X
TEMPTATION
The sharp rustle of her dress as she suddenly rose struck upon my ear.
"Then let us go," she cried, with just a slight quiver of eagerness in her wonderful voice. I comprehended its culture now. "The place is ghostly at this hour of the night. I believe that I am really afraid."
With a muttered reassurance, I allowed the full light of the lantern to fall directly on her face. She was afraid. There was no other explanation possible for her wild staring eyes and blue quivering lips. For the instant I hardly knew her; then her glance rose to mine and she smiled and it was with difficulty I refrained from acknowledging in words my appreciation of her wonderful flexibility of expression.
"You are astonished to see me so affected," she said. "It is not so strange as you think—it is superstition—the horror of what once happened here—the reason for that partition—I know the whole story, for all my attempts to deny it just now. The hour, too, is unfortunate—the darkness—your shifting, mysterious light. It was late like this—and dark—with just the moon to illumine the scene, when she—Mr. Trevitt, do you want to know the story of this place?—the old, much guessed-at, never-really-understood story which led first to its complete abandonment, then to the building of that dividing wall and finally to the restoration of this portion and of this alone? Do you?"
Her eagerness, in such startling contrast to the reticence she had shown on this very subject a few minutes before, affected me peculiarly. I wanted to hear the story—any one would who had listened to the gossip of this neighborhood for years, but—
She evidently did not mean to give me time to understand my own hesitation.
"I have the whole history—the touching, hardly-to-be-believed history—up at my house at this very moment. It was written by—no, I will let you guess."
The naïveté of her smile made me forget the force of its late expression.