"Well, I'm sorry, Miss, but my Uncle won't be back till after dark. And I wouldn't advise you to come in, Miss,"—she hurriedly drew the door close behind her—"the doctor thinks two of the children have got whooping-cough—and I didn't send them to school today."
"Well, just understand, Miss Daunt, if that's your name," said Lathrop, with emphasis—"that till you return to the house, we shall stay there. We shall walk up and down there, till you come back. You know well enough there are people about, who would gladly do an injury to the house, and that it's not safe to leave it. Monk Lawrence is not Sir Wilfrid Lang's property only. It belongs to the whole nation, and there are plenty of people that'll know the reason why, if any harm comes to it."
"Oh, very well. Have it your own way, Sir! I'll come—I'll come—fast enough," and the speaker, with a curious half-mocking look at Lathrop, flounced back into the cottage, and shut the door. They waited. There were sounds of lowered voices, and crying children. Then Miss Daunt emerged defiantly, and they all three walked back to Monk Lawrence.
The keeper's niece unlocked the door leading to Daunt's rooms. But she stood sulkily in the entry.
"Now I hope you're satisfied, Sir. I don't know, I'm sure, why you should come meddling in other people's affairs. And I daresay you'll say something against me to my uncle!"
"Well, anyway, you keep watch!" was the stern reply. "I take my rounds often this way, as your Uncle knows. I daresay I shall be by here again tonight. Can the children find their way home alone?"
"Well, they're not idiots, Sir! Good-night to you. I've got to get supper." And brusquely shutting the door in their faces, she went inside. They perceived immediately afterwards that she had lit a light in the kitchen.
"Well, so far, all right," said Lathrop, as he and Delia withdrew. "But the whole thing's rather—queer. You know that old woman, Mrs. Cresson, is not all there, and quite helpless?"
He pondered it as they walked back through the wood, his eyes on the ground. Delia shared his undefined anxiety. She suggested that he should go back to the house in an hour or so, to see if Daunt had returned, and complain of his niece's breach of rules. Lathrop agreed.
"How do we know who or what that girl is?"—he said slowly—"that she mayn't have been got hold of?"