"Good Heavens!" she exclaimed irritably, "how you frightened me! Why was I not told you were here ?" Having left the drawing-room in a state of solitude, Lady Lydiard on her return found herself suddenly confronted with a gentleman, mysteriously planted on the hearth-rug in her absence.

The new visitor may be rightly described as a gray man.

He had gray hair, eyebrows, and whiskers; he wore a gray coat, waistcoat, and trousers, and gray gloves.

For the rest, his appearance was eminently suggestive of wealth and respectability and, in this case, appearances were really to be trusted.
The gray man was no other than Lady Lydiard's legal adviser, Mr.Troy.
"I regret, my Lady, that I should have been so unfortunate as to startle you," he said, with a certain underlying embarrassment in his manner.
"I had the honor of sending word by Mr.Moody that I would call at this hour, on some matters of business connected with your Ladyship's house property.

I presumed that you expected to find me here, waiting your pleasure--" Thus far Lady Lydiard had listened to her legal adviser, fixing her eyes on his face in her usually frank, straightforward way.