Cecil therefore had seen none of the family till she arrived at Compton.  She was perfectly well, she said, and had become a great walker, and so, indeed, she showed herself, for she went out directly after breakfast every morning, and never appeared again till luncheon time; and would take long rides in the afternoon.  “It was her only chance of sleep,” she said, when remonstrated with.  She did not look ill, but there was a restless, worn air that was very distressing on her young features, and was the more piteous to her relations, that she was just as constrained as ever in her intercourse with them.  She was eagerly attentive to Mrs. Poynsett, and evidently so anxious to wait on her that Anne left to her many little services, but if they were alone together, they were tongue-tied, and never went deeper than surface subjects.  Mrs. Poynsett never discussed her, never criticized her, never attempted to fathom her, being probably convinced that there was nothing but hard coldness to be met with by probing.  Yet there was something striking in Cecil’s having made people call her Mrs. Raymond Poynsett, surrendering the Charnock, which she had once brandished in all their faces, and going by the name by which her husband had been best known.

To Anne she was passively friendly, and neither gave nor sought confidences, and Anne was so much occupied with her baby, and all the little household services that had grown on her, as well as with her busy husband, that there was little leisure for them; and though the meeting with Rosamond was at first the most effusive and affectionate of all, afterwards she seemed to avoid tetes-a-tetes with her, and was shyer with her than with Anne.

It was Miles that she got on with best.  He had never so fully realized the unhappiness of his brother’s married life as those who had watched it; and he simply viewed her as Raymond’s loved and loving widow and sincere mourner, and treated her with all brotherly tenderness and reverence for her grief; while she responded with a cordiality and gratitude which made her, when talking to him, a pleasanter person than she had ever been seen at Compton before.

But it was not to Miles, but to Rosamond, that she brought an earnest question, walking in one autumn morning to the Rectory, amid the falling leaves of the Virginian-creeper, and amazing Rosamond, who was writing against time for the Indian mail, by asking—­

“Rosamond, will you find out if Mrs. Poynsett would mind my coming to live at Sirenwood?”

“You, Cecil!”

“Yes, I’m old enough.  There’s no place for me at home, and though I must be miserable anywhere, it will be better where I have something to do, of some real use to somebody.  I’ve been walking all round every day, and seeing what a state it is in—­in the hands of creditors all these years.”

“But you would be quite alone!”

“I am quite alone as it is.”

“And would your father consent?”