His wife's tone had dropped to a half-whisper, sounding rather mysterious, and he went at once. "Just look, Philip--opposite. Do you see a woman standing there?" "A woman--where?" cried he, looking of course in every direction but the right one. "Just facing us. She has her back against the railings." "Oh, ay, I see now; a lady in a cloak. She must be waiting for some one." "Why do you call her a lady?" "She looks like one--as far as I can see in the gloom. Does she not? Her hair does, any way." "She has been there I cannot tell you how long, Philip; half-an-hour, I'm sure; and it seems to me that she is _watching_ this house. A lady would hardly do that." "This house? Oh, then, Eliza, perhaps she's watching for one of the servants. She might come in, poor thing, instead of standing there in the rain." "Poor thing, indeed!--what business has any woman to watch a house in this marked manner?" retorted Eliza. "The neighbourhood will be taking her for a female detective." "Nonsense!" "She has given me a creepy feeling; I can tell you that, Philip." "But why?" he exclaimed. "I can't tell you why; I don't know why; it is so. Do not laugh at me for confessing it." Philip Hamlyn did laugh; heartily. "Creepy feelings" and his imperiously strong-minded wife could have but little affinity with one another. "We'll have the curtains drawn, and the lights, and shut her out," said he cheerily. "Come and sit down, Eliza; I want to show you a letter I've had to-day." But the woman waiting outside there seemed to possess for Eliza Hamlyn somewhat of the fascination of the basilisk; for she never stirred from the window until the curtains were drawn. "It is from Peveril," said Mr. Hamlyn, producing the letter he had spoken of from his pocket. "The lease he took of Peacock's Range is not yet out, but he can resign it now if he pleases, and he would be glad to do so. He and his wife would rather remain abroad, it seems, than return home." "Yes. Well?" "Well, he writes to me to ask whether he can resign it; or whether I must hold him to the promise he made me--that I should rent the house to the end of the term. I mean the end of the lease; the term he holds it for." "Why does he want to resign it? Why can't things go on as at present?" "I gather from an allusion he makes, though he does not explicitly state it, that Mr. Carradyne wishes to have the place in his own hands. What am I to say to Peveril, Eliza?" "Say! Why, that you must hold him to his promise; that we cannot give up the house yet. A pretty thing if I had no place to go down to at will in my own county!" "So far as I am concerned, Eliza, I would prefer to stay away from the county--if your father is to continue to treat me in the way he does. Remember what it was in the summer. I think we are very well here." "Now, Philip, I have _said_. I do not intend to release our hold on Peacock's Range. My father will be reconciled to you in time as he is to me."