What was it that Mrs. Trevanard would have told when death sealed her lips for ever? This was the question which Maurice Clissold asked himself many a time in those dismal days at Borcel End, when the house was darkened, while he and Martin sat together in friendly silence, full of sympathy, and for the most part alone, Mr. Trevanard preferring the solitude of the best parlour in this day of affliction. What was that circumstance or detail which she would have told him, and what clue to the mystery was he to discover from those two words, ‘family Bible,’ the only words that he had been able clearly to gather from the dying woman’s disjointed speech?

He suffered Martin to give full sway to his grief; staunch in friendship, prompt with sympathy, but never attempting to strangle sorrow with set speeches of consolation; and then one evening, when Michael Trevanard had gone to bed, worn out with grief, and when Martin was more composed and resigned than he had been since his mother’s death, Maurice approached the subject which absorbed all his thoughts just now. He had told Martin that Mrs. Trevanard had given him her confidence, but he had also told him that the circumstances she had confided to him must remain a profound secret.

‘She has entrusted me with a hidden page of your family history, Martin,’ he said. ‘If ever I can set right the wrong that has been done—not by your mother, she may have been mistaken in her course of action, but she has deliberately wronged no one—you shall know all; but if I fail, the secret must remain a secret to the end of my life.’

‘How good you are!’ said Martin. ‘Can I ever be grateful enough for your interest in our troubles?’

‘My dear Martin, there is less cause for gratitude than you imagine. I have a reason of my own for being eager in this matter—a foolish reason, perhaps, and most certainly a selfish one. So let there be no talk of gratitude on your part.’

This evening, finding Martin in a more comfortable frame of mind, Maurice deemed it safe to question him.

‘You heard what your poor mother said to me on her death-bed?’ he began.

‘Every word. She was wandering, I think, poor dear soul!’

‘I hardly think that, Martin. There was so much expression in her face as she looked at me, and she seemed so eager to tell me something. I feel sure that there was some additional circumstance, some previously forgotten detail of the story she had told me which she wanted to communicate in that last hour—something relating to a family Bible. Will you let me see your family Bible Martin?’

‘Certainly. It is kept where all the world can see it—all the world of Borcel End, at least. It is on the side table in the best parlour. My poor father was reading it this afternoon. I’ll go and get it.’

Martin took one of the candles and went into the next room, whence he speedily returned, carrying a substantial folio bound in brown leather.

This was the family Bible—a goodly volume, profusely garnished with old-fashioned woodcuts, and printed in a large fat-faced type on thick ribbed paper, mellowed to a yellowish hue by the passage of years.

On the fly-leaf were recorded the births, marriages, and deaths of the Trevanards for the last hundred and fifty years, but beyond this plain straightforward catalogue the page held nothing. There was the first inscription, in ink of a faded brownish hue, recording the marriage of Stephen Trevanard of Treworgy, with Justina Penrose, of St. Austell, July 14, 1773, a marriage from which the Borcel End branch of the Trevanards had arisen; and the last entry, in Michael Trevanard’s sprawling penmanship, recording the death of Bridget, the beloved wife, &c., &c. Maurice read every line of that family catalogue—Muriel’s birth, Martin’s, but there was nothing here to suggest the faintest clue to Mrs. Trevanard’s dying words.

Then carefully, and leaf by leaf, he went through the volume, looking for any stray document which might lurk between the pages. Here he found a withered flower, with its faint ghost-like odour of departed sweetness, there a scrap of sacred poetry copied in a girlish hand—such a pretty graceful penmanship, which he surmised to be Muriel’s. Yes, here was one half-sheet of note-paper, with an extract from Milton’s Hymn, signed ‘Muriel Trevanard, Christmas, 1851.’

‘May I keep this scrap of paper, Martin?’ he asked.

It struck him that it might at some future time be well for him to possess a specimen of Muriel Trevanard’s writing—ready to be compared with any other document.

‘By all means,’ answered Martin. ‘Poor girl! She used to be so fond of poetry. Many a quaint old Scottish ballad has she repeated to me, learned out of some old books my father had picked up for her at a stall in Seacomb market.’

Beyond those loose leaves of manuscript poetry, and those stray flowerets, Maurice’s most careful search could discover nothing between the pages of the family Bible. He began to think that Martin was right, and that those last words of Mrs. Trevanard were but the meaningless babble of a mind astray; with no more significance than Falstaff’s dying talk of fair green fields familiar to his boyhood, or ever he had learned to find pleasure in midnight carouses, or the company of Mistress Tearsheet.

‘By-the-bye,’ said Martin suddenly, while his friend sat with his arms folded on the sacred volume, deep in thought, ‘there’s a Bible somewhere that belonged to my great-grandmother—a Bible I can just remember when I was a little chap—before Muriel’s wits went astray, a Bible with queer old pictures in it, which I was very fond of looking at; not a big folio like this, but a thick dumpy volume, bound in black leather, with a brass clasp. My mother generally used it when she read the Scriptures of a Sunday evening, and it was called Mother’s Bible.’

‘Was there anything written in it?’ asked Maurice.

‘Yes, there was writing upon the first page, I believe.’

‘How long is it since you saw that Bible, Martin?’

‘How long?’ echoed Martin, meditatively. ‘Oh, ever so many years. Why, I don’t remember having seen that book since I was quite a little lad.’

‘Did you ever see it after your sister’s mind went wrong?’

‘That’s asking too much. I can’t remember so closely as that; and yet, on reflection, I don’t think I ever did see it after Muriel’s long illness. I was sent to Helston Grammar School just at that time, and I certainly don’t remember ever having seen that Bible after I went to school. However, I dare say it’s somewhere about the house. Nothing is ever lost at Borcel. That Bible is among my poor mother’s stores, most likely. She was always a great hand for keeping old things.’

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