This cold even were we maids and Ned bidden to a gathering at Master Murthwaite’s, it being Temperance her birthday, and she is now two and twenty years of age. We had meant for to call on our way at Mere Lea, to ask how was Blanche, but we were so late of starting (I need not blame any) that there was no time left, and we had to foot it at a good pace. Master Murthwaite dwells about half a mile on this side of Keswick, so we had a middling good walk. There come, we found Gillian Armstrong and her brethren, but none from Mere Lea. Gillian said her mother had been thither yester-morn, when she reckoned Blanche to be something better: and they were begun to hope (though Dr Bell would not yet say so much) that she might tide o’er her malady. A pleasant even was it, but quiet: for Master Murthwaite is a strong Puritan (as folk do now begin to call them that be strict in religion,) and loveth not no manner of noisy mirth: nor do I think any of us were o’er inclined to vex him in that matter. I was not, leastwise. We brake up about eight of the clock, or a little past, and set forth of our way home. Not many yards, howbeit, were we gone, when a sound struck on our ears that made my blood run chill. From the old church at Keswick came the low deep toll of the passing bell.
“One,—two!”—then a pause. A woman.
There were only two women, so far as I knew, that it was like to be. I counted every stroke with my breath held. Would it pause at the nineteen which should point to daft Madge, or go on to the twenty-one which should mean Blanche Lewthwaite?
“Eighteen—nineteen—twenty—twenty-one!”
Then the bell stopped.
“O Ned, it is Blanche!” cries Edith.
“Ay, I reckon so,” saith Ned, sadly.
We hurried on then to the end of the lane which leads up to Mere Lea. Looking up at the house, whereof the upper windows can be seen, we saw all dark and closed up: and in Blanche’s window, where of late the light had burned day and night, there was now only pitch darkness. She needed no lights now: for she was either in the blessed City where they need no light of the sun, or else cast forth into the blackness of darkness for ever. Oh, which should it be?
“Milisent!” said a low, sorrowful voice beside me; and mine hand clasped Robin Lewthwaite’s.
“When was it, Robin?”