“I hardly see that I could have done less,” he replied, dryly. “I merely followed you now to direct you how to get round to the front, as I believe you wish. You must keep that path to the left till it meets a wider one, which will bring you out at the foot of a flight of stone steps. These will take you up to the side terrace, and you can then easily see your way to the front of the house. It is not really dark yet; it is only the trees here which make it seem so, even in winter. They are so thick.”
“Thank you,” said Mary. “I am very much obliged to you, and I should have said so before, but—I did not think I was so silly—the feeling of being shut up in that room must have made me forget, it was so horrible,” and she gave a little shiver.
Mr Cheviott stepped forward a little, but it was too dark for Mary to see the concern in his eyes.
“Would you like me to go with you till you meet your friends,” he said, very gently.
“Oh, no, thank you,” exclaimed Mary, with great vehemence.
Mr Cheviott drew back.
“I see,” he said, with the slightly satirical tone Mary seemed to know so well and hated so devoutly. “It is bad enough to be still in the precincts of the ogre’s castle, but the presence of the ogre himself is quite too much for your nerves. Good-evening Miss Western.”
He raised his hat and re-entered the house before Mary had time to reply. She stood still for a second.
“Have I been rude to him again?” she said to herself, with a little compunction. “However, it really does not matter. No two people could dislike and despise each other more thoroughly than he and I do. I could never, in any circumstances, have liked him; but still, for Lily’s sake, I could have been civil to him. But now! I only hope, oh, ever so earnestly, that I shall never see him again—and what he thinks or does not think of me really is of less than no consequence.”
Nevertheless, the thought of the afternoon’s adventure made her cheeks tingle hotly, and she hurried on as fast as she could in the uncertain light. Mary Western seemed strangely unlike her usual philosophical self. She even seemed to find a relief to her irritation in trampling unnecessarily on the dry brushwood lying about here and there—the “scrunch” worked off her disgust a little. Once, after jumping on the top of a small raked-up heap, she stood still and laughed at herself.