..
She sank lower and lower into herself among the black draperies, clasping
those slender hands tightly across her breast.
Suddenly a great log fell with a crash, the red glow turned into leaping
flames; the whole dark room seemed alive with shadows that fled to and
fro, and she knelt upright quickly and looked round her, terrified and
ashamed.--What was she doing here? Was it so soon then that she was
setting aside the will of her father, who trusted and loved her so well,
and who lay out there in the chancel vault? Ah! she had no right here in
this room--Hubert's room now, with his cap and whip lying across the
papers and the estate-book, and his knife and the broken jesses on the
seat of the chair beside her. There was his step overhead again. She must
be gone before he came back.
There was high excitement on the estate and in the village a week or two
later when the rumour of Sir Nicholas' return was established, and the
paper had been pinned up to the gatehouse stating, in Lady Maxwell's own
handwriting, that he would be back sometime in the week before Advent
Sunday. Reminiscences were exchanged of the glorious day when the old
knight came of age, over forty years ago; of the sports on the green, of
the quintain-tilting for the gentlefolks, and the archery in the meadow
behind the church for the vulgar; of the high mass and the dinner that
followed it. It was rumoured that Mr. Hubert and Mr. Piers had already
selected the ox that was to be roasted whole, and that materials for the
bonfire were in process of collection in the woodyard of the home farm.
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