But, rather to my surprise, and a little to my relief, my father ignored our afternoon’s adventure when I saw him again. He came in to dinner as usual, carefully dressed, and ate and drank with his customary fine care that everything of which he partook should be of the best of its kind. After he had left the table we saw no more of him. He went straight to his study, and I heard the door shut and the key turned—a sign that he was on no account to be disturbed; and though I sat in the drawing room until long after my usual time for retiring, and afterwards remained in my room till the small hours commenced to chime, his door remained locked. Yet in the morning he was down before us. He was standing at the window when I came into the breakfast room, and the clear morning light fell mercilessly on his white face, pallid and lined with the marks of his long vigil. It seemed to me that he greeted us both more quietly than usual.
During breakfast time I made a few remarks to him, but they passed unnoticed, or elicited only a monosyllabic reply. Alice spoke of the schools, but he seemed scarcely to hear. We all became silent. As we were on the point of rising, the unusual sound of wheels outside attracted our attention. A fly was passing slowly along the road beyond our hedge. I caught a glimpse of a woman’s face inside, and half rose up.
“She is going away!” I exclaimed.
My father, too, had half risen. He made a movement as though to hurry from the room, but with an effort he restrained himself. The effect of her appearance upon him was very evident to me. His under lip was twitching, and his long, white fingers were nervously interlaced. Alice, bland and unseeing, glanced carelessly out of the window.
“It is our mysterious neighbor from the Yellow House,” she remarked. “If a tithe of what people say about her is true we ought to rejoice that she is going away. It is a pity she is not leaving for good.”
My father opened his lips as though about to speak. He changed his mind, however, and left the room. The burden of her defence remained with me.
“If I were you I would not take any notice of what people say about her,” I remarked. “In all probability you will only hear a pack of lies. I had tea with her yesterday afternoon, and she seemed to me to be a very well-bred and distinguished woman.”
Alice looked at me with wide-open eyes, and an expression almost of horror in her face.
“Do you mean to say that you have been to see her, that you have been inside her house, Kate?” she cried.
I nodded.