There was one thing that puzzled both General St. George and Lionel Dering, and that was the persistent way in which Kester St. George stayed on at Park Newton. It had, in the first place, been a matter of some difficulty to get him to Park Newton at all, and for some time after his arrival it had been evident to all concerned that he had made up his mind that his stay there should be as brief as possible. But after that never-to-be-forgotten night when the noise of ghostly footsteps was heard in the nailed-up room--a circumstance which both his uncle and his cousin had made up their minds would drive him from the house for ever--he ceased to talk much about going away. Week passed after week and still he stayed on. Nor could his uncle, had he been desirous of doing so, which he certainly was not, have hinted to him, even in the most delicate possible way, that his room would be more welcome than his company, after the pressure which he had put upon him only a short time previously to induce him to remain.

Nothing could have suited Lionel\'s plans better than that his cousin should continue to live on at Park Newton, but he was certainly puzzled to know what his reason could be for so doing; and, in such a case, to be puzzled was, to a certain extent, to be disquieted.

But much as he would have liked to do so, Kester had a very good reason for not leaving Park Newton at present. He was, in fact, afraid to do so. After the affair of the footsteps he had decided that it would not be advisable to go away for a little while. It would never do for people to say that he had been driven away by the ghost of Percy Osmond. It was while thus lingering on from day to day that he had ridden over to see Mother Mim. One result of his interview was that he felt how utterly unsafe it would be for him to quit the neighbourhood till she was safely dead and buried. She might send for him at any moment, she might have other things to speak to him about which it behoved him to hear. She might change her mind at the last moment, and decide to tell to some other person what she had already told him; and when she should die, it would doubtless be to him that application would be made to bury her. All things considered, it was certainly unadvisable that he should leave Park Newton yet awhile.

Day after day he waited with smothered impatience for some further tidings of Mother Mim. But day after day he waited in vain. Most men, under such circumstances, would have gone to the place and have made personal inquiries for themselves. This was precisely what Kester St. George told himself that he ought to do, but for all that he did not do it. He shrank, with a repugnance which he could not overcome, from the thought of any further contact with either Mother Mim or her surroundings. His tastes, if not refined, were fastidious, and a shudder of disgust ran through him as often as he remembered that if what Mother Mim had said were true--and there was something that rang terribly like truth in her words--then was she--that wretched creature--his mother, and the filthy hut in which she lay dying his sole home and heritage. He knew that for the sake of his own interest--of his own safety--he ought to go and see again this woman who called herself his mother, but three weeks had come and gone before he could screw his courage up to the pitch requisite to induce him to do so.

But before this came about, Kester St. George had been left for the time being, with the exception of certain servants, the sole occupant of Park Newton. Lionel Dering had gone down to Bath to seek an interview with Pierre Janvard, with what result has been already seen. Two days after Lionel\'s departure, General St. George was called away by the sudden illness of an old Indian friend to whom he was most warmly attached. He left home expecting to be back in four or five days at the latest; whereas, as it fell out, he did not reach home again for several weeks.

It was one day when thus left alone, and when the solitude was becoming utterly intolerable to him, that Kester made up his mind that he would no longer be a coward, but would go that very afternoon and see for himself whether Mother Mim were alive or dead. But even after he had thus determined that there should be no more delay on his part, he played fast and loose with himself as to whether he should go or not. Had there come to him any important letter or telegram demanding his presence fifty miles away, he would have caught at it as a drowning man catches at a straw. The veriest excuse would have sufficed for the putting off of his journey for at least one day. But the dull hours wore themselves away without relief or change of any kind for him, and when three o\'clock came, having first dosed himself heavily with brandy, he rang the bell and ordered his horse to be brought round.

What might not the next few hours bring to him? he asked himself as he rode down the avenue. They might perchance be pregnant with doom. Or death might already have lifted this last bitter burden from his life by sealing with his bony fingers the only lips that had power to do him harm.

For nearly a fortnight past the weather had been remarkably mild, balmy, and open for the time of year. Everybody said how easily old winter was dying. But during the previous night there had come a bitter change. The wind had suddenly veered round to the north-east, and was still blowing steadily from that quarter. Steadily and bitterly it blew, chilling the hearts of man and beast with its icy breath, stopping the growth of grass and flowers, killing every faintest gleam of sunshine, and bringing back the reign of winter in its cruellest form.

Heavy and lowering looked the sky, shrilly through the still bare branches whistled the ice-cold wind, as Kester St. George, deep in thought, rode slowly through the park. He buttoned his coat more closely around him, and pulled his hat more firmly over his brows as he turned out of the lodge gates, and setting his face full to the wind, urged his horse into a gallop, and was quickly lost to view down the winding road.

It would not have taken him long to reach the edge of Burley Moor had not his horse suddenly fallen lame. For the last two miles of the distance his pace was reduced to a slow walk. This so annoyed Kester that he decided to leave his horse at a roadside tavern in the last hamlet he had to pass through, and to traverse the remainder of the distance on foot. A short three miles across the moor would take him to Mother Mim\'s cottage.

To a man such as Kester a three miles\' walk was a rather formidable undertaking--or, at least, it was an uncommon one. But there was no avoiding it on the present occasion, unless he gave up the object of his journey and went back home. But he could by no means bear the thought of doing that. In proportion with the hesitation and reluctance which he had previously shown, to ascertain either the best or the worst of the affair, was the anxiety which now possessed him to reach his journey\'s end. His imagination pictured all kinds of possible and impossible evils as likely to accrue to him, and he cursed himself again and again for his negligence in not making the journey long ago.

Very bleak and cold was that walk across the desolate, lonely moor, but Kester St. George, buried in his own thoughts, hardly felt or heeded anything of it. All the sky was clouded and overcast, but far away to the north a still darker bank of cloud was creeping slowly up from the horizon.

The wind blew in hollow fitful gusts. Any one learned in such lore would have said that a change of weather was imminent.

When about half-way across the moor he halted for a moment to gather breath. On every side of him spread the dull treeless expanse. Nowhere was there another human being to be seen. He was utterly alone. "If a man crossing here were suddenly stricken with death," he muttered to himself, "what a place this would be to die in! His body might lie here for days--for weeks even--before it was found."

At length Mother Mim\'s cottage was reached. Everything about it looked precisely the same as when he had seen it last. It seemed only like a few hours since he had left it. There, too, crouched on the low wall outside, with her skirt drawn over her head, was Mother Mim\'s grand-daughter, the girl with the black glittering eyes, looking as if she had never stirred from the spot since he was last there. She made no movement or sign of recognition when he walked up to her, but her eyes were full of a cold keen criticism of him, far beyond her age and appearance.

"How is your grandmother?" said Kester, abruptly. He did not like being stared at as she stared at him.

"She\'s dead."

"Dead!" It was no more than he expected to hear, and yet he could not hear it altogether unmoved.

"Ay, as dead as a door nail. And a good job too. It was time she went."

"How long has she been dead?" asked Kester, ignoring the latter part of the girl\'s speech.

"Just half an hour."

Another surprise for Kester. He had expected to hear that she had been dead several days--a week perhaps. But only half an hour!

"Who was with her when she died?" he asked, after a minute\'s pause.

"Me and Dirty Jack."

"Dirty Jack! who is he?"

"Why Dirty Jack. Everybody knows him. He lives in Duxley, and has a wooden leg, and does writings for folk."

"Does writings for folk!" A shiver ran through Kester. "And has he been doing anything for your grandmother?"

"That he has. A lot."

"A lot--about what?"

"About you."

"About me? Why about me?"

"Oh, you never came near. Nobody never came near. Granny got tired of it. \'I\'ll have my revenge,\' said she. So she sent for Dirty Jack, and he took it all down in writing."

"Took it all down in writing about me?" She nodded her head in the affirmative. "If you know so much, no doubt you know what it was that he took down--eh?"

"Oh, I know right enough."

"Why not tell me?"

"I know all about it, but I ain\'t a-going to split."

Further persuasion on Kester\'s part had no other effect than to induce the girl to assert in still more emphatic terms that "she wasn\'t a-going to split."

Evidently nothing more was to be got from her. But she had said enough already to confirm his worst fears. Mother Mim, out of spite for the neglect with which he had treated her, had made a confession at the last moment, similar in purport to what she had told him when last there. Such a confession--if not absolutely dangerous to him--she having assured him that none of the witnesses were now living--might be made a source of infinite annoyance to him. Such a story, once made public, might bring forth witnesses and evidence from twenty hitherto unsuspected quarters, and fetter him round, link by link, with a chain of evidence from which he might find it impossible to extricate himself. At every sacrifice, Mother Mim\'s confession must be destroyed or suppressed. Such were some of the thoughts that passed through Kester\'s mind as he stood there biting his nails. Again and again he cursed himself in that he had allowed any such confession to emanate from the dead woman, whose silence a little extra kindness on his part would have effectually secured.

"And where is this Dirty Jack, as you call him?" he said, at last.

"He\'s in there"--indicating the hut with a jerk of her head--"fast asleep."

"Fast asleep in the same room with your grandmother?"

"Why not? He had a bottle of whiskey with him which he kept sucking at. At last he got half screwy, and when all was over he said he would have a snooze by the fire and pull himself together a bit before going home."

Kester said no more, but going up to the hut, opened the door and went in. On the pallet at the farther end lay the dead woman, her body faintly outlined through the sheet that had been drawn over her. A clear fire was burning in the broken grate, and close to it, on the only chair in the place, sat a man fast asleep. His hands were grimy, his linen was yellow, his hair was frowsy. He was a big bulky man, with a coarse, hard face, and was dressed in faded threadbare black. He had a wooden leg, which just now was thrust out towards the fire, and seemed as if it were basking in the comfortable blaze.

On the chimney-piece was an empty spirit-bottle, and in a corner near at hand were deposited a broad-brimmed hat, greasy and much the worse for wear, and a formidable looking walking-stick.

Such was the vision of loveliness that met the gaze of Kester St. George as he paused for a moment or two just inside the cottage door. Then he coughed and advanced a step or two. As he did so the man suddenly opened his eyes, got up quickly but awkwardly out of his chair, and laid his hand on something that was hidden in an inner pocket of his coat. "No, you don\'t!" he cried, with a wave of his hand. "No, you don\'t! None of your hanky-panky tricks here. They won\'t go down with Jack Skeggs, so you needn\'t try \'em on!"

Kester stared at him in unconcealed disgust. It was evident that he was still under the partial influence of what he had been drinking.

"Who are you, sir, and what are you doing here?" asked Kester, sternly.

"I am John Skeggs, Esquire, attorney-at-law, at your service. And who may you be, when you\'re at home? But there--I know who you are well enough. You are Mr. Kester St. George, of Park Newton. I have seen you before. I saw you on the day of the murder trial. You were one of the witnesses, and white enough you looked. Anybody who had a good look at you in the box that day would never be likely to forget your face again."

Kester turned aside for a moment to hide the sudden nervous twitching of his lips.

"I\'m sorry the whiskey is done," said Mr. Skeggs with a regretful look at the empty bottle. "I should like you and I to have had a drain together. I suppose you don\'t do anything in this line?" From one pocket he produced an old clasp knife, and from the other a cake of leaf tobacco. Then he cut himself a plug and put it into his mouth. "When one friend fails me, then I fall back upon another," he said. "When I can\'t get whiskey I must have tobacco."

There was no better known character in Duxley than Mr. Skeggs. "Dirty Jack," or "Drunken Jack," were the sobriquets by which he was generally known, and neither of those terms was applied to him without good and sufficient reason. There could be no doubt as to the man\'s shrewdness, ability, and knowledge of common law. He was a great favourite among the lower and the very lowest classes of Duxley society, who in their legal difficulties never thought of employing any other lawyer than Skeggs, the universal belief being that if anybody could pull them through, either by hook or crook, Dirty Jack was that man. And it is quite possible that Mr. Skeggs\'s clients were not far wrong in their belief.

"No good stopping here any longer," said Skeggs, when he had put back his knife and tobacco into his pocket.

"No, I suppose not," said Kester.

"I suppose you will see that everything is done right and proper by our poor dear departed?"

"Yes, I suppose there is no one to look to but me. She was my foster-mother, and very kind to me when I was a lad."

"His foster-mother! Listen to that! His foster-mother! ha! ha!" sniggered Dirty Jack. Then laying a finger on one side his nose, and leering up at Kester with horrible familiarity, he added: "We know all about that little affair, Mr. St. George, and a very pretty romance it is."

"Look you here, Mr. Skeggs, or whatever your dirty name may be," said Kester, sternly, "I\'d advise you to keep a civil tongue in your head or it may be worse for you. I\'ve thrashed bigger men than you in my time. Be careful, or I shall thrash you."

"I like your pluck, on my soul I do!" said Skeggs, heartily. "If you\'re not genuine silver--and you know you ain\'t--you\'re a deuced good imitation of the real thing. Thoroughly well plated, that\'s what you are. Any one would take you to be a born gentleman, they would really. Which way are you going back?"

Kester hesitated a moment. Should he quarrel with this man and set him at defiance, or should he not? Could he afford to quarrel with him? that was the question. Perhaps it would be as well to keep from doing so as long as possible.

"I\'m going to walk back across the moor as far as Sedgeley," said Kester.

"Then I\'ll walk with you--though three miles is rather a big stretch to do with my game leg. I can get a gig from there that will take me home."

Kester shrugged his shoulders, but made no comment. Skeggs took up his hat and stick, and proceeded to polish the former article with his sleeve.

"Queer woman that," he said, with a jerk of his thumb towards the bed--"very queer. Hard as nails. With something heroic about her, to my mind--something that, under different circumstances, might have developed her into a remarkable woman. Well, that\'s the way with heaps of us. Circumstances are dead against us, and we are not strong enough to overmaster them; else should we smite the world with surprise, and genius would not be so scarce an article in the market as it is now."

Kester stared. Was this the half-drunken blackguard who had been jeering at him but two minutes ago? "And yet, drunk he must be," added Kester to himself. "No fellow in his senses would talk such precious rot."

"Your obedient servant, sir," said Skeggs, with a purposely exaggerated bow as he held open the door for Mr. St. George to pass out.

The girl was still sitting on the wall with her skirt drawn over her head. Kester went up to her. "I will send some one along first thing to-morrow morning to see to the funeral and other matters," he said, "if you can manage till then."

"Oh, I can manage right enough. Why not?" said the girl.

"I thought that perhaps you might not care to be in the house by yourself all night."

"Oh, I don\'t mind that."

"Then you are not afraid?"

"What\'s there to be frittened of? She\'s quiet enough now. I shall make up a jolly fire, and have a jolly supper, and then a jolly long sleep. And that\'s what I\'ve not had for weeks. And I shall read the Dream Book. She can\'t keep that from me now. I know where it is. It\'s in the bed right under her. But I\'ll have it." She laughed and nodded her head, then putting a nut into her mouth she cracked it and began to pick out the kernel. Kester turned away.

"Nell, my good girl," said Mr. Skeggs, insinuatingly, "just see whether there isn\'t such a thing as a drop of whiskey somewhere about the house. I\'ve an awful pain in my chest."

"There\'s no whiskey--not a drop--but I know where there\'s half a bottle of gin. Give me five shillings and I\'ll fetch it."

"Five shillings for half a bottle of gin! Why, Nell, what a greedy young pig you must be!"

"Don\'t have it then. Nobody axed you. I can drink it myself."

"I\'ll give you three shillings for it. Come now."

"Not a meg less than five will I take," said Nell, emphat............