"
"But you remember him?" suggested Mr. Pawle.
"Oh, very well indeed!" said Mrs. Summers. "I saw him last a day or two
before he went away for good."
"Well, now, did you think you recognized anything of him--making
allowance for the difference in age--in this man who called himself John
Ashton?" asked Mr. Pawle. "For that, of course, is important!"
"Mr. Ashton," answered Mrs. Summers, "was just such a man as Lord
Marketstoke might have been expected to become. Height, build--all the
Cave-Grays that I've known were big men--colour, were alike. Of course,
Mr. Ashton had a beard, slightly grey, but he was a grey-haired man. All
the family had crown hair; the present Lord Ellingham is crown-haired.
And Mr. Ashton had grey eyes--every Cave-Gray that I remember was
grey-eyed. I should say that Mr. Ashton was just what I should have
expected Lord Marketstoke to be at sixty."
"I suppose Ashton never said or did anything here to reveal his secret,
if he had one?" asked Mr. Pawle, after a moment's thoughtful pause.
"Oh, nothing!" replied Mrs. Summers. "He occupied himself, as I tell you,
while he was here, and finally he went away in the car in which he had
come, saying that he had greatly enjoyed his stay, and that we should see
him again sometime.
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