asked
if he could devise nothing else. He said, "Yes, if I was not a poor man."
In my place, you would have offered, as I did, to find the money if the
plan was approved of. He produced some manuscript story of an abduction
of a lady, which he had written to amuse himself. The point of it was
that the lover successfully carried away the lady, by means of a boat,
while the furious father's attention was absorbed in watching the high
road. It seemed to me to be a new idea. "If you think you can carry it
out," I said, "send your estimate of expenses to me and Mrs. Roylake, and
we will subscribe." We received the estimate. But the plan has failed,
and the man is off. I am quite certain myself that Miss Toller has done
what she promised to do. Wherever she may be now, she has sacrificed
herself for your sake. When you have got over it, you will marry my
sister. I wish you good morning."

Between Lady Rachel's hard insolence, and Mrs. Roylake's sentimental
hypocrisy, I was in such a state of irritation that I left Trimley Deen
the next morning, to find forgetfulness, as I rashly supposed, in the gay
world of London.

I had been trying my experiment for something like three weeks, and was
beginning to get heartily weary of it, when I received a letter from the
lawyer.

"Dear Sir,--Your odd tenant, old Mr. Toller, has died suddenly of rupture
of a blood-vessel on the brain, as the doctor thinks. There is to be an
inquest, as I need hardly tell you. What do you say to having the report
of the proceedings largely copied in the newspapers? If it catches his
daughter's eye, important results may follow."

To speculate in this way on the impulse which might take its rise in my
poor girl's grief--to surprise her, as it were, at her father's
grave--revolted me. I directed the lawyer to take no steps whatever in
the matter, and to pay the poor old fellow's funeral expenses, on my
account. He had died intestate. The law took care of his money until his
daughter appeared; and the mill, being my property, I gave to Toller's
surviving partner--our good Gloody.

And what did I do next? I went away travelling; one of the wretchedest
men who ever carried his misery with him to foreign countries. Go where I
might on the continent of Europe, the dreadful idea pursued me that
Cristel might be dead.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE MISTRESS OF TRIMLEY DEEN

Three weary months had passed, when a new idea was put into my head by an
Englishman