“Indeed!” the rector replied, with a slight start. “Has Lord Dynmore returned to England, then?”
Again the man looked up slyly. “No, sir,” he answered with deliberation, “I cannot say that he has, sir.”
“You have brought some letter or message from him, perhaps?” the clergyman hazarded. The stranger seemed to have a difficulty in telling his own story.
“No, sir, if you will pardon me, I have come about myself, sir,” the man explained, speaking a little more freely. “I am in a little bit of trouble, and I think you would help me, sir, if you heard the story.”
“I am quite willing to hear the story,” said the rector gravely. Looking more closely at the man, he saw that his neatness was only on the surface. His white cravat was creased, and his wrists displayed no linen. An air of seediness marked him in the full light of the windows, and, pale as his face was, it wore here and there a delicate flush. Perhaps the man’s admission that he was in trouble helped the rector to see this.
“Well, sir, it was this way,” the servant began. “I was not very well out there, sir, and his lordship—he is an independent kind of man—thought he would be better by himself. So he gave me my passage-money and board wages for three months, and told me to come home and take a holiday until he returned to England. So far it was all right, sir.”
“Yes?” said the rector.
“But on board the boat—I am not excusing what I did, sir; but there are others have done worse,” continued the man, with another of his sudden upward glances—“I was led to play cards with a set of sharpers, and—and the end of it was that I landed at Liverpool yesterday without a halfpenny.”
“That was bad.”
“Yes, it was, sir. I do not know that I ever felt so bad in my life,” replied the servant earnestly. “And now you know my position, sir. There are several people in the town—but they have no means to help me—who can tell you I am his lordship’s valet, and my name Charles Felton.”