Early next morning came the workmen. More snow had fallen in the night, erasing all footprints of the previous evening, covering the bottom of the well with a white surface. The men made sharp haste to finish their task, knowing and suspecting nothing; and Katherine's fate had remained undiscovered until now.
Aaron's habitual crustiness had something to do with the nondiscovery. Chancing to meet the men as they quitted the work before time that evening, he sourly demanded whether the work was accomplished and the well filled up. Afraid of him, not caring to incur his stinging reprimands, both the men answered that it was quite finished. Therefore Aaron never gave a thought to the well in regard to Katherine's disappearance; and as for the Squire himself, and the rest of the household, they did not so much as know that the work was just then about. While the fact of its being impossible, or assumed to be, that Katherine could by any manner of means have got out of the house, served yet more to divert thoughts from the truth. And the two workmen, deceived by the white surface inside, on which they had both looked down in the morning, never, then, or later, supposed the well could have anything to do with the girl's disappearance.
Thus the last and longest mystery was solved. Such had been poor Katherine's unhappy fate. Susan would never more wander in the park after nightfall, or within the Hall to look for her; she would never hear her sister's voice calling to her again, never fancy that the moonlight playing upon the window of Katherine's room was her apparition standing there.
The wedding was a very quiet one. Without show or parade, Ella Winter became the wife of that erratic gentleman, Francis Edward Conroy Denison, the indisputable heir of Heron Dyke. Old Mr. Denison insisted upon giving the bride away; and a hamper of his choicest china arrived from Nunham Priors to deck the breakfast-table. Lady Maria's nephew, the young Earl of Skeffington, had asked leave to be the best man.
Aaron stood behind his mistress's chair at breakfast; to deny him this privilege would have broken his heart; but it was the last service he would render at the Hall. He and his wife were about to retire to a pretty little cottage near the Leaning Gate: Mr. Denison, at Ella's wish, had given it to them for life, and she had furnished it.
Frank and his bride, now Mrs. Denison, as her uncle had always wished her name to be, started on their way to the Continent. During their absence, which might extend to two or three months, the alterations at Heron Dyke would be completed, and their establishment put upon a proper footing.
What more is there to tell? All are left happy. The years go round, and as yet no sorrow falls. The young Squire, as Frank Denison is now called, is in Parliament, so that he and his wife are much in London during the earlier portion of the year. Mr. Denison travels often from Nunham Priors to stay at Heron Dyke, where his pleasantest days are passed. When Ella's baby came, he was a little grumpy in his comical way at its being a girl, instead of the boy he had expected: though he acknowledges that it is not impossible the boy may put in an appearance later.
Much unity, friendship, and intimacy exist between Ella and her husband and the Cleeves. Philip is so steady as to justify his mother's never-changed fond opinion of him; his talents for business and his application to it surprise even Mr. Tiplady: while his laugh is as genial and his manners are sunny and pleasant as ever. Little Freddy Bootle often runs down to see them, and is ever a welcome guest at the Hall. Mrs. Carlyon comes sometimes, and the baby bears her name, Gertrude.
Even old Aaron is tolerably happy--for he can grumble to his heart's content. He could not cease from doing that. Partly at Dorothy, though she does not mind it, partly at his friends in general. He is a great man of an evening in the sanded parlour of the Leaning Gate, or the Fisherman's Arms. A special chair is placed for him, and he, between the intervals of growling at the world, tells anecdotes of forty years ago to the deferential company smoking around.
Mrs. Keen, active as of yore, is assisted in her duties by Susan. Time has laid its healing hand upon their sorrows. Poor Susan will never be quite bright, and that half-dazed look is sometimes to be seen on her face still; but no sweeter-tempered or more gentle girl is to be met anywhere; and now that the mystery of her sister's fate no longer weighs upon her brain, there is a sort of peacefulness and soft serenity about her which are very attractive. Her greatest treat is to go up to the Hall and see the baby, little Gertrude; and the nurses avow that that youthful tyrant is never so much on her good behaviour as when allowed to rest for a few minutes in Susan's loving arms. But as soon as ever daylight begins to die in the woods round Heron Dyke, when the long corridors of the old house grow dim and the wide staircases become the homes of shadow and mystery, then does Susan resolutely set her face homeward. She who used to haunt the Hall after nightfall, when trying to find the ill-fated Katherine, will not go near it except in broadest daylight.