He was rarely home before ten; sometimes not until half-past ten; and
one never-to-be-forgotten night, Mrs. Smithson had heard him, with her
own ears, enter the doors of the castle at the unholy hour of twenty
minutes to eleven!
There was one appalling fact of which Mrs. Smithson was entirely
ignorant. And that was the fact that Matthew Brook had entered the
castle by a little half-glass door on several occasions, half an hour
or more after the great oaken door leading into the servants'-hall had
been bolted and barred with all due solemnity before the approving eyes
of the housekeeper herself.
The little door in question opened into a small ground-floor bed-room,
in which one of the footmen slept; and nothing was more easy than for
this man to shelter the nightly misdoings of his fellow-servant by
letting him slip quietly through his bedroom, unknown to any member of
the household.
James Harwood, the groom was a confirmed gossip; and, of course, he had
not failed to inform his friend, Mr. Maunders, otherwise Black Milsom,
of Matthew Brook's little delinquencies. Mr. Maunders listened to the
account with interest, as he did to everything relating to affairs in
the household of which Harwood was a member.
It was some little time after this conversation that Mr. Milsom was
invited to sup at the castle.
Several friendly rubbers were played by Mrs.
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