No answer came, except the opening of the door opposite her couch. The handle turned slowly, hesitatingly, as if moved by feeble fingers; and then the door was pushed slowly open, and an old man came with shuffling footsteps towards the one lighted spot in the middle of the room.
It was the old man Lord Hartfield had last seen gloating over his treasury of gold and jewels—the man whom Maulevrier had never seen—whose existence for forty years had been hidden from every creature in that house, except Lady Maulevrier and the Steadmans, until Mary found her way into the old garden.
He came close up to the little table in front of Lady Maulevrier's couch, and looked down at her, a strange, uncanny being, withered and bent, with pale, faded eyes in which there was a glimmer of unholy light.
'Good-evening to you, Lady Maulevrier,' he said in a mocking voice. 'I shouldn't have known you if we had met anywhere else. I think, of the two of us, you are more changed than I.'
She looked up at him, her features quivering, her haughty head drawn back; as a bird shrinks from the gaze of a snake, recoiling, but too fascinated to fly. Her eyes met his with a look of unutterable horror. For some moments she was speechless, and then, looking at Lord Hartfield, she said, piteously—
'Why did you let him come here? He ought to be taken care of—shut up. It is Steadman's old uncle—a lunatic—I sheltered. Why is he allowed to come to my room?'
'I am Lord Maulevrier,' said the old man, drawing himself up and planting his crutch stick upon the floor; 'I am Lord Maulevrier, and this woman is my wife. Yes, I am mad sometimes, but not always. I have my bad fits, but not often. But I never forget who and what I am, Algernon, Earl of Maulevrier, Governor of Madras.'
'Lady Maulevrier, is this horrible thing true?' cried her grandson, vehemently.
'He is mad, Maulevrier. Don't you see that he is mad?' she exclaimed, looking from Hartfield to her grandson, and then with a look of loathing and horror at her accuser.
'I tell you, young man, I am Maulevrier,' said the accuser; 'there is no one else who has a right to be called by that name, while I live. They have shut me up—she and her accomplice—denied my name—hidden me from the world. He is dead, and she lies there—stricken for her sins.'