The owners of Rushbrooke Grange had
never occupied a prominent position in the county, and their estates had
grown smaller with each succeeding generation. There was no conspicuous
author of their decay, no outstanding gamester or libertine from whose
ownership the family's ruin could be dated. There was indeed nothing of
interest in their annals except an attack upon the Grange by a party of
armed burglars in the disorderly times at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, when the squire's wife and two little girls were
murdered while the squire and his sons were drinking deep in the Stag
Inn at Wychford four miles away. Mark did not feel much inclined to
blunt his impression of the chapel by perambulating Rushbrooke Grange
under the guidance of Mrs. Honeybone, the old housekeeper; but Esther
perversely insisted upon seeing the garden at any rate, giving as her
excuse that the Rector would like them to pay the visit. By now it was a
pink and green May dusk; the air was plumy with moths' wings, heavy with
the scent of apple blossom.
"Well, you must explain who we are," said Mark while the echoes of the
bell died away on the silence within the house and they waited for the
footsteps that should answer their summons. The answer came from a
window above the porch where Mrs.
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