The lark's nest was still there. The cruel little cuckoo sat in it alone, while hovering in the air, close at hand, was the foolish mother waiting, with a dainty morsel in her beak, till I should be gone, and she could safely feed the vicious little interloper who had destroyed her own brood. The bodies of the little titlarks lay upon the bank. I jumped down to the path again and told Mr. Harrod the tale.
"I wish I had put the cuckoo out," I said. "I hate cuckoos—all the more because every one admires them." And I remember that all the way home I kept reverting to that distressing little piece of bird-tragedy.
We returned by the sea-shore. It was a longer way, but I declared that I must have a sight of the ocean on this soft, calm day. And soft it was, and calm and gray and mild. The sun was setting, but there was no sunset. Only behind the village on the hill the clouds lifted a little towards the horizon, and left a line of whiter light, against which the trees and houses detached themselves vividly; the marsh was uniform and sober.
When we had climbed the steep road and were at the Grange gates, Mr. Harrod held out his hand and said, as he bade me good-night, "I don't see why you shouldn't be of just as much use to your father as ever you were, Miss Maliphant. Please be very sure that no one ever would or ever could replace you to your father."
He spoke as though it were not altogether easy for him to do so; but there was a ring of honest kindliness in his voice that left me mute and almost ashamed. He held my hand a moment in his strong grip, but he did not look at me; and then he turned and almost fled down the road, as if he, too, were almost ashamed of what he had said.
And I had not answered a word. I stood there surprised, perplexed, and even a little frightened, surrounded by new and curious emotions, which I did not even try to unravel.
CHAPTER XVII.
I do not suppose that I had the dimmest notion at the time that this man, whom I considered my foe, had sprung surely, and as soon as I saw him, into that mysterious blank space that exists in every woman's imagination, waiting to be filled by the figure that shall henceforth bound her horizon. I do not suppose that I guessed at my real feelings for a moment. If I had done so, I am sure that it would only have aggravated my hostile attitude, whereas my first most unreasonable mood was beginning slowly to lapse into one of friendly interest, and of eager desire to be of use.