“Not until I have told you, Lydia! I am poor, rough—not worthy to touch you—but I love you with my whole heart and soul, Lydia. You must let me take care of you. You need me, dear.”
Tears overflowed her eyes, quiet, patient tears; but she answered steadily.
“Can’t you see that I—I am different from other women? I have only one thing to live for. I must go to him.... You had forgotten—him.”
In vain he protested, arguing his case with all lover’s skill and ingenuity. She shook her head.
“Sometime you will forgive me that one moment of weakness,” she said sadly. “I was frightened and—tired.”
He followed her upstairs in gloomy silence. The old man, she was telling him hurriedly, would be terrified. She must reassure him; and tomorrow they would go away together for a long journey. She could see now that she had made a cruel mistake in bringing him to Brookville.
But there was no answer in response to her repeated tapping at his door; and suddenly the remembrance of that stooping shadow came back to him.
“Let me go in,” he said, pushing her gently aside.
The lights, turned high in the quiet room, revealed only emptiness and disorder; drawers and wardrobes pulled wide, scattered garments apparently dropped at random on chairs and tables. The carpet, drawn aside in one corner, disclosed a shallow aperture in the floor, from which the boards had been lifted.
“Why— What?” stammered the girl, all the high courage gone from her face. “What has happened?”