‘Very near now, ma’am.’
They soon reached Manston’s residence, round which the wind blew mournfully and chill.
Passing under the detached gateway, they entered the porch. The porter stepped forward, knocked heavily and waited.
Nobody came.
Mrs. Manston then advanced to the door and gave a different series of rappings—less forcible, but more sustained.
There was not a movement of any kind inside, not a ray of light visible; nothing but the echo of her own knocks through the passages, and the dry scratching of the withered leaves blown about her feet upon the floor of the porch.
The steward, of course, was not at home. Mrs. Crickett, not expecting that anybody would arrive till the time of the later train, had set the place in order, laid the supper-table, and then locked the door, to go into the village and converse with her friends.
‘Is there an inn in the village?’ said Mrs. Manston, after the fourth and loudest rapping upon the iron-studded old door had resulted only in the fourth and loudest echo from the passages inside.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Who keeps it?’