CHAPTER XXXII.

WHEN Jemima rose to leave the room the Captain stretched out a detaining hand-" At such a time," said he, “forms must be dispensed with, so pray do not go. I want you to tell me all about the strange things that preceded my aunt's death; and, indeed, it's dreary work to be alone on such a day as this, so pray sit down."

The Captain placed her a chair, and the little party drew round the fire.

"It was so late last night when I arrived that I have heard nothing but the main facts. I rode hard to be in time, for I was absent when your letter came. I found it on my return, and set off at once. On what day did you come?" "My uncle wrote for me the day after Miss Maitland took herself off: he begged that I would lose no time, for, ever thinking of my aunt, he said she had been so long accustomed to have some one always about her that she got restless and uneasy. Poor thing! little knowing how soon my business would be over, I came very unwillingly, but I am glad that I did come."

"My uncle's valet has told me the sad manner of my aunt's death; but when I questioned him about Miss Maitland, he only shook his head and looked very mysteriously— what is it all about?"

"Where is Miss Maitland? and what caused her to go away so suddenly ?" asked Mark, with great interest. 66 Have you not heard about it?"

"No," said Mark. "We have been absent, and I have heard nothing further than that she was not at the Manorhouse at the time of Mrs. Kingley's death; and on Mr. Kingley's account we all lamented her absence as being so unfortunate."

"Unfortunate! why, it was she who caused-" Jemima paused and hesitated, and then she added, "I am almost afraid to speak my thoughts, but certainly circumstances are very strongly against her.”

'Against her for what?" asked Mark, becoming greatly excited.

"Why, it is thought that she-that this Miss Maitland had in some way discovered where Mrs. Kingley kept her secret hoards, and she absconded from the house at daybreak, only a few days before the discovery that those hoards were gone."

"Impossible!" said Mark, energetically; "impossible to imagine for a moment that Miss Maitland-”

"But the fact," interrupted the Captain, "the fact is strong against her."

"There are other corroborative facts that make the main one yet stronger. Mrs. Mitten says—”

"Mrs. Mitten!" exclaimed the Captain; "if the tale has no better foundation to stand on than what Mrs. Mitten says, I, too, would cry 'impossible!' I never liked that woman. There's a deep current of blackness underneath that plausible face of hers, and I always said so, though my uncle would never hear a word against her. But what is it that Mrs. Mitten does say?"

Why, she says that some weeks before Mrs. Kingley's death she caught Miss Helen, as she calls her, prowling about in my uncle's dressing-room. She did not know that she was seen; but she dropped a glove, which Mrs. Mitten picked up. Then again, not long after this, when her master and mistress were dozing after dinner, she saw Miss Helen in my aunt's room. She was near the window, and tried to escape, but she could not slip away before Mrs. Mitten had seen her."

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'Really," said Mark, "these are slender foundations on which to build a charge so serious as this."

Jemima, ignorant of the real cause which induced Mark to

take so warm an interest in the defence of Miss Maitland, was influenced by a tinge of the jealousy she had formerly experienced, and she added with a ready quickness not at all pleasing to Mark

"If these were the only foundations, certainly; but the fact of her having left the Manor-house under circumstances so unaccountable gives other facts, however slight in themselves, great weight in connection with the main one. She absconded clandestinely only a few days before the desk was discovered to have been rifled."

"Upon my word," said Mark, sarcastically, "Miss Jemima Grimshaw would sum up the evidence in a court of law admirably. Woe betide the criminal to whom such legal powers shall be opposed!"

Jemima was piqued.

"Then," she continued, "taken in connection, too, what was her business to be wandering about the house long after midnight, and many hours after the family were in bed, and this on the very night before she—"

"This is going too far," interrupted the Captain; "it is to insinuate that that pattern of patient endurance was prowling about the house like a midnight robber. Nay, nay, Jemima, this is too ridiculous. But, for my part, I can only say, if a robber were to come in such a form as that, I should be the last to bar the door against her. This is indeed going a little too far."

"No further than true," said Jemima, with spirit, "for in such a position was she found."

"Well! and who found her?"

"Mrs. Mitten."

"Mrs. Mitten again! I'll tell you what, Jemima, it's my opinion that Mrs. Mitten is at the bottom of it all. What was she doing, prowling about, as you call it, at such an hour as that?"

Jemima was silent.

"But what evidence is there," said Mark, after a pause,

"that there were any hoards, or, if so, that this table-desk was the place where they were deposited? What evidence is there that any hoards were taken out of that?"

Every possible evidence," said Jemima; no one imagined the table, or rather the clothes-press, to be anything different from what it appeared to be. The clothespress had been removed, the top of the table thrown back, discovering the hidden recesses, which had every appearance of having been ransacked. The puzzle is, how she could have come to the knowledge of these secret recesses; but she was always one of those smooth, plausible, artful persons, that in some way or other wind their way into everything. She must have suspected, and been on the watch."

"Impossible!" said Mark, once more; "it is altogether impossible. She is the victim of some deep artifice. It must be investigated; she has been made to fall into a trap laid for her destruction. What measures does Mr. Kingley purpose to adopt?"

"My poor uncle," said Jemima, "has not alluded to the subject since my aunt's death."

"But before that time to what cause did he impute Miss Maitland's sudden departure ?"

"He was greatly perplexed, for then there seemed to be no motive for it; but there were others who suspected she had one, for Mrs. Mitten-"

"Confound Mrs. Mitten!" interrupted the Captain. Jemima, regardless of the interruption, continued—

'Mrs. Mitten said she was sure Miss Helen had found out something in her mistress's room, and you see her sus

picions have proved too true."

"And you believe it possible, Jemima ?" asked the Captain.

"I must believe facts."

"Facts!" repeated Mark. "If Mrs. Mitten acknowledges there was anything to be found in her mistress's room before

the discovery that there was, that is an important fact against her."

As he spoke, Mark took a memorandum-book from his pocket, and while he was writing the Captain asked Jemima if any tidings of Helen had been heard.

"None," she replied, "after she was seen to enter the Express. Her mother's house, where she lived before coming to the Manor-house, is in the hands of strangers."

Soon afterwards Jemima left the room to make tea. The gentlemen continued silent for some time, then Mark said—

"Something must be done without delay; Mr. Kingley, I fear, will scarcely be able-but the business must be investigated. It is due to the young lady herself, it is due to the young lady's friends, that no time should be lost."

"But if it should prove kinder to the young lady, and to the young lady's friends, to be quiet?"

"Is it possible," said Mark, reproachfully, "you can think-no, no, you cannot do so! I see it all; she is the victim of some nefarious design of this Mrs. Mitten. A polished mirror may be dimmed by the breath; but the pollution instantly removed, its purity remains unimpaired. We must lose no time; we must not suffer this breath of scandal to become an eradicable blemish."

"My uncle," said the Captain, "has strong prejudices; and, to borrow from an old saying, I believe it would be as easy to turn the sun from its course, as to alter his reliance on this Mrs. Mitten's integrity."

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"If,” said Mark, "the young lady had not been seen at the White Hart,' which proves beyond doubt that her departure was a voluntary one, I should be greatly disposed to think that, like a heroine of romance, she had been forcibly carried off, in order that suspicion might fall on her."

"It seems to me," said the Captain, "that nothing can be done till Miss Helen's account of this strange business is