"Well, Archie, how shall you like to be Sir Archibald?"
For a minute they looked at one another in silence.
"Do you think so?" then said the younger, frowning a little.
"I am certain of it."
"Ned, we are brothers," said Archibald.
The young men grasped hands, and Archibald half sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at the invalid, whose face was now bony in its emaciation, and his eyes sunken and bright.
"Archie, I have something to tell you."
"I feared so."
"It is not anything that you could expect. That quarrel between Richard and me was about our father. Richard said he was--that is--"
"Don't fear. Say it!"
"That his mother was not Lady Malmaison."
"He lied!"
"So I told him. But that's not the end of it, unfortunately. He defied me to prove the contrary. Ever since I first got up after the duel, I have been looking for the papers relating to Sir Clarence's birth. They're not to be found. There is no record that our grandmother had any son at all. On the other hand, there is indirect evidence that our grandfather had an affair with some woman.... The amount of it is, I have not been able to establish Sir Clarence's legitimacy. And the worst is still to tell."
"I know the rest; I know it all! Why didn't you say all this to me at first, brother? You have been harassing yourself with the idea that because you couldn't vindicate father, Malmaison might be claimed by Richard, under that old agreement of Sir Charles's time."
"How did you know--"
"I know everything. I know where the papers are that you have been looking for. Set your mind at rest, Ned. Sir Clarence was the legitimate heir. There was also a son by the other woman, but he died in infancy. Ned, why weren't you open with me? Richard has no more hold on our estates than my groom has. Blame him! I only hope he'll think otherwise! We'll ruin him first and kill him afterward."
"If I had only known...." said the sick man, after a pause. "But you are certain? You have the proof? Where did you find the papers?"
"I have them. Get well, and you shall know all about it. I have a good many curious things to tell you, and to show you, too."
"Well, God be thanked! whatever becomes of me. It is late, Archie, but I'm beginning to get acquainted with you at last. It is my fault that I did not know you before. You are better fitted to bear the title than I."
"No. If I thought so, I would not deny it; but if I inherit Malmaison, our family will--perish off the earth! I can foresee some things, Ned. The hope of the house lies in you; I shall bring only calamity. You must get well."
Again the brothers grasped hands, looked in one another's eyes for a moment or two, and then Archibald went out; the day passed, and the evening fell. At midnight he was Sir Archibald of Malmaison.
X.
It was not long before the new baronet--the last of his line--began to make his influence felt. His temper was resolute, secret, and domineering; he bore himself haughtily among the neighboring squires, never seeking to please a friend or to conciliate an enemy. Few people liked him; many stood in awe of him. He seemed to be out of sympathy with his race; his strange, ambiguous history invested him with an atmosphere of doubt and mystery; his nature was not like other men's; it was even whispered that he had powers transcending those of ordinary humanity. It is probable that his remarkable personal beauty, which in moments of anger or energy gleamed out with an almost satanic intensity, may have lent substance to this impression; men shrunk from meeting the stern inquisition of his black eyes; and for women his glance possessed a sort of fascination, unconnected with his beauty. But there were other indications more direct than these. A century, or even half a century, previous to this time Sir Archibald might have found it difficult to avoid the imputation of witchcraft. After all, was not he the descendant of his forefathers? and what had some of them been? "Were there not people in the neighboring village of Grinstead who were willing to take affidavit that the handsome young baronet had the power to make himself invisible when he pleased? Nay, had not Mrs. Pennroyal herself, while she was yet a young maid, borne testimony to the fact--that he had suddenly stood before her, in broad daylight, in a room which had the instant before been empty? That room had always had a queer reputation; it was there, or thereabouts, that most of these strange goings-on took place. A servant, who had once wandered in there to announce to Sir Archibald that one of his lawyers had arrived, and was waiting to see him, had found the room vacant, though he had seen his master enter it only ten minutes before. Thinking that he must have gone out by the other entrance, through the stable, he was about to follow, when he noticed that this door was bolted on the inside. In some bewilderment, he was on the point of retiring, when he was startled by a burst of laughter which continued for near a minute, and which, though it echoed almost in his ears, and came apparently from the very air round about him, yet sounded faint and unsubstantial as if a vast distance nevertheless intervened. Whether near or far, it was unmistakably the laughter of Sir Archibald, but wilder and more scornful than had ever been heard from his lips. The honest footman was now thoroughly frightened, and made the best of his way out of the chamber; but before he could cross the next room and reach the passage-way beyond, the living and peremptory tones of Sir Archibald himself overtook him, and brought him back with failing knees and pallid cheeks to where the black-haired baronet was standing in the doorway. There he stood in flesh and blood, but cloaked, booted, and spurred, as if just returned from a journey.
"What were you doing in this room?" demanded the baronet.
The man faltered out his errand.
"Hear this, once for all, and remember it," said the baronet, nor sternly nor roughly, but with a concentration of purpose in his mellow voice that seemed to stamp the words into the hearer's soul. "No one may enter this chamber except I open the door. Else harm may happen which I could not prevent. That is all. Now send Mr. Mawgage to me."
That was all, but it was quite enough; in fact, the difficulty thereafter was to induce any one to venture into the room on any terms. It was believed to be haunted, and that Sir Archibald was either himself the ghost, or was in some way responsible for there being one.
I have mentioned this story, to which the reader already possesses the clew, only by way of showing that Sir Archibald was making use, at that time, of the secret which he had discovered, and was taking the surest means of keeping it to himself. He had occupations in the inner chamber at which he did not wish to be disturbed. What those occupations were he confided to no living soul--indeed, there was no one who could have served him as a confidant. His life was a lonely one, if ever a lonely life there were. Whom had he to love, or to love him? Even his mother, now enfeebled both in body and mind, felt fear of him rather than fondness for him. She spent much of her time playing cards with her female companion, and in worrying over the health of her pet spaniels. But did Sir Archibald love no one?--at all events he hated somebody, and that heartily. He held Richard Pennroyal responsible for all the ills that had fallen upon Malmaison and upon himself; and he was evidently not the man to suffer a grudge to go unrequited.
Pennroyal, on the other hand, was not disposed to wait quietly to be attacked; he came out to meet the enemy half way. In the spring of the year 1824--about nine months after Sir Edward's death--it was known in every mansion and public house for twenty miles round that a great lawsuit would by-and-by be commenced between Malmaison and Pennroyal, the question to be decided being nothing less than the ownership of the Malmaison estates, which Richard Pennroyal claimed, in the alleged failure of any legitimate heir of Sir John Malmaison, deceased--the father of Sir Clarence--but, as Pennroyal alleged, by a left-handed