Sir Frank seemed to find the proposal quite natural. “Very good. I shall be glad to stretch my legs for an hour, so I’ll leave you here and come back again.” This was an unforeseen check. I had been so sure of being the one to go out into the grounds, if I could effect the separation, that I hadn’t thought of the alternative. My only chance now was to slip out as soon as Tarleton’s back was turned. I looked at the servant, and fancied that his eye rested on me with a more friendly air than on my companion. “Would you like to wait inside, sir?” he asked. I hesitated. But I had to choose between trusting him and trusting the chauffeur who had driven us out from Hereford; and he had impressed me favourably. I followed him into the Castle, while Tarleton moved off down an avenue of beeches in the park. The servant brought me through a dreary hall full of old suits of armour and ancient high-backed chairs, but lacking in those little touches of modern comfort that are needed to make such a place home-like and attractive to the eye. He opened a door towards the inner end, and ushered me into a gloomy library, fitted up with great bookcases that looked as if they were never opened, stuffed with huge leather-bound volumes of the kind that no human being any longer wants to read. The whole room reminded me of the fairy tale of the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood. It seemed to breathe of the eighteenth century, as though its life had been arrested then, and no one had trodden the faded carpet or taken down one of the dusty tomes for a hundred long years since. The manservant had taken up a silver plate as we passed through the hall, and laid our cards on it. He now asked, “Shall I take these cards to his lordship, sir?” He must have seen me start at the question. I put my hand into my pocket, searching his face carefully the while. “There is no occasion for that,” I said. “Our business with her ladyship is private, and she may not wish his lordship to be troubled with it.” I took out a note before adding, “Perhaps you remember my face?” The man looked pleased. His chances of adding to his wages can’t have been very many in that lonely mansion. It seemed to me, moreover, that he was genuinely attached to his young mistress. “Why, yes, sir. I did have a thought as I had seen you here before. You were staying at the Moorfield Farm, if I rec’lect rightly, sir, three years ago or might be four.” I nodded, and the piece of paper passed silently from my hand to his. “I’ve come to do a service to Lady Violet, if I can,” I told him. “Her ladyship knows I am coming, and she has gone out to meet me. I want you to let me out at the back of the Castle, so that I can join her; and say nothing to the friend who has come with me, or anybody else.” He gave me a quick look of intelligence. “I understand, sir.”