'Yes,' said Julia. 'Can I not take it here, if you please? I suppose--we shall have to start by-and-by?' she added, shivering. 'By-and-by, ma'am?' Mrs. Olney answered. 'Oh, yes.' 'Then I can have it here.' 'Oh, yes, if you please to follow me, ma'am.' And she held the door open. Julia shrugged her shoulders, and, contesting the matter no further, followed the good woman along a corridor and through a door which shut off a second and shorter passage. From this three doors opened, apparently into as many apartments. Mrs. Olney threw one wide and ushered her into a room damp-smelling, and hung with drab, but of good size and otherwise comfortable. The windows looked over a neglected Dutch garden, which was so rankly overgrown that the box hedges scarce rose above the wilderness of parterres. Beyond this, and divided from it by a deep-sunk fence, a pool fringed with sedges and marsh-weeds carried the eye to an alder thicket that closed the prospect. Julia, in her relief on finding that the table was laid for one only, paid no heed to the outlook or to the bars that crossed the windows, but sank into a chair and mechanically ate and drank. Apprised after a while that Mrs. Olney had returned and was watching her with fatuous good-nature, she asked her if she knew at what hour she was to leave. 'To leave?' said the housekeeper, whose almost invariable custom it was to repeat the last words addressed to her. 'Oh, yes, to leave. Of course.' 'But at what time?' Julia asked, wondering whether the woman was as dull as she seemed. 'Yes, at what time?' Then after a pause and with a phenomenal effort, 'I will go and see--if you please.' She returned presently. 'There are no horses,' she said. 'When they are ready the gentleman will let you know.' 'They have sent for some?' 'Sent for some,' repeated Mrs. Olney, and nodded, but whether in assent or imbecility it was hard to say. After that Julia troubled her no more, but rising from her meal had recourse to the window and her own thoughts. These were in unison with the neglected garden and the sullen pool, which even the sunshine failed to enliven. Her heart was torn between the sense of Sir George's treachery--which now benumbed her brain and now awoke it to a fury of resentment--and fond memories of words and looks and gestures, that shook her very frame and left her sick--love-sick and trembling. She did not look forward or form plans; nor, in the dull lethargy in which she was for the most part sunk, was she aware of the passage of time until Mrs. Olney came in with mouth and eyes a little wider than usual, and announced that the gentleman was coming up.