e would
ask if he should send one of the servants to her.

When he opened the door she was sitting with her face hidden in her
hands. At the sound of the door opening she glanced up, and Edwin saw
tears.

She turned away instantly. He went up to her and said, "I did not mean
to intrude. I forgot to ask if I should tell one of the servants to
come."

"No, you needn't."

"Bessie," he said, "you are not well, and something is vexing you.
Could you not tell me about it. I mean nothing but kindness."

"I know you don't," she said almost fiercely, "and I hate kindness:
it's an insult."

He stood in blank astonishment, "An insult?" he said.

"Yes, an insult; and if you were not obtuse you would see it. But you
don't see and you don't feel, or you would never have tried to make
any one care for you for whom you did not care a bit. But I won't care
for you, and I don't."

Off her guard, she had been stung into this. She was standing away
from him, her head erect and her eyes gleaming through tears: Mary
Stuart herself could not have been more effective.

"Care for you! not care for you!" he said in a voice he could hardly
control. "I have cared for you as I never cared for a thing on earth:
I have loved and shall love you as I have never loved a human being."

"How am I to believe it? Why did you not say it? Why did you not say
it without making me ashamed of myself?"

"Ashamed! Oh, Bessie, I only feared to annoy you."

"Annoy!"

He gathered her to him and kissed her.

A castle all to themselves at four o'clock in the morning is a piece
of fortune that rarely falls to lovers, and they need not expect it;
but those great thick walls were no way taken by surprise: they had
not been confidants of this kind of thing off and on for four or five
hundred years to be taken by surprise now. Whether after such long
familiarity with the old story they felt it any way stale, you will
readily believe they did not say.

VI.

"I've forgotten the abbot entirely," said Edwin when he had time to
come to himself after the first draught of miraculous champagne. "I
was on my way to investigate his ghost when I heard an unaccountable
scream."

"I never screamed before, and I don't think I shall ever scream again:
I don't know how I have been so weak to-night."

"Weakness always draws out kindness," said Edwin.

"I would rather be weak than obtuse," said Bessie.

"But it is better to be only obtuse than both. I know