Violet extended hers, feeling in secret rather frightened. What strange mystery was this which had been effective so violently to upset her ordinarily so equable and self-contained host—this was not her first visit to Heath Hover. She could not but notice, while the same process was repeated, that it seemed to be slightly less prolonged in her case than in that of Melian.
“What does it mean, Mr Mervyn?” she asked.
“Any one would think that that rum little shining thing would bite,” said Melian, mischievously.
The two pairs of bright eyes, the dark and the blue, brimming with mischief—eke curiosity—fixed upon his face, served to brace Mervyn. He was himself again, or very nearly. And then to him came the thought as to how he should account for his agitation. It had been so palpably real that he was at his wits’ end to think how he should explain it away; and it must be explained away. Women were gifted with such singularly clear-sighted instinct—and, worse still, perhaps—with such a fund of curiosity. A forestalment of this promptly came out.
“But—what is the thing, Uncle Seward?” went on Melian.
He looked at her for a moment, wondering what answer to make.
“Perhaps I was upset about nothing,” he said, regaining his equability with an effort. “The fact is it brought back to my mind a very curious and uncanny experience—not in this country, but I’ve been among strange scenes and people in other parts of the world, you know. There’s a great deal in association of ideas, and there are strange happenings all the world over, as you two children may—or may not—find out by the time you get to my time of life. Where did you find—that—by the way?—No—leave it where it is.”
This last quickly, as Melian stooped over the thing as though to pick it up again.
“Why, just where the path begins to come down from the road,” she answered, wondering.
“On your way back?”