“I went upstairs as quick as I could, and the door of the study being wide open, I could see inside.  Sir Horace and the young lady had evidently been having a quarrel.  They were standing up facing each other, and the table at which they had been sitting was knocked over, and the refreshments I had taken up had been scattered all about.  The young woman had been crying—­I could see that at a glance—­but Sir Horace looked dignified and the perfect gentleman—­like he always was.  He turned to me when he saw me, and said, ‘Hill, kindly show this young lady out,’ I bowed and waited for her to follow me, which she did, after giving Sir Horace an angry look.  I let her out the same way as I let her in, and took her through the plantation to the front gate, which I locked after her.  When I got inside the house again, and was beginning to bolt up things for the night Sir Horace called me again and I went upstairs.  ‘Hill,’ he said, in the same calm and collected voice, ’if that young lady calls again you’re to deny her admittance.  That is all, Hill,’ And he turned back into his room again.

“I didn’t see her again until the morning after Sir Horace left for Scotland.  I had arranged for the female servants to go to Sir Horace’s estate in the country during his absence, as he instructed before his departure, and they and I were very busy on this morning getting the house in order to be closed up—­putting covers on the furniture and locking up the valuables.

“It was Sir Horace’s custom to have this done when he was away every year instead of keeping the servants idling about the house on board wages, and the house was then left in my charge, as I told you, sir, and after the servants went to the country it was my custom to live at home till Sir Horace returned, coming over two or three times a week to look over the place and make sure that everything was all right.  On this morning, sir, after superintending the servants clearing up things, I went outside the house to have a final look round, and to see that the locks of the front and back gates were in good working order.  I was going to the back first, sir, but happening to glance about me as I walked round the house, I saw the young woman that Sir Horace had ordered me to show out of the house the night before he went to Scotland, peering out from behind one of the fir trees of the plantation in front of the house.  As soon as she saw that I saw her she beckoned to me.

“I would not have taken any notice of her, only I didn’t want the women servants to see her.  Sir Horace, I knew, would not have liked that.  So I went across to her.  I asked her what she wanted, and I told her it was no use her wanting to see Sir Horace, for he had gone to Scotland.  ’I don’t want to see him,’ she said, as impudent as brass.  ’It’s you I want to see, Field or Hill or whatever you call yourself now.’  It gave me quite a turn, I assure you, to find that this young woman knew my secret, and I turned round