“While I am in your service, Sir Percival,” I said, “I hope I know my duty well enough not to inquire into your motives.  When I am out of your service, I hope I know my own place well enough not to speak of matters which don’t concern me—­”

“When do you want to go?” he asked, interrupting me without ceremony.  “Don’t suppose I am anxious to keep you—­don’t suppose I care about your leaving the house.  I am perfectly fair and open in this matter, from first to last.  When do you want to go?”

“I should wish to leave at your earliest convenience, Sir Percival.”

“My convenience has nothing to do with it.  I shall be out of the house for good and all to-morrow morning, and I can settle your accounts to-night.  If you want to study anybody’s convenience, it had better be Miss Halcombe’s.  Mrs. Rubelle’s time is up to-day, and she has reasons for wishing to be in London to-night.  If you go at once, Miss Halcombe won’t have a soul left here to look after her.”

I hope it is unnecessary for me to say that I was quite incapable of deserting Miss Halcombe in such an emergency as had now befallen Lady Glyde and herself.  After first distinctly ascertaining from Sir Percival that Mrs. Rubelle was certain to leave at once if I took her place, and after also obtaining permission to arrange for Mr. Dawson’s resuming his attendance on his patient, I willingly consented to remain at Blackwater Park until Miss Halcombe no longer required my services.  It was settled that I should give Sir Percival’s solicitor a week’s notice before I left, and that he was to undertake the necessary arrangements for appointing my successor.  The matter was discussed in very few words.  At its conclusion Sir Percival abruptly turned on his heel, and left me free to join Mrs. Rubelle.  That singular foreign person had been sitting composedly on the doorstep all this time, waiting till I could follow her to Miss Halcombe’s room.

I had hardly walked half-way towards the house when Sir Percival, who had withdrawn in the opposite direction, suddenly stopped and called me back.

“Why are you leaving my service?” he asked.

The question was so extraordinary, after what had just passed between us, that I hardly knew what to say in answer to it.

“Mind!  I don’t know why you are going,” he went on.  “You must give a reason for leaving me, I suppose, when you get another situation.  What reason?  The breaking up of the family?  Is that it?”

“There can be no positive objection, Sir Percival, to that reason——­”

“Very well!  That’s all I want to know.  If people apply for your character, that’s your reason, stated by yourself.  You go in consequence of the breaking up of the family.”

He turned away again before I could say another word, and walked out rapidly into the grounds.  His manner was as strange as his language.  I acknowledge he alarmed me.