by coach, Edwards purchased a tin flask, as
affording a better security against breakage; and having obtained the
powder, packed it nicely up, and told his niece, who was staying with him
at the time, to direct it, as he was in a hurry to go out, to Squire
Everett, Woodlands Manor-House, Yorkshire, and then take it to the
booking-office. He thought, of course, though he said _Squire_ in a
jocular way, that she would have directed it _Captain_ Everett, as she
knew him well; but it seemed she had not. Edwards had returned to
Yorkshire only two days since, to get his annuity settled, and
fortunately was present in court at the trial of Frederick Mordaunt,
_alias_ Everett, and at once recognized the tin flask as the one he had
purchased and forwarded to Woodlands, where it must in due course have
arrived on the day stated by the butler. Terrified and bewildered at the
consequences of what he had done, or helped to do, Edwards hastened to
Mr. Sharpe, who, by dint of exhortations, threats, and promises,
judiciously blended, induced him to make a clean breast of it.

As much astounded as elated by this unlooked-for information, it was some
minutes before I could sufficiently concentrate my thoughts upon the
proper course to be pursued. I was not, however, long in deciding.
Leaving Mr. Sharpe to draw up an affidavit of the facts disclosed, I
hastened off to the jail, in order to obtain a thorough elucidation of
all the mysteries.

The revulsion of feeling in the prisoner's mind when he learned that the
man for whom he had so recklessly sacrificed himself was not only _not_
his father, but a cold-blooded villain, who, according to the testimony
of Sergeant Edwards, had embittered, perhaps shortened, his mother's last
hours, was immediate and excessive. "I should have taken Lucy's advice!"
he bitterly exclaimed, as he strode to and fro in his cell; "have told
the truth at all hazards, and have left the rest to God." His explanation
of the incidents that had so puzzled us all, was as simple as
satisfactory. He had always, from his earliest days, stood much in awe of
his father, who in the, to young Mordaunt, sacred character of parent,
exercised an irresistible control over him; and when the butler entered
the library, he believed for an instant it was his father who had
surprised him in the act of reading his correspondence; an act which,
however unintentional, would, he knew, excite Captain Everett's fiercest
wrath. Hence arose