Perhaps the parting with the two dogs was as bitter as any, for, as if
they knew quite well that she was going, they clung closely to her, and
when she hugged them and kissed them on the forehead, they had to be
dragged off by Jason, and locked up in the stables lest they should
follow the carriage which was to bear their beloved mistress away.
That carriage came all too soon, though Mr. John Heron had awaited its
arrival impatiently and with watch in hand. He seemed grimmer and
gaunter than ever that morning, and as he looked around the great Hall,
he shook his head at its faded grandeur reprehensively, as if he could,
if time permitted, deliver a sermon on the prodigality, the wicked
wastefulness, which had brought ruin on the house, and rendered it
necessary for him to extend his charity to the penniless orphan.
Mr. Wordley was there to say good-bye to Ida and put her into the
carriage; but it proved a difficult good-bye to say, and for once the
usually fluent old lawyer was bereft of the power of speech as he held
Ida's small hand, and looked through tear-dimmed eyes at the white and
sorrowful face. He had intended to say all sorts of kind and
encouraging things, but he could only manage the two words, "Good-bye;"
and they were almost inaudible.
She sank back into the carriage as it drove away from the Hall, and
closed her eyes that she might not see the familiar trees in the
avenue, the cattle, everyone of which she knew by name, grazing in the
meadow, the pale and woe-begone faces of the servants who stood by the
steps to catch the last glimpse of their beloved; and for some time her
eyes remained closed; but they opened as she came to the clearing by
the lake, from which one could see the long stretching façade of Sir
Stephen Orme's white villa. She opened them then and looked at the
house, wondering whether Stafford was there, wondering why he had not
come to her, despite the promise she had exacted from him; wondering
whether he knew that her father was dead, and that she was left
penniless.
She was not capable of any more tears, and a dull apathy crushed down
upon her, so that she did not notice that at the station Mr. John Heron
improved the occasion, as he would have put it, by distributing tracts
to the station-master and porters. The journey to London passed as if
it were made in a dream; and wearied in mind and body and soul, she
found herself, late in the evening, standing in the centre of the
Heron's dreary drawing-room, awaiting her reception by the Heron
family.