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Updated: May 2, 2025
Norah spoke with all the greater emphasis because, for the moment, she had been guilty of an actual pang of envy of her beloved Lettice, for she regarded the "strange boy" as her special friend, by virtue of having been the first to make his acquaintance, and it was not agreeable to find her own claims to popularity brushed aside in this unceremonious fashion.
"I wish something would happen!" sighed Norah. "If it were something nice," corrected Lettice. "Lots of things happen every day, but they are mostly disagreeable. Getting up, for instance, in the cold, dark mornings and practising and housework, and getting ready for stupid old classes I don't complain of having too little to do. I want to do less, and to be able to amuse myself more."
There were many tears shed by those on whom Mistress Audley and Lettice had bestowed kindness, as they set out from the home they were leaving, probably for ever, mounted on pillions; the pack-horses with their goods following in a long line.
Lettice spared him as far as she could; but there was much that she was obliged to tell, as she had been for so long the depositary of her father's secrets and his cares. Man-like, Sydney showed his sorrow by exceeding sharpness of tone. "Why did you not write to me? Why was I never told?" "I told you as much as I dared, when I was in London." "As much as you dared?"
We used to call him `Child's Guide to Knowledge' when he was at Windermere last summer, because he would insist upon improving every occasion. We played some fine pranks on him, didn't we, Norah? We'll give him a lively time of it again if he comes to visit us, as I suppose he will, under the circumstances." "We can't," said Norah dolefully. "He is engaged to Lettice, and she would be vexed.
"My dear, I must believe it. Everyone believes it." "Alan!" said Lettice, half raising her hand, and gazing out through the open window, over the banks of the yellow-flowing Arno, with a look of ineffable trust and tenderness in her face, "Alan, did you try to kill the woman who has cursed and degraded you? Did you strike her once in return for her thousand malicious blows?
His one thought in prison, when he lay in the grip of fever, was that he must surely die before his sentence had run out. That was his hope and belief from day to day; and only when he heard that Lettice had come and made inquiries about him, and promised to fetch him as soon as he was released, did any real desire for life return to him.
How should he use the weapon which Lettice had put into his hand by forewarning him? One reasonable idea suggested itself, and this was that he should tell the true story to those who knew him best, in order that they might at any rate have the power to meet inventions and exaggerations by his own version of the facts.
"Why have you not lighted all the lamps?" she inquired, and when Lettice replied in amazement that there were as many lamps as usual, she shrugged her shoulders, and muttered something about "inky darkness."
He begged Vaughan, who had a great liking for the lad, to take him. He had no need to ask Gilbert, who declared that they would not leave him behind. Mistress Audley and Lettice were pleased at the thoughts of having him with them. Strange to say, the old man was willing to part with him.
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