Produced by Charles Bowen page scans provided by Google Books Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=ew9NAAAAMAAJ "The Secret of Wyvern Towers" in THE ARGOSY, VOLUME XXVI. (DECEMBER, 1897), No. 1, pp. 1-78, published by Frank A. Munsey in 1898. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. VERY STRANGE TIDINGS. CHAPTER II. AFTER THE TELLING OF THE NEWS. CHAPTER III. SIR JOHN CONDUCTS THE INQUIRY. CHAPTER IV. A BACKWARD GLANCE. CHAPTER V. IN THE LEFT WING. CHAPTER VI. RECREANT LOVER. CHAPTER VII. AN AMAZING CONFESSION. CHAPTER VIII. THE BEGINNING OF THE END. CHAPTER IX. WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. CHAPTER X. IN THE LAST RESORT. CHAPTER XI. ONE STEP NEARER. CHAPTER XII. ON THE BRINK. CHAPTER XIII. LAST THINGS. CHAPTER XIV. WITH ALL SPEED. CHAPTER XV. THE SECRET OP WYVERN TOWERS. THE SECRET OF WYVERN TOWERS.* [*_Copyright, 1897, by T. W. Speight_.] BY T. W. SPEIGHT. Being an account of the circumstances that shadowed the happiness of Felix Drelincourt--Why two persons proclaimed themselves guilty of a fearful crime, on account of which a vagabond's life was placed in jeopardy--The blotting out of an identity brought about by an unexpected legacy. (_Complete in This Issue_.) CHAPTER I. VERY STRANGE TIDINGS. On a certain sunny May morning, about forty years ago, the owner of Wyvern Towers stepped into a lovely glade of Barras Wood, which was a portion of his extensive property. Felix Drelincourt was a man who stood a little over six feet in height. His black, silky hair had a careless wave in it, and his thin mustache, with its up curled tips, was the cause of his often being taken for a foreigner. But his eyes were the most striking feature of a striking personality. They were black, and of an extraordinarily piercing quality, with a sort of veiled, somber glow in them at times, as it might be the glow thrown out from between the bars of some hidden furnace, the fire in which was eating its heart away in the flame of its own burning unrest. It was not easy to judge his age, but one might put it down as being somewhere between eight and twenty and four or five and thirty. This morning he was dressed in a velveteen shooting jacket, with cord breeches and leggings, and was wearing a low crowned felt hat. "What has brought me here on this one morning of all mornings of the year?" he said. "Ah, what! Am I wrong in terming it a force--a magnetic attraction--I was powerless to resist? This is _her_ birthday. Where is she? Does an English sun shine here on this morning, or that of some far off land? Vain questions, and idle as vain." He took a couple of turns from end to end of the glade with compressed lips and bent brows. Then his thoughts again took articulate form.