THE HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY. _The Hampstead Mystery._ A Novel. BY FLORENCE MARRYAT, AUTHOR OF ‘LOVE’S CONFLICT,’ ‘VÉRONIQUE,’ ‘MY OWN CHILD,’ ‘MY SISTER THE ACTRESS,’ ‘HOW LIKE A WOMAN,’ ‘PARSON JONES,’ ETC., ETC. _IN THREE VOLUMES._ VOL. I. LONDON: F. V. WHITE & CO., 14 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C. 1894. _CONTENTS._ PAGE CHAPTER I., 1 CHAPTER II., 25 CHAPTER III., 46 CHAPTER IV., 75 CHAPTER V., 97 CHAPTER VI., 123 CHAPTER VII., 145 CHAPTER VIII., 171 CHAPTER IX., 198 CHAPTER X., 218 THE HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY. _The Hampstead Mystery._ CHAPTER I. ‘Once for all,’ exclaimed Mr Crampton, bringing down his broad fist heavily upon the table, ‘once for all, I tell you, _I will not have it_.’ At this terrible assertion, Mrs Crampton shivered as if she had been struck, and Aunt Clem silently dissolved into tears. Henry Hindes, of all the party, alone preserved his composure. He leaned back in his chair, carefully trimming his filbert nails with a penknife, as if the affair under discussion were not of the slightest moment. ‘Of course you will not have it,’ he said after a pause to Mr Crampton, ‘no man in his senses would. Mr Frederick Walcheren has money and good looks, but there his claims to admiration end. The first you do not require for your daughter, and the second would have no weight with anyone but a woman. To place against these supposed advantages, Mr Walcheren is a young man of dissolute habits, and lavish expenditure. You should hear what his cousin, Philip Walcheren, says of him.’ ‘I want no one’s opinion but my own,’ replied Mr Crampton vehemently. ‘Jenny will have all my money by-and-by, and she shall marry no man that will make ducks and drakes of it. Besides, he isn’t good enough for her in any way. He thinks, I suppose, because his family have been a set of idle scoundrels for centuries past, while my progenitors have been working to support their children, that his is the better of the two, but I don’t see it. Besides, if he were the heir to the Crown, he shouldn’t have my daughter. He’s a Roman, that’s more than enough for me. I’ll have no Papists in my family. I hate the whole crew, with their cunning, underhand ways. If Jenny won’t give this Walcheren fellow over, I’ll lock her up on bread and water till she comes to her senses again.’ As neither of the ladies made any answer to this threat, Mr Hindes interfered again.