"Dear Aunt Betty, will you do this for a man you do not like?"
"Of course. I'd do it for my worst enemy, if I knew--and maybe this poor miller is that. What ails that man is--remorse. He hasn't done right but I'm going to give him the chance now, and see his round face fall into its old curves again."
But good and unselfish as her mission was, for once the lady of Deerhurst's judgment was mistaken.
Oliver Sands was shut up in his private office. It opened from another larger room that had once been tenanted but was now empty. The emptiness of the great chamber, with its small bed and simple furnishings, both attracted and repelled him, as was witnessed by the fact that he frequently rose and closed the door, only to rise again directly and open it again. Each time he did this he peered all about the big room, whose windows were screened by wire netting as well as by a row of spruce trees. These trees were trimmed in a peculiar manner and were often commented upon by passers along the road beyond. All the lower branches, to the height of the window-tops, were left to grow, luxuriantly, as nature had designed. But above that the tall trees were shaven almost bare, only sufficient branches being left to keep them alive. Also, beyond the trees and bordering the road was a high brick wall, presumably for the training of peach and other fruit trees, for such were carefully trained to it.
But the same wondering eyes which had noticed the trees had observed the wall, where indeed the fruit grew lusciously after a custom common enough in England but almost unknown in this region.
"Looks like both trees and wall were planned to let light into that side the house and keep eyes out. But, has been so ever since Heartsease was, and nothing different now."
No, everything was outwardly unchanged, but his home was not like his home, that morning, when Mrs. Betty Calvert came to call. The rain that had kept him within had sent him to pass the hours of his imprisonment in his "den," or office, and to the congenial occupation of looking over the cash in his strong box. He was too wise to keep much there, but there had been a time when the occupation had served to amuse the inmate of the big room, and he was thinking of her now.