"I was just about to ask you to do so, my dear," he said, with suave politeness. "Penelope, open the door for your mistress."
Marrion, as mechanically she stepped aside towards the window to let them pass out, felt that nothing was altered. The spider was master of his web still, every stick and stone of the old place existed by this old man's wicked will. And it was this heritage she had set herself to gain for the man she loved! A spasm of repugnance shot through her.
Yet surely the place itself was glorious. Her glance speeding northwards took in the same old familiar view that had been visible from her window in the keep-house; the grey northern sea trending away, round promontory and point, the cliffs looking so strangely red compared with the white hills, the white moors--for snow lay thick everywhere. In those long years of London life she seemed to have forgotten that snow could be so white. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow." The words recurred to her irrelevantly.
The old man's voice roused her.
"You are not so good-looking as you were; and you limp. How's that?"
"I had an accident," she replied briefly.
"And why do you call yourself Mrs. Marsden?"
"Because it is the name I have gone by for some years."
"Ever since I last saw you--eh?"
"Ever since you last saw me--nearly," she corrected. Then there was silence.