y stood alone on the brow of the hill
overlooking the river and the Whitefriars Abbey. Toward the street, when
Ronald Sefton's forefathers had realized a fortune by banking, now a
hundred years ago, there had been a new frontage built to it, with the
massive red brick workmanship and tall narrow windows of the eighteenth
century. But on the river side it was still an old Elizabethan mansion,
with gabled roofs standing boldly up against the sky; and low broad
casements, latticed and filled with lozenge-shaped panes; and
half-timber walls, with black beams fashioned into many forms: and with
one story jutting out beyond that below, until the attic window under
the gable seemed to hang in mid-air, without visible support, over the
garden sloping down a steep bank to the river-side.

Phebe Marlowe, in her coarse dark blue merino dress, and with her
market-basket of golden blossoms on her arm, walked with a quick step
along the quiet street, having left her pony at a stable near the
entrance to the town. There were few persons about; but those whom she
met she looked at with a pleasant, shy, slight smile on her face, as if
she almost claimed acquaintance with them, and was ready, even wishful,
to bid them good-morning on a day so fine and bright. Two or three
responded to this inarticulate greeting, and then her lips parted
gladly, and her voice, clear though low, answered them with a sweet
good-humor that had something at once peculiar and pathetic in it. She
passed under a broad archway at one side of the bank offices, leading to
the house entrance, and to the sloping garden beyond. A private door
into the bank was ajar, and a dark, sombre face was peering out of it
into the semi-darkness. Phebe's feet paused for an instant.

"Good-morning, Mr. Acton," she said, with a little rustic courtesy. But
he drew back quickly, and she heard him draw the bolt inside the door,
as if he had neither seen nor heard her. Yet the face, with its eager
and scared expression, had been too quickly seen by her, and too vividly
impressed upon her keen perception; and she went on, chilled a little,
as if some cloud had come over the clear brightness of the morning.

Phebe was so much at home in the house, that when she found the
housemaid on her knees cleaning the hall floor, she passed on
unceremoniously to the dining-room, where she felt sure of finding some
of the family. It was a spacious room, with a low ceiling where black
beams crossed