Thomas Tucker--a tall, thin, active, grey-moustached man of sixty-five-- was a servant of the old-fashioned faithful school. For thirty-two years--ever since the day of his marriage--he had lived in the pretty rose-embowered lodge, and had been taken over by my father as part of the estate. Indeed, in such high esteem did the governor hold him that he was given an entirely free hand in all outside matters; while his wife--a well-preserved, round-faced woman, equally devoted to her master--was entrusted with the care of the servants and other domestic affairs. Hence, when I found myself possessor of the place, I too reposed the same confidence in the faithful pair as my father had done. But now that he was dead and I was alone, Upton End seemed, alas! very grim and silent. True, the old place, with its quaint corners and historic associations, its dark panelling, polished floors, and antique furniture, its high box hedges, level lawns, and wealth of roses, would have delighted the artist or the antiquarian; but modern man that I was, I failed to find very much there to attract me. It was a house built for entertainment, and was only tolerable when filled by a gay house-party. The lawns, gardens, and park were looking their best in those balmy days of June; yet as I walked about, listening to Tucker as he showed me some improvements in tree-planting and in the green-houses, I found myself already reflecting whether, after all, it was worth while keeping the place up further, now that I scarcely ever visited it. The rural quiet of the place palled upon me--so much so, indeed, that while sitting on the wide veranda smoking in the sunset on the third evening after my arrival I made up my mind to leave again next day. This I did, much to Tucker's regret. The old fellow watched me climb into the dog-cart, and touched his straw hat in respectful silence. I knew how the poor old fellow hated his master to be absent. Again in London, I waited in eager impatience until the nineteenth of the month, when I left Paddington for Totnes, in Devon. It was, I found, a quaint old town among green hills through which wound the picturesque Dart--a town with a long, steep high street, a city gateway, with shops built over the footpath, like those in the Borgo Largo in Pisa. The Seymour Hotel, where I took up my quarters, was situated by the bridge, and faced the river--a well-known resort of anglers and summer tourists. But of such things as fishing or scenery I cared nothing on that well-remembered day--the day appointed for me to keep the strange tryst made by the man now dead.