Mrs. Gum dusted a large old-fashioned oak chair with her apron; but he perched himself on one of its elbows.

“And now go on with your tea, Mrs. Gum, and I’ll look on with all the envy of a thirsty man.”

Mrs. Gum glanced up tremblingly.  Might she dare offer his lordship a cup?  She wouldn’t make so bold but tea was refreshing to a parched throat.

“And mine’s always parched,” he returned.  “I’ll drink some with you, and thank you for it.  It won’t be the first time, will it?”

“Always parched!” remarked Mrs. Gum.  “Maybe you’ve a touch of fever, my lord.  Many folk get it at the close of summer.”

Lord Hartledon sat on, and drank his tea.  He said well that he was always thirsty, though Mrs. Gum’s expression was the better one.  That timid matron, overcome by the honour accorded her, sat on the edge of her chair, cup in hand.

“I want to ask your husband if he can give me a description of the man who was concerned in that wretched mutiny on board the Morning Star,” said Lord Hartledon, somewhat abruptly.  “I mean the ringleader, Gordon.  Why—­What’s the matter?”

Mrs. Gum had jumped up from her chair and began looking about the room.  The cat, or something else, had “rubbed against her legs.”

No cat could be found, and she sat down again, her teeth chattering.  Lord Hartledon came to the conclusion that she was only fit for a lunatic asylum.  Why did she keep a cat, if its fancied caresses were to terrify her like that?

“It was said, you know—­at least it has been always assumed—­that Gordon did not come back to England,” he continued, speaking openly of his business, where a more prudent man would have kept his lips closed.  “But I have reason to believe that he did come back, Mrs. Gum; and I want to find him.”

Mrs. Gum wiped her face, covered with drops of emotion.

“Gordon never did come back, I am sure, sir,” she said, forgetting all about titles in her trepidation.

“You don’t know that he did not.  You may think it; the public may think it; what’s of more moment to Gordon, the police may think it:  but you can’t know it.  I know he did.”

“My lord, he did not; I could—­I almost think I could be upon my oath he did not,” she answered, gazing at Lord Hartledon with frightened eyes and white lips, which, to say the truth, rather puzzled him as he gazed back from his perch.

“Will you tell me why you assert so confidently that Gordon did not come back?”

She could not tell, and she knew she could not.

“I can’t bear to hear him spoken of, my lord,” she said.  “He—­we look upon him as my poor boy’s murderer,” she broke off, with a sob; “and it is not likely that I could.”

Not very logical; but Lord Hartledon allowed for confusion of ideas following on distress of mind.

“I don’t like to speak about him any more than you can like to hear,” he said kindly.  “Indeed I am sorry to have grieved you; but if the man is in London, and can be traced—­”