Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/American Libraries. See http://archive.org/details/pittowncoronetfa03will Project Gutenberg has the other two volumes of this work. Volume I: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42167 Volume II: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42168 THE PIT TOWN CORONET: A Family Mystery. by CHARLES J. WILLS, Author of "In the Land of the Lion and Sun," etc. In Three Volumes. VOL. III. Ward and Downey, 12, York Street, Covent Garden, London, W.C. 1888 [The right of translation is reserved, and the Dramatic Copyright protected.] Printed by Kelly and Co., Gate Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, W.C.; and Middle Mill, Kingston-on-Thames. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I.--AFTER SEVENTEEN YEARS 1 II.--AT MONTE CARLO 25 III.--AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 52 IV.--PALLIDA MORS 76 V.--A LITTLE RED BOX 100 VI.--LUCIUS HAGGARD IS BEWILDERED 131 VII.--ENTER MR. BROOKES 158 VIII.--THE HOLLOW BEECH TREE 179 IX.--MR. CAPT LEAVES SERVICE 203 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. CHAPTER I. AFTER SEVENTEEN YEARS. Seventeen uneventful years had passed and had streaked Georgie Haggard's abundant chestnut locks with grey. A lovely woman still. The innocent, healthful, girlish beauty had developed into the sweet matronly dignity which is so frequently seen among the happy wives and mothers of the English aristocracy. Haggard was still proud of his wife, because even he couldn't fail to see her beauty; and as for the old lord, he idolized her much as old Squire Warrender had idolized her twenty years ago at The Warren. Georgie Haggard was not demonstrative. Always quiet, she was rather timid and subdued in her husband's presence; but with the old lord, though perhaps a little more staid and dignified than of yore, she was still the lovely and affectionate woman of the old happy times. Hers was the beauty of the happy mother, the sweet matronly loveliness which is perhaps the more touching when tinged by the slight dash of sadness which idealises it and saves it from the commonplace. The smile was not ever present, but it was none the less beautiful and touching from its rarity. Reginald Haggard and his family had been installed at Walls End Castle ever since Lord Hetton's death. They had come originally upon a visit; Mrs. Haggard's health had suddenly broken down, and at the old lord's urgent entreaty the visit had been indefinitely prolonged. Although Haggard was, as we know, a wealthy man, he could not afford to disregard any suggestion of his great-uncle. At first he had looked on the whole thing as a confounded nuisance; he had objected to his wife that they might make themselves ridiculous by a too abject obedience to the whims of the old nobleman.