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 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.”