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In one of her rambles on his ground she had her desire, and met Godfrey Wardour. He lifted his hat, and she stopped and addressed him by way of apology. "I am afraid you think me very rude, Mr. Wardour," she said. "I know I am trespassing, but this field of yours is higher than the ground about Durnmelling, and seems to take pounds off the weight of the atmosphere."
"I never took the trouble to imagine anything about you." "Then I need not ask you whether I married you to please you or to please myself?" "You need not. You can best answer that question yourself." "Then we understand each other." "We do not, Mr. Redmain; and, if this occurs again, I shall go to Durnmelling."
Nobody knew with any certainty where she had been in the interim: nobody at Durnmelling knew anything but what she chose to tell, and that was not much. She said she had been a governess in Austrian Poland and Russia. Lady Margaret had become reconciled to her presence, and Hesper attached to her.
This autumn, at Durnmelling, she would even, occasionally, with that object, when the weather was fine, go for a solitary walk a thing, I need not say, she hated in itself, though now it was her forlorn hope, in the poor possibility of falling in with some distraction.
"But I can not have the horses to-morrow," said Hesper. "I might," pondered Mary aloud, after a moment's silence, "walk out to Durnmelling this evening after the shop is shut. By that time I shall have been able to think; I find it impossible, with you before me." Hesper acknowledged the compliment with a very pleasant smile.
Durnmelling was built by an ancestor of Godfrey's, who, forsaking the old nest for the new, had allowed Thornwick to sink into a mere farmhouse, in which condition it had afterward become the sole shelter of the withered fortunes of the Wardours.
When he had learned something of the peculiar relations in which Mary stood to the family at Durnmelling, he began to think there might have been something more in the pursuit than a chance ruffianly assault, and the greater were his regrets that he had not secured the miscreant. "Anyhow, miss," he said, "you'll never come from there alone in the dark again!"
When the Redmains went to Cornwall, Sepia was left at Durnmelling, in the expectation of joining them in London within a fortnight at latest. The illness of Mr. Redmain, however, caused her stay to be prolonged, and she was worn out with ennui.
On the lower, the Durnmelling side of the fence, were trees, shrubbery, and out-houses the chimney of one of which, the laundry, gave great offense to Mrs. Wardour, when, as she said, wind and wash came together.
She will very likely not be out of her room before one. I suppose you saw her at Durnmelling?" "Yes, ma'am," answered Mary, " and at Testbridge." It kept growing on the housekeeper that she had made a mistake though to what extent she sought in vain to determine. "You will find it rather wearisome waiting," she said next; " would you not like to help me with my work?"
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