Presently, after he had crossed and recrossed the room several times with hands behind his back, murmuring to himself in apparent discontent, but in tones that were undistinguishable, I turned to him saying,—
“As I entered, a visitor left you. Who is he?”
“Cecil Bingham. He is staying with me for a few days.”
“A friend?”
“Well—yes,” answered his Lordship, halting, and regarding me with no little surprise. “What do you know of him?”
At first I hesitated, but on reflection resolved to explain the circumstances in which we had met, and slowly related to him how I had encountered him with my wife in Kensington Gardens on that well-remembered wintry afternoon.
The Earl grew grave, and after observing that Bingham had arrived on the previous day to spend a week, he for some moments stood looking aimlessly out of the window upon the broad park and the great sheet of water glistening in the sunlight beyond. Then, muttering something I could not catch, he walked quickly back to the fireplace, and touched the electric bell.
“Ask Mr Bingham to see me for a moment,” he exclaimed, when the man answered the summons, and in a few minutes the Earl’s guest came in with that affected jaunty air that had caused me to class him as a cad.
When he had entered, the Earl himself walked to the door and softly closed it, then, turning, said in a hard, dry voice,—
“This, Cecil, is my secretary, Deedes, the husband of the woman known as Ella Laing, with whom you have, I understand, been in correspondence, and have met clandestinely on many occasions.”