“Not yet, my lord.”
“Lady Ashleigh,” her husband explained, “has gone to the other side of the county to open a bazaar. She is looking forward to the pleasure of welcoming you at dinner-time.”
Dinner, served, out of compliment to their transatlantic visitor, in the great banqueting hall, was to Quest especially a most impressive meal. They sat at a small round table lit by shaded lights, in the centre of an apartment which was large in reality, and which seemed vast by reason of the shadows which hovered around the unlit spaces. From the walls frowned down a long succession of family portraits—Ashleighs in the queer Tudor costume of Henry the Seventh; Ashleighs in chain armour, sword in hand, a charger waiting, regardless of perspective, in the near distance; Ashleighs befrilled and bewigged; Ashleighs in the Court dress of the Georges—judges, sailors, statesmen and soldiers. A collection of armour which would have gladdened the eye of many an antiquarian, was ranged along the black-panelled walls. Everything was in harmony, even the grave precision of the solemn-faced butler and the powdered hair of the two footmen. Quest, perhaps for the first time in his life, felt almost lost, hopelessly out of touch with his surroundings, an alien and a struggling figure. Nevertheless, he entertained the little party with many stories. He struggled all the time against that queer sensation of anachronism which now and then became almost oppressive.
The Professor’s pleasure at finding himself once more amongst these familiar surroundings was obvious and intense. The conversation between him and his brother never flagged. There were tenants and neighbours to be asked after, matters concerning the estate on which he demanded information. Even the very servants’ names he remembered.
“It was a queer turn of fate, George,” he declared, as he held out before him a wonderfully chased glass filled with amber wine, “which sent you into the world a few seconds before me and made you Lord of Ashleigh and me a struggling scientific man.”
“The world has benefited by it,” Lord Ashleigh remarked, with more than fraternal courtesy. “We hear great things of you over here, Edgar. We hear that you have been on the point of proving most unpleasant things with regard to our origin.”
“Oh! there is no doubt about that,” the Professor observed. “Where we came from and where we are going to are questions which no longer afford room for the slightest doubt to the really scientific mind. What sometimes does elude us is the nature of our tendencies while we are here on earth.”
“Mine, I fancy, are obvious enough,” Lord Ashleigh interposed.
“Superficially, I grant it,” his brother acknowledged. “As a matter of scientific fact, I recognize the probability of your actually being a person utterly different from what you appear. Man becomes what he is according to the circumstances by which he is assailed. Now your life here, George, must be a singularly uneventful one.”
“Not during the last six months,” Lord Ashleigh remarked, with a sigh. “Even these last few days have been exciting enough. I must confess that they have left me with a queer sort of nervousness. I find myself listening intently sometimes,—conscious, as it were, of the influence or presence of some indefinite danger.”
“Very interesting,” the Professor murmured. “Spiritualism, as an exact science, has always interested me very much.”
Lady Ashleigh made a little grimace.
“Don’t encourage George,” she begged. “He is much too superstitious, as it is.”
There was a brief silence. The port had been placed upon the table and coffee served. The servants, according to the custom of the house, had departed. The great apartment was empty. Even Quest was impressed by some peculiar significance in the long-drawn-out silence. He looked around him uneasily. The frowning regard of that long line of painted warriors seemed somehow to be full of menace. There was something grim, too, in the sight of those empty suits of armour.
“I may be superstitious,” Lord Ashleigh said, “but there are times, especially just lately, when I seem to find a new and hateful quality in silence. What is it, I wonder? I ask you but I think I know. It is the conviction that there is some alien presence, something disturbing lurking close at hand.”
He suddenly rose to his feet, pushed his chair back and walked to the window, which opened level with the ground. He threw it up and listened. The others came over and joined him. There was nothing to be heard but the distant hooting of an owl, and farther away the barking of some farmhouse dog. Lord Ashleigh stood there with straining eyes, gazing out across the park.
“There was something here,” he muttered, “something which has gone. What’s that? Quest, your eyes are younger than mine. Can you see anything underneath that tree?”
Quest peered out into the grey darkness.
“I fancied I saw something moving in the shadow of that oak,” he muttered. “Wait.”
He crossed the terrace, swung down on to the path, across a lawn, over a wire fence and into the park itself. All the time he kept his eyes fixed on a certain spot. When at last he reached the tree, there was nothing there. He looked all around him. He stood and listened for several moments. A more utterly peaceful night it would be hard to imagine. Slowly he made his way back to the house.
“I imagine we are all a little nervous to-night,” he remarked. “There’s nothing doing out there.”
They strolled about for an hour or more, looking into different rooms, showing their guest the finest pictures, even taking him down into the wonderful cellars. They parted early, but Quest stood, for a few moments before retiring, gazing about him with an air almost of awe. His great room, as large as an apartment in an Italian palace, was lit by a dozen wax candles in silver candlesticks. His four-poster was supported by pillars of black oak, carved into strange forms, and surmounted by the Ashleigh coronet and coat of arms. He threw his windows open wide and stood for a moment looking out across the park, more clearly visible now by the light of the slowly rising moon. There was scarcely a breeze stirring, scarcely a sound even from the animal world. Nevertheless, Quest, too, as reluctantly he made his preparations for retiring for the night, was conscious of that queer sensation of unimagined and impalpable danger.
CHAPTER X
LOST IN LONDON
1.
Quest, notwithstanding the unusual nature of his surroundings, slept that night as only a tired and healthy man can. He was awakened the next morning by the quiet movements of a man-servant who had brought back his clothes carefully brushed and pressed. He sat up in bed and discovered a small china tea equipage by his side.
“What’s this?” he enquired.
“Your tea, sir.”
Quest drank half a cupful without protest.
“Your bath is ready at any time, sir.”
“I’m coming right along,” Quest replied, jumping out of bed.
The man held up a dressing-gown and escorted him to an unexpectedly modern bathroom at the end of the corridor. When Quest returned, his toilet articles were all laid out for him with prim precision; the window was wide open, the blinds drawn, and a soft breeze was stealing through into the room. Below