he would have some reply, I
answered with what _naivete_ I could summon up at the moment:

"I think it was because you seem so ashamed of your devotion to them. I
love to see your embarrassment, founded as it is upon the most generous
instincts."

His hand closed over mine with a fierceness that hurt me.

"Let us talk of love," he whispered. "Delight, this is our wedding-day."

CHAPTER III. ONE BEAD FROM A NECKLACE.

After supper Mr. Allison put before me a large book. "Amuse yourself
with these pictures," said he; "I have a little task to perform. After
it is done I will come again and sit with you."

"You are not going out," I cried, starting up. "No," he smiled, "I am
not going out." I sank back and opened the book, but I did not look at
the pictures. Instead of that I listened to his steps moving about
the house, rear and front, and finally going up what seemed to be a
servant's staircase, for I could see the great front stairs from where
I sat, and there was no one on them. "Why do I not hear his feet
overhead?" I asked myself. "That is the only room he has given me leave
to enter. Does his task take him elsewhere?" Seemingly so, for, though
he was gone a good half hour, he did not enter the room above. Why
should I think of so small a matter? It would be hard to say; perhaps
I was afraid of being left in the great rooms alone; perhaps I was only
curious; but I asked myself a dozen times before he reappeared, "Where
is he gone, and why does he stay away so long?" But when he returned and
sat down I said nothing. There was a little thing I noted, however. His
hands were trembling, and it was five minutes before he met my inquiring
look. This I should not consider worth mentioning if I had not observed
the same hesitancy follow the same disappearance up-stairs on the
succeeding night. It was the only time in the day when he really left
me, and, when he came back, he was not like himself for a good half hour
or more. "I will not displease him with questions," I decided; "but some
day I will find my own way into those lofts above. I shall never be at
rest till I do."

What I expected to find there is as much a mystery to my understanding
as my other doubts and fears. I hardly think I expected to find anything
but a desk of papers, or a box with money in it or other valuables.
Still the idea that something on the floor above had power to shadow my
husband's face, even in the glow of his first love for me, p