Then, as he looked into her face with astonishment and curiosity, she suddenly turned, walked a few steps towards a door in the darkest part of the hall, and beckoned him to follow her.
“Come hither, sir, out into the air!” said she, in a low voice. “I am stifling here; I want to feel the fresh wind on my face while I speak.”
Her voice was full of strong emotion. Tregenna paused an instant, suspecting treachery in the strange woman; but she divined the cause of his hesitation, and with a sudden change to fire and pride, she said—
“You need not fear me. See, there is no ambush prepared for you!” And as she spoke, she threw open the door, and showed the way into the beautiful old garden behind the house.
Tregenna followed her in silence as she went out, and took, without looking behind her, the path that led, through winding walks, and between quaint, stiff yew hedges, to the Italian garden. There a broad terrace, with a stone balustrade, led down to bright beds of late autumn flowers, still pretty and fragrant, though they were growing tall and straggling at this late season, and were, in places, nipped with the early frosts of the coming winter.
Ann stopped on the terrace, and waited for Tregenna to come up to her. When he did so, she turned abruptly, and he was surprised to see that she was in tears.
The discovery, in a woman of her fierce attributes, was startling, amazing; and Tregenna was disconcerted by it.
“You are astonished, I see, sir,” she began, in the same gentle voice that he had last heard from her, “to see a creature you have always looked upon as masculine and hard, with aught so feminine as a tear upon her face!”
“Well, Miss Ann, I confess it, I am surprised. I thought you were made of stuff too stern for such weakness!”
“Did you but know more of me,” said she, sadly, “you would not think so. We are all, as you know, sir, made by our surroundings; and see what mine have been! Brought up from my earliest childhood among rough folk, hearing of scenes that ’twould make your blood run cold to relate, what chance had I to grow into your soft and tender woman, that sits and smiles, and screams at sight of a spider?”