Suspicion began to be aroused in the mind of Robert Audley, first as to the real identity of Lady Audley; and second, as to the fate of his friend.  He brought into play all the keenness of his intellect, and abandoned his lazy habits.  He went to Southampton, saw Captain Maldon, who told him that George Talboys had arrived the morning before at one o’clock to have a look at his boy before sailing for Australia.  On inquiry at Liverpool, this proved to be false.

He sought the assistance of George’s father, Squire Talboys, at Grange Heath, Dorsetshire, to discover the murderer; but the squire resolutely refused to accept that his son was dead.  He was only hiding, hoping for forgiveness, which would never be given.

The beautiful sister of George Talboys followed Robert when he left the mansion and besought him passionately to avenge her brother’s murder, in which she implicitly believed, and this he promised to do.

Then he learned that Phoebe, Lady Audley’s maid, had married her cousin Luke Marks, who, under veiled threats, had obtained one hundred pounds from her ladyship to enable him to lease the Castle Inn.  And having visited the place, and held conversation with the half-drunken landlord, he felt assured that Luke Marks and his wife had by some means obtained a sinister power over Lady Audley.

Robert thereafter traced the life history of Helen Maldon from her marriage to George Talboys at Wildernsea, Yorkshire, her secret departure from there after her husband’s desertion, her appearance the following day as a teacher in a girl’s school at Brompton under the name of Lucy Graham; her arrival as a governess in Essex, and finally her marriage to Sir Michael Audley.

Once more he returned to the Court, where his uncle was lying ill, attended by Lady Audley.  He demanded a private audience of my lady, at which he told her he had discovered the whole of the conspiracy concocted by an artful woman who had speculated upon the chance of her husband’s death, and had secured a splendid position at the risk of committing a crime.

“My friend, George Talboys,” said Robert, “was last seen entering these gardens, and was never seen to leave them.  I will have such a search made as shall level that house to the earth, and root up every tree rather than I will fail in finding the grave of my murdered friend.”

“You shall never live to do this,” she said.  “I will kill you first!”

That evening Lady Audley gave to her husband a gloss of what his nephew had said, and boldly accused him of being mad.  “You would,” she said, “never let anyone influence you against me, would you, darling?”

“No, my love; they had better not try it.”

Lady Audley laughed aloud, with a gay, triumphant peal as she tripped out of the room; but as she sat in her own chamber, brooding, she muttered:  “Dare I defy him?  Will anything stop him but—­death?”