Chapter XXXIX. A Gleam of Light

Next day but one, the Companion of St. Michael and St. George came in to Craighton with evil tidings. He had heard in the village that Sir Gilbert Gildersleeve was ill--very seriously ill. The judge had come home from the Holkers' the other evening much upset by the arrival of Gwendoline's telegram.

"Though why on earth should that upset him," Mr. Clifford continued, screwing up his small face with a very wise air, "is more than I can conceive; for I'm sure the Gildersleeves angled hard enough in their time to catch young Kelmscott, by hook or by crook, for their gawky daughter; and now that young Kelmscott telegraphs over to say he's coming home post haste to marry her, Miss Gwendoline faints away, if you please, as she reads the news, and the judge himself goes upstairs as soon as he gets home, and takes to his bed incontinently. But there, the ways of the world are really inscrutable! What reconciles me to life, every day I grow older, is that it's so amusing--so intensely amusing! You never know what's going to turn up next; and what you least expect is what most often happens."

Elma, however, received his news with a very grave face.

"Is he really ill, do you think, papa?" she asked, somewhat anxiously; "or is he only--well--only frightened?"

Mr. Clifford stared at her with a blank leathery face of self-satisfied incomprehension.

"Frightened!" he repeated solemnly; "Sir Gilbert Gildersleeve frightened! And of Granville Kelmscott, too! That's true wit, Elma; the juxtaposition of the incongruous. Why, what on earth has the man got to be frightened of, I should like to know? ... No, no; he's really ill; very seriously ill. Humphreys says the case is a most peculiar one, and he's telegraphed up to town for a specialist to come down this afternoon and consult with him."

And indeed, Sir Gilbert was really very ill. This unexpected shock had wholly unmanned him. To say the truth, the judge had begun to look upon Guy Waring as practically lost, and upon the matter of Montague Nevitt's death as closed for ever. Waring, no doubt, had gone to Africa--under a false name--and proceeded to the diamond fields direct, where he had probably been killed in a lucky quarrel with some brother digger, or stuck through with an assegai by some enterprising Zulu; and nobody had even taken the trouble to mention it.

It's so easy for a man to get lost in the crowd in the Dark Continent! Why, there was Granville Kelmscott, even--a young fellow of means, and the heir of Tilgate, about whom Gwendoline was always moaning and groaning, poor girl, and wouldn't be comforted--there was Granville Kelmscott gone out to Africa, and, hi, presto, disappeared into space without a vapour or a trace, like a conjurer's shilling. It was all very queer; but, then, queer things are the way in Africa.

To be sure, Sir Gilbert had his qualms of