Sir Harold swung round, and eyed the man wonderingly.
“Well?” he demanded. “I am afraid that you have made some mistake, my good fellow.”
“Don’t you know me, Sir Harold?” cried the man. “I’m Stimson, your valet. You left me to go to London, and I followed the next day with all the luggage, and have never seen you since.”
“I really don’t know you, Stimson; I am very sorry, and I wish that you had not met me.”
“Oh, Sir Harold, I thought that you were dead. I never did believe what they said about your running away. I knew you too well.”
“That is what they say, is it?” Sir Harold said. “Well, I am glad of it. I have no desire to undeceive them, whoever ‘they’ may be.”
Stimson stood watching anxiously every expression of his master’s face.
“I will tell you that which very few people know, Stimson—I fell from the train at Tenterden on that fatal day, and had ten years of my life utterly obliterated. That is why I do not recognize you. I am told that I shall soon be all right again, and there is only one other of my old friends in the secret—Colonel Greyson.”
“Oh, master, it is good to hear your voice again!” was the valet’s hysterical rejoinder. “You want me again, don’t you, Sir Harold? You said that I should always remain with you.”
“I am ready to keep my word, Stimson, because I am really in need of a valet. I am to be married soon, and intend going abroad immediately, to stay until my memory is fully restored.”