"My dear Miss Baynard, not a word more is needed. I will at once write and give you a note, addressed to Captain Jeffs, the governor of the jail, authorizing him to permit you to have a private interview with the prisoner Dare. What a pity, what a damnable pity it is (begging your pardon) that a young fellow with good family and with the brilliant prospects which, I am given to understand, were once his, should have brought his kettle of fish to such a market as he seems to have done! But, as we make our bed, so must we lie on it. And now---- But, dear me! dear me! here am I running on without ever thinking to ask you what you will take in the way of refreshment. That's one of the fruits of being an old bachelor, and of having no womenfolk to keep me up to the mark and teach me not to forget the minor courtesies of life." In the result, Nell agreed to accept a glass of the baronet's "particular old Madeira" and a biscuit. Not to have done as much as that would have been to infringe the unwritten laws of north-country hospitality. Then said Sir James: "I had Lawyer Piljoy here t'other day. His purpose in coming was to tell me all about the lost child and its recovery, and a most amazing story it is; and, further, to consult with me as to what steps, if any, it is advisable to take in the affair. The first thing I did was to send for Staniforth, who was to have been your uncle's other trustee, and then we three laid our heads together. I need not bother you with reciting any of our arguments pro and con, but in the end we agreed that it would not, for various reasons, be advisable that any further proceedings should be taken in the matter. The child has been restored, which is the main thing to be borne in mind, and we felt pretty sure that no attempt would be made to abduct him a second time." "You say, Sir James, that the child has been restored, which is quite true, but do you know whom we have to thank for it?" "Haven't the remotest notion. I asked Piljoy how it came about, but he couldn't tell me. He said that if anybody knew, you did, but that beyond telling him it was the Honorable Mrs. B. who had abducted the youngster (what a she-cat that woman must be!) you had favored him with no particulars." "It is to Mr. Geoffrey Dare, now a prisoner in Lanchester jail, that the child's recovery is due. It had been arranged that he--the boy--should be secretly transported to America, where we should never have heard of him more, when Mr. Dare, having discovered what was afoot, in the guise of a highwayman stopped the carriage in which he was being carried off, and rescued him from the wretches to whose charge he had been committed."