"Yes," said Molly, gazing into the burning logs with brilliant eyes, but speaking low, as if to herself, so that her attendant's deaf ears failed to catch the meaning of the words. "Ah, that was life indeed! Happy mother to have seen such life--though she did die young."
"As ye say, miss," answered Margery, making a guess at the most likely comment from a daughter's lips, "it was cruel hard--it was that. 'Come, make haste!' cries the other young gentlemen: my word, they were in a hurry lest Madam happen to change her mind. I could welly have laughed to see their faces when Mester Adrian were trying to persuade her to stop at Pulwick, and let the men go alone. 'T wern't for that they reckoned to go all that road to France, ye may think, miss. Well, miss, in a few minutes they was all out i' the boat wi' th' waves tossin' 'em--an' I stood watchin' with you i' my arms, cryin' and kickin' out wi' your little legs, an' hittin' of me wi' your little 'ands, same as if ye knowed summat o' what was agate, poor lamb, an' was angry wi' me for keepin' ye. Then in a little while the big, white sails o' th' ship went swellin' out an' soon it was gone. An' that was th' last we saw o' Madam. A two-three year arter you an' Miss Maddyline was fetched away, to France, as I've been towd. I doubt you didn't so much as think there was such a place as Pulwick, though many a one there minds how they dandled and played wi' you when you was a wee bairn, miss."
"Well, I am very glad to be back in England, anyhow," said Molly, nimbly slipping into bed. "Oh, Margery, what delicious warm sheets, and how good it is to be in bed alive, dry, and warm, after all!"
A new atmosphere pervaded Scarthey that night. The peaceful monotony of years, since the master of Pulwick had migrated to his "ruins," was broken at last, and happily. A warm colour seemed to have crept upon the hitherto dun and dull surroundings and brightened all the prospects.
At any rate René, over his busy work in the lantern, whistled and hummed snatches of song with unwonted blithesomeness, and, after lighting the steady watch-light and securing all his paraphernalia with extra care, dallied some time longer than usual on the outer platform, striving to snatch through the driven wraith a glance of the distant lights of Pulwick. For there, in the long distance, ensconced among the woods, stood a certain gate-lodge of greystone, much covered with ivy, which sheltered, among other inmates, the gatekeeper's blue-eyed, ripe and ruddy daughter--Dame Margery's pet grandchild.