This was quite true. Recalled to consciousness of physical discomfort, Olivia shivered.
“Yes, I must make haste home,” she said. Then, with a hopeless glance at his face, as if she despaired of her words having any effect, she added, “You are too suspicious. You are so shrewd that you think you can’t make a mistake. But for all your cleverness, my belief in the friend I know and trust is just as likely to be right as your belief to the contrary.”
“Well, well. I hope it may be. Don’t think I have any ill-feeling towards this Vernon Brander as a man; it is the betrayer of my sister that I’m after, and if Vernon Brander isn’t the guilty party, why, he’ll have nothing to fear from me. Good-afternoon, Miss Denison.”
Mr. Mitchell raised his hat, with a shrewd and not unkindly smile into the girl’s beautiful, agitated face, turned on his heel, and began to make his way, with his usual stolid and leisurely manner, up the hill towards the high road.
Left to herself, Olivia, who was by this time too thoroughly drenched to trouble herself about a few minutes more or less in the rain, debated what she should do. The heat of the impulse which made her dash out of doors on learning the insult to Vernon had now departed, and some of Mr. Mitchell’s words had hurt her maidenly modesty to the extent of making her shy of visiting the clergyman at his house. On the other hand, she had now, in the menaces of the colonist, another reason for putting him on his guard. When Mr. Mitchell had disappeared from her sight at the first bend in the lane, she began to follow in the same direction slowly, her mind not yet made up. An unexpected incident decided her.
Glancing furtively at the cheerless windows of the gaunt stone house, Olivia saw, at one of them, the figure of an old woman in a black dress and widow’s cap, who watched the girl with evident interest, and at last opened the front door and began making signs to her. Olivia stopped. The signs were plainly an invitation to come in. She advanced as far as the gate, and then the old woman addressed her.
“Won’t you step inside a minute, out of the rain? Come in, come in; there’s nobody about but me.”
This decided Olivia, who recognized the speaker as Vernon’s housekeeper, whom she had seen at Rishton Church on Sundays. So she walked up the stone-paved path, and thanking the old woman for the proffered shelter, followed her into a hall, the desolate and bare appearance of which corresponded perfectly with that of the exterior of the house.
“I think you’d better come into my room, Miss, though it’s really only the back kitchen,” said the housekeeper. “But Mr. Brander, being out to-day, lunching up at the Hall Farm, as you know, Miss, there’s no fire in his room.”
Olivia assenting gratefully, the old woman led her past the open door of a comfortless and dingy room on the left, which might have been either dining-room or study, past a second door on the same side, which was closed, to a small apartment at the back, where a bright fire, a cat on the hearthrug, a bird in its cage, and a cushioned rocking chair, gave a look of comfort which was a welcome relief to the cheerless aspect of the rest of the house. An open door led into the kitchen, and gave a pleasant glimpse of firelight shining on well-polished pots and pans.