‘It is, Lucius. Yes, it is a relief to trust you. I thought I never could have told you. The burden of this dreadful secret has weighed down my heart. I dared not tell you. I thought you would bitterly reproach me for having kept such a secret from you, and then it is such pain to speak of him—now—now that I know he was never worthy of my love. But you are so kind, and it will relieve my mind to tell you all.’ ‘Speak freely then, darling, and fear no reproaches from me.’ ‘It was while you were away at Stillmington, Lucius, that this secret first began. I was in the garden alone, at dusk one evening.’ Lucius remembered what Mrs. Wincher had told him about Lucille coming in from the garden with a pale horror-stricken face, and saying that she had seen a ghost. ‘I was low-spirited because of your absence, and a little nervous. The place seemed so dull and lonely. All the common sounds of the day were over, and there was something oppressive in the silence, and the hot smoky atmosphere, and the dim gray sky. I was standing in the old summer-house, looking at the creek, and thinking of you, and trying to have happy thoughts about brighter days to come—only the happy thoughts would not stay with me—when I saw a man come from the wharf on the other side of the water, and step lightly from barge to barge. I was frightened, for the man had a strange look somehow, and was oddly dressed, buttoned to the neck in a shabby greatcoat, and with his face overshadowed by a felt hat that was slouched over his forehead. He came so quickly that I had hardly time to think before he had got upon the low garden wall, and dropped down close to the summer-house. I think I gave a little scream just then, for he came in, and put his hand across my lips. Not roughly, but so as to prevent my calling out. “Lucille,” he said, “don’t you know me? Am I so changed that my dear little daughter, who loved me so well once, doesn’t know me?” The voice was like the memory of a dream. I had not an instant’s doubt. All fear vanished in that great joy. The sad sweet thought of the past came back to me. The firelit parlour where I had sat at his feet—that strange wild music—his voice—his face—he had taken off his hat now, and was looking down at me with those dark bright eyes. I remembered him as well as if we had been only parted a few days.’ ‘And was there nothing in his presence—in the tone of his voice, the expression of his face—from which your better instinct recoiled? Had nature no warning for you? Did you not feel that there was something of the serpent’s charm in the influence which this man had exercised over you?’ Lucille was silent for a few moments, looking thoughtfully downwards, as if questioning her own memory.