She broke off. The words were barely out of her mouth before she had read upon his countenance that they had struck some chord which it should have been all her care to leave silent. It was not so much that his pale face had grown paler or his deep eye more brooding, it was more as if something that had been for a while restored to life had once more settled into death; as if an open door had been closed upon her. “A ghost, indeed,” he said at last, after a silence, during which she thought the sunshine faded and the wind ceased to sing. “A ghost among ghosts!” “David!” she cried and quickly came close to him in the shadow. The light passed from her face as the sun sparkled away from her hair: a pale woman in a black dress, she was now nothing more! Imagination, that plant which wreathes with flowers the open life of man, grows to mere clinging, unwholesome luxuriance of stem and leaf in dark, secluded existences. Sir David’s fanciful mind, disordered by too long solitude, had become incapable of viewing in just perspective the small events and transient pictures of that every day world to which he had so persistently made himself a stranger. The sudden difference in Ellinor’s appearance, following as it did upon a deeply melancholy impression, struck him as an evil portent.—This, then, was what would happen to her youth and brightness, were fate to link her life with one so unfortunate as he! She stretched out her hand to touch him. The riddle of his attitude baffled her. “David!” she repeated, pleadingly. He drew gently back from her touch. “Cousin,” he said, and she heard a vibration as of some dark trouble in his voice, “keep to what sunshine this old house will admit. But in God’s name do not seek to explore its shadows.” “But do you not see,” she cried, pointing to the open window, “that all shadows give way before my hand?” He made no answer, unless a long look, inscrutable to her, but yet that seemed to search into her very soul, could be deemed an answer. “Come,” she went on resolutely. “Let us go through this dim house of yours together, and see what can be done. Ghosts!” she repeated, “the ghosts of Bindon are rust and dust and emptiness and silence and neglect. God’s light, dear cousin, and the wood airs, the birds’ songs, soap and water, stout hearts and true, and good company—give me but these and I’ll warrant you I’ll lay your ghosts.” Into his earnest gaze came a sort of tender indulgence, as for the prattle of a child. “Come then,” said he, simply. But she felt that now it was to humour her, and not because she had reached the seat of his melancholy.