"Some visitors have it, madam. A gentleman called to ask for it ten minutes ago."
"Oh, all right." She rose and turned to me. "Let's go, then. We'll probably meet them bringing it back."
The half-light lent the old quire's walls a rare beauty. A great peace hung over them. Perhaps it was of them. For a little we strolled, talking, upon the greensward. Then:
"Now you shall see the kitchen," she said.
"If you please, Princess."
The kitchen stood away from the ruins, in the middle of a fair meadow: a circular building of grey stone, very lofty and about sixty paces in circumference. Its great oak door was closed. I could see one tiny window—glassless, of course—some sixteen feet from the ground.
"Why!" said the girl, stopping suddenly, "the door's shut."
"Yes," said I; "but what of that?"
"Well, the people must have gone."
"Why?"