I sat down with my great weight of happiness. Oh, the change that had passed over me! He was not married; he was true and honourable, and he loved me! Hickens came in to remove the wine, and I chattered to him like a merry schoolgirl. Everything else went out of my head, even the letter I held, still unopened; and when I should have thought of it I cannot say, but that some time later I heard the voice of Mrs. Penn in the hall, speaking in covert tones.

It came to my memory then fast enough. Was she going to steal out, as she had previously essayed to do? I went to the door and opened it about an inch. Lizzy Dene stood there.

"How early you are home!" Mrs. Penn was saying.

"Thanks to Madam Hill!" grumbled Lizzy. "She wouldn\'t give me leave to go unless I\'d be in by seven, or a bit later: with illness in the house, she said, there was no knowing what might be wanted."

"Did you deliver the letter?" resumed Mrs. Penn, in the faintest possible whisper.

"Yes, ma\'am," was the ready answer. "A young man came to the door, and I asked if Mr. Barley was at home, and he said, \'Yes, all alone,\' so I gave him the note, and he took it in."

"Thank you, Lizzy," answered Mrs. Penn, complacently. "There\'s the five shillings I promised you."

"Many thanks all the same to you, ma\'am, but I\'d rather not take it," replied Lizzy, to my great astonishment, and no doubt to Mrs. Penn\'s. "I\'m well paid here, and I don\'t care to be rewarded for any little extra service. It\'s all in the way of the day\'s work."

They parted, Mrs. Penn going up the stairs again. But a startling doubt had come over me at Lizzy Dene\'s words: could I have taken the wrong letter from the basket? I hastened back to the light and drew it forth. No, it was all right: it was directed to Mr. Edwin Barley. What could Lizzy Dene mean by saying she had delivered it? I wondered, as I tore it open.

"I am overwhelmed with astonishment. I was coming round to your house, in spite of your prohibition, to tell you what I have discovered, but was prevented by Mrs. Chandos. He is here! I am as certain of it as that I am writing these words: and it sets clear the mystery of that closely-guarded west wing, which has been as a closed book to me. Anne Hereford went surreptitiously in there just now, and saw what she describes as a tall, emaciated object, reclining in an invalid chair, whose face bore a striking resemblance to that of Harry Chandos. There can be no doubt that it is he, not the slightest in the world; you can therefore take immediate steps, if you choose, to have him apprehended. My part is now over.

"C. D. P."

The contents Of the letter frightened me. What mischief had I not caused by that incautious revelation to Mrs. Penn! Mrs. Penn the treacherous--as she undoubtedly was. "Take immediate steps to have him apprehended." Who was he? what had he done? and how did it concern Mr. Edwin Barley? Surely I ought to acquaint Mr. Chandos, and show him the note without loss of time.

The tea waited on the table, when Hickens came in with a message sent down from the west wing--that Mr. Chandos and Madame de Mellissie were taking tea there. I put out a cup, and sent the things away again, debating whether I might venture on the unheard-of proceeding of sending to the west wing for Mr. Chandos.

Yes. It was a matter of necessity, and I ought to do it. I sought for Hill. Hill was in the west wing, waiting on the tea party. Should I send Hickens to knock at the west wing door, or go myself? Better go myself, instinct told me.

I ran lightly up the stairs. Peeping out at the east wing door, listening and prying, was the head of Mrs. Penn.

"They have quite a soirée in the west wing to-night," she said to me, as I passed; "family gathering: all of them at it, save Sir Thomas. Whither are you off to so fast?"

"I have a message for the west wing," I answered, as I brushed on, and knocked at the door.

Hill came to unfasten the door. She turned desperately savage when she saw me.

"I am not come to intrude, Hill. Mr. Chandos is here, is he not?"

"What\'s that to anybody?" retorted Hill.

"He is wanted, that is all. Be so good as ask him to step down to the oak-parlour. At once, please; it is very pressing."

Hill banged the door in my face, and bolted it. Mrs. Penn, whose soft steps had come stealing near, seized hold of me by the gathers of my dress as I would have passed her.

"Anne, who wants Mr. Chandos? Have the police come?"

"I want him; I have a message for him," I boldly answered, the remembrance of her treachery giving me courage to say it. "Why should the police come? What do you mean?"

"As they made a night invasion of the house once before, I did not know but they might have done it again. How tart you are this evening!"

I broke from her and ran down to the parlour. Mr. Chandos was in it nearly as soon.

"Hill said I was wanted. Who is it, Anne? Do you know?"

"You must forgive me for having ventured to call you Mr. Chandos. I have been the cause of some unhappy mischief, and how I shall make the confession to you I hardly know. But, made it must be, and there\'s no time to be lost."

"Sit down and don\'t excite yourself," he returned. "I daresay it is nothing very formidable."

"When we were speaking of the gentleman I saw before dinner in the west wing, you warned me that his being there was a secret which I must take care not to betray."

"Well?"

"I ought to have told you then--but I had not the courage--that I had already betrayed it. In the surprise of the moment, as I left the west wing after seeing him, I mentioned it to Mrs. Penn. It was done thoughtlessly; not intentionally; and I am very sorry for it."

"I am sorry also," he said, after a pause. "Mrs. Penn?" he slowly continued, as if deliberating whether she were a safe person or not. "Well, it might possibly have been imparted to a worse."

"Oh, but you have not heard all," I feverishly returned. "I do not think it could have been imparted to a worse than Mrs. Penn; but I did not know it then. I believe she has been writing to Mr. Edwin Barley."

My fingers were trembling, my face I know was flushed. Mr. Chandos laid his cool hand upon me.

"Take breath, Anne; and calmness. I shall understand it better."

I strove to do as he said, and tell what I had to tell in as few words as possible. That I had said it must be Sir Thomas Chandos: that Mrs. Penn, wildly excited, said it was not Sir Thomas; and so on to the note she gave Lizzy Dene. Mr. Chandos grew a little excited himself as he read the note.

"Nothing could have been more unfortunate than this. Nothing; nothing."

"The most curious thing is, that when Lizzy Dene came back she affirmed to Mrs. Penn that she had delivered the note," I resumed. "I cannot make that out."

Mr. Chandos sat thinking, his pale face full of trouble and perplexity.

"Could Mrs. Penn have written two notes, think you, Anne?"

"I fear to think so: but it is not impossible. I only saw one in the basket; but I scarcely noticed in my hurry."

"If she did not write two, the mischief as yet is confined to the house, and I must take care that for this night at least it is not carried beyond it. After that----"

He concluded his sentence in too low a tone to be heard, and rang for Hickens. The man came immediately, and his master spoke.

"Hickens, will you lock the entrance doors of the house, back and front, and put the keys into your pocket. No one must pass out of it again to-night."

Hickens stared as if stupefied. It was the most extraordinary order ever given to him at Chandos. "Why, sir?" he cried. "Whatever for?"

"It is my pleasure, Hickens," replied Mr. Chandos, in his quiet tone of command. "Lock the doors and keep the keys; and suffer no person to go out on any pretence whatsoever. No person that the house contains, you understand, myself excepted. Neither Mrs. Chandos nor Mrs. Penn; Miss Hereford"--turning to me with a half smile--"or the servants. Should any one of them present themselves at the door, and, finding it fast, ask to be let out, say you have my orders not to do it."

"Very well, sir," replied the amazed Hickens. "There\'s two of the maids out on an errand now, sir; are they to be let in?"

"Certainly. But take care that you fasten the door afterwards again. Go at once and do this; and then send Lizzy Dene to me."

Away went Hickens. Mr. Chandos paced the room until Lizzy Dene appeared.

"Did you want me, sir?"

"I do. Come in and shut the door. What I want from you, Lizzy, is a little bit of information. If, as I believe, you are true to the house you serve, and its interests, you will give it me truthfully."

Lizzy burst into tears, without any occasion, that I could see, and hung her head. Evidently there was something or other on which she feared to be questioned.

"It\'s what I always have been, sir, and what I hope I shall be. What have I done?"

"Did Mrs. Penn give you a letter, some two or three hours ago, to deliver at Mr. Edwin Barley\'s?"

"Yes, sir," was the reply, spoken without hesitation or embarrassment. Apparently that was not Lizzy Dene\'s sore point.

"Did you deliver it?"

Lizzy hesitated now, and Mr. Chandos repeated his question.

"Now only to think that one can\'t meet with an accident without its being known all round as soon as done!" she exclaimed. "If I had thought you had anything to do with the matter, sir, I\'d have told the truth when I came back; but I was afraid Mrs. Penn would be angry with me."

"I shall be pleased to hear that the letter was not delivered," said Mr. Chandos. "So tell the truth now."

"Where I could have lost it, master, I know no more than the dead," she resumed. "I know I put it safe in my basket; and though I did run, it could not have shaken out, because the lid was shut down; but when I got to Mr. Barley\'s, and went to take it out, it was gone. Sleighted off right away; just like that letter you lost from the hall-table, sir. What to do I didn\'t know, for I had given a good pull at their bell before I found out the loss. But I had got another letter in my basket----"

"Another letter?" interrupted Mr. Chandos, thinking his fears were verified.

"Leastways, as good as a letter, sir. As luck would have it, when I was running down the avenue, I met the young man from the fancy-draper\'s shop in the village, and he thrust a folded letter in my hands. \'For Lady Chandos, and mind you give it her,\' says he, \'for it\'s a list of our new fashions.\' So, what should I do, sir, when I found the other was gone, but give in the fashions to Mr. Barley\'s young man. \'And mind you take it in to your master without no delay,\' says I, \'for it\'s particular.\' He\'ll wonder what they want, sending him the fashions," concluded Lizzy.

"You said nothing to Mrs. Penn of this?"

"Well--no, I didn\'t. I meant, when she found it out, to let her think I had given in the wrong letter by mistake. I don\'t suppose hers was of much consequence, for it was only writ in pencil. I didn\'t take the money she offered me, though; I thought that wouldn\'t be fair, as had not done the service."

"And my desire is, that you say nothing to her," said Mr. Chandos. "Let the matter rest as it is."

Mr. Chandos looked very grave after Lizzy Dene withdrew, as though he were debating something in his mind. Suddenly he spoke--

"Anne, cast your thoughts back a few years. Was there any one in Mr. Edwin Barley\'s house, at the time Philip King was killed, at all answering to the description of Mrs. Penn?"

I looked at him in simple astonishment.

"It has struck me once or twice that Mrs. Penn must have been in the house, or very near it, by the knowledge she has of the details, great and small. And it would almost seem now, Anne, as though she were in league with Edwin Barley, acting as his spy."

"No one whatever was there except the servants and Charlotte Delves?"

"Stop a bit. Charlotte Delves--C, D. P.; C. D. would stand for that name. Is Mrs. Penn Charlotte Delves?" The question nearly took my breath away.

"But, Mr. Chandos, look at Mrs. Penn\'s hair! Charlotte Delves had pretty hair--very light; quite different from this."

He smiled sadly.

"You must be inexperienced in the world\'s fashions, my dear, if you have believed the present colour of Mrs. Penn\'s hair to be natural. She must have dyed her hair, intending, no doubt, to change it to golden: instead of which it has come out of the ordeal a blazing vermilion. I think Mrs. Penn is Charlotte Delves."

Little by little, as I compared the past Charlotte Delves with the present Mrs. Penn, the truth dawned upon me. All that was obscure, that had puzzled me in the likeness I could not trace, became clear. She had grown older; she had grown much stouter; shape of both figure and face had changed. Mrs. Penn, with a plump face and glowing red hair taken back, was quite another person from Miss Delves with a thin face and long fair ringlets shading it.

"You are right," I said, in a low, earnest tone. "It is Charlotte Delves."

"And has been here trying to find out what she can of George Heneage. I see it all."

"But, Mr. Chandos, what is George Heneage to you?"

"He is my brother, Anne. He is George Heneage," he added, pointing in the direction of the west wing.

He George Heneage! I sat in greater and greater amazement. But, as I had traced the likeness in Charlotte Delves, so, now that the clue was given me, did I see that the resemblance which had so haunted me in Mr. Chandos, was to the George Heneage of that unhappy time.

"You were but a child, you know, then. And a child\'s remembrance does not retain faces very long."

"But, Mr. Chandos, how can George Heneage be your brother?"

"Is it perplexing you? Soon after the sad time of which we know too much, my father, Sir Thomas Heneage, had a large estate--this--bequeathed to him by Mr. Chandos, my mother\'s brother, on condition that he assumed the name. You may be sure we lost no time in doing so,--too thankful to drop our own, which George had disgraced."

"Then--his name is no longer George Heneage, but George Chandos?" I said, unable to take the facts in quickly.

"Strictly speaking, our name is Heneage-Chandos; and Heneage-Chandos we should have been always styled. But we preferred to drop the name of Heneage completely. It may be--I don\'t know--that we shall take it up again hereafter."

"And where has he been all this while?"

"Ah, where! You may well ask. Leading the life of a miserable, exiled man, conscious that Edwin Barley was ever on the watch for him, seeking to bring him to trial for the murder of Philip King."

"Did your brother really do it?" I asked, in a low tone.

"In one sense, yes. He killed Philip King, but not intentionally. So much as this he said to me for the first time only two days ago. Were he brought to trial, there could be no doubt of his condemnation and execution--and only think of the awful fear that has been ours! You can now understand why I and my brother, Sir Thomas, have felt ourselves bound in honour not to marry while that possible disgrace was hanging over us. Ill-fated George!"

"Has he been concealed here always?"

"That would have been next to impossible," replied Mr. Chandos, with a half smile at my simplicity. "He has been here a short time: and no end of stratagems have we had to resort to, to conceal the fact. My mother has been compelled to feign illness, and remain in the west wing, that an excuse might be afforded for provisions and things being carried up. I have assumed to you the unenviable character of a sleepwalker; we have suffered the report that my dead father, Sir Thomas, haunted the pine-walk, without contradicting it----"

"And are you not a sleepwalker? and is there no ghost?" I breathlessly interrupted.

"The only ghost, the only sleepwalker, has been poor George," he sadly answered. "You saw him arrive, Anne."

"I!"

"Have you forgotten the night when you saw me--as you thought--dodging in and out of the trees, as if I wished to escape observation, and finally disappearing within the west wing? It was George. The next morning you accused me of having been there; I knew I had not, and positively denied it. Later I found that George had come: and then I amused you with a fable of my being addicted to sleepwalking. I knew not what else to invent; anything to cast off suspicion from the right quarter; and I feared you would be seeing him there again."

"But is it not highly dangerous for him to have ventured here?"

"Ay. After the misfortune happened he lay a short while concealed at Heneage Grange, where we then lived, and eventually escaped to the Prussian dominions. We heard nothing of him for some time, though we were in the habit of remitting him funds periodically for his support. But one night he made his appearance here; it was not long after we had settled at Chandos; startling my mother and Hill nearly out of their senses. They concealed him in the west wing, and Lady Chandos feigned illness and remained in it with him; as she has done this time. He did not stay long; but henceforth we could be at no certainty, and took to leaving the lower entrance door of the west wing unfastened at night, so that he might enter at once, should he arrive a second time. Three or four times in all has he come, including this."

"But it must surely be hazardous?"

"Nothing can be more so; not to speak of the constant state of suspense and anxiety it keeps us all in. He declares he is obliged to come, or die; that he is attacked with the mal du pays, the yearning for home, to such an extent that when the fit comes on him, he is forced to come and risk it. More dangerous, too, than his actually being here, is his walking out at night in the grounds; and he will do it in spite of remonstrance. George was always given to self-will."

"Does he walk out?"

"Does he? Why, Anne, need you ask the question? Sometimes at dusk, sometimes not until midnight, at any hour just as the whim ............