“Why the devil did you let her in?”

“She walked in when the door was opened, Sir Hugh, and I couldn’t help it.  She seemed to be a lady, Sir Hugh, and I didn’t like not to let her inside the door.”

“What’s the lady’s name?” asked the master.

“It’s a foreign name, Sir Hugh.  She said she wouldn’t keep you five minutes.”  The lamb chops and the asparagus and the Lafitte were in the dining-room, and the only way to the dining-room lay through the hall to which the foreign lady had obtained an entrance.  Sir Hugh, making such calculations as the moments allowed, determined that he would face the enemy, and pass on to his banquet over her prostrate body.  He went quickly down into the hall, and there was encountered by Sophie Gordeloup, who, skipping over the gun-cases, and rushing through the portmanteaus, caught the baronet by the arm before he had been able to approach the dining-room door.  “Sir ’Oo,” she said, “I am so glad to have caught you.  You are going away, and I have things to tell you which you must hear—­yes; it is well for you I have caught you, Sir ’Oo.”  Sir Hugh looked as though he by no means participated in this feeling, and, saying something about his great hurry, begged that he might be allowed to go to his food.  Then he added that, as far as his memory served him, he had not the honor of knowing the lady who was addressing him.

“You come in to your little dinner,” said Sophie, “and I will tell you everything as you are eating.  Don’t mind me.  You shall eat and drink, and I will talk.  I am Madam Gordeloup—­Sophie Gordeloup.  Ah! you know the name now.  Yes.  That is me.  Count Pateroff is my brother.  You know Count Pateroff?  He knowed Lord Ongar, and I knowed Lord Ongar.  We know Lady Ongar.  Ah! you understand now that I can have much to tell.  It is well you was not gone without seeing me!  Eh! yes.  You shall eat and drink; but suppose you send that man into the kitchen!”

Sir Hugh was so taken by surprise that he hardly knew how to act on the spur of the moment.  He certainly had heard of Madam Gordeloup, though he had never before seen her.  For years past her name had been familiar to him in London, and when Lady Ongar had returned as a widow it had been, to his thinking, one of her worst offences that this woman had been her friend.  Under ordinary circumstances, his judgment would have directed him to desire the servant to put her out into the street as an impostor, and to send for the police if there was any difficulty.  But it certainly might be possible that this woman had something to tell with reference to Lady Ongar which it would suit his purposes to hear.  At the present moment he was not very well inclined to his sister-in-law, and was disposed to hear evil of her.  So he passed on into the dining-room and desired Madam Gordeloup to follow him.  Then he closed the room door, and standing up with his back to the fire-place, so that he might be saved from the necessity of asking her to sit down, he declared himself ready to hear anything that his visitor might have to say.