But when Cyril came next morning, shortly after dawn, with Mr. and Mrs. Scratchell, and Bella’s eldest brother and sister, they were met on the threshold of the house by Mr. Piper, who told them all was over. She had died very peacefully, in the chilly hour just before daybreak, with her hand clasped in his. ‘Poor little woman!’ sighed the tender-hearted Piper. ‘She spoke to me so sweetly just at the last.’ And Mr. Piper forgave even the treachery of an intrigue carried on before his face. Had his wife lived, pardon would have seemed to him almost impossible; but anger died in his heart as he stood beside the fair marble figure, and looked at the flower-like lips that could never speak falsehood any more. He made Captain Standish’s worthless letters and valuable gifts into a parcel, and had it delivered at that gentleman’s quarters. The servant who carried it heard incidentally that the captain had had a bad fall from his horse on the Great Yafford road on the evening after Mrs. Piper’s fatal accident, and had gone home to be nursed. This report caused Mr. Piper to smile, for the first time since his discovery of his wife’s falsehood. ‘I believe I’ve put a mark upon him that he won’t get rid of very quickly, even with her ladyship’s sick nursing,’ he said to himself. This was true. The broken head which the captain had got that evening in the portico left a scar that was not likely to be cured, let him live as long as he might. But for once in his life Captain Standish felt himself constrained to take his punishment quietly. He had no redress against the man whose wife’s loyalty he had perverted, and whom his folly had widowed. CHAPTER XXI. ‘BUT PROVE ME WHAT IT IS I WOULD NOT DO.’ FROM the house of death Cyril went straight to the Vicarage, to tell his Vicar all that had happened, and to entreat for immediate freedom. He could not rest a day until he had given Christian Harefield’s letter into Beatrix’s hands. Clement Dulcimer was all indulgence, his wife all sympathy. ‘We shall miss you sorely, as we missed you before,’ said the Vicar, ‘but we shall manage to get on somehow, as we managed before, and you will come back to us, will you not, when you have accomplished your mission?’ ‘Without fail I shall return, though it will not be to remain long with you, dear friend. Now that my health is restored I begin to long for a wider field.’ Then go as soon as you like, and God be with you,’ said the Vicar, heartily. ‘But I’m afraid you will have some trouble to find the runaway heiress.’ ‘I will find her,’ said Cyril, ‘if I have to wander over all the earth in search of her.’ ‘And you will marry her, and she will be Lady Culverhouse after all, for of course if you married you would have to take up your title,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘It may be weak-minded on my part, but I should like Beatrix to have the title. I always used to think of her as Lady Culverhouse. Poor Kenrick!’