Lady Molly - The Endpositively monstrous for a woman to be so pitiless towards the man whom she must at one
time have loved.
You see how little people understood my dear lady's motives. Some went so far as to say
that she had only contemplated marriage with Captain Hubert de Mazareen because he was
then, presumably, the heir to Sir Jeremiah's fortune; now--continued the gossips--she was
equally ready to marry Mr. Philip Baddock, who at any rate was the happy possessor of one-
half of the deceased gentleman's wealth.
Certainly Lady Molly's conduct at this time helped to foster this idea. Finding that even the
chief was inclined to give her the cold shoulder, she shut up our flat in Maida Vale and took
up her residence at the little house which she owned in Kirk, and from the windows of which
she had a splendid view of stately Appledore Castle nestling among the trees on the hillside.
I was with her, of course, and Mr. Philip Baddock was a frequent visitor at the house. There
could be no doubt that he admired her greatly, and that she accepted his attentions with a fair
amount of graciousness. The county fought shy of her. Her former engagement to Captain
de Mazareen was well known, and her treachery to him was severely censured.
Living almost in isolation in the village, her whole soul seemed wrapped in thoughts of how to
unravel the mystery of the death of Mr. Steadman. Captain de Mazareen had sworn in his
defense that the solicitor, after starting to walk through the Elkhorn woods with him, had
feared that the tramp over rough ground would be too much for him, and had almost
immediately turned back in order to regain the road. But the chauffeur, George Taylor, who
was busy with the broken-down car some two hundred yards up the road, never saw Mr.
Steadman again, whilst Captain de Mazareen arrived at the gates of Appledore Castle alone.
Here he was met by Mr. Philip Baddock, who informed him that Sir Jeremiah had breathed his
last an hour before.
No one at the Castle recollected seeing a stick in Captain Hubert's hand when he arrived,
whilst there were several witnesses who swore that he carried one at Appledore Station when
he started to walk with her ladyship. The stick was found close to the body of the solicitor;
and the solicitor, when he met with his terrible death, had in his pocket the draft of a will which
meant disinheritance to Captain de Mazareen.
Here was the awful problem which Lady Molly had to face and to solve it she persisted in
believing that the man whom she loved, and whom she had married at the moment when she
knew that proofs of guilt were dead against him, was indeed innocent.
IIWe had spent all the morning shopping in Carlisle, and in the afternoon we called on Mr.
Fuelling, of the firm of Fuelling, Steadman & Co., solicitors.