“How clever of you to think of it!” said Horace. “It never struck me before, but it may very well have been so, I should say, though I am no archaeologist. We will suggest it to Ryder when he comes down. That gloomy walk,” and he crossed to one of the windows as he spoke, “is the short cut through the grounds to the church, which stands just outside the park wall. So the chaplain, if chaplain there was, must have found it convenient, as you see there is a door in this window.”
He opened it, and Madeleine looked over his shoulder at a short flight of broken, moss-grown steps leading to the ground.
“What a gloomy place!” she said, with a little shiver, caused partly no doubt by the sharp air which met her, “and how long and straight the walk is! I should not like, Horace, I confess, to pace up and down here in the twilight, and scarcely, indeed, at any time of the day—it can never be anything but twilight here!”
“They call it the ‘Laurel Walk,’” said her brother. “It is—” but he stopped short, and Madeleine, who had retreated inside the room again, did not notice his breaking off.
“It’s too gloomy here,” she said. “Why isn’t there a fire? A huge fire would mend matters a little and be good for the books too, though the room does not seem damp, I must say.”
“No,” Horace replied, “the whole place is wonderfully dry. You see, it has splendid natural drainage from standing so high. There is a fire once a week or so, I believe, but we can have one every day if you like, though I fear the books, if there are any valuable ones, are gone past redemption with the long neglect.”
“I should like to get to the brighter part of the house—the other side,” said Madeleine, moving towards the door by which they had entered; but, to her surprise, Horace crossed the room to the other corner—that farthest from the windows, and appeared to be fumbling among the book-shelves.
“Oh come,” she said impatiently, “it is so cold, and I don’t want my first impression of the house to be a gloomy one.”
“Nor do I,” he answered; and then, glancing in his direction, Madeleine was almost startled by a sudden glow of light and warmth behind him. “You don’t call this gloomy,” he proceeded, and Madeleine, hastening forward, saw that his apparent fumbling among the books had in reality been the feeling for a spring, by which to open a door, concealed by rows of “dummy” volumes, which now stood wide open, giving access to a cosy and inviting looking sanctum or smaller library, where a splendid fire was burning, and where, moreover—for this was at an angle of the building—the morning sun penetrated brightly, through windows facing east and south.
“Oh, how charming!” cried Madeleine, hurrying over to the fireplace. “Is this where you have established yourself, Horace?”