"You can drive round; we'll be there before you," he said to the groom as he got down.
Carroll and he crossed the meadow. Passing around a clump of larches they came suddenly into sight of an old gray house with a fir wood rolling down the hillside close behind it. The building was long and low, weather-worn and stained with lichens where the creepers and climbing roses left the stone exposed. The bottom row of mullioned windows opened upon a terrace, and in front of the terrace ran a low wall with a broad coping on which were placed urns bright with geraniums. It was pierced by an opening approached by shallow stairs on which an iridescent peacock stood, and in front of all that stretched a sweep of lawn.
A couple of minutes later, a lady met them in the wide hall, and held out her hand to Vane. She was middle-aged, and had once been handsome, but now there were wrinkles about her eyes, which had a hint of hardness in them, and her lips were thin. Carroll noticed that they closed tightly when she was not speaking.
"Welcome home, Wallace," she said effusively. "It should not be difficult to look upon the Dene as that—you were here so often once upon a time."
"Thank you," was the response. "I felt tempted to ask Jim to drive me round by Low Wood; I wanted to see the place again."
"I'm glad you didn't. The house is shut up and going to pieces. It would have been depressing to-night."
Vane presented Carroll. Mrs. Chisholm's manner was gracious, but for no particular reason Carroll wondered whether she would have extended the same welcome to his comrade had the latter not come back the discoverer of a profitable mine.
"Tom was sorry he couldn't wait to meet you, but he had to leave for
Manchester on some urgent business," she apologized.
Just then a girl with disordered hair and an unusual length of stocking displayed beneath her scanty skirt came up to them.
"This is Mabel," said Mrs. Chisholm. "I hardly think you will remember her."