A tall figure and an impressive presence are not without their
disadvantages. This he felt as he left the highway and proceeded
up the path which had once led through a double box hedge to the
high, pillared entrance. He abhorred scandal and shrank with
almost a woman's distaste from anything which savoured of the
clandestine. Yet here he was about to meet on a spot open to the
view of every passing vehicle, a woman who, if known to him, was a
mystery to every one else. His expression showed the scorn with
which he regarded his own compliance, yet he knew that no instinct
of threatened dignity, no generous thought for her or selfish one
for himself would turn him back from this interview till he had
learned what she had to tell him and why she had so carefully
exacted that he should hear her story in a spot overlooking the
Hollow it would beseem them both to shun.
There had originally been in the days of Spencer's magnificence a
lordly portico at the end of this approach, girt by pillars of
extraordinary height. But no sign remained of pillar, or doorway--
only a gap, as I have said. Towards this gap he stepped, feeling a
strange reluctance in entering it. But he had no choice. He knew
what he should see--No, he did not know what he should see, for
when he finally stepped in, it was not an open view of the Hollow
which met his eyes, but the purple-clad figure of Mrs. Averill
with little Peggy at her side. He had not expected to see the
child, and, standing as they were with their backs to him, they
presented a picture which, for some reason to be found in the
mysterious recesses of his disordered mind, was exceedingly
repellent to him.
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