After breakfast they walked again into the garden, and while Paul
smoked his cigarette, meditatively, Dorothy gathered flowers for the
house. There was an earnestness in everything that she did, quite
unusual in a girl of her age, and at times her manner was grave and
sad, but strangely attractive, nevertheless. When she had completed
her labors in the garden, she came and seated herself beside him.
"Some day, Paul, we'll have a cheerier home than this; won't we?" she
said, looking wistfully up at the quaint old pile before them.
"I don't think we could have a more romantic one," he answered; and
then, hoping to elicit an explanatory answer, added, "but why should
Guir House not seem cheerful to you?"
"I don't know; it has always been gloomy; don't you think so?"
"Not having known it always, Dorothy, I am not in a position to
judge; but it will always be the sweetest place on earth to me,
because I met you here for the first time."
"Yes, I know; but you must not forget your promise."
She seemed nervous and anxious concerning his fulfillment of it.
"And do you suppose that I could ever forget anything you asked me?
No, Dorothy, while you will it, I am your slave; but, as I told you
before, you exert such a strange power over me that you could make me
hate and fear you. I don't know why this should be so, but I feel
it!"
"Hush!" she said, extending her outstretched hand toward his mouth;
"do not talk in that way; you frighten me; for, O Paul! I was just
beginning to hope that in you I had found a friend who would never
shrink away from me. Do not tell me that you will ever become afraid
of me like the others. I could not bear it."
"I shrink! God forbid," he answered, "but tell me why are other
people afraid of you? You mystify me."
"Because I am different--so different from them!"
"I'm quite sure of that," he replied, "else I should never have come
to love you within an hour of meeting you."
She did not smile; she did not even look up at him, but sat gazing at
nothing, with countenance as solemn and imperturbable as that of a
Sphinx.
"How am I ever to understand you, Dorothy, you seem such a riddle?"
said Paul presently.
"You will never understand me," she answered with a sigh, "No one
ever has understood me, and you will be just like the rest!"