But when she was well enough to get up again, the truth was gradually broken to her. The dead body of the butler, Langton, had been found in the drawing-room, where it was evident that some sort of a scuffle had taken place. The drawing-room window had been found open, and it was supposed that a burglar had got in, and that the butler, hearing a noise, had gone down and had been murdered by the intruder.
The inquest had been held, and the verdict brought in: “Wilful murder by some person or persons unknown.”
But the rumour about the neighbourhood was that there had been a serious quarrel between Langford and his master, that he was known to have been under notice to leave his situation, and that it was in a scuffle between master and man that Langford came by his death.
Rhoda sprang up with a cry.
“It’s not true!” she cried. “Sir Robert is incapable of such a thing! Besides, I know! I can prove—Oh let me go and tell what I know!”
But the next moment the light faded out of her eyes and she sank back, trembling.
What did she know? What could she prove? Nothing, nothing.
CHAPTER III.
TEN YEARS AFTER
Ten years passed before Rhoda Pembury saw Sir Robert Hadlow or the old Mill-house again, and during those ten years all that she heard of him or of his doings was through an announcement in the newspapers, some six months after her stay there, of his marriage with Sarah, third daughter of the Marquis of Eridge.
After that, although Rhoda did, from time to time, see brief paragraphs in the papers concerning the doings of Lady Sarah Hadlow, and incidental mention in connection with her, of her husband, Sir Robert, she held no communication with them, or with any of the household at the Dourville Mill-house, and she believed, during the whole of that period, that the baronet who had saved her life and who had been kind to her, had passed out of her life for ever.