and it had made her suddenly sorry for Mr. Archibald Craven.

"Yes, she died," Mrs. Medlock answered. "And it made him queerer than
ever. He cares about nobody. He won't see people. Most of the time
he goes away, and when he is at Misselthwaite he shuts himself up in
the West Wing and won't let any one but Pitcher see him. Pitcher's an
old fellow, but he took care of him when he was a child and he knows
his ways."

It sounded like something in a book and it did not make Mary feel
cheerful. A house with a hundred rooms, nearly all shut up and with
their doors locked--a house on the edge of a moor--whatsoever a moor
was--sounded dreary. A man with a crooked back who shut himself up
also! She stared out of the window with her lips pinched together, and
it seemed quite natural that the rain should have begun to pour down in
gray slanting lines and splash and stream down the window-panes. If the
pretty wife had been alive she might have made things cheerful by being
something like her own mother and by running in and out and going to
parties as she had done in frocks "full of lace." But she was not there
any more.

"You needn't expect to see him, because ten to one you won't," said
Mrs. Medlock. "And you mustn't expect that there will be people to
talk to you. You'll have to play about and look after yourself.
You'll be told what rooms you can go into and what rooms you're to keep
out of. There's gardens enough. But when you're in the house don't go
wandering and poking about. Mr. Craven won't have it."

"I shall not want to go poking about," said sour little Mary and just
as suddenly as she had begun to be rather sorry for Mr. Archibald
Craven she began to cease to be sorry and to think he was unpleasant
enough to deserve all that had happened to him.

And she turned her face toward the streaming panes of the window of the
railway carriage and gazed out at the gray rain-storm which looked as
if it would go on forever and ever. She watched it so long and
steadily that the grayness grew heavier and heavier before her eyes and
she fell asleep.

CHAPTER III

ACROSS THE MOOR

She slept a long time, and when she awakened Mrs. Medlock had bought a
lunchbasket at one of the stations and they had some chicken and cold
beef and bread and butter and some hot tea. The rain seemed to be
streaming down more heavily than ever and everybody in the station wore
wet and glistening waterproofs. The guard light