The Ghost of Guir House

She got up and left the room, leaving Paul alone. His appetite had

quite departed, so he turned his chair around and looked out of the

window at the boxwood bushes and the trees beyond. Not a human figure

was in sight, nor was there a sound to indicate that there were

living creatures about the premises. Where was the family? Surely

such a large house could not be occupied solely by the few

individuals he had already met. If there were other members, where

had they kept themselves? He would have given the world to have asked

a few straightforward questions, but there seemed no opportunity to

do so. Where was Ah Ben? Even he had not shown his face at the

breakfast table. A painful sense of mystery was growing more

oppressive each hour, which the bright morning sunlight had not

dispelled, as he had hoped it would. If this feeling had confined

itself to Ah Ben and the house, Paul thought he might have shaken off

the gloom while in the company of the girl, but even she was subject

to such extraordinary flights of eccentricity, such sudden fits of

nervous depression, that he felt she was not surely to be depended on

as a solace to his troubled soul. While he was meditating, the door

opened, and Dorothy returned. She was full of smiles; and the color

had come back to her cheeks.

"I can't imagine how I could have given you such a turn," said Paul

apologetically, as he resumed his place at the table.

"It was altogether my fault," she answered. Then looking at him very

earnestly, added: "I hope, Mr. Henley, that you may never become an outcast, as I am.

I hope your people will never disown you. But let us talk of

something else."

As upon the previous evening, she was solicitous about his food, that

it should be of the best, and that he should enjoy it, although

apparently indifferent about her own.

"Of course, you will find us quite different from other people, Mr.

Henley," she continued, sipping her coffee (she never seemed to drink

or eat anything heartily); "our ideas and manner of living being

quite at variance with theirs."

"Yes," Paul replied, as if he understood it perfectly. She was toying

with her cup as though not knowing exactly how to continue. Presently

she looked up at him appealingly, possessed of a sudden idea, and

added: "And what do you think about the brain?"

Paul was astonished at the irrelevancy of the question.