You can wait here without anybody knowing it until I can communicate with him and bring you to his study unobserved.

And," he hesitated, "if you wouldn't mind locking the door when you are in, miss, you would be more secure, and I will knock when I come for you." Grace Nevil smiled at the man's prudence, and entered the room.

But to her great surprise, she had scarcely shut the door when she was instantly struck with a singular memory which the apartment recalled.
It was exactly like the room she had altered in Rushbrook's villa at Los Osos! More than that, on close examination it proved to be the very same furniture, arranged as she remembered to have arranged it, even to the flowers and grasses, now, alas! faded and withered on the walls.

There could be no mistake.

There was the open ebony escritoire with the satin blotter open, and its leaves still bearing the marks of her own handwriting.