The naïveté of her smile made me forget the force of its late expression.
"Which Mr. Ocumpaugh? There have been so many." She began slowly, naturally, to move toward the door.
"Then I shall have to tell you. It was written by the one who--Come! I will tell you outside. I haven't any courage here."
"Never mind; tell me who the writer was."
"Mr. Ocumpaugh's father; he, by whose orders this partition was put up."
"Oh, you have _his_ story--written--and by himself! You are fortunate, Mrs. Carew."
I had turned the lantern from her face, but not so far that I did not detect the deep flush which dyed her whole countenance at these words.
"I am," she emphatically returned, meeting my eyes with a steady look I was not sufficiently expert with women's ways, or at all events with this woman's ways, to understand. "Seldom has such a tale been written--seldom, let us thank God, has there been an equal occasion for it."
And she did. Little as this history might have to do with the finding of Gwendolen, I felt an almost imperative necessity of satisfying my curiosity in regard to it, though I knew she had deliberately roused this curiosity for a purpose which, if not comprehensible to me, was of marked importance to her and not altogether for the reason she had been pleased to give me. Possibly it was on account of this last mentioned conviction that I allowed myself to be so interested.
"It is late," she murmured with a final glance towards those dismal hangings which in my present mood I should not have been so greatly surprised to see stir under her look. "However, if you will pardon the hour and accept a seat in my small library, I will show you what only one other person has seen besides myself."
It was a temptation; for several reasons it was a temptation; yet--
"I want you to see why I am frightened of this place," she said, flashing her eyes upon me with an almost girlish appeal.
"I will go," said I; and following her quickly out, I locked the bungalow door, and ignoring the hand she extended toward me, dropped the key into my pocket.
I thought I heard a little gasp--the least, the smallest of sounds possible. But if so, the feeling which prompted it was not apparent in her manner or her voice as she led the way back to her house, and ushered me into a hall full of packing-boxes and the general litter accompanying an approaching departure.