“Yes, I feel sure it does. Did you notice how the fellow’s face changed when he saw her drive past? He went as white as a ghost. He’s a mystery—that he is.”
“He is, without a doubt,” I said. His announcement that Richard Keene had returned seemed to convey some covert threat. I recollected the tone in which he had uttered the name as he had crossed the threshold, and it caused me to ponder deeply—very deeply.
Little, however, did I dream of the terrible significance of that name; little did I at that moment anticipate the strange events that were to follow—that remarkable mystery of real life which proved so tantalising, so bewildering and so inscrutable.
Chapter Two.
Concerns Lady Lolita.
I strolled back up the long beech avenue to the Hall, apprehensive and puzzled. The stranger’s manner, his curious expression when he had spoken of Lolita, and the bold way in which he had sent her the announcement of the return of Richard Keene were ominous. What, I wondered, did the letter contain, sealed as it was with the arms of some noble house?
I scented mystery in it all; mystery that somehow concerned myself. Why? Well, I will confess to you now—at the very outset. I, although but a paid servant of the Stanchesters, like any of that army of footmen and grooms, loved Lady Lolita in secret, and although no word of affection had ever passed between us, I nevertheless felt that her interests were my own.
My position was, I admit, a unique one. Lolita and I had been friends ever since our childhood days in India, when her father held the highest official position in the East and mine was his confidential assistant, and now, her brother having succeeded, she seemed to regard me as a harmless and necessary director of things in general. Very frequently I was invited to luncheon or to dinner, and treated always as one of the family, even though I was but a paid dependant. Yes, both the young Earl and his sister were extremely kind and considerate, and surely I had no cause for complaint, either in matter of salary, which was a handsome one, or in that of social standing.