"You can then follow me to Chandos. Stay outside the house, and be ready to obey the signal I shall give you. Be prepared to take into custody a criminal who has been evading the law for years, and who will probably make a desperate resistance. What do you say? No warrant? Nonsense. I am in the commission of the peace, and will absolve you of any consequences."
Laying his gun and birds on the top of the luggage, Mr. Edwin Barley turned to Chandos. The policemen, who had not the remotest intention of quitting their prisoner until they had seen her within Mr. Barley's doors continued their way thither. Thus it happened: and the voice of Edwin Barley demanding to see Lady Chandos greeted my dismayed ears as I crossed the hall. Why he should have asked for Lady Chandos, he himself best knew: the demand was an imperative one.
"My lady cannot be seen, sir," was the reply of Hickens. "She is better, I hear; but she is not yet out of her rooms. Sir Harry is within."
"Who do you say is within?" cried Mr. Edwin Barley, probably thinking his ears might deceive him.
"Sir Harry Chandos."
"Sir Harry," repeated Mr. Edwin Barley, wondering doubtless whether Hickens had lost his senses. "What do you mean by calling him that."
"I call him nothing but what's right, sir. He is Sir Harry now, unfortunately: that is unfortunately for poor Sir Thomas. News came this morning, sir, that Sir Thomas has been killed in battle. We have got the house shut up for him."
Mr. Edwin Barley took a step backwards, and looked at the white blinds, closely drawn behind, the windows. The tidings took him by surprise. Having gone out shooting before the letters and papers were delivered, he was in ignorance of the morning's news.
"I am sorry to hear it," he said. "It is an additional blow for Lady Chandos; and she does not need it. Sir Thomas was the best of the three sons: I had no grudge against him. But Mr. Harry Chandos does not take the title, my man."
"Oh yes, he does, sir. He is now Sir Harry Chandos."