We were then in the courtyard behind the house, stumbling in the blinding darkness over cobble-stones.
"Keep close to me, my lady," said Price.
After a few moments we reached the drive. I think I was more nervous than I had ever been before. I heard the withered leaves behind me rustling along the ground before the wind from the sea, and thought they were the footsteps of people pursuing us. I heard the hammering of the workmen and the music of the orchestra, and thought they were voices screaming to us to come back.
Price, who was forging ahead, carried the trunk in her arms as if it had been a child, but every few minutes she waited for me to come up to her, and encouraged me when I stumbled in the darkness.
"Only a little further, my lady," she said, and I did my best to struggle on.
We reached the gate to the high road at last. Tommy the Mate was there with his stiff cart, and Price, who was breathless after her great exertion, tumbled my trunk over the tail-board.
The time had come to part from her, and, remembering how faithful and true she had been to me, I hardly knew what to say. I told her I had left her wages in an envelope on the dressing-table, and then I stammered something about being too poor to make her a present to remember me by.
"It doesn't need a present to help me to remember a good mistress, my lady," she said.
"God bless you for being so good to me," I answered, and then I kissed her.
"I'll remember you by that, though," she said, and she began to cry.