Chapter XXIV: A Parting and a Letter

Next morning Miss Baynard and Evan breakfasted alone, Mr. Ellerslie remaining invisible. But Nell, who was becoming accustomed to her host's eccentricities, was hardly surprised at his non-appearance. Not much appetite had she this morning. Dare was coming at ten o'clock, and the thought of her forthcoming interview with him disturbed her strangely. They were about to part. When she had given expression to her gratitude, and they had taken leave of each other, and she had gone her way and he his, what chance or likelihood was there of their ever meeting again? By his own confession his business in England was now at an end; in a few days, or a few weeks at the latest, he would have left its shores, never to return; they would have passed out of each other's life, and, except for one thing, all would be as it was before they first met.

Yes, save and except for one thing, but one which to Nell made all imaginable difference. Then she had held her heart fast in her own keeping, but what had become of the poor thing now? She had given it away without having been asked for it. Could anything be more shameful? It was gone from her past reclaiming; lost to her forever; and yet he into whose keeping it had been given knew nothing about it. And he never would know. He would carry it away with him, all unwitting, and to all outward seeming, life with her would go on just as before. She alone would know that she had lost something which nothing else could make up to her, that some of the magic had faded out of existence, and that the sun no longer shone quite so brightly as it had been used to do.

Hardly had the clocks struck ten when there came a tap at the door, which was followed by the entrance of Geoffrey Dare. Young Evan was on the floor busied with some toys which the housekeeper had disinterred for him out of one of the garrets. The moment he saw who the newcomer was, he called out: "Uncle Geoff, come here. One of my horses has only got three legs, and I want you to make me a new one."

"Presently, my dear boy, presently," he replied, as, after pausing for a moment at the door, he went slowly forward, his eyes fixed full on Miss Baynard.

She was standing, supporting herself with one hand on the table and with the other pressed to her side. For a little space her gaze met his without the flicker of an eyelash and then dropped before the ardor of his regard. Her heart was beating tumultuously, while the quick rise and fall of her bosom told of the emotions at work beneath. A lovely flush suffused both face and throat; but Dare was paler than ordinary, and haggard and weary-looking, and might have just risen from a sick bed. Both were putting a strong restraint on themselves, but each showed it in a different way.

Nell did not advance with impulsive outstretched hands, as she had done in the case of Mr. Ellerslie. It was as though her limbs refused to move under her. But when Dare came up and held out one of his hands, she laid one of hers in it readily enough. "It did not take long to bring you here, Miss Baynard," he said, "when once you knew that my uncle had tidings of the boy."

After pressing her hand slightly he had withdrawn his own. They might have been the merest casual acquaintances, Nell felt a little bitterly. And yet, unless her feelings had blinded her, as he entered the room, she had detected in his eyes a flame of passionate ardor from which her own had been fain to shrink abashed. Could it be that he was hiding something from her, even as she was hiding something from him? As this question flashed across her she raised her eyes once more to his. But the flame which had so dazzled her a minute before was no longer there. Had it been extinguished? or was it merely that a veil had been temporarily drawn before it?

It was after a scarcely observable pause that she answered his remark. "You may be sure that after Mr. Ellerslie's message reached me I let no grass grow under my feet. I came, looking to have merely some tidings of the boy, whereas it was Evan himself whom I found! But I am only telling you what you know already. When I began to thank your uncle, under the belief that I owed Evan's recovery to him, he stopped me. It seems that you are the person to whom my thanks are due. Believe me, Mr. Dare, they are yours from the bottom of my heart."

Dare bowed. "Not a word more on that score, I beg," he said with a smile. "I need not tell you that it makes me very happy to have been the means of restoring Evan to you; but, as you are aware, I myself have a strong interest in the boy--strong enough to make it impossible for me to leave a stone unturned till he had been found, whether by me or some one else did not greatly matter."

"I am very glad it was you, and not another, who found him."

"And, of course, I am not sorry that such should have been the case."

Miss Baynard had resumed her chair, and Dare had dropped into another no great distance away.

"If there is no secret involved in the affair, and it will be breaking no confidence on your part, I should like you to tell me, not only how you succeeded in discovering Evan's whereabouts, but by what means you contrived to rescue him from the wretches--for wretches they must have been--who, to gratify some vile purpose of their own, stole him away in broad daylight."

"'Tis a story very easily told. To your old friend Captain Nightshade is due the boy's rescue from those who abducted him."

"To Captain Nightshade? Oh!"

"Who once more, and for the last time, revisited the glimpses of the moon. But I am starting my story at the wrong end. I will tell it you from the beginning, since you say you would like to hear it. First of all, however, I must inquire into the state of Master Evan's horse, which seems to be minus one of its legs."

Miss Baynard left Rockmount two hours later, but without seeing Mr. Ellerslie again, who sent his apologies by his nephew. His rheumatism had come on in the night, and this morning he was unable to rise.

Dare rode with Miss Baynard as far as the park gates of Stanbrook, with Evan in front of him. Next day he was going to London, there to complete a few preparations and arrange certain business matters for Mr. Ellerslie, before setting sail for that New World where his home would henceforth be. But this was not to be their final farewell; they would see each other once more in about a fortnight, when Dare would come north in order to bid his uncle goodbye, on which occasion he would not fail to call at Stanbrook. He would not, of course, dream of leaving England without seeing his godson again.

And so they parted, both secretly consumed with love. Dare would not open his lips. In the first place, he was far too poor to marry; and then, to dream that, in any case, the proud and beautiful Miss Baynard would stoop so low as to wed the notorious "Captain Nightshade" was the veriest moonstruck folly. Had he but known how often Nell, with despair gnawing at her heartstrings, murmured sadly to herself, "If only he would say one word!" what a change, little less than miraculous, would have come over him!

But the word was not said, and they separated with nothing warmer than a hand-grasp--torn asunder, not by Fate, but by their own pride, and to the full as wretched as parted lovers are always said, or supposed, to be.

Lady Carradine, having much leisure time on her hands, and being fond of letter-writing, not infrequently obliged her goddaughter with one of her lengthy and somewhat diffusely-worded epistles. To Miss Baynard, in the retirement of Stanbrook, these occasional glimpses of a life so different from her own were always welcome; and as her ladyship had now taken up her permanent residence in London and saw a good deal of company, she had much to tell that was both fresh and interesting.

Nearly a fortnight had gone by since Nell's return from Rockmount, and she was looking daily for the coming of Dare, when one of Lady Carradine's crossed and recrossed letters--postage in those days was a consideration--came to hand. With only one part of her ladyship's epistle are we in any way concerned. The part in question ran as under:--

"I forget, my dear, whether I ever mentioned to you that among my many acquaintances is numbered Sir Peter Warrendale, a baronet of old family, whose home, when he is at home, is somewhere in your benighted part of the country. Of late years, however, he has been seen a good deal in town. I have a notion that his health is not quite what he would like it to be, and that he has little or no faith in your rural practitioners, which I can't wonder at. But that is his own secret.

"He is now well on for seventy, a tetchy, cross-grained old man, with a good word for nobody behind their back; and I have not the least doubt he pulls me to pieces before others, just as he pulls others to pieces before me. I candidly confess that I don't like him, but he helps to amuse me, and to any one who does that I can forgive much.

"I had not seen him for some little time till one evening about a week ago, when he called upon me, evidently brimful of news, of which it was needful that he should relieve himself to somebody if he wished to escape a fit of apoplexy. I quite expected that I was about to be treated to the latest scandalous _on dit_, or the most recent morsel of society gossip, which would lose nothing in Sir Peter's telling, but for once I was mistaken. What he had to tell me was the particulars of a somewhat singular incident in which he had figured as one of the chief actors.

"It would appear that several months ago Sir Peter, while travelling in his own chariot, was stopped by a mounted highwayman and relieved, among other things, of a choice snuff-box--an heirloom, and set with brilliants--by which he set great store. Although the affair happened in his own part of the country, when he came to town, a few weeks later, he reported his loss at Bow Street, and handed in a full description of the box. This he did in the faint hope that the box might some day find its way to one of the London pawnbrokers--to each of whom a description of it would have been furnished--and, through him, back to its rightful owner.

"Time went on, and Sir Peter had given up all hope of ever seeing his box again, when he was one day requested to betake himself to Bow Street, and there, sure enough, he set eyes once more on his precious heirloom. It had been found on the person of a low London thief who had been arrested for something altogether different.

"But now comes the most singular feature of the affair. The box had been _twice_ stolen, once, several months ago, from the person of Sir Peter, and a second time, a few weeks ago, here in London, from the person of a certain Mr. Geoffrey Dare, and both losses had been notified to the authorities.

"Sir Peter having identified the box as his property, it became needful to ascertain through what channel it had come into the possession of Mr. Dare, who seems to be one of those numerous young men of good family about whom one is continually hearing, who seem to think that twenty thousand pounds will go as far as a hundred thousand, and who, after their follies and extravagances have made them the talk of the town for a few seasons, vanish and are no more seen. At any rate, that, some two or three years ago, the young man in question was a well-known figure in London society, and that, with the help of the gaming table--an important factor in nearly all such cases--he dissipated his fortune to the last shilling, are well ascertained facts.

"When inquired for at his lodgings--a couple of cheap rooms in some horrid back street--it was ascertained that he had gone into the country for an indefinite time, without leaving any word where he might be found. Such being the state of affairs, nothing more could be done till he should return, which he did about ten days ago. A message had been left at his lodgings, requesting his attendance at Bow Street, which he seems to have lost no time in obeying. There he was questioned as to how the snuff-box came into his keeping, and, his answers not being deemed satisfactory, he was confronted with Sir Peter.

"In him--although he admitted that the highwayman was masked--the baronet professed to recognize the man who robbed him of his purse and the box; indeed, on being pressed, he actually went so far as to swear to his identity with the robber, although, from what he has confessed to me, I cannot help thinking that the evidence on which he grounds his accusation is of the flimsiest possible kind.

"But be that as it may, after two or three remands at Bow Street, Dare has been committed to take his trial for highway robbery at the next Lanchester assizes, within a few miles of which town Sir Peter was waylaid.

"I had written thus far yesterday when Sir Peter himself rang the bell. He brought me some further news with regard to young Dare which is of a sufficiently remarkable kind.

"It would appear that the authorities have some ground for believing that in him they have laid hands on no less a personage than a certain Captain Nightshade (a sobriquet, of course), whose exploits and adventures as a gentleman of the road in the course of the past two or three years have, according to Sir Peter, formed the fireside talk of half the households in the north of England. It seems, however, that some six or eight months ago he disappeared, and has not been heard of since. But now that the runners have been laid on the scent, 'twill not be their fault if they fail to run their quarry to earth.

"Poor fellow! I can't help feeling sorry for him, although it may be very reprehensible on my part to say so. I am afraid it will go hard with him at his trial. 'Tis said that Captain Nightshade was one of the most chivalrous of men, and never robbed a woman in his life."