



Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by the
Internet Web Archive











Transcriber's Notes:

     1. Page scan source: The Internet Web Archive
        https://archive.org/details/indeadofnightnov03spei
        (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)






IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT.



A Novel.




IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.




LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON.
1874.

(_All rights reserved_.)






CONTENTS OF VOL. III.

CHAPTER
     I. A WAY OUT OF THE DIFFICULTY.

    II. IN THE SYCAMORE WALK.

   III. MISS CULPEPPER SPEAKS HER MIND.

    IV. KNOCKLEY HOLT.

     V. AT THE THREE CROWNS HOTEL.

    VI. TOM FINDS HIS TONGUE.

   VII. EXIT MRS. MCDERMOTT.

  VIII. DIRTY JACK.

    IX. WHAT TO DO NEXT?

     X. HOW TOM WINS HIS WIFE.

    XI. THE EIGHTH OF MAY.

   XII. GATHERED THREADS.






IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT.




CHAPTER I.
A WAY OUT OF THE DIFFICULTY.


Two hours after the receipt of Mrs. McDermott's second letter, Squire
Culpepper was on his way to Sugden's bank. His heart was heavy, and
his step slow. He had never had to borrow a farthing from any man--at
least, never since he had come into the estate--and he felt the
humiliation, as he himself called it, very bitterly. There was
something of bitterness, too, in having to confess to his friend Cope
how all his brilliant castles in the air had vanished utterly, leaving
not a wrack behind.

He could see, in imagination, the sneer that would creep over Cope's
face as the latter asked him why he could not obtain a mortgage on
his fine new mansion at Pincote; the mansion he had talked so much
about--about which he had bored his friends; the mansion that
was to have been built out of the Alcazar shares, but of which
not even the foundation-stone would ever now be laid. Then, again,
the Squire was far from certain as to the kind of reception which
would be accorded him by the banker. Of late he had seemed cool, very
cool--refrigerating almost. Once or twice, too, when he had called,
Mr. Cope had been invisible: a Jupiter Tonans buried for the time
being among a cloud of ledgers and dockets and transfers: not to be
seen by any one save his own immediate satellites. The time had been,
and not so very long ago, when he could walk unchallenged through the
outer bank office, whoever else might be waiting, and so into the
inner sanctum, and be sure of a welcome when he got there. But now he
was sure to be intercepted by one or other of the clerks with a "Will
you please to take a seat for a moment while I see whether Mr. Cope is
disengaged." The Squire groaned with inward rage as, leaning on his
thick stick, he limped down Duxley High Street and thought of all
these things.

As he had surmised it would be, so it was on the present occasion. He
had to sit down in the outer office, one of a row of six who were
waiting Mr. Cope's time and pleasure to see them. "He won't lend me
the money," said the Squire to himself, as he sat there choking with
secret mortification. "He'll find some paltry excuse for refusing me.
It's almost worth a man's while to tumble into trouble just to find
out who are his friends and who are not."

However, the banker did not keep him waiting more than five or six
minutes. "Mr. Cope will see you, sir," said a liveried messenger, who
came up to him with a low bow; and into Mr. Cope's parlour the Squire
was thereupon ushered.

The two men met with a certain amount of restraint on either side.
They shook hands as a matter of course, and made a few remarks about
the weather; and then the banker began to play