“Oh, no; my home proper is in Boston,” he answered her, “but I have spent some of my happiest days in that house, and the memory of it and the dear woman who lives there is the sweetest of my life, and the saddest, too,” he added, slowly; for, right in Bessie’s blue eyes, looking at him so steadily, he seemed to see the hidden grave, and for a moment all the old bitter shame and humiliation which had once weighed him down so heavily, and which, naturally, the lapse of years had tended to lighten, came back to him in the presence of this young girl who seemed so inextricably mixed up with everything pertaining to his past.

It was like some new place which we sometimes come suddenly upon, with a strange feeling that we have seen it before, though when we cannot tell; so Bessie impressed Grey as a part of the tragedy enacted in the old New England house many, many years ago, and covered up so long.  He almost felt that she had been there with him and that now she was standing by the hidden grave and stretching her hand to him across it with an offer of help and sympathy.  And so strong was this impression that he actually lifted his right hand an instant to take in it the slender one resting on the mantel, as Bessie talked to him.

“What would she say if she knew?” he thought, feeling that it would be easy to tell her about it,—­feeling that she was one to trust even unto death.

Bessie was interested in Grey, and already felt the wonderful mesmeric influence he exercised over all who came in contact with him.  In the salons of fashion, in the halls of Eaton and Oxford, in the railway car, or in the privacy of domestic life, Grey’s presence was an all-pervading power, or as an old woman whom he had once befriended expressed it: 

“He was like a great warm stove in a cold room.”

And Bessie felt the warmth, and was glad he was there, and said to him: 

“I wish you would tell me about that house among the rocks and the woman who lives there, I am sure I should like her, and I know so little of America or the American people.  You are almost the first I have ever seen.”

Before Grey could answer her Neil came in, and as supper was soon after served, no further allusion was made to America until the table was cleared away, and the party of four were sitting around the fire, Archie in his accustomed corner with Bessie at his side, her hand on the arm of his chair and her head occasionally resting lovingly against his shoulder.  Neil was opposite, while Grey sat before the fire, with now and then a shiver running down his back as the rising wind crept into the room, even through the thick curtains which draped the rattling windows behind him.  But Grey did not care for the cold.  His thoughts were across the sea, in the house among the rocks, and he was wondering if his Aunt Hannah was alone that Christmas Eve, and was thinking just how dark, and ghostly and cold was the interior of that bedroom, whose door was seldom opened, and where no one had ever been since his grandfather’s death except his Aunt Hannah and himself.  As if divining his thoughts, Bessie said to him:  “I wish you would tell us about that house among the rocks.  Is it very old?”