"Eh?" cried Stamer, not that he did not hear and understand, but in order that he might get the story re-told.
Timmons went over the principal points again.
The burglar listened quite unmoved.
"You take it coolly enough, anyhow?"
"Why not? It was an accident."
"An accident! An accident!" cried Timmons, drawing up in front of Stamer and looking at him in perplexity.
"Well, what could be plainer, Mr. Timmons? Of course, it was an accident. Why should I hurt a man who never hurt me?"
"But you did."
"They have to prove that. They _can't_ prove _I_ rounded on a pal. I can get a hundred witnesses to character."
"Nice witnesses they would be."
"But the coppers _know_ I'm a straight man."
"They would hardly come to speak for you. It's someone from Portland would give you a character. But you know you fired the shot."
"At a screech-owl, my lord, at a screech-owl, my lord, that was flying across the street. You don't suppose, my lord, I'd go and round on a pal of Mr. Timmons's and my own?"
Timmons glared at him. "But the man is dead, and someone shot him."
"Well, my lord, except Mr. Timmons-and to save him I risked my own life, and would lay it down, and am ready to lay it down now or any time it may please your lordship-unless Mr.
Timmons goes into the box and swears my life away, you can prove nothing against me, my lord."
"After all," said Timmons, looking through half-closed critical eyes at Stamer, "after all, the man has some brains."
"And a straight man for a friend in Mr. John Timmons."
"Yes, Stamer, you have."
Stamer stood up and approached Timmons. "You'll shake hands on that, Mr. Timmons?"
"I will." Timmons gave him his hand. "And now," he added, "I don't think you know the good news."
"What?"
"Why, Forbes's bakery was burned out last night."
"Hurroo!" cried Stamer, with a yell of sudden relief and joy. "My lord, you haven't a single bit of evidence against Tom Stamer. My lord, good-bye. Mr. John Timmons and Tom Stamer against the world!"
CHAPTER XXXV THE RUINS
But when at last she did awake, how different were her feelings from the day before! She could scarcely believe she was the same being, or it was the same world. That letter from Mr. Coutch, of Castleton, had plunged her into a depth of leaden hopelessness she had never known before. Now all was changed. Then she was the last of a race of shopkeepers; now she had for cousin a man whose ancestor had been a king. Whatever fate might do against her in the future, it could never take away that consoling consciousness. At Miss Graham's in Streatham the girls used to say she ought to be a queen. Well, a not very remote relative of hers would have sat on a throne if she had lived and come into her rights! Prodigious.
She found her grandmother waiting for her. The old lady was seated in the window, spectacles on nose, reading the morning paper. All the papers of that morning had not an account of the disaster at Chelsea, because of the late hour at which it occurred. Mrs. Grace's paper was one that did not get the news in time for insertion that morning, so that the old lady and Edith were spared the pain of believing that a man who sat in this room yesterday had met with a sudden and horrible death.
But Mrs. Grace's eye had caught a paragraph headed "The Last of the Poles." Without a word or comment she handed the paper to the girl and said merely, "Read that. It ought to interest you."
Edith looked at the heading, flushed, and then read the paragraph. It ran:
"The last survivor of one of the great historical families of Europe was buried at Chone, near Geneva, four days before Christmas. The venerable Mathilde Poniatowski, the widow of Count Szymanowski, had just passed her ninetieth year. Her family gave to Poland its last king, Stanislaus Augustus, under whose reign the death-struggle of the Polish nation began, and its last hero, Prince Joseph Poniatowski, who fell as one of Napoleon's generals when bravely attempting to cover the retreat of the French at the battle of Leipzig. The Tzar Alexander, with a generosity which did him credit, allowed his corpse to be buried in the church at Cracow amongst the old Kings and heroes of Poland. Count Szymanowski, the husband of the deceased lady, took a prominent part in the rising of the Poles in 1831, since which time she has lived a quiet and uneventful life in the hospitable republic of Geneva."
"And think," said Mrs. Grace, "that she who is just dead represented only the younger branch of Mr. Hanbury's family. It is all more like an Eastern romance than anything which could take place in Europe!"
Edith could not say much. She felt choking, and merely said it was wonderful, and that Mr. Hanbury would no doubt know all about the countess.
"I don't think so. You know he said he did not know much of the family. I must cut out this paragraph and keep it for him."
The notion of cutting a paragraph out of a penny paper and giving it to the head of the house here referred to, was grotesque. Besides, he had not said that he should come again. He said his mother would call, and he expressed a vague hope that they might be better friends. Edith knew no practical importance was to be attached to this man's parentage, as far as honours went; but still it could not be that he would move about as freely now as of yore, or mingle with the people he had formerly considered his equals. He could no more destroy the stream of noble and kingly blood in his veins than a costermonger could carry the arms of a Howard or a Percy.