He looked at me somewhat suspiciously, I thought, until I gave my card and impressed upon him meaningly that I had come from London purposely to see his young mistress upon a very important matter.
"Tell her," I said, "that I wish to see her regarding her friend, Miss Elma Heath." "Miss Elma 'Eath," repeated the man.

"Very well, sir.

Will you walk this way ?" And then I followed him across the big old oak-paneled hall, filled with trophies of the chase and arms of the civil wars, into a small paneled room on the left, the deep-set window with its diamond panes giving out upon the old bowling-green and the flower-garden beyond.
Presently the door opened, and a tall dark-haired girl in white entered with an enquiring expression upon her face as she halted and bowed to me.
"Miss Lydia Moreton, I believe ?" I commenced, and as she replied in the affirmative I went on: "I have first to apologize for coming to you, but Miss Sotheby, the principal of the school at Chichester, referred me to you for information as to the present whereabouts of Miss Elma Heath, who, I believe, was one of your most intimate friends at school." And I added a lie, saying: "I am trying, on behalf of an aunt of hers, to discover her." "Well," responded the girl, "I have had only one or two letters.

She's in her uncle's hands, I believe, and he won't let her write, poor girl.
She dreaded leaving us." "Why ?" "Ah! she would never say.

She had some deep-rooted terror of her uncle, Baron Oberg, who lived in St.Petersburg, and who came over at long intervals to see her.