Part 32 (2/2)

”Four or five miles maybe. But, Clem, you don't mean--” She stared into his face by the wan light of the Aurora reflected from the snow.

Reading his resolve, she became practical at once. ”Stay here and don't stir,” she commanded, ”while I creep back to the larder and forage.”

Dawn overtook them at the lodge-gates of Damelioc; a still dawn, with a clear, steel-blue sky and the promise of a crisp, bright day. It had been freezing all night, and was freezing still; the snow as yet lay like a fine powder, and so impetuously had they hurried, hand in hand, that along the uplands they scarcely felt the edge of the windless air.

But here in the valley bottom, under the trees beside the stream, they pa.s.sed into a different atmosphere, and s.h.i.+vered. Here, too, for the first half-mile--road and sward being covered alike with snow--Myra had much ado to steer, and would certainly have missed her way but for the black tumbling stream on her right. She knew that the drive ran roughly parallel with it, and never more than a few paces distant from its brink.

Twice in her life she had journeyed with her grandmother in high June to Lady Killiow's rose-show, and she remembered being allowed to kneel on the cus.h.i.+ons of the 'car' and wonder at the miniature bridges and cascades.

By keeping close beside the water she could not go wrong.

They halted by a bridge below the lake where the woods divided to right and left at the foot of the great home-park. A cold fog lay over the water and the reedy islands where the wild duck and moorhens were just beginning to stir, but above it a glint or two of suns.h.i.+ne touched the wintry boughs, and while it grew and ran along them and lit up their snowy upper surfaces as with diamonds, a full morning beam smote on the facade of the house itself, high above the slope, uplifted above the fog as it were a heavenly palace raised upon a base of cloud.

Daunted by the vision, Myra glanced at Clem. His face was lifted towards the sunlight.

”The house!” she whispered. ”Oh, Clem, it's ever so much grander than I remembered!” She began to describe it to him, while they divided and munched the crusts she had fetched from Susannah's bread-pan.

”If her palace is as fine as that,” said Clem, with great cheerfulness, ”she must be a very great lady, and can easily do what we want.”

They took hands again and mounted the curving drive to the terrace and the cavernous _porte-cochere_, where hung a bell-pull so huge that Myra had to clasp it in both hands and drag upon it with all her weight. Far in the bowels of the house a bell clanged, deep and hollow-voiced as for a funeral.

A footman answered it--a young giant in blue livery and powder.

Flinging wide the vast door, he stared down upon the visitors, and his Olympian haughtiness gave way to a broad grin.

”Well, I'm jiggered!” said the footman.

”You may be jiggered or not,” answered Myra, with sudden _aplomb_ (a moment before, she had been ready to run), ”but we wish to see Lady Killiow. Will you announce us, please?”

Two hours later, when the sun had risen above the trees, Sir George Dinham came riding up through Damelioc Park. He too came to right a wrong, having given his promise to Mr. Benny overnight. He rode slowly, pondering. On his way he noted the footprints of two children on the snow, except by them untrodden; marked how they wandered off here and there toward the stream, but ever returned, regained the way, and held on for Damelioc. He wondered what they might mean.

Lady Killiow received him in her morning-room. She wore a bonnet and a long cloak of sables, and was obviously dressed for a drive. She rose from before her writing-table, where she was sealing a letter.

”I interrupt you?” said Sir George as they shook hands, and glancing out of the window he had a glimpse of the heads of a pair of restless bays.

Unheard by him--the snow lying six inches deep before the porch--Lady Killiow's carriage had come round from the stables a minute after his arrival.

”But if I guess your errand,” she said, ”I was merely about to forestall it. I am driving to Bodmin.”

”You knew nothing, then, of this poor old creature's case?”

”My friend, I hope that you too have only just discovered it, or you would have warned me.”

”I heard of it last night for the first time. Rosewarne alone is responsible for the prosecution?”

”He only.” She nodded towards the letter on the writing-table.

”I have asked him to attend here when I return, and explain himself.

Meanwhile--”

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