The Heart of a Mystery

by T. W. Speight

[CHAPTER XLI.]

"GOOD-BYE TO ONE AND ALL."

Immediately on the discovery of what had happened, Clement was summoned by the Major, who then conducted Hermia to another room. A brief examination sufficed to prove that Miss Pengarvon must have been dead a couple of hours at the least. When Doctor Bland arrived a little later he seemed in no way surprised. His patient had been suffering from heart disease for years, and in no case could a fatal termination have been much longer delayed.

At last Barney Dale's lips were unsealed; his mistress's death had absolved him from his oath. He was now as willing to tell all he knew as before he had been obstinately dumb. With what degree of interest his narrative was listened to may readily be imagined.

On that snowy December night, now more than twenty years ago, poor Isabel was all but dead when carried into the house by Barney and his wife. She never recovered consciousness, nor even as much as opened her eyes, but presently breathed three or four faint sighs and was gone. Her infant, lying warmly against its mother's bosom, had suffered but little harm. There was no wedding-ring on Isabel's finger, but one was found suspended by a ribbon round her neck. On the child's clothes a third name had been carefully erased, the words "Hermia Rivers" being alone left. Miss Pengarvon had at once leaped to the conclusion that her sister had not been married. It would never do to let the world know that the family honor of the "Proud Pengarvons" had been smirched. At any and every cost Isabel and her fault must be hidden away. Barney Dale had a nephew in Stavering, a carpenter by trade; this man secretly made an oak coffin, and conveyed it to Broome after nightfall. Exactly below the Green Parlor, and hollowed out of the soft sandstone on which the Hall was built, was an underground room which had been used as a hiding-place in the old, bad days of religious intolerance and persecution, and was known as the "Priest's Chamber." Access to it was obtained by means of a narrow stairway in the thickness of the wall, hidden by a sliding panel behind the old bureau.

The secret of the Chamber had always been carefully confined to members of the family, and not even Barney had known of its existence until Miss Pengarvon revealed to him her design, which was to make it the last resting-place of her sister. Accordingly, in the dead of night, a portion of the flooring of the Green Parlor was taken up by Barney and his nephew, and the coffin and its inmate lowered into the vault below--Miss Letitia, on her knees, weeping and praying silently, while Miss Pengarvon stood by, frowning and dry-eyed. The flooring was then replaced, and a month later, Barney's nephew, who had long been desirous of emigrating, had his passage to the States paid by Miss Pengarvon, and in addition, a sum of money given him to enable him to make a fair start in life when he got there.

Hermia was brought up by a sister of Barney, who lived at a distance, until she was three years old, at which age she passed into the keeping of John Brancker and his sister.

Next day Clement Hazeldine went back home and got into harness again without an hour's delay. Hermia, Miss Brancker, and the Major stayed at Broome over the funeral. It was a double funeral, for Miss Pengarvon and the sister whom living she had so cruelly treated were laid to rest in one grave. No will could be found; neither, so far as could be ascertained, had Miss Pengarvon ever made one. Broome, and the two small farms pertaining to it, together with the accumulated savings of the two sisters during a long course of years, all devolved upon Hermia as next of kin. She was the last of the old race.

It was only natural that Edward Hazeldine's thoughts should turn again in the direction of Miss Winterton, now that Varrel, by his confession, had absolved the elder Mr. Hazeldine's memory of the charge of self-murder. The confession had been published in the newspapers, and the facts of the case were now known to the world at large. Sometimes Edward told himself that he would tempt fortune once again at the very first opportunity which should offer itself; at other times he said to himself, "Although my father's memory has been cleared, nothing can do away with the fact that I proposed to Miss Winterton at a time when I had every reason to believe that he had committed suicide, trusting to her and the world's ignorance of that fact for the successful issue of my suit. How is it possible that she should ever forgive me?"

Whether or no he would ever have summoned up courage enough to urge his suit again may well be doubted, had not the lady herself, after a fashion which it would be futile for one of the opposite sex to attempt to describe, contrived to make him aware that his chance of success might not, perhaps, be quite so hopeless as in his more desponding moods he was inclined to believe it to be. In any case, he did propose, and was accepted.