“Are you afraid of me, Gloria?” he inquired, very mournfully.
She hesitated for a moment, and then answered, firmly:
“Yes, I am.”
“But why should you be?”
“I—don’t—know,” she answered.
“Then that is a most unjust and unreasonable fear of yours, for which you can assign no cause, my child.”
She looked down and made no answer.
“Do you not yourself think so, Gloria?”
“Yes, no; I don’t know. Let me go up stairs now, please, uncle,” she said, in growing distress.
“I do not hinder you, my child. You are as free as air. Go,” he said.