a surprising angle, as if about to
tumble on the hearth-rug. The carving was exceedingly delicate.
I rose to examine it more narrowly. As I did so, my eyes fell on three
letters, cut in flowing italic capitals upon a plain boss of wood
immediately over the frame, and I spelt out the word _FVI_.

_Fui_--the word was simple enough; but what of its associations?
Why should it begin to stir up again those memories which were memories
of nothing? _Fui_--"I have been"; but what the dickens have I been?

The landlord came in with my dinner.

"Ah!" said he, "you're looking at our masterpiece, I see."

"Tell me," I asked; "do you know why this word is written here, over the
mirror?"

"I've heard my wife say, sir, it was the motto of the Cardinnocks that
used to own this house. Ralph Cardinnock, father to the last squire,
built it. You'll see his initials up there, in the top corners of the
frame--R. C.--one letter in each corner."

As he spoke it, I knew this name--Cardinnock--for that which had been
haunting me. I seated myself at table, saying--

"They lived at Tremenhuel, I suppose. Is the family gone?--died out?"

"Why yes; and the way of it was a bit curious, too."

"You might sit down and tell me about it," I said, "while I begin my
dinner."

"There's not much to tell," he answered, taking a chair; "and I'm not
the man to tell it properly. My wife is a better hand at it, but"--
here he looked at me doubtfully--"it always makes her cry."

"Then I'd rather hear it from you. How did Tremenhuel come into the
hands of the Parkyns?--that's the present owner's name, is it not?"

The landlord nodded. "The answer to that is part of the story.
Old Parkyn, great-great-grandfather to the one that lives there now,
took Tremenhuel on lease from the last Cardinnock--Squire Philip
Cardinnock, as he was called. Squire Philip came into the property when
he was twenty-three: and before he reached twenty-seven, he was forced
to let the old place. He was wild, they say--thundering wild; a
drinking, dicing, cock-fighting, horse-racing young man; poured out his
money like water through a sieve. That was bad enough: but when it came
to carrying off a young lady and putting a sword through her father and
running the country, I put it to you it's worse."

"Did he disappear?"

"That's part of the story, too. When matters got desperate and he was
forced to let Tremenhuel, he took what money he could raise and cleared
ou