"No, no," I said. "You mustn't let that stupid fellow's ghost story trouble you. He's a fool! All butlers are," I added, with a hasty generalisation; "they're always so old, you see."
"Then what can it all mean?" repeated she. "We seem to be leading haunted lives. I have become so nervous of late. I look in the glass every morning to see whether my hair is turning grey. I live in daily dread of—I don't know what, and at night I am as afraid of the dark as a little child."
She was trembling like a leaf. She looked so pretty and interesting in her grief that I could not resist the temptation of placing my arm sympathisingly around her waist. She did not resent the action. On the contrary, the new light that sprang up in her eyes could only be caused by one feeling.
Now I had not intended to make love to Daphne for some weeks to come, but the present occasion was too tempting to be thrown away. As Angelo himself had very justly remarked on a similar occasion, "Who can forge chains for love, and say, 'To-day thou shalt be dumb; to-morrow thou shalt speak?'"
"Daphne," said I, "I am going to let you into a secret."
"A secret?" she repeated.
"Yes; you have always taken me into your confidences"—this was scarcely true, but it served to pave the way for what was to follow—"so I am going to take you into mine."
I paused to admire the look of mystification in her bright eyes.
"What will you think," I continued, speaking very slowly and deliberately, "when I say that I have fallen in love with one of the ladies here at the Abbey?"
"Are you in earnest?" she asked, trembling all over, and gently endeavouring to free herself from my embrace.