“Mr. Forster, stop one moment!” cried Major Every; “surely this tale of Carruthers stealing a watch is all false?”

“False as the foul fiend himself,” said the little man, in a rage.

“I knew it—­I said so.  Young men with twenty thousand a year do not steal.  A likely story!  What does it mean, then?”

“Some one who owes him an ill-turn has played this sorry jest upon him; but we shall pay him.”

“He deserves transportation.  I do not know a nobler young fellow in all the world than Basil Carruthers.”  A fashionable carriage was standing at his office door when he reached it.

“The Countess of Northdown waiting to see you, sir,” said the clerk.

Entering his private room he saw a lovely lady, fashionably attired, who greeted him with exquisite grace.  Her face was very pale and her lips quivered as she spoke to him.

“Good morning, Mr. Forster.  You will be surprised to see me, but knowing you are the family solicitor, I called to ask you if this shocking story about Mr. Carruthers is true.”

“Heaven have mercy on me this day,” thought the lawyer, “my soul is steeped in lies.”

“Certainly not, Lady Northdown.  Mr. Carruthers is abroad.  The fact of the matter is, the prisoner resembles him, as a vile caricature does, at times, resemble the original, and some would-be wag who saw it, thought the writing of this absurd paragraph a great joke.”

“He deserves shooting,” said my lady, angrily.

“That may be his fate, when Mr. Carruthers catches him,” was the grim reply.

“I told Lord Northdown it was all nonsense,” she continued.  “I am much obliged to you for your kindness, Mr. Forster.”

There was a rustle of silken robes, a stirring of sweet perfume, and then Lady Northdown was gone, only to be succeeded by another and another, until the lawyer gave himself up for lost on account of the many falsehoods he had told.

“Tomorrow my contradiction will set all this straight,” he thought; “especially if it be followed by a letter from my lady, and I must compel her to write.  I would as soon try to drive wild oxen as to persuade a Carruthers.”

He was not able to start for Ulverston until the end of the afternoon.  It was full two hours’ ride by rail from London, and all the way there the lawyer was worrying himself with conjectures, and trying to solve what he thought honestly the greatest mystery he had ever known.

It was six o’clock on a bright May evening when he reached Ulverston.

He ordered a fly, and drove at once to the Priory.  More than half that busy town of Rutsford belonged to the Carruthers.  They were lords of the manor, masters of the soil.  To them belonged also the fertile lands, the profitable farms, the hop gardens, and broad meadows that stretched between Rutsford and the Priory.

As the lawyer drove through this rich inheritance, his wonder increased.