Afterward
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Summary:
She recalls a conversation that she and her husband, Ned Boyne, had with their cousin Alida Stair six months earlier. The conversation centered on their search for a house in a southern or southwestern county in England. Alida suggested Lyng in Dorsetshire, after they had turned down several more suitable suggestions. Lyng is old, isolated, and in disrepair and they are attracted to it because of the “charm of having been for centuries a deep dim reservoir of life.” They only wanted the house if it was haunted. Legend has it that the inhabitants of Lyng don't know they've encountered the ghost until long afterward. Mary reflected on the legend with a new “perception of its significance[2]” because of her husband's disappearance.
The Boyne's were nouveau riche because of a business deal made by Ned and were looking for a place to pursue their dream of a life of leisure. They wanted to sit “in the thick December dusk, by just such a wide-hooded fireplace, under just such black oak rafters, with the sense that beyond the mullioned panes the downs were darkened to a deeper solitude.
Mary recalls that her husband seemed withdrawn and worried earlier in the month but she did not question him about it and he did not reveal why he was upset. As she is reflecting on that day, she recalls an event two months prior, in October, where she had accidentally come across a hidden stairwell that led to a flat ledge on the roof. She remembers that she and Ned climbed the stairs to take in the view and that as they were reveling in the beautiful landscape, a stranger approached.
