He opened the door and sprang out, letting down the steps for her. She could scarcely wait, but almost jumped down on to the ground, and pushing open the low gate, walked quickly up the path to the cottage.
The door was opened before she had time to knock on it by an old woman with wispy grey hair, and the rather vacant look in her eyes which belongs to the very deaf. She dropped a curtsy to Judith, and in the same breath begged her to step in, and to excuse her not hearing very plain.
Judith swung round to face her cousin, her brows drawing close over the bridge of her nose. “Peregrine?” she said sharply.
He laid a hand that shook on her arm. “Go in, cousin, I cannot explain it to you on the doorstep.”
She saw his coachman leading the horses round to one of the barns at the back of the house. Her eyes darkened with suspicion. “Where is Peregrine?”
“For God’s sake, Judith, let us go in! I will tell you everything, but not before this woman!”
She looked down at the deaf woman, who was still holding the door, and nodding and smiling at her, and then stepped over the threshold into a narrow passage with some stairs at the end of it. Bernard Taverner threw open a door and disclosed a low-pitched but roomy apartment with windows at each end, which was evidently the parlour. Judith went in without hesitation, and waited for him to close the door again. “Peregrine is not here?” she said.
He shook his head. “No. I could think of no other way to bring you. Do not judge me too harshly! To deceive you with such seeming heartlessness has been the most painful thing of all! But you would never have come with me. You would have gone to town with Audley, and been tricked into marrying him. You must—you shall forgive me!”
“Where is Peregrine?” she interrupted.
“I believe him to be dead. I do not know. Do you think if I did I would not have led you to him? Worth made away with him—”