"Nay, nay!" said Sir Sidney. "If you bring your honour into the scrape, my dear boy, I suppose we must believe you. But you will not, I dare say, deny that you have some shrewd guess at how the money came there, or who sent it?" "In regard to the person who sent it," answered Captain Delaware, a good deal mortified at doubts which he felt he did not deserve, "I have certainly a very strong suspicion, though I do not feel justified in naming the friend to whom my mind turns; but, as to how it came there, I am fully as ignorant as yourself or Blanche." "Well, all I can say is, that the whole business is very extraordinary," replied Sir Sidney Delaware, more gravely than he had hitherto spoken. "Indeed, I know not which would seem the most strange, that such a large sum should be left in your room without your privity or knowledge; or that my son should so strongly assert, even in jest, what is not strictly true." "Sir, you are doing me injustice!" said Captain Delaware, with a burning cheek and a quivering lip; "and, as it is so, I will soon investigate, and, if possible, discover how it was that this took place;" and, striding across the room, he rang the bell with a degree of violence, which showed the pain it cost him to brook respectfully, even from his father, the doubt that Sir Sidney's last words insinuated. Blanche gently glided across the room; and, laying her hand upon his arm, raised her beautiful eyes to his with a look half imploring half reproachful. Captain Delaware did not reply, but turned away; and, walking to the window, looked out into the park till the servant appeared. "Who left a paper parcel on my dressing-table last night?" he demanded abruptly, and somewhat sharply too, as the man entered. The first reply was a stare of astonishment, at the unwonted tone of one usually so mild and kindly in his whole deportment. "I'm sure I do not know, sir!" answered the man as soon as he had recovered. "I did not!" "William, you are heated," said Sir Sidney Delaware, interrupting his son, as he was about to put another question to the servant. "I perceive now, perhaps too plainly, that the matter is not a jest; and therefore, of course, believe what you have said. The business, however, must be investigated; as we cannot lie under so great an obligation to any one, without due acknowledgement and repayment--Did you see any stranger about the house or near it during the course of yesterday evening?" he continued, turning to the servant. "No one, sir," replied the man. "That is to say, no one near the house. In the lanes, at the back of the park, I met Harding, Mr. Burrel's valet, loitering about with another young man towards dusk; and now, I recollect, the housemaid declared that she saw some one just passing by the terrace at about eight or nine o'clock." "Send the housemaid here!" said Sir Sidney; "and desire Mrs. Williams"--the name of the old housekeeper--"and desire Mrs. Williams to come with her."