Clarice sank back in her chair, as Jerce left the room, wondering if she had heard aright. Sir Daniel had certainly said in plain English that, failing the breaking of the engagement, Ferdy would be hanged. That meant the guilt¹ of Ferdy, and yet she could prove that the boy had been locked in his room. What was meant by being an accessory after the fact? She would have to ask Mr. Barras the meaning of that legal phrase. In some way, however--she guessed that much,--it implicated² Ferdy in the crime. Ferdy was, wild, assuredly, and to get money would do much. But he would never dare to commit a vile³ murder. In the first place, his nature was too mild, and in the second, he was too timid. Ferdy must be innocent. And yet--it was strange that he should always be so mysterious, and so ready to take alarm. Clarice recalled several occasions when Ferdy had appeared startled by apparently⁴ innocent remarks. Then, again, Ferdy was in the toils⁵ of Zara Dumps; and Zara--from her accusation⁶ of Mr. Clarke--knew something about the crime. What if she was throwing the blame on the parson to shield Ferdy, whom she loved?  
At this point of her agonised reflections, the door opened, and Sir Daniel Jerce again appeared. "I think," he said, coldly, yet very pointedly⁷, "that if you take a walk, and put away those medicine bottles, you will find that your illness will vanish. Good-day." And he was gone in a moment.
 
Clarice flung off the shawl and ran to the door. Jerce, then, saw through her feigned⁸ disorder⁹. What a fool she was to try and deceive so clever a physician. By the time she gained the hall, Jerce had already passed out of the front door, and when she opened that, he was passing out of the gate. For the moment she felt inclined to call him back, and insist upon her illness, but knowing that she could not deceive so capable a judge, she closed the door again, and returned to the drawing-room.
 
There she wrapped herself up again. It was necessary to deceive those in the house, since no one was so acute as Jerce, to tell a false illness from a real one. She could not carry out her plot unless she pretended to be ill, and so had taken advantage of being in the porch on the previous night to secure her ends. Intending to go secretly to London on that same evening, Clarice wished to keep to her room, so that no one save Mrs. Rebson--in whom she would have to confide--should know that she was out of the house. And especially had she wished to deceive Jerce. Yet he had seen through her scheme of pretended sickness, and would be on the look-out to see why she had acted in such a manner. Clarice was certain that in some way Jerce was plotting against her and Anthony, notwithstanding his denial of the anonymous¹⁰ letter. It would take her all her ingenuity¹¹, clever as she thought herself, to circumvent¹² the doctor. He was uncommonly¹³ sharp and uncommonly suspicious, and if he found out what she intended to do, he would nullify the success of her plot in some way. What a fool she had been to see him, especially when she had gained nothing by the interview.
 
In the face of this first failure to impose upon a clever man who wanted his own way, many a woman would have thrown up the sponge. But Clarice only stiffened¹⁴ her back in the face of the increasing difficulties. Come what may, she would masquerade as she intended, and learn the truth of Ferdy's hidden life. Her plan was at once daring and simple. In looks she exactly resembled Ferdy, and, dressed in a suit of his clothes, no one would be able to recognise her as his sister. Also she could mimic¹⁵ Ferdy's tricks of speech and ordinary gestures exactly, and thus would be able to pass as her brother, even with those who knew him well. Once arrayed as Ferdy, Clarice intended to go to London and pass the evening at the Mascot¹⁶ Music Hall, in order to witness the performance of Sarah Dumps. Then--as Ferdy--she would go round and see the dancer, and perhaps Zara might let slip something which would put her on the track of the boy's delinquencies. If she could arrive at the truth of Ferdy's fast life, at which Jerce had hinted, she might learn how he came to be implicated in the crime. And he was implicated rather than Clarke, since Clarice believed that Zara had only accused Clarke to save her lover, as well as to prevent the marriage with Prudence¹⁷. Also the direct accusation in the anonymous letter hinted that someone--if not Jerce--knew that Ferdy had some connection with the death of Henry Horran. Jerce himself hinted that Ferdy was mixed up in the matter, and was ready to use his information--whatever it might be--to place Ferdy in the dock, if the match with Ackworth was not broken off.
 
It can thus be seen why Clarice had asked Anthony to invite her brother to Gattlinsands on that evening, and to detain him, if possible, for the next night. She did not want to run the risk of meeting Ferdy at the Mascot Music Hall, or to have--as it were--two Richmonds in the field. On this one night she hoped to learn sufficient to force Ferdy into open confession¹⁸, and when she knew all, she might be able to save him. But failing success on this night, she trusted to be more successful on the ensuing evening. But in any case, she felt that she must be successful if Ferdy was to be saved from the tricksters who were around him and from his own weak self. Of course, her experiment was a daring one, and Anthony certainly would not approve of it. But too much was at stake to hesitate, so Clarice went up to her room about five o'clock to get ready for her masquerade. On the stroke of the hour, Mrs. Rebson appeared with a telegram, which proved to be from Anthony. He wired that Ferdy had accepted his invitation, and was on his way to Gattlinsands.
 
"That's all right," said Clarice, putting the wire carefully away.
 
"What's all right, deary?" asked Mrs. Rebson, who was smoothing her nursling's bed.
 
"Nanny, come here," said the girl, and led Mrs. Rebson to a chair. "I dare say you remember what you said about disgrace?"
 
"The Domestic Prophet," replied Mrs. Rebson, smoothing her apron¹⁹; "yes, and disgrace will come, say what you like."
 
"It will come, I fear."
 
Mrs. Rebson clapped her gnarled old hands. "I've brought you to your senses," she cried, in her cracked voice, and with great triumph; "you will never doubt the Domestic Prophet again."
 
"Oh, no," answered Clarice, artfully. "Disgrace is coming, I fear, Nanny, and to Ferdy."
 
Mrs. Rebson's hands fell by her side, and she began to shake. "Disgrace, and to my darling boy," she whimpered. "Oh, Miss Clarice, what is it? What have you been doing?"
 
"It's not what I have been doing, but what I am about to do," said Miss Baird, resolutely²⁰. "Now, Nanny, if you want to save Ferdy from disgrace, from imprisonment²¹, and perhaps from worse, you must hold your tongue about what I am going to tell you."
 
"I swear it on the Bible," whimpered Mrs. Rebson again. "Oh, my pretty boy--my sweet darling!" She began to cry in a senile manner.
 
Clarice knew that she could trust the old woman to be silent, as her affection for the unworthy Ferdy would have sealed her lips, even had she been threatened with the gallows²² to open them. If Clarice wanted to leave The Laurels²³ secretly for her masquerade, and to return without her absence being known, it was absolutely necessary that she should trust the old woman. Therefore, she risked telling Mrs. Rebson all that she knew, and again impressed upon her, at the end of the confession, the absolute necessity--for Ferdy's sake--of silence.
 
Mrs. Rebson wept all the time and cried out at intervals²⁴, and exclaimed indignantly at Ferdy's enemies, and altogether conducted herself as a partisan²⁵ of that shifty youth. "But I knew that the Domestic Prophet could not lie," cried Mrs. Rebson, "though I never thought he meant my precious lamb. Oh, Miss Clarice, what is to be done? They will hang and quarter my darling baby."
 
"No, no, Nanny. I can save him," said Clarice, soothingly²⁶.
 
"And you will--you will?"
 
"If you will consent to help me."
 
"I would go to the scaffold for my Ferdy, sweetheart," said Mrs. Rebson, fervently²⁷, whereupon Clarice explained how she meant to masquerade as her twin brother. Mrs. Rebson was startled, and expostulated in alarm. "Oh, my deary, it's a dreadful thing you would do. What would the world say?"
 
"The world will never know, Nanny. That is why I want you to help me. I am supposed to be ill with this cold, so I can be thought to be in this room nursing it. While I am away don't let anyone enter, but attend to me as if I were really ill in bed. Everyone will think that, I am indisposed."
 
"When will you be back?" asked Mrs. Rebson, shaking and nervous.
 
"To-morrow some time. I can stop at some hotel in town."
 
"Oh, Miss Clarice, a young lady without a chaperon."
 
"I won't be a young lady, but a young man," said Clarice, impatiently, and crossing the room to look into a Gladstone bag which she had packed with masculine belongings²⁸.
 
"A young gentleman, seeing that you are to be Master Ferdy," said Mrs. Rebson, with dignity. Then she began to beat her hands on her old knees. "Oh, dear, it is all very dreadful, and I don't know what your poor pa and ma would say. I don't think I should allow it."
 
Clarice forbore to tell Mrs. Rebson that she had no power to forbid, since she was not now a nursery autocrat²⁹. But she wanted to set the old woman entirely³⁰ on her side so as to carry out her plans. "If you think it would be better to let Ferdy get into trouble----"
 
"No! no! oh, dear me, no, Miss Clarice! Anything but that. I'll say that you are ill in bed, and I shan't allow anyone into the room. But how will you get out of the house and away from the station without being recognised?"
 
"I can dress as Ferdy, and slip out of the drawing-room window," explained Clarice, quietly, and getting a pair of scissors; "as to the station, there will probably be a crowd there, and I can get unnoticed into a carriage. Besides, everyone will take me to be Ferdy."
 
"Not those who know you."
 
"Oh, yes, I think so. I can imitate Ferdy exactly. I shall have to, if I want to deceive Zara Dumps."
 
"The hussy" said Mrs. Rebson, vigorously; then, with a cracked scream, "Miss Clarice, what are you doing to your hair?"
 
"Cutting it off," said Clarice, snipping³¹ vigorously. "I can't expect to masquerade successfully with a woman's hair."
 
"Oh, Miss Clarry, Miss Clarry, your lovely hair," wept Mrs. Rebson, and but that Ferdy's life--as she thought--depended upon the assumption of Ferdy's personality, she would then and there have refused to join in, what seemed to her, to be a mad, fantastic scheme.
 
"What's the use of going on in this way?" asked Clarice, angrily. "Perhaps I am acting³² foolishly, but it's the only chance that I can see of saving Ferdy from his enemies. Come, Nanny, cut my hair, and trim it--not too short."
 
Mrs. Rebson, with the tears streaming down her wrinkled face, manipulated the scissors. "What will the captain say?"
 
"Nothing," retorted Clarice, "when I tell him my reason. Anthony has every confidence in me. I dare say he'll be shocked, but I can't help that. There "--she surveyed her cropped head in the glass, and was surprised to see how remarkably³³ she resembled Ferdy--"no one will ever guess that I am not my brother."
 
"Ah!" said Mrs. Rebson, pointedly, "you may deceive a man, but you'll never get a woman to believe in you."
 
"I'll try, at all events," said Clarice, thinking of Zara. "Come, Nanny, help me to dress."
 
Mrs. Rebson was not of much use, and she wept most of the time, so Clarice set her to work to re-pack the Gladstone bag. In it was stowed a tweed suit, since Clarice was rapidly assuming a spare evening dress of Ferdy's. Also he had left behind him, luckily, a fur-lined coat, and Clarice had purchased in the High Street a silk hat, ostensibly for her brother, but really for her masquerade. Ferdy was very extravagant³⁴ in the matter of clothes, and no doubt much of the squandered³⁵ two thousand pounds had gone on his wardrobe, so that the girl was easily able to array herself in the evening purple and fine linen³⁶ of a young man about town.
 
When she was dressed--when the fur coat was on, when the silk hat was worn, and when Clarice placed a cigarette in her mouth--even Mrs. Rebson was startled, and stared, open-mouthed, at the change. "Oh, deary, mercy me," cried Mrs. Rebson, raising her hands, "I really should take you for Master Ferdy, my dear."
 
"Rippin' old Nanny," said Clarice, with so exact an imitation of her brother's voice that Mrs. Rebson jumped.
 
"It's not right--it really ain't right," she blubbered. "You might be my darling boy from the looks of you and the voice of you."
 
"That's as it should be. Now, Nanny, kiss me, and wish me God speed."
 
"Never," said Mrs. Rebson, energetically, "w............