“And is she that?”
“Ah, sir! ’Twas a fanciful notion of her mother’s. God help her, poor stricken loveling! Sure the fiends of pride suggested it in a bitter irony.”
“What ails her?”
“Her mind keeps no growth with her body. In this, her twenty-fifth year, she is nought but a wayward and fantastic child.”
“My household figures out apace. And you two are alone on the premises?”
“Alone, sir, and have always been.”
“Well, Mr. Dennis Whimple—and I would say, ‘as I would be, too.’ Leave me, my good fellow, and light me presently to bed.”
The caretaker withdrew, with a humble obeisance, and Mr. Tuke sat down to his meal. This proved homely enough, but acceptable to a ravenous stomach; and no doubt the wine made rich amends for the poverty of the repast.
His supper finished, and a great wave of sleepiness threatening to overwhelm him, he called for his henchman and demanded guidance to his bedroom.
Up the broad stairway Dennis, bearing a candlestick in either hand, preceded him, and his drowsiness inclined him there and then to little observation of the passages by which he passed. But presently he was aware of standing in a great gusty room, strongly shuttered like the one below, and having for its one conspicuous piece of furniture a mighty four-poster, with curtains and tester of heavy, faded brocade.