arly transparent. 'Oh--Mills?' he murmured. 'Sit down.
What is it?'

'Nothing new, your Grace. Nobody to speak of has written, and nobody has
called.'

'Ah--what then? You look concerned.'

'Old times have come to life, owing to something waking them.'

'Old times be cursed--which old times are they?'

'That Christmas week twenty-two years ago, when the late Duchess's cousin
Frederick implored her to meet him on Marlbury Downs. I saw the
meeting--it was just such a night as this--and I, as you know, saw more.
She met him once, but not the second time.'

'Mills, shall I recall some words to you--the words of an oath taken on
that hill by a shepherd-boy?'

'It is unnecessary. He has strenuously kept that oath and promise. Since
that night no sound of his shepherd life has crossed his lips--even to
yourself. But do you wish to hear more, or do you not, your Grace?'

'I wish to hear no more,' said the Duke sullenly.

'Very well; let it be so. But a time seems coming--may be quite near at
hand--when, in spite of my lips, that episode will allow itself to go
undivulged no longer.'

'I wish to hear no more!' repeated the Duke.

'You need be under no fear of treachery from me,' said the steward,
somewhat bitterly. 'I am a man to whom you have been kind--no patron
could have been kinder. You have clothed and educated me; have installed
me here; and I am not unmindful. But what of it--has your Grace gained
much by my stanchness? I think not. There was great excitement about
Captain Ogbourne's disappearance, but I spoke not a word. And his body
has never been found. For twenty-two years I have wondered what you did
with him. Now I know. A circumstance that occurred this afternoon
recalled the time to me most forcibly. To make it certain to myself that
all was not a dream, I went up there with a spade; I searched, and saw
enough to know that something decays there in a closed badger's hole.'

'Mills, do you think the Duchess guessed?'

'She never did, I am sure, to the day of her death.'

'Did you leave all as you found it on the hill?'

'I did.'

'What made you think of going up there this particular afternoon?'

'What your Grace says you don't wish to be told.'

The Duke was silent; and the stillness of the evening was so marked that
there reached their ears from the outer air the sound of a tolling bell.

'What is that bell tolling for?' asked the nobleman.

'For what I came to tell you