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"Did I? Yes, I remember." Miss Plinlimmon's voice, too, was tremulous. She hesitated, and her eyes in the dim light seemed to seek mine. I assured her that I was recovering fast, here in the fresh air, and that it would be a kindness, indeed, to leave me alone. She bent quickly and kissed me. I wondered why, as she stepped past the Captain and he followed her down the verandah steps.
Since passing out of Miss Plinlimmon's tutelage, I had sadly neglected the habit: but I knelt down obediently and in silence. She stepped close behind me. "But you're not speaking," she murmured. "Father always says his aloud, and so do I. You mustn't pretend, if you don't really know any. I can teach you." She knelt down beside me, and began to say the Lord's Prayer softly.
Mildmay entered the room leaning on Lord Plinlimmon's arm, and when he made his way up among the armchairs upon the rug before the fire, the others clustered around him with cheering looks and kindly questions.
They fell in, one on each side of him, as he led the way to the waterfall, and for a climax Miss Belcher shook out a parasol which she had been carrying under her arm and spread it above her beaver hat! At the waterfall our host surpassed himself. He would like Miss Plinlimmon's opinion on the rock-drawing of Salvator Rosa, a painter whom he gently depreciated.
It is not only children who, having once tasted bliss, suppose fondly that one has only to prepare a time and place for it again and it can be repeated. But he must be a queer child who starts with expecting any less. Certainly no doubts assailed me when the anniversary came round and I made my way to Mr. Tucker's Bun Shop; nor did Miss Plinlimmon's greeting lack anything of tenderness.
"She didn't leave it," he answered. "It left her. The Hospital's scat." "Eh?" "Bust sold up come to an end. Scougall's retired on the donations. He feathered his nest. And Miss Plinlimmon's gone down into Cornwall to live with a Major Brooks a kind of relation of hers, so far as I can make out. They tell me she've come into money." I had a question on my lips, but Mr. Jope interrupted.
She ran away with him. And the old man would never speak to her again, nor see her, but cut her out of his will." "I see. And she this daughter of Archibald Leicester was Archibald's Plinlimmon's mother. Is she living?" "Mrs. Plinlimmon died some years ago," I put in. "Hey? What do you know about all this?" asked Mr. Rogers. "A little, sir," I answered.
"Sir Charles, you see, had vowed never to leave it to young Plinlimmon: but it seems he's persuaded himself that the oath doesn't apply to young Plinlimmon's children, should he marry and have children. To whom else should it go? 'Lawful heirs of his body': and if the inheritance is made void by bastardy, you see, he turns up as the legitimate heir and collars the best of the property."
What was Letcher's game?" "His right name is Leicester, sir. He is Mr. Plinlimmon's cousin or second cousin, rather though Mr. Plinlimmon don't know it." Mr. Whitmore, with his gloss rubbed off, was fast returning to his native style even in speech. You could as little mistake him now for a gentleman as for a priest. "And how does that bear on your pretty plot?"
Yet it needed no examination to tell me that the eyeglasses were Captain Branscome's. I recognized the delicate cable pattern of their gold rims, glinting in the sunlight. I recognized the ring and the frayed scrap of black ribbon attached to it. I remembered the guinea with which Captain Branscome had paid my fare on the coach. I remembered Miss Plinlimmon's account of the stolen cashbox.
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