* * * *
*
CAPTAIN CRUIKSHANK.
While these things were going on, the world outside
was not altogether indifferent to affairs in Dalton
Hall. In the village and in the immediate neighborhood
rumor had been busy, and at length the vague statements
of the public voice began to take shape.
This is what rumor said: Dudleigh is an impostor!
An impostor, it said. For the true Dudleigh,
it asserted, was still missing. This was not
the real man. The remains found in the well had
never been accounted for. Justice had foregone
its claims too readily. The act remained, and
the blood of the slain called aloud for vengeance.
How such a strange report was first started no one
knew; but there it was, and the Dalton mystery remained
as obscure as ever.
Various circumstances contributed to increase the
public suspicion. All men saw that Dudleigh was
different from this man, or else he had greatly changed.
For the former was always outside, in the world, while
this man remained secluded and shut up in the Hall.
Why did he never show himself? Why did he surround
himself with all this secrecy? This was the question.
The servants were eagerly questioned whenever any
of them made their appearance in the village, but
as they were all new in the place, their testimony
was of little value. They could only say that
he was devoted to the invalid, and that he called
Miss Dalton by that name, and had called her by that
name when he engaged them for her service.
Soon public opinion took two different forms, and
two parties arose. One of these believed the
present Dudleigh to be an impostor; the other, however,
maintained that he was the real man, and that the change
in his character was to be accounted for on the grounds
of the terrible calamities that had resulted from
his thoughtlessness, together with his own repentance
for the suffering which he had inflicted.
Meanwhile the subject of all this excitement and gossip
was living in his own seclusion, quite apart from
the outside world. One change, however, had taken
place in his life which required immediate action on
his part.
A great number of letters had come for “Captain
Dudleigh.” The receipt of these gave him
trouble. They were reminders of various pecuniary
obligations which had been contracted some time previously.
They were, in short—duns. He had been
at Dalton Hall some six weeks before these interesting
letters began to arrive. After that time they
came in clusters, fast and frequent. The examination
of these formed no small part of his occupation when
he was alone.
Some of these letters were jocular in their tone,
reminding him of his chronic impecuniosity, and his
well-known impracticability in every thing relating
to money. These jocular letters, however, never
failed to remind him that, as he had made a rich match,
there was no reason why he should not pay his debts,
especially as the writers were hard up, and had waited
so long without troubling him. These jocular letters,
in fact, informed him that if a settlement was not
made at once, it would be very much the worse for
Dudleigh.
