"O Isabel!" I exclaimed, "you are making me feel far more frightened than before! I must be _awfully_ careful while I'm here not to shock Mr Wynyard in _any_ way. But I am so thoughtless and forgetful; and that reminds me how stupid it was of me to allude to the Grim House mystery before Maple." "Yes," said Isabel, "I thought it best to give you a hint. I was sure you wouldn't mind; for the best of servants gossip, and I should not have liked your maid to tell our servants that you and I had been talking about the Greys, though she is pretty sure to hear something about them while she is here. But, dear Regina, you really mustn't take up the idea that papa is alarming! He is so pleased to have you here, and has said to me more than once that he hoped you would make me less of `an old woman,' which he says I am in danger of becoming. I get anxious about the housekeeping and things like that, and sometimes papa says I am not enough out of doors." My spirits rose at this. I asked nothing better than to be out of doors from morning till night in this beautifully wild district. "Your father won't have to complain of your leading too quiet a life if he leaves you to me," I said laughingly. "And the very first time we go out, Isabel, you will promise, won't you, to show me the Grim House! And oh!" I went on, "you haven't yet told me what has happened there just lately." "It sounds so little to tell," said Isabel; "but if you could realise the utter isolation of these poor people, you would understand the sensation it has made. It is simply that they have had visitors for the first time in the memory of man!" "What sort of visitors?" I asked eagerly. "Two men--gentlemen--an old and a young one! They stayed at Grimsthorpe one night. They drove up in a fly from the station, and it fetched them again the next morning. You see I have kept my eyes and ears open as regards the mystery, for your benefit." "Did you see these men?" I asked. "I am not quite sure, but I think I did see one of them," was the reply. "I had been in the village, and coming home I met a stranger who asked me the way to the church. Our church is rather curious; nobody quite knows how it came to be there, it is so big a church for so tiny a place." "What was he like?" I inquired, thinking to myself that I should have been much more excited over the incident than Isabel appeared to be. "It was almost dusk," she answered. "But his voice was a very pleasant and cultivated one. He was young, and I think good-looking. I was half inclined to ask him if he was a stranger in the neighbourhood or something of that sort, for I saw he had come down a path which only leads to the Grim House, though it wasn't till the next day that we heard of the wonderful event. It was Strott, of course, who told me of it!"