



Produced by Marlo Dianne




[Illustration: "These Are My Dearest Children."]




THE
CRYPTOGRAM.


A Novel.


By James De Mille,

Author of
"The Dodge Club," "Cord and Creese," "The American Baron," etc.


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS




New York:
Harper & Brothers, Publishers,
Franklin Square.
1872




CHAPTER I.


TWO OLD FRIENDS.


Chetwynde Castle was a large baronial mansion, belonging to the
Plantagenet period, and situated in Monmouthshire. It was a grand old
place, with dark towers, and turrets, and gloomy walls surmounted
with battlements, half of which had long since tumbled down, while
the other half seemed tottering to ruin. That menacing ruin was on
one side of the structure concealed beneath a growth of ivy, which
contrasted the dark green of its leaves with the sombre hue of the
ancient stones. Time with its defacing fingers had only lent
additional grandeur to this venerable pile. As it rose there--"standing
with half its battlements alone, and with five hundred years
of ivy grown"--its picturesque magnificence and its air of hoar
antiquity made it one of the noblest monuments of the past which
England could show.

All its surroundings were in keeping with the central object. Here
were no neat paths, no well-kept avenues, no trim lawns. On the
contrary, every thing bore the unmistakable marks of neglect and
decay; the walks were overgrown, the terraces dilapidated, and the
rose pleasaunce had degenerated into a tangled mass of bushes and
briers. It seemed as though the whole domain were about to revert
into its original state of nature; and every thing spoke either of
the absence of a master, or else of something more important
still--the absence of money.

The castle stood on slightly elevated ground; and from its gray stone
ivy-covered portal so magnificent was the view that the most careless
observer would be attracted by it, and stand wonder-struck at the