"I'll go with you, dear, if you are really bent on the adventure," said the elder woman.
"Forgive me, Miss Beverly. But I—once knew these people. I could not go into their house on such an errand. They would think I had come to spy on their misfortune," protested Loria miserably.
"I knew them too," said Roger Broom, "and I'll stay down here and keep Loria company."
Lady Gardiner looked at George Trent, with whom she was having an amusing flirtation, which would certainly have been more than amusing if he had been only a quarter as rich as his half-sister.
"I'll take you and Virgie up to the door, anyhow," he responded to the look, and springing from his horse, he pushed open the tall gate of rusty iron.
Then, mounting again, the three passed between the gray stone gate-posts with an ancient carved escutcheon obliterated with moss and lichen. They rode along the grass-grown avenue which wound up the hill among the cypresses and olive trees, coming out at last, as they neared the château, from shadow into a pale, chastened sunshine which among the gray-green trees had somewhat the effect of moonlight.
"Have you ever heard of the Dalahaides?" Virginia demanded of her chaperon.
"If I have, I've forgotten," said Lady Gardiner. "And yet there does seem to be a dim memory of something strange hovering at the back of my brain."
They were above the grove now, on a terrace with a perspective of ruined garden, whence the battered faces of ancient statues peeped out, yellow-white from behind overgrown rose bushes and heliotrope. The château was before them, the windows still reflecting the sunlight; but this borrowed glitter was all the brightness it had. Once beautiful, the old battlemented house had an air of proud desolation, as if scorning pity, since it could no longer win admiration.
"You would have to spend thousands of pounds in restoring this old ruin if you should really buy it, Virginia," said Lady Gardiner.