“Is it a dream?” cried Barbara. “Are you a spirit or in the flesh? Oh, Piers, speak, for heavens sake! Oh, my heart will break!”
“But I am as alive as possible,” said Piers in a tone of astonishment. “I never was dead at all. What can it mean? I, dead and in my coffin! And they have stuck my name on a tablet in the church. What can it mean? I didn’t die aged seven. I’m alive. Feel me. Isn’t my arm strong? Aren’t my cheeks rosy? It was grannie did all that. I love grannie and I love Clara, but I can’t, no, I can’t keep my secret any longer, Clara. There you are, nurse, I see you. Oh, Barbara, kiss me. Barbara, take me back to mother. Where’s Dick? Oh, Barbara, Barbara!”
Barbara Pelham was too brave a girl to faint even in the presence of such an emergency. It is true that she grasped hold of Clara Tarbot, and looked with terrified eyes from Clara to the boy.
“He is here—God bless him!—and alive,” cried Clara. “I will tell you all. I came down for the purpose. I have a terrible confession to make.” But the words had scarcely passed her lips before her composure gave way, her strength, already strained to the utmost, vanished, and the unhappy woman sank in a fit of unconsciousness on the ground.
All further explanations can be quickly made. Clara recovered in time to make full confession. This she did in the presence of the doctors and the police constables, who took down her depositions word for word as they fell from her dying lips. She was taken to the house and tenderly nursed, and no word of reproach was uttered to her, for those who bent over her felt that, bad as she was, she had been instrumental in saving the life of the boy.
As to Piers himself, he and Barbara went up to town that afternoon. Barbara took the boy straight home to his mother, and then went to acquaint the magistrates with the strange turn affairs had taken. She held Clara’s deposition in her hand. So Dick was liberated and the celebrated trial came to nothing, and little Piers is still the reigning baronet of the house of Pelham—a gracious and kindly lad, who will grow up into a good and brave man. He has repaid Squire Furzby, who is one of his stanchest friends, and is never tired of telling of the dull winter’s morning when, having given, as he considered, three shillings to a beggar, he had in reality saved a great family from the extreme of tragedy.
Dick Pelham has, after all, to work for his own living, but is none the less happy on that account, and Barbara has gladly resigned the title which, as she confessed afterwards, gave her more pain than pleasure.
Grannie Ives has a house on the estate and spends every Sunday with Mrs. Posset. Between them they do their best to spoil Piers, but they do not succeed. A warrant is out for the arrest of Luke Tarbot, and the police are still busy searching for him.
THE END.