"What would you say to our all going out for a walk?" Luncheon was just over, and Varick was facing his guests. The only one missing was Dr. Panton, who had gone up to his room, saying he had some work to do.
"I'm afraid it must be very wet and slushy," said Blanche Farrow dubiously. It had snowed in the night, and now a thaw had set in.
She had an almost catlike dislike of wet or dirt; on the other hand, she was one of those people who are generally willing to put aside their own wishes in favour of what those about them wish to do; and she saw that for some reason or other Lionel Varick wanted this suggestion of his to be carried out.
"I can take you to a place," he exclaimed, "where I think we shall find it dry walking even to-day. It's a kind of causeway, or embankment"--he turned to Helen Brabazon--"which some people say was built by the Romans."
"I think a walk would be very nice," she agreed.
Helen did not look like her usual cheerful, composed self. The experience which had befallen her the day before still haunted her mind to the exclusion of everything else. Perhaps a good long walk would make her feel a different creature, and chase that awful image of Milly Varick in her grave-clothes from her brain.
And so in the end the whole party started off, with the exception of Miss Burnaby and Dr. Panton. Bubbles tried hard to get out of going on what she frankly said seemed to her "a stupid expedition," but Donnington had a theory that the open air would do her good, and as for Varick, he exclaimed in a good-humoured but very determined tone: "If _you_ won't come, Bubbles, I give the whole thing up!" In a lower voice he added: "Naughty as you are, you're the life and soul of the party."
And thus it was to please Varick, rather than Donnington, that Bubbles started on what was to be to all those that took part in it a memorable walk.
Poor Donnington! The young man felt alarmed and perplexed concerning Bubbles' general condition. He knew something that had shocked and startled her had happened the day before, but when he had tried to find out what it was, she had snubbed him.
Like so many people wiser and cleverer than himself, Donnington found it impossible to make up his mind concerning psychic phenomena. When kneeling by Bubbles' side in the dimly-lit church he had accepted, almost without question, her own explanation of her strange and sinister gift, but by now he had argued himself out of the belief that such things could be in our work-a-day world.