She walked within a
stone's-throw of Kibworth Rocks, and did not feel a tremor, scarcely
even a recollection. People nowadays came here from Rodchurch and
Manninglea on Sunday afternoons, making it the goal for wagonette
drives, wandering up and down, and gaping at a scene rendered
interesting to them merely because it had once been the background of
tragedy; and Mavis was thinking more of these Sunday visitors than of
the dead man, as she hurried through the sunlight so near the spot
where he had lain staring with glassy eyes throughout the darkness of
a July night.
She thought of him a little later, when she stood on the higher ground
looking at what live men were constructing in fulfilment of his wish,
and her mind did not hold the least tinge of bitterness. At present
the Barradine Orphanage was simply an eye-sore to miles and miles of
the country-side, but no doubt, as she thought, it would be all very
fine when finished. The bad weather of the winter had caused progress
to be rather slow; the red brickwork was only about ten feet out of
the ground, but a shell of scaffolding enabled one to trace the
general plan. It would be a central block with two long, low
dependencies, apparently, and, as it seemed, there were to be terraces
and leveled lawns all about it; a great deal of clearing work as well
as building work would, however, be necessary before the whole thing
could take shape and explain itself properly.
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