“How do you do, Mr. Fairfax?” said Miss Kitwater, giving me her hand as she spoke.  “It is kind indeed of you to come down.  I hope you have good news for us?”

[Illustration:  “‘HOW DO YOU DO, MR. FAIRFAX?’ SAID MISS KITWATER.”]

“I am inclined to consider it good news myself,” I said.  “I hope you will think so too.”

She did not question me further about it then, but asking me to excuse her for a moment, stepped over the little plot of ground where her dear ones lay, and plucked some of the dead leaves from the flowers that grew upon it.  To my thinking she was just what an honest English girl should be; straight-forward and gentle, looking the whole world in the face with frank and honourable simplicity.  When she had finished her labour of love, which only occupied her a few moments, she suggested that we should stroll on to her house.

“My uncle will be wondering what has become of me,” she said, “and he will also be most anxious to see you.”

“He does not accompany you to church then?”

“No,” she answered.  “He is so conscious of his affliction that he cannot bear it to be remarked.  He usually stays at home and walks up and down a path in the garden, brooding, I am afraid, over his treatment by Mr. Hayle.  It goes to my heart to see him.”

“And Mr. Codd?”

“He, poor little man, spends most of his time reading such works on Archaeology as he can obtain.  It is his one great study, and I am thankful he has such a hobby to distract his mind from his own trouble.”

“Their coming to England must have made a great change in your life,” I remarked.

“It has made a difference,” she answered.  “But one should not lead one’s life exactly to please one’s self.  They were in sore distress, and I am thankful that they came to me, and that I had the power to help them.”

This set me thinking.  She spoke gravely, and I knew that she meant what she said.  But underlying it there was a suggestion that, for some reason or another, she had not been altogether favourably impressed by her visitors.  Whether I was right in my suppositions I could not tell then, but I knew that I should in all probability be permitted a better opportunity of judging later on.  We crossed the little bridge, and passed along the high road for upwards of a mile, until we found ourselves standing at the entrance to one of the prettiest little country residences it has even been my lot to find.  A drive, some thirty yards or so in length, led up to the house and was shaded by overhanging trees.  The house itself was of two stories and was covered by creepers.  The garden was scrupulously neat, and I fancied that I could detect its mistress’s hand in it.  Shady walks led from it in various directions, and at the end of one of these I could discern a tall, restless figure, pacing up and down.

“There is my uncle,” said the girl, referring to the figure I have just described.  “That is his sole occupation.  He likes it because it is the only part of the garden in which he can move about without a guide.  How empty and hard his life must seem to him, now, Mr. Fairfax?”