bound westward, ho! But their bird was at sea,
in a Liverpool merchant's own steamboat, hired for a two months' trip.
The pursuers found this out too, but a fortnight too late.

"It's no go, Bill," said one to the other. "There's a lawyer and a pot
of money against us. Let it sleep awhile."

The steamboat coasted England in beautiful weather; the sick man began to
revive, and to eat a little, and to talk a little, and to suffer a good
deal at times. Before they had been long at sea Mr. Middleton had a
confidential conversation with Mrs. Monckton. He told her he had been
very secret with her for her good. "I saw," said he, "this Monckton had
no deep regard for you, and was capable of turning you adrift in
prosperity; and I knew that if I told you everything you would let it out
to him, and tempt him to play the villain. But the time is come that I
must speak, in justice to you both. That estate he left your son half in
joke is virtually his. Fourteen years ago, when he last looked into the
matter, there _were_ eleven lives between it and him; but, strange to
say, whilst he was at Portland the young lives went one after the other,
and there were really only five left when he made that will. Now comes
the extraordinary part: a fortnight ago three of those lives perished in
a single steamboat accident on the Clyde; that left a woman of eighty-two
and a man of ninety between your husband and the estate. The lady was
related to the persons who were drowned, and she has since died; she had
been long ailing, and it is believed that the shock was too much for her.
The survivor is the actual proprietor, Old Carruthers; but I am the
London agent to his solicitor, and he was reported to me to be _in
extremis_ the very day before I left London to join you. We shall run
into a port near the place, and you will not land; but I shall, and
obtain precise information. In the meantime, mind, your husband's name is
Carruthers. Any communication from me will be to Mrs. Carruthers, and you
will tell that man as much, or as little, as you think proper; if you
make any disclosure, give yourself all the credit you can; say you shall
take him to his own house under a new name, and shield him against all
pursuers. As for me, I tell you plainly, my great hope is that he will
not live long enough to turn you adrift and disinherit your boy."

To cut short for the present this extraordinary part of our story, Lewis
Carruthers, _alias_ Leonard Monck