It was on the day before her departure that Cecilia rode out to take a last look at Morphie. Though there was, as yet, no hint of coming spring in the air, in a month the thrushes and blackbirds would be proclaiming their belief in its approach, and a haze, like a red veil, would be touching the ends of the boughs. As she stopped on the highroad and looked across the wall at Morphie House, she felt like a returned ghost. Its new owners had left it uninhabited and the white blinds were drawn down like the eyelids of a dead face; her life there seemed sometimes so real and sometimes so incredible--as if it had never been. She saw herself going through the rooms, loitering in the garden, and performing the hundred and one duties and behests she had done so willingly. She smiled, though her heart ached, as she remembered her aunt’s short figure leaning out of a window above the stable-yard, watching the horses being brought out for exercise and calling out her orders to the men. How silent it all was now; the only moving things were the pigeons which had always haunted Morphie, the descendants of those for which Gilbert had fought two years ago. She turned away and took the road that followed the river’s course to Whanland. Here too, everything was still, though the entrance gate was standing open. She had never yet been inside it; long before it had acquired special interest for her she had felt a curiosity about the untenanted place; but Lady Eliza had always driven by quickly, giving unsatisfactory answers to any questions she had put. She rode in, unable to resist her impulse, and sat on horseback looking up at the harled walls. The front-door was ajar, and, seeing this, she was just about to ride away, when there were footsteps behind her and Granny Stirk, her arms loaded with fresh-cut sticks, came round a corner of the house. She let her bundle fall in a clattering shower and came up to Cecilia. Since Gilbert had left she had not seen the woman who, she was sure, had been the cause of his departure, and her heart was as hard against her as the heart of Miss Hersey Robertson. ‘Do you take care of the house?’ asked Cecilia, when they had exchanged a few words. ‘Ay; whiles a’ come in-by an’ put on a bittie fire. The Laird asket me. But Macquean’s no verra canny to work wi’.’ ‘Oh, Granny, let me come in!’ cried Cecilia. ‘I want so much to see this place, I shall never see it again--I am going away you know.’ The Queen of the Cadgers eyed her like an accusing angel.