"A communicative clerk, who happens to be the son of a tenant of mine. The solicitor himself, I believe, chooses to doubt his client's decease. It is at his private request that horrible object is refused Christian burial."
"On what grounds, pray?"
"Legal grounds, I suppose; the man did not die regularly, and according to precedent. He omitted to provide himself with two witnesses previously to being blown up. In a case of this kind we may safely put an old-fashioned attorney's opinion out of the question. What do YOU think? That is all I care to know."
"I don't know what to think now. But I foresee one thing: I shall be placed in rather an awkward position. I ought to defend the 'Gosshawk;' but I am not going to rob my own daughter of five thousand pounds, if it belongs to her honestly."
"Will you permit me to advise you?"
"Certainly, I shall be very much obliged: for really I don't see my way."
"Well, then, I think you ought to look into the matter carefully, but without prejudice. I have made some inquiries myself: I went down to the works, and begged the workmen, who knew Little, to examine the remains, and then come here and tell us their real opinion."
"Oh, to my mind, it all depends on the will. If that answers the description you give--hum!" Next morning they breakfasted together, and during breakfast two workmen called, and, at Coventry's request, were ushered into the room. They came to say they knew Mr. Little well, and felt sure that was his dead hand they had seen at the Town Hall. Coventry cross-examined them severely, but they stuck to their conviction; and this will hardly surprise the reader when I tell him the workmen in question were Cole and another, suborned by Coventry himself to go through this performance.
Mr. Carden received the testimony readily, for the best of all reasons--he wanted to believe it.
But, when they were gone, he recurred to the difficulty of his position. Director of the "Gosshawk," and father to a young lady who had a claim of five thousand pounds on it, and that claim debatable, though, to his own mind, no longer doubtful.
Now Mr. Coventry had a great advantage over Mr. Carden here: he had studied this very situation profoundly for several hours, and at last had seen how much might be done with it.
He began by artfully complimenting Mr. Carden on his delicacy, but said Miss Carden must not be a loser by it. "Convince her, on other grounds, that the man is dead; encourage her to reward my devotion with her hand, and I will relieve you of everything disagreeable.
Let us settle on Miss Carden, for her separate use, the five thousand pounds, and anything else derivable from Mr. Little's estate; but we must also settle my farm of Hindhope: for it shall never be said she took as much from that man as she did from me.
Well, in due course I apply to the 'Gosshawk' for my wife's money.
I am not bound to tell your Company it is not mine but hers; that is between you and me. But you really ought to write to London at once and withdraw the charge of fraud; you owe that piece of justice to Miss Carden, and to the memory of the deceased."
"That is true; and it will pave the way for the demand you propose to make on Mrs. Coventry's behalf. Well, you really are a true friend, as well as a true lover."
In short, he went back to Hillsborough resolved to marry his daughter to Coventry as soon as possible. Still, following that gentleman's instructions, he withheld from Grace that Little had made a will in her favor. He knew her to be quite capable of refusing to touch a farthing of it, or to act as executrix. But he told her the workmen had identified the remains, and that other circumstances had also convinced him he had been unjust to a deceased person, which he regretted.
When her father thus retracted his own words, away went Grace's last faint hope that Henry lived; and now she must die for him, or live for others.
She thought of Jael Dance, and chose the latter.
Another burst or two of agony, and then her great aim and study appeared to be to forget herself altogether. She was full of attention for her father, and, whenever Mr. Coventry came, she labored to reward him with kind words, and even with smiles; but they were sad ones.
As for Coventry, he saw, with secret exultation, that she was now too languid and hopeless to resist the joint efforts of her father and himself, and, that some day or other, she must fall lifeless into his arms.
He said to himself, "It is only a question of time."
He was now oftener at the villa than at Hillsborough, and, with remarkable self-denial, adhered steadily to the line of soothing and unobtrusive devotion.
One morning at breakfast the post brought him a large envelope from Hillsborough. He examined it, and found a capital "L" in the corner of the envelope, which "L" was written by his man Lally, in compliance with secret instructions from his master.
Coventry instantly put the envelope into his pocket, and his hand began to shake so that he could hardly hold his cup to his lips.
His agitation, however, was not noticed.
Directly after breakfast he strolled, with affected composure, into the garden, and sat down in a bower where he was safe from surprise, as the tangled leaves were not so thick but he could peep through them.
He undid his inclosure, and found three letters; two were of no importance; the third bore a foreign postmark, and was addressed to Miss Carden in a hand writing which he recognized at a glance as Henry Little's.
But as this was not the first letter from Henry to Grace which he had intercepted and read, perhaps I had better begin by saying a few words about the first.