The old Squire of Wyvern wandered from room to room, and stood in this window and that. An hour after the scene on the terrace, he was trembling still and flushed, with his teeth grimly set, sniffing, and with a stifling weight at his heart.

Night came, and the drawing-room was lighted up, and the Squire rang the bell, and sent for old Mrs. Durdin.

That dapper old woman, with a neat little cap on, stood prim in the doorway and curtsied. She knew, of course, pretty well what the Squire was going to tell her, and waited in some alarm to learn in what tone he would make his communication.

“Well,’ said the Squire, sternly, holding his head very high, “Miss Alice is gone. I sent for you to tell ye, as y’re housekeeper here. She’s gone; she’s left Wyvern.”

“She’ll be coming again, sir, soon?” said the old woman after a pause.

“No, not she—no,” said the Squire.

“Not returnin’ to Wyvern, sir?”

“While there’s breath in my body she’ll never darken these doors.”

“Sorry she should a’ displeased you, sir,” said the good-natured little woman with a curtsey.

“Displease me? Who said she displeased me? It ain’t the turning of a pennypiece to me—me, by ——. Ha, ha I that’s funny.”

“And—what do you wish done with the bed and the furniture, sir? Shall I leave it still in the room, please? ”

“Out o’ window wi’t—pitch it after her; let the work’us people send up and cart it off for the poor-house, where she should ’a bin, if I hadn’t a bin the biggest fool in the parish.”

“I’ll have it took down and moved, sir,” said the old woman, interpreting more moderately; “and the same with Mrs. Crane’s room; Dulcibella, she’s gone too?”

“Ha, ha! well for her—plotting old witch. I’ll have her ducked in the pond if she’s found here; and never you name them, one or t’other more, unless you want to go yourself. I’m fifty pounds better. I didn’t know how to manage or look after her—they’re all alike. If I chose it I could send a warrant after her for the clothes on her back; but let her be. Away wi’ her—a good riddance; and get her who may, I give him joy o’ her.”

The Squire was glad to see Tom Ward that night, and had a second tankard of punch.

“Old servant, Tom; I believe the old folk’s the best after all,” said he. “It’s a damned changed world, Tom. Things were otherwise in our time; no matter, I’ll pay em off yet.”

And old Harry Fairfield fell asleep in his chair, and after an hour wakened up with a dream of little Ally’s music still in his ears.

“Play it again, child, play it again,” he said, and listened—to silence and looked about the empty room, and the sudden pain came again, with a dreadful yearning mixed with his anger.

The Squire cursed her for a devil, a wildcat, a viper, and he walked round the room with his hands clenched in his coat pockets, and the proud old man was crying. With straining and squeezing the tears oozed and trickled from his wrinkled eyelids down his rugged cheeks.

“I don’t care a damn, I hate her; I don’t know what it’s for, I be such a fool; I’m glad she’s gone, and I pray God the sneak she’s gone wi’ may break her heart, and break his own damned neck after, over Carwell scaurs.”

The old man took his candle and from old habit, in the hall, was closing the door of the staircase that led up to her room.

“Ay, ay,” said he, bitterly, recollecting himself, “the stable-door when the nag’s stole. I don’t care if the old house was blown down tonight—I wish it was. She was a kind little thing before that damned fellow—what could she see in him—good for nothing—old as I am, I’d pitch him over my head like a stock o’ barley. Here was a plot, she was a good little thing, but see how she was drew into it, damn her, they’re all so false. I’ll find out who was in it, I will; I’ll find it all out. There’s Tom Sherwood, hes one. I’ll pitch ’em all out, neck and crop, out o’ Wyvern doors. I’d rather fill my house wi’ rats than the two-legged vermin. Let ’em pack away to Carwell and starve with that big pippin-squeezing ninny. I hope in God’s justice he’ll never live to put his foot in Wyvern. I could shoot myself, I think, but for that. She might a waited till the old man died, at any rate; I was kind to her—a fool—a fool.”

And the tall figure of the old man, candle in hand, stalked slowly from the dim hall and vanished ............