"Why, yes, of course," echoed the woman, in the commiserating tone of her class under such circumstances. "Ah, farmer was a good man, and none can say different! And, to tell the truth, many's the one have thought it queer Mr. Harrod should choose this time to go away. But he always were odd, and I suppose we must all look to our own advantage. There's no more work to be done on poor old Knellestone farm—so folk say—and I suppose he had heard of something as would suit him. Ah, it's very sad after all the years the family have been on the place."
I dared not think what she meant, although I knew well enough; but this other blow had stunned me, and I could not speak, even had I chosen to bandy words, about poor father's affairs with a village gossip.
"I'll go up with you and look round the house," said I.
"It ain't tidied yet, miss," answered she, apologetically. "I was just going to wash and settle it all up."
"Never mind," insisted I. "I want to look for a book," and I led the way up the hill.
"Lor'! you won't find anything there," laughed she, following. "There isn't anything in the place."
I went in, nevertheless. But she was right, he was gone indeed. The homely room was deserted where I had sat in the window-seat that summer evening reading words of Milton that I did not understand, and watching the rising storm and the sheep cropping sleepily over the grassy knolls. There was not a book left of all those books that I had envied, and had thought he would think the better of me for reading; not a pipe on the rack above the mantle-shelf; not a sign to show that he had ever been there. And yet I saw it all before me just as it had been that day; I felt that unseen presence that I had never seen there, just as if he might open the door at any moment and come in.
The woman left me for a moment, and I sat down on that window-seat once more. The sun was setting redly, as it so often set beyond those wide marsh-lands and their boundary line of downs; the valley was full of blue mist—blue as a wild hyacinth—against which the bended, broken, broad-topped pine-trees laid every branch of their dark tracery, abrupt, unsuspected, alert with individuality, strangely full of a reserved irregular grace. I remember the picture, yet I scarcely saw it; it must have fastened itself upon my memory, simply because it fitted so well with my own mood. Oh me! when I had last been there Harrod had not seen Joyce, and now I said from my heart, "Would to God he had not seen me!" Yes, I said it from my heart; so much so that I was not content with mere regrets, I was resolved that Trayton Harrod should not go out into the world with that lie of mine in his heart—not if I could help it.
I started up. I would go to the squire; I felt convinced now that the squire knew all about Harrod's departure. The squire could at least tell me where he was that I might write to him. I walked across the empty room, and at the same moment Mr. Broderick opened the gate of the yard without. Everything was happening just as it had happened that day; but oh, with what a difference!