"You have something to say to me?" said the baronet, making tender, as it were, of himself. The offer was, obligingly, accepted, and the sheriffs, by his lieutenants, made prisoner of Sir Richard Arden, who strode down the stairs between them, and entered the seedy coach, and sitting as far back as he could, drove rapidly toward the City. Stunned and confused, there was but one image vividly present to his recollection, and that was the baleful face of Walter Longcluse. CHAPTER LXXI. NIGHT. At about eight o'clock that evening, a hurried note reached Alice Arden, at Mortlake. It was from her brother, and said,-- "MY DARLING ALICE, "I can't get away from town to-night, I am overwhelmed with business; but to-morrow, before dinner, I hope to see you, and stay at Mortlake till next morning.--Your affectionate brother, "DICK." The house was quiet earlier than in former times, when Sir Reginald, of rakish memory, was never in his bed till past three o'clock in the morning. Mortlake was an early house now, and all was still by a quarter past eleven. The last candle burning was usually that in Mrs. Tansey's room. She had not yet gone to bed, and was still in "the housekeeper's room," when a tapping came at the window. It reminded her of Mr. Longcluse's visit on the night of the funeral. She was now the only person up in the house, except Alice, who was at the far side of the building, where, in the next room, her maid was in bed asleep. Alice, who sat at her dressing-table, reading, with her long rich hair dishevelled over her shoulders, was, of course, quite out of hearing. Martha went to the window with a little frown of uncertainty. Opening a bit of the shutter, she saw Sir Richard's face close to her. Was ever old housekeeper so pestered by nightly tappings at her window-pane? "La! who'd a thought o' seeing you, Master Richard! why, you told Miss Alice you'd not be here till to-morrow!" she says pettishly, holding the candle high above her head. He makes a sign of caution to her, and placing his lips near the pane, says,-- "Open the window the least bit in life." With a dark stare in his face, she obeys. An odd approach, surely, for a master to make to his own house! "No one up in the house but you?" he whispers, as soon as the window is open. "Not one!" "Don't say a word, only listen: come, softly, round to the hall-door, and let me in; and light those candles there, and bring them with you to the hall. Don't let a creature know I have been here, and make no noise for your life!" The old woman nodded with the same little frown; and he, pointing toward the hall door, walks away silently in that direction. "What makes you look so white and dowley?" mutters the old woman, as she secures the window, and bars the shutters again.