It was another fear which worried them.
"Suppose that cousin of Joey's thinks it's too bad to play, and won't send her?" Noreen whispered tragically.
"I believe she'll come somehow—trust her," Gabrielle whispered back reassuringly. "Anyhow, we'll go as far as the reservoir, and see. If we climb up at the side of that we can get a splendid view."
By this time they were within a quarter of a mile of Deeping Royal. To their left was still the desolate shore, with the narrow strip of shingle separating them from it, but there was a great sense of nearness to the waves which the high wind was driving in big and threatening, with a crest of foam.
Before them, crowning the slight rise on which the village stood, were the great twin churches, standing not a stone's-throw apart, with their massive beacon-towers outlined sharply against a clear, wind-swept space in the sky.
Below them clustered the village, through which the procession of brakes drove up a rather steep street to the inn, which one reached through an incongruous ivy-hung gateway, bearing on one mouldering dim red pillar the name cut deeply "Good Hope."
The "sweet Anne Wendover," whom Roger Malfrey had wooed in vain, because "the wasting sickness" wooed her more successfully, had lived there; and he must have ridden often through those great gates, which now stood wide to chars-à-bancs and brakes all the summer-time, and bore a large printed notice, "Teas provided."
"Joey would like this," whispered Gabrielle, as the first brake rattled into the old court-yard, and stood beneath the new sign.
"Yes, wouldn't she? Queer how one misses the kid," returned Noreen. "Specially queer when one remembers how we barred her coming from that twopenny-half-penny school."