“Really, Uncle Godfrey!” cried Harry Carradyne, in most intense surprise.

“I hope they’ll bring us no ill-luck to-night!” continued Captain Monk as a grim joke, disregarding Harry’s remark.  “Perhaps they will, though, out of sheer spite, knowing they’ll never have another chance of it.  Well, well, they’re welcome.  Fill your glasses, gentlemen.”

Rimmer was throwing up the windows.  In another minute the church clock boomed out the first stroke of twelve, and the room fell into a dead silence.  With the last stroke the Captain rose, glass in hand.

“A happy New Year to you, gentlemen!  A happy New Year to us all.  May it bring to us health and prosperity!”

“And God’s blessing,” reverently added Robert Grame aloud, as if to remedy an omission.

Ring, ring, ring!  Ah, there it came, the soft harmony of the chimes, stealing up through the midnight air.  Not quite as loudly heard, perhaps, as usual, for there was no wind to waft it, but in tones wondrously clear and sweet.  Never had the strains of the “Bay of Biscay” brought to the ear more charming melody.  How soothing it was to those enrapt listeners; seeming to tell of peace.

But soon another sound arose to mingle with it.  A harsh, grating sound, like the noise of wheels passing over gravel.  Heads were lifted; glances expressed surprise.  With the last strains of the chimes dying away in the distance, a carriage of some kind galloped up to the hall door.

Eliza Hamlyn alighted from it—­with her child and its nurse.  As quickly as she could make opportunity after that scene enacted in her breakfast-room in London in the morning, that is, as soon as her husband’s back was turned, she had quitted the house with the maid and child, to take the train for home, bringing with her—­it was what she phrased it—­her shameful tale.

A tale that distressed Mrs. Carradyne to sickness.  A tale that so abjectly terrified Captain Monk, when it was imparted to him on Tuesday morning, as to take every atom of fierceness out of his composition.

“Not Hamlyn’s wife!” he gasped.  “Eliza!”

“No, not his wife,” she retorted, a great deal too angry herself to be anything but fierce and fiery.  “That other woman, that false first wife of his, was not drowned, as was set forth, and she has come to claim him, with their son.”

“His wife; their son,” muttered the Captain as if he were bewildered.  “Then what are you?—­what is your son?  Oh, my poor Eliza.”

“Yes, what are we?  Papa, I will bring him to answer for it before his country’s tribunal—­if there be law in the land.”

No one spoke to this.  It may have occurred to them to remember that Mr. Hamlyn could not legally be punished for what he did in innocence.  Captain Monk opened the glass doors and walked on to the terrace, as if the air of the room were oppressive.  Eliza went out after him.

“Papa,” she said, “there now exists all the more reason for your making my darling your heir.  Let it be settled without delay.  He must succeed to Leet Hall.”