w confess," said Guy, "haven't we been rather stupid to neglect such
a refuge?"

"But, Guy, we haven't needed a refuge very often," objected Pauline,
who, for all that she was losing some of her dread of the Abbey, was by
no means inclined to set up a precedent for going there too often.

"Not yet," he admitted. "But with Winter coming on and the wet days that
will either keep us indoors or else prevent us from doing anything but
walk perpetually along splashy roads, we sha'n't be sorry to have a
place like this to which we can retreat in comparative comfort."

"Oh, Guy," Pauline asked, anxiously, "I suppose we ought not to come
here?"

"Why on earth not?"

"Don't be angry. But the idea just flashed through my mind that perhaps
Mother wouldn't like us to come here very often."

He sighed deeply.

"Really, sometimes I wonder what is the good of being engaged. Are we
for ever to be hemmed in by the conventions of a place like Wychford?"

"Oh, but I expect Mother wouldn't mind, really," said Pauline,
reassuring herself and him. "I'm always liable to these fits of doubt.
Sometimes I feel quite weighed down by the responsibility of being grown
up."

She laughed at herself, and the laughter ringing through the hollow
house seemed to return and mock her with a mirthless echo.

"Oh, Guy!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Guy, I wish I hadn't laughed then! Did
you hear how strangely it seemed as if the house laughed back at me?"

She had gripped his arm, and Guy, startled by her gesture, exclaimed
rather irritably that she ought to control her nerves.

"Well, don't let's stay in this room. I don't like the green light that
the ivy is giving your face."

"What next?" he grumbled. "Well, let's go out on the balcony."

They went half-way down-stairs to the door that opened on a large
balustraded terrace with steps leading from either end into the ruined
garden. The wind beat against them with such force here that very soon
they went back into the house, and Guy found a small room looking out on
the terrace, in which he persuaded Pauline to come and sit for a while.
All the other rooms in the house had been so dreadfully decayed, so much
battered by every humiliation time could inflict upon them, that this
small parlor was in contrast positively habitable. It gave the
impression of being perhaps the last place to which the long-vanished
owners had desperately held. There was a rusty hob-grate, and in the
window a deep wooden sea