"Inside or outside, sir?" questioned the driver when he got back.
"Oh, outside to-day. Can't I sit by you?"
He was welcome, the driver said, the seat not being taken; and Mr. George North mounted to the seat and put up his umbrella, which he had brought with him as a shelter against the sun. Two or three more passengers got up behind, and placed themselves amid the luggage; and there were several inside.
The two-horse van sped along very fairly; and in a short time reached the first village. After descending a hill, the glorious sea burst into view.
"What place do you call this?" asked the stranger.
"This is Greylands, sir."
"Greylands, is it? I think I'll get down here. Dear me, what a beautiful sea! How much do I pay you?"
"A shilling fare, sir. Anything you please for the driver. Thank you, sir; thank you," concluded the man pocketing the eighteen-pence given to him. "We shall stop in a minute, sir, at the Dolphin Inn."
On this hot day, which really seemed too hot for work, Mrs. Bent was stealing a few moments' idleness on the bench outside her window. John had been sitting there all the morning. The landlady was making free comments, after her wont, upon the doings, good and bad, of her neighbours; John gave an answering remark now and again, but she did not seem to wait for it.
There is not much to tell the reader of this short space of time that has elapsed without record. No very striking event had taken place in it; Greylands was much in the same condition as when we parted from it last. Poor Miss Hallet had been ill for some weeks, possibly the result of the fright, and was quite unable to look personally after the vagaries of Miss Jane: the Friar's Keep and its mysteries remained where they had been; Sister Mildred was ill again, and Mary Ursula had not plucked up courage since to penetrate anew the secret passage. Squire Dobie, red-hot at first to unravel the mystery of the disappearance of Basil's son, had finally given up the inquiry as hopeless; neither had Madame Guise advanced one jot in her discoveries touching the suspected iniquity of the Master of Greylands.