“That would do for a man, and in that I respected Captain Dornton’s convictions, as you told them to me.  But for a girl, how could she be independent, except with money?”

She shook her head as if unconvinced, but did not reply.  They were nearing the garden porch, when she looked up, and said:  “And as you’re a man, you will be making your way in the world.  Mr. Dingwall said you would.”

There was something so childishly trustful and confident in her assurance that he smiled.  “Mr. Dingwall is too sanguine, but it gives me hope to hear you say so.”

She colored slightly, and said gravely:  “We must go in now.”  Yet she lingered for a moment before the door.  For a long time afterward he had a very vivid recollection of her charming face, in its childlike gravity and its quaint frame of black crape, standing out against the sunset-warmed wall of the rectory.  “Promise me you will not mind what these people say or do,” she said suddenly.

“I promise,” he returned, with a smile, “to mind only what you say or do.”

“But I might not be always quite right, you know,” she said naively.

“I’ll risk that.”

“Then, when we go in now, don’t talk much to me, but make yourself agreeable to all the others, and then go straight home to the inn, and don’t come here until after the funeral.”

The faintest evasive glint of mischievousness in her withdrawn eyes at this moment mitigated the austerity of her command as they both passed in.

Randolph had intended not to return to London until after the funeral, two days later, and spent the interesting day at the neighboring town, whence he dispatched his exploring and perhaps hopeless letter to the captain.  The funeral was a large and imposing one, and impressed Randolph for the first time with the local importance and solid standing of the Dorntons.  All the magnates and old county families were represented.  The inn yard and the streets of the little village were filled with their quaint liveries, crested paneled carriages, and silver-cipher caparisoned horses, with a sprinkling of fashion from London.  He could not close his ears to the gossip of the villagers regarding the suddenness of the late baronet’s death, the extinction of the title, the accession of the orphaned girl to the property, and even, to his greater exasperation, speculations upon her future and probable marriage.  “Some o’ they gay chaps from Lunnon will be lordin’ it over the Hall afore long,” was the comment of the hostler.

It was with some little bitterness that Randolph took his seat in the crowded church.  But this feeling, and even his attempts to discover Miss Eversleigh’s face in the stately family pew fenced off from the chancel, presently passed away.  And then his mind began to be filled with strange and weird fancies.  What grim and ghostly revelations might pass between this dead scion of the Dorntons lying on the trestles