"Send for the constable!" repeated Rosamond. "Are there thieves in the house in broad daylight?"
"Mr. Munder says he don't know but what it may be worse than thieves," replied Betsey. "It's the foreigner again, if you please, ma'am. He come up and rung at the door as bold as brass, and asked if he could see Mrs. Frankland."
"The foreigner!" exclaimed Rosamond, laying her hand eagerly on her husband's arm.
"Yes, ma'am," said Betsey. "Him as come here to go over the house along with the lady—"
Rosamond, with characteristic impulsiveness, started to her feet. "Let me go down!" she began.
"Wait," interposed Leonard, catching her by the hand. "There is not the least need for you to go down stairs.—Show the foreigner up here," he continued, addressing himself to Betsey, "and tell Mr. Munder that we will take the management of this business into our own hands."
Rosamond sat down again by her husband's side. "This is a very strange accident," she said, in a low, serious tone. "It must be something more than mere chance that puts the clew into our hands, at the moment when we least expected to find it."
The door opened for the second time, and there appeared, modestly, on the threshold, a little old man, with rosy cheeks and long white hair. A small leather case was slung by a strap at his side, and the stem of a pipe peeped out of the breast pocket of his coat. He advanced one step into the room, stopped, raised both his hands, with his felt hat crumpled up in them, to his heart, and made five fantastic bows in quick succession—two to Mrs. Frankland, two to her husband, and one to Mrs. Frankland again, as an act of separate and special homage to the lady. Never had Rosamond seen a more complete embodiment in human form of perfect innocence and perfect harmlessness than the foreigner who was described in the housekeeper's letter as an audacious vagabond, and who was dreaded by Mr. Munder as something worse than a thief!
"Madam and good Sir," said the old man, advancing a little nearer at Mrs. Frankland's invitation, "I ask your pardon for intruding myself. My name is Joseph Buschmann. I live in the town of Truro, where I work in cabinets and tea-caddies, and other shining woods. I am also, if you please, the same little foreign man who was scolded by the big major-domo when I came to see the house. All that I ask of your kindness is, that you will let me say for my errand here and for myself, and for another person who is very near to my love—one little word. I will be but few minutes, Madam and good Sir, and then I will go my ways again, with my best wishes and my best thanks."
"Pray consider, Mr. Buschmann, that our time is your time," said Leonard. "We have no engagement whatever which need oblige you to shorten your visit. I must tell you beforehand, in order to prevent any embarrassment on either side, that I have the misfortune to be blind. I can promise you, however, my best attention as far as listening goes. Rosamond, is Mr. Buschmann seated?"