e distress of his son, so worked upon her feelings
that she consented to the marriage with Robert, and had ever since
been the ruling spirit at Oakwood, and a very different one from
what had been expected--sensible, kindly, and beneficent, and
allowing the young husband more liberty and indulgence than he had
ever known before.

The remembrance of Peregrine seemed to have entirely passed away,
and Anne had been troubled with no more apparitions, so that though
she thought over the strange scene of that terrible morning, the
rapid combat, the hasty concealment, the distracted face of the
unhappy youth, it was with the thought that time had been a healer,
and that Charles might surely now return home. And what then?

She raised her eyes to the open window, and what did she behold in
the moonlight streaming full upon the great tree rose below? It was
the same face and figure that had three times startled her before,
the figure dark and the face very white in the moonlight, but like
nothing else, and with that odd, one-sided feather as of old. It
had flitted ere she could point its place--gone in a single flash--
but she was greatly startled! Had it come to protest against the
scheme she had begun to indulge in on that very night of all nights,
or had it merely been her imagination? For nothing was visible,
though she leant from the window, no sound was to be heard, though
when she tried to complete her work, her hands trembled and the
paper rustled, so that Philip showed symptoms of wakening, and she
had to defer her task till early morning.

She said nothing of her strange sight, and Phil had a happy
successful birthday, flying the kite with a propitious wind, and
riding into Portsmouth on his new pony with grandpapa. But there
was one strange event. The servants had a holiday, and some of them
went into Portsmouth, black Hans, who never returned, being one.
The others had lost sight of him, but had not been uneasy, knowing
him to be perfectly well able to find his way home; but as he never
appeared, the conclusion was that he must have been kidnapped by
some ship's crew to serve as a cook. He had not been very happy
among the servants at Fareham, who laughed at his black face and
Dutch English, and he would probably have gone willingly with
Dutchmen; but Anne and her uncle were grieved, and felt as if they
had failed in the trust that poor Sir Peregrine had left them.

CHAPTER XXV: TIDINGS FROM THE IRON