Chapter Three.

Chapter Three.Millflowers.Our “banishment,” as I sometimes, in a rather discontented mood, called our stay abroad, came to an end rather sooner than we had expected, thanks to an unusually early and genial spring, which made even father think that it would be safe for mother to return to England. Moore, by this time, was in rollicking health and quite fit for school. And to me our home-going was considerably damped by the knowledge that it meant parting with my last playfellow.After all, the winter had passed pleasantly enough; the Paynes had helped to enliven it. But mother looked rather askance at my friendship with them.“Boys again!” she said half-laughingly. “Always boys, Regina! I wish there had been aMissPayne.”“She wouldn’t have been half as nice as Isabel Wynyard,” I replied. “And Rupert is really not like a boy; his whole interest is in books and things of that kind. But you should be pleased, mamma, that I have madeonereal girl friend at last.”“So I am,” was the reply—“very pleased.”“If only they lived nearer us,” I said with a sigh. “I shall be dreadfully dull at home when Moore goes.”“Poor Regina!” said mother. “Well, we must find something to cheer you up.”And though I did not then know it, I believe that it was this conversation that made her determine to arrange for my promised visit to Millflowers as soon as possible. She never thought of herself, though home withoutanychild in it seemed scarcely home to her.The first few weeks, however, of our return were very bright and happy. It was delightful to have Moore so thoroughly his old self, and two of the other boys were with us for Easter; and best of all, the brother whom I cannot describe as a “boy,” as he was already twenty-five—Jocelyn—our “eldest,” and I must almost say “dearest.”He was deputed to take Moore to his new school, and very proud Moore was of him as an escort.“How I wish I could go to Winchester with you both,” I said the evening before they were to leave. “I really do think, Jocelyn,” for it was to him I was talking, “it was a great mistake that I was not a boy after all, though I have been trying my best lately to make myself into a ‘young lady’! Has mamma told you so? For every one of us, from oldest to youngest, confided in Jocelyn. I put the question with some little anxiety, for my brother’s approval was very dear to me.”He smiled as he replied—“Of course mother has told me of the new leaves you’ve been turning over—ever so many of them, though all in the same direction, and I intended to compliment you on the great improvement in your style of hairdressing and the general smartness of your appearance! Don’t be discouraged, my dear child. ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day!’”“And it will take a great many days, if ever, I suppose you mean,” I said rather ruefully, “to turn a tomboy into a oh! whatever she should be.”“But by what I hear,” said Jocelyn, “you have got a first-rate model before you in the person of Miss Wynyard. I am very glad you are going to stay with them so soon.”I opened my eyes at this.“So soon?” I repeated. “I have not been told anything about it.”“Well, don’t let out that I told you, then,” said Jocelyn. “I suspect mother must have been keeping it for a surprise to cheer you up after the boy and I leave to-morrow. I believe they are arranging for you to go very shortly. You will enjoy it, won’t you?”“Ihope so,” I replied. “As far as Isabel is concerned, I am sure I shall. But I have found out that I am very shy. I think I am rather afraid of Mr Wynyard. He has brought up his own daughters to be such pinks of perfection! I am sure that he won’t approve of frivolous conversation. I remember Isabel saying how he disliked gossip. And oh! by-the-bye,” I broke off, “that reminds me, Jocelyn! There is such a queer story, a regular mystery where the Wynyards live.”“Do you mean that the house is haunted?” said Jocelyn, laughingly.“Oh, no; it is not about their own house, but a house near, in the neighbourhood. ‘Grimsthorpe,’ I think, is its proper name. I wonder if I might tell you about it? It isn’t exactly a secret, but I have never mentioned it to mamma. Mr Wynyard might blame Isabel for gossipping if he found that mother had heard of it.”“As I am not likely to see Mr Wynyard, I think you may safely tell me the story, whatever it is,” said Jocelyn.I was delighted to do so.“To begin with,” I said, “the very name of the place—I don’t mean its proper name, but the corruption of it, for the whole neighbourhood calls it the ‘Grim House’—is enough to rouse one’s curiosity!” And then I went on to relate the strange circumstances I had been told of.My brother listened attentively, and with evident interest.“What a queer story!” he said. “It suggests all manner of hidden tragedies. What a life for those poor men, even if they have done anything to deserve it! I can’t help pitying them more than the sisters.”“The younger one is dreadfully delicate,” I said, “so perhaps his life any way would have been a dull one. He is crippled somehow. I had the feeling that the elder brother, the eldest of them all, was the cause of their imprisoned life. But Isabel maintains that they are all suffering together for some one else. I do wonder if it will ever be explained!”“There must be many mysteries,” said Jocelyn, “that are never cleared up, but certainly this is a very curious one. Don’t let Moore hear of it if there is any chance ofhisever going to the place; he could never rest contented till he got inside the Grim House. He’d be scaling the walls, and goodness knows what all, and would certainly get himself into trouble.”“I don’t think that he or any one could feel more curiosity about it than I do,” I said. “Isabel has got accustomed to it in all these years, but evenshesays she has fits of wondering and wondering about these queer people.”“And possibly,” said Jocelyn thoughtfully, “possibly the root of it all is nothing very terrible. The poor things may have got morbid about it, whereas if they could make up their minds to consult some outsider it might all be put right. It is extraordinary how brooding over troubles magnifies and increases them.”Jocelyn was wise beyond his years, and what he said impressed me.“It seems a pity that no one—Mr Wynyard, for instance, or the clergyman of the place, if he is a sensible man—tries to help them,” I said. “I know I couldn’t live beside four miserable-looking people for twenty years without trying to gain their confidence.”“It may have been tried,” remarked my brother. “But of course that sort of thing cannot be forced. It would require great tact and experience. Don’t go on thinking about it too much, Reggie, or it will get on your brain; and whatever you do, don’t attempt any investigation of the secret.”I did not reply. To tell the truth, words had added a new incentive to my great wish to unravel the mystery. What a good work it would be to get these poor lives out into the sunshine again! I was very young and very self-confident in some ways, and I did not then know that the onlookers whom I had tacitly reproached with indifference had already done their best in the direction of offering help.The next day my brothers left us, and but for the anticipation of the pleasure in store for me which Jocelyn had told me of, I should have felt very low-spirited indeed. The morning following turned my hope into certainty. Mother opened a letter at the breakfast-table whose contents she read with evident satisfaction. In it was enclosed a note in Isabel’s handwriting which mother passed on to me. It was quite short, just expressing her pleasure at the prospect of seeing me “so soon,” and a few words added as a postscript increased my own excitement and satisfaction in the prospect of my visit to Millflowers. These were the words:—“I am doubly glad you are coming now,” she wrote, “because something very strange, or rather unusual, has happened in connection with our local mystery, and I do so want to tell you about it. I am afraid I am a gossip at heart!”I felt my face grow red with eagerness. Mother watching me, naturally attributed my excitement solely to pleasure at the invitation.I thought you would be delighted, she said, full of sympathyasusual. “I have purposely not spoken of it to you before till it was quite settled. There was a little uncertainty about Isabel’s plans, as her sisters had talked of taking her away to pay some visits, but in the end this has been given up. So it is all right. You will start about this day week with Maple. It is rather a long journey, but Mr Wynyard has let me know all the trains. You will get there by daylight.”“Oh, I shouldn’t mind how late I travelled with Maple,” I said, for my maid had been with us since my childhood; though indeed, to tell the truth, my love of adventure would have found a good deal of attraction in the idea of travelling quite alone.And the next few days passed quickly and pleasantly, mother sharing to the full my own happy expectations.Itwasa long journey, for the Wynyards’ home was as decidedly in the North as ours was in the South. But I enjoyed it, especially when we got into a part of the world that was quite new to me. For though I had travelled so much, there had been no great variety in our movements, which had always been southwards. My own country was but little known to me.The evening was drawing in when we reached our last stopping-place, the nearest station to Millflowers, by name Scart Bridge. And here a pleasant surprise awaited me, for on the platform stood Isabel herself, all smiles and welcome—“prettier than ever,” I thought to myself as I kissed her.“How nice of you to have come yourself,” I said, “for it is a long drive, isn’t it?”“Not so very long, after all,” she replied. “I always enjoy meeting people so much—it is not like seeing them off.Youhave had a long journey, though,” she went on. “Aren’t you very tired?”“Not a bit,” I replied. “It has all been so new to me. I have never been in this sort of country before.”By this time we were seated in the waggonette, which Isabel informed me she had assured her father I should much prefer to a close carriage.“It is really not cold now,” Isabel went on. “The evenings are getting quite long. And it is so nice, on coming to a new place, to know something of your surroundings at once, don’t you think? In a brougham one sees nothing.”I looked about me with the greatest interest. It was the “North Country” unmistakably. Wild and hilly, bare to some extent, though here and there we caught sight of short stretches of forest land, for during a great part of the drive to Millflowers the view was very extensive. But the aspect of things in general was not cold or repellent, even to my southern eyes, for I saw the country to advantage in the clear sweet light of a mild spring evening.“I think it is delicious,” I said enthusiastically. And as after a time we came to a great stretch of moorland, I grew even more enthusiastic. “Oh how charming!” I exclaimed. “It seems so beautifully free and open—the air is so exquisitely fresh and scented—yes, is it not scented, Isabel?”“Ialways fancy it is,” she replied, “though it is too early in the year yet for the scent—the gorse! O Regina! you should see it when the gorse and heather are out!”“Yes,” I agreed. “It must be lovely. But do tell me,” I went on, for my thoughts in those days were very erratic, “shall we pass the Grim House on our way? And O Isabel! do tell me what has happened there! You alluded to something in your letter.”A slight, the very slightest touch on my foot, and a glance at my friend’s face checked me. I remembered that we were not alone, for Maple was in the waggonette with us, and I felt ashamed of my stupid indiscretion.“You mean Grimsthorpe?” said Isabel quietly. “No, we do not pass that way. Not that there is much to see if we did; it is a very ugly house, though an old one. Indeed the houses about here are rarely picturesque, though I think ours is pretty inside, and so is the vicarage. There are no other at all large houses near us. Millflowers, you know, is a very tiny village. Did I ever tell you what some people believe to be the origin of the name?” she added with a smile. But I could see that my questions had made her a little uncomfortable and that she was anxious to change the conversation.“No,” I replied, feeling rather small. “I have wondered about it once or twice. Itisan odd name.”“There is a legend,” Isabel said, “that long, long ago some French refugees settled in this out-of-the-way part of the world, and set to work to distil ‘scented waters’ from the sweet-smelling plants and flowers—there is any quantity of thyme about here—they found, and that to their production they gave the name of ‘Millefleurs’—a name still used for a well-known scent, of course. At that time there were only two or three cottages where our village now is, and the story goes that these poor French people’s secret gave its name to the place, getting corrupted into ‘Millflowers.’”“How curious! I wonder if it is true,” I said.Isabel seemed dubious as to this.“Papa says it sounds rather as if the story had been made up to suit the name,” she said.“Then is your own house notveryold?” I inquired.“Not very—about eighty or a hundred years old,” she replied. “It was originally just a sort of shooting-box—for our family has owned land about here for longer than that—and then my great-uncle took it into his head to enlarge it and make it his home. Grimsthorpe House is older;itwas originally a large farmhouse—indeed it is not, to look at, much better than that now, though the grounds are extensive.”We had crossed the moor by this time, and the rest of the way was along a more sheltered road bordered with trees, and here and there a glimpse of cultivated fields, altogether a different kind of landscape, more like what I was accustomed to at my own home, and a few minutes more brought us to the entrance of the Manor-house as the Wynyards’ place was now called.As we passed through the lodge-gates, Isabel leant towards me and whispered—“The Grim House is half-a-mile farther on, on the edge of another part of the moor.”Her father was standing at the front door to receive us. His welcome was most cordial and courtly, but I felt even more strongly than before that it would be very difficult for me to be at ease with him; and so I said, in other words, to Isabel when we were alone in the room she had taken me up to. A charming room it was, with windows on two sides, from one of which a peep of the moorland, with rising ground in the distance, was to be had, as Isabel pointed out to me.“Yes,” I said, as I threw myself into a tempting arm-chair, “it is all delightful; only, Isabel, I do wish I didn’t feel so shy of your father!”Isabel laughed.“I can’t understand it,” she said. “I mean, I can’t understand your feelingshyof him. He is so exceedingly kind and gentle. At the same time—” she hesitated.“What?” I asked quickly.“Icouldunderstand,” she replied, “feeling afraid of him if one had done anything wrong—more afraid than if he were severe. When I was a small child and got into scrapes, as all children do sometimes, his look of almost perplexed distress made me feel worse, far worse, than if he had scolded me in a commonplace way.”“O Isabel!” I exclaimed, “you are making me feel far more frightened than before! I must beawfullycareful while I’m here not to shock Mr Wynyard inanyway. But I am so thoughtless and forgetful; and that reminds me how stupid it was of me to allude to the Grim House mystery before Maple.”“Yes,” said Isabel, “I thought it best to give you a hint. I was sure you wouldn’t mind; for the best of servants gossip, and I should not have liked your maid to tell our servants that you and I had been talking about the Greys, though she is pretty sure to hear something about them while she is here. But, dear Regina, you really mustn’t take up the idea that papa is alarming! He is so pleased to have you here, and has said to me more than once that he hoped you would make me less of ‘an old woman,’ which he says I am in danger of becoming. I get anxious about the housekeeping and things like that, and sometimes papa says I am not enough out of doors.”My spirits rose at this. I asked nothing better than to be out of doors from morning till night in this beautifully wild district.“Your father won’t have to complain of your leading too quiet a life if he leaves you to me,” I said laughingly. “And the very first time we go out, Isabel, you will promise, won’t you, to show me the Grim House! And oh!” I went on, “you haven’t yet told me what has happened there just lately.”“It sounds so little to tell,” said Isabel; “but if you could realise the utter isolation of these poor people, you would understand the sensation it has made. It is simply that they have had visitors for the first time in the memory of man!”“What sort of visitors?” I asked eagerly.“Two men—gentlemen—an old and a young one! They stayed at Grimsthorpe one night. They drove up in a fly from the station, and it fetched them again the next morning. You see I have kept my eyes and ears open as regards the mystery, for your benefit.”“Did you see these men?” I asked.“I am not quite sure, but I think I did see one of them,” was the reply. “I had been in the village, and coming home I met a stranger who asked me the way to the church. Our church is rather curious; nobody quite knows how it came to be there, it is so big a church for so tiny a place.”“What was he like?” I inquired, thinking to myself that I should have been much more excited over the incident than Isabel appeared to be.“It was almost dusk,” she answered. “But his voice was a very pleasant and cultivated one. He was young, and I think good-looking. I was half inclined to ask him if he was a stranger in the neighbourhood or something of that sort, for I saw he had come down a path which only leads to the Grim House, though it wasn’t till the next day that we heard of the wonderful event. It was Strott, of course, who told me of it!”“I wonder who he was!” I said thoughtfully. “It certainly makes the whole still more interesting if they are beginning to have any communication with the outside world.”“There is one thing,” said Isabel, “that I forgot to tell you. They really must be good people, for on one occasion they did break through their rule of never leaving their own grounds. It was when little Tony at the vicarage fell off a haystack and they feared for his life; he was insensible for many hours, and his mother was in despair. That same afternoon the fly drove up to the vicarage, and, to Mrs Franklin’s astonishment, the Misses Grey were announced! She could scarcely believe her ears, and she has often told me that the very excitement of their coming did her good.”“How very queer it is that you forgot to tell me of it before!” I could not help interrupting.“I just did forget,” said Isabel calmly. “You see we are so used to the Grim House strangeness that it doesn’t strike us in the same way as it strikes you.”“And what were they like?” I asked, “and what had they come for?”“To express their sympathy, and find out if they could be of any use,” said Isabel. “Mrs Franklin was greatly touched. Of course their faces were quite familiar, but she had never heard their voices before. She said they were very, very gentle and apologetic, and pathetically timid. There were tears in their eyes, and they murmured something about being so fond of children, and that their own younger brother had had an accident as a boy, which had injured him lastingly. There was nothing they could do to help, though Mrs Franklin said she wished she could have invented something. She thanked them, of course, heartily, and the next day they sent down for news of Tony, by that time out of danger, and Mrs Franklin began to hope it would lead to some intercourse with these poor sad ladies. But no; the Grim House closed up again, and from that day to this they have never been seen except at church.”“Then it appears that the only way to decoy them out of their den would be for some of you to get very ill, or have an accident or trouble of some kind,” I said rather thoughtlessly.Isabel gave a little shiver.“Don’t talk of such things!” she exclaimed. “I am afraid I am naturally rather cowardly. I don’t know if you have found that out yet, Regina? You mustn’t despise me for it. Margaret consoles me by saying that she thinks it was the effect on my nerves of mamma’s sudden death. I was such a little girl at the time, and it was so terribly sad—seeing her apparently quite well one evening, and being told the next morning that I should never see her again.”“Did younotsee her?” I asked in a lowered voice. Sorrow of this kind had never come near our happy family circle, and the mere allusion to it filled me with awe.Isabel shook her head.“No,” she replied. “They thought it better not, but I am not sure that it was so. Margaret says she looked lovely. I could not understand it; she seemed to have disappeared, and yet I was frightened to ask any one about it. For nights and nights I lay awake wondering where she had gone, or ratherhowshe had gone; for of course they assured me that she was in a happy world. But it was so dreadful to me that she had gone without saying good-bye. I think I scarcely believed what I was told.”“Poor little Zella!” I said tenderly. “I think indeed it was enough to shake your nerves.”There was no more time for talking, as at that moment the dressing-bell sounded. But the conversation had left its mark on me. All through the evening, which was a very bright and pleasant one, and during which my shyness in Mr Wynyard’s presence began to fade a little—all through that first evening the thought of the poor “Grey ladies,” as I had begun to call them to myself, never left me. The picture of them in their pathetic timidity touched me curiously. And how good they must be to have made such an effort as that of going to the vicarage because there was trouble there!And when I went to bed my meditations took an even more definite shape.“I wonder how those four poor things are spending this evening,” I thought. “So near us and yet so far off. I wonder if they have a piano or anything of that sort to pass the time. Itwouldbe a good work, surely it would be, to get to know them, and break down the dreadful barrier they have placed round themselves. It seems so probable that they are exaggerating their troubles, whatever these may be.”

Our “banishment,” as I sometimes, in a rather discontented mood, called our stay abroad, came to an end rather sooner than we had expected, thanks to an unusually early and genial spring, which made even father think that it would be safe for mother to return to England. Moore, by this time, was in rollicking health and quite fit for school. And to me our home-going was considerably damped by the knowledge that it meant parting with my last playfellow.

After all, the winter had passed pleasantly enough; the Paynes had helped to enliven it. But mother looked rather askance at my friendship with them.

“Boys again!” she said half-laughingly. “Always boys, Regina! I wish there had been aMissPayne.”

“She wouldn’t have been half as nice as Isabel Wynyard,” I replied. “And Rupert is really not like a boy; his whole interest is in books and things of that kind. But you should be pleased, mamma, that I have madeonereal girl friend at last.”

“So I am,” was the reply—“very pleased.”

“If only they lived nearer us,” I said with a sigh. “I shall be dreadfully dull at home when Moore goes.”

“Poor Regina!” said mother. “Well, we must find something to cheer you up.”

And though I did not then know it, I believe that it was this conversation that made her determine to arrange for my promised visit to Millflowers as soon as possible. She never thought of herself, though home withoutanychild in it seemed scarcely home to her.

The first few weeks, however, of our return were very bright and happy. It was delightful to have Moore so thoroughly his old self, and two of the other boys were with us for Easter; and best of all, the brother whom I cannot describe as a “boy,” as he was already twenty-five—Jocelyn—our “eldest,” and I must almost say “dearest.”

He was deputed to take Moore to his new school, and very proud Moore was of him as an escort.

“How I wish I could go to Winchester with you both,” I said the evening before they were to leave. “I really do think, Jocelyn,” for it was to him I was talking, “it was a great mistake that I was not a boy after all, though I have been trying my best lately to make myself into a ‘young lady’! Has mamma told you so? For every one of us, from oldest to youngest, confided in Jocelyn. I put the question with some little anxiety, for my brother’s approval was very dear to me.”

He smiled as he replied—

“Of course mother has told me of the new leaves you’ve been turning over—ever so many of them, though all in the same direction, and I intended to compliment you on the great improvement in your style of hairdressing and the general smartness of your appearance! Don’t be discouraged, my dear child. ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day!’”

“And it will take a great many days, if ever, I suppose you mean,” I said rather ruefully, “to turn a tomboy into a oh! whatever she should be.”

“But by what I hear,” said Jocelyn, “you have got a first-rate model before you in the person of Miss Wynyard. I am very glad you are going to stay with them so soon.”

I opened my eyes at this.

“So soon?” I repeated. “I have not been told anything about it.”

“Well, don’t let out that I told you, then,” said Jocelyn. “I suspect mother must have been keeping it for a surprise to cheer you up after the boy and I leave to-morrow. I believe they are arranging for you to go very shortly. You will enjoy it, won’t you?”

“Ihope so,” I replied. “As far as Isabel is concerned, I am sure I shall. But I have found out that I am very shy. I think I am rather afraid of Mr Wynyard. He has brought up his own daughters to be such pinks of perfection! I am sure that he won’t approve of frivolous conversation. I remember Isabel saying how he disliked gossip. And oh! by-the-bye,” I broke off, “that reminds me, Jocelyn! There is such a queer story, a regular mystery where the Wynyards live.”

“Do you mean that the house is haunted?” said Jocelyn, laughingly.

“Oh, no; it is not about their own house, but a house near, in the neighbourhood. ‘Grimsthorpe,’ I think, is its proper name. I wonder if I might tell you about it? It isn’t exactly a secret, but I have never mentioned it to mamma. Mr Wynyard might blame Isabel for gossipping if he found that mother had heard of it.”

“As I am not likely to see Mr Wynyard, I think you may safely tell me the story, whatever it is,” said Jocelyn.

I was delighted to do so.

“To begin with,” I said, “the very name of the place—I don’t mean its proper name, but the corruption of it, for the whole neighbourhood calls it the ‘Grim House’—is enough to rouse one’s curiosity!” And then I went on to relate the strange circumstances I had been told of.

My brother listened attentively, and with evident interest.

“What a queer story!” he said. “It suggests all manner of hidden tragedies. What a life for those poor men, even if they have done anything to deserve it! I can’t help pitying them more than the sisters.”

“The younger one is dreadfully delicate,” I said, “so perhaps his life any way would have been a dull one. He is crippled somehow. I had the feeling that the elder brother, the eldest of them all, was the cause of their imprisoned life. But Isabel maintains that they are all suffering together for some one else. I do wonder if it will ever be explained!”

“There must be many mysteries,” said Jocelyn, “that are never cleared up, but certainly this is a very curious one. Don’t let Moore hear of it if there is any chance ofhisever going to the place; he could never rest contented till he got inside the Grim House. He’d be scaling the walls, and goodness knows what all, and would certainly get himself into trouble.”

“I don’t think that he or any one could feel more curiosity about it than I do,” I said. “Isabel has got accustomed to it in all these years, but evenshesays she has fits of wondering and wondering about these queer people.”

“And possibly,” said Jocelyn thoughtfully, “possibly the root of it all is nothing very terrible. The poor things may have got morbid about it, whereas if they could make up their minds to consult some outsider it might all be put right. It is extraordinary how brooding over troubles magnifies and increases them.”

Jocelyn was wise beyond his years, and what he said impressed me.

“It seems a pity that no one—Mr Wynyard, for instance, or the clergyman of the place, if he is a sensible man—tries to help them,” I said. “I know I couldn’t live beside four miserable-looking people for twenty years without trying to gain their confidence.”

“It may have been tried,” remarked my brother. “But of course that sort of thing cannot be forced. It would require great tact and experience. Don’t go on thinking about it too much, Reggie, or it will get on your brain; and whatever you do, don’t attempt any investigation of the secret.”

I did not reply. To tell the truth, words had added a new incentive to my great wish to unravel the mystery. What a good work it would be to get these poor lives out into the sunshine again! I was very young and very self-confident in some ways, and I did not then know that the onlookers whom I had tacitly reproached with indifference had already done their best in the direction of offering help.

The next day my brothers left us, and but for the anticipation of the pleasure in store for me which Jocelyn had told me of, I should have felt very low-spirited indeed. The morning following turned my hope into certainty. Mother opened a letter at the breakfast-table whose contents she read with evident satisfaction. In it was enclosed a note in Isabel’s handwriting which mother passed on to me. It was quite short, just expressing her pleasure at the prospect of seeing me “so soon,” and a few words added as a postscript increased my own excitement and satisfaction in the prospect of my visit to Millflowers. These were the words:—“I am doubly glad you are coming now,” she wrote, “because something very strange, or rather unusual, has happened in connection with our local mystery, and I do so want to tell you about it. I am afraid I am a gossip at heart!”

I felt my face grow red with eagerness. Mother watching me, naturally attributed my excitement solely to pleasure at the invitation.

I thought you would be delighted, she said, full of sympathyasusual. “I have purposely not spoken of it to you before till it was quite settled. There was a little uncertainty about Isabel’s plans, as her sisters had talked of taking her away to pay some visits, but in the end this has been given up. So it is all right. You will start about this day week with Maple. It is rather a long journey, but Mr Wynyard has let me know all the trains. You will get there by daylight.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t mind how late I travelled with Maple,” I said, for my maid had been with us since my childhood; though indeed, to tell the truth, my love of adventure would have found a good deal of attraction in the idea of travelling quite alone.

And the next few days passed quickly and pleasantly, mother sharing to the full my own happy expectations.

Itwasa long journey, for the Wynyards’ home was as decidedly in the North as ours was in the South. But I enjoyed it, especially when we got into a part of the world that was quite new to me. For though I had travelled so much, there had been no great variety in our movements, which had always been southwards. My own country was but little known to me.

The evening was drawing in when we reached our last stopping-place, the nearest station to Millflowers, by name Scart Bridge. And here a pleasant surprise awaited me, for on the platform stood Isabel herself, all smiles and welcome—“prettier than ever,” I thought to myself as I kissed her.

“How nice of you to have come yourself,” I said, “for it is a long drive, isn’t it?”

“Not so very long, after all,” she replied. “I always enjoy meeting people so much—it is not like seeing them off.Youhave had a long journey, though,” she went on. “Aren’t you very tired?”

“Not a bit,” I replied. “It has all been so new to me. I have never been in this sort of country before.”

By this time we were seated in the waggonette, which Isabel informed me she had assured her father I should much prefer to a close carriage.

“It is really not cold now,” Isabel went on. “The evenings are getting quite long. And it is so nice, on coming to a new place, to know something of your surroundings at once, don’t you think? In a brougham one sees nothing.”

I looked about me with the greatest interest. It was the “North Country” unmistakably. Wild and hilly, bare to some extent, though here and there we caught sight of short stretches of forest land, for during a great part of the drive to Millflowers the view was very extensive. But the aspect of things in general was not cold or repellent, even to my southern eyes, for I saw the country to advantage in the clear sweet light of a mild spring evening.

“I think it is delicious,” I said enthusiastically. And as after a time we came to a great stretch of moorland, I grew even more enthusiastic. “Oh how charming!” I exclaimed. “It seems so beautifully free and open—the air is so exquisitely fresh and scented—yes, is it not scented, Isabel?”

“Ialways fancy it is,” she replied, “though it is too early in the year yet for the scent—the gorse! O Regina! you should see it when the gorse and heather are out!”

“Yes,” I agreed. “It must be lovely. But do tell me,” I went on, for my thoughts in those days were very erratic, “shall we pass the Grim House on our way? And O Isabel! do tell me what has happened there! You alluded to something in your letter.”

A slight, the very slightest touch on my foot, and a glance at my friend’s face checked me. I remembered that we were not alone, for Maple was in the waggonette with us, and I felt ashamed of my stupid indiscretion.

“You mean Grimsthorpe?” said Isabel quietly. “No, we do not pass that way. Not that there is much to see if we did; it is a very ugly house, though an old one. Indeed the houses about here are rarely picturesque, though I think ours is pretty inside, and so is the vicarage. There are no other at all large houses near us. Millflowers, you know, is a very tiny village. Did I ever tell you what some people believe to be the origin of the name?” she added with a smile. But I could see that my questions had made her a little uncomfortable and that she was anxious to change the conversation.

“No,” I replied, feeling rather small. “I have wondered about it once or twice. Itisan odd name.”

“There is a legend,” Isabel said, “that long, long ago some French refugees settled in this out-of-the-way part of the world, and set to work to distil ‘scented waters’ from the sweet-smelling plants and flowers—there is any quantity of thyme about here—they found, and that to their production they gave the name of ‘Millefleurs’—a name still used for a well-known scent, of course. At that time there were only two or three cottages where our village now is, and the story goes that these poor French people’s secret gave its name to the place, getting corrupted into ‘Millflowers.’”

“How curious! I wonder if it is true,” I said.

Isabel seemed dubious as to this.

“Papa says it sounds rather as if the story had been made up to suit the name,” she said.

“Then is your own house notveryold?” I inquired.

“Not very—about eighty or a hundred years old,” she replied. “It was originally just a sort of shooting-box—for our family has owned land about here for longer than that—and then my great-uncle took it into his head to enlarge it and make it his home. Grimsthorpe House is older;itwas originally a large farmhouse—indeed it is not, to look at, much better than that now, though the grounds are extensive.”

We had crossed the moor by this time, and the rest of the way was along a more sheltered road bordered with trees, and here and there a glimpse of cultivated fields, altogether a different kind of landscape, more like what I was accustomed to at my own home, and a few minutes more brought us to the entrance of the Manor-house as the Wynyards’ place was now called.

As we passed through the lodge-gates, Isabel leant towards me and whispered—

“The Grim House is half-a-mile farther on, on the edge of another part of the moor.”

Her father was standing at the front door to receive us. His welcome was most cordial and courtly, but I felt even more strongly than before that it would be very difficult for me to be at ease with him; and so I said, in other words, to Isabel when we were alone in the room she had taken me up to. A charming room it was, with windows on two sides, from one of which a peep of the moorland, with rising ground in the distance, was to be had, as Isabel pointed out to me.

“Yes,” I said, as I threw myself into a tempting arm-chair, “it is all delightful; only, Isabel, I do wish I didn’t feel so shy of your father!”

Isabel laughed.

“I can’t understand it,” she said. “I mean, I can’t understand your feelingshyof him. He is so exceedingly kind and gentle. At the same time—” she hesitated.

“What?” I asked quickly.

“Icouldunderstand,” she replied, “feeling afraid of him if one had done anything wrong—more afraid than if he were severe. When I was a small child and got into scrapes, as all children do sometimes, his look of almost perplexed distress made me feel worse, far worse, than if he had scolded me in a commonplace way.”

“O Isabel!” I exclaimed, “you are making me feel far more frightened than before! I must beawfullycareful while I’m here not to shock Mr Wynyard inanyway. But I am so thoughtless and forgetful; and that reminds me how stupid it was of me to allude to the Grim House mystery before Maple.”

“Yes,” said Isabel, “I thought it best to give you a hint. I was sure you wouldn’t mind; for the best of servants gossip, and I should not have liked your maid to tell our servants that you and I had been talking about the Greys, though she is pretty sure to hear something about them while she is here. But, dear Regina, you really mustn’t take up the idea that papa is alarming! He is so pleased to have you here, and has said to me more than once that he hoped you would make me less of ‘an old woman,’ which he says I am in danger of becoming. I get anxious about the housekeeping and things like that, and sometimes papa says I am not enough out of doors.”

My spirits rose at this. I asked nothing better than to be out of doors from morning till night in this beautifully wild district.

“Your father won’t have to complain of your leading too quiet a life if he leaves you to me,” I said laughingly. “And the very first time we go out, Isabel, you will promise, won’t you, to show me the Grim House! And oh!” I went on, “you haven’t yet told me what has happened there just lately.”

“It sounds so little to tell,” said Isabel; “but if you could realise the utter isolation of these poor people, you would understand the sensation it has made. It is simply that they have had visitors for the first time in the memory of man!”

“What sort of visitors?” I asked eagerly.

“Two men—gentlemen—an old and a young one! They stayed at Grimsthorpe one night. They drove up in a fly from the station, and it fetched them again the next morning. You see I have kept my eyes and ears open as regards the mystery, for your benefit.”

“Did you see these men?” I asked.

“I am not quite sure, but I think I did see one of them,” was the reply. “I had been in the village, and coming home I met a stranger who asked me the way to the church. Our church is rather curious; nobody quite knows how it came to be there, it is so big a church for so tiny a place.”

“What was he like?” I inquired, thinking to myself that I should have been much more excited over the incident than Isabel appeared to be.

“It was almost dusk,” she answered. “But his voice was a very pleasant and cultivated one. He was young, and I think good-looking. I was half inclined to ask him if he was a stranger in the neighbourhood or something of that sort, for I saw he had come down a path which only leads to the Grim House, though it wasn’t till the next day that we heard of the wonderful event. It was Strott, of course, who told me of it!”

“I wonder who he was!” I said thoughtfully. “It certainly makes the whole still more interesting if they are beginning to have any communication with the outside world.”

“There is one thing,” said Isabel, “that I forgot to tell you. They really must be good people, for on one occasion they did break through their rule of never leaving their own grounds. It was when little Tony at the vicarage fell off a haystack and they feared for his life; he was insensible for many hours, and his mother was in despair. That same afternoon the fly drove up to the vicarage, and, to Mrs Franklin’s astonishment, the Misses Grey were announced! She could scarcely believe her ears, and she has often told me that the very excitement of their coming did her good.”

“How very queer it is that you forgot to tell me of it before!” I could not help interrupting.

“I just did forget,” said Isabel calmly. “You see we are so used to the Grim House strangeness that it doesn’t strike us in the same way as it strikes you.”

“And what were they like?” I asked, “and what had they come for?”

“To express their sympathy, and find out if they could be of any use,” said Isabel. “Mrs Franklin was greatly touched. Of course their faces were quite familiar, but she had never heard their voices before. She said they were very, very gentle and apologetic, and pathetically timid. There were tears in their eyes, and they murmured something about being so fond of children, and that their own younger brother had had an accident as a boy, which had injured him lastingly. There was nothing they could do to help, though Mrs Franklin said she wished she could have invented something. She thanked them, of course, heartily, and the next day they sent down for news of Tony, by that time out of danger, and Mrs Franklin began to hope it would lead to some intercourse with these poor sad ladies. But no; the Grim House closed up again, and from that day to this they have never been seen except at church.”

“Then it appears that the only way to decoy them out of their den would be for some of you to get very ill, or have an accident or trouble of some kind,” I said rather thoughtlessly.

Isabel gave a little shiver.

“Don’t talk of such things!” she exclaimed. “I am afraid I am naturally rather cowardly. I don’t know if you have found that out yet, Regina? You mustn’t despise me for it. Margaret consoles me by saying that she thinks it was the effect on my nerves of mamma’s sudden death. I was such a little girl at the time, and it was so terribly sad—seeing her apparently quite well one evening, and being told the next morning that I should never see her again.”

“Did younotsee her?” I asked in a lowered voice. Sorrow of this kind had never come near our happy family circle, and the mere allusion to it filled me with awe.

Isabel shook her head.

“No,” she replied. “They thought it better not, but I am not sure that it was so. Margaret says she looked lovely. I could not understand it; she seemed to have disappeared, and yet I was frightened to ask any one about it. For nights and nights I lay awake wondering where she had gone, or ratherhowshe had gone; for of course they assured me that she was in a happy world. But it was so dreadful to me that she had gone without saying good-bye. I think I scarcely believed what I was told.”

“Poor little Zella!” I said tenderly. “I think indeed it was enough to shake your nerves.”

There was no more time for talking, as at that moment the dressing-bell sounded. But the conversation had left its mark on me. All through the evening, which was a very bright and pleasant one, and during which my shyness in Mr Wynyard’s presence began to fade a little—all through that first evening the thought of the poor “Grey ladies,” as I had begun to call them to myself, never left me. The picture of them in their pathetic timidity touched me curiously. And how good they must be to have made such an effort as that of going to the vicarage because there was trouble there!

And when I went to bed my meditations took an even more definite shape.

“I wonder how those four poor things are spending this evening,” I thought. “So near us and yet so far off. I wonder if they have a piano or anything of that sort to pass the time. Itwouldbe a good work, surely it would be, to get to know them, and break down the dreadful barrier they have placed round themselves. It seems so probable that they are exaggerating their troubles, whatever these may be.”

Chapter Four.“Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted.”The next few days passed very pleasantly. The weather was fine though rather cold, but the fresh bracing feeling of the air seemed to suit the place, and I enjoyed its invigorating effect to the full. It was before the days of bicycles, but Isabel had a little pony-cart and a sturdy, sure-footed pony, in which we managed to get over the ground in a wonderful way. Hilly roads and rough ground were no obstacles to our progress; sometimes even, we ourselves lifted the cart over some specially awkward place, the pony seeming quite to enter into the fun of the thing.We walked, too, quite long distances now and then, and several times, both walking and driving, we passed the high walls which surrounded Grimsthorpe House, the object of so much curiosity and speculation on my part.As Isabel had warned me, there was but little to be seen of the house itself, except from one side, where a rise in the road enabled passers-by to look down, as it were, on the place.And worthy of its name did it look,—“grim” indeed, as it was called.It was a square grey building, with narrow windows in straight rows. There was nothing about it in the very least picturesque or attractive, for it was far too modern to at all suggest anything mediaeval or mysterious; it was just thoroughly ugly and forbidding. Yet to me it was full of fascination. We never passed the point of view in question without my begging Isabel to stop and have a good look at it, which at last she began to be rather unwilling to do.“I think really it is getting on your brain, Regina,” she said. “I almost wish I had never told you anything about it.”“As if any one could have helped noticing it,” I exclaimed. “But for the neatly kept grounds”—for neat they were, so far as one could see, though with nothing ornamental about them at this season at least—“one could be tempted to think it was a prison or a workhouse.”“Prisons and workhouses are models of neatness, I believe,” said Isabel. “But certainly these gardens could not belong to anything of the kind. And there are flowers at one side of the house later on in the year. I have an idea that the younger brother—the cripple—looks after them.”“Have you ever seen him gardening?” I asked eagerly.Isabel shook her head.“Oh, no,” she replied, “I have never seen one of the family except in church.”“I am longing for Sunday,” I said. For though I had already been more than a week at Millflowers, I had not yet been to the village church, as on my first Sunday there we had driven some miles in a different direction, by Mr Wynyard’s wish, to hear a noted preacher who happened to be visiting in that neighbourhood.We were standing just then, Isabel and I, on the rising ground I have spoken of, and my eyes were fixed on Grimsthorpe.“No,” I went on, “I have never seen anything so strange. It might be an enchanted—not ‘palace,’ it is too ugly for that. I don’t know what to call it. We have stood here some minutes, and there has not been the very slightest sign of life to be seen or heard. Not even a dog barking. How do they manage to make even their servants as noiseless and invisible as themselves?”“You are drawing on your imagination a little,” said Isabel, smiling. “Thereisa gardener mowing the grass in that corner. See!” and she pointed it out, “and—yes! there is the baker’s cart driving up the back entrance.”I was almost disappointed by her matter-of-factness.“You are so desperately unromantic,” I said impatiently. “You needn’t have pointed out the gardener and the baker!” And in my own mind I thought that I would keep my curiosity more to myself in the future. “I don’t believe Isabel would at all sympathise in any plan for getting to know these people!” but in this I did her injustice.That very evening, just as it was beginning to get dusk, Isabel was called away by her father, as not infrequently happened, to do some writing for him. I was not inclined to stay indoors, so I ran upstairs to fetch my outdoor things, telling Isabel as I went, that I was going for a stroll on my own account, to pass the time that she was with her father.Scarcely conscious of any intention of the kind, I turned nevertheless in the direction of the mysterious house. It was too late to have climbed up the hilly road referred to; besides, the fading light would have made it impossible to distinguish anything. So I contented myself with skirting the high wall of the grounds on the side nearer the Manor-house. I had walked about three-quarters of a mile, and was beginning to think it was time to return, when, standing still for a moment in consideration, I heard, in the perfect silence which seemed to pervade the locality, the sound of approaching footsteps. I glanced round, but no one was to be seen on the road, and as the steps drew nearer and more distinct, I became aware that they were those of some one on the inner side of the wall. I stood listening more and more intently, when, to my surprise and almost alarm, a figure appeared before me on the path, several yards beyond the spot I had reached. It was that of a person who had emerged from within; the fact being, though I was not then aware of it, that there was a door in the wall a little farther on.Half confused, half frightened by this sudden apparition, I remained motionless, in what must have appeared a bewildered way to the newcomer. But before my fears had time to increase, the sound of a voice, unmistakably that of a gentleman, reassured me. Till he was close to me it was too dusky to distinguish his features clearly, but I saw him lift his hat as he approached.“Excuse me,” he said. “May I ask if you have possibly seen a pocket-book on the path about here? I think I must have dropped it—not far off—an hour or two ago, and very few people pass this way.”My curiosity, as well as my sympathy, was at once awakened.“It must be,” I thought to myself, “one of the Greys. Perhaps they come out here more than is known, for a little change. How I wish I had found the pocket-book; it might have been an opening!”But to him I could only reply—“No, I am sorry I have seen nothing of the kind. It has been almost too dark, though, to see it, as I have only just now come straight up the road.”Even now, close as we were, I could not distinguish his face very clearly, for the waning light was still further decreased by clouds. I saw, however, that he was anxious and worried, though, looking at him as attentively as I dared, I was surprised to see that he was not an elderly man, as from Isabel’s description the older brother must be.“And it cannot be the younger,” I thought, “as he is crippled, and this man walks quite easily.”He thanked me, and passing me, again raising his hat, walked quickly along the road, down which I was about to retrace my steps.I waited a moment or two, and then followed him at a more leisurely pace. But I had not gone more than a hundred yards or so when I saw again his figure emerging from the gloom before me. In spite of myself I felt a little afraid. The modern ghost is so very material and commonplace in appearance, by all accounts, that one may easily mistake it for a real flesh and blood personality.“Can this path be haunted?” I asked myself, and as the stranger came nearer I involuntarily shrank up a little towards the wall.But as he was passing, the cheerful tones of his voice dispelled my misgivings. He made an almost imperceptible pause in his quick pace, exclaiming—“I have found it! So sorry to have troubled you!” then hurried on, doubtless to enter the grounds at the same spot whence he had emerged, and where my common-sense told me there must be a door of some kind.“I shall make Isabel come this way to-morrow to look for it,” I said to myself, and I hurried home, eager to relate to her my exciting adventure.She was looking out for me, walking up and down the drive.“I could have come with you if you had waited five minutes. Papa only wanted me for a moment or two, after all. It is rather too dark for you to be out alone, and I didn’t know which way you had gone,” she said.“O Isabel!” I exclaimed. “Something so interesting has happened;” and I quickly related the incident, my friend listening attentively.“Was it a Grey or a ghost?” I ended up half jokingly, but Isabel’s face was full of grave consideration.“I neverheardof a ghost in or about the Grim House,” she said seriously. “But still less can I think it was one of the Grey brothers. The elder one isquiteold-looking, peculiarly worn and haggard, and the other, as I have told you, though he has a sweet, calm face, is an unmistakable cripple. He walks very slowly, and generally with a crutch.”“It is very mysterious, then,” I replied, “though I shall not feel satisfied that it was not the elder brother till I have seen him for myself on Sunday. Do let me sit where I can have a good view of them, Isabel. I promise you I will peep at them most discreetly.”Isabel smiled, but seemed nevertheless a little disapproving.“I hope they won’t occupy your thoughts during the whole of church-time,” she said.“No, no,” I replied. “Of course I wouldn’t let it be so. Though naturally what has happened this evening makes me more anxious than ever to see them.”Fortunately for my peace of mind, this day was already Friday. I had not, therefore, long to wait. Millflowers church still belonged to the old order of things. There were two or three square pews, cushioned and curtained, for the “upper ten” of the village, one of which, of course, was appropriated to the Manor-house, and another to Grimsthorpe; and Isabel kindly arranged, not without some conscientious scruples, I fear, however, that I should occupy the corner whence the melancholy quartette could best be seen. She made a little plan of the church and the pews the evening before, for my benefit.But without anything of this kind—almost, I think, without having been on the look-out for the denizens of the Grim House at all—they would, it seems to me, at once have attracted my attention. Indeed, at the first moment, I felt surprised that every one in the church did not turn round to look at them, forgetting the many years—years more than my whole existence—during which the solemn little procession of the four sad-faced people had, Sunday after Sunday, made their way up the aisle to the gloomy old pew. No—sad I can scarcely call them all, without making one exception. The face of the younger brother was, as Isabel had said, not only sweet, but calm and peaceful in expression, though he appeared pathetically delicate, with large soft eyes and almost colourless complexion.“Heis not the guilty one, if guilty one there is,” I decided. “Heis not the cause of the family unhappiness and isolation. I should say he is a sort of saint, happy to bear for the sake of others.”Then my eyes turned to the elder brother. The sisters I had already glanced at, and found them exactly what I had expected from Isabel’s description—refined, rather insignificant-looking, inexpressibly melancholy; but the face of the senior of the party was in a sense the most interesting of all. He was evidently a strong man, well-made and originally powerful. But his frame was prematurely bent, the lines of his fine features were worn and furrowed. It was a good face, but the expression had become almost fiercely defiant and hard.I made up my mind on the spot—I think I am naturally gifted with a certain amount of insight into character and idiosyncrasies—I made up my mind on the spot that Isabel was mistaken.“Itisthe elder brother,” I mentally ejaculated, “who is at the root of it all! He is the most miserable of the four, because he feels that he has brought their trouble upon them. But nevertheless it would be very difficult to believe that that man has ever done anything mean or dishonourable.” And I felt that the personal sight of the Grey family had to me only deepened the mystery. And then a sudden recollection flashed across my mind—the man I had met, the young man who had lost his pocket-book, wasnotone of the group in the square pew! Who was he? A ghost, after all?I said so to Isabel, as, the service over, we walked home. The Greys, I noticed, left their places with the very first who quitted the church, and by the time we had reached the porch, the village fly containing them was already some little way along the road.“They always do so,” said Isabel, as she pointed it out to me, “and the people have come to understand it and fall back a little to let them pass. But as to who it was that you met the other evening, I must own, Regina, I am completely puzzled. Suppose you tell papa about it and see what he says?”Mr Wynyard was a little behind us, talking to Mr Franklin.“Oh, no, no,” I exclaimed, putting out a hand to stop her, as I fancied she was turning towards her father, “oh,no, Isabel. You know your father hates gossip, and he would be sure to ask why I had chosen that lonely road, and we couldn’t help letting him see that Iamawfully interested in the Grim House; and then, if the least thing was said about our thinking the man was perhaps a ghost, he would never forget it—he would think itsosilly.” Isabel laughed, but yielded to my wishes.“Papa is not nearly as prosaic and prim as you think,” she said. “But I am quite sure it wasn’t a ghost, Regina.”“Then how did he get through the wall?” I inquired.She shook her head.“I can’t say,” she replied. “There may be a door there. As far as I remember, the wall at that part is a good deal overgrown with ivy. And the door, if there is one, is pretty certainly very seldom used, so it may be almost invisible.”“Let us go that way to-morrow and look,” I suggested, to which Isabel assented. “Though all the same,” I added regretfully, “if there were a dozen doors, that would not explain what the man was doing at the Grim House, or what has become of him.”“He may have been a tax-collector,” said Isabel provokingly. She could be mischievous now and then.“Nonsense!” I replied. “He was unmistakably agentleman, as I have told you. And after all, they have had visitors, as you know.”“Yes, but they came openly, and were driven to and from the station. If thiswerea visitor, he has managed to come and go in a most mysterious way. No, it is much more likely to have been a tax-collector. You could not see him plainly, you know.”“Would a man like that have a private key for a private door?” I said. “Don’t be so silly, Zella.”“Well, we need not quarrel about it till we are sure thereisa door,” Isabel replied good-humouredly. “In the meantime, tell me what you think of the poor Greys, now that you have seen them for yourself?”“Iwilltell you,” I replied impressively. “To begin with, the sisters are just what you said; they must have been pretty, one of them at least, in a fair, gentle way, and the younger brother’s face is almost saintly. I have got those three pretty clearly defined. But,”—and here my voice deepened, I feel sure—“theone is the elder brother! He is at the bottom of it all;” and I went on to mention what I had noticed in his expression and bearing. “Don’t you remember my telling you so even before I had any reason for it? It was an intuition.”Isabel seemed considerably impressed.“Yes,” she replied. “I do remember what you said; but you know, Regina, you do give the reins to your imagination sometimes, and I, I suppose, am very matter-of-fact. So you see I didn’t think very much of your idea, as you had thennogrounds for it. But now I allow that itdoesseem probable Mr Grey’s face is all you say; it tells of cruel struggle, and endurance too, while the others rather express patience and resignation. He must—the elder one, I mean—have been very good-looking.”“He has a very high-bred look,” I agreed. “But, Isabel, who can my stranger have been? Is it possible that there is a fifth member of the party who is kept dark altogether?”Isabel shook her head.“Quite impossible, I should say; besides, the man you met was young. He could not have been reared up there from boyhood.”“He may have joined them lately,” I said; but on reflection I decided that even this was improbable. “No,” I went on, “I am sure he does not live there. There was a cheery, open-air sound in his voice. I think he was very nice-looking. Tall and a very good figure, that I am sure of.”Suddenly Isabel gave a little exclamation.“What’s the matter?” I cried.“Only something that has just struck me,” was the reply. “How stupid of me not to have thought of it before. I do believe that your man, Regina, was the younger of the two visitors who came to the Grim House not long ago!”“Why should you think so?” I asked, a little desirous perhaps that mytrouvailleshould be entirely my own. “Especially as you said yourself that the others came and went openly?”“I don’t quite know,” said Isabel slowly. “It was something in your way of describing him just now that seemed to recall the man who asked me the way to the church.”Fortunately perhaps, at this moment Mr Wynyard overtook us, and our thoughts, which were becoming too absorbed in the mysterious subject, were for the time being distracted. Not for very long, however. The next morning found us, as we had planned, starting off on a search expedition.The door in the wall was the object of our quest, and on the way to the spot where it must be, if it existed at all, I pointed out to Isabel the exact place where I had met the stranger, and the distance down the road that he had gone to look for his lost property.“You see,” I explained, “if he were a ghost, this would be of importance, for everybody knows that ghosts are restricted to certain limits; and after all, dusk though it was, it was rather curious that I had not noticed the pocket-book, which seemed a pretty big one, as he waved it in his hand.”“I can’t say that what you tell of him sounds at all ghost-like,” said Isabel. “He was too prosaic surely! However, what we have to do is to find if the door was a material reality or not.”“If it isn’t,” I said emphatically, “I shall be certain he was not a real person. And if so, there must be some legend about this path which we must set to work to disinter.”My heart beat rather faster than usual as we approached the place in the wall whence the unknown man seemed to come out, and for a few minutes our search was unsuccessful. No door was to be seen. The growth of ivy was very thick just there. I stood back a little at last, and surveyed the wall from a short distance, and at one spot it seemed to me that there was a slight break in the line. I kept my eye as closely as possible fixed on this spot while I approached it, and pushed gently against the ivy with my hand.Yes, I had not been mistaken; but I got a start as I suddenly felt what seemed a bit of the wall itself yielding to my touch. I started back with a little exclamation which brought Isabel to my side.“What is it?” she exclaimed. “Have you found it?”“I have found something,” I said, and on examining more closely, it proved to be the suspected door, overgrown with ivy indeed, practically indistinguishable from the outside, but in good order nevertheless, moving on its hinges smoothly and noiselessly.It opened inwards of course, and, strange to say, it was open, as has been shown.“I wonder if he forgot to lock it,” I said, “or if it is always left unfastened.”I pushed it farther ajar as I spoke, Isabel pressing forward eagerly.“Now,” I said triumphantly, “we shall get a peep inside the enchanted ground. Thisisa ‘find’ of mine. Confess, Zella, that I have done more in a few days towards unearthing the mystery than you in twice as many years.”But Isabel looked too frightened to take the matter lightly.“Don’t speak so loud, Regina,” she said in a half whisper; “some one may be near us, inside.”She was quite pale with excitement, yet, timid though she was, her curiosity, as well as mine, was thoroughly awakened.“We may as well glance in,” she went on, “if we are very, very careful. Just give a look round, Regina,” and she drew back to allow me to do so.I obeyed her cautiously. All seemed safe; there was no one in view or within hearing.“It is all right,” I said, withdrawing my head; “we may go in a few steps, I am sure, without danger.”“Well, first draw-to the door a little,” said Isabel sensibly, “for fear of any passer-by noticing that it is open.”When we found ourselves fairly within the grounds, we looked at each other before we looked at anything else. I could not repress a half-nervous laugh.“Don’t you feel like a detective or a conspirator?” I said.Isabel grew still more frightened.“Oh, ifyouare going to begin to feel like that,” she exclaimed, “we had better go back at once. I am trembling so that I can scarcely stand.”I was very far from wishing her to put her threat into execution, so I at once hid my nervousness and replied lightly, though still speaking in low tones—“You are too silly! Who could blame us for glancing inside an open garden-door? And at worst, you have never said that the Grim House people were at all ogreish! See there, Isabel; do let us go as far as that clump of bushes. I have an idea that from behind them we could see the house.”I walked on a few steps boldly, my companion following me more leisurely. My idea was correct, as we rounded the clump in question, we did come into view of the house, and—of something else too.

The next few days passed very pleasantly. The weather was fine though rather cold, but the fresh bracing feeling of the air seemed to suit the place, and I enjoyed its invigorating effect to the full. It was before the days of bicycles, but Isabel had a little pony-cart and a sturdy, sure-footed pony, in which we managed to get over the ground in a wonderful way. Hilly roads and rough ground were no obstacles to our progress; sometimes even, we ourselves lifted the cart over some specially awkward place, the pony seeming quite to enter into the fun of the thing.

We walked, too, quite long distances now and then, and several times, both walking and driving, we passed the high walls which surrounded Grimsthorpe House, the object of so much curiosity and speculation on my part.

As Isabel had warned me, there was but little to be seen of the house itself, except from one side, where a rise in the road enabled passers-by to look down, as it were, on the place.

And worthy of its name did it look,—“grim” indeed, as it was called.

It was a square grey building, with narrow windows in straight rows. There was nothing about it in the very least picturesque or attractive, for it was far too modern to at all suggest anything mediaeval or mysterious; it was just thoroughly ugly and forbidding. Yet to me it was full of fascination. We never passed the point of view in question without my begging Isabel to stop and have a good look at it, which at last she began to be rather unwilling to do.

“I think really it is getting on your brain, Regina,” she said. “I almost wish I had never told you anything about it.”

“As if any one could have helped noticing it,” I exclaimed. “But for the neatly kept grounds”—for neat they were, so far as one could see, though with nothing ornamental about them at this season at least—“one could be tempted to think it was a prison or a workhouse.”

“Prisons and workhouses are models of neatness, I believe,” said Isabel. “But certainly these gardens could not belong to anything of the kind. And there are flowers at one side of the house later on in the year. I have an idea that the younger brother—the cripple—looks after them.”

“Have you ever seen him gardening?” I asked eagerly.

Isabel shook her head.

“Oh, no,” she replied, “I have never seen one of the family except in church.”

“I am longing for Sunday,” I said. For though I had already been more than a week at Millflowers, I had not yet been to the village church, as on my first Sunday there we had driven some miles in a different direction, by Mr Wynyard’s wish, to hear a noted preacher who happened to be visiting in that neighbourhood.

We were standing just then, Isabel and I, on the rising ground I have spoken of, and my eyes were fixed on Grimsthorpe.

“No,” I went on, “I have never seen anything so strange. It might be an enchanted—not ‘palace,’ it is too ugly for that. I don’t know what to call it. We have stood here some minutes, and there has not been the very slightest sign of life to be seen or heard. Not even a dog barking. How do they manage to make even their servants as noiseless and invisible as themselves?”

“You are drawing on your imagination a little,” said Isabel, smiling. “Thereisa gardener mowing the grass in that corner. See!” and she pointed it out, “and—yes! there is the baker’s cart driving up the back entrance.”

I was almost disappointed by her matter-of-factness.

“You are so desperately unromantic,” I said impatiently. “You needn’t have pointed out the gardener and the baker!” And in my own mind I thought that I would keep my curiosity more to myself in the future. “I don’t believe Isabel would at all sympathise in any plan for getting to know these people!” but in this I did her injustice.

That very evening, just as it was beginning to get dusk, Isabel was called away by her father, as not infrequently happened, to do some writing for him. I was not inclined to stay indoors, so I ran upstairs to fetch my outdoor things, telling Isabel as I went, that I was going for a stroll on my own account, to pass the time that she was with her father.

Scarcely conscious of any intention of the kind, I turned nevertheless in the direction of the mysterious house. It was too late to have climbed up the hilly road referred to; besides, the fading light would have made it impossible to distinguish anything. So I contented myself with skirting the high wall of the grounds on the side nearer the Manor-house. I had walked about three-quarters of a mile, and was beginning to think it was time to return, when, standing still for a moment in consideration, I heard, in the perfect silence which seemed to pervade the locality, the sound of approaching footsteps. I glanced round, but no one was to be seen on the road, and as the steps drew nearer and more distinct, I became aware that they were those of some one on the inner side of the wall. I stood listening more and more intently, when, to my surprise and almost alarm, a figure appeared before me on the path, several yards beyond the spot I had reached. It was that of a person who had emerged from within; the fact being, though I was not then aware of it, that there was a door in the wall a little farther on.

Half confused, half frightened by this sudden apparition, I remained motionless, in what must have appeared a bewildered way to the newcomer. But before my fears had time to increase, the sound of a voice, unmistakably that of a gentleman, reassured me. Till he was close to me it was too dusky to distinguish his features clearly, but I saw him lift his hat as he approached.

“Excuse me,” he said. “May I ask if you have possibly seen a pocket-book on the path about here? I think I must have dropped it—not far off—an hour or two ago, and very few people pass this way.”

My curiosity, as well as my sympathy, was at once awakened.

“It must be,” I thought to myself, “one of the Greys. Perhaps they come out here more than is known, for a little change. How I wish I had found the pocket-book; it might have been an opening!”

But to him I could only reply—

“No, I am sorry I have seen nothing of the kind. It has been almost too dark, though, to see it, as I have only just now come straight up the road.”

Even now, close as we were, I could not distinguish his face very clearly, for the waning light was still further decreased by clouds. I saw, however, that he was anxious and worried, though, looking at him as attentively as I dared, I was surprised to see that he was not an elderly man, as from Isabel’s description the older brother must be.

“And it cannot be the younger,” I thought, “as he is crippled, and this man walks quite easily.”

He thanked me, and passing me, again raising his hat, walked quickly along the road, down which I was about to retrace my steps.

I waited a moment or two, and then followed him at a more leisurely pace. But I had not gone more than a hundred yards or so when I saw again his figure emerging from the gloom before me. In spite of myself I felt a little afraid. The modern ghost is so very material and commonplace in appearance, by all accounts, that one may easily mistake it for a real flesh and blood personality.

“Can this path be haunted?” I asked myself, and as the stranger came nearer I involuntarily shrank up a little towards the wall.

But as he was passing, the cheerful tones of his voice dispelled my misgivings. He made an almost imperceptible pause in his quick pace, exclaiming—

“I have found it! So sorry to have troubled you!” then hurried on, doubtless to enter the grounds at the same spot whence he had emerged, and where my common-sense told me there must be a door of some kind.

“I shall make Isabel come this way to-morrow to look for it,” I said to myself, and I hurried home, eager to relate to her my exciting adventure.

She was looking out for me, walking up and down the drive.

“I could have come with you if you had waited five minutes. Papa only wanted me for a moment or two, after all. It is rather too dark for you to be out alone, and I didn’t know which way you had gone,” she said.

“O Isabel!” I exclaimed. “Something so interesting has happened;” and I quickly related the incident, my friend listening attentively.

“Was it a Grey or a ghost?” I ended up half jokingly, but Isabel’s face was full of grave consideration.

“I neverheardof a ghost in or about the Grim House,” she said seriously. “But still less can I think it was one of the Grey brothers. The elder one isquiteold-looking, peculiarly worn and haggard, and the other, as I have told you, though he has a sweet, calm face, is an unmistakable cripple. He walks very slowly, and generally with a crutch.”

“It is very mysterious, then,” I replied, “though I shall not feel satisfied that it was not the elder brother till I have seen him for myself on Sunday. Do let me sit where I can have a good view of them, Isabel. I promise you I will peep at them most discreetly.”

Isabel smiled, but seemed nevertheless a little disapproving.

“I hope they won’t occupy your thoughts during the whole of church-time,” she said.

“No, no,” I replied. “Of course I wouldn’t let it be so. Though naturally what has happened this evening makes me more anxious than ever to see them.”

Fortunately for my peace of mind, this day was already Friday. I had not, therefore, long to wait. Millflowers church still belonged to the old order of things. There were two or three square pews, cushioned and curtained, for the “upper ten” of the village, one of which, of course, was appropriated to the Manor-house, and another to Grimsthorpe; and Isabel kindly arranged, not without some conscientious scruples, I fear, however, that I should occupy the corner whence the melancholy quartette could best be seen. She made a little plan of the church and the pews the evening before, for my benefit.

But without anything of this kind—almost, I think, without having been on the look-out for the denizens of the Grim House at all—they would, it seems to me, at once have attracted my attention. Indeed, at the first moment, I felt surprised that every one in the church did not turn round to look at them, forgetting the many years—years more than my whole existence—during which the solemn little procession of the four sad-faced people had, Sunday after Sunday, made their way up the aisle to the gloomy old pew. No—sad I can scarcely call them all, without making one exception. The face of the younger brother was, as Isabel had said, not only sweet, but calm and peaceful in expression, though he appeared pathetically delicate, with large soft eyes and almost colourless complexion.

“Heis not the guilty one, if guilty one there is,” I decided. “Heis not the cause of the family unhappiness and isolation. I should say he is a sort of saint, happy to bear for the sake of others.”

Then my eyes turned to the elder brother. The sisters I had already glanced at, and found them exactly what I had expected from Isabel’s description—refined, rather insignificant-looking, inexpressibly melancholy; but the face of the senior of the party was in a sense the most interesting of all. He was evidently a strong man, well-made and originally powerful. But his frame was prematurely bent, the lines of his fine features were worn and furrowed. It was a good face, but the expression had become almost fiercely defiant and hard.

I made up my mind on the spot—I think I am naturally gifted with a certain amount of insight into character and idiosyncrasies—I made up my mind on the spot that Isabel was mistaken.

“Itisthe elder brother,” I mentally ejaculated, “who is at the root of it all! He is the most miserable of the four, because he feels that he has brought their trouble upon them. But nevertheless it would be very difficult to believe that that man has ever done anything mean or dishonourable.” And I felt that the personal sight of the Grey family had to me only deepened the mystery. And then a sudden recollection flashed across my mind—the man I had met, the young man who had lost his pocket-book, wasnotone of the group in the square pew! Who was he? A ghost, after all?

I said so to Isabel, as, the service over, we walked home. The Greys, I noticed, left their places with the very first who quitted the church, and by the time we had reached the porch, the village fly containing them was already some little way along the road.

“They always do so,” said Isabel, as she pointed it out to me, “and the people have come to understand it and fall back a little to let them pass. But as to who it was that you met the other evening, I must own, Regina, I am completely puzzled. Suppose you tell papa about it and see what he says?”

Mr Wynyard was a little behind us, talking to Mr Franklin.

“Oh, no, no,” I exclaimed, putting out a hand to stop her, as I fancied she was turning towards her father, “oh,no, Isabel. You know your father hates gossip, and he would be sure to ask why I had chosen that lonely road, and we couldn’t help letting him see that Iamawfully interested in the Grim House; and then, if the least thing was said about our thinking the man was perhaps a ghost, he would never forget it—he would think itsosilly.” Isabel laughed, but yielded to my wishes.

“Papa is not nearly as prosaic and prim as you think,” she said. “But I am quite sure it wasn’t a ghost, Regina.”

“Then how did he get through the wall?” I inquired.

She shook her head.

“I can’t say,” she replied. “There may be a door there. As far as I remember, the wall at that part is a good deal overgrown with ivy. And the door, if there is one, is pretty certainly very seldom used, so it may be almost invisible.”

“Let us go that way to-morrow and look,” I suggested, to which Isabel assented. “Though all the same,” I added regretfully, “if there were a dozen doors, that would not explain what the man was doing at the Grim House, or what has become of him.”

“He may have been a tax-collector,” said Isabel provokingly. She could be mischievous now and then.

“Nonsense!” I replied. “He was unmistakably agentleman, as I have told you. And after all, they have had visitors, as you know.”

“Yes, but they came openly, and were driven to and from the station. If thiswerea visitor, he has managed to come and go in a most mysterious way. No, it is much more likely to have been a tax-collector. You could not see him plainly, you know.”

“Would a man like that have a private key for a private door?” I said. “Don’t be so silly, Zella.”

“Well, we need not quarrel about it till we are sure thereisa door,” Isabel replied good-humouredly. “In the meantime, tell me what you think of the poor Greys, now that you have seen them for yourself?”

“Iwilltell you,” I replied impressively. “To begin with, the sisters are just what you said; they must have been pretty, one of them at least, in a fair, gentle way, and the younger brother’s face is almost saintly. I have got those three pretty clearly defined. But,”—and here my voice deepened, I feel sure—“theone is the elder brother! He is at the bottom of it all;” and I went on to mention what I had noticed in his expression and bearing. “Don’t you remember my telling you so even before I had any reason for it? It was an intuition.”

Isabel seemed considerably impressed.

“Yes,” she replied. “I do remember what you said; but you know, Regina, you do give the reins to your imagination sometimes, and I, I suppose, am very matter-of-fact. So you see I didn’t think very much of your idea, as you had thennogrounds for it. But now I allow that itdoesseem probable Mr Grey’s face is all you say; it tells of cruel struggle, and endurance too, while the others rather express patience and resignation. He must—the elder one, I mean—have been very good-looking.”

“He has a very high-bred look,” I agreed. “But, Isabel, who can my stranger have been? Is it possible that there is a fifth member of the party who is kept dark altogether?”

Isabel shook her head.

“Quite impossible, I should say; besides, the man you met was young. He could not have been reared up there from boyhood.”

“He may have joined them lately,” I said; but on reflection I decided that even this was improbable. “No,” I went on, “I am sure he does not live there. There was a cheery, open-air sound in his voice. I think he was very nice-looking. Tall and a very good figure, that I am sure of.”

Suddenly Isabel gave a little exclamation.

“What’s the matter?” I cried.

“Only something that has just struck me,” was the reply. “How stupid of me not to have thought of it before. I do believe that your man, Regina, was the younger of the two visitors who came to the Grim House not long ago!”

“Why should you think so?” I asked, a little desirous perhaps that mytrouvailleshould be entirely my own. “Especially as you said yourself that the others came and went openly?”

“I don’t quite know,” said Isabel slowly. “It was something in your way of describing him just now that seemed to recall the man who asked me the way to the church.”

Fortunately perhaps, at this moment Mr Wynyard overtook us, and our thoughts, which were becoming too absorbed in the mysterious subject, were for the time being distracted. Not for very long, however. The next morning found us, as we had planned, starting off on a search expedition.

The door in the wall was the object of our quest, and on the way to the spot where it must be, if it existed at all, I pointed out to Isabel the exact place where I had met the stranger, and the distance down the road that he had gone to look for his lost property.

“You see,” I explained, “if he were a ghost, this would be of importance, for everybody knows that ghosts are restricted to certain limits; and after all, dusk though it was, it was rather curious that I had not noticed the pocket-book, which seemed a pretty big one, as he waved it in his hand.”

“I can’t say that what you tell of him sounds at all ghost-like,” said Isabel. “He was too prosaic surely! However, what we have to do is to find if the door was a material reality or not.”

“If it isn’t,” I said emphatically, “I shall be certain he was not a real person. And if so, there must be some legend about this path which we must set to work to disinter.”

My heart beat rather faster than usual as we approached the place in the wall whence the unknown man seemed to come out, and for a few minutes our search was unsuccessful. No door was to be seen. The growth of ivy was very thick just there. I stood back a little at last, and surveyed the wall from a short distance, and at one spot it seemed to me that there was a slight break in the line. I kept my eye as closely as possible fixed on this spot while I approached it, and pushed gently against the ivy with my hand.

Yes, I had not been mistaken; but I got a start as I suddenly felt what seemed a bit of the wall itself yielding to my touch. I started back with a little exclamation which brought Isabel to my side.

“What is it?” she exclaimed. “Have you found it?”

“I have found something,” I said, and on examining more closely, it proved to be the suspected door, overgrown with ivy indeed, practically indistinguishable from the outside, but in good order nevertheless, moving on its hinges smoothly and noiselessly.

It opened inwards of course, and, strange to say, it was open, as has been shown.

“I wonder if he forgot to lock it,” I said, “or if it is always left unfastened.”

I pushed it farther ajar as I spoke, Isabel pressing forward eagerly.

“Now,” I said triumphantly, “we shall get a peep inside the enchanted ground. Thisisa ‘find’ of mine. Confess, Zella, that I have done more in a few days towards unearthing the mystery than you in twice as many years.”

But Isabel looked too frightened to take the matter lightly.

“Don’t speak so loud, Regina,” she said in a half whisper; “some one may be near us, inside.”

She was quite pale with excitement, yet, timid though she was, her curiosity, as well as mine, was thoroughly awakened.

“We may as well glance in,” she went on, “if we are very, very careful. Just give a look round, Regina,” and she drew back to allow me to do so.

I obeyed her cautiously. All seemed safe; there was no one in view or within hearing.

“It is all right,” I said, withdrawing my head; “we may go in a few steps, I am sure, without danger.”

“Well, first draw-to the door a little,” said Isabel sensibly, “for fear of any passer-by noticing that it is open.”

When we found ourselves fairly within the grounds, we looked at each other before we looked at anything else. I could not repress a half-nervous laugh.

“Don’t you feel like a detective or a conspirator?” I said.

Isabel grew still more frightened.

“Oh, ifyouare going to begin to feel like that,” she exclaimed, “we had better go back at once. I am trembling so that I can scarcely stand.”

I was very far from wishing her to put her threat into execution, so I at once hid my nervousness and replied lightly, though still speaking in low tones—

“You are too silly! Who could blame us for glancing inside an open garden-door? And at worst, you have never said that the Grim House people were at all ogreish! See there, Isabel; do let us go as far as that clump of bushes. I have an idea that from behind them we could see the house.”

I walked on a few steps boldly, my companion following me more leisurely. My idea was correct, as we rounded the clump in question, we did come into view of the house, and—of something else too.

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