"I have never seen the faces of my dead in any dream," I answered.
"Then it must be as bad as being blind."
The sun had dipped behind the woods and the long shades were possessing
the insolent horsemen one by one. I saw the light die from off the top of
a glossy-leaved lance and all the brave hard green turn to soft black. The
house, accepting another day at end, as it had accepted an hundred
thousand gone, seemed to settle deeper into its rest among the shadows.
"Have you ever wanted to?" she said after the silence.
"Very much sometimes," I replied. The child had left the window as the
shadows closed upon it.
"Ah! So've I, but I don't suppose it's allowed. ... Where d'you live?"
"Quite the other side of the county--sixty miles and more, and I must be
going back. I've come without my big lamp."
"But it's not dark yet. I can feel it."
"I'm afraid it will be by the time I get home. Could you lend me someone
to set me on my road at first? I've utterly lost myself."
"I'll send Madden with you to the cross-roads. We are so out of the world,
I don't wonder you were lost! I'll guide you round to the front of the
house; but you will go slowly, won't you, till you're out of the grounds?
It isn't foolish, do you think?"
"I promise you I'll go like this," I said, and let the car start herself
down the flagged path.
We skirted the left wing of the house, whose elaborately cast lead
guttering alone was worth a day's journey; passed under a great rose-grown
gate in the red wall, and so round to the high front of the house which in
beauty and stateliness as much excelled the back as that all others I had
seen.
Pages:
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299