“Don’t go,” pleaded Alice. She all at once did not want to be left alone, and did not somehow want to think of what he might get up to in the hours of darkness.

“You look very tired,” he remarked, hesitating by the door.

“Oh, please, if you stay with me, we could talk and then I could sleep all day and not feel so alone,” said Alice.

He hesitated and then suddenly smiled at her in a bewitching way which quite took away her breath. “Very well,” he said, sitting down by the fire. “What do you think of my room?”

Alice looked around. It was small and paneled and sparsely furnished. But it was grander than anything she had ever known before. Apart from the bed in the corner, there was the table at which they had eaten with two high-carved chairs beside it The low fireplace was flanked on either side by two easy chairs and there was a tall wardrobe in one corner and a washstand in the other. A portrait of a lady with masses of fine light hair and a vague expression hung over the fireplace. She was wearing the dress of the last century and had two French greyhounds at her skirts. In the background stretched a romantic Italianate landscape with drooping trees, an obelisk, and an approaching thunderstorm.

“Agnes,” he said, following her gaze.

“Your wife,” said Alice, quickly averting her eyes from the picture in case she should conjure this ghost back from the dead. “Do you miss her very much?” she added in a low voice.

“You are obtuse,” he said severely. “I thought I had made it plain that I do not.”

“Then why did you marry her?” asked Alice, made bold by the wine she had drunk.

He glared at her haughtily and then relaxed and seemed to smile at himself. “I was about to stand on my ghostly dignity,” he said. “I married her, my curious child, because I was well to go at the time. When I came to my senses, I found her insipid, she who had seemed an ethereal angel the night before. Alas! She was of gentle birth and informed me some three months after our delectable night that she was with child. Since I did not love anyone I entered into a marriage of convenience for the sake of the child.