dom guess was a correct one, and running away was just what
Oliver was doing. He had not really meant to when he came out through
the pillared gateway of his cousin's place; he had only thought that
he would walk down the road toward the station--and see the train come
in. Yet the resolve had grown within him as he thought of all that had
passed in the last few days, and as he looked forward to what was
still to come. As he walked down the road, rattling the money in his
pockets, turning over his wrongs in his mind, the thought had come
swiftly to him that he need no longer endure things as they were. It
was three miles to the railroad station; but, once there, he could be
whisked away from all the troubles that had begun to seem unendurable.
The inviting whistle of a train seemed to settle the matter finally.

"It isn't as though I were afraid of anything," he reflected, looking
back uneasily. "If I thought I were afraid I would never go away and
leave Janet behind like this. No, I am only going because I will not
be made to do what I hate."

He told himself this several times by way of reassurance, but seemed
always to find it necessary to say it again. There were some strange
things about the place where he and his younger sister Janet had come
to make a visit, things that made him feel, even on the first day,
that the whole house was haunted by some vague disquiet of which no
one would tell him the cause. His Cousin Jasper had changed greatly
since they had last seen him. He had always been a man of quick,
brilliant mind but of mild and silent manners, yet now he was nervous,
irritable, and impatient, in no sense a genial host.

Janet, Oliver's sister, had already begun to love the place, nor did
she seem to notice the uneasiness that appeared to fill the house. She
did not remember her cousin as well as did her brother and was thus
less conscious of a change. So far, she had been spending her time
very happily, being shown by Mrs. Brown, the housekeeper, through the
whole of Cousin Jasper's great mansion and inspecting all the
treasures that it contained. It was a new house, built only a year
ago.

"And a real calamity it was when the work came to an end so soon,"
Mrs. Brown had said, "for it kept Mr. Peyton interested and happy all
the time it was going on. We had hoped the south wing would be
building these three months more."

Janet thought the great rooms were very beautiful, but Oliver did not
like their