Year: 1859

CHAPTER XIX.


The sad slow week was gone by at last. At
the coroner's inquest verdict of sudden death
had been pronounced. DR.. Hart, acquainted
with Captain Wybrow's previous state of health,
had given his opinion that death had been i'm
mnent from long-establshel disease of the heart,
though it had probably been accelerated by some
unusual emotion. Miss ASHER was the only
person who positively knew the motive that had
led Captain Wybrow to the Rookery; but she
had not mentioned Caterina's name, and all
painful details or inquiries were studiously kept
from her. Mr. Gilfl and Sir Christopher, how
ever, knew enough to conjecture that the fatal
agitation was due to an appointed meeting with
Caterina.


All search and inquiry after her had been
frutless, and were the more likely to be SO be-
cause they were carried on under the proposes
sion that she had committed suicide No one
noticed the absence OF the tribes she had taken
from her desk no one knew of the likeness, or
that she had boarded her seven-shilling pieces,
and it was not remarkable that she should have
happened to be wearing the pearl earrings
She had left the house, they thought, taking
nothing with her; it seemed impossible she
could have gone far and she must have been in
a state of mental excitement, that made it too
probable she had only gone to seek relief in
death. The same places within three or four
miles of the Manor were searched again and
again-every pond, every ditch in the neighbour
hood was examined.


Sometimes Maynard thought that death might
have como on unsought, from cold and exhaus-
ton; and not a day passed but he wandered
through the neighbouring woods, turning up
the heaps of dead leaves, as if it were possible
her dear body could be hidden there. Then
another horrible thought recurred, and before
each night came he had been again through
all the uninhabited rooms of the house, to sat
isfy himself once more that she was not hidden
behind some cabinet or door, or curtain--that
he should not find her there with madness in
her eyes, looking and looking, and yet not see
ing him.


But at last those five long days and nights
were at an end, the funeral was over, and the
carriages were returning through the park
When they had set out, heavy rain was fall
ing but now the clouds were breaking up, and
CLEAN of sunshine was sparkling among the
dripping boughs under which they were passing.
This gloam fell upon a man on horseback who
was jogging slowly along, and whom Mr.. Gilfl
recognised, in spite of diminished rotundity, as
Daniel Knott, the coachman who had married
the rosy-cheeked Dorcas ten years before.


Every new incident suggested the same thought
to Mr.. Gilfl; and his eye no sooner fell on
Knott than he said to himself, Can he be
come to tell us anything about Caterina ?''-
Then he remembered that Caterina had beer
very fond of Dorcas, and that she always hat
some present ready to send her when Knott paiC
an occasional visit to the Manor Could Tin;
have gone to Dorcas But his heart sank agail
as he thought very likely Knott had only com
because he had heard of Captain Wybrow'
death, and wanted to know how his old maste
had borne the blow.


AS soon as the carriage reached the house, h
went up to his study and walked about nervous
ly, longing but afraid, to 60 down and spea
to Knott, lest his faint hope should be 1issipa
ted. Any one looking at that face, usually s
full of calm good will, would have seen that tn
last weeks suffering had left deep traces. B
day he had been riding or wandering incessantl,
either searching for Caterna himself, or direc
ing inquiries to be made by others. BY nigl
he had not known slecp-only intermittent do
ing, in which he seemed to be finding Caterir
dead and woke up with start from his unre
agony to the real anguish of believing that
should see her no more The clear grey ey
looked sunken and restless, the full careless lii
had strange tension about them and the broy
formerly so smooth and open, was contracted


if with pain. lie had not lost the object of
few months passion he had lost the being WI
was bound up with his power of loving, as tt
brook we played by or the flowers we gather(


childhood ara bound up with our sense