ties of
doing.' And after a little pause, she added--'So you do not know what you
are expected to do or to undergo.'

'Oh! Cousin Monica, I know you think he committed that murder,' I cried,
starting up, I don't know why, and I felt that I grew deadly pale.

'I don't believe any such thing, you little fool; you must not say such
horrible things, Maud,' she said, rising also, and looking both pale and
angry. 'Shall we go out for a little walk? Come, lock up these papers,
dear, and get your things on; and if that Dr. Bryerly does not turn up
to-morrow, you must send for the Rector, good Doctor Clay, and let him make
search for the will--there may be directions about many things, you know;
and, my dear Maud, you are to remember that Silas is _my_ cousin as well as
your uncle. Come, dear, put on your hat.'

So we went out together for a little cloistered walk.

CHAPTER XXII

_SOMEBODY IN THE ROOM WITH THE COFFIN_

When we returned, a 'young' gentleman had arrived. We saw him in the
parlour as we passed the window. It was simply a glance, but such a one
as suffices to make a photograph, which we can study afterwards, at our
leisure. I remember him at this moment--a man of six-and-thirty--dressed in
a grey travelling suit, not over-well made; light-haired, fat-faced,
and clumsy; and he looked both dull and cunning, and not at all like a
gentleman.

Branston met us, announced the arrival, and handed me the stranger's
credentials. My cousin and I stopped in the passage to read them.

'_That's_ your uncle Silas's,' said Lady Knollys, touching one of the two
letters with the tip of her finger.

'Shall we have lunch, Miss?'

'Certainly.' So Branston departed.

'Read it with me, Cousin Monica,' I said. And a very curious letter it was.
It spoke as follows:--

'How can I thank my beloved niece for remembering her aged and forlorn
kinsman at such a moment of anguish?'

I had written a note of a few, I dare say, incoherent words by the next
post after my dear father's death.

'It is, however, in the hour of bereavement that we most value the ties
that are broken, and yearn for the sympathy of kindred.'

Here came a little distich of French verse, of which I could only read
_ciel_ and _l'amour_.

'Our quiet household here is clouded with a new sorrow. How inscrutable are
the ways of Providence! I--though a few years younger--how much the more
infirm--how shattered in energy and in mind--how mere a burden--ho