“Oh, yes, you do. All the young people in town come here. It is quite a rendezvous for lovers,” Mark urged. “But we are not lovers,” Helen said, and he replied, “Very true, but we can go in for all that. Perhaps we may see the ghost, if there is one. She comes in the moonlight, they say, as well as in the rain. You surely are not afraid?” Helen was not afraid, and only held back from a feeling that it was not quite the thing to do. At last her love of adventure overcame her sense of propriety, and she followed Mark to the rear of the house where a door had fallen from its hinges, giving them free access to the building. Through the lane to this door a path had been worn by many feet, and Helen could well believe that it was a rendezvous for lovers, who either had no fear of ’Tina, or came hoping to see her. “It would have been a great deal more romantic for Craig to have told his love here than while holding Dido in to keep her from running and screaming at the top of his voice to make me hear, the wheels made such a clatter over the stones and ruts,” she thought, as she followed Mark in to what had been the family room where ’Tina sat when the tragedy outside went on and where the baby boy called so often for his mother. Through the paneless window the moonlight was shining, making the room almost as light as day, except in the corners where dark shadows lay. Something was stirring in one of them and with a cry of fear Helen pressed close to Mark, who took her hand and led her to an old settee which stood by the wide fire place. “It is only a rat; the house is full of them,” he explained, as he sat down beside her. “Oh-h! I have a mortal terror of rats and mice, too. Let’s go,” Helen cried as she drew her feet up from the door. “No, not yet,” Mark said. “There’s a chair somewhere in which you can put your feet and be safe from the marauders.” He found the chair and brought it to her; then resuming his seat he continued: “I am afraid you are not pleased with my ancestral halls.” Now that she was in no danger from the rats, Helen was less nervous and began to look around her with some curiosity. “It is a creepy kind of place and the last I should choose for a rendezvous,” she said. “Why did you bring me here?” “Because there is something I must say to you which I can say better here than where we would be liable to interruptions,” Mark replied, putting his arm on the back of the settee where it would be very convenient for it to drop across her shoulders. “I told you the story of this house in the cemetery, by ’Tina’s grave, and only the fact that I had known you so short a time prevented me from telling you another story which I have brought you here to listen to. You have heard it many times, for I know your reputation, and I believe that when you came to Ridgefield Craig Mason was your object.”