"I let him stay so for nearly half an hour, so as to be sure that he was thoroughly off, ma'am, and then I went up to him and touched his hair.

It was very nicely fitted on; but it was a wig for all that, and one could easily see the dark hair underneath. The beard was more difficult to move--there was some sticky stuff to fasten it on as well as an elastic band behind the ears; but it was plainly a false one too. He's a dark-looking man, almost like a gipsy, I should say, with hair that's nearly black--something like his eyebrows. Do you think he's the man you want, ma'am?"

"I'm sure of it, Sabina. Do you want to earn three hundred pounds besides your twenty?"

"What, ma'am!"

"Three hundred pounds, I remember, was offered for the arrest of Andrew Westwood, escaped prisoner from Portland prison, five years ago. This man is Andrew Westwood, Sabina, who murdered Sydney Vane. You shall have the money to keep as soon as it is paid."

Sabina drew back aghast.

"A murderer," she said--"and him such a nice quiet-looking old gentleman! Why, aunt Eliza was always planning a match between him and me! It's awful!"

Flossy laughed grimly.

"People don't carry their crimes in their face, Sabina," she said. "Now you can go away and wait in the sitting-room until Parker has dressed me. Then you will come with me to Scotland Yard--I believe that is the place to go to. I want that man arrested before nightfall. Here are your ten pounds."

"Oh," said Sabina--"I wish I'd known!"

"Do you mean that you would not have helped me?"

"I'm not sure, ma'am; I don't like the idea of shutting the poor man up for ever and ever in a gaol."

"Perhaps you don't mind the idea of murder?" said Mrs. Vane sarcastically. "Don't be a fool, Sabina! Think of the three hundred pounds too! You shall have it all, I promise you; and I will content myself with the satisfaction of seeing him once more where he deserves to be. Now call Parker."

Sabina went back to the sitting-room, not daring to disobey. Her reluctance, moreover, soon vanished as the thought of those three hundred pounds took possession of her. She was absorbed in golden dreams when Mrs. Vane rejoined her, and was quite prepared to do or say whatever she was told.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Mrs. Vane left Parker at the hotel with a message for the General, should he appear, that she was going to her dentist's and thence to her brother's lodgings. But she and Sabina Meldreth went straight to Scotland Yard and had an interview with one of the police authorities.

Mrs. Vane's statement was clear and concise. She was complimented on the cleverness that she had displayed; and Sabina was shown a photograph of Andrew Westwood taken while he was at Portland. She could not be quite so certain that it was Mr. Dare as Flossy would have desired her to be; but the evidence was on the whole so far conclusive, that it was determined to arrest Mrs. Gunn's lodger on suspicion. If he could give a satisfactory account of himself, and if he could not be identified, he would of course have to be set free again; but it seemed possible, if not probable, that Reuben Dare was the very man for whom the police had searched so vainly and so long. A cab was summoned, and an inspector of police as well as a detective in plain clothes and a constable politely followed Sabina into it. Mrs. Vane thought it more becoming to her position not to assist at the arrest. She therefore remained behind, unable to resist the temptation of awaiting their return with the prisoner.

She waited for nearly two hours. Then the cab came back again, and out of it emerged two police-officers and Sabina; but no detective, and no Reuben Dare. Flossy's heart beat quickly with a mixture of rage and fear. Had she taken all this trouble for nothing, and had Reuben Dare given a satisfactory account of himself after all?

"The bird has flown, ma'am," said the inspector, entering the office where she sat, with a rather crestfallen air. "He must have got some notion of what was in the wind; for he went out this morning soon after Miss Meldreth left the house, and evidently does not intend to come back again. He has left his portmanteau; but he has emptied it of everything that he could carry away, and left two sovereigns on the table in payment of his rent and other expenses for the week."

"He has gone to his daughter!" cried Flossy, starting up. "Why have you not been to her? I gave you her address."

"No use, ma'am," said the inspector, shaking his head. "We've been round there already, and left Mullins to watch the house. But I expect we are too late. We ought to have known last night. Amateurs in the detective line are sometimes very clever; but they are not always sharp enough for our work. The young woman has also disappeared."

Mrs. Vane's unusual absence from her home had not been without its results. Little Dick held high carnival all by himself in the drawing-room and the conservatory; and Enid, feeling herself equally freed from the restraint usually put upon her, wandered out into the garden, and found a cool and shady spot where she could establish herself at ease in a comfortable basket-chair. She did not feel disposed for exertion; all that she wished to do was to lie still and to keep silence. The old unpleasant feeling of illness had been growing upon her more and more during the last few days. She was seldom free from nausea, and suffered a great deal from faintness and palpitation of the heart.

As she lay back in her cushioned chair, her face looked very small and white, the blue-veined eyelids singularly heavy. She was sorry to hear the footsteps of a passer-by resounding on a pathway not far from the spot which she had chosen; but she hoped that the gardener or caller, or whoever it might chance to be, would go by without noticing her white dress between the branches of the tree. But she was doomed to be disappointed. The footsteps slackened, then turned aside. She was conscious that some one's hand parted the branches--that some one's eyes were regarding her; but she was too languid to look up. Let the stranger think that she was asleep; then surely he would go upon his way and leave her in peace.

"Miss Vane," said a deep manly voice that she did not expect to hear, "I beg your pardon--do I disturb you?"

Enid opened her heavy eyes.

"Oh, Mr. Evandale--not at all, thank you!"

"I was afraid that you were asleep," said the Rector, instantly coming to her side; "and in that case I should have taken the still greater liberty of awaking you, for there is a sharp east wind in spite of the hot sunshine, and to sleep in the shade, as I feared that you were doing, would be dangerous."

"Thank you," said Enid gently.

She sat erect for a minute or two, then gradually sank back amongst her cushions, as if not equal to the task of maintaining herself upright.

The Rector stood beside her, a look of trouble in his kind frank eyes.

"Shall I give you my arm back to the house?" he said, after a pause.

"Oh, no, thank you--I am not ill, Mr. Evandale!"

"But you are not well--at least, not very strong?"

"Well--no. No--I suppose that I am not very strong."

She turned away her head; but, notwithstanding the movement, he saw that a great tear was gathering underneath the veined eyelid, ready to drop as soon as ever it had a chance.

"Miss Vane," said the rector suddenly, "are you in any trouble? Excuse me for asking; but your face tells its own story. You were happier a year ago than you are now."

"Oh, yes," the girl sighed--"much happier!" and then the great tear fell.

"Can I do nothing to help you? My mission is to those who are in any trouble; and, apart from that, I thought once that you looked upon me as a friend." There was a touch of human emotion in the last words which seemed to bring him closer to Enid than the earlier sentence could have done. "But I know you have no need of me," the Rector added sorrowfully; "you have so many friends."

"I have not a friend in the world!" the girl broke out; and then she half hid her face with her transparently thin fingers, and tried to conceal the fact that she was weeping.

"Not a friend, Miss Vane?" Mr. Evandale's tone betrayed complete bewilderment.

"Whom would you call my friend?" said Enid, almost passionately. "Not a man like my poor uncle, duped, blinded, deceived by any one who chooses to cajole him? Not a woman like his wife, who hates me, and wants me out of the way lest I should claim a share of the estate? Oh, I know what I am saying--I know too well! I can trust neither of them--for he is weak and under her control, and she has never been a friend to me or mine. I do not know what to do or where to go for counsel."

"I heard a rumor that you were engaged to marry Mr. Hubert Lepel," said the Rector gravely. "If that be true, he surely should be counted amongst your friends."

"A man," said Enid, with bitterness of which he would not have thought her capable, "who cares for me less than the last new play or the latest _debutante_ at Her Majesty's! Should I call him a friend?"

"It is not true then that you are engaged to him?"

"I thought that I was," said Enid, still very bitterly. "He asked me to marry him; I thought that he loved me, and I--I consented. But my uncle has now withdrawn the half consent he gave. I am to be asked again, they tell me, when I am twenty. I am their chattel--a piece of goods to be given away and taken back. And then you ask me if I am happy, or if I call the man who treats me so lightly a friend!"

"I see--I see. But matters may yet turn out better than you think. Mr.

Lepel is probably only kept back by the General's uncertainty of action.

I can quite conceive that it would put a man into a very awkward position."

"I do not think that Hubert cares much," said Enid, with a little sarcasm in her tone.

"He must care!" said Evandale impetuously.