too good a fellow not to put up with a little mild chaff
of that sort. He looked at the horizon, where the faint streaks of
another dawn were beginning to show in the northeast.

"Please God," he said piously, "if I'm deemed worthy of such a boon,
I'll marry Sylvia Manning, or no other woman. And, when the chance
offers, Eliza of the White Horse shall cook you a dinner to make your
mouth water. Thus will Mr. Furneaux's dream come true, because dreams
go by contraries!"

CHAPTER XVII

THE SETTLEMENT

Winter tried to persuade his mercurial-spirited friend to snatch a few
hours' rest. The Police Inspector obligingly offered a bed; but short
of a positive order, which the Superintendent did not care to give,
nothing would induce Furneaux to let go his grip on the Fenley case.

"Wait till the doctor's car comes back," he urged. "The chauffeur will
carry the story a few pages farther. At any rate, we shall know where
he dropped Fenley, and that is something."

Winter produced a big cigar, and Trenholme felt in his pockets for
pipe and tobacco.

"No, you don't, young man," said the big man firmly. "You're going
straight to your room in the White Horse. And I'll tell you why. From
what I have heard about the Fenleys, they were a lonely crowd. Their
friends were business associates and they seem to own no relatives;
while Miss Manning, if ever she possessed any, has been carefully shut
away from them. The position of affairs in The Towers will be strained
tomorrow. The elder Fenleys are dead; one son may be in jail--or, if
he isn't, might as well be--and the other, as soon as he feels his
feet, will be giving himself airs. Now, haven't you a mother or an
aunt who would come to Roxton and meet Miss Manning, and perhaps help
her to get away from a house which is no fit place for her to live in
at present?"

"My mother can be here within an hour of the opening of the telegraph
office," said Trenholme.

"Write the telegram now, and the constable on night duty will attend
to it. When your mother arrives, tell her the whole story, and send
her to Miss Manning. Don't go yourself. You might meet Robert Fenley,
and he would certainly be cantankerous. If your mother resembles you,
she will have no difficulty in arranging matters with the young lady."

"If I resemble my mother, I am a very fortunate man," said the artist
simply.

"I thought it would be that way," was the smiling comment. "One other
thing: I don't su