And she, though it was against her will, followed him up the echoing empty stairs.
They went into every room, and Guy declared how they with their love were restoring to each of them the life it had known in the past. Here was a pleasant fancy, and Pauline hoped it might be true. In the thought that their presence was in a way the bestowal of charity on these maltreated halls she lost much of her alarm and began to enjoy the solitude spent with Guy. Whether they looked out at the wilderness that once was a garden or at the rank lawn in front, the thunderous wind surging round the house brought them closer together in the consciousness of their own shelter and their own peace in this deserted habitation.
"Now, confess," said Guy. "Haven't we been rather stupid to neglect such a refuge?"
"But, Guy, we haven't needed a refuge very often," objected Pauline, who for all that she was losing some of her dread of the Abbey was by no means inclined to set up a precedent for going there too often.
"Not yet," he admitted. "But with winter coming on and the wet days that will either keep us indoors or else prevent us from doing anything but walk perpetually along splashy roads, we shan't be sorry to have a place like this to which we can retreat in comparative comfort."
"Oh, Guy," Pauline asked anxiously. "I suppose we ought to come here?"
"Why on earth not?"
"Don't be angry. But the idea just flashed through my mind that perhaps Mother wouldn't like us to come here very often."
He sighed deeply.
"Really, sometimes I wonder what is the good of being engaged. Are we for ever to be hemmed in by the conventions of a place like Wychford?"