Page:The traitor; a story of the fall of the invisible empire (IA traitorstoryoffa00dixo).pdf/208

 could not control. That Empire had left a stain of blood on the floor of this house—a stain that must forever darken his own life and hers—and yet—how could he give her up?

He rose from the table at her suggestion and followed her in a spell as she lifted a silver candlestick above her head and started to explore the house.

He found his tongue at last and told her with boyish enthusiasm the legends of the old mansion, the associations of each room, and sketched with good-humoured criticism the peculiarities of his people. In the gallery of the observatory he showed her the spots from which the slightest sounds were echoed to the hall below, and explained the origin of many of the ghost stories which the Negroes believed with such implicit faith.

Stella leaned over the railing and looked down into the hall at the chair in which her father had fallen the night of the dance, and a curious smile played about her lips.

"And what are you smiling at?" he asked softly.

Without the quiver of an eyelid, either in surprise or recognition of the fact that he had caught her in a moment off her guard, she replied:

"I was just wondering if you ever believed in ghosts?"

"Of course," he laughed.