“’Twas nothing, Ada—nothing—I suppose quite accidental, Ada; you are going down—I—I’ll follow you—I’ll follow you.”
He closed the door behind him with a trembling hand, and made a step towards the staircase.
“Jacob Gray,” cried Ada, “stop.”
He paused, for there was an awful earnestness in her manner that greatly added to his alarm. Yet Ada knew not what to do or how to act. The words she uttered were almost involuntary. Then it might be that Heaven whispered to her mind a course of action; but it came across her mind that Gray might be alarmed still more, knowing the lurking superstition of his character, and she suddenly said,—
“Did you not tell me once this house was haunted?”
“Haunted!” echoed Gray, suddenly descending several stairs, and showing by his rapid changes of colour the craven fear that was at his heart’s inmost core.
His fears, however, had prompted him to the very course which Ada so much dreaded, namely, to descend to the lower part of the house, and on the impulse of the moment she laid her hand on Jacob Gray’s arm, and said,—
“I was following it—it has gone down!”
“It!—Who?—What?” cried Gray, as he sprung back again to the door of his room in an instant, trembling exceedingly.
Ada’s pure and innocent heart detested all kinds of duplicity; but if ever such was justifiable, it was surely then; and to save the life of the poor creature who had sought shelter with her, and had suffered so much wrong and unmerited persecution, was a justification which, with the rapidity of thought, came to Ada’s relief.