He had formerly talked of the matter in a resentful tone, but it was sorrowful now, as if he were convinced that he gave himself a credit he did not deserve when he thought she worried because he was unhappy. “Frequently when there is nothing to occupy my attention all night,” Jo said later in the evening, “I walk through the woods, and steal up to her father’s house, and remain under her window until the approach of day warns me to depart. I cannot say that I expect it, but I always hope that she will divine my presence, and speak to me, but the house is always dark, though I have heard them walking on the inside.” His habit of being startled at every noise, and nervously looking about, was growing upon him, for when some one appeared at the door, he went hastily into another part of the mill, to avoid him. It was only the miller come after something he had forgotten during the day, but Jo would not come back until after he had gone, not caring to see even him. In contrasting his present condition with his former manliness, I thought his sufferings must have been great to work such a change. “The people who come here,” he said, in explanation of his going away, “look at me as though I were a curiosity, and I avoid them. Although no one has told me what they say, I know what it is, and I do not care to meet them. At first I thought not to mind it, but among them all I did not find a single pitying face; they were all against me, and I determined to run from them and get out of their way. I see no one now except you, and there is nothing I dread so much as a pair of curious eyes, and a head containing a brain which I know must be conjecturing and wondering with reference to me.” I tried to laugh away this notion, although I knew it was well founded, but he paid little attention, and resumed what he was saying when interrupted by the entrance of the miller.