She said this with conscious pride. Whatever change her feelings may have undergone towards the man who had at one time been the embodiment of her most cherished dreams, she would not let her sneering guardian see that she had repented of her choice. Death had endowed her exiled prince with a dignity which had never been his in life, and the veil of tragedy which now lay over the mysterious stranger and his still more mysterious life, had called forth to its uttermost the young wife's sense of loyalty to him. "Not your entire fortune, my dear, dear child, I hope ..." ejaculated Squire Boatfield, more horror-struck this time than he had been when first he had heard of the terrible murder. "The wallet contained my entire fortune," rejoined Sue calmly, "all that Master Skyffington had placed in my hands on the day that my father willed that it should be given me." "Such folly is nothing short of criminal," said Sir Marmaduke roughly, "nathless, had not the gentleman been murdered that night he would have shown Thanet and you a clean pair of heels, taking your money with him, of course." "Aye! aye! but he was murdered," said Squire Boatfield firmly, "the question only is by whom?" "Some footpad who haunts the cliffs," rejoined de Chavasse lightly, "'tis simple enough." "Simple, mayhap ..." mused the squire, "yet ..." He paused a moment and once more silence fell on all those assembled in the small cottage parlor. Sir Marmaduke felt as if every vein in his body was gradually being turned to stone. The sense of expectancy was so overwhelming that it completely paralyzed every other faculty within him, and Editha's searching eyes seemed like a corroding acid touching an aching wound. Yet for the moment there was no danger. He had so surrounded himself and his crimes with mystery that it would take more than a country squire's slowly moving brain to draw aside that weird and ghostlike curtain which hid his evil deeds. No! there was no danger--as yet! But he cursed himself for a fool and a coward, not to have gone away--abroad--long ere such a possible confrontation threatened him. He cursed himself for being here at all--and above all for having left the smith's clothes and the leather wallet in that lonely pavilion in the park. Squire Boatfield's kind eyes now rested on the old woman, who, awed and silent--shut out by her infirmities from this strange drama which was being enacted in her cottage--had stood calm and impassive by, trying to read with that wonderful quickness of intuition which the poverty of one sense gives to the others--what was going on round her, since she could not hear.