Part 53 (1/2)

'I knew it,' he said kindly. 'But how did he find you out, and how had he the impertinence to write to you at your Aunt Lily's--'

'I wrote to him first,' she said, hanging down her head.

'How was that? You surely had not been in the habit of doing so whilst I was at home.'

'No; but he came and spoke to me at Exeter, the day you went away. Uncle William was not there, he had gone into the town. And he--Mr. Flinders, said he was going down to see you, and was very much disappointed to hear that you were gone.'

'Did he ask you to write to him?'

'I don't think he did. Father, it seems too silly now, but I was very angry because Aunt Lilias said she must see all my letters except yours and Maude Sefton's, and I told Constance Hacket. She said she would send anything for me, and I could not think of any one I wanted to write to, so I wrote to--to him.'

'Ah! I saw you did not get on with your aunt,' was the answer, 'that was partly what brought me home.' And either not hearing or not heeding her exclamation, 'Oh, but now I do,' he went on to explain that on his arrival at Fiji he had found that circ.u.mstances had altered there, and that the person with whom he was to have been a.s.sociated had died, so that the whole scheme had been broken up. A still better appointment had, however, been offered to him in New Zealand, on the resignation of the present holder after a half-year's notice, and he had at once written to accept it. A proposal had been made to him to spend the intermediate time in a scientific cruise among the Polynesian Islands; but the letters he had found awaiting him at Vanua Levu had convinced him that the arrangements he had made in England had been a mistake, and he had therefore hurried home via San Francisco, as fast as any letter could have gone, to wind up his English affairs, and fetch his daughter to the permanent home in Auckland, which her Aunt Phyllis would prepare for her.

Her countenance betrayed a sudden dismay, which made him recollect that she was a strangely undemonstrative girl; but before she had recovered the shock so as to utter more than a long 'Oh!' they were interrupted by the cup of tea that had been ordered for Dolores, and in a minute more, steps were heard, and the two aunts were in the room. 'Seven years,'

were Jane's first words, and 'My dear Maurice,' Lady Merrifield's, 'Oh!

I wish I could have spared you this,' and then among greetings came again, 'Seven years,' from the brother and cousin who had seen the traveller before.

'I'm glad you were not there, Maurice,' said Lady Merrifield. 'It was dreadful.'

'I never saw a more insolent fellow!' said Lord Rotherwood.

'That Yokes, you mean,' said Miss Mohun. 'I declare I think he is worse than Flinders!'

'That's like you women, Jenny,' returned the colonel; 'you can't understand that a man's business is to get off his client!'

'When he gave him up as an honest man altogether!' cried Lady Merrifield.

'And cast such imputations!' exclaimed Aunt Jane. 'I saw what the wretch was driving at all the time of the cross-examination; and if I'd been the judge, would not I have stopped him?'

'There you go. Lily and Jenny!' said the colonel, 'and Rotherwood just as bad! Why, Maurice would have had to take just the same line if he had been for the defence.'

'He would not have done it in such a blackguard fas.h.i.+on though,' said Lord Rotherwood.

'I saw what his defence would be,' said Mr. Mohun, briefly.

'There!' said Colonel Mohun, with a boyish pleasure in confuting his sisters; but they were not subdued.

'Now Maurice,' cried Jane, 'when that man was known to be utterly dishonourable and good for nothing, was it fair--was it not contrary to all common sense--to try to cast the imputation between those two poor girls? So the judge and jury felt it, I am happy to say! but I call it abominable to have thrown out the mere suggestion--'

'Nay now, Jane,' said the colonel, 'if the man was to be defended at all, how else was it to be done?'

'I wouldn't have had him defended at all! but, unfortunately, that's his right as an Englishman.'

'That's another thing! But as the cheque did not alter itself, one of the three must have done it, and nothing was left but to show that there had been an amount of shuffling, and--in short, nonsense--that might cast enough doubt on their evidence to make it insufficient for a conviction.'

'Reginald! I can't think how you can stand up for such a wretch, a vulgar wretch,' cried Miss Mohun. 'You put it delicately, as a gentleman who had the misfortune to be counsel in such a case might do, but he was infinitely worse than that, though that was bad enough.'

'It was Yokes,' put in Mr. Mohun; 'but what did he say?' looking anxiously at his daughter.

'It was not so bad about her,' said her uncle, 'he only made her out a foolish child, easily played upon by everybody, and possibly ignorant and frightened, or led away by her regard for her supposed relation. It was the other poor girl--