Mr. Fishwick fell heavily against a stout gentleman in splashed boots and an old-fashioned Ramillies, who fortunately for the attorney, blocked the way to the wall.  Even so the shock was no light one.  But, breathless and giddy as he was the lawyer returned instantly to the charge.  ‘I denounce you!’ he cried furiously.  ’I denounce this man!  You, and you,’ he continued, appealing with frantic gestures to those next him, ’mark what I say!  She is the claimant to his estates—­estates he holds on sufferance!  To-morrow justice would have been done, and to-night he has kidnapped her.  All he has is hers, I tell you, and he has kidnapped her.  I denounce him!  I—­’

‘What Bedlam stuff is this?’ Sir George cried hoarsely; and he looked round the ring of curious starers, the sweat standing on his brow.  Every eye in the hall was upon him, and there was a great silence; for the accusation to which the lawyer gave tongue had been buzzed and bruited since the first cry of alarm roused the house.  ‘What stuff is this?’ he repeated, his head giddy with the sense of that which Mr. Fishwick had said.  ’Who—­who is it has been kidnapped?  Speak!  D—­n you!  Will no one speak?’

‘Your cousin,’ the lawyer answered.  ‘Your cousin, who claims—­’

‘Softly, man—­softly,’ said the landlord, coming forward and laying his hand on the lawyer’s shoulder.  ’And we shall the sooner know what to do.  Briefly, Sir George,’ he continued, ’the young lady who has been in your company the last day or two was seized and carried off in a post-chaise half an hour ago, as I am told—­maybe a little more—­from Manton Corner.  For the rest, which this gentleman says, about who she is and her claim—­which it does not seem to me can be true and your honour not know it—­it is news to me.  But, as I understand it, Sir George, he alleges that the young lady who has disappeared lays claim to your honour’s estates at Estcombe.’

‘At Estcombe?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Sir George did not reply, but stood staring at the man, his mind divided between two thoughts.  The first that this was the solution of the many things that had puzzled him in Julia; at once the explanation of her sudden amiability, her new-born forwardness, the mysterious fortune into which she had come, and of her education and her strange past.  She was his cousin, the unknown claimant!  She was his cousin, and—­

He awoke with a start, dragged away by the second thought—­hard following on the first.  ‘From Manton Corner?’ he cried, his voice keen, his eye terrible.  ‘Who saw it?’

‘One of the servants,’ the landlord answered, ’who had gone to the top of the Mound to clean the mirrors in the summer-house.  Here, you,’ he continued, beckoning to a man who limped forward reluctantly from one of the side passages in which he had been standing, ’show yourself, and tell this gentleman the story you told me.’

‘If it please your honour,’ the fellow whimpered, ’it was no fault of mine.  I ran down to give the alarm as soon as I saw what was doing—­they were forcing her into the carriage then—­but I was in such a hurry I fell and rolled to the bottom of the Mound, and was that dazed and shaken it was five minutes before I could find any one.’