What I saw when the massive door was opened was an aged woman, dressed like a superior domestic, who, in sharp accents, demanded to know what we meant by disturbing a quiet family in that unseemly way.  She was holding one hand over her eyes, and trying to make out our appearance through the gathering darkness.  I stepped close up to her.  “I am Miss Janet Hope, from Park Hill Seminary,” I said, “and I wish to speak with Lady Chillington.”

CHAPTER II.

THE MISTRESS OF DEEPLEY WALLS.

The words were hardly out of my lips when the woman shrank suddenly back, as though struck by an invisible hand, and gave utterance to an inarticulate cry of wonder and alarm.  Then, striding forward, she seized me by the wrist, and drew me into the lamp-lighted hall.  “Child! child! why have you come here?” she cried, scanning my face with eager eyes.  “In all the wide world this is the last place you should have come to.”

“Miss Chinfeather is dead, and all the young ladies have been sent to their homes.  I have no home, so they have sent me here.”

“What shall I do?  What will her ladyship say?” cried the woman, in a frightened voice.  “How shall I ever dare to tell her?”

“Who rang the bell, Dance, a few minutes ago?  And to whom are you talking?”

The voice sounded so suddenly out of the semi-darkness at the upper end of the large hall, which was lighted only by a small oil lamp, that both the woman and I started.  Looking in the direction from which the sound had come, I could dimly make out, through the obscurity, the figures of two women who had entered without noise through the curtained doorway, close to which they were now standing.  One of the two was very tall, and was dressed entirely in black.  The second one, who was less tall, was also dressed in black, except that she seemed to have something white thrown over her head and shoulders; but I was too far away to make out any details.

“Hush! don’t you speak,” whispered the woman warningly to me.  “Leave me to break the news to her ladyship.”  With that, she left me standing on the threshold, and hurried towards the upper end of the hall.

The tall personage in black, then, with the harsh voice—­high pitched, and slightly cracked—­was Lady Chillington!  How fast my heart beat!  If only I could have slipped out unobserved I would never have braved my fortune within those walls again.

She who had been called Dance went up to the two ladies, curtsied deeply, and began talking in a low, earnest voice.  Hardly, however, had she spoken a dozen words when the lesser of the two ladies flung up her arms with a cry like that of some wounded creature, and would have fallen to the ground had not Dance caught her round the waist and so held her.

“What folly is this?” cried Lady Chillington, sternly, striking the pavement of the hall sharply with the iron ferrule of her cane.  “To your room, Sister Agnes!  For such poor weak fools as you solitude is the only safe companion.  But, remember your oath!  Not a word; not a word.”  With one lean hand uplifted, and menacing forefinger, she emphasised those last warning words.