As we sat over our breakfast, Charley said suddenly, ‘Clara was regretting yesterday that she had not seen the Moat. She said you had asked her once, but had never spoken of it again.’
‘And now I suppose she thinks, because I’m in disgrace with her friends at the Hall, that she mustn’t come near me,’ I said, with another bitterness than belonged to the words.
‘Wilfrid!’ he said reproachfully; ‘she didn’t say anything of the sort. I will write and ask her if she couldn’t contrive to come over. She might meet us at the park gates.’
‘No,’ I returned; ‘there isn’t time. I mean to go back to London—perhaps to-morrow evening. It is like turning you out, Charley, but we shall be nearer each other in town than we were last time.’
‘I am delighted to hear it,’ he said. ‘I had been thinking myself that I had better go back this evening. My father is expected home in a day or two, and it would be just like him to steal a march on my chambers. Yes, I think I shall go to-night.’
‘Very well, old boy,’ I answered. ‘That will make it all right. It’s a pity we couldn’t take the journey together, but it doesn’t matter much. I shall follow you as soon as I can.’
‘Why can’t you go with me?’ he asked.
Thereupon I gave him a full report of my excursion with Mr Coningham, and the after reading of the letters, with my reason for wishing to examine the register again; telling him that I had asked Mr Coningham to ride with me once more to Umberden Church.
When Styles returned, he informed me that Mr Coningham at first proposed to ride back with him, but probably bethinking himself that another sixteen miles would be too much for my mare, had changed his mind and sent me the message that he would be with me early the next day.
After Charley was gone, I spent the evening in a thorough search of the old bureau. I found in it several quaint ornaments besides those already mentioned, but only one thing which any relation to my story would justify specific mention of—namely, an ivory label, discoloured with age, on which was traceable the very number Sir Giles had read from the scabbard of Sir Wilfrid’s sword. Clearly, then, my sword was the one mentioned in the book, and as clearly it had not been at Moldwarp Hall for a long time before I lost it there. If I were in any fear as to my reader’s acceptance of my story, I should rejoice in the possession of that label more than in the restoration of sword or book; but amidst all my troubles, I have as yet been able to rely upon her justice and her knowledge of myself. Yes—I must mention one thing more I found—a long, sharp-pointed, straight-backed, snake-edged Indian dagger, inlaid with silver—a fierce, dangerous, almost venomous-looking weapon, in a curious case of old green morocco. It also may have once belonged to the armoury of Moldwarp Hall. I took it with me when I left my grannie’s room, and laid it in the portmanteau I was going to take to London.