Mrs. Dundyke sat silent a few moments, and she then told her tale--told everything that had occurred in connexion with her husband's mysterious fate. But when she came to hint her suspicions of Mr. Hardcastle's having been his destroyer, the old gentleman was visibly shocked and agitated. "Good heavens! no! Spendthrift though he is, he is not capable of that awful crime. Madam, how do you suppose your husband lost his life? In a struggle? Did they quarrel?" "I know nothing," answered poor Mrs. Dundyke. "A quarrel and struggle it may have been. Mr. Hardcastle was a powerful man." "A what? A powerful man, did you say, this Mr. Hardcastle?" "Very powerful, sir; tall and strong. Standing nearly six feet high, and as dark as a gipsy." "Thank Heaven for that relief!" murmured Mr. Hardcastle. "My nephew is one of the smallest men you ever saw, ma'am, short and slight, with fair curls: in fact, an effeminate dandy. There's his picture," added the old gentleman, throwing open the door of an inner room, "and when he next comes to England, and he is threatening it now, as you read in that letter, you shall see him. But, meanwhile, I will refer you to fifty persons, if you like, who will bear testimony that he is, in person, as I describe. There is no possible identity between them. Once more, thank Heaven!" Mrs. Dundyke returned to her home. The affair seemed to wear a darker appearance than it had yet worn. And again her suspicions reverted to the man who had called himself Mr. Hardcastle. We must now turn to Westerbury. That generally supine city was awakened out of its lethargy one morning, by hearing that Death had claimed Marmaduke Carr. On the very night that his grandson was at Mrs. Dundyke's, he was dying: and in the morning, Westerbury heard that he was dead. On the same day, the instant the news was conveyed to them, Squire Carr and his son and heir came over with all the speed that the train could bring them, and went bustling to the house of the dead man. There they found Mr. Fauntleroy, the solicitor to the just deceased Mr. Carr. He was a tall, large man, this lawyer; a clever practitioner, a fast-living man, and, by the way, the same scapegrace who had done that injury, in the shape of money, to Peter Arkell. But Mr. Fauntleroy had settled down since then, and had made an enormous deal of money; and he held some sway in Westerbury. "Here's a pretty go!" cried Mr. Fauntleroy, in his loud, blustering tones. "To think that he should die off like this, and nobody know of it!" "I never knew he was ill," said the squire. "I should, of course, have come over if I had." "Oh, he has been ill--that is to say, ailing--a good month now," returned the lawyer. "And when these aged healthy men begin to droop, their life is not worth much." "Well, what's to be done now?" cried Squire Carr.