"I did it! God forgive me, I did it, too!"
At this point he gained control of himself and his wild speech, but the words remained forever an echo in her heart.
They passed the next summer in the Adirondacks, and here in the deep woods she spent the pleasantest period of her life. She was strangely atune with the big pines and the fragrant shadows which lay beneath them. Arsdale used to sit beside her in these solitudes and read aloud by the hour from the poets in his sweet musical voice. At such times she wondered more than ever what he had meant in that outburst on the steamer. Here, too, he told her more of her mother who had died at almost the same time that Ben's mother had died. But of the father all he ever told her was,
"My brother was an Arsdale—like the rest of us."
So she lived her peaceful life and was conscious of missing nothing, save at odd moments the man with the beautiful mustache. Marie, the old housekeeper, was as careful of her as Jacques was of her father. Ben was kind to her, though during the latter years he had grown a bit out of her life. This had worried the father—this and other things. One day he had called her into the library, and though he was greatly agitated she saw that it was not in the usual way.
"Little girl," he said, "if it should so happen that you are ever left alone here with Ben and he—he does not seem to act quite himself, I want you to promise me that you will go to this address which I shall leave for you."
She had promised, knowing well to what he referred.
Then his face had hardened.
"There is still another thing you must promise; if at the end of six months he is no better I wish you to promise that you will not live in this house with him or anywhere near him—that you will cut off your life utterly from his life."
"But, Dada—"