
 life dying out of his face, and Katharine, after one 
 brief glance at him, hid her face in Jack's shoulder. 
 
 " Good morning/' said Jack, drily, " I can't get 
 up to shake hands, but you understand that I bear 
 you no malice." 
 
 Mr. Velasquez had advanced a step or two, the 
 door was closed behind him. In the cold morning 
 light his dark face showed the hue of ashes, above 
 which his eyes blazed like coals a-fire. He was not 
 looking at Jack, but at the back of a hazel-coloured 
 head, and his glance too included the sweep of two 
 
FOUND OUT. 173 
 
 arms that enclosed, without throttling, a beloved 
 neck. 
 
 " Katharine Dashwood," he said, and at this familiar 
 unusual address, the girl started, and half showed a 
 lovely profile, " if you loved this man, why did you 
 pretend to love me ? u 
 
 Then Kitty would have arisen in her wrath, and 
 without the ghost of a blush about her, had not Jack 
 held her as in a vice, but she found voice to say : 
 
 "I never pretended — you know that I never loved 
 anybody but — Mr, Stormonth." 
 
 If the situation were ridiculous, I don't think 
 either of the three persons concerned in it felt them- 
 selves so, and while Kitty (like any other shame- 
 faced woman who knows herself in the wrong) clung 
 to Jack as her natural refuge, Mr. Velasquez seemed 
 oblivious of pots and pans as he looked at his rival. 
 
 " I think, sir," said Jack, politely, " that you have 
 — stolen, about as much as you have a right to expect. 
 No doubt you will retain the document — but your 
 dishonest intentions on the lady are baulked." But 
 Kitty's sense of justice was stabbed by this, and she 
 got free of Jack suddenly, and turned with flaming 
 face to Mr. Velasquez, then bowed her head as one 
 ashamed. 
 
 " It is all my fault," she said, " I liked you — always 
 — from the very first — and when I — I got jealous, 
 .... I, I thought I liked you better ! " 
 
 Mr. Velasquez laughed, and his laugh was not 
 pleasant to the ear. All the bitterness of his over- 
 shadowed youth, all the silent suffering of an inherited 
 disgrace, stirred in him now, and turned his nature 
 to gall, as he looked in Kitty's eyes and knew himself 
 betrayed. 
 
174 FOUND OUT. 
 
 Perhaps he was not in his right mind then, or a 
 devil entered into it, and swayed him, for when he 
 turned away from her, and went out, he had made 
 his resolve. 
 
 It was a very pale face that Kitty turned on her 
 lover as the door closed. 
 
 " What is he going to do ? " she said in a whisper. 
 Jack looked grave, and evidently other things 
 beside courtship were in his mind. 
 
 " Kitty," he said, standing up, a do you know that 
 I have refused an invitation to dine with you to-morrow 
 evening ? " 
 
 Kitty opened her lips, but astonishment, and some 
 remaining fright, kept her dumb. 
 
 " But I shall be in the fencing- room at rather a late 
 hour." 
 
 " And I cannot meet you there, Jack/' she said, 
 sadly. 
 
 " I don't expect you," he said, " I go there to meet 
 your father/'' 
 
 Kitty drew a quick breath, and Jack's arm went 
 round her in case of her needing support. 
 
 " Jack," she whispered, " what does he want with 
 you ? Don't trust yourself with him — and if you 
 must be there, why I will be there too ! " 
 
 " You can't, Kitty," he said, and a dark shadow 
 fell on his usually bright face, " there is mens work 
 to be done between him and me to-night." 
 
 Kitty's pliant body seemed to stiffen and grow cold 
 as she drew herself away from Jack. u Won't you tell 
 me, dear ? " she said. 
 
 " No," he said, " when we are married, perhaps — 
 but not now. He has been very cruel to us, Kitty, 
 
FOUND OUT. 175 
 
 and only because my mother was a Fitzhugh — though 
 I think he would give you to Mr. Velasquez if he 
 asked for you to-night." % 
 
 " He might give me," cried Kitty, with eyes that 
 lightened only to be drowned in tears, " but I would 
 defy Mr. Velasquez to take me." 
 
 " He shaVt," said Jack, forgetting everything as 
 he looked at her, but that here was a princess whom 
 true love had turned into a timid loving child. 
 
 t{ You might tell me," she said, but offered him no 
 bribe, though that mattered little, as he was one of 
 that bold order of lovers who know how to seize, better 
 than to sue. 
 
 " Miss Katharine ! " said a sharp voice from the 
 door, and Mary Martin came slowly in. 
 
 Her usually fresh face was pale, her eyes told of a 
 sleepless night, and there was a nervous tremor in the 
 usually firm hands as she approached the young pair. 
 
 " Master Jack," she said, " Fve not told my man 
 yet — and I mislike the thought of turning out of the 
 farm where Fve lived over seventeen year — and you 
 can stop Mr. Velasquez if you please, though there 
 was murder in his face when he went out. It can't 
 do him any good, nor you and Miss Kitty, to rake up 
 bygones, and I wish my tongue had been struck dumb 
 in my head before I spoke to things that I knew." 
 
 " Did you have any talk with him this morning ? " 
 said Jack, looking at her keenly. 
 
 " Not I, sir ; when he said he wanted some private 
 words with me, I just brought him straight to the 
 dairy, and said I'd join him — and to guess by his face, 
 you gave him words enough, for all the short time he 
 was here." 
 
176 FOUND OUT. 
 
 (< Mary/' said Kitty, and put her arm round the 
 comely shoulders, and kissed the anxious face, " I 
 don't know what secrets you and Master Jack have 
 got, but don't you fret — we'll take care of you." 
 
 " Of course/' said Jack, heartily, and kissed Mary 
 too, yet she was only half comforted when Kitty 
 thought of the time, and all unwillingly, but in a fever 
 to go. 
 
 " What is the hour to-night, Jack ? " she said ; but 
 Jack would not tell her. And so, by perpetually 
 prolonged farewells they parted, and she went, light 
 as a feather, along the way that she had traversed so 
 painfully a few days before. 
 
 Who would seek to weed out Hope from a humau 
 heart? But if you eradicated it thoroughly, you 
 would leave no heart behind. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 We couldna gie Sir James's purse, 
 
 We couldna gie his brechan, 
 But ye sail hae his bleeding heart, 
 
 But and his bleeding tartan. 
 
 The great man arrived in time for dinner that night, 
 and while revolving his campaign among adjacent 
 dairymaids for the morrow, consoled himself with the 
 company of half-dressed aristocrats for the present, 
 He found time for a few instructions to Mr. Velas- 
 quez, then dropped his intellect, and skipped about 
 like any Jack o' Lanthorn among the Merry Wives of 
 Windsor. But, late as Mr. Velasquez's duties as 
 secretary kept him, he had done some other corre- 
 spondence more weighty to himself previously, and 
 he had ridden far to register it. Mary Martin's 
 confession, written from memory, and the letter forged 
 in his mother's name, had swelled the bulk of 
 his packet, and now he left things to chance, and at 
 dinner was nearly as bright and brilliant as Katharine 
 herself. If they were placed far apart, no one re- 
 marked the accident save Mrs. Vivien, who had 
 heightened her bloom by rouge, and her eyes by 
 belladonna, yet had no charm to summon up a smile 
 to the lips that were usually so triumphantly fresh. 
 
 " Where have you been all the morning ? " she said, 
 addressing Mr. Velasquez, adding, with a glance at 
 Katharine, " I mean where have you both been ? n 
 
173 FOUND OUT. 
 
 u In each other's company for about sixty seconds," 
 replied Mr. Velasquez. 
 
 The woman turned, and looked at the man, but for 
 once her sex was beaten, and only an impenetrable 
 obstinacy met her gaze. 
 
 cc How like you are to your cousin ! " she said, and 
 then his features seemed to break up, like the facets 
 on a diamond stone. 
 
 " How much you know," he said, and for a moment 
 he seemed io feel two fair, helpless-looking hands at 
 his breast pocket — hands that his manhood forbode 
 him to bruise, but he knew that there was nothing 
 left to steal now. 
 
 " About everything," she said, " except your rela- 
 tions with Mr. Jack Stormonth." 
 
 Mr. Velasquez glanced across at Katharine. She 
 was looking at him with that pleading sad look which 
 a woman will sometimes address to an outraged lover 
 who has possessed her mind but not her heart, and 
 whom she has unconsciously betrayed. 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " said Mrs e Vivien, 
 and he felt as if a snake had reared itself at his 
 elbow, and poisoned his thoughts. 
 
 " I am going to mind my own business," he said, 
 in so pleasant a voice that it made no discordant 
 echo on the hum of talk that went on around. 
 
 " And will your business be that of Katharine 
 Dashwood ? " said Mrs. Vivien in the same key. 
 
 iC That is between ourselves," he replied. 
 
 " And Jack Stormonth stands midway in the path," 
 said Mrs Vivien. 
 
 " And can be removed," said Mr. Velasquez, his 
 glance travelling along the pure white of the table, 
 
FOUND OUT. 179 
 
 until it reached his host. Perhaps his eyes expressed 
 what his tongue had refused to utter, but there was 
 a look of menace, of power, in them that startled Mrs. 
 Vivien, and set her heart throbbing with anxiety for 
 Dashwood. 
 
 What could she do for him ? By a fatal accident 
 her trump card had been snatched from her, and she 
 suspected that it was now in the hands of Mr. Velas- 
 quez. Were not the two men cousins, and if Jack 
 were so sure of his Kitty, might he not, in mere jus- 
 tice, clear dishonour from the name — his own mother's 
 name — of Fitzhugh ? 
 
 Yet, if Nemesis were sitting at Mallinger Dash wood's 
 board, the latter showed no sign of recognizing that 
 gruesome face, and never had his table shone more 
 brightly with wit and beauty, never had he appreci- 
 ated more fully his power in being able to beckon to 
 him such guests, as perhaps he had never excelled 
 himself more brilliantly as host. 
 
 Katharine thought his glance at her kinder than 
 usual, but was racked with doubts as to his business 
 on the morrow with Jack, and tormented by fear of 
 danger to that young man from Mr. Velasquez. 
 She got no word with the latter that evening until 
 the party broke up, when she wished him good-night ; 
 he replied, they touched hands, and parted. She 
 knew then that her sin towards him was unforgive- 
 able, that whatever he had set his hand to do, he 
 would do it, and that her influence over him now was 
 in the proportion to thistledown pressing against 
 iron. 
 
 When the last guest had left the drawing-room, 
 Katharine approached her father, and said : 
 
 2f 2 
 
i So FOUND OUT. 
 
 " I met Mr. Stormonth by accident at Mary- 
 Martin's this morning, and lie told me that lie had an 
 appointment with you in this house to-morrow night. " 
 
 She was looking at her father, and she saw how 
 every vestige of colour left his face, though the expres- 
 sion of it did not change in the least, and his voice 
 was as usual when he said : 
 
 "Did he tell upon what business?" 
 
 " No. But you mean him no harm, father ? " said 
 the girl, wistfully. 
 
 " Perhaps he means more to me," said Mr. Dash- 
 wood, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, perfectly 
 master of himself, but with an odd look that in some 
 vague way presaged disaster. 
 
 "Father," she said, " he is my friend, and so he 
 must be yours, and I know he never meant you any 
 harm — nor ever will." 
 
 " We shall see,'' said Mr. Dashwood, and dismissed 
 the subject and his daughter at the same moment. 
 Left alone, he glanced cynically round the beautiful 
 room, then said aloud : 
 
 " And to-morrow — to-morrow ? " 
 
 He did not answer his own question, but then he 
 had not answered his daughter's. Perhaps both would 
 have answered themselves by that hour of the clock 
 next dav. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 " Nay, then," said the Lord Percy, 
 " I told it thee befome, 
 That I ivould never yielded be 
 To no man of a woman bom." 
 
 It being the last day of their visit to Mr. Dashwoocl, 
 some of the guests affected a little sadness at breakfast, 
 which was a quiet one, though brightened by the 
 men's scarlet, for everybody meant to hunt. 
 
 " There's a dreadful monotony about the country," 
 whispered Lord Noll to Mrs. Vivien, " town will be 
 heaven after this." 
 
 " Speak for yourself," she said sharply, and ex- 
 changed a iook with Mr. Dashwood that poor Noll 
 intercepted, and in one smart scourging stroke got his 
 lesson, and accepted it. If a remorseful thought 
 crossed her mind of how she was throwing away the 
 substance for the shadow, she did not show it, she had 
 no eyes now for any man save the one whom she had 
 every reason to despise and hate, but whom she — 
 loved. 
 
 How swiftly passed that day, but with how little 
 incident to mark it out as anything uncommon io 
 those for whom the drama would close that night ! 
 There was nothing odd in Mr. Velasquez coming back 
 early, and finding a telegram on his dressing-table, 
 and nothing odd too in his changing his clothes, and 
 going out again, returning just in time for dinner. 
 
182 FOUND OUT. 
 
 To Katharine his appearance in the drawing-room 
 was an intense relief, as she was nearly certain that 
 from a distance in the hunting-field she had seen him 
 in conversation with Jack Stormonth, and she dreaded 
 some quarrel and subsequent encounter between the 
 two men. 
 
 But, though she watched him covertly throughout 
 dinner, she could gather nothing from his expression, 
 and to an outside observer, even to the servants (our 
 keenest detectives) nothing appeared to ruffle the 
 ordinary, sparkling surface of the evening, nor did 
 any one present find it extraordinary that at dessert 
 Mallinger Dashwood should rise, saying that he had 
 an appointment which would only detain him a very 
 short time, so that he would return almost imme- 
 diately. 
 
 If Katharine turned paler than she had been all 
 day, no one heeded it, not even Mr. Velasquez, whose 
 eyes went to the clock, where the hands pointed 
 exactly to the hour fixed for Jack Stormonth's inter- 
 view with the master of the house. 
 
 Some of the ladies wondered why Katharine 
 lingered so long over her fruit, yet conversed so little 
 with Mr. B. ; perhaps one or two smiled when on 
 Mr. Velasquez rising, she rose alsOj and hurrying 
 after, was yet not able to overtake him. 
 
 In the great hall she turned, as he was turning, 
 not towards the drawing-room, but towards the billiard- 
 room, and entrance to the house, and followed him. 
 
 Mrs. Vivien, who happened to be nearest to her, fol- 
 lowed also, and this bold example of curiosity being set, 
 all the other ladies followed in their turn, so that it was 
 a long and brilliant queue that spread out behind the 
 
FOUND OUT. 183 
 
 handsome young man who strode on till he had 
 reached the great door, which with masterful hand he 
 unfastened, and set it wide. 
 
 There entered immediately a woman, to be recog- 
 nized instantly as Mr. Velasquez' mother. I don't 
 know if she were so very beautiful, but she had that 
 quality of distinction which makes a glance from one 
 woman's eyes an honour, while the ogle of another is 
 not worth returning. 
 
 "Come, mother/' said the young man, and took 
 her hand and led her past Katharine and the women, 
 who were beginning to shiver as the cold air rushed 
 through the open door, and to wonder why this un- 
 timely visitor ignored the mistress of the house, and 
 why Mr. Velasquez did not introduce her? 
 
 For a moment or two the girl stood looking after 
 the two retreating figures, then, like an automaton, she 
 moved after them, and gliding up the staircase was 
 lost to sight. Mrs. Vivien vanished in her wake, and 
 Lady Becky, who had a keen sense of the ridiculous, 
 burst out laughing, and suggested that, as all the rest 
 seemed to be playing the game of "follow my neigh- 
 bour," they had better do the same. And she suited the 
 word to the deed. No servants had appeared upon 
 the scene ; the voices of the men came faintly from the 
 dining-room, as not expecting much fun, but moved by 
 that spirit of curiosity which would draw a female 
 barefoot over red-hot coals if anything she wanted to 
 see were beyond, the women caught up their trains, 
 and fled after Lady Becky as fast as their legs would 
 carry them. 
 
 Mrs. Vivien had been quick, but not quick enough ; 
 the last fold of her dress whisking round a corner 
 
1 84 FOUND OUT. 
 
 betrayed her; but Lady Becky, and some of those 
 behind, felt a little dismay on perceiving the direction 
 she had taken, and half inclined to turn back from 
 those dark corridors in one of which the fencing-room 
 was situated. 
 
 But somehow they felt that something uncanny 
 was abroad that night, that strange events were about 
 to occur, so they took boldly the plunge into darkness 
 close upon the cheerful click of Lady Becky's heels, 
 and were rewarded by seeing a gleam of light in the 
 distance — a gleam that came from the open space 
 where a panel had been but a few moments ago. 
 
 It was only when they had scampered to, and 
 reached it, that a momentary doubt crossed their 
 leader's mind as to the good taste of her curiosity ; 
 but it was too late now to retreat, for those crowding 
 behind pushed her over the threshold, pushed her past 
 the two women who had first arrived, and who feared to 
 advance, so that, like a flock of gaily plumaged birds, 
 they fluttered into the room, and into the presence of 
 a scene quiet indeed throughout, but terrible to look 
 upon, and remember, to each one's dying day. 
 
 Mallinger Dashwood was standing by the mantel- 
 piece, the strong light of a lamp turned on his face, 
 and on that of the woman who stood at a little 
 distance, and who was speaking to him. 
 
 A little behind her stood Mr. Velasquez, and 
 farther away, on the opposite side of the room, Jack 
 Stormonth, who stepped forward with a gesture of 
 anger as the bare-necked, jewel-decked intruders swept 
 in, but when he moved as if to expel them, Dashwood 
 with a gesture of the hand checked him. 
 
 " Let them stay," he said, but he did not even 
 
FOUND OUT. 1S5 
 
 glance in their direction, nor did Tita, as with cloak 
 slipped to her feet, and veil thrown back, she stood 
 drawn up to her fullest height, ay, almost to the 
 height of him. 
 
 " And now it is brought home to you," she said ; 
 "■ the truth has come to light at last ; the long- 
 buried crime that you hid beneath your cloak of 
 honour, the crime you believed it beyond human 
 power to prove, has risen up against you, and is proven. 
 In my hand I hold the letter, forged by you in my 
 handwriting, which compelled Allan Fitzhugh to his 
 death, the letter in which I implied a guilty intimacy 
 with you, in which I asked you to elope with me, and 
 which drove him mad. That forged letter you gave 
 to hirn in this room — and he ran it through his heart 
 and died. You tore it from the rapier — see, the tear 
 is here, and the stain too, and you foully lied when 
 you swore that you had given him the banker's letter 
 containing the forged cheque — he never beheld it, and 
 you knew that your signature to it had been forged 
 by the innocent hand of your wife." 
 
 Mallinger Dashwood started slightly ; it was the 
 first sign of emotion he had shown since Tita entered. 
 
 " There is a woman living who will come forward 
 as witness, to swear that she saw some of the cheques 
 that your wife, proud of being able so exactly to 
 imitate your handwriting, signed in your presence ; 
 one of those cheques you kept, perhaps with no in- 
 tention of putting it to such deadly use as you sub- 
 sequently did, but when the opportunity came, you 
 used it. 
 
 " My husband came here one day and sold you a 
 piece of land. You paid him for it with a cheque for 
 
1 86 FOUND OUT. 
 
 ;£ i 5 o ; he enclosed it in a letter to me, and having left 
 it in the library, to be despatched, he went into the 
 adjoining room and sat down with his back to the 
 library, and probably read, or possibly he fell asleep. 
 Your wife's maid, going in search of you shortly after- 
 wards, saw you (herself unperceived) carefully unfasten 
 my husband's letter, saw you take out the cheque, 
 and substitute for it another. That other was the 
 cheque for £ 1,500, that I cashed a little later, and 
 about which the banker wrote to you, as he had 
 subsequent doubts of the genuineness of the signa- 
 ture. And you swore that you taxed Alan Fitzhugh 
 with the forgery, that he admitted it, and that, when 
 he implored your mercy (good God ! mercy from a 
 Dashwood to a Fitzhugh !), and for a moment 
 you hesitated, in a fit of despair he seized his 
 rapier, and, unable to support his dishonour, slew 
 himself. 
 
 " So much you swore at the inquiry held on his 
 death, and you swore that the signature was not yours 
 — you were too proud a gentleman to lie on that 
 point, but not too proud to forge his endorsement on 
 the back of the cheque, and to fill in the dates and 
 the amount in as different a hand as possible to your 
 usual one — you were not too proud to let the inno- 
 cent hand of your wife brand a man with a lifelong 
 dishonour, even if he had elected to survive that dis- 
 honour. Perhaps you did not mean him to kill himself, 
 you intended only to disgrace him in the eyes of the 
 world, and in my eyes, that I should turn from him in 
 loathing, and that then I should turn to you." 
 
 " I did intend it," said Mallinger Dashwood, deli- 
 berately. 
 
FOUND OUT. 187 
 
 " You ! " Hitherto Titans voice had been clear and 
 even, but now it swelled out with all the pent-up 
 scorn and hatred of over twenty years. " You ! I 
 would rather have become wife to the meanest groom 
 in my stables than to have endured the touch of your 
 hand upon mine ! to have been forced to breathe the 
 air of heaven by your side ! No one will . ever love 
 you as women loved Alan Fitzhugh, for your heart is 
 black to the core, and his was white as snow/'' 
 
 " There is one/' cried a voice ; and from out that 
 crowd by the door there stepped a woman, who crossed 
 the floor with hasty step, and, sinking down on her 
 knees by Dash wood's side, seized his hand and buried 
 her face in it. 
 
 For a moment Tita looked down at the abased 
 figure, at the glorious hair, at the white shoulder 
 that gleamed out of the heavy folds of satin that 
 swept the floor ; then she said, " So there is left to 
 you, all dishonoured as you are, and no longer secretly, 
 but as you shall be in the full blaze of the world — 
 there is left to you this consolation — that, murderer, 
 forger, liar that you are, one poor woman can find it 
 in her heart to — love you !" 
 
 Dashwood had not stirred beneath that clasp on 
 his hand, but now he shook it off, made a stride 
 forward, snatched Tita in his arms, and kissed her on 
 the mouth with all the baulked passion, the longing 
 of half a lifetime, strangling by mere force the shriek 
 that rose to her lips. Then he let her go, and step- 
 ping back swift as light, took from the wall a rapier 
 stained with rust and blood, and, before any could 
 move or hinder him, he had turned the point to his 
 breast, and driven it home with unerring skill, saying 
 
1 88 FOUND OUT, 
 
 as he did so, " I have kissed you, Tit a/' and, with Lis 
 eyes upon hers fell dead at her feet. 
 
 * * * * $ 
 
 They say that, on a certain night of the year, those 
 who have courage to hide in the great fireplace of the 
 fencing-room will see a strange sight. The moon- 
 light, glinting here and there on the walls of armour, 
 will glint also on two men engaged in rapier- play, 
 that waxes fiercer and fiercer till seemingly they 
 are interrupted from without, when the light fades, and 
 when next the two men are seen face to face, one of 
 them holds in his hand a letter. By gesture the 
 other demands it, is refused, but snatches and reads 
 it ... . then all grows dim, but when again the 
 moonbeams play upon the spot, they show a dead 
 man with a letter pinned by a rapier to his breast. 
 Anon the room is empty, but there is a broad stain 
 upon the floor, and it is brown with age, and now the 
 walls are dim with dust. But see, whose is that 
 shape yonder that moves forward, a woman clinging 
 to his hand ? He shakes her from him, and snatch- 
 ing a rusty rapier from the wall thrusts it through 
 his heart, and falls ! 
 
 And now all is dark again, save that the light falls 
 upon the spot where the fresh blood has washed out 
 the stain of the old. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 A~ 
 
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