husband he had come to seek; it was with him that his reckoning was to be
made; and any meeting between Marian and himself was more likely to prove
a hindrance to this reckoning than otherwise. But the temptation to seize
the chance of seeing her again was too much for him. Whatever hazard
there might be to his scheme of vengeance in such an encounter slipped
out of his mind before the thought of looking once more at that idolised
face, of hearing the loved voice once again. The woman hesitated for a
few moments, telling Gilbert that Mrs. Holbrook never had visitors, and
she did not know whether she would like to see him; but on his
administering half-a-crown through the scroll-work of the gate, she put
the key in the lock and admitted him. He followed her along the
moss-grown path to a wide wooden porch, over which the ivy hung like a
voluminous curtain, and through a half-glass door into a low roomy hall,
with massive dark oak-beams across the ceiling, and a broad staircase of
ecclesiastical aspect leading to a gallery above. The house had evidently
been a place of considerable grandeur and importance in days gone by; but
everything in it bore traces of neglect and decay. The hall was dark and
cold, the wide fire-place empty, the iron dogs red with rust. Some sacks
of grain were stored in one corner, a rough carpenter's bench stood under
one of the mullioned windows, and some garden-seeds were spread out to
dry in another.

The woman opened a low door at the end of this hall, and ushered Gilbert
into a sitting-room with three windows looking out upon a Dutch
bowling-green, a quadrangle of smooth turf shut in by tall hedges of
holly. The room was empty, and the visitor had ample leisure to examine
it while the woman went to seek Mrs. Holbrook.

It was a large room with a low ceiling, and a capacious old-fashioned
fire-place, where a rather scanty fire was burning in a dull slow way.