CHAPTER XII.

"I AM A SINNER VILER THAN YOU ALL."

EIGHT o'clock, nine o'clock, ten o'clock struck, and still Sir Jasper Denison and his daughter sat in the yellow drawing-room waiting for the coming of Godfrey Pierrepoint.

Marcia sat very quietly, lost in a profound reverie as it seemed. She could not make any pretence of frivolous occupation at such a time. To her mind there was an awful solemnity about the meeting that was likely to take place between Godfrey and his bitterest enemy. By what various paths had these men wandered, to meet at last in an awful hour, in which all human anger, all mortal desire for vengeance, must die out beneath the dread influence of death! Ah, surely, the handiwork of Heaven appeared very palpably in the events of these few last days, in which Godfrey

Pierrepoint had been brought from the extremity of Europe by a lover's foolish fancy, while Arthur Holroyde's dark course was arrested by the hand of an assassin. Sir Jasper tossed about his papers and magazines in the restlessness of his spirit, as the solemn hours of that long evening crept slowly by. He cast furtive glances at his daughter every now and then, longing to penetrate the mysteries of her heart.

thought. "I gave

"What an inscrutable creature she is!" he her credit for having a lump of solid ice in her breast where other women have the things they call hearts; and she has been in love with my dear old African traveller all the time! Why the deuce didn't they confide in me? I suppose Pauncefort was afraid his poverty would stand in his way. He is full of Quixotic nonsense, I daresay, and would not ask a woman to marry him unless he could produce a thousand of his own for every thousand of hers. I think I must look into this business; for if my African friend and Marcia would only make a match of it, I should be free to pair-off with the lively widow."

So, after skimming the cream of his newspapers and reviews, Sir Jasper took courage to address his daughter.

"Marcia," he said, "how does it happen that Pauncefort's name is not Pauncefort after all? You spoke of him as Pierrepoint just now, when you were talking to poor Holroyde."

"His name is Pierrepoint, papa.

He told me

his real name in confidence; I had no right to betray his secret."

"But why should he have any secrets, or why should he use a name that is not his own? Is he

in debt, and hiding from his creditors?"

66 Oh, no, no."

"Then who the deuce is he hiding from?"

"From no one, papa. Pray do not question me about Mr. Pierrepoint to-night. The secret he told me involved the history of his life, which is a very sad one. You will see him to-night, I hope; and if you question him yourself, I daresay he will trust you. Believe me, papa, he is a good and honourable man, and the mystery that surrounds his life has arisen from no wrong-doing of his."

"I can quite believe that," answered Sir Jasper; "and I'll only ask you one more question. Has Pauncefort-or Pierrepoint-or whatever you choose to call him-ever made you an offer of marriage?".

"Never, papa."

"Humph," thought the Baronet; "I must see into this. I shouldn't mind playing the Deus ex machina. A grown-up daughter and a lively widow are not compatible."

It was past eleven when Godfrey Pierrepoint went back to the Hermitage, where he found Sir Jasper's groom waiting for him. He had lingered in the neighbourhood, loth to leave the shelter of that woodland retreat in which he had first learned

to love a good and noble woman. The solitary shelter was very dear to him: and though he had no hope of seeing Marcia again, he found it unspeakably difficult to tear himself away.

"My Asiatic exploration is forbidden me," he thought; "and I must endure my life amidst the din and glitter of civilisation. Sweet rural Eng

land--the dear land that holds her-is to be no home for me. Let me linger a little over my farewell. I will tramp the country-side about this place for a day or two, and then start on a walkingtrip northward to Pierrepoint. I should like to see the church beneath which my mother and father lie buried, and the garden where I played when I was a child. No one in Pierrepoint will recognise any vestige of the lad they knew in my dark bearded face."

So once more the hardy pedestrian emerged from Scarsdale in the cold dawn of early morning; once more the untiring wanderer marched over desolate tracts of heathery common land under the autumn sky, and took his scanty meals in lonely hostelries, where a passing wagoner, or a drover tramping homeward from some distant markettown, were his sole companions. Once more Godfrey Pierrepoint, the exile, felt the breath of English breezes, and looked tenderly upward to the cold clear blue of English skies.

Such pains had he taken during these few days to avoid all who knew him, that he had only heard

VOL. III.

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