The Lady Evelyn by Max Pemberton

Alone in his own room, high up in the northern tower of Melbourne Hall, the Earl locked the door and turned up the lights with the air of a man who has a considerable task before him and must make the most of the hours of grace remaining.

He was very pale and greatly changed since he had returned from London three hours ago. Some would have perceived in his manner, not the evidences of fear but of displeasure, and such displeasure as events bordering upon tragedy alone could provoke. Uttering but one harsh instruction to the servant who answered his bell, he sat at his writing table and for a full hour turned over the pages of a diary which had not seen the light for twenty years or more.