to start on the
first of June. If you want a house-party at Shenstone this summer, you
may invite your guests for the first of July. Lady Ingleby will be at
home again by then, fully able to maintain her reputation as a hostess of
unequalled charm, graciousness, and popularity. Morbid self-consciousness
is a condition of mind from which you have hitherto been so completely
free, that this unexpected attack has altogether unnerved you, and
requires prompt and uncompromising measures.... Yes, Jane Dalmain may be
your correspondent. You could not have chosen better."

This was the doctor's verdict and prescription; and, as his patients
never disputed the one, or declined to take the other, Myra found
herself, on "the glorious first of June" flying south in the Great
Western express, bound for the little fishing village of Tregarth where
she had ordered rooms at the Moorhead Inn, in the name of Mrs. O'Mara.

CHAPTER VI

AT THE MOORHEAD INN

The ruddy glow of a crimson sunset illumined cliff and hamlet, tinting
the distant ocean into every shade of golden glory, as Myra walked up the
gravelled path to the rustic porch of the Moorhead Inn, and looked around
her with a growing sense of excited refreshment.

She had come on foot from the little wayside station, her luggage
following in a barrow; and this mode of progression, minus a footman and
maid, and carrying her own cloak, umbrella, and travelling-bag, was in
itself a charming novelty.

At the door, she was received by the proprietress, a stately lady in
black satin, wearing a double row of large jet beads, who reminded her
instantly of all Lord Ingleby's maiden aunts. She seemed an accentuated,
dignified, concentrated embodiment of them all; and Myra longed for
Billy, to share the joke.

"Aunt Ingleby" requested Mrs. O'Mara to walk in, and hoped she had had a
pleasant journey. Then she rang a very loud bell twice, in order to
summon a maid to show her to her room; and, the maid not appearing at
once, requested Mrs. O'Mara meanwhile to write her name in the visitors'
book.

Lady Ingleby walked into the hall, passing a smoking-room on the left,
and, noting a door, with "Coffee Room" upon it in gold lettering, down a
short passage immediately opposite. Up from the centre of the hall, on
her right, went the rather wide old-fashioned staircase; and opposite to
it, against the wall, between the smoking-room and a door labelled
"Reception Room," stood a marble