The old woman asked the question as one speaks in their sleep, without hearing the answer. Her finger was to her lip, and she was looking down with a knitted brow.
"Ay, she was proud—I promised—proud—she was—very high—it will be in Penruthyn, she told me she would be buried there—Dowager Lady Verney! I wish, sir, it had been I."
She drew her cloak about her and left the room, and he accompanied her with the candle to the hall-door, and saw her hurry up the street.
Now and then a passenger looked at the tall cloaked figure gliding swiftly by, but no one recognised her.
The attorney was gaping after her in deep abstraction, and when she was out of sight he repeated, with a resolute wag of his head—
"I will do my duty by you—and a serious affair, upon my soul! A very serious affair it is."
And so he closed the door, and returned to his sitting-room in deep thought, and very strange excitement, and continued reading those papers till one o'clock in the morning.