And the cause? She did not seek for the cause. Certainly she did not find it. It was enough for the moment that she had been prisoned and was free; and that in an hour, or two hours at most, she would return with the child or with news. And then, the sweet vengeance of laying it in its father’s arms! She whom he had insulted, whom he had mishandled, whom he had treated so remorselessly—it would be from her hand that he would receive his treasure, the child whom he had told her that she hated. He would have some cause then to talk of making amends! And need to go about and about before he found a way to be quits with her!
She did not analyse beyond that point the feeling of gaiety and joyous anticipation which possessed her. She would put him in the wrong. She would heap coals of fire on his head. That sufficed. If there welled up within her heart another thought, if since morning she had a feeling and a hope that thrilled her and lent to all the world this smiling guise, she was conscious of the effect, unconscious of the cause. The wrist which Clyne had twisted was still black and blue and tender to the touch. She blushed lest any eye fall on it, or any guess how he had treated her. But—she blushed also, when she was alone, and her own eyes dwelt on it. And dwell on it sometimes they would; for, strange to say, the feeling of shame, if it was shame, was not unpleasant.
She met no one. She reached the gate of Starvecrow Farm, unseen as she believed. But heedful of the old saying, that fields have eyes and woods have ears, she looked carefully round her before she laid her hand on the gate. Then, in a twinkling, she was round the house like a lapwing and tapping at the door.
To her first summons she got no answer. And effacing herself as much as possible, she cast a wary eye over the place. The garden was as ragged and desolate, the house as bald and forbidding, the firs about it as gloomy, as when she had last seen them. But the view over sloping field and green meadow, wooded knoll and shining lake, made up for all. And her only feeling as she tapped again and more loudly was one of impatience. Even the memory of the squalid old man whom she had once seen there did not avail to alarm her in her buoyant mood.
This was well, perhaps. For when she knocked a third time, in alarm lest the person she sought should be gone, and her golden ship with him, it was that very old man who opened the door. And, not unnaturally, it seemed to Henrietta that with its opening a shadow fell across the landscape and blurred the sunshine of the day. The ape-like creature who gaped at her, the cavern-like room behind him, the breath of the close air that came from him, inspired disgust, if not alarm, and checked the girl in the full current of content.
He did not speak. But he moved his toothless gums unpleasantly, and danced up and down in an odd fashion from his knees, without moving his feet. Meanwhile his reddened eyes thrust near to hers gleamed with suspicion. On her side Henrietta was taken aback by his appearance, and for some moments she stared at him in consternation. What could she expect from such a creature?
At length, “I wish to see Walterson,” she said; in a low tone—there might be listeners in the house. “Do you understand? Do you understand?” she repeated more loudly.
He set his head, which was bald in patches, on one side; as if to indicate that he was deaf. And with his eyes on hers, he dropped his lower jaw and waited for her to repeat what she had said.
She saw nothing else for it, and she crushed down her repugnance.
“Let me come in,” she said. “Do you hear? I want to talk to you. Let me come in.”