Mrs Waynflete never told any one that she had sent for Guy. She did not know that he could not get a conveyance at Kirk Hinton, nor that her letter had been late for the post; and when he did not come by the first train in the morning, she grew angry and bitterly hurt with him, and still listened when he was long over-due. If she had never heard the galloping horseman before, she heard him then, the monotonous disappointing sound that began and grew near, and nearer, and never stopped; but, when it was nearest, went by and began again. She wandered up into her bedroom, and looked to see if the two wills were safe. Jeanie, who did many little offices, hardly enough appreciated, ran in with some flowers for her table. "Oh, aunt, I didn't know you were there." "Look here, Sarah Jane. You can do as you're bid without asking questions. Look in this drawer. D'ye see this blue envelope, in the right-hand corner?" "Yes, aunt." "Now, here's the key in the pocket of my gown, and if I give you the word, you go and take it out, and unlock this drawer, and take that blue envelope, and drop it in the fire. Do you understand?" "Yes, aunt; but--" "Which envelope are you to take?" "The blue one, aunt--" "It's well to be on the safe side--and I might be prevented--I might be prevented! So, if Guy comes--" "Guy, aunt? Do you expect Guy?" "I wrote to him, desiring him to come. But there! he's taken no heed of my words. And the train's in by this time." "There's another one, aunt, comes in at four, but--" Mrs Waynflete turned the key in the drawer, put it in her pocket, and moved restlessly over to the window, to look out once more. The wind swirled round the old house, and cried mournfully in its eaves and chimneys, and mingling with it, the odd, unceasing noise of the galloping horse startled her with the fresh possibility that this time it was really Guy coming. She went hurriedly along the passage into the octagon-room, and looked out through the broken iron gates across the new buildings in the stable-yard, through the scanty avenue of wind-blown elm trees, to the bridge across the Flete. There was no one coming, and all the distance was dim with mist and fog. The future was also dim and indistinct. What would the future be for this old house, which had so strange a past? Who would come after her? Who ought to come?