There was here a little awkward staircase, which led up to a tower, long since given up, for its draughtiness, to the bats and the mice. Underneath this staircase was an oddly-shaped recess, as large as a small room, where, behind some boxes, boards, and similar lumber, a rough chest, full to the top of yellow and musty papers, had that very day been unearthed by the indefatigable librarian. Lady Kate, creeping about the corridors and staircases with careful feet, heard the rustle of papers as soon as she entered the passage in which the tower staircase was. She stopped, listened, advanced on tiptoe until she was close to the outer pile of lumber. She did not at first dare to peep round at Amos Goodhare, for she wanted to get an opportunity of studying his face unseen by him. She knew he was there, though, for whenever Amos found anything which interested him he omitted a series of low grunts of satisfaction. And now he was grunting at a great rate.
Lady Kate, after half choking with suppressed laughter at his curious little cries and murmurs of excitement, decided that he was too deeply interested in something he had discovered to take any notice of her. So, with cautious steps, holding her breath, she crept through the space between the piled-up boxes and the staircase. He could not have been more favorably placed for her proposed inspection. A long lancet window lighted the staircase, and the bottom panes came low enough to illuminate the space below. Standing close under the little patch of dusty glass was the librarian, holding in his hands some large sheets of paper, which Lady Kate perceived to be old and yellow-looking. He was far too intent upon deciphering the contents of the papers to notice the plump and curious girl’s face peering up at him a couple of feet from the floor.
Lady Kate’s design of comparing the librarian’s face with her father’s was forgotten with her first glance at Amos Goodhare, who was a tall, slender, eminently gentlemanly-looking man, with grey hair and beard, grey eyes, which gazed habitually on the ground, and slightly stooping shoulders. For she saw his usually composed features lighted up with excitement so strong that his nostrils were dilated, his breath came fast and his eyes looked fierce, wide open and almost lurid. His long, white hands shook as he clutched at the yellowing papers, or passed his fingers, in feverish restlessness, through his still thick and curly grey hair.
Little Lady Kate’s plump face grew white with horror; she thought the librarian had gone mad. Over-devotion to the books had done it, she supposed. At any rate, she was too much frightened to stay and speculate as to the cause of this horrible event. She crept back into the passage on all fours, as she had come, and fled away as softly as she could.
On the floor below she met her sister Marion, who had just come in, and who was, as Kate afterwards described it, “looking sentimental.”
Lady Marion was, on the whole, the least attractive of the three sisters. She had not the stolid, but “comfortable,” look of the eldest, nor the merry eyes and laughing little pursed-up mouth of the youngest. She was a tall, bony, angular girl, fair, like the others, but without the pink color they had in their cheeks. Her hair was a little darker than theirs, and of an unpleasing length, as it had been cut quite short and then allowed to grow, the result of which was that little ends and tufts stuck out straight in all directions from the tiny little knob she wore at the back of her neck. Her nose was long, her mouth was wide, and her light blue eyes were without fire. Nevertheless there was a certain look, not only of good nature, but of gentleness and affection, in her face, which made her affectation of masculine manners and speech rather pathetic. For Lady Marion had the warmest and deepest nature of the three sisters, therefore it was on her that their anomalous education had worked the most disastrous effects. She was always yearning to show “strength of mind,” when, as a matter of fact, the strength her character really possessed did not lie at all in mental attributes, but in the more womanly qualities which she despised.
When her younger sister fell against her, whispering fearsomely, “Oh, Marion, Mr. Goodhare’s gone mad!” Lady Marion instantly assumed a manly and devil-may-care front, and said in a deep voice:
“Where is he?”
Whereas, if she had been really a person of much common sense, she would have decided at once that her sister’s statement was a wild exaggeration.
Lady Kate briefly described where and how she had found him. Then a happier idea crossed Marion’s mind.