"Why, you dear old simpleton, who should be the miracle-monger but myself? It is one of the most annoying traits of your sex that you always want so many explanations. You must know, then, most high and mighty seigneur, that once on a time--that is to say, somewhere about a year ago--I met with an accident which necessitated my walking with a crutch for several months afterwards; and even after I was well enough to cast it aside there were odd times and seasons when a return of the old pain compelled me to again seek its help for a day or two, so that I continued to keep it by me like an old servant whom one cannot afford to discard. Well, sir, when I first conceived the audacious scheme of seeking an interview with you I said to myself, 'What if he should get the notion into his head that I have forced myself upon him simply in the hope that he may fall in love with me?' The thought was intolerable so I determined to make your acquaintance in a guise which would--as I fondly imagined--effectually dispose of any such idea should even the germ of it have found lodgment in your mind. Hence it was that I called my old crutch into requisition and manufactured an artificial hump for myself. But alas, and alack-the-day! my labours were all in vain, my good intentions were utterly thrown away. There are some people who cannot be made to see when they are well off, and if they will persist in taking on themselves a lot of unnecessary burdens simply because they are, as they term it, in love--well, one can afford to pity them, but that will hardly make their punishment easier to bear."

"I, at any rate, am prepared to undergo my punishment without the ghost of a grumble. But tell me this, you young deceiver, how did you contrive to impose upon my uncle? He, at least, must have known that----"

"Oh! I took dear Sir Everard into my confidence. He promised not to betray me, and of course he didn't."

"And simple-minded, kind-hearted Mr. and Mrs. Marrable--you have deceived them?"

Dacia hung a contrite head, or pretended to do so. "I am very sorry, but I couldn't help it," she whispered.

[CHAPTER XXII.]

A MYSTERY SOLVED.

Spring had come round again, the spring of the year succeeding that in which the events recorded in these pages took place.

It was about the middle of May when Sir Everard Clinton, to whom any long stay in London had always been distasteful, suddenly made up his mind to revisit Garion Keep. It was a matter of course that his nephew and his nephew's wife should accompany him, for Burgo and Dacia had been married early in the new year, and had spent a short honeymoon in the Riviera. Sir Everard's home, wherever it might be--and he had always been of a somewhat roving disposition--was theirs also. He liked to have Burgo under the same roof with him; only then did he feel safe, only then could he rid himself of an uneasy fear that at some unexpected moment he might be confronted by his wife, who, he seemed to think, was ever on the watch--lying perdu, like a spider in a corner of its web--to take him unawares. What might or would have happened in case such an eventuality had come to pass, he did not try to imagine. The bare possibility of such a thing was enough to scare him.

But indeed there seemed no valid reason for anticipating any such unwelcome proceeding on her ladyship's part. She seemed to have vanished as completely beyond the horizon of Sir Everard's life as if she had never existed. After their parting that night at the Keep, so far as was known, she made no attempt to trace his whereabouts; neither, later on, when he was back in Great Mornington Street, if she knew he was there, did she make any effort to intrude herself on his presence. One token, and one only, of her existence was forthcoming in due course. A lawyer, instructed by her, waited one day upon Mr. Garden with the view of ascertaining the nature of the baronet's pecuniary intentions towards his client. That they proved to be satisfactory may be taken for granted, seeing that no complaint to the contrary was ever lodged with Mr. Garden. From certain private information which reached Mr. Brabazon some time later, he had reason to believe that her ladyship had taken up her permanent abode in Florence, the English colony of which delightful city was greatly exercised in its mind as to whether it ought to welcome her with effusion as an unquestionable acquisition, or quietly turn towards her that shoulder which is termed cold.