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I was thus confusing and reconstructing the two dreadful stories of the place that told me by old Weir, about the circumstances of his birth; and that told me by Dr Duncan, about Mrs Oldcastle's treatment of her elder daughter.
Oldcastle's precise circumstances, of course, but there were many ways in which I gathered that she was rather rich than poor. A young Australian among the passengers volunteered to me the information that this lady had been the sole legatee of her late husband, who had owned stations in South Australia and in Queensland certainly worth some hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The Captain returned my salutation, and likewise rode on. I could just see, as they passed me, that Miss Oldcastle's pale face was flushed even to scarlet, but she only bowed and kept alongside of her companion. I thought I had escaped conversation, and had gone about twenty yards farther, when I heard the clatter of Judy's pony behind me, and up she came at full gallop.
After I had done so, I began to think it better to return Mrs Oldcastle's visit, though I felt greatly disinclined to encounter that tight-skinned nose again, and that mouth whose smile had no light in it, except when it responded to some nonsense of her grand-daughter's. About noon, on a lovely autumn day, I set out for Oldcastle Hall.
But whether it was the consequence of a reaction from the mental strain I had suffered, or the depressing effect of Miss Oldcastle's illness coming so close upon the joy of winning her; or that I was more careless and less anxious to do my duty than I ought to have been I greatly fear that Old Rogers must have been painfully disappointed in the sermons which I did preach for several of the following Sundays.
"Except when you have a headache, grannie," said Miss Gladwyn, with an arch look first at her grandmother, and then at me. "Grannie has bad headaches sometimes." The deadness melted a little from Mrs Oldcastle's face, as she turned with half a smile to her grandchild, and said "Yes, Pet. But you know that cannot be an interesting fact to Mr. Walton." "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Oldcastle," I said.
Here followed a pause, for, Judy disposed of, what should I say next? And the moment her mind turned from Judy, I saw a certain stillness not a cloud, but the shadow of a cloud come over Miss Oldcastle's face, as if she, too, found herself uncomfortable, and did not know what to say next.
A pause followed, during which it became evident to me that Miss Gladwyn saw fun in the whole affair, and was enjoying it thoroughly. Mrs Oldcastle's face, on the contrary, was illegible. She resumed in a measured still voice, which she meant to be meek, I daresay, but which was really authoritative "I am sorry, Mr Walton, that your principles are so loose and unsettled.
That was the present Mrs Oldcastle's father, sir." "But why should the woman have left you on the stair, instead of drowning you in the well at the bottom?" "My aunt evidently thought there was some mystery about that as well as the other, for she had no doubt about the woman's intention. But all she would ever say concerning it was, 'The key was never found, Samuel.
Up they came and swept past Miss Oldcastle upon Judy's pony, and Mr Stoddart upon her horse; with the captain upon his own. How grateful I felt to Mr Stoddart! And the hope arose in me that he had accompanied them at Miss Oldcastle's request. I had had no fear of being seen, sitting as I was on the side from which they came.
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