"Thank you," I answered, and I prayed that she might never know what my sin had been.
"You see," she went on confidentially, while the shadows grew about us; "I am really all alone in the world, except for Dr. Just, who is my guardian. He was made my guardian by my poor, dear father, who died some two years ago; my father believed in the doctor very much. They had written a scientific treatise together—because the doctor is very clever, and father quite looked up to him. So when he died he left directions that I was to be taken care of by the doctor. That was two years ago, and I have lived in this house ever since, with one short interval."
"And the interval?" I asked.
"We went down to a country house belonging to the doctor—a place in Essex, called Green Barn. It's a gloomy old house—worse than this one; the doctor goes there to shoot."
"But you haven't told me yet why you were running away from him," I reminded her.
She bent her head, so that I could not see her face. "Lately," she said in a low voice, "his manner to me has changed. At first he was courteous and kind—he treated me as though I had been his daughter. But now it's all different; he looks at me in a fashion I understand—and yet don't understand. To-day he tried to put his arm round me, and to kiss me; then when I ran away he ran after me."
I felt that I hated the doctor very cordially; I had an insane desire to be present if by any chance he should repeat his conduct. I felt my muscles stiffen as I looked at the girl; in my thoughts I was like some knight of old, ready to do doughty deeds for this fair, pretty girl, who was so ready to confide in me. I forgot all about who I was, or what had happened to me; I had only strangely come out into the world again—into a world of love.
But the fact that it was a world of love reminded me that I had had a rival—another man who had held her hands and looked into her eyes, and pleaded that he might help her. I could not, of course, ask about him, because I held the key to his fate, and that fate intimately concerned my own safety; but I was consumed with curiosity, nevertheless. Strangely enough, she voiced my thoughts by beginning to speak of him.
"There is something else that troubles me," she said earnestly. "I have one friend—a dear, good, loyal fellow; but he has unaccountably gone away, and I can hear nothing of him."
I felt myself turning hot and cold; I blessed the darkness of the summer-house. "What was his name?" I asked.