'He sleeps half the day just as heavy as that, my lord,' said the wife, with a troubled air. 'I don't think it can be right.'
'I don't think so either,' answered Lord Hartfield. 'You had better call in the doctor.'
'I will, my lord, to-morrow morning. James will be angry with me, I daresay; but I must take upon myself to do it without his leave.'
She led the way along a passage corresponding with the one above, and unlocked a door opening into a lobby near the billiard-room.
'Come, Molly, see if you can beat me at a fifty game,' said Lord Hartfield, with the air of a man who wants to shake off the impression of some dominant idea.
'Of course you will annihilate me, but it will be a relief to play,' answered Mary. 'That strange old man has given me a shock. Everything about his surroundings is so different from what I expected. And how could an uncle of Steadman's come by all that money—and those jewels—if they were jewels, and not bits of glass which the poor old thing has chopped up, in order to delude himself with an imaginary treasure?'
'I do not think they are bits of glass, Molly.'
'They sparkled tremendously—almost as much as my—our—the family diamonds,' said Mary, puzzled how to describe that property which she held in right of her position as countess regnant; 'but if they are real jewels, and all those rouleaux real money, how could Steadman's uncle become possessed of such wealth?'
'How, indeed?' said Lord Hartfield, choosing his cue