“She has refused him again,” mentally decided Mr. Hammerton, carefully moving his queen.
“I called you, daughter, because Gus withstood me out and out about ‘Heaven doth with us as we with torches do.’ Find it and let his obstinate eyes behold!”
She opened the volume, turning the leaves with fingers that trembled. “Truly enough,” she was thinking, “a year from to-day will find a difference.”
“Now I am going over for Dine,” she said, after Mr. Hammerton had acknowledged himself in the wrong.
“Permit me to accompany you,” he said. Even with Tessa Wadsworth, Gus Hammerton was often formal. They found Dinah bidding Norah good-by at Mr. Bird’s gate; they were laughing at nothing, as usual.
“Let us walk to the end of the planks,” suggested Mr. Hammerton. “On a night like this I could tramp till sunrise.” He drew Tessa’s arm through his, saying, “Now, Dine, take the other fin.”
The end of the planks touched a piece of woods; at the entrance of the wood stood an old building, windowless, doorless, chimneyless; the school children knew that it was haunted.
“We’re afraid,” laughed Dine; “the old hut looks ghostly.”
“It is ghostly, I will relate its history. Once upon a time, upon a dark night, so dark that I could not see the white horse upon which I rode—”
“Oh, that’s splendid,” cried Dinah, hanging contentedly upon his arm. “Listen, Tessa.”