To remain where she was, talking secrets to a deaf man, was to invite discovery.
He understood her this time, and grudgingly he opened the door a little wider. He stood aside and Henrietta entered. In the act she cast a backward look over her shoulder, and caught through the doorway a last prospect of the hills and the mid-lake and the green islets off Bowness—set like jewels on its gleaming breast—all clear-cut in the brisk winter air. She felt the beauty of the scene, but she did not guess what things were to happen to her before she looked again upon its fellow.
Not that when the door was shut upon her, the room in which she found herself did not something appal her. The fire had been allowed to sink low, and the squalor and the chill, vapid air of the place wrapped her about. But she was naturally fearless, and she cheered herself with the thought that she was stronger than the grinning old man who stood before her. She was sure that if he resorted to violence she could master him. Still, she was in haste. She was anxious to do what she had to do, and escape.
And: “I must see Walterson!” she told him loudly, looking down on him, and instinctively keeping her skirts clear of the unswept floor. “He was here, I know, some days ago,” she continued sharply. “Don’t say you don’t understand, because you do! But fetch him, or tell me where he is. Do you hear?”
The old man moved his jaw to and fro. He grinned senilely.
“He was here, eh?” he drawled.
“Yes, he was here,” Henrietta returned, taking a tone of authority with him. “And I must see him.”
“Ay?”
“It is to do no harm to him,” she explained. “Tell him Miss Damer is here. Miss Damer, do you hear? He will see me, I am sure.”
“Ay?” he said again in the same half-vacant tone. “Ay?”