It was with a bitter sense of helplessness that Miss Baynard continued to brood over the news brought her by Andry Luce. The knowledge that, with the exception of a certain legacy to herself and sundry small bequests to old servants, the whole of her uncle\'s wealth, both in land and money, would go to Mrs. Bullivant and her son, who were not even cousins six times removed, cut her to the quick. The amazing injustice of the thing, so to speak, struck her dumb. To think that a man who knew full well his span of life had dwindled to a few brief hours should, in cold blood, choose to perpetrate so black a sin--for in her eyes it was nothing less--was to Nell wholly inconceivable. And all for what? Merely because his son had married beneath him, and had thereby brought to naught a certain ambitious scheme on which his heart had been set. And now the innocent child was to suffer for its father\'s fault, if fault it were. Oh, it was monstrous--monstrous!
Of one thing she was quite sure: she would never touch her uncle\'s legacy. Every shilling of it should go to the boy. But what was such a pittance in comparison with the income which, when he should come of age, ought to be his of inalienable right? Yet his name was not once mentioned in the will! The last of the Cortelyons--bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh--might die in a gutter or come to the gallows for anything the old man cared. Such a revenge was more than human; it was fiendish, and could only have been prompted by the devil. Nell burnt from head to foot with a fine flame of indignation when she thought of these things, and for the next forty-eight hours she could think of nothing else.
It was in the course of the second afternoon after Andry Luce had told her that she happened--herself unseen--to overhear the two doctors talking together as they stood for a few moments in the corridor after coming out of her uncle\'s room. "I give him three days at the outside," one of them said. To which the other replied: "Hum! I daresay you are right. But I shouldn\'t be a bit surprised if he were to go off in his sleep between now and to-morrow."
Nell gave one quick gasp, and a shudder ran through her from head to foot. She had known for some time what each day was bringing nearer, but to hear from the lips of those who knew that the end was so close came upon her with a shock, and for a moment or two made her feel as if she had suddenly come face to face with a skeleton.
It was the day Mr. Piljoy had promised to bring the will for the purpose of having it signed, and as she remembered this she could not help saying to herself: "If I could only get hold of it and destroy it, my uncle would hardly live to sign another in its stead, and Evan, as his grandfather\'s heir-at-law, would succeed to everything!"
Then a little derisive laugh at her folly broke from her lips. Get hold of the will, forsooth! Why, she would not be allowed to so much as set eyes on it. Her brain must be softening even to imagine such a thing.
About an hour later her uncle sent for her. It was in connection with the errand to Mr. Delafosse that he wanted to see her. Having received her instructions--given brokenly and in whispers--and had the precious MS. committed to her charge, she left the room. He gazed after her, a little wistfully as it seemed, thinking, perhaps, that she might have kissed him before going--for in his heart he loved the girl--as at another time she most likely would have done; but her proud, set face had never changed while he gave her his message, and when he had done she simply inclined her head and went. She felt that even if she were never to see him alive again she could not forgive him; but he did not know that.
About two o\'clock Mr. Tew, in Mr. Piljoy\'s stead, arrived with the will. In the absence of Mrs. Budd, who had gone into the village, he was received by Miss Baynard, to whom he explained the nature of his business and apologized for his employer\'s absence.
Nell\'s heart grew cold as she listened. Why did not Providence intervene, and not allow so black a deed to be consummated? If only Mr. Tew\'s arrival had been delayed for two or three days--she would not have cared by what means--then would he have come too late, and all would have been well. As it was, she could but wring her hands in sheer helplessness.
She was going sadly upstairs to her own room (after seeing Mr. Tew planted in front of a pigeon pie), when an idea flashed across her brain which for a moment or two seemed mentally to blind her. But it was a notion at once so wild and extravagant that, after drawing one long breath, her hands went involuntarily to her head, and she said to herself, "My reason must be deserting me." For all that, she could not thrust the notion from her; indeed, it had taken such a firm grip of her that when she reached her room she found herself under compulsion to sit down and face it, and, however bizarre and impracticable it had at first seemed, to consider it dispassionately from a common-sense point of view. The idea which had so startled her, and without any conscious leading up to it on her own part, was nothing less than, in the guise of a highwayman, to stop Mr. Tew when on his way back to Arkrigg and despoil him of the will.
When a young spark of nineteen or twenty, Dick Cortelyon, on the occasion of one of his brief visits at home, had attended a fancy ball in the neighborhood in the character of a gentleman of the road. In the wardrobe in his room upstairs--a room left untouched since the date of his quarrel with his father--the dress, wig, mask, pistols, and other items of his make-up on that occasion were stored to the present day, a fact which was within Nell\'s cognizance. The picture of her cousin, masked and ready to set out for the ball, had impressed her girlish imagination very vividly at the time, and had often recurred to her memory since; and this recollection it must have been, acting through some sub-conscious channel, which, while asking herself despairingly how she could get possession of the will, had inspired her with the idea of turning highwayman in reality--for one night only.
We know at what decision she arrived. Instead of scouting the idea and casting it from her, as ninety-nine young women out of every hundred would have done, she determined, co?te que co?te, to put it to a practical issue. Whatever risks might be connected with, or follow on, the affair she was prepared to face, if only she could thereby insure the destruction of her uncle\'s iniquitous will.
Fortunately for her, when she came to consider, several things seemed to work in favor of her scheme, desperate as at first sight it had appeared.
In the first place, everything in the way of dress and accessories needful for the part she had made up her mind to play were there ready to her hand. In the second, John Dyce, who was to act as her escort, had known her from childhood, was devoted to her, and could be thoroughly depended upon to keep any secret she might think well to entrust him with. In point of fact, John had originally been one of her father\'s servants, and he it was who had brought her, a girl of twelve, to Stanbrook, where he had remained ever since, filling the part of man-of-all-work in the Squire\'s establishment. Then, again, it was a good thing, so far as her purpose was concerned, that a married cousin of John should be keeper of the first toll-bar on the Whinbarrow road, which was the road she would have to journey by on her errand to Mr. Delafosse.
For the last time she asked herself, "Shall I adventure it, or shall I not?" knowing all the while what the answer would be. By now the afternoon was so far advanced that she must no longer delay her preparations. She knew already that Mr. Tew would not set off on his return journey till dinner should be well over. She herself would start in the early dusk about an hour in advance of him.
She made it her first business to see John Dyce and have a little private talk with him. Next she invented an errand for her maid to a neighboring village which would keep that elderly damsel out of the way till after her own departure. Next came one of the most essential features of the programme she was bent on carrying out: the transformation of Miss Baynard into the guise of a young man.
The change was affected in due course, and a very handsome and dashing young blade she looked. She took a long survey of herself in the cheval glass, blushing and smiling as she did so. Nell was a tall, Juno-like young woman, and as her cousin Dick had been a somewhat slender, medium-sized young fellow, his clothes fitted her almost as if they had been made for her.
But servants have prying eyes, and not thus would it do for her to be seen leaving the house; besides, there was the risk of encountering ............