"Here's the gate," she said, halting as they came to it. "Was it not a strange thing, George, that it should be locked that night!"
"If it really was locked; and is never locked at other times," replied George North, who quite seemed, what with one implied doubt and another, to be going in for some of the scepticism of his uncle, the Master of Greylands. Opening the gate, he walked in. Charlotte followed. They looked inside the Gothic door to the dark still cloisters of the Keep; they stood for some moments gazing out over the sea, so expansive to the eye from this place: but Charlotte did not care to linger there with him, lest they should be seen.
"And it was to this place of ruins Anthony came, and passed into those unearthly-looking cloisters!" he exclaimed as they were going out. "That dark, still enceinte put me in mind of nothing so much as a dead-house."
Charlotte shivered. "It is there," she said, "that we must search for traces of Anthony----"
"I suppose there is a staircase, or something of that kind, that leads to the upper rooms of the Keep?" he interrupted.
"Oh, yes: a stone staircase."
"Have you been up to the rooms?"
"I!" she exclaimed, as if he might have spared the question. "Why, it is in those upper rooms that the revenant is seen. Part of them are in ruins. Mr. Castlemaine and some men of the law he called to his aid from Stilborough went over it all after Anthony's loss, and found no traces of him. But what I think is this, George: that a search conducted by Mr. Castlemaine would not be a minute or true one: the Master of Greylands' will is law in the place: he is bowed down to like a king. How shall you manage to account plausibly for taking up your abode at Greylands, so that no suspicion may attach to you?"
"I shall be here for the purpose of sketching, you understand. An obscure travelling artist excites neither notice nor suspicion, Charlotte," he added in a half-laughing tone. "By the way--there's no danger, I hope, that the little one, Marie Greylands, will remember Uncle George?"
"Not the least; not the slightest. You left her too long ago for that. But, take you notice, George, that here she is only Marie. It would not do to let her other name, Greylands, slip out."