“There was a time, I suppose, when it was all furnished,” she said.

“All these rooms were shut up when I came here,” Rosy answered.  “I suppose things worth selling have been sold.  When pieces of furniture were broken in one part of the house, they were replaced by things brought from another.  No one cared.  Nigel hates it all.  He calls it a rathole.  He detests the country everywhere, but particularly this part of it.  After the first year I had learned better than to speak to him of spending money on repairs.”

“A good deal of money should be spent on repairs,” reflected Betty, looking about her.

She was standing in the middle of a room whose walls were hung with the remains of what had been chintz, covered with a pattern of loose clusters of moss rosebuds.  The dampness had rotted it until, in some places, it had fallen away in strips from its fastenings.  A quaint, embroidered couch stood in one corner, and as Betty looked at it, a mouse crept from under the tattered valance, stared at her in alarm and suddenly darted back again, in terror of intrusion so unusual.  A casement window swung open, on a broken hinge, and a strong branch of ivy, having forced its way inside, had thrown a covering of leaves over the deep ledge, and was beginning to climb the inner woodwork.  Through the casement was to be seen a heavenly spread of country, whose rolling lands were clad softly in green pastures and thick-branched trees.

“This is the Rosebud Boudoir,” said Lady Anstruthers, smiling faintly.  “All the rooms have names.  I thought them so delightful, when I first heard them.  The Damask Room—­the Tapestry Room—­the White Wainscot Room—­My Lady’s Chamber.  It almost broke my heart when I saw what they looked like.”

“It would be very interesting,” Betty commented slowly, “to make them look as they ought to look.”

A remote fear rose to the surface of the expression in Lady Anstruthers’ eyes.  She could not detach herself from certain recollections of Nigel—­of his opinions of her family—­of his determination not to allow it to enter as a factor in either his life or hers.  And Betty had come to Stornham—­Betty whom he had detested as a child—­and in the course of two days, she had seemed to become a new part of the atmosphere, and to make the dead despair of the place begin to stir with life.  What other thing than this was happening as she spoke of making such rooms as the Rosebud Boudoir “look as they ought to look,” and said the words not as if they were part of a fantastic vision, but as if they expressed a perfectly possible thing?

Betty saw the doubt in her eyes, and in a measure, guessed at its meaning.  The time to pause for argument had, however not arrived.  There was too much to be investigated, too much to be seen.  She swept her on her way.  They wandered on through some forty rooms, more or less; they opened doors and closed them; they unbarred shutters and let the sun stream in on dust and dampness and cobwebs.  The comprehension of the situation which Betty gained was as valuable as it was enlightening.