Seven o\'clock was striking out on a dark winter\'s night, as a hired carriage with a pair of post-horses drew up near to the gates of Dallory Hall. Apparently the special hour had been agreed upon as a rendezvous; for before the clock had well told its numbers, a small group of people might have been seen approaching the carriage from different ways.

There issued out from the Hall gates, Mr. North, leaning on the right arm of his son Richard. Richard had quitted his chamber to join in this expedition. His left arm was in a sling, and he looked pale; but he was fast progressing towards recovery; and Mr. Seeley, confidentially consulted, had given him permission to go forth. Mrs. Gass came up from the direction of Dallory; and Dr. Rane came striding from the Ham. A red-faced, portly gentleman in plain clothes, standing near the carriage, greeted them: without his official costume and in the dark night, few would have recognized him for Inspector Jekyll, who had been directing affairs in the churchyard the previous day. Mrs. Gass, Mr. North and Richard, entered the carriage. The Inspector was about to ascend the box, the postillion being on the horses, but Dr. Rane said he would himself prefer to sit outside. So Mr. Jekyll got inside, and the doctor mounted; and the carriage drove away down Dallory Ham.

Peering after it, in the dark night, behind the gates, was Mrs. North. Some one beside her--it was only a servant-boy--ran off, at a signal, towards the stables with a message, as fast as his legs would carry him. There came back in answer madam\'s carriage--which must have been awaiting the signal---with a pair of fresh fleet horses.

"Catch it up, and keep it in sight at a distance," were her orders to the coachman, as she stepped in. So the post-carriage was being tracked and followed: a fact none of its inmates had the slightest notion of.

In her habit of peeping and prying, of listening at doors, of glancing surreptitiously into other people\'s letters, and of ferreting generally, madam had become aware during the last twenty-four hours that something unusual was troubling the equanimity of Mr. North and Richard: that some journey, to be taken in secret by Mr. North, and kept secret, was being decided upon. Conscience--when it is not an easy one--is apt to suggest all sorts of unpleasant things, and madam\'s whispered to her that this hidden expedition had reference to herself; and--perhaps--to a gentleman who had recently arrived in England--William Adair.

Madam\'s cheeks turned pale through rouge and powder, and she bit her lips in impotent rage. She could have found means, no doubt, to keep Mr. North within doors, though she had broken his leg to accomplish it; she could have found means to keep Richard also, had she known he was to be of the party: but of what avail? Never a cleverer woman lived, than madam, and she had the sense to know that a meeting with Mr. Adair (and she believed the journey had reference to nothing else) could not thus be prevented: it must take place sooner or later.

A carriage was to be in waiting near the Hall gates after dark, at seven o\'clock--madam had learned so much. Where was it going to? In which direction? For what purpose? That at least madam could ascertain. She gave private orders of her own: and as night approached, retired to her room with a headache, forbidding the household to disturb her. Mr. North, as he dined quietly in his parlour, thought how well things were turning out. He had been haunted with a fear of madam\'s pouncing upon him, at the moment of departure, with a demand to know the why and the wherefore of his secret expedition.

Madam, likewise attired for a journey, had escaped from the Hall long before seven, and taken up her place amidst the shrubs near the entrance-gates, her position commanding both the way from the house and the road without. On the stroke of seven, steps were heard advancing; and madam strained her gaze.

Richard! Who had not yet left his sick-room! But for his voice, as he spoke to his father, madam would have thought the night was playing tricks with her eyesight.

She could not see who else got into the carriage: but she did see Dr. Rane come striding by; and she thought it was he upon the box when the carriage passed. Dr. Rane? Madam, catching her breath, wondered what private histories Mrs. Cumberland had confided to him, and how much he was now on his way to bear witness to. Madam was altogether on the wrong scent--the result of her suggestive conscience.

Almost in a twinkling, she was shut up in her own carriage, as described, her coachman alone outside it.

The man had no difficulty in obeying orders. The post-carriage was not as light as madam\'s. Keeping at a safe distance, he followed in its wake, unsuspected. First of all, from the Ham down the back lane, and then through all sorts of frequented, cross-country by-ways. Altogether, as both drivers thought, fifteen or sixteen miles.

The post-carriage drew up at a solitary house, on the outskirts of a small hamlet. Madam\'s carriage halted also, further away. Alighting, she desired her coachman to wait: and stole cautiously along under cover of the hedge, to watch proceedings. It was then about nine o\'clock.

They were all going into the house: a little crowd, as it seemed to madam; and the post-carriage went slowly away, perhaps to an inn. What had they gone to that house for? Was Mr. Adair within it? Madam was determined to see. She partly lost sight of prudence in her desperation, and was at the door just as it closed after them. Half a minute and she knocked softly with her knuckles. It was opened by a young girl with a broad country face, and red elbows.

"Law!" said she. "I thought they was all in. Do you belong to \'em?"

"Yes," said Mrs. North.

So she went in also, and crept up the dark staircase, after them, directed by the girl. "Fust door you comes to at the top." Madam\'s face was growing ghastly: she fully expected to see William Adair.

The voices alone would have guided her. Several were heard talking within the room: her husband\'s she distinguished plainly: and, she thought, madam certainly thought, he was sobbing. Madam went into a heat at the sound. What revelation had Mr. Adair been already making? He had lost no time apparently.

The door was not latched. Madam cautiously pushed it an inch or two open so as to enable her to see in. She looked very ugly just now, her lips drawn back from her teeth with emotion, something like a hyena\'s. Madam looked in: and saw, not Mr. Adair, but--Bessy Rane.

Bessy Rane. She was standing near the table, whilst Dr. Rane was talking. Standing quite still, with her placid face, her pretty curls falling, and wearing a violet-coloured merino gown, that madam had seen her in a dozen times. In short, it was just like Bessy Rane in life. On the table, near the one solitary candle, lay some white work, as if just put out of hand.

In all madam\'s life she had perhaps never been so frightened as now. The truth did not occur to her. She surely thought it an apparition, as Jelly had thought before; or that--or that Bessy had in some mysterious manner been conveyed hither from that disturbed grave. In these confused moments the mind is apt to run away with itself. Madam\'s was not strong enough to endure the shock, and be silent. With a piercing shriek, she turned to fly, and fell against the whitewashed chimney that the architect of the old-fashioned house had seen fit to carry up through the centre of it. The next moment she was in hysterics.

Bessy was the first to run to attend her. Bessy herself, you understand, not her ghost. In a corner of the capacious old room, built when ground was to be had for an old song, was Bessy\'s bed; and on this they placed Mrs. North. Madam was not long in recovering her equanimity: but she continued where she was, making believe to be exhausted, and put a corner of her shawl up to her face. For once in her life that face had a spark of shame in it.

Yes: Bessy was not dead. Humanly speaking, there had never been any more probability of Bessy\'s demise than there was of madam\'s at this moment. Dr. Rane is giving the explanation, and the others are standing to listen; excepting Mr. North, who has sat down in an old-fashioned elbow-chair, whilst Richard leans the weight of his undamaged arm behind it. Mrs. Gass has pushed back her bonnet from her beaming face; the inspector looks impassive as befits his calling, but on the whole pleased.

"I am not ashamed of what I have done," said Dr. Rane, standing by Bessy\'s side; "and I only regret it for the pain my wife\'s supposed death caused her best friends, Mr. North and Richard. I would have given much to tell the truth to Mr. North, but I knew it would not be safe to trust him, and so I wished it to wait until we should have left the country. For all that has occurred you must blame the tontine. That is, blame the Ticknells, who obstinately, wrongfully, cruelly kept the money from us. There were reasons--my want of professional success one of them--why I wished to quit Dallory, and start afresh in another place; I and my wife talked of it until it grew, with me, into a disease; and I believe Bessy grew to wish for it at last almost as I did."

"Yes, I did, Oliver," she put in.

"Look at the circumstances," resumed Dr. Rane, in his sternest tones, and not at all as though he were on his defence. "There was the sum of two thousand pounds belonging to me and my wife conjointly, and they denied our right to touch it until one of us should be dead and gone! It was monstrously unjust. You must acknowledge that much, Mr. Inspector."

"Well--it did seem hard," acknowledged that functionary.

"I know I thought it so," said Mrs. Gass.

"It was more than hard," spoke the doctor passionately. "I used to say to my wife that if I could get it out of the old trustees\' hands by force, or stratagem, I should think it no shame to do it. Idle talk! never meant to be anything else. But to get on. The fever broke out in Dallory, and Bessy was taken ill. She thought it was the fever, and so did I. I had fancied her a little afraid of it, and was in my heart secretly thankful to Mr. North for inviting her to the Hall. But for putting off her visit for a day--through the absence of Molly Green--what happened later could never have taken place."

Dr. Rane paused, as if considering how he should go on with his story. After a moment he resumed it, looking straight at them, as he had been looking all along.

"I wish you to understand that every word I am telling you--and shall tell you--is the strict truth. The truth, upon my honour, and before Heaven. And yet, perhaps, even after this, you will scarcely credit me when I say--that I did believe my wife\'s illness was the fever. All that first day--she had been taken ill during the night with sickness and shivering--I thought it was the fever. Seeley thought it also. She was in a very high state of feverishness, and no doubt fear for her served somewhat to bias our judgment. Bessy herself said it was the fever, and would not hear a word to the contrary. But at night--the first night, remember--she had nearly an hour of sickness; and was so relieved by it, and grew so cool and collected, that I detected the nature of the case. It was nothing but a bad bilious attack, accompanied by an unusual degree of fever; but it was not the fever. \'You have cheated me, my darling,\' I said jestingly, as I kissed her, \'I shall not get the tontine money.\'--Here she stands by my side to confirm it," broke off Dr. Rane, but indeed they could all see he was relating the simple truth. "\'Can you not pretend that I am dead?\' she answered faintly, for she was still exceedingly ill; \'I will go away, and you can say I died.\' Now, of course Bessy spoke jestingly, as I had done: nevertheless the words led to what afterwards took place. I proposed it--do not lay the blame on Bessy--that she really should go away, and I should give it out that she had died."

A slight groan from the region of the bed. Dr. Rane continued.

"It seemed very easy of accomplishment--very. But had I foreseen all the disagreeable proceedings, the artifice, the trouble, that must inevitably attend such an attempted deceit, I should never have entered upon it. Had I properly reflected, I might of course have foreseen it: but I did not reflect. Nearly all that night Bessy and I conversed together: chiefly planning how she should get away and where she should stay. By morning, what with the fatigue induced by this prolonged vigil, and the exhaustion left by her illness, she was thoroughly worn out. It had been agreed between us that she should simulate weariness and a desire to sleep, the better to avert a discovery of her restoration; but there was no need for simulation; she was both sleepy and exhausted."

"I never was so sleepy before in all my life,&q............