"Mr. Grey is travelling abroad just now," continued the woman. "Here we are."
Yes, there they were escaped from the maze, the iron gate before them. The woman took a key from her pocket and unlocked it--just as Sir Karl had taken a key from his pocket the previous night. Miss Blake saw now what a small key it was, to undo so large a gate.
"Good morning," she said. "Thank you very much. It was exceedingly thoughtless of me to stroll in."
"Good day to you, ma'am."
Very busy was Miss Blake's brain as she went home. The Maze puzzled her. That this young and pretty woman should be living alone in that perfect seclusion with only two servants to take care of her, one of them at least old and decrepid, was the very oddest thing she had ever met with. Miss Blake knew the world tolerably well; and, so far as her experience went, a man whose wife was so young and so lovely as this wife, would wish to take her travelling with him. Altogether, it seemed very singular: and more singular still seemed the stealthy and familiar entrance, that she had witnessed, of Sir Karl Andinnian.
Meanwhile, during this bold escapade of Miss Blake's, Lady Andinnian had gone out on a very different expedition. It could not be said that Lucy had no acquaintance whatever at Foxwood before she came to it. She knew the vicar's eldest daughter, Margaret, who had occasionally stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Blake at Winchester: the two clergymen were acquainted, having been at college together. On this morning Lucy had started to see Miss Sumnor; walking alone, for Karl was busy. The church, a very pretty one, with a tapering spire, stood in its churchyard, just through the village. The vicarage joined it: a nice house, with a verandah running along the front; a good garden and some glebe land.
On a couch in a shaded room, lay a lady of some thirty, or more, years of age; her face thin, with upright lines between the eyebrows, telling of long-standing trouble or pain, perhaps of both; her hands busy with some needle-work. Lady Andinnian, who had not given her name, but simply asked to see Miss Sumnor, was shown in. She did not recognize her at the first moment.
"Margaret! It cannot be you."
Margaret Sumnor smiled her sweet, patient smile, and held Lady Andinnian's hand in hers. "Yes it is, Lucy--if I may presume still to call you so. You find me changed. Worn and aged."
"It is true," candidly avowed Lucy, in the shock to her feelings. "You look altogether different. And yet, it is not three years since we parted. Mrs. Blake used to tell me you were ill, and had to lie down a great deal."