There was a queer and instantaneous silence.  The little group of maidservants, who had been exchanging whispered confidences as to their new master’s appearance, were suddenly dumb.  All eyes were turned in one direction.  A woman whose advent had been unperceived, but who had evidently issued from one of the recesses of the hall, stood suddenly before them all.  She was as thin as a lath, dressed in severe black, with grey hair brushed back from her head and not even a white collar at her neck.  Her face was long and narrow, her features curiously large, her eyes filled with anger.  She spoke very slowly, but with some trace in her intonation of a north-country dialect.

“There’s no place in this house for you, Everard Dominey,” she said, standing in front of him as though to bar his progress.  “I wrote last night to stop you, but you’ve shown indecent haste in coming.  There’s no place here for a murderer.  Get back where you came from, back to your hiding.”

“My good woman!” Mangan gasped.  “This is really too much!”

“I’ve not come to bandy words with lawyers,” the woman retorted.  “I’ve come to speak to him.  Can you face me, Everard Dominey, you who murdered my son and made a madwoman of your wife?”

The lawyer would have answered her, but Dominey waved him aside.

“Mrs. Unthank,” he said sternly, “return to your duties at once, and understand that this house is mine, to enter or leave when I choose.”

She was speechless for a moment, amazed at the firmness of his words.

“The house may be yours, Sir Everard Dominey,” she said threateningly, “but there’s one part of it at least in which you won’t dare to show yourself.”

“You forget yourself, woman,” he replied coldly.  “Be so good as to return to your mistress at once, announce my coming, and say that I wait only for her permission before presenting myself in her apartments.”

The woman laughed, unpleasantly, horribly.  Her eyes were fixed upon Dominey curiously.

“Those are brave words,” she said.  “You’ve come back a harder man.  Let me look at you.”

She moved a foot or two to where the light was better.  Very slowly a frown developed upon her forehead.  The longer she looked, the less assured she became.

“There are things in your face I miss,” she muttered.

Mr. Mangan was glad of an opportunity of asserting himself.

“The fact is scarcely important, Mrs. Unthank,” he said angrily.  “If you will allow me to give you a word of advice, you will treat your master with the respect to which his position here entitles him.”

Once more the woman blazed up.

“Respect!  What respect have I for the murderer of my son?  Respect!  Well, if he stays here against my bidding, perhaps her ladyship will show him what respect means.”

She turned around and disappeared.  Every one began bustling about the luggage and talking at once.  Mr. Mangan took his patron’s arm and led him across the hall.