She found herself in a library. It was quite as untidy as the hall, but a quantity of candles in tarnished wall brackets threw a warm light over it, and a log fire burned in the grate at the far end of it. Before this fire, one hand resting on the mantelpiece, one booted foot on the fender, stood a gentleman in buckskin breeches and a mulberry coat, staring down at the leaping flames. As the door closed behind Miss Rochdale he looked up and across at her in a measuring way that might have disconcerted one less accustomed to being weighed up like so much merchandise offered for sale. He might have been any age between thirty and forty. Miss Rochdale realized that he must be her employer’s husband, and was a good deal cheered to discover that besides being a very gentlemanlike-looking man, with a well-favored countenance and a distinct air of breeding, he was dressed with a neatness and a propriety at welcome variance with his surroundings. He had, in fact, all the appearance of a man of fashion.

He did not move to meet her, so Miss Rochdale advanced into the room, saying, “Good evening. The servant desired me to enter this room, but perhaps—?”

It seemed to her that there was a faint look of surprise in his face, but he replied in a cool voice, “Yes, that was by my orders. Pray be seated! I trust you were not kept waiting at the coach stop?”

“No, indeed!” she said, taking a chair by the table, and folding her hands over her reticule in her lap. “The carriage was waiting for me. I must thank you for having sent it.”

“I should certainly doubt of there being a suitable conveyance in these stables,” he said.

This remark, uttered as it was in an indifferent tone, seemed extremely odd to Miss Rochdale. She must have shown that she was taken aback, for he added stiffly, “I believe that the exact nature of the position offered to you was explained in London?”