“He has no right!” I said sternly. “It's barbarous for him to treat a girl that way—especially his daughter.”
“Hush!” she said. “Dad's a good sort. But you can't measure him by other people's standards. And yet—oh, it's maddening, this life! Day after day—loneliness. Nothing but stone walls and rusty armor and books. We're rich, but what do we get out of it? I have nobody of my own age to talk to. How the years are passing! After a while—I'll be—an old maid. I'm twenty-one now!” I heard a sob. Her pretty head was bowed in her hands.
Desperately I seized the bars of the window and miraculously they parted. I leaned across the sill and drew her hands gently down.
“Listen to me,” I said. “If I break in and steal you away from this, will you go?”
“Go?” she said. “Where?”
“My aunt lives at Seven Oaks, less than an hour from here by train. You can stay there till your father comes to his reason.”
“It's quite like father never to come to his reason,” she reflected. “Then I should have to be self-supporting. Of course, I should appreciate employment in a candy shop—I think I know all the principal kinds.”
“Will you go?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied simply, “I'll go. But how can I get away from here?”
“To-night,” I said, “is Christmas Eve, when Pierrepont the Ghost is supposed to walk along the wall—right under this window. You don't believe that fairy story, do you?”