“He seems to be your chaperone!” he observed.
“He is my mascot!” cried Dorothy. “If it were not for his company, I fear I should go mad. I am so lonely, Paul, you can not understand it.”
“Have you no neighbors?” he inquired.
“None within miles; and we live such a strange isolated life that people are afraid of us.”
Paul thought of the stage driver, and his look of horror on hearing where he was going.
“I can't understand why people should be afraid of you simply because you live alone,” he said. “For my part, I think your life here is most interesting. But you have not told me how I can help you.”
“Nor can I yet,” she answered. “There is a way, of course, but I can not consent to so great a sacrifice from you; at least, not at present.”
“And would it compel me to leave you?”
“No; it would compel you to be with me always.”
“And have you so little faith in me as to call that a sacrifice? I did flatter myself that you believed what I told you just now.”