So impressed was he with the idea of a game in which he had been defeated, that he went over in his mind every circumstance he could recall of his intercourse with her. Passages the simplest, words of little significance, incidents the most trivial, he now charged with deepest meaning. Amidst these, there was one for which he could find no solution,--why had she so desired to be the owner of the cottage near Bantry? It was there that Driscoll had discovered the Conway papers. Was it possible--the thought flashed like lightning on him--that there was any concert between the girl and this man? This suspicion no sooner occurred to him than it took firm hold of his mind. None knew better than Dunn the stuff Driscoll was made of, and knowing, besides, how he had, by his own seeming luke-warmness, affronted that crafty schemer, it was by no means improbable that such an alliance as this existed. And this last discovery of documents,--how fortunate was it that Hankes had secured them! The papers might or might not be important; at all events, the new Lord Lackington might be brought to terms by their means; he would have come to his peerage so unexpectedly that all the circumstances of the contested claim would be strange to him. This was a point to be looked at; and as he reasoned thus, again did he go back to Sybella Kellett, and what the nature of her game might be, and how it should first display itself. A tap at the door startled him. “Mr. Hankes is below, sir,” said Clowes. “I will be with him in a moment,” replied Dunn; and again relapsed into his musings. CHAPTER XXII. A MASTER AND MAN “Is she gone?--where to?” cried Dunn, without answering Mr. Hankes's profuse salutations and welcomes. “Yes, sir; she sailed yesterday.” “Sailed, and for where?” “For Malta, sir, in the Euxine steamer. Gone to her brother in the Crimea. One of the people saw her go on board at Southampton.” “Was she alone?” “Quite alone, sir. My man was present when she paid the boatman. She had very little luggage, but they demanded half a guinea--” “What of Driscoll? Have you traced him?” asked Dunn, impatient at the minuteness of this detail. “He left London for Havre on the 12th of last month, sir, with a passport for Italy. He carried one of Hart-well's circulars for three hundred pounds, and was to have taken a courier at Paris, but did not.” “And where is he now?” asked Dunn, abruptly. “I am unable to say, sir,” said Hankes, almost abjectly, for he felt self-rebuked in the acknowledgment. “My last tidings of him came from Como,--a new Hydropathic Institution there.” “Expecting to find the Viscount Lackington,” said Dunn, with a sardonic laugh. “Death was before you, Master Driscoll; you did not arrive in time for even the funeral. I say, Hankes,” added he, quickly, “what of the new Viscount? Has he answered our letters?”