“He will tell the truth to me,” she answered. And strong in this faith, she started on the long drive which lay before her.
Anxious to avoid Kingslough, and for a short time, at least, all contact with its inhabitants, she told the man to take a road lying a little inland which would, she knew, bring her out near the gates of Maryville.
It was a lovely evening, the sea lay like a mirror under the clear blue sky, the woods in the distance stood dark and green, mellowed by flushes of sunlight, that stole over them warm and bright; up and down the hillsides crept waving shadows and patches of golden light; the white cabins, nestling among fields where the wheat was already in the ear, looked as if they had every one been freshly whitewashed. Over the calm home landscape Grace gazed, tears dropping down in her heart the while; whilst her eyes gathered the peace and the loveliness of the familiar scene, her thoughts were concentrated on a grave in Kingslough churchyard. Life seemed to have begun for her in earnest at her father’s death. Strangers dwelt under the remembered rooftree. To no hearth could she now creep close feeling it all her own. For others welcomes might sound, for others smiles might be wreathed, eyes brighten, tones grow softer, but for her with neither kith nor kin who cared that she was returning a lonely woman to comfort one almost as desolate as herself?
By the time she reached Maryville the sun had set, and the gloom of the dark avenue seemed to fall heavily upon her as they drove over the soft gravel, still wet from heavy rain which had fallen in the morning.
There was not a soul stirring about the place. At the lodge no one appeared, and the driver had to open the gates for himself. As they neared the house, it seemed like a building deserted.
Not a dog’s bark broke the stillness, not a sound came through the evening air to prove that life was near at hand.
The man laid that day in his grave was no quieter than the place of which he had so lately been master. Through the hall the noise of Grace’s knock echoed drearily. No city of the dead was ever more silent than Maryville on the first occasion that Miss Moffat set foot within its precincts.
Standing looking over the deserted lawn, Grace after a few moments heard the sound of footsteps coming apparently from some remote distance in the house. Across a stone passage, then along a wide corridor, then over the hall paved with black and white marble came that steady heavy tread. Next instant the door was opened sufficiently to admit of a head being thrust out to see who the intruder might be; a head, covered with luxuriant black hair, belonging to a woman from whose appearance Grace instinctively recoiled.
At sight of the visitor this woman opened the door a little wider, affording Miss Moffat a full view of a female of about seven or eight and twenty, tall, erect, bold.
Evidently she had been crying, but the traces of tears failed to soften the hard defiance of her dark eyes, or the tone in which she asked Grace what she was “pleased to want?”