After leaving the house they continued their walk up the hill, and then turned off to the left on the high road from Hanbridge to Moorthorne. The venerable but not dignified town lay below them, a huddled medley of brown brick under a thick black cloud of smoke. The gold angel of the town-hall gleamed in the evening light, and the dark, squat tower of the parish church, sole relic of the past stood out grim and obdurate amid the featureless buildings which surrounded it. To the north and east miles of moorland, defaced by collieries and murky hamlets, ran to the horizon. Across the great field at their feet a figure slouched along, past the abandoned pit-shafts. They both recognised the man.
“There’s Willie Price going home!” said Mynors.
“He looks tired,” she said. She was relieved that they had not met him at the house.
“I say,” Mynors began earnestly, after a pause, “why shouldn’t we get married soon, since the old gentleman seems rather to expect it? He’s been rather awkward lately, hasn’t he?”
This was the only reference made by Mynors to her father’s temper. She nodded. “How soon?” she asked.
“Well, I was just thinking. Suppose, for the sake of argument, this house turns out all right. I couldn’t get it thoroughly done up much before the middle of January—couldn’t begin till these people had moved. Suppose we said early in February?”
“Yes!”
“Could you be ready by that time?”
“Oh, yes,” she answered, “I could be ready.”
“Well, why shouldn’t we fix February, then?”
“There’s the question of Agnes,” she said.
“Yes; and there will always be the question of Agnes. Your father will have to get a housekeeper. You and I will be able to see after little Agnes, never fear.” So, with tenderness in his voice, he reassured her on that point.
“Why not February?” she reflected. “Why not tomorrow, as father wants me out of the house?”
It was agreed.
“I’ve taken the Priory, subject to your approval,” Henry said, less than a fortnight later. From that time he invariably referred to the place as the Priory.
It was on the very night after this eager announcement that the approaching tragedy came one step nearer. Beatrice, in a modest evening-dress, with a white cloak—excited, hurried, and important—ran in to speak to Anna. The carriage was waiting outside. She and her father and mother had to attend a very important dinner at the mayor’s house at Hillport, in connection with Mr. Sutton’s impending mayoralty. Old Sarah Vodrey had just sent down a girl to say that she was unwell, and would be grateful if Mrs. Sutton or Beatrice would visit her. It was a most unreasonable time for such a summons, but Sarah was a fidgety old crotchet, and knew how frightfully good-natured Mrs. Sutton was. Would Anna mind going up to Toft End? And would Anna come out to the carriage and personally assure Mrs. Sutton that old Sarah should be attended to? If not, Beatrice was afraid her mother would take it into her head to do something stupid.
“It’s very good of you, Anna,” said Mrs. Sutton, when Anna went outside with Beatrice. “But I think I’d better go myself. The poor old thing may feel slighted if I don’t, and Beatrice can well take my place at this affair at Hillport, which I’ve no mind for.” She was already half out of the carriage.
“Nothing of the kind,” said Anna firmly, pushing her back. “I shall be delighted to go and do what I can.”
“That’s right, Anna,” said the Alderman from the darkness of the carriage, where his shirtfront gleamed; “Bee said you’d go, and we’re much obliged to ye.”
“I expect it will be nothing,” said Beatrice, as the vehicle drove off; “Sarah has served mother this trick before now.”
As Anna opened the garden-gate of the Priory she discerned a figure amid the rank bushes, which had been allowed to grow till they almost met across the narrow path leading to the front door of the house. It was a thick and mysterious night—such a night as death chooses; and Anna jumped in vague terror at the apparition.
“Who’s there?” said a voice sharply.
“It’s me,” said Anna. “Miss Vodrey sent down to ask Mrs. Sutton to come up and see her, but Mrs. Sutton had an engagement, so I came instead.”
The figure moved forward; it was Willie Price. He peered into her face, and she could see the mortal pallor of his cheeks.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, “it’s Miss Tellwright, is it? Will ye come in, Miss Tellwright?”
She followed him with beating heart, alarmed, apprehensive. The front door stood wide open, and at the far end of the gloomy passage a faint light shone from the open door of the kitchen. “This way,” he said. In the large, bare, stone-floored kitchen Sarah Vodrey sat limp and with closed eyes in an old rocking-chair close to the fireless range. The window, which gave on to the street, was open; through that window Sarah, in her extremity, had called the child who ran down to Mrs. Sutton’s. On the deal table were a dirty cup and saucer, a teapot, bread, butter, and a lighted candle—sole illumination of the chamber.
“I come home, and I find this,” he said.
Daunted for a moment by the scene of misery, Anna could say nothing.
“I find this,” he repeated, as if accusing God of spitefulness; and he lifted the candle to show the apparently insensible form of the woman. Sarah’s wrinkled and seamed face had the flush of fever, and the features were drawn into the expression of a terrible anxiety; her hands hung loose; she breathed like
