old servant.

"It's Mr. Elster that's come; not Lord Hartledon."

"Mr. Elster! How do you know, Simon?" asked Mrs. Ashton.

"The gardener mentioned it, ma'am, when he came in just now," was the
servant's reply. "He said he saw Mr. Elster walk past this morning, as if
he had just come by the luggage-train. I'm not sure but he spoke to him."

"The answer is 'No,' Simon," interposed the Rector, alluding to the note
he had been reading. "But you can send word that I'll come in some time
to-day."

"Charles, did you hear what Simon said--that Mr. Elster has come down?"
asked Mrs. Ashton.

"Yes, I heard it," replied the doctor; and there was a hard dry tone in
his voice, as if the news were not altogether palatable to him. "It must
have been Percival Elster your wife saw, Jabez; not Lord Hartledon."

Jabez had been arriving at the same conclusion. "They used to be much
alike in height and figure," he observed; "it was easy to mistake the one
for the other. Then that's all this morning, sir?"

"There is nothing more, Jabez."

In a room whose large French window opened to flowerbeds on the side of
the house, bending over a table on which sundry maps were spread, her
face very close to them, sat at this moment a young lady. It was the same