"Why, what is the matter with you, child?" Aynesworth exclaimed.
"I have loved them so all my life," she sobbed; "the pictures, and the
house, and the gardens, and now I have to go away! I don't know where!
Nobody seems to know!"
Aynesworth looked down at her black frock.
"You have lost someone, perhaps?" he said.
"My father," she answered quietly. "He was organist here, and he died
last week."
"And you have no other relatives?" he asked.
"None at all. No one--seems--quite to know--what is going to become of
me!" she sobbed.
"Where are you staying now?" he inquired.
"With an old woman who used to look after our cottage," she answered.
"But she is very poor, and she cannot keep me any longer. Mrs. Colson
says that I must go and work, and I am afraid. I don't know anyone
except at Tredowen! And I don't know how to work! And I don't want to
go away from the pictures, and the garden, and the sea! It is all so
beautiful, isn't it? Don't you love Tredowen?"
"Well, I haven't been here very long, you see," Aynesworth explained.
Wingrave spoke for the first time. His eyes were fixed upon the child,
and Aynesworth could see that she shrank from his cold, unsympathetic
scrutiny.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Juliet Lundy," she answered.
"How long was your father organist at the church?"
"I don't know," she answered. "Ever since I was born, and before."
"And how old are you?"
"Fourteen next birthday.
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