Mrs. Brympton seldom went out in winter; only on the finest days did she walk an hour at noon on the south terrace.  Excepting Mr. Ranford, we had no visitors but the doctor, who drove over from D-----about once a week.  He sent for me once or twice to give me some trifling direction about my mistress, and though he never told me what her illness was, I thought, from a waxy look she had now and then of a morning, that it might be the heart that ailed her.  The season was soft and unwholesome, and in January we had a long spell of rain.  That was a sore trial to me, I own, for I couldn’t go out, and sitting over my sewing all day, listening to the drip, drip of the eaves, I grew so nervous that the least sound made me jump.  Somehow, the thought of that locked room across the passage began to weigh on me.  Once or twice, in the long rainy nights, I fancied I heard noises there; but that was nonsense, of course, and the daylight drove such notions out of my head.  Well, one morning Mrs. Brympton gave me quite a start of pleasure by telling me she wished me to go to town for some shopping.  I hadn’t known till then how low my spirits had fallen.  I set off in high glee, and my first sight of the crowded streets and the cheerful-looking shops quite took me out of myself.  Toward afternoon, however, the noise and confusion began to tire me, and I was actually looking forward to the quiet of Brympton, and thinking how I should enjoy the drive home through the dark woods, when I ran across an old acquaintance, a maid I had once been in service with.  We had lost sight of each other for a number of years, and I had to stop and tell her what had happened to me in the interval.  When I mentioned where I was living she rolled up her eyes and pulled a long face.

“What!  The Mrs. Brympton that lives all the year at her place on the Hudson?  My dear, you won’t stay there three months.”

“Oh, but I don’t mind the country,” says I, offended somehow at her tone.  “Since the fever I’m glad to be quiet.”

She shook her head.  “It’s not the country I’m thinking of.  All I know is she’s had four maids in the last six months, and the last one, who was a friend of mine, told me nobody could stay in the house.”

“Did she say why?” I asked.

“No—­she wouldn’t give me her reason.  But she says to me, Mrs. Ansey, she says, if ever a young woman as you know of thinks of going there, you tell her it’s not worth while to unpack her boxes.”

“Is she young and handsome?” said I, thinking of Mr. Brympton.

“Not her!  She’s the kind that mothers engage when they’ve gay young gentlemen at college.”

Well, though I knew the woman was an idle gossip, the words stuck in my head, and my heart sank lower than ever as I drove up to Brympton in the dusk.  There was something about the house—­I was sure of it now...

When I went in to tea I heard that Mr. Brympton had arrived, and I saw at a glance that there had been a disturbance of some kind.  Mrs. Blinder’s hand shook so that she could hardly pour the tea, and Mr. Wace quoted the most dreadful texts full of brimstone.  Nobody said a word to me then, but when I went up to my room Mrs. Blinder followed me.