Then followed more talking, and at last there was a pause, followed by a hasty whisper, and the heavy step of old Poll Perrow, with her basket on her back, supported by the strap across her brow. Aunt Marguerite had been to her niece’s door again and again, and tried it to find it fastened; and she could get no response to her taps and calls. She seemed to feel no sorrow only rage against all by whom she was surrounded; and, isolated as it were, she spent the afternoon going to and fro between her own room and one which gave her a good view of the harbour mouth with boats going and returning; for the search for the body of Harry Vine was kept up without cessation, the fishermen lending themselves willingly to the task, and submitting, but with an ill grace, to the presence of the police.
Aunt Marguerite, however, in spite of her vindictive feeling, suffered intense grief; and her sorrow seemed to deepen the lines in her handsome old face.
“They’ve murdered him, they’ve murdered him?” she kept on muttering as she watched the passing boats. “No one understood him but me.”
She drew back sharply from the window, for just then a closely-veiled figure came hurriedly into view, her goal being evidently the old granite house.
Aunt Marguerite’s eyes sparkled with vindictive malice.
“Yes,” she said, half aloud; “and you too, madam—you had your share in the poor boy’s death. Oh! how I do hate your wretched Dutch race.”
She crossed to the door, and opened it slightly, to stand listening, to hear voices a few minutes later, and then steps on the stairs, which stopped, after a good deal of whispering, at her niece’s door, after which there was a low tapping, and Liza’s voice arose:
“Miss Louise! Miss Louise!”
“Yes, knock again. She will not answer. One of them has some pride left.”
“Miss Louise, Miss Louise, you’re wanted, please.”