hannel which supplied the annuity, pointed distinctly to an admission of
a claim, he inclined to think, and should be supposed to come from a
personage having cause either to fear him or to assist him. He set my
speculations astray by hinting that the request for the stopping of the
case might be a blind. A gift of money, he said shrewdly, was a
singularly weak method of inducing a man to stop the suit of a life-time.
I thought of Lady Edbury; but her income was limited, and her expenditure
was not of Lady Sampleman, but it was notorious that she loved her purse
as well as my aunt Dorothy, and was even more, in the squire's phrase, 'a
petticoated parsimony.' Anna Penrhys appeared the likelier, except for
the fact that the commencement of the annuity was long before our
acquaintance with her. I tried her on the subject. Her amazement was
without a shadow of reserve. 'It 's Welsh, it's not English,' she
remarked. I knew no Welshwoman save Anna.

'Do you know the whole of his history?' said she. Possibly one of the
dozen unknown episodes in it might have furnished the clue, I agreed with
her.

The sight of twenty-one thousand pounds placed to my credit in the Funds
assuaged my restless spirit of investigation. Letters from the squire and
my aunt Dorothy urged me to betake myself to Riversley, there finally to
decide upon what my course should be.

'Now that you have the money, pray,' St. Parsimony wrote,--'pray be
careful of it. Do not let it be encroached on. Remember it is to serve
one purpose. It should be guarded strictly against every appeal for aid,'
etc., with much underlining.

My grandfather returned the papers. His letter said 'I shall not break my
word. Please to come and see me before you take steps right or left.'

So here was the dawn again.

I could in a day or two start for Sarkeld. Meanwhile, to give my father a
lesson, I discharged a number of bills, and paid off the bond to which
Edbury's name was attached. My grandfather, I knew, was too sincerely and
punctiliously a gentleman in practical conduct to demand a further
inspection of my accounts. These things accomplished, I took the train
for Riversley, and proceeded from the station to Durstan, where I knew
Heriot to be staying. Had I gone straight to my grandfather, there would
have been another story to tell.

CHAPTER XLV

WITHIN AN INCH OF MY LIFE

A single tent stood in a gully running from one of the gravel-pits of the
heath, near a