"Ah, the housekeeper," he cried quickly. "This man has refused again and again to bear my card to Miss Marion. Will you have the goodness to take it to her, and say that I beg she will see me for a few minutes at once?"

The old lady's white forehead puckered up beneath her grey hair, as she looked in a startled way at the speaker, and then turned to the butler, who was holding Chester's card between his first and second fingers.

"Who is this gentleman?" she said rather sternly, and for me moment Chester was so completely taken aback that the butler had time to speak.

"Here's his card, ma'am. He's been before wanting to see Miss Clareborough. Master's seen it, ma'am, and says he don't know anything about the gentleman, and that if he had business he was to write."

The housekeeper turned to Chester, raising her eyebrows a little, and he had by this time recovered his balance.

"Of course," he said, "I can quite understand Mr James's action after his treatment of me, madam."

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

"Let me speak to you alone," he continued. "I can say nothing before this man."

"Had you not better write to Mr Clareborough, sir, if you have business with the family?"

"No, certainly not," said Chester. "My business is with Miss Clareborough, and I insist upon seeing her."

"Excuse me, sir," said the housekeeper, calmly; "as a gentleman, you must know that one of the ladies would decline to see a stranger on business unless she knew what that business was."

"A stranger--on business!" cried Chester, angrily. "My good woman, why do you talk like this to me?"

"Really, sir, I do not understand you," said the housekeeper, with dignity.

"Let me see you alone," said Chester, earnestly.

"Certainly not, sir. Have the goodness to say what is your business here."

"You know it is impossible," cried Chester. "See me alone--send this man away."

"Stay where you are, Mr Roach," said the housekeeper, who might, from her calm, dignified manner, have been the mistress of the house. "Are you not making some mistake, sir? Mr Clareborough evidently does not know you."

"Nor you either?" said Chester, sarcastically.

"I, sir? Certainly not," replied the housekeeper.

Chester stared at her angrily.

"Do you dare to tell me this?" he cried.

"Come, sir, none of that, please," said the butler, interfering. "We can't have you always coming here and asking to see people who don't want to see you."

"Stand back, you insolent scoundrel!" cried Chester, turning upon the butler fiercely; and the man obeyed on the instant.

"There is no occasion to make a scene, sir," said the housekeeper, gently. "Pray be calm. You have, I see, made a mistake. Had you not better go home and write to Mr Clareborough? If your business is important, he will, no doubt, make an appointment to meet you."

"But you!" cried Chester, returning to the attack, "you deny that you know me?"

"Certainly, sir, I do not know you," replied the housekeeper.

"Had you not better dismiss this man?"

"No, no," said the housekeeper, smiling; and there was a very sweet look on her handsome old face. "There is no occasion for that. Pray take my advice; go back home and write what you wish to say."

"After what has pa.s.sed, madam, I can hold no communication with Mr Clareborough."

"Indeed! Well, sir, of course all you say is foreign to me, but I must tell you that it seems the only course open; so much can be done by letter."

"Then, as I understand," said Chester, more quietly, "you refuse to give me a few words alone?"

"Yes, sir; you can have nothing to say to me that Mr Roach, the butler, may not hear."

Chester looked at the woman fixedly, but she met his gaze in the calmest way--not a muscle moved, not a nerve quivered.

"Very well," he said at last, "I see you are determined to ignore the past entirely."

The housekeeper made a slight deprecatory movement toward him, and then signed the butler to open the door, which he did with alacrity, but Chester stood fast, looking past the housekeeper toward the end of the hall, where there was the opening into the great dining-room, the scene of the strange adventure when he first came to the house.

"Very well," he said at last, as he mastered a wild desire to rush upstairs and call Marion by name until she replied; and he spoke now in a subdued tone of voice which the butler could not hear, "of course you are in the plot, but I shall not let matters rest here. It would have been better if you had met me as a friend--as I believed you to be--of Miss Marion and Mr Robert, but I see that you are bound up with the others. And mind this: I was disposed to a.s.sist in hushing up that trouble, but as I am convinced that Miss Marion is receiving foul play, I shall leave no stone unturned to obtain speech with her, even going so far, if necessary, as to call in the aid of the police."

There was a calm, grave, pitying look upon the housekeeper's countenance which literally staggered Chester, and he went out quickly and turned to the right, the butler closing the door with a bang.

"He's a regular lunatic, ma'am," said the butler. "Got hold of the names from the Directory or the tradesfolk; but I'm very glad you were there."

"Poor gentleman," said the housekeeper, gravely, "there seems to be some strange hallucination in his brain."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

THE BOOKWORM TRIES TO BORE.

As it happened, Chester was musing as he went down the steps.

"They treat me as if I were mad. Have I got some strange notion in my head? No woman could possibly meet one with such a--Ah! good-day!" he cried quickly, for, as he was pa.s.sing the next door, the grey, dreamy-looking old occupant was in the act of inserting the latch-key.

He turned slowly, pushed back his rather broad-brimmed hat, and blinked at the speaker through his spectacles.

"I beg your pardon," he said, rather wonderingly; "I--can't see; yes, to be sure, I remember now;" and the old man's face lit up. "I remember now. My young friend who was making inquiries. Will you step in, sir?

I do not have many visitors."

He threw open the door and stood smiling holding it back, giving Chester a smile of invitation which made him enter--that, in combination with the sudden thought that he might perhaps learn something about the next-door neighbours.

"Really," he said frankly, "as a perfect stranger, this is somewhat of an intrusion."

"Not at all, my dear young friend, not at all. Glad to see you. I lead such an old-world, lost kind of life. I am very glad to have a caller.

Come in, my dear young friend, come in. No, no; don't set your hat down there; it will be covered with dust. Let me put it here. Now, then, come in."