niece, when you had, as she thought, gone to your room, slipped down
and talked to her lover through the window which leads into the stable
lane. His footmarks had pressed right through the snow, so long had he
stood there. She told him of the coronet. His wicked lust for gold
kindled at the news, and he bent her to his will. I have no doubt that
she loved you, but there are women in whom the love of a lover
extinguishes all other loves, and I think that she must have been one.
She had hardly listened to his instructions when she saw you coming
downstairs, on which she closed the window rapidly and told you about
one of the servants escapade with her wooden-legged lover, which was
all perfectly true.
Your boy, Arthur, went to bed after his interview with you but he
slept badly on account of his uneasiness about his club debts. In the
middle of the night he heard a soft tread pass his door, so he rose
and, looking out, was surprised to see his cousin walking very
stealthily along the passage until she disappeared into your
dressing-room. Petrified with astonishment, the lad slipped on some
clothes and waited there in the dark to see what would come of this
strange affair. Presently she emerged from the room again, and in the
light of the passage-lamp your son saw that she carried the precious
coronet in her hands. She passed down the stairs, and he, thrilling
with horror, ran along and slipped behind the curtain near your door,
whence he could see what passed in the hall beneath. He saw her
stealthily open the window, hand out the coronet to someone in the
gloom, and then closing it once more hurry back to her room, passing
quite close to where he stood hid behind the curtain.
As long as she was on the scene he could not take any action without a
horrible exposure of the woman whom he loved. But the instant that she
was gone he realised how crushing a misfortune this would be for you,
and how all-important it was to set it right. He rushed down, just as
he was, in his bare feet, opened the window, sprang out into the snow,
and ran down the lane, where he could see a dark figure in the
moonlight. Sir George Burnwell tried to get away, but Arthur caught
him, and there was a struggle between them, your lad tugging at one
side of the coronet, and his opponent at the other. In the scuffle,
your son struck Sir George and cut him over the eye. Then something
suddenly snapped, and your son, finding that he had the coronet in his
hands, rushed back, closed the window, ascended to your room, and had
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