Miss Baynard hesitated a moment, then she said: "When I left Stanbrook in consequence of your message, Mr. Ellerslie, it was certainly without any design of staying over night at Rockmount."
"But, my dear young lady, as circumstances have fallen out, I fail to see how you can very well help yourself; that is to say, unless it is your intention to leave your young cousin for a time under my charge, a charge, I need scarcely tell you, which I will very gladly undertake."
"You are very good, Mr. Ellerslie, but when I go back Evan must go with me."
"Then permit me to observe that, putting yourself out of the question, the hour is far too late a one for the child to travel." It was the same argument the housekeeper had made use of.
"Besides, where's your hurry?" resumed Mr. Ellerslie. "The boy is restored to you, and that, as I take it, is the main thing. The rest's but leather and prunella."
"You might have added, Mr. Ellerslie, by way of clinching your argument, that it would not be the first time I have slept under the roof of Rockmount."
"Eh?" exclaimed Mr. Ellerslie, with a palpable start.
"A certain Mr. Frank Nevill sought and found shelter here one night early in the present year. It may be that you have not quite forgotten the young man in question?"
"I have not by any means forgotten him."
"Furthermore, you have been for some time aware--for how long I do not know--that the aforesaid Mr. Nevill and Miss Baynard, of Stanbrook, were and are one and the same person. And how I happen to know this I will now make clear to you. For a certain reason--which at the time seemed to him all-powerful, but which after-circumstances turned to foolishness--the soi-disant Frank Nevill chose, for one night, to enact the part of an amateur highwayman, and wound up his adventure by accepting the hospitality of Rockmount. On quitting here next morning, by some oversight he left his mask behind him. Time passed on, and when three or four months had gone by the missing mask was forwarded through the post to Miss Baynard, but without any word of explanation, or any clue to the sender of it. And there the matter rested till this afternoon, when Miss Baynard received a note from Mr. Ellerslie informing her that he had certain news to communicate. To Miss B. the writing seemed not wholly strange, and on comparing it with the address on the sheet of paper, which she had kept, in which the mask had been enclosed, she could not doubt that they had both emanated from one pen. But doubtless much of this is old news to you, Mr. Ellerslie. To Mr. Dare my double identity has for some time been no secret, and he----"