Up at the Elms, little Lily that night was sitting in the snug, old-fashioned room, with the good old rector. She was no better; still in doctors’ hands and weak, but always happy with him, and he more than ever gentle and tender with her; for though he never would give place to despondency, and was naturally of a trusting, cheery spirit, he could not but remember his young wife, lost so early; and once or twice there was a look — an outline — a light — something, in little Lily’s fair, girlish face, that, with a strange momentary agony, brought back the remembrance of her mother’s stricken beauty, and plaintive smile. But then his darling’s gay talk and pleasant ways would reassure him, and she smiled away the momentary shadow.

And he would tell her all sorts of wonders, old-world gaieties, long before she was born; and how finely the great Mr. Handel played upon the harpsichord in the Music Hall, and how his talk was in German, Latin, French, English, Italian, and half-a-dozen languages besides, sentence about; and how he remembered his own dear mother’s dress when she went to Lord Wharton’s great ball at the castle — dear, oh! dear, how long ago that was! And then he would relate stories of banshees, and robberies, and ghosts, and hair-breadth escapes, and ‘rapparees,’ and adventures in the wars of King James, which he heard told in his nonage by the old folk, long vanished, who remembered those troubles.

‘And now, darling,’ said little Lily, nestling close to him, with a smile, ‘you must tell me all about that strange, handsome Mr. Mervyn; who he is, and what his story.’

‘Tut, tut! little rogue ——’

‘Yes, indeed, you must, and you will; you’ve kept your little Lily waiting long enough for it, and she’ll promise to tell nobody.’

‘Handsome he is, and strange, no doubt — it was a strange fancy that funeral. Strange, indeed,’ said the rector.

‘What funeral, darling?’

‘Why, yes, a funeral — the bringing his father’s body to be laid here in the vault, in my church; it is their family vault. ’Twas a folly; but what folly will not young men do?’

And the good parson poked the fire a little impatiently.

‘Mr. Mervyn — not Mervyn — that was his mother’s name; but — see, you must not mention it, Lily, if I tell you — not Mr. Mervyn, I say, but my Lord Dunoran, the only son of that disgraced and blood-stained nobleman, who, lying in gaol, under sentence of death for a foul and cowardly murder, swallowed poison, and so closed his guilty life with a tremendous crime, in its nature inexpiable. There, that’s all, and too much, darling.’

‘And was it very long ago?’

‘Why, ’twas before little Lily was born; and long before that I knew him — only just a little. He used the Tiled House for a hunting-lodge, and kept his dogs and horses there — a fine gentleman, but vicious, always, I fear, and a gamester; an overbearing man, with a dangerous cast of pride in his eye. You don’t remember Lady Dunoran?— pooh, pooh, what am I thinking of? No, to be sure! you could not. ’Tis from her, chiefly, poor lady, he has his good looks. Her eyes were large, and very peculiar, like his — his, you know, are very fine. She, poor lady, did not live long after the public ruin of the family.’

‘And has he been recognised here? The townspeople are so curious.’

‘Why, dear child, not one of them ever saw him before. He’s been lost sight of by all but a few, a very few friends. My Lord Castlemallard, who was his guardian, of course, knows; and to me he disclosed himself by letter; and we keep his secret; though it matters little who knows it, for it seems to me he’s as unhappy as aught could ever make him. The townspeople take him for his cousin, who squandered his fortune in Paris; and how is he the better of their mistake, and how were he the worse if they knew him for whom he is? ’Tis an unhappy family — a curse haunts it. Young in years, old in vice, the wretched nobleman who lies in the vault, by the coffin of that old aunt, scarcely better than himself, whose guineas supplied his early profligacy — alas! he ruined his ill-fated, beautiful cousin, and she died heart-broken, and her little child, both there — in that melancholy and contaminated house.’

So he rambled on, and from one tale to another, till little Lily’s early bed-hour came.

I don’t know whether it was Doctor Walsingham’s visit in the morning, and the chance of hearing something about it, that prompted the unquiet Tom Toole to roll his cloak about him, and buffet his way through storm and snow, to Devereux’s lodgings. It was only a stone’s-throw; but even that, on such a night, was no trifle.

However, up he went to Devereux’s drawing-room, and found its handsome proprietor altogether in the dumps. The little doctor threw off his sleety cloak and hat in the lobby, and stood before the officer fresh and puffing, and a little flustered and dazzled after his romp with the wind.

Devereux got up and received him with a slight bow and no smile, and a ‘Pray take a chair, Doctor Toole.’

‘Well, this is a bright fit of the dismals,’ said little Toole, nothing overawed. ‘May I sit near the fire?’

‘Upon it,’ said Devereux, sadly.

‘Thank’ee,’ said Toole, clapping his feet on the fender, with a grin, and making himself comfortable. ‘May I poke it?’............