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 

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