'How came you to know Maulevrier Castle?' repeated Mary.
'I was there once. There is a picture by Lely, a portrait of a Lady
Maulevrier in Charles the Second's time. The face is yours, my love. I
have heard of such hereditary faces. My mother was proud of resembling
that portrait.'
'What did your mother know of Maulevrier Castle?'
The old man did not answer. He had lapsed into that dream-like
condition into which he often sank, when his brain was not stimulated to
attention and coherency by his interest in Mary's narrations.
Mary concluded that this man had once been a servant in the Maulevrier
household, perhaps at the place in Herefordshire, and that all his old
memories ran in one grove--the house of Maulevrier.
The freedom of her intercourse with him was undisturbed for about three
weeks; and at the end of that time she came face to face with James
Steadman as she emerged from the circle of greenery.
'You here, Lady Mary?' he exclaimed with an angry look.
'Yes, I have been sitting talking to that poor old man,' Mary answered,
cheerily, concluding that Steadman's look of vexation arose from his
being detected in the act of harbouring a contraband relation.
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