The words which the servant had spoken, in announcing to Sir Walter Herbert the arrival of a stranger, had made but little impression either upon the worthy knight or on the son of the deceased nobleman; and, after a broken conversation, in which pauses of deep and solemn thought constantly interrupted their discourse, Langford was begging Sir Walter to convey his daughter from that melancholy house to her own happy home, when the rector entered the room, bringing with him a person unknown to any one present. "I am forced to intrude upon you, sir," said the clergyman, addressing Langford, "as this gentleman who has just presented himself has come on business in which you are deeply interested." "It is an unpleasant moment, sir," replied Langford, "for me to enter upon any business at all. I am occupied with very gloomy thoughts and very painful feelings, and I could wish that the business, whatever it is, might be postponed till to-morrow." "I am very sorry, sir, both for your sake and my own, that cannot be," replied the stranger, advancing. He was a man about the middle age, tall and well made, though meagre, courtly in his personal appearance, and bearing in his whole demeanour the stamp of gentleman. Nevertheless, there was something repulsive in his aspect--something cold, and cynical, and dry, which was smoothed down, indeed, by courtesy of manner and personal grace, but which, nevertheless, tended to make Langford the less inclined to enter into any conversation with him at that moment. The stranger, however, went on, and the next few words he uttered were sufficient to show him to whom they were addressed that he must meet the subject at once. "It will, perhaps, sir," the stranger said, "be satisfactory to you to know, in the first instance, who it is that is forced to intrude upon you, which our worthy and reverend friend here has forgotten to mention. My name is Sir Henry Heywood; I have the honour of being second cousin to the late Earl of Danemore, and in default of his son Lord Harold, who, there is good reason to believe, I find, is dead, am heir to the title and estates of the late peer." There was something in the manner of his announcing himself--the tone, the demeanour, the look--that galled Langford not a little, and made Mm assume a cold dryness of manner which was not natural to him. To the stranger's announcement, then, he only replied by drawing up his head and demanding, "Well, sir, what then?" The shortness of this reply seemed to puzzle Sir Henry Heywood a good deal, for he paused a moment or two before he answered, and then begun with some degree of hesitation: "Why, sir, under these circumstances," he said at length, "during the absence and probable death of Lord Harold, I am the only fit person to take possession of the late Earl's papers and effects." "I do not feel quite sure of that," replied Langford, in the same tone.