“Yes, Barnabas, let me go,” she urged, touching his arm in entreaty.
“Well, Ah give ye ten minutes, an’ ye must leave t’ door open, and when toime ’s oop, Ah shall fetch ye.”
“Thank you, thank you, good, dear Barnabas,” said she.
But he began instantly to scoff.
“Oh, yes, we’re angels while we let ye have your own weay, an’ devils if we cross ye. Ye’re not t’ first woman Ah’ve hed to deal with, missie,” he grumbled.
But Freda did not heed him. She was walking very demurely down the unlighted passage with Dick, saying never a word now she had got her own way, and keeping close to the wall as if afraid of her companion. He felt bound to try to make conversation.
“I’m afraid you’ll find a great change in the place since my aunt left, Miss Mulgrave. This is only a bachelor’s den now, and you know a man with no ladies to look after him is not famous for his orderliness, and in fact—I’m hardly settled here yet you know.”
They were passing through the passage, at right angles with the entrance-hall, which ran alongside the servants’ quarters. No sounds of merry talk and laughter now, no glimpses of a roaring fire through the half-open kitchen door. Nothing but cold and damp, and a smell as of rooms long shut-up to which the fresh air never came. Freda shivered, but it was not with cold; it was with horror of the gloom and loneliness of the place. Poor Dick! They passed into the huge ante-room; it was entirely unlighted, and Dick turned to offer her his hand.
“You will hurt yourself, against the—walls. There is nothing else for you to hurt yourself against,” he added rather bitterly.
She gave him her hand; it was trembling.