Charlotte had returned home, it appeared, since Maria met her, and changed her attire. She was pacing the terrace of the Folly in her riding-habit, a whip in hand, and some dogs surrounding her. Maria turned towards the Dark Plain, and gazed upon it. "Is it true," she timidly asked, "that the Shadow has been there for the last night or two?" Janet answered the question by asking another. "Who told you it was there, Maria?" "I heard Margery say so." "Margery?" repeated Janet. "That woman appears to know by instinct when the Shadow comes. She dreams it, I think. It is true, Maria, that it has appeared again," she continued, in a tone of unnatural composure. "I never saw it so black as it was last night." "Do you believe that there can be anything in it--that it foretells ill?" asked Maria. "I know that it is the tradition handed down with our house: I know that, in my own experience, the Shadow never came but it brought ill," was the reply of Miss Godolphin. "What caused the superstition to arise in the first instance?" asked Maria. "Has George never told you the tale?" replied Janet. "Never. He says he does not remember it clearly enough. Will you not tell it me, Janet?" Janet hesitated. "One of the early Godolphins brought a curse upon the house," she at length began, in a low tone. "It was that evil ancestor whose memory we would bury, were it possible; he who earned for himself the title of the Wicked Godolphin. He killed his wife by a course of gradual and long-continued ill-treatment. He wanted her out of the way that another might fill her place. He pretended to have discovered that she was not worthy: than which assertion nothing could be more false and shameless, for she was one of the best ladies ever created. She was a de Commins, daughter of the warrior Richard de Commins, and was brave as she was good. She died; and the Wicked Godolphin turned her coffin out of the house on to the Dark Plain; there"--pointing to the open space before the archway--"to remain until the day of interment. But he did not wait for that day of interment to bring home his second wife." "Not wait!" exclaimed Maria, her eager ears drinking in the story.