dread--well, I cannot explain my
dread, not as I felt it that night. It was formless and without apparent
foundation; but it would no more leave me than my uneasy memory of the
fierce instinct which had led him at such a critical instant to close
his door against all help, though in so doing he had subjected a young
girl to many minutes of intense embarrassment and mortifying indecision.

CHAPTER II. A STRANGE WEDDING BREAKFAST.

Mr. Allison, who had never before been known to leave his books and
papers, not only called the next day to express his gratitude for what
he was pleased to style my invaluable warning, but came every day after,
till not only my heart but my reason told me that the great house in the
rear might ultimately be my home, if the passion which had now become my
life should prove greater than the dread which had not yet entirely left
me.

Mr. Allison loved me--oh, what pride in the thought!--but Mr. Allison
had a secret, or why did he so often break off abruptly in some telltale
speech and drop his eyes, which were otherwise always upon me. Something
not easy to understand lay between us--something which he alternately
defied and succumbed to, something which kept him from being quite the
good man I had pictured myself as marrying. Why I was so certain of this
latter fact, I cannot say. Perhaps my instinct was keen; perhaps the
signs of goodness are so unmistakable that even a child feels their want
where her heart leans hardest.

Yet everything I heard of him only tended to raise him in my estimation.
After he became an habitue of the house, Mrs. Vandyke grew more
communicative in regard to him. He was eccentric, of course, but his
eccentricities were such as did him credit. One thing she told me made
a lasting impression on me. Mrs. Ransome, the lady in whose house he
lived, had left her home very suddenly. He anticipated a like return;
so, ever since her departure, it had been his invariable custom to have
the table set for three, so that he might never be surprised by her
arrival. It had become a monomania with him. Never did he sit down
without there being enough before him for a small family, and as his
food was all brought in cooked from a neighboring restaurant, this
eccentricity of his was well known, and gave an added _eclat_ to his
otherwise hermit-like habits. To my mind, it added an element of pathos
to his seclusion, and so affected me that one day I dared to remark to
him: