The Ghost of Guir House

"But you will never let me be afraid of you, like the others, will

you?" he exclaimed half in earnest.

"I don't know; others are; why should not you be?"

She was still staring into vacancy, with her hands clasped, and Paul

thought he detected a little, just a little, of the same expression

he had seen in the portrait. He started, and Dorothy saw him.

"What is the matter?" she inquired, looking around at him for the

first time.

"Nothing; only you looked so dreadfully in earnest, you startled me."

"But surely you would not be startled by so simple a thing as that!"

"Why not? I am only human," he answered.

"Yes, but I am sure there was something else. Now tell me, was there

not?"

"Why, how strangely you talk!" he replied, searching her face for an

explanation. "Of course there wasn't; why should there be?"

She leaned back, apparently still in doubt as to his assertion, while

her countenance grew even more grave than before. Henley was puzzled,

and while Dorothy had not ceased to charm him, he was conscious of a

very slight uneasiness in her presence. This, however, wore off a

little later when they went together for a stroll in the forest. The

girl's extreme delicacy of appearance, her abstracted, melancholy

manner, and sincerity of expression, both attracted and perplexed

Paul, and kept him constantly at work endeavoring to solve her

character and form some conception of the mystery of her life. He had

not yet had even the courage to ask her if Ah Ben were her father,

dreading to expose himself as an impostor and be ordered from the

place, which, despite his discovery of the previous night, he could

only regard as an unmitigated hardship in the present state of his

feelings; and so he had let the hours slip by, constantly hoping that

something would occur to explain the whole situation to him. And yet

nothing had occurred, and now upon the third day he was as grossly

ignorant of the causes which had produced his strange environment as

at the moment of his arrival.

"One thing I do not understand," Paul observed, as they wandered over

the vari-colored leaves, side by side; "it is why you should be so

anxious to leave this ideal spot."

"Have I not told you that it is because I am out of my element;

because I am avoided; because I have not a friend far nor near! Oh,

Paul, you do not know what it is to be alone in the world!"