"'That you certainly will not,' he replied with one of his puzzling smiles. 'Mr. Cope-Ellerslie is no longer in existence. He died about an hour ago. His life was brief but necessary. Peace to his remains!' Then, seeing my look of amazement, he added, 'Have you not yet found out, or even suspected, that Mr. Ellerslie and Geoffrey Dare were one and the same person?"
"No, that I certainly had not. Nevertheless, I was now assured that such was the fact, and I had to delay my departure for another half hour while the mystery was cleared up for me.
"When Geoffrey Dare left London a ruined man, bankrupt in love, in friendship, in means (I long ago explained to you under what peculiar circumstances he was induced to take to the King's highway), he came to Rockmount, which was his own property, and which, owing doubtless to its isolated situation in the midst of a wide stretch of desolate moorland, had been untenanted for years. With him he brought three old family servants, whom not even the rack or the thumbscrew would have forced into betraying him. But it was Mr. Cope-Ellerslie, the scholar and the recluse, who had become the tenant of Rockmount, and no faintest suspicion ever got abroad that there was, or could be, any connection between him and Captain Nightshade.
"So far so good; but I still failed to comprehend the nature of a disguise which so completely changed Geoffrey's identity that only an hour before my eyes had failed to penetrate it. To take one point alone: in Mr. Ellerslie's face, leaving out of account the difference in the complexions, there bad been a thousand fine lines and creases, whereas in Geoffrey's it would have puzzled one to find a dozen.
"Then was I enlightened. Mr. Cope-Ellerslie's face was a mask, of which moustache, beard, eyebrows, and hair formed component parts. The foundation of the mask consisted of the skin of a newly-born kid, pared or scraped to an exceeding fineness, and moulded to the features while still plastic. Geoffrey had brought it with him from Italy several years before, where such disguises seem to be not unknown, and where it had been made for him in order that he might take part in a certain carnival frolic. So simple sometimes is the explanation of an apparently inscrutable mystery!
"But my letter is dragging itself out to an unconscionable length, and I must hurry on.
"Of a certain quiet wedding in Holland, and of the after-sailing of the two people concerned for the United States, I have no particulars worth recounting beyond those already known to you. Here they have lived happily ever since, and here--whatever home-sickness they may have felt in secret--they had made up their minds to pass the rest of their days, when a passage in your last letter set their hearts dancing with a happiness so unlooked-for that since it burst into their life like a flash of sunlight they have hardly been able to talk about anything else.
"You write, my dear godmother, that you have fair hopes of being able, by and by, through bringing your influence to bear in the same all-powerful quarter in which you brought it to bear once before, to secure for Geoffrey a free pardon. What two happy and grateful beings you would, in that case, make of my husband and me, I should fail to tell you in any words.
"You are kind enough to say, further, that you miss your Nelly's face and long to see it again, as also that there is a big corner for her in your will. We will say nothing about the latter, but, as regards the former, let me whisper in your ear that you need not be very much surprised if you see me in London in the course of next season. If Geoffrey should be free to come with me, what happiness that would be! But, in any case, I think you may look forward pretty confidently to seeing your vagrant goddaughter.
"You will readily believe me when I tell you that I am also very desirous of setting eyes again on my young kinsman, Evan Cortelyon, the account of whose abduction and recovery had for you such a special interest. (Don't forget, please, that his recovery was wholly due to my dear husband.) He has been made a ward in Chancery, and although I have frequent news of him, and am assured that he is well and happy, yet that is not like seeing him and feeling his dear arms about my neck.