"
"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 someone who was
both."
"Well, what was I to think, and what could I do?"
"Nothing better than you did--make a declar--"
"What were you saying about the abbot's ghost?"
"I was on my way to have an interview with it when--"
"What was it like, and where did you find it?"
"It was like a column of light standing not far from the house near the
corner of the abbey-field.
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