"And that is?"
"The fear that Reginald Eversleigh may come between you and me."
"You need no longer fear that," replied Madame Durski. "You have been so noble, so devoted in your conduct to me, that I must be indeed a worthless wretch if I shrink from the painful duty of laying my heart bare before you. I have loved your cousin Reginald, foolishly, blindly; but there must come an end to all folly; there must come a day when the bandage falls from the eyes that have obstinately shunned the light. That day has come for me; and Sir Reginald Eversleigh is henceforward nothing more to me than the veriest stranger."
"A thousand thanks, dearest, for that assurance," exclaimed Douglas; "and now trust in me. Tour future shall be so bright and happy that the past will seem to you no more than a troubled dream."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
PREPARING THE GROUND.
Black Milsom made his appearance in the little village of Raynham immediately after Lady Eversleigh's departure from the castle. But on this occasion it would have been very difficult for those who had seen him at the date of Sir Oswald Eversleigh's funeral to recognize, in the respectable-looking, well-dressed citizen of to-day, the ragged tramp of that period.
While Honoria Eversleigh was living under a false name in Percy Street, Tottenham Court Road, the man who called himself her father, established himself in a little river-side public-house, under the shadow of Raynham Castle. The house in question had never borne too good a character; and its reputation was in nowise improved when, on the death of its owner, it passed into the custody of Mr. Milsom, who came down to Raynham one November morning, almost immediately after Lady Eversleigh's departure, saw the "Cat and Fiddle" public-house vacant, and went straight to the attorney who had the letting of it, to offer himself as a tenant, announcing himself to the lawyer as Thomas Maunders.
The attorney at first looked rather suspiciously at the gentleman who had earned for himself the ominous nickname of Black Milsom; but when the would-be tenant offered to pay a year's rent in advance down on the nail, the man of law melted, and took the money.
Thomas Milsom lost no time in taking possession of his new abode. It was the haunt of the lower class of agricultural labourers, and of the bargemen, who moored their barges sometimes beneath the shadow of Raynham Bridge, while they dawdled away a few lazy hours in the village public-house.