th a
golden-bearded man, believed to be also English.

"About that you know more, perhaps, than I do. But I wish you to know
what that Hockin was, and to clear myself of complicity. Of Herbert
Castlewood I knew nothing, and I never even saw the lady. And to say (as
Sir Montague Hockin has said) that I plotted all that wickedness, from
spite toward all of the Castlewood name, is to tell as foul a lie as
even he can well indulge in.

"It need not be said that he does not know my story from any word of
mine. To such a fellow I was not likely to commit my mother's fate. But
he seems to have guessed at once that there was something strange in
my history; and then, after spying and low prying at my mother, to have
shaped his own conclusion. Then, having entirely under his power
that young fool who left a kind husband for him, he conceived a most
audacious scheme. This was no less than to rob your cousin, the last
Lord Castlewood, not of his wife and jewels and ready money only, but
also of all the disposable portion of the Castlewood estates. For the
lady's mother had taken good care, like a true Hungarian, to have all
the lands settled upon her daughter, so far as the husband could deal
with them. And though, at the date of the marriage, he could not really
deal at all with them--your father being still alive--it appears that
his succession (when it afterward took place) was bound, at any rate, as
against himself. A divorce might have canceled this--I can not say--but
your late cousin was the last man in the world to incur the needful
exposure. Upon this they naturally counted.

"The new 'Lady Hockin' (as she called herself, with as much right as
'Lady Castlewood') flirted about while her beauty lasted; but even then
found her master in a man of deeper wickedness. But if her poor husband
desired revenge--which he does not seem to have done, perhaps--he could
not have had it better. She was seized with a loathsome disease, which
devoured her beauty, like Herod and his glory. I believe that she
still lives, but no one can go near her; least of all, the fastidious
Montague."

At this part of the letter I drew a deep breath, and exclaimed, "Thank
God!" I know not how many times; and perhaps it was a crime of me to do
it even once.

"Finding his nice prospective game destroyed by this little
accident--for he meant to have married the lady after her husband's
death, and set you at defiance; but even he could not do that now,