“My name? Jane.”
“Jane what?”
“Lambert. Are you going to live here a long time?”
Mr. Sheridan sighed.
“I think so.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Do? Well,—that would be a little difficult to explain. I came here primarily for—solitude.” The melancholy tone of his voice prompted a dozen inquisitive questions to the tip of Jane’s tongue.
“Oh. Are you sick?”
“There are different kinds of illness,” said Mr. Sheridan gloomily and mysteriously. Jane’s grave eyes considered him attentively. Perhaps he was suffering from a guilty conscience. He might have embezzled money from a bank. He might even have killed someone. She felt very sorry for him.
“Don’t you ever want to see anybody? I can’t understand that.”