before and around them.
A wind was rising and making a singular, wild, low, rushing sound.

"It's--it's not the sea, is it?" said Mary, looking round at her
companion.

"No, not it," answered Mrs. Medlock. "Nor it isn't fields nor mountains,
it's just miles and miles and miles of wild land that nothing grows on
but heather and gorse and broom, and nothing lives on but wild ponies
and sheep."

"I feel as if it might be the sea, if there were water on it," said
Mary. "It sounds like the sea just now."

"That's the wind blowing through the bushes," Mrs. Medlock said. "It's a
wild, dreary enough place to my mind, though there's plenty that likes
it--particularly when the heather's in bloom."

On and on they drove through the darkness, and though the rain stopped,
the wind rushed by and whistled and made strange sounds. The road went
up and down, and several times the carriage passed over a little bridge
beneath which water rushed very fast with a great deal of noise. Mary
felt as if the drive would never come to an end and that the wide, bleak
moor was a wide expanse of black ocean through which she was passing on
a strip of dry land.

"I don't like it," she said to herself. "I don't like it," and she
pinched her thin lips more tightly together.

The horses were climbing up a hilly piece of road when she first caught
sight of a light. Mrs. Medlock saw it as soon as she did and drew a long
sigh of relief.

"Eh, I am glad to see that bit o' light twinkling," she exclaimed. "It's
the light in the lodge window. We shall get a good cup of tea after a
bit, at all events."

It was "after a bit," as she said, for when the carriage passed through
the park gates there was still two miles of avenue to drive through and
the trees (which nearly met overhead) made it seem as if they were
driving through a long dark vault.

They drove out of the vault into a clear space and stopped before an
immensely long but low-built house which seemed to ramble round a stone
court. At first Mary thought that there were no lights at all in the
windows, but as she got out of the carriage she saw that one room in a
corner up-stairs showed a dull glow.

The entrance door was a huge one made of massive, curiously shaped
panels of oak studded with big iron nails and bound with great iron
bars. It opened into an enormous hall, which was so dimly lighted that
the faces in the portraits on the walls and the figures in the suits of
armor made Mar