“Owen,” she said at last, turning her fair face again to mine, “would you think it very, very strange of me, after all that you have done at beautiful old Carrington, if I told you that I—well, that I do not exactly like the place?”
This rather surprised me, for she had hitherto been full of admiration of the fine, well-preserved relic of the Elizabethan age.
“Dearest, if you do not care for Carrington we will not go there. We can either live at Wilton Street, or travel.”
“I’m tired of travelling, dear,” she declared. “Ah, so tired! So, if you are content, let us live in Wilton Street. Carrington is so huge. When we were there I always felt lost in those big old rooms and long, echoing corridors.”
“But your own rooms that I’ve had redecorated and furnished are smaller,” I said. “I admit that the old part of the house is very dark and weird—full of ghosts of other times. There are a dozen or more legends concerning it, as you know.”
“Yes, I read them in the guide-book to Devon. Some are distinctly quaint, are they not?”
“Some are tragic also—especially the story of little Lady Holbrook, who was so brutally killed by the Roundheads because she refused to reveal the whereabouts of her husband,” I said.
“Poor little lady!” sighed Sylvia. “But that is not mere legend: it is historical fact.”
“Well,” I said, “if you do not care for Carrington—if it is too dull for you—we’ll live in London. Personally, I, too, should soon grow tired of a country life; and yet how could I grow tired of life with you, my own darling, at my side?”
“And how could I either, Owen?” she asked, kissing me fondly. “With you, no place can ever be dull. It is not the dulness I dread, but other things.”