Oswald Cray: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"At his country's bar?"

"Child, yes. Don't I tell you what the punishment would have been for it not many years ago? What could I do but save him? Had it been necessary to part with every stick and stone I possessed in the world, I must have parted with them--anything, everything, so as to save him. I told him what I would do; that I would start before morning light--for speed was necessary--and get to London and stop the danger. On his part he had to go back by the train that passes through here at midnight, and so be at quarters by the morrow, that his absence might not be known. Before he went he begged to see you. I think that he then--Sara, I think it now, and have for some little time--that he then had made up his mind not to come down again: or else he fancied that he should not be able to come. However that may have been, he begged to see you; and I, seeing I must confess no reason for it, called you down. And the rest you know."

"I don't know one thing," she whispered. "Papa, I don't know what it was--the crime."

"And better that you should not," he answered with a vehemence surprising in his weak state. "I would not have adverted to it at all, but for what I have to explain to you. Listen, Sara, for there are directions that I must give you now."

Pausing, he held his hand up for an instant as if to bespeak her attention, and then resumed.

"I shall startle you if I say that the money I was called upon to find was no less than eight thousand pounds. Ah! you may well lift your head, child! And this imprudent, sinful man was your brother and my son, and Heaven only knows how dearly I love him still! Five thousand of it I paid at once, and the rest I arranged to pay later, at different periods. This very Christmas, I have paid another five hundred, leaving two thousand five hundred yet to pay. I have directed that whatever I die possessed of shall be sold, and the money paid over to you, my daughter, Sara Davenal: The terms of the will may excite curiosity; people will marvel why I did not appoint trustees; and you, my darling, must be content to let them marvel. The residue, after my debts are paid, will be, as I judge, about three thousand pounds. And of this, Sara, two thousand five hundred must be given to these people, who hold Edward's safety in their hands."

Again she was startled. "Do they hold it still?"

"They do. They hold his--I may almost say life--in their hands. Once they are paid, the danger will have passed. You will make no unnecessary delay?"

"No," she said with a shudder. "The very hour the money is in my hands it shall be paid to them."

"In my desk, in the private compartment, you will find a sealed paper addressed to yourself. It contains full directions how you must accomplish this, and who the parties are. I thought it well to write this down for you, that there might be no mistake or forgetfulness. Inside this paper you will find a letter addressed to these people, and that I wish you to post with your own hands--with your own hands--within four-and-twenty hours after my death. Do you clearly understand?"