CHAPTER I.“THIS is where you are to sleep. Put yourself tidy, and then come down again to my room. The admiral has returned, and you will have to begin by waiting on him at dinner to-day.”
With those words, Mrs. Drake, the housekeeper, closed the door; and the new parlor-maid was left alone in her bed-chamber at St. Crux.
That day was the eventful twenty-fifth of February. In barely four months from the time when Mrs. Lecount had placed her master’s private Instructions in his Executor’s hands, the one combination of circumstances against which it had been her first and foremost object to provide was exactly the combination which had now taken place. Mr. Noel Vanstone’s widow and Admiral Bartram’s Secret Trust were together in the same house.
Thus far, events had declared themselves wit
