"'Fore heaven, what mean ye?" said Grasp. "They surely suspect not that I had ought to do with the poisoning of my Lord of Leicester? There must have been some dire mistake in the matter. 'Fore heaven, I shall be hanged through this mistake!" and Grasp immediately left the room, bribed the ostler to procure him a fresh horse, and set off with all speed towards Stratford-upon-Avon.
Scarce had he gained a dozen miles when he came up with a couple of riders progressing the same road as himself. Company was ever welcome in those days, and the horsemen gladly acceded to his request to be allowed to ride in their escort.
The habitual caution of the lawyer, however, caused him to cast certain searching glances at his companions as often as the moon's light gave him opportunity of doing so, and ere long he became almost confirmed in the belief that in one of the armed riders he was accompanying he had fallen in with the identical female in male apparel whom he had before been in search of. There was comfort, at all events, in this supposition, and as they emerged from the dark covert of a wood they had been progressing through, he managed to push his horse between them and gain a good look at their features. And here again Grasp apparently beheld that which renewed his former perturbation. The face of the rider he first encountered wore the actual expression of one he had reason to believe had long been dead, and as he turned his startled glance upon the other, he beheld the exact lineaments of Clara de Mowbray. Pale she looked, as if her features were of sculptured alabaster; but as she turned her countenance full upon him, he could not be mistaken in their identity.
Conscience had already made a coward of Grasp—his clear spirit was puddled. The deep sea had apparently cast up the dead to discomfort him, and clapping spars to his steed, he fled onwards on his route towards Stratford-upon-Avon.
CHAPTER LXII.
OLD FRIENDS.
Our story now draws towards conclusion, and we once more return to the point from which we at first started. Clopton Hall, after so many years of gloom, may now be said to have quite resumed that appearance of hospitality and prosperity as when we first beheld it in the early passages of our story, and ere disease, death, and misery, had so prevailed there.
For the first time for many years its rooms and offices, its stalls, kennels, and falconries, were all tenanted. After so many vicissitudes and strange events, in which its inmates had been separated, and became wanderers in the world, such of them as were in being were again assembled within its old walls.
The coming Christmas, that season so ceremoniously observed at the period, promised again to be the harbinger of festive scenes and old world rites of hospitality.