Colin takes steps to extricate Fanny from her difficulties, but is interrupted by a fearful occurrence which threatens to make Doctor Rowel triumphant.

HAVING in some degree recovered from the terror inspired by Skinwell's denunciation, Fanny occupied herself in calling together all the fragments of information of which she had thus strangely been put in possession, and in endeavouring so to fit the broken pieces together as to make something like an intelligible whole. In this attempt she necessarily failed. The whole matter was a maze, a mystery,—a jargon of seeming truth and certain falsehood,—of things partly consistent and partly contradictory. In this state of uncertainty she determined to consult Colin upon the steps most advisable to be taken; for though he was now only about eighteen in actual years, yet his early mental developement and his plain manly honesty entitled him to be considered upon an equality with many who were several years his seniors. A note was accordingly despatched by the first convenient carriage to Whinmoor, requesting Colin to pay a visit to Bramleigh at the earliest possible opportunity.

Such an opportunity very fortunately occurred within the ensuing week, and on a day which, by a lucky coincidence, Mr. Skinwell himself had chosen for a drive, on business, to the city of York. Ample opportunity was thus afforded the young people to discuss the subject of their meeting.

Troubled as Fanny had been in her own mind to devise what course to pursue under the seemingly difficult circumstances in which she was placed, she had no sooner related them to Colin, than that youth declared the steps proper to be taken were as clearly chalked out as the track of a plough along the fields.

“Leave it to me, and I will find it all out very soon. In the first place, I shall ask my mother whether she ever knew, anything of your father; for it is plain that she must know something of the place you came from. If that does not answer, I should then ask Mr. Skinwell and Dr. Rowel. The truth is all that would be required of them, and surely people cannot very well refuse to tell the truth in such a case as this. But let us try my mother first. Shall I go down to her now?”

To this proposition Fanny assented; and, while she remained behind in a state of anxious hope and expectation, Colin went onwards to Mrs. Clink's, for the purpose of obtaining the required information.

A dreary pause of an hour or more, which to Fanny's imagination appeared half a day, followed Colin's departure. “Now,” thought she, after a little interval of time, “he has arrived there; now he is talking about it to his mother; and now, perhaps, she is telling him what she would never tell me, though I often asked her so particularly about it.” And then, again, as time wore away, and one five minutes after another were scored on the side of that great eternity the Past, she thought he must be coming back; she mistook the footsteps of every passer-by for his, and every distant external sound as the wished-for herald of his approach. At length, as she began to grow heart-sick with anxiety, he came.

“Has she told you anything?” asked Fanny the moment she saw him.

“Not much,” he replied, “and that of no great consequence.”

“Ay, I feared it would be so! Then what is it, Colin?”

“She knows nothing whatever of your father, that is certain. She never did know him, nor your mother either.”

Fanny sighed, and then asked timidly,

“Did she say anything about me, then?”

“Why, yes,—she did; though it is not of very pleasant hearing; and besides, it is not of any consequence, particularly——”

“But do tell me,—you must tell me!” exclaimed Fanny. “I do not care what it is; it cannot hurt me now.”

“Well, then,” returned Colin, “the truth is this—”

Fanny sat down in a chair; and as she gazed intently on Colin's features while he spoke, her bosom heaved and fell as though some sentence of punishment was being passed upon her.

“My mother,” continued the youth, “has told me that she first had you when you were three or four years old, as near as she could guess. At that time she lived in a little yard near Park-lane in Leeds, with her sister, who died shortly afterwards. One dark night in the autumn, and almost about bed-time, she and her sister heard a stirring and talking amongst the neighbours in the yard, and the crying of a little child. They went out to see what was the matter, and found some women with candles in their hands round a little girl that was lost;—this child was you, Fanny. Though, how you had been lost, or how you came there, they could not tell. My mother says she asked you if you knew who brought you there, and you said something that they thought meant 'uncle brought me;' but they could not be certain about it; they made out, however, that your name was Fanny Woodruff, as you had been taught to speak that much plainer than anything else. As all the poor people in the yard had families of their own, except my mother and her sister, they took you in for that night; or, as they thought, until somebody should own you. Next morning the circumstance was made known in all the ways they could think of or afford to pay for; but day after day passed on, and week after week, and they were none the forwarder for their trouble, until at last it died away, and became certain, as proved to be the case, that she would have to keep you always. Some people, Fanny, wanted to persuade her to take you to the workhouse,”—Fanny burst into tears,—“but my mother had got used to you by that time, and would not do it. Besides, her sister died, and she wished her on her death-bed to keep you; 'for, perhaps, Anne,' said she to my mother, 'you may find it all out in the end.' My mother,” added Colin, “says she believes that dying people very often speak like prophets. She resolved, therefore, to keep you from that time to this.”

“And yet,” added Fanny in a mingled feeling of jest and earnest, “there seems to be small chance of the prophecy coming true.” Before Colin could reply, a noise without was heard of the tread of numerous feet, mingled with the sound of carriage wheels as they slowly advanced down the road, cracking and crushing the dry gravel. Then came a hurried rap at the door. Fanny flew to it, but it was already opened. A little crowd had gathered outside, and every face looked solemn and anxious. Some peeped down the passage, and others at the contents of a gig which had stopped before the house. She looked out. The shafts were snapped asunder; the harness broken; the horse, led by a farming man, was covered with foam and dust and mud. He bled at the mouth, and looked fierce and angry, though subdued. In the gig itself lay the body of her master the lawyer, insensible, and supported on the knee of a second farming man. Fanny ran into the house again, terrified at the sight, and summoned Colin, the lawyer's clerk, and an under servant girl, to his assistance. Shortly afterwards the body was carefully lifted out and carried up stairs. Before this, a man had been despatched to obtain the speedy assistance of the proprietor of the lunatic asylum at Nabbfield.

What an opportunity for Dr. Rowel was presented here to stifle Fanny's evidence for ever!