"Do you know who really struck the fatal blow and why it was struck?"
"No; I know neither one nor the other."
"Then you shall learn, for now is the time to speak," said Alden Lytton.
Chapter LI.
WHO KILLED HENRY LYTTON—FATE OF MARY GREY.
In pursuance of his promise to tell who killed his father, Alden Lytton said:
"One hardly knows how to begin so painful a story. But here it is. You may have heard of a wild, handsome ne'er-do-weel who kept the White Perch Point hotel and married a relative of the Cavendish family?"
"Oh, yes, of course! He was the husband of this widow lady who lives here."
"The same. They had one child, a daughter, said to have been as beautiful as the mother, and as wild and reckless as the father. Out of pure deviltry, as it would seem, this girl ran away from her boarding-school in company with an unprincipled young play-actor, who afterward abandoned her. Soon after this my dear father, who had known her parents and herself, too, met and recognized her under the most painful circumstances. He was deeply shocked, and almost with a father's authority he insisted on taking her home to his own house and sending for her friends. She was but a child. She knew, also, that, being a minor, she was liable to be taken in custody, upon complaint made, and forcibly restored to her family. But she was full of duplicity. She affected to consent to return to her parents, and allowed my father to bring her back as far as his own house, whence he wrote a letter to her father telling him of the whereabouts of his daughter, and asking him to come and receive her [at] his hands. But the very day upon which this letter was mailed two events occurred to frustrate the good intentions of the writer. Ivy Fanning ran away from Fairview, my father's villa. And Mr. Fanning, having heard from the principal of the school from which his daughter had eloped, came furiously to town in search of the fugitive. Most unfortunately, he ascertained beyond a doubt that his daughter was living at Fairview, whither she had been taken by the master of the house, Mr. Henry Lytton. Mistaking altogether the situation, believing my dear father to have been the first abductor of the girl, he waylaid him and struck that fatal blow which caused his death, and which had so nearly cost you, also, your life.