peat had the strange preservative character within it of holding
unaltered that which it took to itself; and as the body of a poor Saxon
woman was once found, after probably fifteen hundred years' immersion,
so was found that of Marion Lady Gernon.

The truth at last--the dread truth, proclaiming itself, trumpet-tongued,
for all men to hear--proclaiming innocence, and wronging suspicion,
suffering, and death. The last veil was lifted from the past; and as
the truth shone forth, clear and bright, foul suspicion and lying
scandal shrank away abashed from the bright light to the dark shades
where they had been engendered.

"The truth at last!" groaned Philip Norton, elderly and grey now, as he
stood, with clasped hands, gazing at the silent dead--"the truth at
last, and now he will believe."

The navvies shrank back in half dread at the strange sight for a few
minutes; and when, recovering, they would have advanced, Brace motioned
them back, and he alone heard his father's words.

"At last--at last! what I have prayed for so long. At last! Oh Heaven!
I loved her too well to have sullied her even in thought!"

He stood motionless for a few minutes, and then, by a fierce effort, he
started back into life.

"Let no hand but ours rest upon her, Brace," he whispered; and then, of
the woodwork near, a litter was hastily contrived, and on a bed of the
heather and rush, amidst which she had loved to linger, the sleeping
figure was slowly borne towards the village, till, as they neared the
Park, Brace left his father to prepare those at the Castle for the awful
visitation.

Book 2, Chapter XXXI.

AT ONE.

Two months elapsed, and Merland village had almost ceased talking about
the grand funeral from the Castle--"the strange berryin'"--when, after
twenty long years, Lady Gernon was borne to the family vault, with the
Nortons, at Sir Murray's wish, for chief mourners. For he lay as he had
been stricken down, a broken, helpless man, tended ever by his two old,
faithful servants; McCray watching his every glance, and often and often
sitting at his bedside, to read to him, in a strong Scottish twang, the
news of the present and the future. But for a long while there was a
strange, uneasy aspect in Sir Murray Gernon's face whenever Jane McCray
was in the room. And that uneasy look was at last interpreted by the
housekeeper, who, as she smoothed his pillow, asked him of his
thoughts--for he had, as it were, questioned her