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It was their whim to be married in the little chapel of the Grange, which was to be cleaned and furnished for the occasion. Mrs Barlow and the maids worked diligently to scour and polish.

The gardens were searched for trophies of the late summer to deck the altar. There was not much to be found, only late marigolds, St Michael’s daisies, and a few spears of tawny lilies.

‘Not like bridal flowers,’ grumbled Mrs Barlow, who disliked the marriage and the bride, and had nothing but fear for the bridegroom. It was all ill-omened, she said, and seemed more like the fulfilling of the curse on the Grange than anything else, and unnatural that Sir William should be married in this hole-and-corner fashion so far from his friends and his usual company.

And as for Julia Roseingrave, no one had ever imagined that she would marry at all. A sly, ambitious hussy she must have been, Mrs Barlow thought, who had waited patiently with her air of decorum and virtue for so long, ready to pounce on the first likely man who came her way. And lucky she had been to have found such a chance as that of a marriage with Sir William Notley!

Miss Roseingrave had few preparations to make for her marriage. As soon as she was Sir William’s wife she intended to leave Holcot Grange and all the surrounding country, and leave it for ever. But at the present moment, a certain sloth and languor enveloped her, and she could not endure to make the long journey necessary to procure herself a fine wedding gown.

She therefore turned over the ancient garments belonging to her mother that she had stored in a press in her bedchamber. These were tarnished, and some even rent. She discovered one of rich white silk which greatly took her fancy, but it fell to pieces in her hand. So she resolved to be married in the gown of cowslip-coloured silk embroidered with the purple black violets.

What did it matter?—the few who would be present at her wedding knew her so well that she could not hope to impress them. And her bridegroom would care little what her garments were.

Three days before her wedding day she sat at the window sewing ruffles, which Mother Cloke had washed, mended and ironed, on to the wrists and bosom of this gown. Her mother lay on a couch in this same chamber and regarded her daughter secretly from under the shade of her frilled cambric cap.

Miss Roseingrave believed that her mother understood very well all about her marriage. She had told her in clear, deliberate tones and a slight convulsion had passed over the paralysed face of the dumb woman, as if she understood that she was to be left to the care of the herb woman while her daughter went far away out into the varying world that she herself had left so long ago.

Phoebe had certainly understood, for her mind had been quite clear of late, as it often was for months together, and when she heard that her sister was going away she had danced and clapped her hands above her head, upon which Miss Roseingrave had smiled at Mother Cloke, who had said: ‘Ungrateful, and after all your kindness.’

‘Those poor, simple creatures read the heart,’ replied Miss Julia calmly, ‘and I have never felt any kindness to her nor to my mother. Indeed, I often wonder what induced me to spend such long years with these two poor wretches.’

Looking up now from her fine sewing Miss Julia smiled and nodded across the green shade of the room. The chamber had a look as if it were under water by reason of the shadows of the trees without.

‘Are you glad, Mother, that I am making this splendid and marvelous match and going far away? Perhaps you, like Phoebe, would clap your hands if you had the use of them, to be rid of me. It will make little difference to you, I think, whether or no I am gone, for the herb woman will look after you quite well.’

But though the words in themselves were gentle and even affectionate, Miss Julia’s looks at the afflicted woman were keen and even mocking and Mrs Roseingrave dropped her eyelids and again that convulsion passed over her distorted face, as if she felt, like a stab in the heart, the harsh unkindness of her daughter.

There was a knock at the door, and Miss Julia’s smooth, triumphant face clouded.

‘That is Sir William, and I told him not to come. I shall be staled in his regard before we are married,’ she added vexedly, and put down her sewing and descended the small stairs.

It was not her lover who stood under the ripening berries of the woodbine, but a stranger and a woman.

‘Are you Miss Roseingrave?’

The accents were timid and accompanied by a gesture of clasped hands, almost like a supplication.

‘I am she, madam.’

‘Then perhaps you will let me come into your house. This is the Dower House of Holcot Grange, is it not?’

‘It is so, madam.’

‘Let me come into your house,’ pursued the stranger with an increasing difficulty, as if she were faint and exhausted, ‘to speak to you a little while. Perhaps, too, you will give me shelter for the night, for I have nowhere else to go.’

‘Madam, there is an inn in the village,’ said Miss Roseingrave, courteously, but not moving from the open door, ‘and it is not so many miles, and an easy walk through the shadows of the woods.’

‘I do not wish to go there,’ said the stranger, in a low and humble voice; ‘I want a woman’s support and succour. I have travelled a long way today and I am very fatigued. I pray you, of your charity, allow me a little repose in your parlour.’

At that, Miss Roseingrave stood aside, and the other woman passed her with a deep sigh. She was young and very fair. There was dust on her shoes and bonnet. She walked heavily and Julia Roseingrave felt a ready contempt for her as she motioned her into the parlour where a large jar of tall foxgloves with spotted throats wide open and half-bursting seed pods hanging from the lower portion of the stems, stood in the centre of the table.

Miss Roseingrave offered the exhausted stranger a seat, and at the same time told her briefly that she was burdened with the care of an invalid mother and an imbecile sister, and was herself occupied with preparations for sudden departure, therefore she feared, whatever the lady’s circumstances, she could be of little help.

‘Yes, I know about your mother and sister, Miss Roseingrave,’ said the stranger meekly. ‘I was told about them at a cottage where I inquired, and that is really why I came to you. I thought that you must be a very good and gentle woman, living here so long with such a task. “Surely,” I said to myself, “this lady will help me.” But I shall not long trespass on your time or your good humour. Holcot Grange is my destination, and I should not in any case have delayed here long.’

‘Holcot Grange,’ repeated Miss Roseingrave, peering at the other behind the topmost spikes of the foxgloves.

‘Yes, the truth is, Miss Roseingrave, that I have come to speak to my husband.’

‘Madam, you will not find him at the Grange. This is a very solitary place.’

‘Oh,’ exclaimed the lady, in a tone of deep disappointment, and rising in her agitation, ‘did not Sir William Notley come here a few weeks ago?’

‘Yes, madam, Sir William Notley, but you said your husband?’

‘Sir William is my husband,’ said the lady.

Miss Roseingrave remained rigid, peering through the topmost branch of the foxgloves.

A sudden panic of unnameable terror set the other woman crying out. It was like the impotent buzzing of a fly who realises that he is caught in the web.

‘Oh, I will go, I beg you not to concern yourself’. Indeed, I was distracted, or I should not have disturbed you! I will go at once to the Grange.’

She tried to escape from the room, but Miss Roseingrave moved swiftly before the door.

‘It were better for all of us, madam, if you were to tell me your story first. Perhaps, indeed, I can help you.’

‘I would rather be gone,’ protested the other, but Miss Roseingrave dominated her without much trouble, and motioned her back to the chintz seat in the window-place, and bade her tell her tale.

‘I have been married five years, Miss Roseingrave, and we have two little children. He certainly has neglected me very much of late, and been wild and getting into bad company and I have been unhappy. But he is my husband always, and the man whom I love, and when he fled from town some weeks ago I could not endure it but must make enquiries as to his whereabouts. There was a friend of his who was in his confidence, and who would solace me, and told me where he was, but said I had best leave him alone, so I wrote several times and had no answer. Then I thought how strange and dreadful it was that he should be so far away and I know nothing of what was happening to him. So I decided to come to Holcot Grange and find him for myself.

‘Perhaps he is repentant,’ said Miss Roseingrave.

‘Ah, I should not use that word, it is cruel. And, after all, he did little harm on the night of the masquerade. It was another who struck the fatal blow.’

‘Does anyone know that you have come here, Lady Notley?’ asked Miss Roseingrave.

‘Indeed no, madam, I dared tell none, for I knew that all would endeavour to prevent me, so I came secretly and travelled without incident. I have plenty of money. I left the coach three hours ago, and have been walking ever since. I had only to enquire my way once.’

‘Why did you not, madam, go directly to the Grange?’

‘I do not know. My courage failed me, I suppose. He can be very violent and dreadful. And I believe,’ the tears lay in her gentle eyes, ‘that he has long since ceased to care much for me, Miss Roseingrave. Perhaps he will resent that I have followed him, and so I asked if there was any about here with whom I could stay a little first to repose myself, and you were named.’

‘You have done well, Lady Notley,’ said Miss Roseingrave. ‘It is true that Sir William is at the Grange, and has lived there very quietly, and seen no one but Mr Morley of Griffinshaws, the steward. I know nothing at all of his history, and indeed have seen him but seldom, and I shall be very pleased if you will come up to my room and rest. I will make you a dish of tea and you may bathe your hands and face and raise your spirits before you visit your husband.’

Lady Notley thanked Miss Roseingrave warmly and went upstairs eagerly enough, for indeed she was much fatigued, both by hard and unusual travelling and by the alternate elation and depression of her spirits. With a sigh of relief she stretched herself on Miss Roseingrave’s narrow bed with the dimity coverlet, and, expressing her deep thankfulness for so much kindness, was soon asleep.

Miss Roseingrave looked at her keenly. She was a very fair woman, and if she were happy, might indeed be most beautiful.

Miss Roseingrave opened the bag that the strange lady had brought with her and found within it a miniature of Sir William Notley, a little packet of love letters, several rings, plenty of money, and two little drawings of young children in a book made of white satin.

Miss Roseingrave put all these objects carefully back in their place and went downstairs to the kitchen, where Mother Cloke was crimping and goffering a white dress for Phoebe to wear on the wedding-day.

‘Mother Cloke,’ said Miss Roseingrave, carefully closing the kitchen door, ‘his wife has come searching for him. She is upstairs asleep now. They have two children.’

‘His wife?’ said Mother Cloke, in a whistling whisper. ‘Why, it is some impostor, surely.’

‘She is too much a baby fool to be an impostor,’ said Miss Julia. ‘I am a fool, too. I should have known from the readiness with which he agreed to our marriage that I was being deceived.’

Mother Cloke was frightened by her calmness.

‘He is indeed a wicked man, Miss Roseingrave. You have been sorely deceived. What are you going to do?’

‘She is wholly in my power,’ said Miss Julia calmly. ‘Though you could not help me to a love potion, Goody Cloke, I suppose there is another matter in which you could assist very well.’

The glances of the two women met, then Mother Cloke said, fearfully:

‘Hush, Miss Phoebe is in the closet, eating cherry preserve, which I have given her to keep her quiet. She will have overheard every word of what we have said.’

‘What does that matter, Goody Cloke? She understands nothing.’

But the herb woman was frightened, for she knew that the idiot girl did very often understand quite well what was said. In the rest of her conversation with Miss Roseingrave she lowered her voice, the two of them bending close together over the table, where lay the dainty piles of clear starched and goffered frocks and aprons and caps.