worn to, and if he is guilty the letter is destroyed.'

'I have other suspicions--'

'Yes--as you said' interrupted Owen, who had not till now been able to
form the complicated set of ideas necessary for picturing the position.
'Yes, there is this to be remembered--Cytherea had been taken from him
before that letter came--and his knowledge of his wife's existence
could not have originated till after the wedding. I could have sworn he
believed her dead then. His manner was unmistakable.'

'Well, I have other suspicions,' repeated Edward; 'and if I only had
the right--if I were her husband or brother, he should be convicted of
bigamy yet.'

'The reproof was not needed,' said Owen, with a little bitterness. 'What
can I do--a man with neither money nor friends--whilst Manston has Miss
Aldclyffe and all her fortune to back him up? God only knows what lies
between the mistress and her steward, but since this has transpired--if
it is true--I can believe the connection to be even an unworthy one--a
thing I certainly never so much as owned to myself before.'

3. THE FIFTH OF MARCH

Edward's disclosure had the effect of directing Owen Graye's thoughts
into an entirely new and uncommon channel.

On the Monday after Springrove's visit, Owen had walked to the top of
a hill in the neighbourhood of Tolchurch--a wild hill that had no name,
beside a barren down where it never looked like summer. In the intensity
of his meditations on the ever-present subject, he sat down on a
weather-beaten boundary-stone gazing towards the distant valleys--seeing
only Manston's imagined form.

Had his defenceless sister been trifled with? that was the question
which affected him. Her refusal of Edward as a husband was, he knew,
dictated solely by a humiliated sense of inadequacy to him in repute,
and had not been formed till since the slanderous tale accounting
for her seclusion had been circulated. Was it not true, as Edward had
hinted, that he, her brother, was neglecting his duty towards her in
allowing Manston to thrive unquestioned, whilst she was hiding her head
for no fault at all?

Was it possible that Manston was sensuous villain enough to have
contemplated, at any moment before the marriage with Cytherea, the
return of his first wife, when he should have grown weary of his
new toy? Had he believed that, by a skilful manipulation of such
circumstances as chance would throw in his way, he could escape all
suspicion of having known th