Reaching the hotel at which he was accustomed to stay when he wasin London, Mirabel locked the door of his room. He looked at thehouses on the opposite side of the street. His mind was in such astate of morbid distrust that he lowered the blind over thewindow. In solitude and obscurity, the miserable wretch sat downin a corner, and covered his face with his hands, and tried torealize what had happened to him.

Nothing had been said at the fatal interview with Emily, whichcould have given him the slightest warning of what was to come.Her father's name--absolutely unknown to him when he fled fromthe inn--had only been communicated to the public by thenewspaper reports of the adjourned inquest. At the time whenthose reports appeared, he was in hiding, under circumstanceswhich prevented him from seeing a newspaper. While the murder wasstill a subject of conversation, he was in France--far out of thetrack of English travelers--and he remained on the continentuntil the summer of eighteen hundred and eighty-one. No exerciseof discretion, on his part, could have extricated him from theterrible position in which he was now placed. He stood pledged toEmily to discover the man suspected of the murder of her father;and that man was--himself!

What refuge was left open to him?

If he took to flight, his sudden disappearance would be asuspicious circumstance in itself, and would therefore provokeinquiries which might lead to serious results. Supposing that heoverlooked the risk thus presented, would he be capable ofenduring a separation from Emily, which might be a separation forlife? Even in the first horror of discovering his situation, herinfluence remained unshaken--the animating spirit of the onemanly capacity for resistance which raised him above the reach ofhis own fears. The only prospect before him which he felt himselfto be incapable of contemplating, was the prospect of leavingEmily.

Having arrived at this conclusion, his fears urged him to thinkof providing for his own safety.

The first precaution to adopt was to separate Emily from friendswhose advice might be hostile to his interests--perhaps evensubversive of his security. To effect this design, he had need ofan ally whom he could trust. That ally was at his disposal, faraway in the north.

At the time when Francine's jealousy began to interfere with allfreedom of intercourse between Emily and himself at Monksmoor, hehad contemplated making arrangements which might enable them tomeet at the house of his invalid sister, Mrs. Delvin. He hadspoken of her, and of the bodily affliction which confined her toher room, in terms which had already interested Emily. In thepresent emergency, he decided on returning to the subject, and onhastening the meeting between the two women which he had firstsuggested at Mr. Wyvil's country seat.

No time was to be lost in carrying out this intention. He wroteto Mrs. Delvin by that day's post; confiding to her, in the firstplace, the critical position in which he now found himself. Thisdone, he proceeded as follows:

"To your sound judgment, dearest Agatha, it may appear that I ammaking myself needlessly uneasy about the future. Two personsonly know that I am the man who escaped from the inn at Zeeland.You are one of them, and Miss Jethro is the other. On you I canabsolutely rely; and, after my experience of her, I ought to feelsure of Miss Jethro. I admit this; but I cannot get over mydistrust of Emily's friends. I fear the cunning old doctor; Idoubt Mr. Wyvil; I hate Alban Morris.

"Do me a favor, my dear. Invite Emily to be your guest, and soseparate her from these friends. The old servant who attends onher will be included in the invitation, of course. Mrs. Ellmotheris, as I believe, devoted to the interests of Mr. Alban Morris:she will be well out of the way of doing mischief, while we haveher safe in your northern solitude.

"There is no fear that Emily will refuse your invitation.

"In the first place, she is already interested in you. In thesecond place, I shall consider the small proprieties of sociallife; and, instead of traveling with her to your house, I shallfollow by a later train. In the third place, I am now the chosenadviser in whom she trusts; and what I tell her to do, she willdo. It pains me, really and truly pains me, to be compelled todeceive her--but the other alternative is to reveal myself as thewretch of whom she is in search. Was there ever such a situation?And, oh, Agatha, I am so fond of her! If I fail to persuade herto be my wife, I don't care what becomes of me. I used to thinkdisgrace, and death on the scaffold, the most frightful prospectthat a man can contemplate. In my present frame of mind, a lifewithout Emily may just as well end in that way as in any other.When we are together in your old sea-beaten tower, do your best,my dear, to incline the heart of this sweet girl toward me. Ifshe remains in London, how do I know that Mr. Morris may notrecover the place he has lost in her good opinion? The bare ideaof it turns me cold.

"There is one more point on which I must touch, before I canfinish my letter.

"When you last wrote, you told me that Sir Jervis Redwood was notexpected to live much longer, and that the establishment would bebroken up after his death. Can you find out for me what willbecome, under the circumstances, of Mr. and Mrs. Rook? So far asI am concerned, I don't doubt that the alteration in my personalappearance, which has protected me for years past, may be trustedto preserve me from recognition by these two people. But it is ofthe utmost importance, remembering the project to which Emily hasdevoted herself, that she should not meet with Mrs. Rook. Theyhave been already in correspondence; and Mrs. Rook has expressedan intention (if the opportunity offers itself) of calling at thecottage. Another reason, and a pressing reason, for removingEmily from London! We can easily keep the Rooks out of _your_house; but I own I should feel more at my ease, if I heard thatthey had left Northumberland."

With that confession, Mrs. Delvin's brother closed his letter.