“Ah! that’s your poor protégée, Emmie; I have not seen her at her cottage door lately. Is she recovering her health?”
“I scarcely know, papa,” replied Emmie faintly.
“I thought that you had taken her under your care, my love, that the poor creature has been supplied with food from our own table.”
“Mrs. Jessel has often been with some—at least—that’s to say—I hoped—I thought that she went to the widow,” stammered forth Emmie. Since the discovery that Jael was the wife and accomplice of Harper, Miss Trevor had lost even the small amount of confidence which she might once have felt in this woman.
Mr. Trevor looked rather surprised and annoyed at Emmie’s evident confusion. “I marvel, my child, that you should employ as your almoner and cottage visitor a person of whom we know so little,” said he.
“She offered herself,” observed Emmie, “and I was afraid to refuse Mrs. Jessel’s services, lest I should give her offence. It was so foolish in me—so wrong! Poor Widow Brant is on my conscience, papa; but I do not like going alone to her cottage.”
“Then why not take our good Susan with you?” inquired Mr. Trevor.
Emmie’s dread of Harper had been so greatly increased by the events of the preceding night, that she now felt Susan’s company to be no efficient protection. The young lady renewed her request that her father should, at least on this one occasion, be her companion on her walk to the hamlet. She felt safe when leaning on his arm.
“These visits to sick women are not in my line,” observed Mr. Trevor, smiling, “as I am neither doctor nor divine. I do not neglect my tenants; I am willing to help them according to my means; and am proving at this moment my care for their interests by involving myself, for their sakes, in a very troublesome affair. But in a cottage I own that I feel like a fish out of water. Never mind, however; as you wish it, I am ready to-day to be your escort; my only bargain is that you shall take all the talking, my love.”
The father and daughter soon set out together, sauntered along the shrubbery, and passed through the outer gateway. Emmie glanced timidly at the almost tumble-down hovel of Harper. It was shut up. No firelight gleamed through the cracked panes of the single window, from the chimney issued no smoke. The maiden saw that the tenant of that hovel was not within it, and guessed but too easily that he was at that moment ensconced at his mysterious work in the haunted chamber. She could scarcely pay any attention to her father’s conversation, and answered almost at random the questions which he occasionally asked.