He turned and looked at her gravely.
“Surely,” he answered, after a pause, “a man’s inheritance is not solely his own. It is but a trust. It is to be used and passed on. Those that come after me,” added he musingly, “will not be the poorer, but the richer for my unwonted mode of life. Yet, meanwhile, Ellinor, you can help me to put to better purpose the wealth yearly expended in this house. For there are abuses in a household which only a woman’s hand can reach.”
“They shall be reached then,” said she.
CHAPTER XI
LAYING THE GHOSTS
Her eyes
Had such a star of morning in their blue
That all neglected places ...
Broke into music.
—Tennyson (Aylmer’s Field).
Out of the warm library into the deserted, echoing round-vaulted hall, on the walls of which broad sheets of tapestry hung, dimly splendid, between fluted pilasters of marble. It seemed to Ellinor, when the swing door had fallen behind her with its soft thud, as if they had left the nave of some church; left a home-like refuge filled with living presences, benign spirits and warm incense; to enter the coldness of a crypt that spoke but of the tomb.