"The two gentlemen, sir, as you spoke of to Mrs. Sinnott, has arrived about five minutes before you, sir; and she has, please sir, followed your directions, and had them put in the rooms in the front, as you ordered, sir, should be kept for them, before Mrs. Gwynn left."
"What two gentlemen?" demanded Sir Jekyl, with a thrill. "Mr. Strangways and M. Varbarriere?"
"Them, sir, I think, is the names—Strangways, leastways, I am sure on, 'aving lived, when young, with a branch of the Earl of Dilbury's family, if you please, sir—which Strangways is the name."
"A good-looking young gentleman, tall and slight, eh?"
"Yes, sir; and a heavy gentleman haccompanies him—something in years—a furriner, as I suppose, and speaking French or Jarmin; leastways, it is not English."
"Dinner in twenty minutes," said Sir Jekyl, with the decision of the Duke of Wellington in action; and away he strode to his dressing-room in the back settlements, with a quick step and a thoughtful face.
"I shan't want you, Tomlinson, you need not stay," said he to his man; but before he let him go, he asked carelessly a word or two about the new guests, and learned, in addition to what he already knew, nothing but that they had brought a servant with them.
"So much the worse," thought Sir Jekyl; "those confounded fellows hear everything, and poke their noses everywhere. I sometimes think that rascal, Tomlinson, pries about here."
And the Baronet, half-dressed, opened the door of his study, as he called it, at the further end of his homely bedchamber, and looked round.
It is or might be a comfortable room, of some five-and-twenty feet square, surrounded by bookshelves, as homely as the style of the bed-room, stored with volumes of the "Annual Register," "Gentleman's Magazine," and "Universal History" sort—long rows in dingy gilding—moved up here when the old library of Marlowe was broken up. The room had a dusty air of repose about it. A few faded pieces of old-fashioned furniture, which had probably been quartered here in genteel retirement, long ago, when the principal sitting-rooms were undergoing a more modern decoration.