"And that is not all," continued his now thoroughly reassured companion. "They were never the same girls again after that time. Before then Miss Hermione was the admiration and pride of the whole town, notwithstanding that dreadful scar, while Miss Emma was the life of the house and of every gathering she went into. But afterwards--well, you can see for yourself what they are now; and it was just so before their father died." Frank longed to ask some questions about this father, but reason bade him desist. He was already humiliating himself enough in thus discussing the daughters with the servant who waited upon them; others must tell him about the old gentleman. "The house is just like a haunted house," Doris now remarked. Then as she saw him cast her a quick look of renewed interest, she glanced nervously down the street and asked eagerly: "Would you mind turning off into this lane, sir, where there are not so many persons to pry and peer at us? It is still early enough for people to see, and as everybody knows me and everybody by this time must know you, they may wonder to see us talking together, and I do so long to ease my whole conscience now I am about it." For reply, he took the road she had pointed out. When they were comfortably out of sight from the main street, he stopped again and said: "What do you mean by haunted?" "Oh, sir," she began, "not by ghosts; I don't believe in any such nonsense as ghosts; but by memories sir, memories of something which has happened within those four walls and which are now locked up in the hearts of those two girls, making them live like spectres. I am not a fanciful person myself, nor given to imaginings, but that house, especially on nights when the wind blows, seems to be full of something not in nature; and though I do not hear anything or see anything, I feel strange terrors and almost expect the walls to speak or the floors to give up their secrets, but they never do; and that is why I quake in my bed and lie awake so many nights." "Yet you are not fanciful, nor given to imaginings," smiled Frank. "No, for there is ground for my secret fears. I see it in the girls' pale looks, I hear it in the girls' restless tread as they pace hour after hour through those lonesome rooms." "They walk for exercise; they do not use the streets, so they make a promenade of their own floors." "Do people walk for exercise at night?" "At _night_?" "Late at night; at one, two, sometimes three, in the morning? Oh, sir, it is uncanny, I tell you." "They are not well; lack of change affects their nerves and they cannot sleep, so they walk." "Very likely, _but they do not walk together_. Sometimes it's one, and sometimes it's the other. I know their different steps, and I never hear them both at the same time." Frank felt a cold shiver thrill his blood.