"Yes, I should," answered Ann. "I love the place, and I would like to think that Reginald would have it one day, and that he would marry and have children; and so it would go down from generation to generation, a fair heritage."
"As it was with the De Lisles," said Agnes thoughtfully. "Ah well!" she added, "it does not much matter; the world passeth away, and the glory of it."
Instinctively the words had come to her lips--how they did so she knew not--it was the inspiration of a moment. She had dropped her needle whilst listening to Ann, and there was a strange, dreamy look in the great dark eyes as she gazed through the window up to the sky which overhung the river. The summer day had come to a close; she could no longer see to put her stitches into the canvas. A sense of unreality crept over her, a sort of feeling as if she had lived in another world once upon a time--she was, and she was not--a spell seemed laid upon her. Would she awake and find her present life only a dream?
Patience's voice roused her.
"Ann Newbolt," she said, "a messenger has come from your brother. Neither he nor your mother can return to-night. He requests me to keep you with us."
"My father is dying, then?" said Ann.
"The messenger does not say so," answered Patience, "merely that they cannot leave the prison."
CHAPTER XI
A Brave Woman
Sooner or later we all find a place which fits us in the world, and when Mistress Newbolt crossed the threshold of Newgate to take charge of her husband, unwittingly, even to herself, she had reached her bourne. She did not know it, she did not realize it till long after; but her work had found her, and she was not one of those who, having put her hand to the plough, would turn back again.