The Squire opened his eyes and favored them with one of his sardonic smiles as they entered the room.
"Eh-eh! come to see the last of your handiwork?" he said, and already his voice had sunk to a half-whisper. "Very kind and attentive of you, I'm sure. And besides, my case is such an interesting and uncommon one. It will be something for you to wrangle over as long as you live, and at the end you will know no more about it than you do now. Yes, yes, very kind and attentive of you; but as for your physic, I'll have no more on't--that's flat. Throw it to the dogs, as Shakespeare says. And now, 'I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.'"
Of course they could do nothing, and to Miss Baynard they were candid enough to admit as much. It was a sad state of things.
And so the muffled hours stole after each other one by one till a week had gone by, by which time it became evident that the end was not far off.
No arrest had yet been made in connection with the murder of Cornelius Dinkel, and it may here be added that none ever was made. The murderer had left no traces behind him, and, search as diligently as they might, not a tittle of evidence was forthcoming to back up any of the theories propounded by the authorities in relation to the crime.
On a certain afternoon, somewhat to Miss Baynard's surprise, Mrs. Bullivant made her appearance at the Hall. It was a step which she had not taken till after mature consideration. The first few days after Dinkel's death had been passed by her in a fever of apprehension. Precisely what it was that she feared she did not whisper even to herself, but she could not bear a ring or a knock at the door without experiencing a spasm of silent terror. Yet all this time her brother remained as darkly quiet, as listless, and apparently as indifferent to everything, save his own little comforts, as she ever remembered him to have been. Wet or fine, he went out every day for a long walk, and it was he who brought back the rumors he lighted on in his rambles anent the Squire of Stanbrook.
One day he brought back something which was more than a rumor. It was something he had been told at second-hand as having emanated from no less an authority than Dr. Banks. Mr. Cortelyon was at death's door, and this time there was no possible chance of his recovery! Then it was that Mrs. Bullivant debated with her brother whether she ought not to pay one more visit to Stanbrook while the Squire was able to recognize her. Captain Ferris was strongly of opinion that she ought on no account to omit doing so. There was no knowing what influences might be at work. What more easy than to persuade a dying man to execute a codicil to his will, or even to have a fresh will drawn up, cancelling wholly or in part the provisions of the one already in existence? Most certainly she ought to see for herself how the land lay, not merely in her own interest, but in that of her son, and, if necessary, remain on the spot till all was over.
Little persuasion was needed to induce Mrs. Bullivant to fall in with her brother's views. By this time her vague, unspoken apprehensions had in a great measure subsided. Dinkel had been dead more than a week, and nothing had happened. Nothing would happen now, she told herself. She would go to Stanbrook.
More than once--indeed quite a number of times--when talking over her last interview with Mr. Cortelyon, her brother had made her repeat one sentence in particular which the Squire had addressed to her in allusion to the contents of his will: "There is perhaps such a surprise in store for you as you little wot of." To both her and the Captain it was a sentence which seemed pregnant with golden possibilities; and it is hardly to be wondered at that, on her way to Stanbrook, her imagination built up more than one gorgeous aerial fabric, although, as a rule, she kept that arrant jerry-builder in the most complete subjection.
On hearing that Mrs. Bullivant had arrived, Miss Baynard went downstairs to receive her. When they met the former made as if she would have kissed Nell, but the girl drew back a little haughtily. She was not in the habit of being kissed, even by those of her own sex, and in her visitor's case it would have seemed to her a veritable baiser de Judas. But she could not, with any show of courtesy, refuse her hand.