“You are good,” I cried, turning to my husband with a fond look. Did he think the emphasis misplaced, or did he consider it time for me to begin to put on more womanly ways, for drawing me again into the library, he made me sit beside him on the big lounge, and after a kiss or two, demanded quietly, but oh, how peremptorily:
“Delight, why do you so often speak of Mrs. Ransome? Have you any reason for it? Has any one talked to you about her, that her name seems to be almost the only one on your lips in the few, short minutes we have been married?”
I did not know why this was so, myself, so I only shook my head and sighed, repentingly. Then, seeing that he would have some reply, I answered with what naiveté I could summon up at the moment:
“I think it was because you seem so ashamed of your devotion to them. I love to see your embarrassment, founded as it is upon the most generous instincts.”
His hand closed over mine with a fierceness that hurt me.
“Let us talk of love,” he whispered. “Delight, this is our wedding-day.”
CHAPTER III. ONE BEAD FROM A NECKLACE.
After supper Mr. Allison put before me a large book. “Amuse yourself with these pictures,” said he; “I have a little task to perform. After it is done I will come again and sit with you.”
“You are not going out,” I cried, starting up. “No,” he smiled, “I am not going out.” I sank back and opened the book, but I did not look at the pictures. Instead of that I listened to his steps moving about the house, rear and front, and finally going up what seemed to be a servant’s staircase, for I could see the great front stairs from where I sat, and there was no one on them. “Why do I not hear his feet overhead?” I asked myself. “That is the only room he has given me leave to enter. Does his task take him elsewhere?” Seemingly so, for, though he was gone a good half hour, he did not enter the room above. Why should I think of so small a matter? It would be hard to say; perhaps I was afraid of being left in the great rooms alone; perhaps I was only curious; but I asked myself a dozen times before he reappeared, “Where is he gone, and why does he stay away so long?” But when he returned and sat down I said nothing. There was a little thing I noted, however. His hands were trembling, and it was five minutes before he met my inquiring look. This I should not consider worth mentioning if I had not observed the same hesitancy follow the same disappearance up-stairs on the succeeding night. It was the only time in the day when he really left me, and, when he came back, he was not like himself for a good half hour or more. “I will not displease him with questions,” I decided; “but some day I will find my own way into those lofts above. I shall never be at rest till I do.”