"I don't wish to speak ill of the dead," said Maria, with a sigh, "but it seems to me that my uncle was acting very badly. That he should deceive my poor aunt, who loved him so!" And a tear trickled down her face.
Darrel said nothing, but he was quite satisfied that he knew the extent of Grent's villainy. He had stolen the ten thousand pounds in such a way as to throw the blame on Vass, and he had intended to fly to South America with Lydia Hargone, deserting his wife for a woman who had deceived him at last. But Providence, which rules all things, had thwarted his evil plans, and instead of getting away with the fruits of his iniquity he had met with a cruel death at the hands of an unknown man. As he had sown, so had he reaped.
"Let me ask you one thing," said Darrel, as he took his leave: "why did you not tell us this before?"
"Because, in the first place, I promised my uncle to keep silent; and in the second, he told me that if I spoke the society--since he hoped to escape it--might kill my aunt. It was for her sake that I kept silent."
"Lies! Lies! Lies!" thought Darrel. "What a liar Grent was."
When he got back to town he saw Torry and told him the whole story, whereat the detective was much pleased.
"Didn't I say Grent had the money!" said he, slapping his thigh. "What a plot to get it, the cunning old fox! I'm almost loth to catch and hang the man who killed him."
"The hare runs yet on the mountains," said Darrel drily, and took his leave of the jubilant detective to go home and dream of Maria. The interview with her had left him more in love than ever.
Next morning he was hardly awake when Torry, wildly excited, burst into his bedroom, and executed a kind of war-dance. "I've found the tramp who robbed the dead body of Julia Brawn," he cried, "and he gave up this locket, which he took from her neck. See, see! It is of gold, with the letters 'G.V. to J.B.' That is the lover to the lass."
"The lover of Julia Brawn?" said Darrel, jumping out of bed.