CHAPTER XI.
Meanwhile, on leaving Helen, Burley strode on; and, as if by some better instinct, for he was unconscious of his own steps, he took the way towards the still green haunts of his youth. When he paused at length, he was already before the door of a rural cottage, standing alone in the midst of fields, with a little farm-yard at the back; and far through the trees in front was caught a glimpse of the winding Brent.
With this cottage Burley was familiar; it was inhabited by a good old couple who had known him from a boy. There he habitually left his rods and fishing-tackle; there, for intervals in his turbid, riotous life, he had sojourned for two or three days together—fancying, the first day that the country was a heaven, and convinced before the third that it was a purgatory.
An old woman of neat and tidy exterior came forth to greet him.
"Ah, Master John," said she, clasping his nerveless hand—"well, the fields be pleasant now—I hope you are come to stay a bit? Do; it will freshen you; you lose all the fine color you had once, in Lunnon town."
"I will stay with you, my kind friend," said Burley, with unusual meekness—"I can have the old room, then?"
"Oh yes, come and look at it. I never let it now to any one but you—never have let it since the dear beautiful lady with the angel's face went away. Poor thing, what could have become of her?"
Thus speaking, while Burley listened not, the old woman drew him within the cottage, and led him up the stairs into a room that might have well become a better house, for it was furnished with taste, and even elegance. A small cabinet pianoforte stood opposite the fire-place, and the window looked upon pleasant meads and tangled hedgerows, and the narrow windings of the blue rivulet. Burley sank down exhausted, and gazed wistfully from the casement.
"You have not breakfasted?" said the hostess anxiously.
"No."