she
carries in her pocket. For just one hour by the clock she remains there,
and then she is seen to issue in the falling dusk, with a countenance
whose heavy dejection is in striking contrast to the expression of hope
with which she invariably enters. Why she makes this pilgrimage and for
what purpose she secludes herself for a stated time each day in this
otherwise deserted mansion, no man knows nor is it possible to
determine, for though she is a worthy woman and approachable enough on
all other topics, on this she is absolutely mute."

Mr. Sylvester started and surveyed the woman as she passed with an
anxious gaze. "I know her," he muttered; "she was a connection of--of
the family, who inhabited this house." He could not speak the name.

"Yes, so they say, and the owner of this house, though she does not live
here. Did you notice how she looked at me? She often does that, just as
if she wanted to speak. But she always goes by and opens the gate as you
see her now and takes out the big key and--"

"Come away," cried Mr. Sylvester with sudden impulse, seizing Paula by
the hand and hurrying her down the street. "She is a walking goblin; you
must have nothing to do with such uncanny folk." And endeavoring to turn
off this irresistible display of feeling by a show of pleasantry he
laughed aloud, but in a strained and unnatural way that made her eyes
lift in unconscious amazement.

"You are infected by the atmosphere of unreality that pervades the
spot," said she, "I do not wonder." And with the gentle perversity that
sometimes affects the most thoughtful amongst us, she went on talking
upon the unwelcome subject. "I know of some folks who invariably cross
to the other side of the street at night, rather than go through the
shadows of the two gaunt poplars which guard that house. Yet there has
been no murder committed there or any great crime that I know of, unless
the disobedience of a daughter who ran away with a man her father
detested, could be denominated by so fearful a word."

The set gaze with which Mr. Sylvester surveyed the landscape before him
quavered a trifle and then grew hard and cold. "And so," said he in a
tone meant more for himself than her, "even your innocent ears have been
assailed by the gossip about Miss Japha."

"Gossip! I have never thought of it as gossip," returned she, struck for
the first time by the change in his appearance. "It all happened so long
ago it seems more like some quaint a