There are no voices which call to me any more, and my
family records are so much dead parchment."
Trouble passed into her glowing face and clouded her eyes.
"Ah!" she said, "I do not like to hear you talk so. Do you know that
when you do, you make me afraid that something I have always hoped for
will never come to pass?"
"What is it?" he asked.
"I have always hoped," she said, "that some day you would come once
more to Tredowen. I suppose I am rather a fanciful person. This is a
country of superstitions and fancies, you know; but sometimes when I
have been alone in the picture gallery with all that long line of dark
faces looking down upon me from the walls, I have felt like an
interloper. Always they seem to be waiting! Tonight, after dinner, I
will take you there. I will try and show you what I mean."
He shook his head.
"I shall never come back," he said, "and there are no more of my
name."
She hesitated. When at last she spoke, the color was coming and going
in her cheeks.
"Sir Wingrave," she said, "I am only an ignorant girl, and I have no
right to talk to you like this. Please be angry with me if you want
to. I deserve it. I know all about--that ten years! Couldn't you
forget it, and come back? None of the country people round here, your
own people, believe anything evil about you. You were struck, and you
struck back again. A man would do that. You could be as lonely as you
liked here, or you could have friends if you wished for them.
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