"Thank you. I am glad to see you again."
"Thank you, sir,—my lord, I mean, and please forgive your being received like this—but every one is so upset, there's no doing nothing with nobody. If you will step in 'ere, I'll call Mrs. Eversley, the 'ousekeeper."
"Is Mrs. Eversley still here? I remember her perfectly. She used to stuff me with doughnuts when I came here as a boy. Tell her I will see her presently."
"Very good, my lord."
"Now I want to hear all the particulars of the tragedy. The newspaper account was very meagre."
"Quite so, my lord," assented the butler.
"Lady Wilmersley has not been found?" asked Cyril.
"No, my lord. We've searched for her ladyship 'igh and low. Not a trace of her. And now every one says as 'ow she did it. But I'll never believe it—never. A gentle little lady, she was, and so easily frightened! Why, if my lord so much as looked at her sometimes, she'd fall a trembling, and 'e always so kind and devoted to 'er. 'E just doted on 'er, 'e did. I never saw nothing like it."
"If you don't believe her ladyship guilty, is there any one else you do suspect?"
"No, my lord, I can't say as I do." He spoke regretfully. "It was a burglar, I believe. I think the detective——"