Perhaps the parting with the two dogs was as bitter as any, for, as if

they knew quite well that she was going, they clung closely to her, and

when she hugged them and kissed them on the forehead, they had to be

dragged off by Jason, and locked up in the stables lest they should

follow the carriage which was to bear their beloved mistress away.

That carriage came all too soon, though Mr. John Heron had awaited its

arrival impatiently and with watch in hand. He seemed grimmer and

gaunter than ever that morning, and as he looked around the great Hall,

he shook his head at its faded grandeur reprehensively, as if he could,

if time permitted, deliver a sermon on the prodigality, the wicked

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wastefulness, which had brought ruin on the house, and rendered it

necessary for him to extend his charity to the penniless orphan.

Mr. Wordley was there to say good-bye to Ida and put her into the

carriage; but it proved a difficult good-bye to say, and for once the

usually fluent old lawyer was bereft of the power of speech as he held

Ida's small hand, and looked through tear-dimmed eyes at the white and

sorrowful face. He had intended to say all sorts of kind and

encouraging things, but he could only manage the two words, "Good-bye;"

and they were almost inaudible.

She sank back into the carriage as it drove away from the Hall, and

closed her eyes that she might not see the familiar trees in the

avenue, the cattle, everyone of which she knew by name, grazing in the

meadow, the pale and woe-begone faces of the servants who stood by the

steps to catch the last glimpse of their beloved; and for some time her

eyes remained closed; but they opened as she came to the clearing by

the lake, from which one could see the long stretching façade of Sir

Stephen Orme's white villa. She opened them then and looked at the

house, wondering whether Stafford was there, wondering why he had not

come to her, despite the promise she had exacted from him; wondering

whether he knew that her father was dead, and that she was left

penniless.

She was not capable of any more tears, and a dull apathy crushed down

upon her, so that she did not notice that at the station Mr. John Heron

improved the occasion, as he would have put it, by distributing tracts

to the station-master and porters. The journey to London passed as if

it were made in a dream; and wearied in mind and body and soul, she

found herself, late in the evening, standing in the centre of the

Heron's dreary drawing-room, awaiting her reception by the Heron

family.




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