her at once; all her pretended gratitude, all her assumed
thankfulness, had never deceived _me_; her insignificance was her
safeguard. And yet withal, I sometimes felt, she is too deeply in our
confidence,--she sees too much of the secret machinery of our plans.
While I exulted over the ignoble dependence she was doomed to,--while
I saw, with a savage joy, how our lots in life were reversed,--was I
self-deceived?"

So impressed was he with the idea of a game in which he had been
defeated, that he went over in his mind every circumstance he could
recall of his intercourse with her. Passages the simplest, words of
little significance, incidents the most trivial, he now charged with
deepest meaning. Amidst these, there was one for which he could find no
solution,--why had she so desired to be the owner of the cottage near
Bantry? It was there that Driscoll had discovered the Conway papers. Was
it possible--the thought flashed like lightning on him--that there was
any concert between the girl and this man? This suspicion no sooner
occurred to him than it took firm hold of his mind. None knew better
than Dunn the stuff Driscoll was made of, and knowing, besides, how he
had, by his own seeming luke-warmness, affronted that crafty schemer, it
was by no means improbable that such an alliance as this existed. And
this last discovery of documents,--how fortunate was it that Hankes had
secured them! The papers might or might not be important; at all events,
the new Lord Lackington might be brought to terms by their means; he
would have come to his peerage so unexpectedly that all the
circumstances of the contested claim would be strange to him. This was a
point to be looked at; and as he reasoned thus, again did he go back to
Sybella Kellett, and what the nature of her game might be, and how it
should first display itself.

A tap at the door startled him. "Mr. Hankes is below, sir," said Clowes.

"I will be with him in a moment," replied Dunn; and again relapsed into
his musings.

CHAPTER XXII. A MASTER AND MAN

"Is she gone?--where to?" cried Dunn, without answering Mr. Hankes's
profuse salutations and welcomes.

"Yes, sir; she sailed yesterday."

"Sailed, and for where?"

"For Malta, sir, in the Euxine steamer. Gone to her brother in the
Crimea. One of the people saw her go on board at Southampton."

"Was she alone?"

"Quite alone, sir. My man was present when she paid the boatman. She had
very little luggage,