"Tell me what?"
"That we had caught Michael Gilroy, or Gore, or whatever he chooses to call himself."
"Have you caught him? Well, I'm hanged!"
"I hope he won't be," said Durham, grimly. "I did not catch him myself. He came one night last week to the Bower to see Miss Malleson."
Conniston jumped up with an exclamation. "That is playing a daring game," he said. "Why, the fellow must know that she would spot him."
Durham pinched his chin and eyed Conniston. "I can't understand what his game is myself," he said slowly. "Of course, so far as looks go, the fellow is the double of Bernard without the distinguishing mark of the mole."
"You have seen him then?"
"Yes. A day or two ago. I asked Miss Plantagenet to pretend that she and Miss Malleson believed him to be Bernard. They have done so with such success that the boy—he is no more, being younger than Bernard—is lying in bed in the turret-room quite under the impression that he has bamboozled the lot of us. Of course," added Durham, looking down, "he may be trusting to his illness to still further increase the likeness to Bernard, which, I may say, is sufficiently startling, and to supply any little differences."
"That's all jolly fine," said Dick, getting astride of a chair in his excitement, "but Bernard and Alice, being lovers, must have many things in common about which this man can't know anything."
"Quite so. And Miss Malleson knew he wasn't Bernard, seeing that the real man is at your castle. But even without that knowledge I don't think she would long have been deceived. Michael, putting aside his marvellous resemblance, is a common sort of man and not at all well educated. If you can image Bernard as one of the common people, without education and polish, you have Michael."