ceed, it must be now. The doctor knew it; and he knew that
Anne's happiness was at stake. But he did not thaw immediately.

"You know, Lord Hartledon--"

"Call me Val, as you used to do," came the pleading interruption; and Dr.
Ashton smiled in spite of himself.

"Percival, you know it is against my nature to be harsh or unforgiving;
just as I believe it contrary to your nature to be guilty of deliberate
wrong. If you will only be true to yourself, I would rather have you for
my son-in-law than any other man in England; as I would have had when you
were Val Elster. Do you note my words? _true to yourself_."

"As I will be from henceforth," whispered Val, earnest tears rising to
his eyes.

And as he would have been but for his besetting sin.

CHAPTER XII.

LATER IN THE DAY.

It happened that Clerk Gum had business on hand the day of the inquest,
which obliged him to go to Garchester. He reached home after dark; and
the first thing he saw was his wife, in what he was pleased to call a
state of semi-idiocy. The tea-things were laid on the table, and
substantial refreshment in the shape of cold meat, and a plate of muffins
ready for toasting, all for the clerk's regalement. But Mrs. Gum herself
sat on a low chair by the fire, her eyes swollen with crying.

"What's the matter now?" was the clerk's first question.

"Oh, Gum, I told you you ought not to have gone off to-day. You might
have stayed for the inquest."

"Much good I should do the inquest, or the inquest do me," retorted the
clerk. "Has Becky gone?"

"Long ago. Gum, that dream's coming round. I said it would. I _told_ you
there was ill in store for Lord Hartledon; and that Pike was mixed up in
it, and Mr. Elster also in some way. If you'd only listen to me--"

The clerk, who had been brushing his hat and shaking the dust from his
outer coat--for he was a careful man with his clothes, and always
well-dressed--brought down his hand upon the table with some temper.

"Just stop that. I've heard enough of that dream, and of all your dreams.
Confounded folly! Haven't I trouble and worry enough upon my mind,
without your worrying me every time I come in about your idiotic dreams?"

"Well," returned Mrs. Gum, "if the dream's nothing, I'd like to ask why
they had Pike up to-day before them all?"

"Who had him up?" asked the clerk, after a pause. "Had him up where?"

"Before the people sitting on the body of Lord Hartledon. Lydia Jones
brought me t