COLONEL SUTHERLAND and his young friend, who had by this time something to communicate which the discreet old soldier was perhaps not unprepared to hear, left Edinburgh that evening by the earliest train they could get which stopped anywhere near Armitage Park. The Colonel was most seriously in earnest, entirely occupied with the new position of affairs; while Roger, quickened by the change in his own personal circumstances, speculated a little on this new possibility of improving his fortune, and was exceedingly well content to dream of endowing Susan with something more than the old Grange, the empty and miserable condition of which came dolefully on his memory, now that he and his home were likely to have a lawful mistress. As they travelled, the Colonel exhausted himself in inquiries and suggestions as to what this hidden business could be, touching on every mode known to his innocence, by which an attorney could defraud a client, but of course never approaching within a thousand miles of the one method in which this attorney had succeeded in defrauding his; while Roger listened in a happy mist, half hearing—dwelling in his own mind on the plea he had already won, in the most arbitrary court in existence, and feeling the other plea important in consequence; but light, light and trivial, after all, a feather to his happiness. Thus they went on, very good companions, to Armitage, where Sir John received them with open arms; and in spite of all Colonel Sutherland’s resistance, kept them four-and-twenty hours without doing anything. This delay postponed the execution of their business for a longer space than twenty-four hours, and produced other results not less important; for it left Horace time, in his restless wretchedness, to set out once more to Harliflax.

If Horace Scarsdale had encountered his uncle there, the chances are that he would have found very little difficulty in betraying his “friend” and principal. The young man had miscalculated the magnitude of those affairs in which he had embroiled himself. He knew well enough that there was nothing soft or sentimental, and not very much of human impressionable stuff in his own nature, but he did not know that a mind inaccessible to compassion or sympathy may still be desperately alive to all the selfish horrors of remorse and guilt, and that not even the promised income of a thousand a-year which he had forced from Mr. Pouncet’s fears and hopes, or the expectation which he entertained of being able to persuade Amelia Stenhouse into an immediate marriage, could make him insensible to that dread horror of suspense in which he lived. There were no letters, no newspaper paragraphs, or country intimation of a sudden death—darkness and silence immovable had dropped like a veil over all that district which enclosed Marchmain. Every day and every night Horace could see that wild stretch of moorland brooding under its dismal sky; and there was scarcely a moment, sleeping or waking, in which his guilty imagination ceased to dwell in his father’s lonely house. Had he met Colonel Sutherland in this miserable crisis of his affairs, the chances are that Horace would gladly have given a sop to his fevered conscience by telling all he knew of Mr. Pouncet’s fraud. As it was, possessed with a restlessness which he could not subdue, he returned to Harliflax, the only other place in the world where he could find even a temporary interest—resisting, with all the strength he still could muster, the dread curiosity which drew him to Marchmain.

Mr. Pouncet accordingly was alone when Sir John Armitage, the Colonel, and Roger made an unexpected descent upon him. There was nothing to frighten a good dissembler in the entire three of them, honest sincere souls each in their way, who came here with suspicion, it is true, yet had a natural habit of believing what was said to them. Mr. Pouncet played his part very well. Knowing that his letter itself was out of their power, and could not be brought against him, he made his defence lightly. A lady’s mistake, a thing most easily explained:—he had indeed written to his friend Stenhouse about some private matters of business, and his wife had made a woman’s blunder about it, knowing nothing of business, and supposing, of course, that there could be no Musgrave in the world but her son. Of course Sir John might be perfectly assured that he should take every possible step to ascertain anything affecting Mr. Musgrave’s interests—indeed, was not the late Mr. Musgrave his client? And now especially, when his own honour was involved, his exertions should be redoubled; he had already sent his confidential clerk—

Here Colonel Sutherland interrupted the fluent speaker: “Did the confidential clerk, whom you sent to make inquiries, happen to be my nephew, Horace Scarsdale?” asked the old soldier.

“Your nephew!” Mr. Pouncet stood dismayed. “The young man’s name was certainly Scarsdale,” he said, after a little puzzled pause.

“Then I have no doubt that accounts for the failure of the investigation,” said the Colonel, who had been bending his deaf ear to the wily attorney with an earnest attention, strangely out of keeping with the insincere and untrustworthy voice to which he listened. “Much grief as it gives me to say so, Armitage, I am afraid Horace would hinder rather than help. I don’t know how he has mixed himself up with such an affair,” said Uncle Edward, musing; “but he certainly has to do with it somehow. He’s—alas! very clever, this nephew of mine; unhappily brought up, poor fellow! fond of intrigue, I fear, one kind or another. Mr. Pouncet, I’d recommend you to employ another man.”

“With the greatest of pleasure,” said Mr. Pouncet, chuckling to himself; “of course, I yield any little knowledge I may have of young Scarsdale to the superior information of a relative—ha, ha! Your candid judgment does you credit, I am sure, Colonel. Mr. Scarsdale is not here to-day, I am sorry to say; very unsettled lately he has appeared to me. Ah, come in, Edwards! I’ve some instructions to give you before these gentlemen. We will lose no time, Sir John, and you shall hear my directions with your own ears.”

“That’ll do, Pouncet” said Sir John, with a slight air of disgust. “My own opinion is, you’re a deal too easy in your talk to mean anything. Hope you don’t know any more about it than you choose to tell us, which appears to me, begging your pardon, a long way more likely than not; for who’s to cheat a man if it isn’t his own attorney? Send your clerk if you like, I’ll have nothing to do with it. If one wants a thing well done, one must do it oneself. Come along, Sutherland; no, I’m not satisfied, and I don’t pretend to be.”

Saying which, in spite of Mr. Pouncet’s strenuous endeavours to explain, and to set himself right with his wealthy client, Sir John fought his way out, dragging along with him his young and his old friend. The Colonel looked very grave and rather sad, wondering what “motive” Horace could have for helping to injure Roger. Meanwhile, that young hero himself took, it is to be confessed, more amusement than anything else from the entire matter. His hopes were so slight that they did not at all excite him, whereas he could not but perceive that Sir John’s little burst of ill-humour, and Mr. Pouncet’s discomfiture thereat, was tolerably good fun. They went to the inn to have lunch, all three displaying their various humours—of which Sir John’s was the most demonstrative and plain-spoken.

“I’ll tell you what,” said the baronet; “Pouncet’s a deal too well up in his defence. I never like a man who knows just exactly what to say for himself when he’s accused of a sudden—ten chances to one, look you, Roger, that he’s guilty; for if he’s guilty, of course he knew every word you were going to say—whereas if he’s innocent, he’s taken by surprise and shows it. That’s my opinion; and, by Jove, if the rascal took in Musgrave, I’ll bet you something he’s taken in me as well. But you may rely upon it I’ll have the whole affair looked into now.”

“Eh?” said Colonel Sutherland, stooping over the chair into which Sir John had thrown himself, with his hand curved over his ear; “have the whole affair looked into now? Well, Armitage, if I have less concern in it one way than you, I have more another. There’s still a week before my Ned comes home, I’ll see what I can do with my own eyes and spectacles. I’m an old campaigner: twenty miles a day over a pleasant country is no extraordinary work for an old soldier like me.”

“And I, Colonel—what am I to say to you for such painstaking kindness?” said Roger, forgetting his amusement in hearty gratitude and admiration.

“My dear boy, it’s a great deal for your sake, but something for the sake of my sister’s son,” said the Colonel, with a smile and a sigh—“and only till my boy’s holidays begin; but as for you, go on to whatever is the name of the place and see your mother, and the pretty sisters and the little boy, and if there’s anything to be heard of Horace there, send me word; and don’t forget if you do meet with him that he is, in spite of everything—”

“Susan’s brother!—there is not a chance that I shall forget,” said Roger, brightly.

Meanwhile Sir John, catching the sound of one word, which tickled the ear of his possessing demon, muttered to himself, “Pretty sisters!” Then added aloud, “Going to see your mother, Roger? Possibly she’s got something further to tell us—I’ll go too.”