Honoria did not condescend to notice his words. She took up the plumed hat, which had been lying among the long grass at her feet. The delicate feathers were wet and spoiled by the night dew, and she took them from the fragile hat and flung them away. Her thin, white dress was heavy with the damp, and clung round her like a shroud. But she had not felt the chilling night winds.
Lady Eversleigh groped her way down the winding staircase, which was dark even in the daytime—except here and there, where a gap in the wall let in a patch of light upon the gloomy stones.
Under the archway she met the countryman, who uttered a cry on beholding the white, phantom-like figure.
"Oh, Loard!" he cried, when he had recovered from his terror; "I ask pardon, my lady, but danged if I didn't teak thee for a ghaist."
"You did not know, when you went away last night, that there was any one in the tower?"
"No, indeed, my lady. I'd been away for a few minutes look'n' arter a bit of peg I've got in a shed down yander; and when I keame back to let down th' drawbridge, I didn't sing out to ax if there wur any one in th' old too-wer, for t'aint often as there be any one at that time of night."
"Tell me the way to the nearest village," cried Honoria. "I want to get some conveyance to take me to Raynham."
"Then you had better go to Edgington, ma'am. That's four miles from here—on t' Raynham ro-ad."
The man pointed out the way to the village of which he spoke; and Lady
Eversleigh set forth across the wide expanse of moorland alone.
She had considerable difficulty in finding her way, for there were no landmarks on that broad stretch of level turf. She wandered out of the track more than once, and it was one o'clock before she reached the village of Edgington.