ay, butler, you must have gone out to
quiet Don--who by the way can't abear the sight of you--through Mrs.
Quarles's room: and, for all your threats, I'm not afeard to tell you
what I think. First answer me this, Mr. Simon Jennings:--where were you
all that night, when we were looking for you?--Oh! you choose to forget,
do you? I can help your memory, Mr. Butler; what do you think of the
shower-bath in Mother Quarles's room?"

As Jonathan, one day at dinner in the servants' hall, took occasion to
direct these queries to the presiding Simon, the man gave such a horrid
start, and exclaimed, "Away, I say!" so strangely, that Jonathan could
doubt no longer--nor, in fact, any other of the household: Jennings gave
them all round a vindictive scowl, left the table, hastened to his own
room, and was seen no more that day.

Speculation now seemed at an end, it had ripened into probability;--but
what evidence was there to support so grave a charge against this rigid
man? Suspicions are not half enough to go upon--especially since Roger
Acton seemed to have had the money. Therefore, though the folks at
Hurstley, Sir John, his guests, and all the house, could not but think
that Mr. Jennings acted very oddly--still, he had always been a strange
creature, an unpopular bailiff; nobody understood him. So, Floyd, to his
own no small danger, stood alone in accusing the man openly.

CHAPTER XLI.

GRACE'S ALTERNATIVE.

VERY shortly after that remarkable speech in the servants'
hall, Jonathan found another reason for believing that Mr. Simon
Jennings was equal to any imaginable amount of human wickedness. That
reason will shortly now appear; but we must first of all dig at its
roots somewhat deeper than Jonathan's mental husbandry could manage.

If any trait of character were wanting to complete the desperate infamy
of Jennings--(really I sometimes hope that his grandfather's madness had
a kind of reawakening in this accursed man)--it was furnished by a new
and shrewd scheme for feeding to the full his lust of gold. The bailiff
had more than once, as we have hinted, found means to increase his evil
hoard, by having secretly gained power over female innocence and honest
reputation: similarly he now devised a deep-laid plot, nothing short of
diabolical. His plot was this: and I choose to hurry over such foul
treason. Let a touch or two hint its outlines: those who will, may paint
up the picture for themselves. Simon looked at Si