"You are right, Dora!" he cried when she had ended. "How wonderfully you have worked out the matter! Without doubt Joad was hidden in the house while Lady Burville saw Edermont. After she left, he must have killed his friend, and secured the manuscript. No doubt he hid again when he heard me coming, and saw me, not in the road, as he alleges, but in the study. Oh, the villain! and he would have saved his neck at the expense of mine!"
"He had not even that excuse, Allen; for, owing to his manipulation of the hall clock, there was absolutely no suspicion that he was guilty. He accused you to gain me, but now I have caught him in his own trap, and no doubt Mr. Carver will have him arrested this night."
"I hope so," said Dr. Scott angrily; "he is a wicked old ruffian! But I cannot understand why he killed Mr. Edermont."
"The manuscript may inform us," said Dora, taking it up. "Let us read it at once."
Allen consented eagerly, and Dora, smoothing the pages, began to read what may be termed the confession of Julian Dargill, alias Edermont. Some parts of the narrative were concisely told, others expanded beyond all due bounds; and as a literary attempt the story was a failure. But for style or elegance of language the young couple cared little. They wished to learn the truth, and they found it in the handwriting of the dead man.
"'My name is Julian Dargill,'" began the manuscript abruptly. "'I was born at Christchurch, in Hants, where my family lived for many generations. My parents died whilst I was at Oxford, and at the age of twenty I found myself my own master. For ten years I travelled in the company of a young man whom I had met at the University. He was not a gentleman, but he had a clever brain, and was an amusing companion, so I paid his expenses for the pleasure of his conversation and company. When I returned home, I left Mallison--for such was his name, John Mallison--in my London rooms, and came down to my house at Christchurch. Here I took up my residence, and here I fell in love with Laura Burville. She was a charming blonde, delicate and tiny as a fairy, full of life and vivacity. Her face was singularly beautiful, her figure perfection, and she had the gift of bringing sunshine wherever she went. Needless to say, I fell deeply in love with her, and would have made her my wife but for the foolish behaviour of her parents. These were religious fanatics of peculiarly rigid principles, and they disapproved of my tendency to a gay life. How they came to have so charming a daughter I could never understand. Miss Treherne--or shall I call her by the fonder name of Laura?--had three suitors--myself, Dr. Scott, a widower, and Captain George Carew, of the merchant service. Scott was a handsome and clever man, but poor, and reckless in his way of life. His wife had died when his son Allen was born, and Scott left the child to be brought up by the nurse while he went flirting with all the pretty girls in the country. Mr. and Mrs. Treherne disapproved of him also on account of this behaviour. So far as I saw, neither Dr. Scott nor myself had any chance of marrying Laura, for her parents favoured the suit of her third admirer, George Carew. I hated and feared that man. He was a brutal sailor, with a vindictive spirit and an unusually violent temper. Everybody yielded to his imperious spirit, and he rode rough-shod over any opposition that might be made to his wishes. He fell in love with Laura, and determined to marry her. At my pretensions and those of Scott he laughed scornfully, and warned both that he would permit neither of us to interfere with his design. He was cunning enough to ingratiate himself with the parents of Laura by pretending to be religious, and ostensibly became more of a fanatic than the Trehernes themselves. Laura was carried away by the violence of his wooing; her parents were delighted with his pretended conversion; and against their support and Laura's timidity--I can call her yielding by no other name--Scott and myself could do nothing. Carew married her. I omitted to state that Carew was not rich. He was part owner in a ship called the Silver Arrow, which traded to the Cape of Good Hope, and sometimes went as far as Zanzibar. When the marriage took place Carew was forced to take command of his ship for a voyage to the Cape. He wished Laura to go also, but this she refused to do, and by offering a dogged resistance to his violent temper she managed to get her own way for once. This I learnt from her afterwards. Alas! had she only been as determined over refusing marriage with Carew, all this sorrow might not have come upon us. But she was quite infatuated with the insolent sailor, and while he was with her I believe she loved him after a fashion. Nevertheless, I do not think her passion either for Carew or for myself was very strong. Leaving then for his voyage, Carew established his wife in a cottage near my house, and went away almost immediately after the honeymoon. Her parents had left Christchurch shortly before to take possession of some property in Antrim, Ireland, which had been left to them. Laura was quite alone, and found her state of grass-widowhood sufficiently tiresome. She wished for distraction, and encouraged myself and Dr. Scott to call upon her. As we were still in love with her, we accepted her invitation only too gladly, and for six months we devoted ourselves to her amusement. Then came the news that the Silver Arrow had been wrecked on the coast of Guinea. The information was brought by the first mate, who had been picked up in an open boat by a passing ship. His companions were dead of hardship and suffering, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that he was brought round again.
"'On his return to England he told his tale to the owners of the ship, and then communicated the news to Mrs. Carew. Without doubt her husband was drowned, and so after six months of married life she found herself a widow, but ill-provided with money. As part owner of the Silver Arrow, the dead Carew had some claim to a portion of the insurance; but, owing to some commercial and legal trickery, no money was obtainable from this source. Laura had barely sufficient to live on. It may be guessed what effect poverty had upon her refined and pleasure-loving nature. She refused to go to her parents in Ireland, as their gloomy religious views were alien to her more æsthetic leanings; yet she could not remain in Christchurch with hardly sufficient to sustain life. Dr. Scott offered to marry her, but he was too poor to give her the luxuries of life, and she refused to become his wife or step-mother to his little boy. Then I offered myself, and was accepted. I was not so handsome as Scott, or so manly and daring as her first husband; but I was rich, and while pretending to love me but little, she married me for my fortune. I was content to take her even on such terms, and we arranged to become husband and wife. Owing to the recent death of Carew, we could not marry openly in Christchurch; and as Laura had never truly loved the sailor, she did not care to pay a tribute to his hated memory by a year of mourning. Rather was she anxious to marry me at once, and for this purpose she went up to London. After a decent interval, to avert suspicion, I followed, and we were married shortly afterwards by special license in the church of St. Pancras. John Mallison was the best man, and arranged all the details for me. These things happened some months after Carew's supposed death. Then we travelled for a year, and at the end of it came back with our child Dora to Christchurch, where----"
"Our child?" said Dora, interrupting her reading. "What does that mean, Allen?"
"No doubt that Dargill adopted you as his child after the death of Carew."
"But I was his ward here; why does he not call me his ward in this manuscript?"