Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/42

30 I looked at Mrs. Peddar; Mrs. Peddar looked at me. It was she who answered.

"I think, miss, you will be more comfortable if you come with me. You see, Mr. Ferguson lives alone." "But where shall you be?"

The anxious tone in which the girl put the question, and the appealing gesture with which it was accompanied, afforded me an unreasonable amount of pleasure.

"I shall be here, not so very far away from you; and, the first thing in the morning, I will come to learn how you have slept"

"You promise?"

"I promise."

Never did I promise anything more willingly.

She was still reluctant to go. To appease her I accompanied her upstairs. When she reached Mrs. Peddar's own apartment she was still unwilling to suffer me to leave her, her unwillingness making me absurdly happy.

As I descended those interminable stairs it was as if I trod on air. It was ridiculous. Why should I be affected, one way or the other, by the whims, and airs, and fancies of an apparently half-witted woman, who had forced her way into my room at dead of night in a cloak all wet with blood.