“I heard company in the front room, so I came round here till they were gone.”

“You are not usually shy,” said Sophia.

Eliza sat down on a chair by the wall.  With the door wide open the yard seemed a part of the kitchen.  It was a pleasant place.  The birch tree flicked its shadow as far as the much-worn wooden doorstep.

“I was very sorry to hear about last night, Miss Sophia,” said Eliza, sincerely, meaning that she was sorry on Winifred’s account more immediately.

“Yes,” said Sophia, acknowledging that there was reason for such sympathy.

“Is that Principal Trenholme talking?” asked Eliza.  The talk in the sitting-room came through the loose door, and a doubt suddenly occurred to her.

“No; it’s his brother,” said Sophia.

“The voices are alike.”

“Yes; but the two men don’t seem to be much alike.”

“I didn’t know he had a brother.”

“Didn’t you?  He has just come.”

Sophia was taking tea-cakes from the oven.  Eliza leaned her head against the wall; she felt warm and oppressed.  One of the smaller children opened the sitting-room door just then and came into the kitchen.  The child wore a very clean pinafore in token of the day.  She came and sat on Eliza’s knee.  The door was left ajar; instead of stray words and unintelligible sentences, all the talk of the sitting-room was now the common property of those in the kitchen.

In beginning to hear a conversation already in full flow, it is a few moments before the interchange of remarks and interrogations makes sense to us.  Eliza only came to understand what was being talked of when the visitor said “No, I’m afraid there’s no doubt about the poor girl’s death.  After there had been two or three snow-storms there was evidently no use in looking for her any more; but even then, I think it was months before he gave up hopes of her return.  Night after night he used to hoist a pinewood torch, thinking she might have fallen in with Indians and be still alive and trying to make her way back.  The fact of the matter was, Mrs. Rexford, Bates loved her, and he simply could not give her up for dead.”

The young man had as many emphasised words in his speech as a girl might have had, yet his talk did not give the impression of easily expressed feeling.

“Ah, it was very sad.”

“Yes, I didn’t know I could have minded so much a thing that did not affect me personally.  Then when he had given up hope of finding her living, he was off, when the spring came, everywhere over the woods, supposing that if she had perished, her body could be found when the snow was gone.  I couldn’t help helping him to search the place for miles round.  It’s a fine place in spring, too; but I don’t know when one cares less about spring flowers than when one’s half expecting the dead body of a girl to turn up in every hollow where they grow thickest.  I’ve beaten down a whole valley of trillium lilies just to be sure she had not fallen between the rocks they grew on.  And if I felt that way, you may suppose it was bad enough for Bates.”