"If only I had money of my own!" she sighed. "I wonder if I could by any possibility earn any!"
Then she started up. "I will go out," she resolved; "as Rawlings says, it will 'blow away my feelin's'!"
She put on her thick coat and hat, and in a few minutes was treading the flat dreary road that led by the side of the marsh to the nearest town.
It was already getting dusk; a flock of wild ducks suddenly rose close to her, and flew screaming over the marsh towards the sea. There was no wind; the croaking of frogs seemed the only sound that broke the monotonous silence. She looked around her with keen alert eyes, but her gaze fell on stunted gorse bushes, and beds of the green rushes that were so familiar a landmark in this part of the country.
"Oh!" she said impatiently to herself, as she threw back her head with a quick, imperious gesture, "I know this all so well, that I could paint it with my eyes shut! It's a deadening part of the world to live in. Stagnant life, and I am beginning to think that mine is like it!"
Then she looked eagerly in front of her. Two figures were walking towards her. One of them she recognised. He was a friend of her grandfather's, who lived about three miles away at his place called the Hermitage, and on account of his quiet and studious habits was nicknamed "the hermit" by his acquaintances.
Mr. Desmond had a good many friends in the literary world, and it was of no uncommon occurrence for two or three men suddenly to turn up and dine and sleep with no previous intimation of their arrival. Jean often wished women would accompany them, but this was never the case. Old Mr. Desmond looked upon the weaker sex as being utterly unfit to converse intellectually with learned savants. He had never been a society man. His wife had died four years after his marriage, and since her death, he had become entirely absorbed in his books. Jean never had much to say to the men who frequented her grandfather's house. She took her seat at the dinner table, but did not see them afterwards. They looked upon her as a schoolgirl still, and were like her grandfather, more interested in science than in women.
Mr. Railton, "the hermit," was the one she knew and liked best. She quickened her pace, and a bright smile came to her lips as she greeted him.
"You are taking a constitutional," he said in his grave courteous manner. "I was bringing a friend of mine to see your grandfather this evening. Let me introduce him to you—Colonel Douglas. He has just come home from wanderings in Persia."
Jean held out her hand. "Then, you are sure of a warm welcome from grandfather," she said, "for the East is his pet part of the world."