The following afternoon, as the London evening papers were publishing what they were pleased to call "A Romance in High Life," Derrick and his father made their way through an excited crowd, which had gathered about the Court House. Affairs there had proceeded as Mr. Jacobs had prophesied; the magistrates had listened with amazement, not only to Mr. Jacobs' statement, but to the announcement which Mr. Clendon had made of his identity and his relationship to Derrick; and the worthy chairman, Sir Courtenay Comber, using almost the identical words Mr. Jacobs had attributed to him, had congratulated Derrick and informed him that he left the Court "without a stain on his character." Notwithstanding its satisfactory conclusion, the ordeal had been a trying one for father and son, and Derrick looked pale and somewhat worn as he grasped the hand of Reggie, who had been in Court, and had hurried after him to congratulate him.

"I've got a carriage here for you, round the corner," he said; "and I've succeeded in stopping them ringing the bells."

"I'm glad," said Derrick; "but why should they want to ring the bells?"

"Well, you see," explained Reggie, as he led them to the carriage, "Lord Heyton—I mean the other man—is not a great favourite; whereas, somehow or other, you have caught the popular imagination; besides, it has leaked out that you are going to marry Miss Grant; and she is tremendously popular. She has been very kind, in the do-good-and-blush-to-find-it-known way, to the poor people about her; and Susie has told a good many of Miss Grant's angelic kindnesses to her. Hence these tears," he added, as the people crowded about them and cheered heartily. "Where shall I tell the man to drive, my lord?"

"To the Hall," replied Mr. Clendon gravely. "Yes," he said to Derrick, as the carriage drove off, "the Marquess—I mean your uncle, Talbot, wants to see you, naturally."

"You have told him?" said Derrick. "Poor man!"

"Yes, I have told him; and, strangely enough, he welcomed the news. And yet it is not strange; for, alas! he knew the character of his son, knew that he was not worthy to bear the title. There is something more on my brother's mind than I am cognisant of. Some secret which worries him," he added.

Derrick remained silent. He dared not probe the mystery of the hidden jewel-case, of Heyton's sudden flight; but it was evident to him that Mr. Jacobs intended to conceal any knowledge he might have, and Derrick was only too thankful to concur in that concealment.

On their way to the Hall, Derrick and his father spoke of many things of the past and the future; and presently the old man said in a low voice,

"You will be married soon, Derrick?"

"The first moment Celia will have me," replied Derrick, promptly.

"I would like you to spend your honeymoon in South America," said his father.

Derrick understood, and he nodded and laid his hand on the old man's.

"And you, sir? Shall you go there—soon?"

Mr. Clendon shook his head. "No," he responded. "The chasm between us is too wide, has divided us for too long a time. But it shall be as your mother wishes. You will talk to her——We will leave her future and mine on the knees of the gods. But yours, thank God! is assured. How strangely Fate works! How little I thought, when I helped Celia to come to the Hall, that I was lending a guiding hand to the future of my son's wife. Derrick, that same fate has been very good to you."

"Don't I know it, sir!" said Derrick in a low voice.

They reached the Hall; and as they entered, they could not but be conscious of the stir of excitement there; the old butler and the other servants looked at them with an intense interest. As the two men stood in the hall, waiting the summons to the sick-room, Derrick looked round him eagerly; but it was not at the subdued splendour surrounding him; he scarcely noted the indications of luxury and wealth, the wealth and state to which he was heir; he was looking and listening for some sign of Celia; and he was so absorbed that he started when his father touched his arm and directed his gaze to a portrait.

"That is mine, Derrick," he said. "Do you see any resemblance to yourself?"

"Yes; I think—yes, I do," replied Derrick.

"I noticed it yesterday, directly I entered the hall, for the first time for many years."

The footman came down to say that they might go up, and they ascended the broad stairs, Derrick still looking about him and listening; but Celia did not appear. They were ushered into the sick-room, and the door closed on them; and they remained there for nearly half an hour; for the injured man had recovered something of his old strength, as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders, and he was able to hear the story of Derrick's identity and to speak a few words of relief and satisfaction. When they left the room both Derrick and his father were much moved, and they went down the stairs in silence. Derrick stopped as they reached the hall, and again looked round him.

"You will find her in there," said his father, nodding towards the library; and Derrick, with a sudden flush and a brightening of the eyes, knocked at the door.

The voice that said, "Come in," made his heart leap. He turned the handle of the door and entered. Celia had heard his voice in the hall, was expecting him; she was standing by the table, her hand pressed on it, her face pale but her eyes glowing with the ineffable light of love.

"Sydney!" she murmured, all her heart in her voice.

He took her in his arms and, for a moment, there was silence; then she raised her head and whispered,

"It is all right, Sydney?"

"It is all right," he responded. "I am here, as you see; I am acquitted; all is well. But, dearest," he hesitated apologetically, "you must not call me 'Sydney.'"

She looked up at him, her brows knit slightly; and he gathered her to him still more closely, as he went on.

"I've got the strangest news to tell you, Celia. You will think that you are dreaming, as I have been dreaming ever since I myself heard it."

"They have been talking, saying strange things—the servants, I mean—and Mrs. Dexter came in just now and tried to tell me—something; but she was too excited and checked herself; she said I should hear it from you! What is it, Syd——But I'm not to call you that? What am I to call you?"

"Derrick," he said; "it is the name that you shall always call me by; but the world will know me as Lord Heyton."

She started in his arms and, drawing back her head, gazed up at him in amazement; and she listened as he told her the wonderful news; at first with bewilderment and then with a gravity and a lack of enthusiasm which surprised him.

"You are glad, dearest?" he asked. "You are surprised, astonished, of course? It takes some time to realize. You are glad?"

"Are you?" she asked in a low voice.

Derrick shrugged his shoulders; then, as if he were ashamed of the gesture, he said quickly,

"That I have found a father—and such a father—yes. And I have found a mother too. Have you guessed that it is the Donna Elvira I have told you so much about? You are surprised; and no wonder. It is part of the strange story. I will tell you all about her presently. Of course, I am glad. I was all alone in the world—but for you—but for you, Celia! and the loneliness was hard sometimes to bear. But for the rest, the title and the estates and the other things, I welcome them only because you will share them with me. Celia, I'm not such an idiot as not to realize that I am coming to you as something more than a penniless adventurer, well-nigh nameless, a man of no account. If I had all the world at my command, the highest title a man could bear, I should only value them because I could lay them at your feet."

The tears welled to her eyes and, of her own accord, she drew his head down to her and laid her sweet lips on his.

"You are too good to me; I am not worth it," she said, brokenly. Then, with something like a start, she whispered, with a dawning fear and horror in her eyes, "And the other—Lord Heyton? And his wife! Oh, poor, poor woman! And she has borne so much already! She is lying there, upstairs, prostrated. Who is to tell her? Oh, Derrick, dearest, who is to tell her?"

"You," he said, gently. "No one can break it to her better than you can."

"Oh, must I? Oh, it will be hard for her."

"It will be hard, Celia; but no one can do it better than you. You will soften the blow. She will realise her debt to you, through me. Tell her that her future shall be cared for—but you know that I shall look after that. Celia, you, who are so quick, so acute, have divined the truth. It was for Miriam that I took on myself the forged cheque. I—cared for her once; I thought I was in love with her. I thought so until that night you came to me and stood like an angel of rescue between me and a shameful death. As to Miriam's husband——"

Derrick paused and, looking down at her steadily, laid his hand on her shoulder with an almost masterful pressure.

"—There must be nothing more said about him between us two, Celia," he continued, with solemnity in his voice and manner. "He is gone; let him go and take the past with him. But one word: Celia, it was Heyton who wronged Susie, it was Heyton who forged the cheque; it was because Lady Gridborough thought me guilty of wrecking Susie's life, that she cut me that morning when she passed us at the gate by the wood. She knows the truth now; for Reggie has got Susie to reveal it——"

"Reggie!" murmured Celia.

"Yes; he fell in love with Susie the first time he saw her; he has been telling me all about it."

"And Susie yielded! I can scarcely believe it," said Celia, with a note of delight in her voice.

"She yielded," said Derrick, with a smile. "Reggie is a wonderful young man; and has a way with him, as the saying is. He must have laid hard siege to Susie's heart—perhaps he won her through the child. Anyway, he has done so; and, in doing so, has cleared my name."

"I am glad, glad!" Celia murmured, giving him a little hug. "Yes; he is a wonderful young man; I saw that the first time I met him." She told him of that meeting in the British Museum Reading Room. "Oh, I can quite understand, now I come to think of it; with all her seeming coldness, Susie has a tender heart. I've found that out——"

"By the surest way, the revelation of your own," said Derrick. He looked round the room, as if everything in it were precious to him. "And this is where you have worked," he said.

"Yes," she nodded, also looking round; "and I have been very happy here—or should have been," she went on softly, her eyes on his, "if I had been able to keep a certain man out of my thoughts. But he was there all the time; I could close my eyes and be back at 'The Jail,' looking over the rails at his upturned face and hearing his voice. What a wonderful thing love is!"

"And yet so easy to understand," he said with a smile, as he caught her to him again. There was silence for a while; then he said, "We'll be married soon, Celia?"

She blushed and her eyes fell for a moment; then she raised them to his and whispered,

"Yes."

"My father wants us to spend our honeymoon in South America; wants us to go to my mother. You will go; you will not mind the long journey?"

She was silent for a moment; then, almost solemnly, but with an infinite love in her eyes and her voice, she murmured,

"'Whither thou goest, I will go ... thy people shall be my people.'"

As Celia went to Miriam's room, can it be wondered that her step grew slower and, notwithstanding her own happiness, that her heart waxed heavy with sorrow for the wretched young wife? She found Miriam lying back in her chair, her hands clasped loosely in her lap, her face almost vacant of any expression; she seemed weighed down by the apathy resulting from utter hopelessness, from a knowledge of some evil from which she could not escape. She turned her eyes to Celia, and Celia's heart was made to ache by the look of dumb suffering in them, that look which the weak always wear when the world is going wrong with them.

Celia knelt down beside the chair, and took one of the nerveless hands.

"Are you better, getting stronger, Lady Heyton?" she asked, gently.

Miriam shook her head listlessly, and gazed out of the window; then she turned her eyes again slowly to Celia, and said, in a toneless voice,

"Is it true, what the servants are saying, that the Marquess's elder brother has been discovered, and that the Marquess, our Marquess, is no longer the master here? Marie came and told me something about it; but she was confused and rambled, and I could make very little of it."

"It is true," said Celia. "The elder brother is alive, is here in the house. He had been living in seclusion for years; the Marquess discovered a little while ago that his brother was alive; but the real Marquess did not wish to displace his younger brother. He was living in poverty, working for his living. I knew him at that time."

Miriam looked only slightly interested. "You knew him? That's strange."

"Yes; it is all very strange," Celia agreed. "It was Mr. Clendon—we still call him that; it is so difficult to remember that he is the Marquess—and I lived in the same building; we called it 'The Jail'; it was so prison-like." Her voice grew dreamy, as she spoke. "He played the violin in the orchestra of a theatre; I used to hear him practising; the music floated up to my room; how long ago it seems! It was he who persuaded Lord Sutcombe to engage me as librarian, here at the Hall."

"It sounds like a novel," commented Miriam, absently.

"Yes," assented Celia; "but it isn't any more wonderful and astounding than the occurrences one reads of in the newspapers almost every day."

"And there is no doubt? I mean, it is all settled; he is the Marquess?" said Miriam, still apathetically, as if no change, however revolutionary, could affect her.

"Yes, it is all settled, or will be very soon," said Celia. "The lawyers are coming down to-morrow; the evidence is quite complete." There was silence for a minute or two; then Celia, with her heart beating fast and heavily, said, in a still lower voice, "There is something else I must tell you, Lady Heyton. Mr. Clendon, the real Marquess, has—has a son."

She stopped to let this sink in, and Miriam's brows knit slightly; then she said, almost inaudibly,

"You mean that—that Heyton, my husband, is not the heir, is not Lord Heyton?"

"Yes," said Celia in a whisper. It seemed to her that Miriam drew a long breath of relief; but she made no comment and Celia went on, with still greater difficulty, "I must tell you who he is, Lady Heyton. I want to prepare you for a shock, and I don't know how to do it. You—you know him."

"I know him?" repeated Miriam, with dull surprise. "You mean I have met him. What is his name? Heyton, of course."

"That is his name, his title," said Celia; "but he has borne several names, has had a strange history. You knew him by the name of Derrick Dene."

Miriam did not start; but the pallor of her face increased, and her tear-swollen eyes fixed themselves with a kind of wan wonder and shame on Celia.

"Derrick Dene!" she echoed, faintly.

"Yes," murmured Celia; and, as briefly and gently as she could, she told Miriam of Derrick's recent experiences. Miriam's hands went up to her face; but they dropped into her lap again and she looked before her and said, in a stricken voice,

"I see you know everything. Yes, it was Heyton, my husband, who forged the cheque; I know it now: he is capable of—anything." She shuddered. "It was to save me from the shame and unhappiness of being a felon's wife that Derrick sacrificed himself. Yes; it was just what he would do." She glanced at Celia. "You know, of course, that I—I once cared for him; that we were to be married; I jilted him for a title, for money——"

"Don't say any more," pleaded Celia; but Miriam went on ruthlessly.

"I was a weak fool; I might have known that no good would come of such treachery—oh, yes, I knew in my heart; I knew that Derrick was worth a hundred of him. I sinned with my eyes open; no, I shut them; I was blinded by the thought, the prospect of being—what I am," she added bitterly; then, suddenly, she fixed her eyes on Celia's downcast face. "Derrick told you this? Then he knows you very well; you are a close friend of his; you are——?"

"Yes," murmured Celia. "I am going to be his wife—very soon. We met in 'The Jail.'" She did not, she could not tell how that meeting had been brought about; she wanted to spare Miriam all she could; but, notwithstanding her resolution, the next words slipped out unconsciously. "He was accused of the robbery of the jewels——" She bit her lip; but it was too late for remorse.

Miriam dropped back in the chair, her eyes closed and her lips became livid.

"He did not do it!" she gasped.

"No, no!" said Celia, quickly; "he has been proved innocent."

There was silence for a moment; while Miriam evidently made an effort to control her agitation.

"Who—who——? Have they found out who did it?"

"No," broke in Celia, swiftly and tremulously. "No one has been discovered. Mr. Jacobs, the detective, said that no one will be discovered. The jewels have been found."

"I know," murmured Miriam.

"There will be no more trouble," whispered Celia, soothingly.

Again there was a pause, then Miriam asked brokenly,

"Heyton—my husband?"

"He has gone abroad," said Celia, hanging her head; "he will be away some time."

Miriam's lips moved; she whispered, at last,

"I understand!—I must leave here—at once. I will go back to my people or hide myself somewhere in London."

"Oh, go back to your people," said Celia. "I—I want to tell you how sorry the Marquess, all of us, are for you, how deeply we sympathise with your loss; it weighs upon us all."

"It need not do," said Miriam, with a touch of bitterness. "I have always been a stranger and an alien here. Strangely enough, Celia, I have felt as if I—I have been walking on quicksand that might swallow me up at any moment. Oh, I have been as unhappy as I deserve. All the time, I have felt a sense of—of—oh, I can't explain; but it seemed to me as if my treachery to Derrick would come back on me. And it has! If you knew"—she shuddered—"but I can't tell you. I shall never open my lips—I want to go at once. Yes; I am quite strong enough. I want to go away from here—from you all. I want to be at rest, somewhere where I can try to forget. What a downfall! What a downfall!"

Celia, with the tears in her eyes, put her arm round the trembling form.

"Dear Lady Heyton," she murmured, "you must not give way. It may not be all as black as you think. And—and Derrick wishes me to tell you that your future—oh, how am I to put it!—that you will be well cared for; that you will have no need for anxiety about the future."

"Derrick!" breathed Miriam, ashamedly. "Yes, it is what he would do. It is like him to think of me, even in the moment of his own happiness. Oh, God, how ashamed I am!"

"You will not refuse—to let them help you, to let them look after you?" pleaded Celia.

"No," replied Miriam, with a bitter laugh. "I'll take their charity thankfully enough. It's part of my punishment, I suppose. But I want to go at once. You seem to pity me——"

"Oh, Lady Heyton!"

"Then help me to get away. Send a telegram to my people to say that I am coming; tell Marie to pack——"

"Yes," said Celia, feeling that Miriam had decided on the best course. "I will see to everything. Will you lie down and rest, while I get everything ready?"

"Rest!" echoed Miriam, bitterly. "There cannot be a moment's rest for me while I am in this house. I have lain awake listening, listening——" She shuddered. "Go now. I'd try to thank you, if I could. You've been kind to me—Derrick's wife!" She pushed Celia from her and rose unsteadily. "Oh, go; I'm grateful, but the sight of you reminds me——"

With the tears running down her cheeks, Celia left her, to find Marie and send off the telegram.