CHAPTER II.
ULYSSES.
October was ending drearily with north-east winds, dust, drifting dead leaves, and a steel-grey sky; and the Dolphin Hotel at Southampton was glorified by the presence of Lady Maulevrier and suite.

Her ladyship's suite was on this occasion limited to three servants--her French maid, a footman, and a kind of factotum, a man of no distinct and arbitrary signification in her ladyship's household, neither butler nor steward, but that privileged being, an old and trusted servant, and a person who was supposed to enjoy more of Lady Maulevrier's confidence than any other member of her establishment.
This James Steadman had been valet to her ladyship's father, Lord Peverill, during the declining years of that nobleman.

The narrow limits of a sick room had brought the master and servant into a closer companionship than is common to that relation.

Lady Diana Angersthorpe was a devoted daughter, and in her attendance upon the Earl during the last three years of his life--a life which closed more than a year before her own marriage--she saw a great deal of James Steadman, and learned to trust him as servants are not often trusted.

He was not more than twenty years of age at the beginning of his service, but he was a man of extraordinary gravity, much in advance of his years; a man of shrewd common-sense and clear, sharp intellect.