gs for a few days--and send it to Paddington. I'll have
it fetched from there. Tell him to be ready to follow me, if I send for
him."

"Yes, my lord."

"Give that letter to Miss Gainsborough in the morning." He handed Mason
a thick letter. Two others lay on the table. After a moment's apparent
hesitation Harry put them in his pocket. "I'll post them myself," he
said. "When did Miss Gainsborough go to her room?"

"About an hour back, my lord."

"Did she stay in the Long Gallery till then?"

"Yes, my lord."

"I may be away a little while, Mason. I hope Miss Gainsborough--and Mr
Gainsborough too--will be staying on some time. Make them comfortable."

Not a sign of curiosity or surprise escaped Mason. His "Yes, my lord,"
was just the same as though Harry had ordered an egg for breakfast.
Sudden comings and goings had always been the fashion of the house.

"All right. Good-night, Mason."

"Good-night, my lord." Mason looked round for something to carry
off--the force of habit--found nothing, and retired noiselessly.

"One o'clock!" sighed Harry. "Ah, I'm tired. I won't go to bed though, I
couldn't sleep."

He moved restlessly about the room. His flood of feeling had gone by;
for the time the power of thought too seemed to have deserted him. He
had told Cecily everything; he had told Janie enough; he had yielded to
an impulse to write a line to Mina Zabriska--because she had been so
mixed up in it all. The documents that were to have proved his claim
made a little heap of ashes in the grate.

All this had been two hours' hard work. But after all two hours is not
long to spend in getting rid of an old life and entering on a new. He
found himself rather surprised at the simplicity of the process. What
was there left to do? He had only to go to London and see his lawyer--an
interview easy enough for him, though startling no doubt to the lawyer.
Cecily would be put into possession of her own. There was nothing
sensational. He would travel a bit perhaps, or just stay in town. He had
money enough to live on quietly or to use in making more; for his
mother's savings were indubitably his, left to him by a will in which
he, the real Harry, was so expressly designated by his own full
name--even more than that--as "Henry Austen Fitzhubert Tristram,
otherwise Henry Austen Fitzhubert, my son by the late Captain Austen
Fitzhubert"--that no question of his right could arise. That money would
not go with the title. Only Blent