She heard him knock his foot against the stairs. Soon there was silence.

She blew out the candle and went back to bed. She lay there, her heart,
at first, throbbing, her eyes straining the darkness. Then she grew
more tranquil. She felt in her heart a strange triumph as though
already she had begun life and had begun it with success. She thought,
before she sank deep into sleep, that anything would yield to one did
one only deal sensibly with it ... After all, it was a fine thing to be
alone.

CHAPTER II

AUNT ANNE

In the morning, however, she discovered no fine things anywhere. The
hours that had elapsed since her father's death had wrought in him a
"sea-change." He had gained nobility, almost beauty. She wondered with
a desolate self-criticism whether during all those years she had been
to blame and not he. Perhaps he had wished for sympathy and intimacy
and she had repulsed him. His little possessions here and there about
the house reproached her.

Uncle Mathew had a bad headache and would not come down to breakfast.
She felt indignant with him but also indulgent. He had shown himself
hopelessly lacking in good taste, and good feeling, but then she had
never supposed that he had these things. At the same time the last
support seemed to have been removed from her; it might well be that her
Aunt Anne would not care for her and would not wish to have her in her
house. What should she do then? Whither should she go? She flung up her
head and looked bravely into the face of Ellen, the cook, who came to
remove the breakfast, but she had to bite her lip to keep back the
tears that WOULD come and fill her eyes so that the world was misty and
obscure.

There was, she fancied, something strange about Ellen. In HER eyes some
obscure triumph or excitement, some scorn and derision, Maggie fancied,
of herself. Had the woman been drinking? ...

Then there arrived Mr. Brassy, her father's solicitor, from Cator Hill.
He had been often in the house, a short fat man with a purple face,
clothes of a horsy cut, and large, red, swollen fingers. He took now
possession of the house with much self-importance. "Well, Miss Maggie"
(he blew his words at her as a child blows soap-bubbles). "Here we are,
then. Very sad indeed--very. I've been through the house--got the will
all right. Your aunt, you say, will be with us?"

"My aunt from London. Miss Anne Cardinal. I expect her in half an hour.
She should have arrived at Cli