She stooped; there was a grating sound, a click, and the door opened.
Warrington was a man of courage, but he afterward confessed that it
took all his nerve force to move his foot across the threshold.

"Do not be frightened," she said calmly; "there is nothing but ghosts
here to frighten any one."

"Ghosts?"

"Yes."

"Have you brought me here to tell me a ghost story?" with an effort at
lightness. What misery the girl's tones conveyed to his ears!

"The ghosts of things that ought to, and should, have been; are not
those the most melancholy?" She pressed a button and flooded the
hallway with light.

His keen eyes roving met nothing but signs of luxury. She led him into
the library and turned on the lights. Not a servant anywhere in sight;
the great house seemed absolutely empty. Not even the usual cat or dog
came romping inquisitively into the room. The shelves of books stirred
his sense of envy; what a den for a literary man to wander in! There
were beautiful marbles, splendid paintings, taste and refinement
visible everywhere.

Warrington stood silently watching the girl as she took off her hat
and carelessly tossed it on the reading-table. The Russian sables were
treated with like indifference. The natural abundance of her hair
amazed him; and what a figure, so elegant, rounded, and mature! The
girl, without noticing him, walked the length of the room and back
several times. Once or twice she made a gesture. It was not addressed
to him, but to some conflict going on in her mind.

He sat down on the edge of a chair and fell to twirling his hat, a
sign that he was not perfectly at his ease.

"I am wondering where I shall begin," she said.

Warrington turned down his coat-collar, and the action seemed to
relieve him of the sense of awkwardness.

"Luxury!" she began, with a sweep of her hand which was full of
majesty and despair. "Why have I chosen you out of all the thousands?
Why should I believe that my story would interest you? Well, little as
I have seen of the world, I have learned that woman does not go to
woman in cases such as mine is." And then pathetically: "I know no
woman to whom I might go. Women are like daws; their sympathy comes
but to peck. Do you know what it is to be alone in a city? The desert
is not loneliness; it is only solitude. True loneliness is to be found
only in great communities. To be without a single friend or confidant,
when thousand of beings move about you; to pour yo