But Mrs Maryon and her two younger daughters were keen sighted, much more so than Winifred, and Hertha was assailed with affectionate inquiries as to whether she had a headache, or had she not slept well, etc, which she parried as best she could. There were two or three letters for her--one, a large, rather thick one, in Mr Montague's handwriting, she looked at irresolutely, then put it into her pocket unopened. "It must be in reply to the long letter I sent him two days after I got here," she said to herself. "I am glad he is back in England, but I think I would rather _not_ know what he says till after I have spoken to Winifred." A special and uninterrupted talk with one member of a fairly large party, even if that party be a family one, is not always easy to achieve unobserved, though in a country-house it would seem a simple enough matter. But of late Winifred had rather avoided than sought Miss Norreys's society. Some idea of the possible causes of complaint Hertha might believe herself to have against her for the conduct which Winifred was beginning to realise as not being, in appearance at least, candid, made the girl less at ease than heretofore in her friend's society. She did not as yet allow this to herself: she would not own, even in thought, that she had been to blame. She "put it all down" to this visit of Miss Norreys to White Turrets, where, though on one side the favourable impression her friend had made on Mrs Maryon and the others was gratifying to Winifred, on the other it was somewhat irritating. "I must wait till we are back in London again," she said to herself. "Of course she _must_ be civil and pleasant to them all, and they certainly have been very kind and nice. But she is more impressionable than I thought her. Seeing things here as she has done, I am afraid she will never sympathise thoroughly in the monotony and dullness of this narrow home-life. Still, after all, it can't be helped. I must do without sympathy, I suppose. But--I do wish it had never come into mother's head to invite Hertha down here." She was standing by herself in front of one of the windows of a long corridor, on to which opened several of the principal rooms on the first floor, when these reflections crossed her mind. This window overlooked the entrance to the walk so carefully eschewed by Celia--though not so much of it could be seen as from Miss Norreys's room, situated in an angle of the house. The association of the White Weeper's reputed preference for this walk was always an irritation to Winifred, as was, in fact, everything real or imaginary which had to do with the old story. She gave herself a little shake when she took in whither her gaze was absently directed.