“Well, and what if he did?”
“I can’t tell you. I hate to know I feel like it. But I have always, perhaps without cause, been afraid of him; and this place is horribly lonely.”
Now that I understood the meaning of his words, I thought the boy must be joking; but the grave look on his face showed he was never further from merriment.
“Why, Carriston!” I cried, “you are positively ridiculous about your cousin. You can’t think the man wants to murder you?”
“I don’t know what I think. I am saying things to you which I ought not to say; but every time I meet him I feel he hates me, and wishes me out of the world.”
“Between wishing and doing there is a great difference. I dare say all this ’s fancy on your part.”
“Perhaps so. Any way, Cecil Carr is as good a name up here as Charles Carriston, so please humor my whim and say no more about it.”
As it made no difference to me by what name he chose to call himself I dropped the subject. I knew of old that some of his strange prejudices were proof against anything I could do to remove them.
At last we reached our temporary abode. It was a substantial, low-built house, owned and inhabited by a thrifty middle-aged widow, who, although well-to-do so far as the simple ideas of her neighbors went, was nevertheless always willing to add to her resources by accommodating such stray tourists as wished to bury themselves for a day or two in solitude, or artists who, like ourselves, preferred to enjoy the beauties of Nature undisturbed by the usual ebbing and flowing stream of sightseers.