Shall I ever forget the day which followed?--the greatest in all my life! I'll have to be very old first, and far gone in my dotage. When I woke up in the morning I couldn't think where I was. I hadn't slept out of Little Olive Street, since James took me there after we were married, I don't think half-a-dozen times. And never in such a room as I was in then; nor yet in one anywhere like it.

When it all came back to me somehow I felt happier than I'd done for I don't know how long. I'd had a good night's sleep; not a worry on my mind. I could have sung as I lay in bed; yes, and laughed. There were the children; Jimmy on one side, and Pollie on the other. They'd wanted to make up a separate bed for them, but I wouldn't hear of it; and when that grand lady, who it seemed was the housekeeper, put on airs, as if they were her children, I let her see--and I felt sure that, before very long, their father'd be beside me too.

I wasn't a bit afraid. With the night even the last shadow of a doubt had gone. Whatever or whoever was in that mausoleum place they talked about, and which we should soon be going to see, I knew it wasn't James there. There might be trouble in it for some one, but I was sure it wasn't for me.

We had breakfast with the family--oh dear! it was a meal. There was the young gentleman and Miss Desmond and the children and me. I was on pins and needles all the time lest the children should do something they didn't ought. They weren't used to eating in company; and everything was that grand I was in a muddle enough myself without having to think of them. The servants--the serving-men that is--they were the worst. The children couldn't eat their breakfast for staring at them. They asked all sorts of questions--about their white stockings, and their white hair and I don't know what. The young gentleman seemed to think it was a joke. But Miss Desmond could see I wasn't comfortable; so she sent the men out of the room, and then we had a little peace.

It was a lovely morning when we started to drive to the station, Miss Desmond, the young gentleman, and me; in a beautiful carriage, with such a pair of horses! I'd have liked to have stroked them, only I didn't dare. I hadn't touched a horse since I was at home at the farm. There was a special whole carriage engaged for us in the train; and waiting for us on the platform was Sir Gregory Hancock, and Dr. Clinton, and, of course, Mr. FitzHoward. He was the most important person of us all. I don't know if he was supposed to be managing everything, but he might just as well have been. He was dressed in black from head to foot, with a band of crape right up to the top of his hat, and another round his arm. He did make me so angry. Just as though any one was dead who had to do with him--or me either. As if I didn't know my James was alive. I was dressed as I always am. When he saw it he looked at me as if I'd done something improper. About some things he has no sense.

Just as the train was going to start up came Mr. Howarth, and, with him, Lady Violet. I don't believe either of them was expected. Lady Violet was pretty stiff. She just gave Miss Desmond an icy kiss on the cheek, the young gentleman the tips of her fingers, and towards me she gave a little movement with her head, as if she wished me to understand that she saw me, and that was all she intended to do. Mr. Howarth seemed quite ill. He even walked like a sick man; coming along the platform with uncertain steps, as if he found it difficult to lift his feet.

We were a strange company, as the train bore us into the country out of the town. Mr. Howarth's face got on my nerves. That something was badly wrong with him one couldn't help seeing. I couldn't help looking his way every now and again, and every time I did my spirits sank a little lower. Lady Violet sat as straight as a broom handle; with pale face, shut lips, and gleaming eyes. Scarcely a word would she speak to any one. The way she treated the young gentleman--considering they were sweethearts, as Miss Desmond had told me--was queer. These two had a depressing effect on all of us. And when you put to that the fact that Mr. FitzHoward had taken it into his head all of a sudden to behave as if he were a mute at a funeral, and would do nothing except look straight along the tip of his nose, it will be seen that we weren't exactly lively. If it hadn't been for the two doctors I doubt if a dozen words would have been said. Somehow I felt that the whole affair amused Dr. Clinton; and he and Sir Gregory kept talking together in whispers nearly the whole of the way.

There were carriages to meet us at the station where we stopped--though I had begun to think that we never should get there; and presently we were bowling along through country lanes. After we had gone some way, perhaps three or four miles, we turned through some open gates into an avenue of trees. One thing I noticed, that they were all elms and silver beeches; and that they were planted in turns, so that when there was an elm on one side there was a beech upon the other.

It was a great old house we came to. We passed under an arch into a courtyard, where there was a fountain in the middle. If all this indeed belonged to my James I couldn't help wondering more and more why he gave it all up; and, above all, how he ever came to marry the likes of me. There was a huge fire blazing in the hall, which cheered it up a bit. It wanted brightening, for it was so large, and the black oak walls made it seem more than a little grim and sombre.

'We'll first have some lunch,' explained the young gentleman to us, as we stood all together in the hall; 'and then afterwards we'll drive over to the mausoleum.'

It wasn't a festive luncheon. Only the doctors and Mr. FitzHoward ate anything. I'm sure the rest of us would have been just as well without it; particularly Mr. Howarth, for he did nothing else but drink. In spite of myself I kept getting more and more into the dumps. The air of the place and the air of the people, the feeling, too, that something unpleasant was at hand, began to fill me with a sense of worry. Mr. Howarth's face and manner, and the way he drank, made it worse. He must have had two or three bottles of wine to himself; if not more, tumbler after tumbler. What wine it was I couldn't say. The fact that nobody else drank anything at all made the fact of his drinking so much all the more conspicuous. We all sat peering at him out of the corners of our eyes, wondering what was going to happen.

By the time lunch was over, and we were getting ready to start, I was all of a fidget. I was still persuaded that there was no bad news in store for me, but I was equally sure that there was for some one. What Mr. Howarth feared I couldn't think. I remembered once reading an account of a man who was hanged; how, as he approached the gallows, his face seemed to get more and more set, and he moved more and more like a rickety machine. It all came back to me as I looked at Mr. Howarth. I wished it wouldn't. In particular I did wish that he'd manage to put himself somewhere where I couldn't see him. The fear that was on him began to pass to me. Miss Desmond's face was like a sheet for whiteness. When she came close to me I saw that she was shivering, and that there were deep lines about the corners of her lips and eyes.

As a servant came to tell us all was ready, the young gentleman, noticing how strange she looked, came towards us with an anxious face. He himself didn't look as well as he might have done. But he was resolute and stern rather than white with the terror of what was to come; as she was.

'Edith, I think that you had better stay behind; and you, too.'

This was to me. But I would have no truck with any such suggestion. I had no fear of what I was going to see; I knew it wouldn't be my James. It was because I had no fear that I was resolved to see. Their eyes I wouldn't trust; not Mr. FitzHoward's, nor Dr. Clinton's, nor any one's, except my own. If James was dead, and in that coffin, of which I'd heard so much, then for me there was an end of everything. But I knew he wasn't, and, let them tell what tales they might, I'd require the evidence of my own eyes before I believed he was. It was right and proper that Miss Desmond should stay behind, for that she was in a piteous plight was plain; and this was a business in which her concern was as nothing compared to mine, but with me it was a different tale.

'I shall go. But you--' I turned to her; 'I think that you had better stay.'

'I can't! I can't!' she said. Then she dropped her voice. 'I daren't!'

The young gentleman's face grew darker.

'I shall have to forbid you. You are not well; there is no reason why you should come; rather there is why you shouldn't; and you must excuse my saying, Edith, that we want no scenes.'

'Don't--don't forbid me.' She put her hand on his arm. 'I promise you shall have no scene.'

She went; she and I alone together in a carriage. It turned out that the mausoleum wasn't very far away; half a mile, perhaps, or three-quarters; but she never would have walked it. All the way she sat holding my hand, sometimes squeezing it so tight that she hurt. And such a look upon her face! Just before we stopped she spoke; I expect because she couldn't keep still any longer.

'What do you think he's afraid of?'

The question took me aback; because I had been wondering myself, and the more I wondered the less I could think.

'I don't know. But if I were you I wouldn't trouble, whatever it is.'

'You wouldn't trouble? And he's my man?'

I knew she was hinting at what I'd said about James. When she spoke like that I'd nothing else to say.

I never saw anything like that mausoleum. It was like a little church built of granite. We went through a door into a sort of tiny room. The two doctors met us. Sir Gregory spoke.

'Everything is ready. Now, my dear ladies, this young lady'--meaning me--'is the only one of you for whose presence there is the slightest necessity. Lady Violet, and you, Miss Desmond, if you take my urgent advice, will remain here till she returns.'

He spoke in a way which showed that he meant that his advice should be attended to; I dare say the young gentleman had been saying a word or two upon the road. Anyhow they did as he wished. They stayed behind, and I went with him and Dr. Clinton into a kind of room which was beyond. It was a dome-shaped place. The walls and floor were of bare granite. The only light came through some small painted windows which were high above the ground. There were narrow holes in the walls here and there to let the air come through. All round the place were shelves; on some of the shelves were coffins. One of them, which had been taken, I expect, from where it had stood upon a shelf, was raised above the ground on a black pall in the centre of the floor. Four men, who looked like mechanics, stood one at either corner, each with a screw-driver in his hand.

'This is my brother's coffin' said the young gentleman. 'As I have already informed you, I thought it better that it should not be touched except in our presence. I need not remark that it has not been opened since it came.'

'How do we know? How do we know?'

This was Mr. Howarth.

'You do know,' was all the young gentleman replied. He nodded to the four men. They began to remove the screws.

The young gentleman had made me take his arm. I was glad of it before they'd got those screws all out. I don't know how many there were, but I thought they never would come to the end of them. No one spoke a word. I don't believe I ever breathed. I know I had to lean upon the young gentleman's arm to help me to stand. When they made ready to remove the lid I gave a start.

'Not yet,' he whispered. 'There's a shell within.'

I'd forgotten that the gentry are buried in two coffins, and sometimes three. When my turn comes I know that one will be enough. I shouldn't like to be fastened up in all that quantity of wood. Sure enough, when the lid was taken off, there was another one beneath. There was another weary lot of screws, though I don't think quite so many as before. Then one of the men said,

'That's the last.'

We all drew closer. The young gentleman spoke, his voice seeming strange.

'Remove the lid.'

The four men lifted it. Then all was still. I think that each was reluctant to be the first to see what might be seen. Mr. Howarth, indeed, drew back. I felt that the arm on which I leaned was trembling. That made me tremble too. The two doctors advanced together. They leaned over the open coffin. Sir Gregory spoke first.

'That is the Marquis of Twickenham.'

Then Dr. Clinton:

'Then the Marquis of Twickenham and Mr. Montagu Babbacombe were one; for that certainly is Mr. Babbacombe.'

When he said that, if it had not been for the young gentleman I believe I should have fallen. I could neither move nor speak. Mr. FitzHoward joined them.

'That's Babbacombe right enough; but he looks as if he were alive.'

'Alive? Alive?' gasped Mr. Howarth. 'Pray God--that he is alive.'

'He certainly is in a wonderful state of preservation,' murmured Dr. Gregory. 'Altogether beyond anything I expected to find.'

My strength returning, I tried to go forward. But the young gentleman stopped me.

'Be careful! Haven't you heard enough?'

'I want to see! I want to see!'

I went and saw.

I saw something lying in a coffin; something so like my James that it wasn't strange they should think that it was he. But I was his wife; and I saw with different eyes; so that I knew better in an instant.

'That's not my James! That's not my James! Why--I don't believe--that--it's a man at all.'

Dr. Clinton, putting out his hand, touched the face which lay there staring up at us.

'She's right. It's some sort of a dummy.'

There was a curious cry, like none I'd heard before, and the sound of a heavy body falling. It was Mr. Howarth tumbling to the ground. Miss Desmond, hastening in, knelt on the floor at his side.

BOOK III.--THE GENTLEMAN WITH NINE LIVES

THE ADVENTURES OF A GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF
FORTUNE, AS TOLD BY HIMSELF