His lordship was one of two sleeping partners in the brewery, having about ten thousand pounds invested in the concern. He was on excellent terms with Edward, of whose business abilities he had a very high opinion. His home for three parts of the year was at Seaham Lodge, a splendid property some four or five miles from Beecham. His family were all grown up; the daughters married and the sons out in the world; but with himself and his wife, as companion to her ladyship, there lived a distant kinswoman, Miss Winterton by name, whom Edward Hazeldine had secretly made up his mind to win for his wife, if it were anyhow possible for him to do so. Miss Winterton was thirty years old, and plain looking, but accomplished and amiable; and had, moreover, a fortune of fifteen thousand pounds in her own right. Edward, who had frequent occasion to visit the Lodge on matters of business, and who was generally asked to stay for luncheon or dinner, as the case might be, had as yet ventured to whisper no word of love in Miss Winterton's ear; but there may have been that in his looks and manner which afforded her some inkling of the state of affairs. If such were the case, her treatment of Edward was not of a kind to lead him to fear that when the time should have come for him to urge his suit, he would be very hardly treated. He told himself that he would wait till after Christmas; till the year's balance at the brewery should have been struck. Business was going up by "leaps and bounds," and he wanted to secure not merely Miss Winterton's approval of his suit, but the Earl's as well, and he knew that nothing would put the latter into such a good humor as the assurance of a thumping dividend on his investment in the brewery. "My dear Hazeldine, what is this terrible rumor that has just reached my ears?" said his Lordship, as he came hurriedly into the room and held out his hand to the other. "Surely, surely there can be no truth in it!" He was a short, podgy, sandy-haired man, with a fresh complexion and a tip-tilted nose, and looked far more like a retired tradesman than a "belted Earl." In one respect, indeed, he would have made a first-rate tradesman; in him the commercial instinct was very strongly developed, and half his time was given to the consideration of schemes by means of which his large income might be made larger still. "My father was murdered last night, if that is the rumor to which your Lordship refers," answered Edward, with a little break in his voice. The Earl sat down and stared at the other for a full half minute without speaking. Then he said, "If not too painful to you, I should like you to tell me such particulars of the affair as are already known." This Edward proceeded to do as briefly as possible.