He was awakened by a tapping at his door, and jumped up to realize by his watch and the still burning gaslight that it was nine o’clock.  But the intruder was only a waiter with a letter which he had brought to Randolph’s room in obedience to the instructions the latter had given overnight.  Not doubting it was from the captain, although the handwriting of the address was unfamiliar, he eagerly broke the seal.  But he was surprised to read as follows:—­

Dear Mr. Trent,—­We had such sad news from the Hall after you left.  Sir William was seized with a kind of fit.  It appears that he had just returned from the horse show, and had given his mare to the groom while he walked to the garden entrance.  The groom saw him turn at the yew hedge, and was driving to the stables when he heard a queer kind of cry, and turning back to the garden front, found poor Sir William lying on the ground in convulsions.  The doctor was sent for, and Mr. Brunton and I went over to the Hall.  The doctor thinks it was something like a stroke, but he is not certain, and Sir William is quite delirious, and doesn’t recognize anybody.  I gathered from the groom that he had been drinking heavily.  Perhaps it was well that you did not see him, but I thought you ought to know what had happened in case you came down again.  It’s all very dreadful, and I wonder if that is why I was so nervous all the afternoon.  It may have been a kind of presentiment.  Don’t you think so?

Yours faithfully,

Sibyl Eversleigh.

I am afraid Randolph thought more of the simple-minded girl who, in the midst of her excitement, turned to him half unconsciously, than he did of Sir William.  Had it not been for the necessity of seeing the captain, he would probably have taken the next train to the rectory.  Perhaps he might later.  He thought little of Sir William’s illness, and was inclined to accept the young girl’s naive suggestion of its cause.  He read and reread the letter, staring at the large, grave, childlike handwriting—­so like herself—­and obeying a sudden impulse, raised the signature, as gravely as if it had been her hand, to his lips.

Still the day advanced and the captain came not.  Randolph found the inactivity insupportable.  He knew not where to seek him; he had no more clue to his resorts or his friends—­if, indeed, he had any in London—­than he had after their memorable first meeting in San Francisco.  He might, indeed, be the dupe of an impostor, who, at the eleventh hour, had turned craven and fled.  He might be, in the captain’s indifference, a mere instrument set aside at his pleasure.  Yet he could take advantage of Miss Eversleigh’s letter and seek her, and confess everything, and ask her advice.  It was a great and at the moment it seemed to him an overwhelming temptation.  But only for the moment.  He had given his word to the captain—­more, he had given his youthful faith.  And, to his credit, he never swerved again.  It seemed to him, too, in his youthful superstition, as he looked at the abandoned portmanteau, that he had again to take up his burden—­his “trust.”