"Furthermore, you have been for some time aware--for how long I do not know--that the aforesaid Mr. Nevill and Miss Baynard, of Stanbrook, were and are one and the same person. And how I happen to know this I will now make clear to you. For a certain reason--which at the time seemed to him all-powerful, but which after-circumstances turned to foolishness--the _soi-disant_ Frank Nevill chose, for one night, to enact the part of an amateur highwayman, and wound up his adventure by accepting the hospitality of Rockmount. On quitting here next morning, by some oversight he left his mask behind him. Time passed on, and when three or four months had gone by the missing mask was forwarded through the post to Miss Baynard, but without any word of explanation, or any clue to the sender of it. And there the matter rested till this afternoon, when Miss Baynard received a note from Mr. Ellerslie informing her that he had certain news to communicate. To Miss B. the writing seemed not wholly strange, and on comparing it with the address on the sheet of paper, which she had kept, in which the mask had been enclosed, she could not doubt that they had both emanated from one pen. But doubtless much of this is old news to you, Mr. Ellerslie. To Mr. Dare my double identity has for some time been no secret, and he----" Mr. Ellerslie held up his hand. "Pardon me. Not even to me would my nephew speak of matters which involved a point of honor between himself and another. That which you have just told me has now become a matter of little or no moment, and such being the case, there can be no harm in my confessing that the identity of Miss Baynard with Mr. Frank Nevill was suspected by me almost from the first. Why was the same mare ridden by both, as one of my men, who chanced on Miss Baynard next day when on her way back to Stanbrook, averred to be the fact? But it was my housekeeper who was the first to raise a doubt in my mind with regard to the sex of 'Mr. Frank Nevill.' That young blade had not been ten minutes under my roof before she came to me and said, 'You may take my word for it, sir, that yon young gentleman in the oak parlor is no more a gentleman than I am, and would be far more at home in petticoats than in what he's wearing now.' Evidently Mrs. Dobson knew what she was talking about. She is a woman of penetration, and I have a great respect for her." CHAPTER XXIV. A PARTING AND A LETTER.