The tables and chairs were bare: no opportunity there for anything concealed. The bureau was locked. She tried it; palled it, pushed it: but the closed-down lid was firm as adamant.
"If there exists any record of him, it is in here," she said, half aloud. "I must contrive means of opening it."
She could not do that to-day. It would have to be done with a false key, she supposed; and, that, she had not in her possession. Before quitting the room, she approached the window, and looked forth cautiously. At the sea rolling in the distance; at the Friars' Keep opposite; at the fair green lands lying between that and Greylands' Rest. Charlotte Guise shuddered at a thought that crossed her.
"If he did indeed kill my poor husband and has laid him to rest in the Friars' Keep, how can he bear to be in this room, with that building in front of him to remind him of the deed?"
The day was before her: it was not yet twelve o'clock. Blankly disappointed with her failure, she put on her things to go abroad: there was nothing to stay in for. At the last moment a thought struck her that she would go to Stilborough. She wanted to make some purchases; for the wardrobe brought over from France had not been extensive, either for herself or child. Hastily attiring herself, she told Miles she should not be in to dinner, and started.
And so, just as Anthony Castlemaine had once, and but once, set off to walk to the market-town, did his poor young wife--nay, his widow--set off now. She was a good walker, and, so far, enjoyed the journey and the sweet spring day. She saw the same objects of interest (or of non-interest, as people might estimate them) that he had seen: the tall, fine trees, now budding into life: the country carts and waggons; the clumsy milestones; the two or three farm houses lying back amid their barns and orchards. Thus she reached Stilborough, and did her commissions.
It was late when she got back to Greylands; five o'clock, and she was dead tired. By the time she reached the Dolphin, she could hardly drag one foot before the other. To walk three miles on a fine day is not much; but to go about afterwards from shop to shop, and then to walk back again is something more. Mrs. Bent, standing at the inn door, saw her, brought her in, and set her down to a substantial tea-table. She told the landlady she had been to Stilborough to make purchases--which would come by the van for her on the morrow, and to be left at the Dolphin, if the Dolphin would kindly take them in.