“Don’t speak of it again!” she said in a broken voice.  “I mustn’t—­you mustn’t—­ah, don’t, don’t say a word more about it!  I’m not distressed with you—­it is not your fault.  Don’t say anything—­leave me quiet for a minute.  I shall soon be better it you leave me quiet.”

She dried her eyes directly, with a shiver as if it was cold, and took my arm.  I led her back to the house-gate; and then, feeling that I could not go in to lunch as usual, after what had happened, said I would return to the fishing-place.

“Shall I come to dinner this evening?” I asked, as I rang the gate-bell for her.

“Oh, yes—­yes!—­do come, or he—­”

The mysterious man-servant opened the door, and we parted before she could say the next words.

CHAPTER VIII.

I WENT back to the fishing-place with a heavy heart, overcome by mournful thoughts, for the first time in my life.  It was plain that she did not dislike me, and equally plain that there was some obstacle connected with her father, which forbade her to listen to my offer of marriage.  From the time when she had accidentally looked toward the red-brick house, something in her manner which it is quite impossible to describe, had suggested to my mind that this obstacle was not only something she could not mention, but something that she was partly ashamed of, partly afraid of, and partly doubtful about.  What could it be?  How had she first known it?  In what way was her father connected with it?

In the course of our walks she had told me nothing about herself which was not perfectly simple and unsuggestive.

Her childhood had been passed in England.  After that, she had lived with her father and mother at Paris, where the doctor had many friends—­for all of whom she remembered feeling more or less dislike, without being able to tell why.  They had then come to England, and had lived in lodgings in London.  For a time they had been miserably poor.  But, after her mother’s death—­a sudden death from heart disease—­there had come a change in their affairs, which she was quite unable to explain.  They had removed to their present abode, to give the doctor full accommodation for the carrying on of his scientific pursuits.  He often had occasion to go to London; but never took her with him.  The only woman at home now, beside herself, was an elderly person, who acted as cook and housekeeper, and who had been in their service for many years.  It was very lonely sometimes not having a companion of her own age and sex; but she had got tolerably used to bear it, and to amuse herself with her books, and music, and flowers.