et face full of pity and compassion, which I
mistook for love. Shame to me that I was base enough to doubt
her--that I spoke to her the words I uttered! I demanded to know who
it was she had met, and why she had met him. She asked me to trust
her, saying she could not tell me. I stabbed her with cruel words, and
left her vowing that I would never see her again. Her sister must have
trusted her with her secret, and she would not divulge it."

"We can not ask her now," said Lord Earle; "my mother tells me she is
very ill."

"I must see her," cried Lionel, "and ask her to pardon me if she can.
What am I to do for you, Lord Earle? Command me as though I were your
own son."

"I want you to go to the cottage," said Ronald, "and see if the man is
living or dead. You will know how to act. I need not ask a kinsman
and a gentleman to keep my secret."

In a few minutes Lionel Dacre was on his way to the cottage, riding as
though it were for dear life. Death had been still more swift. Hugh
Fernely lay dead.

The cottager's wife told Lionel how the children out at play had found
a man lying in the dank grass near the pond, and how her husband, in
his own strong arms, had brought him to their abode. He lay still for
many hours, and then asked for pen and ink. He was writing, she said,
nearly all night, and afterward prayed her husband to take the letter
to Lord Earle. The man refused any nourishment. Two hours later they
went in to persuade him to take some food, and found him lying dead,
his face turned to the morning sky.

Lionel Dacre entered the room. The hot anger died out of his heart as
he saw the anguish death had marked upon the white countenance. What
torture must the man have suffered, what hours of untold agony, to have
destroyed him in so short a time! The dark, handsome face appeared to
indicate that the man had been dying for years.

Lionel turned reverently away. Man is weak and powerless before death.
In a few words he told the woman that she should be amply rewarded for
her kindness, and that he himself would defray all expenses.

"He was perhaps an old servant of my lord's?" she said.

"No," was the reply; "Lord Earle did not know him--had never seen him;
but the poor man was well known to one of Lord Earle's friends."

Thanks to Lionel's words, the faintest shadow of suspicion was never
raised. Of the two deaths, that of Miss Earle excited all attention
and aroused all sympathy. No o