"Open in going. Closed in returning, if it be at all late. Catherine and I will have a great deal to say to each other; once we meet, we shall not be in haste to part. That is, if she does not cherish too much resentment to speak to me at all. Of course, you will accompany me?"
"Of course I will," he answered: and hastened away to give the necessary orders. Not to his house; he did not go near that; and did not intend to do so, until fully assured that Lady Adela had left it; he went direct to the stables.
At three o'clock the carriage stood before the door of the hotel. Its master stood waiting for it, and Miss Upton came out, followed by her maid Annis, who was departing to do the errands. Mr. Grubb handed Miss Upton into the carriage, and they drove to Blackheath.
"Catherine!"
"Margery!"
The names simultaneously broke from their lips when the early friends met; they who had lived estranged for the better part of their lives. Mrs. Lynn was in what she called her invalid sitting-room, one that opened from her bed-chamber, and which she occupied when she was too ill to go downstairs. She was lying on a sofa near the open window—from which window there was to be seen so fair a landscape—but she rose when Miss Upton entered.
They sat on the sofa side by side, hand clasping hand. Grievances were forgotten, estrangement was at an end. Miss Upton had taken off her bonnet and mantle, and looked as much at home as though she had lived there for years. They fell to talking of the old days. Francis remained below with his sister.
"I did not expect to see you again, Margery, on this side the grave," spoke Mrs. Lynn. "Not so very long ago, I should have declined a visit from you had you proffered it. It is only when sickness has subdued the spirit that we lay aside old animosities."
"And therefore towards the end of life sickness comes to us. I said so this afternoon to your son. We quarrel and fight and take vengeance on one another in our hotheaded days: but when the blood chills with years and the world is fading from us, we see what our crooked ways have been worth."
"You were all very bitter with me for marrying Christopher Grubb, Margery; and you took care to let me know it. Uncle Francis—as we used to call Sir Francis Netherleigh, though without the slightest right to do so—was the most bitter of all."