Will it offend you if--I ask you to leave?'

'Not in the least. Upon the whole, I prefer the comfort of my little
cabin and homestead to the gauntness and alarms of this place.'

'There, now, I fear you are offended!' she said, a tear collecting in her
eye. 'I wish I was going back with you to the cabin! How happy we were,
those three days of our stay there! But it is better, perhaps, just now,
that you should leave me. Yes, these rooms are oppressive. They require
a large household to make them cheerful. . . . Yet, Swithin,' she added,
after reflection, 'I will not request you to go. Do as you think best. I
will light a night-light, and leave you here to consider. For myself, I
must go downstairs to my brother at once, or he'll wonder what I am
doing.'

She kindled the little light, and again retreated, closing the door upon
him.

Swithin stood and waited some time; till he considered that upon the
whole it would be preferable to leave. With this intention he emerged
and went softly along the dark passage towards the extreme end, where
there was a little crooked staircase that would conduct him down to a
disused side door. Descending this stair he duly arrived at the other
side of the house, facing the quarter whence the wind blew, and here he
was surprised to catch the noise of rain beating against the windows. It
was a state of weather which fully accounted for the visitor's impatient
ringing.

St. Cleeve was in a minor kind of dilemma. The rain reminded him that
his hat and great-coat had been left downstairs, in the front part of the
house; and though he might have gone home without either in ordinary
weather it was not a pleasant feat in the pelting winter rain. Retracing
his steps to Viviette's room he took the light, and opened a closet-door
that he had seen ajar on his way down. Within the closet hung various
articles of apparel, upholstery lumber of all kinds filling the back
part. Swithin thought he might find here a cloak of hers to throw round
him, but finally took down from a peg a more suitable garment, the only
one of the sort that was there. It was an old moth-eaten great-coat,
heavily trimmed with fur; and in removing it a companion cap of sealskin
was disclosed.

'Whose can they be?' he thought, and a gloomy answer suggested itself.
'Pooh,' he then said (summoning the scientific side of his nature),
'matter is matter, and mental association only a delusion.' Putting on
the