The Heart of a Mystery

by T. W. Speight

Mrs. Nokes was one of Miss Brancker's weekly pensioners. Hermia was glad of an excuse for escaping from the room.

"There is one circumstance," Mr. Hodgson, "which it may, perhaps, be as well to mention to you," said Miss Brancker, as soon as they were alone. "Hermia is engaged to be married."

The old gentleman fairly jumped in his chair. "Bless my heart! Engaged to be married? You surprise me, madam--you surprise me greatly! Why was I not communicated with before now? Why was I not consulted? Why----?"

"My dear sir, you seem to forget that you have never favored us with your address. We know no more today where a letter would find you than we knew seventeen years ago when my brother and you had your first interview."

Mr. Hodgson stroked his chin and coughed. "To be sure--to be sure. For the moment that little fact had escaped my memory. Still, it is most unfortunate. Had I dreamed when I was here last that anything of the sort was likely to happen I would certainly have left you an address through which you could have communicated with me. But before discussing the matter further, I should like to be informed who and what the person is on whom Miss Rivers has seen fit to bestow her affections."

Thereupon Miss Brancker proceeded to enlighten him: and one may be sure that the portrait of Clement Hazeldine which she drew for her visitor lacked nothing on the score of eulogy. The old lawyer listened in silence; when she had done, he said:

"Then, it is your opinion that Miss Rivers is really in earnest in this affair, and that it is not one of those idle engagements into which--so I have been given to understand--numbers of young women drift for want of something better to do; and from which they emerge, if circumstances run contrary to their wishes, heart-whole and fancy-free, ready and eager to engage in the fray again, only, of course, with a different Strephon?"

"Hermia has nothing in common with the class of young women to whom you refer. That her affections are very deeply involved I am as certain as that I am now talking to you, nor have I any hesitation in saying that were she compelled to break off her engagement with Clement Hazeldine it would go far towards wrecking her happiness, if not for life, in any case for a long time to come."

"Aye, aye!--is that so? Your charming sex, my dear madam, are kittle cattle to deal with. The particular point at issue is, however, one as to which at present I can offer no decided opinion. As you will have surmised long ago, I am not acting in Miss Rivers' affairs for myself alone. I am merely an instrument, whose function it is to carry out the instructions deputed to me by others. All I can say just now is, that you shall hear from me at the earliest possible moment, and that, till then, matters may as well remain as they are."

After Mr. Hodgson was gone, Miss Brancker did not fail to call to mind that he had never once made the slightest allusion to John's imprisonment and trial; and, furthermore, that the name of Hazeldine had seemed to awake no echo in his memory of the dread tragedy with which it had been associated so short a time before. Was his silence due to the fact that the annals of crime possessed no interest for him, and that he shunned the reading of them; or was it simply the result of a failure of memory? Of course, another theory was possible--that he had read and recollected everything bearing on the murder and trial, and that he was silent about them of set purpose. In any case, it was open to Miss Brancker to adopt which of the three theories might seem most feasible to her.