“What is the matter with this bud, do you think, Miss Drake?” he asked.

“That you have plucked it,” she answered sharply, throwing a suspicious glance in his face.

“No; that can not be it,” he answered with a quiet smile of intelligence.  “It has been just as you see it for the last three days.  I only plucked it the moment I saw you coming.”

“Then the frost has caught it.”

“The frost has caught it,” he answered; “but I am not quite sure whether the cause of its death was not rather its own life than the frost.”

“I don’t see what you mean by that, Mr. Polwarth,” said Dorothy, doubtfully, and with a feeling of discomfort.

“I admit it sounds paradoxical,” returned the little man.  “What I mean is, that the struggle of the life in it to unfold itself, rather than any thing else, was the cause of its death.”

“But the frost was the cause of its not being able to unfold itself,” said Dorothy.

“That I admit,” said Polwarth; “and perhaps a weaker life in the flower would have yielded sooner.  I may have carried too far an analogy I was seeking to establish between it and the human heart, in which repression is so much more dangerous than mere oppression.  Many a heart has withered like my poor little bud, because it did not know its friend when it saw him.”

Dorothy was frightened.  He knew something!  Or did he only suspect?  Perhaps he was merely guessing at her religious troubles, wanting to help her.  She must answer carefully.

“I have no doubt you are right, Mr. Polwarth,” she said; “but there are some things it is not wise, and other things it would not be right to speak about.”

“Quite true,” he answered.  “I did not think it wise to say any thing sooner, but now I venture to ask how the poor lady does?”

“What lady?” returned Dorothy, dreadfully startled, and turning white.

“Mrs. Faber,” answered Polwarth, with the utmost calmness.  “Is she not still at the Old House?”

“Is it known, then?” faltered Dorothy.

“To nobody but myself, so far as I am aware,” replied the gatekeeper.

“And how long have you known it?”

“From the very day of her disappearance, I may say.”

“Why didn’t you let me know sooner?” said Dorothy, feeling aggrieved, though she would have found it hard to show wherein lay the injury.

“For more reasons than one,” answered Polwarth; “but one will be enough:  you did not trust me.  It was well therefore to let you understand I could keep a secret.  I let you know now only because I see you are troubled about her.  I fear you have not got her to take any comfort, poor lady!”

Dorothy stood silent, gazing down with big, frightened eyes at the strange creature who looked steadfastly up at her from under what seemed a huge hat—­for his head was as large as that of a tall man.  He seemed to be reading her very thoughts.