“I can’t tell you why; I don’t know why; it is so. Do not laugh at me for confessing it.”
Philip Hamlyn did laugh; heartily. “Creepy feelings” and his imperiously strong-minded wife could have but little affinity with one another.
“We’ll have the curtains drawn, and the lights, and shut her out,” said he cheerily. “Come and sit down, Eliza; I want to show you a letter I’ve had to-day.”
But the woman waiting outside there seemed to possess for Eliza Hamlyn somewhat of the fascination of the basilisk; for she never stirred from the window until the curtains were drawn.
“It is from Peveril,” said Mr. Hamlyn, producing the letter he had spoken of from his pocket. “The lease he took of Peacock’s Range is not yet out, but he can resign it now if he pleases, and he would be glad to do so. He and his wife would rather remain abroad, it seems, than return home.”
“Yes. Well?”
“Well, he writes to me to ask whether he can resign it; or whether I must hold him to the promise he made me—that I should rent the house to the end of the term. I mean the end of the lease; the term he holds it for.”
“Why does he want to resign it? Why can’t things go on as at present?”
“I gather from an allusion he makes, though he does not explicitly state it, that Mr. Carradyne wishes to have the place in his own hands. What am I to say to Peveril, Eliza?”
“Say! Why, that you must hold him to his promise; that we cannot give up the house yet. A pretty thing if I had no place to go down to at will in my own county!”