'Let us go to my boudoir,' said Mary. 'Let me enjoy the full privilege
of having a boudoir--my very own room. Wasn't it too good of grandmother
to have it made so smart for me?'
'Nothing can be too good for my Mary,' answered her husband, still in
the doting stage, 'but it was very nice of her ladyship--and the room is
charming.'
Delightful as the new boudoir might be, they dawdled in the picture
gallery, that long corridor on which all the upper rooms opened, and at
one end of which was the door of Lady Maulevrier's bedroom, at right
angles with that red-cloth door, which was never opened, except to give
egress or ingress to James Steadman, who kept the key of it, as if the
old part of Fellside House had been an enchanted castle. Lord Hartfield
had not forgotten that summer midnight last year, when his meditations
were disturbed by a woman's piercing cry. He thought of it this evening,
as Mary and he lowered their voices on drawing near Lady Maulevrier's
door. She was asleep within there now, perhaps, that strange old woman;
and at any moment an awful shriek, as of a soul in mortal agony, might
startle them in the midst of their bliss.
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