Lionel, self-conscious, did not urge it further.  “Will you remain here, then, under the trees, while I go home and get an umbrella?”

“Oh, dear, no, I don’t want an umbrella; thank you all the same.  I have my parasol, you see.”

She took her dress up again as she spoke; not high, as it was previously, but turning it a little.  “Lady Verner scolds me so if I spoil my things,” she said, in a tone of laughing apology.  “She buys me very good ones, and orders me to take care of them.  Good-bye, Mr. Verner.”

Lionel took the hand in his which she held out.  But he turned with her, and then loosed it again.

“You are not coming with me, Mr. Verner?”

“I shall see you home.”

“But—­I had rather you did not.  I prefer—­not to trouble you.”

“Pardon me, Lucy.  I cannot suffer you to go alone.”

It was a calm reply, quietly spoken.  There were no fine phrases of its being “no trouble,” that the “trouble was a pleasure,” as others might indulge in.  Fine phrases from them! from the one to the other!  Neither could have spoken them.

Lucy said no more, and they walked on side by side in silence, both unpleasantly self-conscious.  Lionel’s face had resumed its strange expression of care.  Lucy had observed it when she came up to him; she observed it still.

“You look as though you had some great trouble upon you, Mr. Verner,” she said, after a while.

“Then I look what is the truth.  I have one, Lucy.”

“A heavy one?” asked Lucy, struck with his tone.

“A grievously heavy one.  One that does not often fall to the lot of man.”

“May I know it?” she timidly said.

“No, Lucy.  If I could speak it, it would only give you pain; but it is of a private nature.  Possibly it may be averted; it is at present a suspected dread, not a confirmed one.  Should it become confirmed, you will learn it in common with all the world.”

She looked up at him, puzzled; sympathy in her mantling blush, in her soft, dark, earnest eyes.  He could not avoid contrasting that truthful face with another’s frivolous one; and I can’t help it if you blame him.  He did his best to shake off the feeling, and looked down at her with a careless smile.

“Don’t let it give you concern, Lucy.  My troubles must rest upon my own head.”.

“Have you seen any more of that man who was watching?  Roy.”

“No.  But I don’t believe now that it was Roy.  He strongly denies it, and I have had my suspicions diverted to another quarter.”

“To one who may be equally wishing to do you harm?”

“I cannot say.  If it be the party I—­I suspect, he may deem that I have done him harm.”

“You!” echoed Lucy.  “And have you?”

“Yes.  Unwittingly.  It seems to be my fate, I think, to work harm upon—­upon those whom I would especially shield from it.”

Did he allude to her?  Lucy thought so, and the flush on her cheeks deepened.  At that moment the rain began to pour down heavily.  They were then passing the thicket of trees where those adventurous ghost-hunters had taken up their watch a few nights previously, in view of the Willow Pond.  Lucy stepped underneath their branches.