“Now that is what I am far from sure of.”
“But, dear Delia, when your anger has cool’d—”
“My anger was brief: I am disappointed, rather. With her last breath, almost, Joan said you were weaker than she: she lov’d you better than I, and read you clearer. You are weak. Jack”—she drew in Molly, and let her hand fall on my shoulder very kindly—“we have been comrades for many a long mile, and I hope are honest good friends; wherefore I loathe to say a harsh or ungrateful-seeming word. But you could not understand that brave girl, and you cannot understand me: for as yet you do not even know yourself. The knowledge comes slowly to a man, I think; to a woman at one rush. But when it comes, I believe you may be strong. Now leave me to think, for my head is all of a tangle.”
Our pace was so slow (by reason of the lame horse), that a great part of the afternoon was spent before we came in sight of the House of Gleys. And truly the yellow sunshine had flung some warmth about the naked walls and turrets, so that Delia’s home-coming seem’d not altogether cheerless. But what gave us more happiness was to spy, on the blue water beyond, the bright canvas of the Godsend, and to hear the cries and stir of Billy Pottery’s mariners as they haul’d down the sails.
And Billy himself was on the lookout with his spyglass. For hardly were we come to the beach when our signal—the waving of a white kerchief—was answered by another on board; and within half an hour a boat puts off, wherein, as she drew nearer, I counted eight fellows.
They were (besides Billy), Matt. Soames, the master, Gabriel Hutchins, Ned Masters, the black man Sampson, Ben Halliday, and two whose full names I have forgot—but one was call’d Nicholas. And, after many warm greetings, the boat was made fast, and we climbed up along the peninsula together, in close order, like a little army.
All this time there was no sign or sound about the House of Gleys to show that anyone mark’d us or noted our movements. The gate was closed, the windows stood shutter’d, as on my former visit: even the chimneys were smokeless. Such effect had this desolation on our spirits, that drawing near, we fell to speaking in whispers, and said Ned Masters—
“Now a man would think us come to bury somebody!”
“He might make a worse guess,” I answer’d.
Marching up to the gate, I rang a loud peal on the bell; and to my astonishment, before the echoes had time to die away, the grating was push’d back, and the key turn’d in the lock.