'
'Do you really think it was acting?' inquired Lord Denyer, affecting a
youthful candour and trustfulness which at his age, and with his
experience, he could hardly be supposed to possess.
'I know it,' replied the doctor. 'I watched her while she was talking of
Maulevrier, and I saw just one bead of perspiration break out on her
upper lip--an unmistakable sign of the mental struggle.'
CHAPTER II.
ULYSSES.
October was ending drearily with north-east winds, dust, drifting dead
leaves, and a steel-grey sky; and the Dolphin Hotel at Southampton was
glorified by the presence of Lady Maulevrier and suite. Her ladyship's
suite was on this occasion limited to three servants--her French maid, a
footman, and a kind of factotum, a man of no distinct and arbitrary
signification in her ladyship's household, neither butler nor steward,
but that privileged being, an old and trusted servant, and a person who
was supposed to enjoy more of Lady Maulevrier's confidence than any
other member of her establishment.
This James Steadman had been valet to her ladyship's father, Lord
Peverill, during the declining years of that nobleman.
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