THE MILL HOUSE
MYSTERY

The July sun was pouring floods of blinding, glaring light upon the town of Dourville, which, lying in a great chasm between two high white lines of cliff, and straggling under the foot of them to east and west, bears witness, in its massive castle, and in its old relics of stone buildings among the commonplace iron frames and plate-glass windows of the new, to the notable part it has taken in England’s history.

The long straight road that goes northwards up through the town and out of the town, rising, at first by slow degrees, and latterly by a steep ascent, to a point from which one can look down upon town and sea, soon leaves small shops for queer old-fashioned rows of houses; and these in their turn give place to roomy old residences of greater pretension.

At the back of one of these, a sombre, plain building, roomy rather than dignified, there stretches a splendid expanse of garden and pleasaunce, where a stream runs among meadows and lawns in a direct line towards the sea.

This stream once supplied the power that worked a great paper-mill, which was the foundation of the prosperity of the Hadlow family. But three generations back, the reigning Hadlow, more enterprising than his predecessors, had speculated outside his little world, had prospered, and finally blossomed into the great philanthropist, whose magnificent endowment of certain royal charities had earned him a baronetcy.

Rich as the family had grown, the Hadlows clung to the old nest with a pertinacity which had in it something of dignity; and only the condition in which the grounds were kept, nothing in the appearance of the house itself, would have betrayed that now, under the third baronet, the place was the property of a man of great wealth.

The trees grew thickly within the high dark wall that shut the grounds in from the road. And under their shade Sir Robert Hadlow, in a light linen suit and shady planter’s hat, could saunter at his ease in the heat of the day. A man of middle height, slight and almost boyish in figure, with a close-trimmed dark beard and large, mild, grey eyes, Sir Robert Hadlow, at thirty years of age, looked rather older by reason of the quiet gravity of his manners and the leisurely dignity of his movements.

A man of leisure, he had devoted himself early and enthusiastically to the study of the antiquities of the neighbourhood in which he was born; and something of the far-away look of the student softened and mellowed the expression of his eyes, and gave a certain measured dignity to his gait.

Stopping from time to time to peep between the branches of the lilac-bushes at the stream as it sparkled in the bright sunlight beyond, he was sauntering towards the house, when a succession of piercing screams, followed by the shouts of men, reached his ears from the road outside.

“Stop her!” “Look out!” “She’ll be killed!”

These, among others, were the cries which came to Sir Robert’s ears as he hurriedly made his way to one of the wooden doors in the high wall, and inserting into the lock his own private key, let himself through into the public street.

Looking up the road, to the left, he saw the figure of a woman, in a light dress, coming swiftly down the hill on a bicycle, of which it was evident that she had lost control. A glance to the right showed him a traction engine coming slowly up the hill with a couple of waggons trailing behind it, and the confused cries of the bystanders called his attention to the fact that it was a collision between this and the bicycle which they all feared.

Stepping forward into the road, and watching the light machine vigilantly as it came quickly down upon him, Sir Robert prepared for his rather risky attempt to save the woman from her danger. As the bicycle reached him he turned to run with it down the hill, at the same time seizing the handlebar with so much dexterity that he neither stopped the machine nor threw off its rider.

The woman was muttering incoherent thanks in a faint voice, and Sir Robert became suddenly conscious that there was a fresh danger to be averted.

“Keep your head. Steady! Hold tight! You’re all right,” he cried as he still ran with the bicycle, upon which he was now acting as a brake.

But his words fell on ears that scarcely heard; and before he could bring the machine absolutely to a standstill, when he was within three or four yards of the traction-engine, which had been stopped, the rider fell to the ground with a moan.

There was a crowd round the group already, and there were shrieking women and curious men streaming towards the spot, where Sir Robert, with an air of authority, was giving directions to such of the more intelligent among the crowd as seemed likely to be of use in the emergency. Thus, he sent one man for a doctor and another for his own servants, while he himself knelt down by the roadside, and raised the unconscious victim of the accident.

She had struck her head against the kerb-stone, and one side of it was cut and bleeding.

“Poor child! She isn’t dead. She’ll be all right presently,” said Sir Robert, answering the alarmed comments of the women who pressed round him. “I’m going to have her taken into my house, where the doctor will see her.”

The accident had occurred within twenty yards of the entrance to Sir Robert’s house, and five minutes later the baronet and his butler were carrying the unconscious girl under the little portico and up the staircase into a pleasant room at the back of the house, overlooking the grounds and the flowing stream.

A couple of children, a boy and a girl, the orphaned nephew and niece of Sir Robert and permanent members of his household, watched the arrival from the upper staircase with eager interest.

“Look at the blood, Minnie!” observed the boy, in an awestruck whisper. “And look at her eyes—all shut!” he added with thrilling interest.

The girl, younger and more tender-hearted, began to cry.

“She’s dead!” sobbed she. “Oh, George, don’t yook at her. She’s been killded.”

“No, she hasn’t,” said he sturdily. “Uncle Robert won’t let her die.”

Their hissing whispers had by this time attracted attention, and Bessie, the old family nurse in whose charge they were, beckoned to them from below with an austere frown.

“If you don’t both go back into the nursery this minute——”

There was no need to say more: in an instant the scampering of small feet, followed by the banging of an upper door, showed that the young people, who were known in the household as The Terrors, were for the moment quelled.

In the meantime the victim of the accident had been laid upon a bed in a darkened room, and Bessie and her master were looking at her with sympathetic interest.

“Why, the poor dear’s but a lass, sir,” said the sympathetic Bessie, as she loosened the girl’s clothes and peered keenly into the pale face.

“Yes, not more than eighteen or nineteen, I should think,” said Sir Robert. “She had a narrow escape. Search her clothes, Bessie, for some indication as to her name and address. Her people will be alarmed about her, whoever she is, and whoever they may be.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll have a hunt as soon as the doctor’s here.”

She had not to wait long. And by the time the doctor had come, examined the patient, and reported that the victim was suffering from concussion of the brain and must be kept quiet, that she had sustained an injury to the right wrist and severe bruises, the old nurse had made a search of the girl’s pockets, and had discovered an opened letter in one of them directed to “Miss Rhoda Pembury” at an address in Deal.

This was enough for Sir Robert, who telegraphed at once to the address, to the name of Pembury, to the effect that Miss Rhoda had met with a slight accident, but that she was safe and going on well.

Within a couple of hours the girl’s father and mother had arrived at the Mill-house, and proved to be a London physician and his wife, who were staying at Deal with their family, of whom Rhoda was the eldest.

They were deeply grateful to Sir Robert, who insisted that they should leave their daughter where she was until she was fully recovered, a suggestion which poor Mrs. Pembury, the harassed mother of half a dozen children, gratefully accepted, it being arranged that Dr. Pembury should cycle over every day to see how his daughter was getting on.

Within a few days Rhoda, very pale still, and with deep dark lines under her large, plaintive, blue eyes, was sitting at the window of the room that had been assigned to her, permitted for the first time to leave her bed.

She was a tall, thin slip of a girl, not yet fully developed, but languid and almost sickly of appearance by reason of the rapidity of her recent growth. At seventeen she was five feet seven inches in height, with a lean, fair-skinned face, a mass of pale golden hair that looked as if a silver veil had been thrown over it, and a look of listlessness that told of weakly health.

She confessed to Bessie that she had only had her hair “up” within the last month, and that, in her present enfeebled condition, she preferred to leave it loose again, tied with a black ribbon, to the fatigue of doing it herself, or even of having it done for her.

So that she looked like a child as she sat at the open window, with her white dressing-gown on, and her head thrown back against the pillows provided for her.

In the garden below were two figures, upon whom her attention was fixed with interest so deep that Bessie watched her in furtive surprise, wondering at the look of vivid excitement which was making the blue eyes glow and the white skin flush.

The old nurse looked out, and saw that the objects of the girl’s interest were Sir Robert Hadlow, sauntering in the grounds in his linen coat and broad-brimmed hat, and his handsome young ward, Jack Rotherfield, a tall, well-made man of two and twenty, whose dark-skinned, beardless face and curly black hair and dark eyes had earned him the reputation of the handsomest man in Kent.

The expression upon the girl’s face, as she gazed out at the two men, was so unmistakably one of admiration of the most vivid kind, that Nurse Bessie smiled indulgently.

“A good-looking fellow, isn’t he?” she said with a nod in the direction of the two figures.

To her surprise, the girl turned towards her with a look of ecstasy in her thin face.

“Good-looking!” she echoed in an awestruck tone. “Oh, don’t call him that! He’s so much more than that! It seems to me,” she added, in a low voice, as again her eyes wandered in the direction of the two gentlemen, “that I’ve never seen, no, and never even imagined, any face either so handsome or—so—noble. It’s because he’s so good, so much better and greater than other men that he is so handsome.”

The old nurse sat amazed and perplexed by this enthusiasm, which exceeded so far even her own warmth of admiration. She did not dare to smile, although the girl’s tone was so outrageously, childishly vehement as to throw her into considerable astonishment.

“Well, Mr. Rotherfield is generally thought to be nice-looking,” she said, “but I don’t know as he’s all you take him for.”

The girl’s fair face, out of which the glow of colour brought by her enthusiasm had already faded a little, looked at her with a frown of slight perplexity.

“Mr. Rotherfield? Who is that?” she asked.

Old Bessie stared.

“Why, the gentleman you’ve admired so much, the young gentleman that’s walking with Sir Robert. That’s his ward, Mr. Rotherfield.”

A deeper flush than had yet appeared in Rhoda’s face now spread quickly over it, and she lowered her eyelids quickly.

“I didn’t notice him,” she said. “I was speaking about Sir Robert.”

The old nurse uttered a low cry of surprise.

Then a smile, indulgent, amused, appeared on her face.

“Well, it’s the first time I’ve ever heard him called so nice-looking,” she said. “He’s very well, of course, and he’s got a good face, and a nice face, but I’ve never heard tell he was considered handsome.”

The girl looked up again, the most innocent surprise in every feature.

“Not handsome!” she said under her breath. “Why, it seems to me I never saw any face so—so beautiful! He’s like a picture, not like any man I ever saw before. To look at him makes me feel humiliated at the thought that I should have been the means of causing him to hurt himself, and yet it makes me proud too to think that he should have done what he did for me!”

Beginning timidly, the girl grew more and more enthusiastic as she went on, till she ended with fire in her blue eyes, and sat with her lips parted in a sort of ecstasy, gazing out of the window at the figure of the wholly unconscious gentleman who was now sauntering back towards the house.

Sir Robert, who had hurt his arm in his efforts to stop the runaway bicycle, carried it in a sling, and Rhoda’s eyes softened and filled with tears as she noted the fact.

The old nurse’s face began to grow prim.

“You mustn’t let Lady Sarah hear you speaking so admiring of her intended, or she’ll be jealous,” said she.

A sudden shadow passed over the girl’s face.

“Lady Sarah! Who is she?” she asked quickly, in a stifled voice.

Bessie peered at her rather anxiously.

“Dear, dear, miss, you mustn’t get so excited about it, or I shall feel I didn’t ought to have told you so much,” she said.

A faint, mechanical smile appeared on Rhoda’s face.

“Nonsense,” she said. “Of course I’m not excited, only interested. Who is Lady Sarah?”

The nurse hesitated a moment, but seeing that a red spot was beginning to burn in each of the invalid’s cheeks, she decided that it would be better to tell her what she wanted and have done with it.

“Lady Sarah,” she said, gravely and deliberately, hoping that the style and title of the persons she was about to mention would duly impress her hearer, “is the youngest daughter of the Marquis of Eridge, and she is engaged to be married to Sir Robert Hadlow, who is madly in love with her.”

A look of dismay, so ingenuous, so complete as to be touching, appeared on Rhoda’s face. Then she glanced quickly at the nurse, reddened deeply, and subduing her feelings, whatever those might be, answered in a matter-of-fact tone, in words which surprised Bessie.

“The Marquis of Eridge! Oh, yes, I know. He was made bankrupt two years ago, and he has four of the most beautiful daughters possible.”

Bessie was taken aback by the completeness of the girl’s information.

“I’m sure I don’t know anything about the Marquis’s affairs,” she said, somewhat stiffly. “But a Marquis is a Marquis, and Lady Sarah is a most beautiful young lady. And Sir Robert is crazy about her, and to look at her it’s no wonder. But you’ll see her for yourself, I dare say, before you go away. She lives up in the Vale, at the Priory, and she and Lady Eridge are here most days when Sir Robert doesn’t go to the Priory.”

Rhoda bent her head without speaking. And the nurse, though she reproached herself for the feeling and said to herself that it was ‘rubbish,’ felt a momentary wonder whether it would not have been better for Sir Robert, with his studious habits and his grave demeanour, to have loved an earnest, simple little girl like the blue-eyed, fair-haired Rhoda with the devotion in her eyes, rather than the brilliant and slightly disturbing creature whom he had chosen for his wife.

CHAPTER II.
RHODA PEMBURY’S DISCOVERY

The day after this conversation with Bessie, Rhoda was allowed downstairs for the first time. Sir Robert was kindness itself to her, though he was rather puzzled by the extreme reserve and timidity of the girl whose life he had saved, never guessing, in his masculine obtuseness, at the sentimental cause of her rather perplexing demeanour.

Jack Rotherfield, who was staying with his guardian, was delighted to welcome a new and pretty guest, and at once proceeded to exert himself to amuse and interest the convalescent, so that old Bessie used to smile demurely when she came into the room where the two young people would be sitting together, Rhoda gentle and rather listless, Jack energetically trying to rouse her from the somewhat abstracted state in which she still remained.

Rhoda laughed at the idea of falling in love with Jack, a possibility which Bessie plainly foresaw and made no scruple about mentioning.

“He’s very nice,” she said, “and, I suppose, very good-looking. But I don’t like him as much as I ought to do, considering how kind he is. He always seems to me to be saying things to me which he must have said before.”

Bessie looked surprised.

“Lor, miss, that’s not a bad guess, I’m afraid, if it is a guess,” she admitted. “Mr. Jack is so nice-looking, and so merry and bright, that the young ladies do make a fuss of him. Even Lady Sarah,” she added in a rather lower tone.

A deep flush at once overspread Rhoda’s face.

“I should hardly think,” she said quite tartly, “that a girl who had the good fortune to be liked by Sir Robert would care much for Mr. Rotherfield.”

Bessie looked askance at her, but said nothing more on the subject, until she presently remarked in a rather dry tone that Lady Sarah was coming that afternoon, with her mother and one of her married sisters, to play tennis and to have tea in the grounds.

Rhoda was excited by the news. She was exceedingly anxious to see the woman with whom Sir Robert was in love, and Bessie noted the trembling of her hands and the feverish light in her eyes as she dressed to go downstairs.

Lady Sarah Speldhurst proved to be a very fascinating and lovely little person. Not nearly so tall as Rhoda herself, nor with the advantage of so good a figure as the younger girl, she was, at three and twenty, mistress of all the arts by which a pretty young woman makes the best of herself. Dark-eyed, with a brilliant complexion, and with masses of wavy dark brown hair, she dressed in light colours for choice, and was wearing, on this occasion, a tight-fitting lace dress of creamy tint over a slip of lemon colour, and a big black hat with black and white ostrich feathers.

“Sir Robert don’t know what a lady’s dress bill means—yet,” remarked Bessie shrewdly, when she looked out and saw Lady Sarah in the garden.

“What an odd dress to play tennis in!” was Rhoda’s matter-of-fact comment.

Bessie smiled.

“She don’t play tennis much herself. Her ladyship likes the sitting about with a racquet in her hand, and the cakes and the ices, better than running in the sun and getting her face red,” she said.

Rhoda frowned a little. Pretty as Lady Sarah was, the younger girl felt that a better, a more sincere and noble-natured person than Lady Sarah appeared to be would have been a better match for the generous and good Sir Robert who was her own idol. She went downstairs slowly, resented the quick and almost supercilious manner in which Lady Sarah appeared to sum her up at a glance while shaking hands, and decided angrily that Sir Robert was throwing himself away.

The baronet himself, however, was evidently by no means of the same way of thinking. There was adoration in his mild grey eyes as he watched the brilliant little brunette, there was tenderness in the tone of his voice as he spoke to her, and it was abundantly clear that his infatuation was complete.

Jack Rotherfield, meanwhile, was less attentive to Rhoda than he had been before the appearance of Lady Sarah. Rhoda did not mind this, but she remarked it, and, sitting silent for the most part, she noticed a good deal more, as the afternoon wore on, that might have escaped the notice of a less observant or more talkative person.

For one thing she saw, and felt ashamed of seeing, that something like a secret understanding existed between Jack Rotherfield and Lady Sarah; their eyes would meet with a sudden look of sympathy or mutual amusement from time to time, as, for instance, when Sir Robert declared that nothing would induce him to replace the old furniture and fittings of the house for more modern ones.

Rhoda felt ashamed of herself for thinking that it looked as if Lady Sarah had already discussed that very subject with Sir Robert’s ward, and in a manner not very sympathetic with the views of her future husband.

Indeed it was clear to the most careless eyes that there was a great gulf between the tastes of the Marquis’s lovely daughter, with her French toilette and her brilliant if scarcely sincere manners, and steady-going, quiet Sir Robert Hadlow with his grave demeanour and quiet habits.

Rhoda found herself wondering what sort of a household theirs would be, and which of the two would finally get the upper hand, as it was plain that, in such an ill-assorted couple, one or other must eventually do.

It seemed natural to suppose it would be the little, wilful, spoilt beauty, as it was easy to see she was not in love with Sir Robert, who, by keeping her head, would become the arbiter of the household destinies. The baronet seemed, indeed, to be like wax in her hands; and he was far too much in love to see that the sweet looks and pretty smiles, the little words of tenderness, and the gestures of caressing cajolery, were dictated by anything less than love equal to his own.

The rest of the party soon went into the grounds, and Rhoda, who was not yet allowed to exert herself much, was left alone in the house. She sat near the window, watching the pretty figures of the ladies in their light dresses as they flitted over the tennis-lawn, like gay butterflies against the background of soft greenery, when she heard a stealthy footstep behind her, and looking round, saw the Terrors, George and Minnie Mallory, crouching close to her chair.

“When did you come in?” asked Rhoda quickly. “I didn’t hear you.”

The two children chuckled.

“Nobody never does hear us,” said Minnie, who was a long-legged, short-frocked imp of six years of age. “We don’t never let ’em hear us,” she added thoughtfully.

“But that’s not right. It’s like eavesdropping,” said Rhoda solemnly.

George nodded gravely.

“It doesn’t matter for us, ’cos we’re only children,” said he with a shrewd air. “And we often hear things that we like to hear. We heard Lady Sarah talking to Jack the other day, and saying how hard it was for her to have to marry a rich man, ’cos rich men are always what you don’t like.”

Rhoda uttered a sort of gasp. Then she recovered herself, and scolded the boy.

“It’s very naughty to listen,” she said. “And very ungentlemanly too. What would your uncle, who’s always so good and kind to you, say if he thought his niece and nephew were not behaving like a lady and gentleman?”

George was not abashed.

“I’ll behave like a gentleman when I grow up,” he said reflectively. “I don’t see the good of beginning too soon. It’s nicer to do as we like and hear what we want to.”

The comical gravity with which he spoke suddenly made Rhoda want to laugh, so she was silent for a moment, and the children took advantage of this to steal away out of the room, no doubt to follow their favourite dubious occupations elsewhere.

But Rhoda did not heed them. She was filled with a terrible thought. Her hero, the man she worshipped as the ideal of all that was noble and worthy, was being deceived, grossly deceived, by the woman he passionately loved. She had no doubt at all that the words reported by the mischievous boy had really been uttered by Lady Sarah, in confidential talk to Jack Rotherfield, between whom and herself it was plain that an active flirtation was still going on.

Her heart was torn by the thought that her hero, instead of being loved as he deserved to be loved, was being married for his money alone by the woman he worshipped. If only he could learn the truth before it was too late!

But how?

She could not tell him what she knew or guessed, and even if she could, he would not believe her.

What could she do?

Staying day by day under the same roof with Sir Robert, she had fallen more and more completely under the influence of his great kindness and gentleness, of the nature that was ever self-sacrificing, ever considerate for others, yet with a certain manliness and firmness that made Rhoda wonder what he would be like if he should ever find out that those he loved and trusted had deceived him.

She was still torn with her fears on his account when the baronet came in, racquet in hand, and sitting down beside her, asked her kindly how she felt.

The girl, pale and trembling, looked into his gentle, kindly face, and the words that came to her lips refused to come further.

He smiled at her, and patted her hand.

“You’ve been overtiring yourself. I shan’t let you come downstairs to-morrow,” he said.

Rhoda struggled to regain her self-command and answered steadily:

“I must come down to-morrow, Sir Robert, for I must go back home.”

“You are tired of us? That you are in such a hurry to get away?”

She shook her head.

“You are the best and the kindest people I’ve ever met,” she said tremulously. “But I want to go back.”

He looked at her keenly.

“You have something on your mind,” said he.

Rhoda rose suddenly to her feet. Looking down upon him with eyes that blazed, she said hoarsely:

“Yes. I want to warn you. Find out, Sir Robert, whether you are loved as you deserve to be loved. That’s all.”

The baronet rose, frowning and displeased. She saw that he looked upon her words as an impertinence, and she was cut to the heart.

Faltering, she stammered out an incoherent apology. Sir Robert looked at her coldly.

“There is nothing to apologise for,” he said gravely. “I’m sure you mean well. I was taken by surprise, that’s all.”

Rhoda felt that the room was spinning round her. She knew his danger, and she saw that she was helpless to save him. There was only one thing to be done; she must go away. She could not stay another day now that she had offended him, nor could she watch the progress of the harm she could not prevent.

On the pretext of fatigue, she staggered upstairs, assisted by Sir Robert, as far as the foot of the staircase, where she gently refused further help.

Rhoda had never seen the kindly Sir Robert angry before, and the effect his displeasure had upon her was overwhelming. She, however, was not to be the only person to offend him that day, for Bessie, who came in with a little tray with the wing of a chicken for the convalescent, brought with her the news that Sir Robert was gravely displeased with his old servant, Langton, to whom he had given notice to leave him.

“I don’t know the rights of it,” went on Bessie, “and I don’t want to gossip. But it’s thought Langton told Sir Robert something he didn’t want to hear, and didn’t believe, and this is the consequences!”

Rhoda listened in distressed silence. Had the faithful servant dared to tell his master something that he had seen? Something that concerned Lady Sarah and Jack Rotherfield? She would not condescend to gossip with Bessie about it, but when she was alone, she left her repast almost untasted, and, attracted by a soft murmur of voices that came like a distant whisper through the open window, crossed the floor and looked out, and saw, between the branches of the trees, two figures sauntering along the avenue that ran inside the outer wall of the grounds.

She had no difficulty in recognising them, and when, before they had gone many steps, they stopped and the man put his arm round the girl and kissed her, Rhoda knew that it was Jack Rotherfield whom she had seen kissing the betrothed wife of his guardian.

Rhoda could bear no more; turning from the window, giddy and almost sick with grief and horror, she resolved to leave the house that very night. She felt that she could not meet the eyes of the baronet, his fiancée, or Jack Rotherfield again.

The evening seemed a long one; she had to go to bed, to avoid exciting suspicion as to her intention, which was to steal out of the house when everybody else was asleep. But before retiring she witnessed a sight that set her thinking. For after dinner Sir Robert walked with Lady Sarah up and down the terrace close under Rhoda’s window, and the girl fancied, both by the affectionate manner in which they smiled at each other, and by the defiant half-glances which the baronet cast stealthily up towards her window, that he had told his fiancée of the doubts expressed as to her sincerity, and that Lady Sarah had set him quite at rest upon that score.

Rhoda did not sleep. At one o’clock, when all was silent in the house, she rose, dressed herself hastily, and glided softly out of her room and down the stairs. She had written a letter, directed to Sir Robert, and left it in her room. She had said in it that, having had the misfortune to offend him, she could not meet him again, but that she begged his pardon with all her heart, and hoped that he would forgive her, as she felt sure he would do, if he could only understand the pain she felt at having given a moment’s displeasure to one to whom she owed so much. She added that she would never forget his goodness to her as long as she lived.

She had reached the hall, with the intention of leaving the house by the front-door, and had withdrawn the bolts, when she was startled by the sound of some one rapidly descending the stairs. She thought she was discovered, and hastily hid herself in the dark corner beside the tall grandfather’s clock that stood near the door.

But she had scarcely done so when she caught sight of something which she could dimly discern to be a man, disappearing into the drawing-room, and the next moment she heard sounds within the room as of a scuffle and stifled cries.

Trembling and horror-struck, Rhoda was unable to decide whether she ought to go upstairs and call for help, when, panting and drawing deep breaths the figure stole out of the room again, shutting the door softly.

The man was in such deep darkness and Rhoda was so far entrenched in her corner that she could see but little of him, and that little very dimly, until he was half-way up the stairs, when, dragging his way up by the stair-rails, he laid his hand for a moment upon that spot of the banisters where a single ray of moonlight fell upon them from between the heavy velvet curtains that draped the staircase window.

And Rhoda saw, with a shudder, that across the hand was the red line of a cut which was still bleeding.

Before she could even be sure whether the figure was that of Sir Robert, as she believed, it had disappeared.

Confused, trembling, wondering what it was that had happened, Rhoda opened the front-door and slipped out, closing it softly behind her.

She thought that she must have made enough noise for the shutting of the door to have attracted attention, and she hoped, as she went slowly down the narrow slip of garden which was all that lay between the front of the house and the road, that the baronet would come out after her, waylay her, and perhaps insist upon her return.

But nobody came out, nobody followed her; and so, mystified, sick with terror, and asking herself as she went whether she ought to have come out without an effort to find out what had happened, she went down the road towards the harbour.

She put up, for the rest of the night, at an hotel where she had stayed before with her parents, and where travellers from off the boats came at all times of the night, so that her late arrival attracted no particular attention.

On the following morning she took the first train to Deal, and reached the lodgings where her parents were in such a condition of exhaustion that she was promptly put to bed. She insisted, however, upon being allowed to tell her mother the singular circumstances that had occurred at the moment of her departure from Mill-house, and begged that they would let her know at once if it should come to her parents’ ears that anything serious had happened that night at Sir Robert’s residence.

For four days she was kept in bed, and assured that nothing had happened as far as any one knew.

But when she was well enough to get up again, the truth was gradually broken to her. The dead body of the butler, Langton, had been found in the drawing-room, where it was evident that some sort of a scuffle had taken place. The drawing-room window had been found open, and it was supposed that a burglar had got in, and that the butler, hearing a noise, had gone down and had been murdered by the intruder.

The inquest had been held, and the verdict brought in: “Wilful murder by some person or persons unknown.”

But the rumour about the neighbourhood was that there had been a serious quarrel between Langford and his master, that he was known to have been under notice to leave his situation, and that it was in a scuffle between master and man that Langford came by his death.

Rhoda sprang up with a cry.

“It’s not true!” she cried. “Sir Robert is incapable of such a thing! Besides, I know! I can prove—Oh let me go and tell what I know!”

But the next moment the light faded out of her eyes and she sank back, trembling.

What did she know? What could she prove? Nothing, nothing.

CHAPTER III.
TEN YEARS AFTER

Ten years passed before Rhoda Pembury saw Sir Robert Hadlow or the old Mill-house again, and during those ten years all that she heard of him or of his doings was through an announcement in the newspapers, some six months after her stay there, of his marriage with Sarah, third daughter of the Marquis of Eridge.

After that, although Rhoda did, from time to time, see brief paragraphs in the papers concerning the doings of Lady Sarah Hadlow, and incidental mention in connection with her, of her husband, Sir Robert, she held no communication with them, or with any of the household at the Dourville Mill-house, and she believed, during the whole of that period, that the baronet who had saved her life and who had been kind to her, had passed out of her life for ever.

In the meantime, having developed into a beautiful and accomplished woman from the half-fledged girl she had been then, Rhoda received a good deal of attention and more than one offer of marriage.

But she cared little for admiration, and her heart was never touched. Greatly to the annoyance of her parents, who had a large family, and who were both eager to settle their handsome daughter in marriage and a home of her own, Rhoda made light of all the attentions paid to her, refused her lovers without compunction, and announced, when reproached with her coldness and obstinacy, that she intended to remain single through life, and that, as her parents would never be able to get her off their hands in the way they desired, she would meet their wishes by earning her own living.

This was not at all what they wanted, and her mother prevailed upon Rhoda to give way on this point for a time. But the thought was ever in the girl’s mind, and Mrs. Pembury was not surprised when, ten years after the episode at the Mill-house, Rhoda came to her with a newspaper in her hand, and, pointing to an advertisement in one of the columns, said briefly:

“Mother, I’m going to answer this.”

The announcement to which she pointed ran like this:

“A lady wanted, as nurse-companion to an invalid boy. Apply personally, if possible, at the Old Mill-house, Dourville.”

Mrs. Pembury having put on her glasses, read the advertisement, and laid down the paper with an exclamation of something like dismay.

“Why, it’s Sir Robert Hadlow’s, where the murder was committed! Surely you wouldn’t go back there!”

Rhoda, who was very pale, asked briefly:

“Why not?”

But Mrs. Pembury was too much disturbed to reply. Hastily leaving the room with some excuse, she went straight to her husband, who was in his surgery, and laid the paper before him.

“What do you think of that?” she asked in consternation. “I’d always had an idea it was something that happened while she was there that prevented Rhoda’s marrying, and now I’m sure of it. I believe she fell in love with Sir Robert’s ward, Mr. Rotherfield.”

But Dr. Pembury thought this idea high-flown and far-fetched, and said he could not see any likelihood of such a thing. Rhoda would have betrayed herself before this if she had nourished a passion for so long, and in any case, it did not matter, as it was more than likely that Sir Robert had left the Mill-house by this time, since his wife appeared to be always in London, or, if not, that Mr. Rotherfield had settled down somewhere else with a wife of his own.

Mrs. Pembury was troubled, but she always submitted, even against her better judgment, to her husband’s wishes, and in this case it was not even her judgment, but only a sort of feminine instinct, which told her that Rhoda had strong sentimental reasons for wishing to take this step.

On the following day, therefore, Rhoda, who was now twenty-seven, and better capable of looking after herself than she had been at seventeen, started alone for Dourville, and presented herself, early in the afternoon, at the house she remembered so well.

Emotion made her eyes fill and her limbs tremble as she approached the house, and recognised that it had undergone such changes, since she first knew it, that she could scarcely be sure she had not made a mistake and come to the wrong gate, when she found herself standing before a long, white house, with wings extending far in each direction, and with the modern big, wide windows replacing the little narrow old ones.

Many of the trees that had surrounded the old house so closely had been cut down, with considerable advantage as regards light, but at a great loss of picturesqueness. Gone was the cosy, old-fashioned look, together with the dark red curtains, the heavy square portico, the homely look that she had loved.

It was into a stately, handsome hall that she was shown, a room having been sacrificed to enlarge the entrance; and when she found herself following a footman across a wide expanse of parquetted floor to a new part of the building, and ushered into a lofty, light library, Rhoda was almost ready to believe that she had made a mistake, and that the Sir Robert, who would, so the footman said, see her at once, could not be the man who had saved her life, the memory of whose kindness she had treasured in secret for so long, the man whose image had, almost unknown to herself, so effectually shut out that of every other man from her heart during these ten years.

But there he was, not indeed the Sir Robert she remembered, but perfectly recognisable to her, although the dark hair had become thickly streaked with grey, and the face more deeply lined than that of a man of forty-five ought to be.

She had felt her heart beating very fast as she was led towards the library, but she was totally unprepared for the reception she met.

She was duly announced as “Miss Pembury,” but she perceived at once that the name awoke no memories in Sir Robert.

He had forgotten her.

In part, perhaps, the fact that he was very short-sighted, and that he was not wearing his glasses, was answerable for his lack of recognition, but however that might be, Rhoda felt cut to the heart when he rose, bowed formally, and offered her a chair.

“I am sorry that my wife is away, as she would have been better capable than I of arranging these matters with you, Miss Pembury,” he said. “Ladies can get to the point over such things more quickly than a mere man can hope to do. But I’ll tell you all I can, and you will perhaps be able to judge whether you would care to come to take charge of my boy. But perhaps you would like to see him first? He is an invalid, as I suppose you know.”

“I should like to see him,” said Rhoda, in a low and gentle voice.

But the voice recalled no memories, and Sir Robert, ringing the bell, told the servant to have Master Caryl’s carriage brought along the terrace.

Rhoda was still so much under the influence of the strong emotions called up by this meeting that she was glad there was no need for her to say much.

On learning that she lived in London, and that she had come all the way from the great city that morning, Sir Robert seemed surprised, and ringing the bell again, told the footman to have some luncheon prepared for Miss Pembury.

Rhoda protested, and thanked the baronet, who seemed already to take it for granted that she would stay. The fact being that her refined manner, sweet voice and sympathetic appearance had at once predisposed the rather absent-minded gentleman in the visitor’s favour.

A few minutes later there was a slight sound of footsteps upon the terrace, and Rhoda, looking out, saw, with tears in her eyes, a boy lying on a long, spinal chair, looking in at her through the window with big, soft, dark eyes that, while they recalled in colour and brilliancy those of his mother, had something of the far-away expression of his father in them too.

She hastened across the floor, and bending over the boy kissed him on the forehead.

He flushed a little, put out his hand and laid it upon hers.

“Are you coming to stay with me?” he asked simply.

“It is for you to say, dear,” said Rhoda.

He moved his head slowly and looked at her with great intentness.

“I should like it very much,” he said. “What am I to call you?”

Rhoda threw a hasty glance at Sir Robert, who was standing by them, so intent in watching his son’s face that he took but little heed of the visitor. So she thought she might venture to give her name without fear of discovery. Since he had begun by non-recognition, it was better to go on without undeceiving him, she thought.

“Call me Rhoda,” she said softly.

He smiled at her. Though he was scarcely more than eight years old, his condition had made him older in many ways than his age, and his manner was almost that of a grown person as he said:

“Rhoda. Yes, I like that.”

“You will stay with him then?” asked Sir Robert, evidently pleased at the fancy the child had taken to the lady.

Rhoda hesitated. There were details to be settled, of which the man took no cognizance. Perceiving her hesitation, he smiled, and waving his hand, said:

“You will want to know a great many things, about hours and holidays and—and other things. We can leave all those until Lady Sarah comes back next week, can’t we? My housekeeper will assign you rooms, any you care for, and you can do just as you please, as long as you make my boy happy. He is left too much alone. His mother doesn’t like Dourville; it doesn’t agree with her very well. I hope it will please you, however.”

“Thank you. I shall like it, I know,” said Rhoda.

“Come and talk to me,” said Caryl, “and let me show you my monkey, and my rabbits. I’ve got three, and some budgerigars. I hope you like birds. And I’ve got a dog. Would you like to see him? I want you to see him do his tricks.”

Off they went together, the lady and the child, and Sir Robert, standing blinking in the sunshine, seemed to have, Rhoda thought, a vague impression of having seen or heard something which the lady’s presence recalled.

But to her regret, it was evident that the recollection was fraught with pain.

She and the boy made the tour of the garden together, for he had dismissed the servant, asking Rhoda if she would draw him along.

By the time they had been an hour together, moving slowly along the shady walks, and visiting the boy’s numerous pets in rabbit-hutch and aviary, they were already firm friends; and when they returned to the terrace, Rhoda had the satisfaction of seeing Sir Robert standing at the library window, with a faint smile upon his face. He was pleased by the pleasure of his boy.

“It’s good of you to humour him by walking about so long when you must be tired, Miss Pembury,” he said. “I have sent for Mrs. Hawkes, the housekeeper, and directed her to have some tea for you, and to show you your rooms.”

“Thank you very much,” said Rhoda.

She had a transient fancy that Sir Robert recalled something in her name or in her person, for he looked at her suddenly with a slight frown and with vague curiosity. He did not, however, ask her any questions, and a few minutes later Rhoda was going upstairs, escorted by the footman, towards the rooms where the housekeeper was busy preparing for her reception.

The man threw open a door and announced:

“Miss Pembury, Mrs. Hawkes,” and Rhoda entered.

The man went away, and Rhoda heard an exclamation from the grey-haired woman in spectacles who was drawing a cover over a little table in the pretty sitting-room.

“Why, it’s Miss Rhoda!” cried the grey-haired woman.

The visitor exclaimed in her turn.

“Bessie!” cried she.

Neither woman could restrain her tears.

“I’m housekeeper here now,” said Bessie, wiping her eyes. “But, oh, Miss Pembury, to think Sir Robert shouldn’t know you! And to think of your turning up here, after all this time, and us wanting you so bad ten years ago!”

“What do you mean?” asked Rhoda, trembling.

“Let me get your rooms ready, and get rid of the maid, who is in the next room and who will be in here in a minute, and then I’ll tell you everything,” said Mrs. Hawkes.

And within five minutes, the two rooms having been got ready, and the maid dismissed in search of tea and sandwiches for Miss Pembury, the two old friends sat down in the window-seat together, and the housekeeper began her story.

CHAPTER IV.
RHODA RETURNS TO MILL-HOUSE

“Ah, Miss Pembury, there’s been a many changes since the night when you ran away from here!” she said, as she sighed and folded her hands in her lap. “But why did you go so quick and so quiet? And why didn’t you come forward when the inquest was held?”

“I—I went away because I’d displeased Sir Robert,” said Rhoda. “So that I couldn’t bear to meet him again. And as for the inquest, if you mean that on the poor butler, I never heard anything about it till long after it was over. I fell ill, you know, and they wouldn’t let me know anything.”

Mrs. Hawkes nodded.

“I know that was what they said, but we all thought that it was only an excuse, and that the truth was you didn’t want to come forward, because you knew too much.”

“Too much!” faltered Rhoda.

“Yes. By the time you were missed, and by what we heard of your arriving at the hotel where you stayed the night, we thought as how you couldn’t but have heard or seen something of the murderer of poor Langton.”

Rhoda trembled at the recollection.

“Who was the murderer?” she asked in a whisper.

The housekeeper shook her head.

“Nobody knows from that day to this,” she answered. “The inquest was held, after being put off, and they brought it in ‘by some person unknown.’ But people talked, and it was very unpleasant for us all.”

“What did they say?” asked Rhoda hoarsely.

The housekeeper closed the window, and went to the door, looked out and came back again.

“These aren’t things one likes to talk about, even now,” she said. “Of course the thing was really clear enough. It was a thief tried to rob the house, did get in a little way, and poor Langford went down and struggled with him and got killed.”

“How was he killed?” asked Rhoda.

“He must have been flung down into the fireplace with so much force that it killed him, they said. He was found with his head in the stone fireplace, covered with blood and dead. Fractured skull, the doctors said he died of. But his hands were gashed as if he’d been struggling with some one for a knife.”

Rhoda was listening, in a state of stupefaction with horror. But she would not betray herself. Sitting very still, with her head bent, she listened.

The housekeeper went on:

“No knife was found, and though they saw some footsteps coming to the house, they found none going away again. That was odd and mysterious. Especially,” the housekeeper looked round her again, and dropped her voice, “as Sir Robert had been out in the grounds very late.”

“Sir Robert!” echoed Rhoda, appalled.

Mrs. Hawkes nodded.

“That was the part of it that made us all uncomfortable,” she said, below her breath. “And that was why they wanted you to come forward. And you would have had to come, only your father said you knew nothing about it at all, and that it would have endangered your life to have had to come.”

“Oh!” gasped Rhoda.

“For everybody thought even more than they said. Everybody wanted to know if you had seen anybody.”

She paused, and tried to look into Rhoda’s face. But the girl kept her head obstinately bent. Not for the world would she have had the nurse see the look of horror which she felt there must be in her own eyes.

It was not that she thought that Sir Robert had killed his servant: not for one moment would she have admitted such a possibility. But she could herself have borne witness to the fact that some one did go upstairs after the struggle in the drawing room.

Who could it have been?

“There was lots of talk and idle gossip,” went on Mrs. Hawkes. “And even after the verdict was given, the talk went on just the same. You see it was known that nobody had any quarrel with Langford except the master, and it was known that Langford had had his notice, though why he got it was not rightly known.”

There was a pause, but still Rhoda refrained from asking any questions.

“And it never has been known,” added the housekeeper solemnly, “from that day to this.”

“I couldn’t have said anything to help,” said Rhoda at last in a stifled voice.

“Didn’t you see anything, or hear anything then?”

“Yes. I heard a noise in the drawing-room,” admitted Rhoda, “and I went out by the front door.”

“Yes, we knew that, for some one heard it shut. And that was one reason why we thought you must have known something.”

Rhoda suddenly sat up.

“Surely,” she said sharply, “nobody was so foolish and wicked as to think that Sir Robert, the best man in the world, had anything to do with it?”

The housekeeper answered quickly:—

“Of course we, who knew him, didn’t think so. But there were plenty of unkind things said outside, you may be sure, miss.”

“How shocking!”

“And folks thought as the marriage would be broken off, for the Marquis was a good deal cut up about the gossip. But then Lady Sarah she stood up like a high-minded lady, and she said as how she didn’t allow such foolishness to disturb her for one moment. And she married him, and even married him the sooner for the talk. Which was handsome of her, and which Sir Robert he thought the world of in her, you may be sure.”

Rhoda nodded. From what she had seen of the flippant and vivacious flirt she wondered whether high-mindedness was really the quality to which Sir Robert owed her steadfastness.

There was a pause, and Mrs. Hawkes gave a deep sigh, which made Rhoda look at her, and perceive that an expression of the deepest disappointment was on the good woman’s features.

“I was in hopes as you would be able to tell something, something that would have cleared things up, miss,” she said.

Rhoda’s eyes filled with tears, while a hot blush rose to her cheeks. It was quite true that she did know something, just a little more than anybody else appeared to know, about the doings of that fatal night. But as it was nothing definite enough to absolve anybody or to convict anybody, she felt that wisdom lay in keeping that little to herself, for the present, at any rate.

“And so Lady Sarah was staunch, and earned Sir Robert’s gratitude?” she said, her constraint making her words sound rather stiff.

Mrs. Hawkes looked enigmatic for a moment, and then came a little closer.

“Seeing you know so much about them, I may tell you, in confidence, that it’s not been as happy a marriage as, from such a beginning, one might have hoped,” she said. “You see it was a disappointment there being only the one child, this poor boy that never was strong. And then, well, Lady Sarah’s tastes and Sir Robert’s they don’t seem to go well together. So my lady’s most often away, either in town or abroad for her health, and Sir Robert, he don’t seem to care to leave his house and his boy that he loves so much.”

The mill house mystery

THE MILL HOUSEMYSTERY

CONTENTS.