"He is coming also to marry Miss Randolph. Both weddings will take place on the same day, and Conniston has escaped the dangers of the war with a slight touch of fever. But why tell you all this--you know it as well as I do."
"What"s that?" asked Miss Berengaria, coming up to the pair.
"I was only discussing Miss Malleson"s future life," said Durham.
"Ah," sighed the old lady, sitting down. "What I shall do without her I don"t know."
"Dear aunt," said Alice, kissing the faded cheek, "I shall not be far away. The Hall is within visiting distance."
"That"s all very well," said Miss Berengaria. "But Bernard will want you all to himself, and small blame to him. What is the time?"
Alice glanced at her watch. "It"s nearly three, and the train arrives at half-past," she said. "Oh, I wish we could meet them."
"Not at all," rejoined Miss Berengaria, brusquely, "better wait here with Lucy. She will be over soon. I don"t want a scene of kissing and weeping on the platform. But, I must say, I am glad both those boys are back."
"You will have them as near neighbors, Miss Berengaria," said the lawyer. "Bernard at Gore Hall and Conniston at the castle."
"I hope he and Lucy won"t live there," said the old lady, rubbing her nose. "A dreadfully damp place. I went over there the other day to tell Mrs. Moon about Jerry."
"Have you had good reports of him?"
"So, so. The reformatory he was put into seems to be a good one, and the boys are well looked after. But Jerry is a tree which will grow crooked.
He seems to have been giving a lot of trouble."
"Yet he was lucky to get off as he did," said Durham. "The judge might have sent him to jail instead of into a reformatory."
"And he"ll land in jail some day," said Alice, shaking her head. "At least, Bernard seems to think so."
"I fancy Bernard is about right," replied Durham. "The lad is a born criminal. I wonder how he inherited such a tainted nature."
Miss Berengaria sat up briskly. "I can tell you," she said. "Mrs. Moon informed me that her son--Jerry"s father--was a desperate scamp, and also that several of her husband"s people had come to bad ends."
"To rope ends, I suppose, as Jerry will come," said Durham. "However, he is safe for the next three years in his reformatory. When he comes out, we will see what will happen. What about your other _protege_, Miss Berengaria."
"Michael Gilroy?"
"Yes. Has he taken that name for good?"
"He has. It"s the only name he is ent.i.tled to. How glad I am that the poor creature was acquitted after that dreadful trial. I am sure there is good in him."
"So Bernard thought, and that was why he a.s.sisted him," said Alice.
"I think you put in a good word for him, Miss Malleson."
Alice a.s.sented. "I was sorry for the poor fellow. While I nursed him I saw much good in him. And, remember, that he had intended to tell me who he was when he arrived, only he was so ill."
"And when he saw that you fancied he was Bernard, he accepted the situation," said Durham, ironically. "I wonder he could have thought you so easily taken in, knowing that you knew Bernard so intimately."
"Well, I don"t think he was quite himself during that illness," said Alice, pensively. "Had he been better, he would certainly have doubted the fact of aunty"s and my beliefs. A few questions from me, and he would have been exposed, even had I truly believed he was Bernard."
"And he must have wondered how you never put the questions."
"Perhaps. But he thought I was considering his health. However, he spoke up well at the trial, and quite explained Bernard"s innocence."
Durham shrugged his shoulders. "The serpent in the bamboo. He was forced to be honest at the trial for his own sake."
"Don"t be hard on him," said Miss Berengaria, suddenly. "I received a letter from him yesterday. He is doing very well in America, and with the money Bernard gave him he has bought a farm. Also, he hopes to marry."
"I wonder will he tell his future wife anything of his past life."
"Not if he is wise," said Durham, looking at Alice, who had spoken. "By the way, Miss Berengaria, does he mention his mother?"
"No," replied the old lady, promptly. "Drat you, Durham! why should the boy mention his mother at this point? She has been dead all these months. Poor soul! her end was a sad one. I never heard, though, of what poison she died."
"A Romany poison they call drows," explained Durham, quickly. "The gipsies use it to poison pigs."
"Why do they wish to poison pigs?"
"Because, if they kill a pig in that way, the farmer to whom it belongs, thinking the animal has died a natural death, gives it to the gipsies and they eat it."
"Ugh!" Miss Berengaria shuddered. "I"ll look well after my own pigs. So the poor creature killed herself with that drug?"
"I don"t know that it is a drug," said Durham. "I can"t explain what it is. She hinted that I would know what drows meant before the end of the day, and I did. While I was telling Inspector Groom about her confession, she poisoned herself in my office. I thought she was asleep, but she evidently was watching for her opportunity to make away with herself."
"Ugh!" said Miss Berengaria, again. "I wonder you can bear to sit in that office after such an occurrence."
"How lucky it was that she signed that confession before she died," was the remark made by Alice.
"My dear young lady, she came especially to confess, so as to save her son. She would not have died until she did confess."
"And if she had not suffered from that incurable disease, I doubt if she would have committed suicide," said Miss Plantagenet.
"Oh, I think so," said Durham, reflectively. "After all, her confession meant hanging to her. She wished to escape the gallows."
"I am glad Bernard did," said Miss Berengaria, emphatically; "even at the risk of all that scandal."
"It couldn"t be kept out of the papers," said Durham, with a shrug.
"After all, Bernard"s character had to be fully cleansed. It was therefore necessary to tell the whole of Beryl"s plot, to produce Michael as an example of what Nature can do in the way of resemblances, and to supplement the whole with Mrs. Gilroy"s confession."
"And a nice trouble there was over it," said the old lady, annoyed. "I believe Bernard had a man calling on him who wished to write a play about the affair--a new kind of "Corsican Brothers.""
"Or a new "Comedy of Errors,"" said Alice, smiling. "Well, the public learned everything and were sorry for Bernard. They cheered him when he left the court."
"And would have been quite as ready to hiss him had things turned out otherwise," snapped Miss Berengaria. "The man who should have suffered was that wretch Beryl."
"We couldn"t catch him," said Durham. "Victoria reached him on that very night, and he cleared without loss of time. Of course, he was afraid of being accused of the crime, although he knew he was innocent, but, besides that, there was the conspiracy to get the estate by means of the false will. By the way, did Mrs. Moon say what had become of Victoria?"
Miss Berengaria nodded. "Victoria is down in Devonshire with an aunt, and is being kept hard at work to take the bad out of her. I understand she still believes in Jerry and will marry him when he comes out of the reformatory. He will then be of a marriageable age, the brat! But, regarding Beryl, what became of him?"