Fifty years to you in the confusion of your distraught brain, are but as
yesterday.'

'No, of course not, of course not,' he muttered; 'how should she
recollect my mother, who died while I was a boy? Impossible. That must
be half a century ago.'

'Good evening to you,' said Mary, rising with a great effort, so strong
was her feeling of being spellbound by the uncanny old man, 'I must go
indoors now.'

He stretched out his withered old hand, small, semi-transparent, with
the blue veins showing darkly under the parchment-coloured skin, and
grasped Mary's arm.

'Don't go,' he pleaded. 'I like your face, child; I like your voice--I
like to have you here. What do you mean by going indoors? Where do you
live?'

'There,' said Mary, pointing to the dead wall which faced them. 'In the
new part of Fellside House. I suppose you are staying in the old part
with James Steadman.'

She had made up her mind that this crazy old man must be a relation of
Steadman's to whom he gave hospitality either with or without her
ladyship's consent. All powerful as Lady Maulevrier had ever been in her
own house, it was just possible that now, when she was a prisoner in her
own rooms, certain small liberties might be taken, even by so faithful a
servant as Steadman.