"That's a queer customer?" I remarked to Warr when he returned to me, for I had come down to pay him an account. "I don't like the look of him somehow." "Neither do I," the landlord answered. "At first I took him for a burglar spying around to ascertain who was at home up at the Hall, but I've formed a very different conclusion during the past five minutes. He isn't a burglar, but he's somebody who evidently knows Lady Lolita." "Knows her?" I exclaimed, surprised. "What do you mean? What did he tell you in private?" "Nothing. He asked me to render him a service by giving a letter in secret to her ladyship, and as recompense gave me this." And opening his hand, Warr showed me a sovereign. "Something fresh, this!" he added. "A tramp who gives sovereign tips;" and he laughed very heartily to himself. I did not join in his laughter, for on being handed the letter I saw it was inscribed to her ladyship and marked "Private" in a neat educated hand, and sealed with black wax with an unfamiliar coat-of-arms bearing a coronet and many quarterings. "He told me also to tell her that Richard Keene has returned, and said that she would understand. Strange, ain't it?" observed the landlord, with a long pull at his clay. "Very. If you wish, I'll undertake the responsibility of giving Lady Lolita this letter and delivering the message," I said. "No. I'll have to come up to the Hall myself," was the innkeeper's reply. "The chap actually compelled me to take a solemn oath to deliver it into no other hands but her own!" "Then it must contain something of supreme importance, otherwise it might surely have been sent by post," I remarked suspiciously. "Yes, I feel sure it does. Did you notice how the fellow's face changed when he saw her drive past? He went as white as a ghost. He's a mystery--that he is." "He is, without a doubt," I said. His announcement that Richard Keene had returned seemed to convey some covert threat. I recollected the tone in which he had uttered the name as he had crossed the threshold, and it caused me to ponder deeply--very deeply. Little, however, did I dream of the terrible significance of that name; little did I at that moment anticipate the strange events that were to follow--that remarkable mystery of real life which proved so tantalising, so bewildering and so inscrutable. CHAPTER TWO. CONCERNS LADY LOLITA. I strolled back up the long beech avenue to the Hall, apprehensive and puzzled. The stranger's manner, his curious expression when he had spoken of Lolita, and the bold way in which he had sent her the announcement of the return of Richard Keene were ominous. What, I wondered, did the letter contain, sealed as it was with the arms of some noble house?