The old woman who kept the key looked rather frightened when she saw who was with Freda, but she unlocked the gate, waited, curtseying, while the young people shook hands, and then popped back into her cottage like a rabbit.
But there were eyes about more to be dreaded than the old woman’s. When Freda returned to the inner gate, which she had left open, she found it locked, and had to ring the bell. Mrs. Bean did not answer the summons for some time, and when she did, it was with a frown of ill-omen upon her face.
“So you’ve been receiving visitors, I see,” she began shortly.
“Yes, I’ve had one visitor.”
“One of the young Heritages, whom your father specially wished you not to have anything to do with. Crispin told you that.”
“Yes,” said Freda tremulously, “but since they leave me here all by myself with nobody to speak to, they can’t be surprised if I make any friends when I can.”
“Well, and am I not friend enough for you, without your having to run after any stranger or vagabond that happens to come into the parish?”
“No, you’re not, for I certainly couldn’t say anything I liked to you, as one can to a friend. If I ask you a question, you put me off with an answer that tells me nothing, as if I were a child. But I’m going to show you that I’m grown up, and do some things that will astonish you.”
And Freda hopped quickly away across the court-yard to the entrance of the west wing, leaving Nell a little anxious and perturbed by this new independence.
Freda returned to the study, her little brain actively spinning fancies concerning her late visitor, all of a pretty, harmless kind, dowering him with a great many ideal qualities to which the young man could certainly not lay claim. It was now so dark in the room that she had to feel her way carefully, well as she knew it. She walked along close by the wall, touching the book-laden shelves as she went, until she came to a point where they seemed to yield under her fingers. Her heart leapt up. This was the secret door through which Dick had entered: and he had left it open.