"We shall, perhaps, meet again during the next few days," he remarked.

She half turned her head. Her expression was scarcely encouraging.

"I hope," she said, "that you will not be disappointed in your
quarters."

Hamel followed her slowly on to the platform, saw her escorted to a
very handsome motor-car by an obsequious station-master, and watched
the former disappear down the stretch of straight road which led to the
hill. Then, with a stick in one hand, and the handbag which was his sole
luggage in the other, he left the station and turned seaward.

CHAPTER IX

Mr. Fentolin, surrounded by his satellites, was seated in his chair
before the writing-table. There were present in the room most of the
people important to him in his somewhat singular life. A few feet away,
in characteristic attitude, stood Meekins. Doctor Sarson, with his hands
behind him, was looking out of the window. At the further end of the
table stood a confidential telegraph clerk, who was just departing with
a little sheaf of messages. By his side, with a notebook in her hand,
stood Mr. Fentolin's private secretary--a white-haired woman, with
a strangely transparent skin and light brown eyes, dressed in somber
black, a woman who might have been of any age from thirty to fifty.
Behind her was a middle-aged man whose position in the household no one
was quite sure about--a clean-shaven man whose name was Ryan, and
who might very well have been once an actor or a clergyman. In the
background stood Henderson, the perfect butler.

"It is perhaps opportune," Mr. Fentolin said quietly, "that you all whom
I trust should be present here together. I wish you to understand one
thing. You have, I believe, in my employ learned the gift of silence. It
is to be exercised with regard to a certain visitor brought here by my
nephew, a visitor whom I regret to say is now lying seriously ill."

There was absolute silence. Doctor Sarson alone turned from the window
as though about to speak, but met Mr. Fentolin's eye and at once resumed
his position.

"I rely upon you all," Mr. Fentolin continued softly. "Henderson, you,
perhaps, have the most difficult task, for you have the servants to
control. Nevertheless, I rely upon you, also. If one word of this
visitor's presence here leaks out even so far as the village, out they
go, every one of them. I will not have a servant in the place who does
not respect my wishes. You can give any reason you like for my