The
delicate feathers were wet and spoiled by the night dew, and she took
them from the fragile hat and flung them away. Her thin, white dress
was heavy with the damp, and clung round her like a shroud. But she had
not felt the chilling night winds.
Lady Eversleigh groped her way down the winding staircase, which was
dark even in the daytime--except here and there, where a gap in the
wall let in a patch of light upon the gloomy stones.
Under the archway she met the countryman, who uttered a cry on
beholding the white, phantom-like figure.
"Oh, Loard!" he cried, when he had recovered from his terror; "I ask
pardon, my lady, but danged if I didn't teak thee for a ghaist."
"You did not know, when you went away last night, that there was any
one in the tower?"
"No, indeed, my lady. I'd been away for a few minutes look'n' arter a
bit of peg I've got in a shed down yander; and when I keame back to let
down th' drawbridge, I didn't sing out to ax if there wur any one in
th' old too-wer, for t'aint often as there be any one at that time of
night."
"Tell me the way to the nearest village," cried Honoria. "I want to get
some conveyance to take me to Raynham."
"Then you had better go to Edgington, ma'am. That's four miles from
here--on t' Raynham ro-ad."
The man pointed out the way to the village of which he spoke; and Lady
Eversleigh set forth across the wide expanse of moorland alone.
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