"'Twas all for you, Miss Ella; all for you," shivered the faithful old servant--for faithful he was, despite this wrong-doing. "How could you have inherited Heron Dyke had the master not lived over his birthday? 'Twould have gone right away to the other people. A nice thing for that other Denison to have come in to the old place! Swindlers and spies, all the lot of 'em! If----" "Be silent!" sternly struck in Conroy. "How dare you presume so to speak of your master's kinsman?" Aaron looked up with a gasp. "Mr. Denison of Nunham Priors is every whit as honourable as the late Mr. Denison of Heron Dyke. Take care how you speak of him in future. And remember that he is Mr. Denison of Heron Dyke now--and would have been so ever since last April but for your plotting." Never had Conroy been so moved--so stern. Ella, though assenting in her heart to every word, looked at him in surprise. Aaron felt checked and mortified; he thought this was pretty assumption for a man who was but a newspaper reporter, and would have liked to say so. "Mistress," he stammered in a husky voice, "how did you come to know about the Squire?" "That I must decline to tell you," spoke Miss Winter. "It is enough that I do know it. Had you but told me the truth when I first questioned you, what annoyance it would have saved both myself and you!" But the aged retainer could only reiterate, "I did it for the best." Mr. Conroy spoke. "I want you to tell me, Aaron, the real date of the Squire's death." Aaron threw a quick, sour, suspicious look at his interlocutor. "Am I to answer that question, Miss Ella? he asked, in an aggrieved tone. "Certainly." "Well, then, if you must know, sir, he died on the 19th of February," was the answer, grudgingly given. "The 19th of February. What did you do then?" "Why, what should we do but put the body into a coffin that had been ordered from London two months before by the Squire's own directions. Hubert ordered it, and it was sent down in a packing-case, and the servants were told that it was a new sort of invalid-chair for the master." "Oh. And this coffin, nailed down, I suppose, was kept in the room?" "In the lumber-room off the bed-room; nobody had ever thought o' going in there. We kept the room locked mostly after that." "Just one moment," interposed Ella. "Was the account you gave me of my uncle's death--what happened the evening it took place--a true one?" "Every word," answered the old man. "Save that it was in February 'stead o' May, ma'am." "Whose idea was it that you should personate your master after his death?" resumed Conroy. Aaron did not answer at once. His eyes had taken a dull far-away expression, as though he were lost in the past.