“Are you in trouble then?”
“Oh, my lord!” returned the girl. “You went away from here leaving sorrow behind you. This you ought to know without my telling you, and you have returned to bring misery and despair.”
“Upon my word, Agatha, for the life of me I cannot understand what you mean. Explain yourself.”
“Let me pass,” exclaimed Agatha.
He endeavoured to detain her, but she refused to answer his questions, and fled along the passage with the speed of an antelope.
“Perverse, obstinate girl!” exclaimed the English nobleman. “What can possess the little jade? The whole household appears to be under some malign influence, which is both extraordinary and unaccountable.”
As he passed on towards the apartment he had previously occupied, he observed in one of the sitting-rooms Theresa Trieste, who was reclining in a large arm-chair in a pensive attitude.
“Mademoiselle Theresa,” ejaculated Lord Ethalwood, “whence this altered demeanour?”
“My lord!” cried the French maiden—“you here!”
“Yes—may I enter?”