The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe

He left the table the instant the last answer was given, and hurried out of the room without saying a word to any of us. “Who is Mr. Merriman?” asked Laura, appealing to me. “I have not the least idea,” was all I could say in reply. The Count had finished his fourth tart, and had gone to a side-table to look after his vicious cockatoo. He turned round to us with the bird perched on his shoulder. “ Mr. Merriman is Sir Percival’s solicitor,” he said quietly. Sir Percival’s solicitor. It was a perfectly straightforward answer to Laura’s question, and yet, under the circumstances, it was not satisfactory. If Mr. Merriman had been specially sent for by his client, there would have been nothing very wonderful in his leaving town to obey the summons. But when a lawyer travels from London to Hampshire without being sent for, and when his arrival at a gentleman’s house seriously startles the gentleman himself, it may be safely taken for granted that the legal visitor is the bearer of some very important and very unexpected news⁠—news which may be either very good or very bad, but which cannot, in either case, be of the common everyday kind. Laura and I sat silent at the table for a quarter of an hour or more, wondering uneasily what had happened, and waiting for the chance of Sir Percival’s speedy return. There were no signs of his return, and we rose to leave the room.