“My dear Sir Everard,” he said anxiously, “I am most distressed that this should have occurred.  I thought that the woman would probably be sullen, but I had no idea that she would dare to attempt such an outrageous proceeding.”

“She is still, I presume, the only companion whom Lady Dominey will tolerate?” Dominey enquired with a sigh.

“I fear so,” the lawyer admitted.  “Nevertheless we must see Doctor Harrison in the morning.  It must be understood distinctly that if she is suffered to remain, she adopts an entirely different attitude.  I never heard anything so preposterous in all my life.  I shall pay her a visit myself after dinner.—­You will feel quite at home here in the library, Sir Everard,” Mr. Mangan went on, throwing open the door of a very fine apartment on the seaward side of the house.  “Grand view from these windows, especially since we’ve had a few of the trees cut down.  I see that Parkins has set out the sherry.  Cocktails, I’m afraid, are an institution you will have to inaugurate down here.  You’ll be grateful to me when I tell you one thing, Sir Everard.  We’ve been hard pressed more than once, but we haven’t sold a single bottle of wine out of the cellars.”

Dominey accepted the glass of sherry which the lawyer had poured out but made no movement towards drinking it.  He seemed during the last few minutes to have been wrapped in a brown study.

“Mangan,” he asked a little abruptly, “is it the popular belief down here that I killed Roger Unthank?”

The lawyer set down the decanter and coughed.

“A plain answer,” Dominey insisted.

Mr. Mangan adapted himself to the situation.  He was beginning to understand his client.

“I am perfectly certain, Sir Everard,” he confessed, “that there isn’t a soul in these parts who isn’t convinced of it.  They believe that there was a fight and that you had the best of it.”

“Forgive me,” Dominey continued, “if I seem to ask unnecessary questions.  Remember that I spent the first portion of my exile in Africa in a very determined effort to blot out the memory of everything that had happened to me earlier in life.  So that is the popular belief?”

“The popular belief seems to match fairly well with the facts,” Mr. Mangan declared, wielding the decanter again in view of his client’s more reasonable manner.  “At the time of your unfortunate visit to the Hall Miss Felbrigg was living practically alone at the Vicarage after her uncle’s sudden death there, with Mrs. Unthank as housekeeper.  Roger Unthank’s infatuation for her was patent to the whole neighbourhood and a source of great annoyance in Miss Felbrigg.  I am convinced that at no time did Lady Dominey give the young man the slightest encouragement.”

“Has any one ever believed the contrary?” Dominey demanded.

“Not a soul,” was the emphatic reply.  “Nevertheless, when you came down, fell in love with Miss Felbrigg and carried her off, every one felt that there would be trouble.”