But Thomas kept his hand on the door. He liked the girl who, when she had been his lordship’s secretary, had never given herself airs (the unpardonable sin of the servants’ hall) and who always had a smile for the meanest of the domestic staff. He would gladly have admitted her and felt that his lordship would have been pleased to see her, but in the background somewhere hovered Dick Alford, a man of curt speech, who was not only capable of showing him the door but kicking him through it. “I’m very sorry, miss, but orders is orders, as you know.” “I see!” she nodded ominously. “I’m to be turned away from what might have been my own door, Thomas.” He tried to look his sympathy and succeeded in assuming an expression of imbecility. She smiled at him, shook hands with him graciously, and turned away from the portico. “Miss Wenner,” reported Thomas, “her that Alford fired because he thought his lordship was getting sweet on her----” The library bell rang at that moment and Thomas hastened to answer the call. “Who was that lady? I saw her through the window.” “Miss Wenner, m’lord.” A cloud passed over Harry Alford’s face. “Did you--ask her to come in?” “No, m’lord, Mr. Alford gave orders----” “Of course… yes. I had forgotten. Perhaps it is just as well. Thank you.” He pulled down the green shade over his eyes, for even in the day he worked by artificial light, such was the gloom in the library, and resumed his study of the book. Yet his mind was not wholly concentrated on the work. Once he rose and walked up and down the library, his hands clasped before him, his chin on his breast. He stopped before the picture of his mother, sighed, and walked back to the writing table. There was a press paragraph which he had cut out of a London newspaper and this he read for the third time, not ill pleased with the unaccustomed experience of finding himself the subject of newspaper comment, and yet irritated by the subject on which the paragraph was based. Chelfordbury, a sleepy Sussex village, is engaged in the thrilling sport of ghost-hunting. The Black Abbot of Fossaway has, after a period of quiescence, again made his appearance. The legend is that seven hundred years ago, the Abbot of Chelfordbury was assassinated by order of the Second Earl of Chelford. Since then, from time to time, his “ghost” has been seen. During the past few years horrific stories of an Unseen Being that shrieked and howled demoniacally have been current in the county, but the noisy spook was not actually seen until last week. Fossaway Manor has other romances besides ghosts. Four hundred years ago, a great treasure of gold was, according to legend, hidden somewhere on the estate; so effectually, in fact, that it has never been discovered since, although successive Earls of Chelford have searched diligently for the ancestral hoard.