"No," say I; "we did not give them the chance. But how do you know? Were you peeping out of your lodge? If I had remembered that you lived there, I would have been on the lookout for you."
"You had, of course, entirely forgotten so insignificant a fact?" he says, with a tone of pique.
That happy one! how well I recollect it! I feel quite fondly toward it; it reminds me so strongly of the Linkesches Bad, of the brisk band, and of Roger smoking and smiling at me with his gray eyes across our Mai-trank.
"Yes," I say, contritely, "I am ashamed to say I had—quite; but you see I have had a good many things to think of lately."
At this point it strikes me that he must have forgotten that he has my hand, so I quietly, and without offense, resume it.
"And you are alone—Sir Roger has left you quite alone here?"
"Yes," say I, lachrymosely; "is not it dreadful? I never was so miserable in my life; I do not think I ever was by myself for a whole night before, and"—(lowering my voice to a nervous whisper)—"they tell me there is a ghost somewhere about. Did you ever hear of it?—and the furniture gives such cracks!"
"And—he has gone by himself?" he continues, still harping on the same string, as if unable to leave it.
"Yes," reply I, laconically, hanging my head, for this is a topic on which I feel always guilty, and never diffuse.
"H'm!" he says, ruminatingly, and as if addressing the remark more to himself than to me. "I suppose it is difficult to get out of old habits, and into new ones, all of a sudden."