urs was a
contingency which he could not even contemplate without shuddering. He
certainly would much prefer to give up to this uncouth laborer the
proofs of his parentage which eventually might mean an earldom and a
fortune to a village blacksmith.

Sir Marmaduke had reflected on all this, of course, before broaching the
subject to Adam Lambert at all. Now he was prepared to go through with
the scheme to the end if need be. His uncle, the Earl of Northallerton,
might live another twenty years, whilst he himself--if pursued for
fraud, might have to spend those years in jail.

On the whole it was simpler to purchase the smith's silence ... this way
or another. Sir Marmaduke's reflections at this moment would have
delighted those evil spirits who are supposed to revel in the misdoings
of mankind.

The thought of the lonely path near the cliffs of Epple Bay tickled his
fancy in a manner for which perhaps at this moment he himself could not
have accounted. He certainly did not fear Adam Lambert and now said
decisively:

"Very well, my friend, an you wish it, I'll come."

"Half an hour before midnight," insisted Lambert, "on the cliffs at
Epple Bay."

"Half an hour before midnight: on the cliffs of Epple Bay," assented the
other.

He picked up his hat.

"Where art going?" queried the smith suspiciously.

"To change my clothing," replied Sir Marmaduke, who was fingering that
fateful tinder-box which alone had brought about the present crisis,
"and to fetch those proofs which you are so anxious to see."

"Thou'lt not fail me?"

"Surely not," quoth de Chavasse, as he finally went out of the room.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE PATH NEAR THE CLIFFS

The mist had not lifted. Over the sea it hung heavy and dank like a huge
sheet of gray thrown over things secret and unavowable. It was thickest
down in the bay lurking in the crevices of the chalk, in the great
caverns and mighty architecture carved by the patient toil of the
billows in the solid mass of the cliffs.

Up above it was slightly less dense: allowing distinct peeps of the
rough carpet of coarse grass, of the downtrodden path winding towards
Acol, of the edge of the cliff, abrupt, precipitous, with a drop of some
ninety feet into that gray pall of mist to the sands below.

And higher up still, above the mist itself, a deep blue sky dotted with
stars, and a full moon, pale and circled with luminous vapors. A gentle
breeze had risen about half an hour ago