Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/201

 I ended by keeping my attention fixed on my cigarette, as you might feel that if you did not notice your ghost it would disappear. After all, no one in Centerbrook would have credited the report of such an intimacy. If I refused to see it, it was as good as non-existent. I refused to see it.

I refused even when the girl returned alone, almost running, in an agitation which I could not avoid hearing in her shaken breathing. I rose without looking at her, and followed her up the porch, and hastened to open the screen-door for her, discreetly silent. She controlled herself with difficulty, facing the crowded hall. I did not try to help her. I was afraid of intruding. We crossed the room without a word.

As we approached the other door she said, after a struggle, in a tone of shamed desperation: "Please take him away. Don't let him come to—to speak to me again. I'll tell them I feel ill. Don't stay to talk to them. Take him home."

Her distress was painful. I hastened to assure her: "Yes, yes. I'll fix it. Don't worry. It '11 be all right"—remorseful because I had not offered some approach to the subject in order to make it easier for her to speak of it.

We were at the door. As I reached for it she faltered out, with extraordinary poignancy: "Be— Be—kind to him."

I was afraid that she was going to break down,