Willsworthy was a very small and quaint old manor house--so small that a modern farmer would despise it. It consisted of a hall and a couple of sitting-rooms and kitchen on the ground floor, with a projecting porch, with pavise over it. The windows looked into the little court that was entered through old granite gates, capped with balls, and was backed by a cluster of bold sycamores and beech, in which was a large rookery. Mrs. Malvine was in the hall. She had been brought down. She was unable to walk, and she sat in her armchair by the hearth. The narrow mullioned lights did not afford much prospect, and what they did reveal was only the courtyard and stables that fronted the entrance to the house. To the back of the house was, indeed, a walled garden; but it was void of flowers and suffered from the neglect which allowed everything about Willsworthy to sink into disrepair and barrenness. It grew a few pot-herbs, half-choked by weeds. There was no gardener kept; but a labourer, when he could be spared off the farm, did something in a desultory fashion to the garden--always too late to be of use to it. "Peace be to this house!" said Luke, and passed in at the door. He found that, for all his good wish, nothing at the moment was farther removed from Willsworthy, than peace, Solomon Gibbs had slept long and heavily after his carouse, and had but just come down the stairs, and had just acted the inconsiderate part of telling his sister of the outrage committed by Anthony Cleverdon on her husband's grave. The poor widow was in an hysterical condition of effervescent wrath and lamentation. The story was repeated, when Luke and Urith appeared, in a broken, incoherent fashion--the widow telling what she knew, with additions of her own, Solomon throwing in corrections. Urith turned chill in all her veins. Her heart stood still, and she stood looking at her uncle with stony eyes. Anthony Cleverdon, who had behaved to her with such kindness--Anthony, who had held her in his arms, had carried her through the fire, who had looked into her face with such warmth in his eyes--he thus insult her father's name and her family! It was impossible, incredible. Luke paced the little hall with his arms folded behind his back. He had heard nothing of this at Peter Tavy when he left it. He hoped there was some mistake--some exaggeration. What could have been Anthony's object? Mr. Solomon Gibbs's account was certainly sufficiently involved and obscure to allow of the suspicion that there was exaggeration, for Mr. Solomon's recollection of the events was clouded by the punch imbibed overnight. But the fact that the headpiece of the grave had been brought to the tavern by his cousin could not be got over. Luke's heart was filled with commiseration for the distress of the widow, and pain for Urith, and with bitterness against Anthony. He had nothing but platitudes to say--nothing that could pacify the excited woman, who went from one convulsion into another.