“Remember your oath!”
“I will,” said Ned, in an undertone.
He and Tim rode rapidly away.
CHAPTER XLI.
SIR ANDREW APPEARS IN A NEW CHARACTER—HIS DESIGNS ON DAME WORTHINGTON’S PROPERTY—HE CLAIMS RELATIONSHIP—THE POISONED DRAUGHTS—THE OLD DAME’S SAD EXPERIENCE IN THE WORLD—A STRANGER COMES UPON THE SCENE—NEWS FROM NED WARBECK.
There was some mystery attached to old Dame Worthington, Sir Richard Warbeck, and his two adopted nephews, Charley and Wildfire Ned.
What this mystery was, no one could find out; but Mistress Haylark swore in her own heart that there must be one, and she would have given her finger-ends to have found it out.
All that we can say at present is that, in her youth and prime, good Dame Worthington must have been a great beauty, for even now she bore traces of it.
All we know for a positive fact is that, when rather over thirty, she condescended to marry a sea captain, who, through Sir Richard Warbeck’s influence at the India House, had the command of a brig.