The Guilty River | Page 8

late over his work now."

Was there no one to give Giles Toller the help that he must need at his
age? "Do you and your father really live alone in this solitary place?" I
said.
A change of expression appeared in her bright brown eyes which
roused my curiosity. I also observed that she evaded a direct reply.
"What makes you doubt, sir, if father and I live alone?" she asked.
I pointed to the new cottage. "That ugly building," I answered, "seems
to give you more room than you want--unless there is somebody else
living at the mill."
I had no intention of trying to force the reply from her which she had
hitherto withheld; but she appeared to put that interpretation on what I
had said. "If you will have it," she burst out, "there is somebody else
living with us."
"A man who helps your father?"
"No. A man who pays my father's rent."
I was quite unprepared for such a reply as this: Cristel had surprised me.
To begin with, her father was "well-connected," as we say in England.
His younger brother had made a fortune in commerce, and had vainly
offered him the means of retiring from the mill with a sufficient income.
Then again, Giles Toller was known to have saved money. His
domestic expenses made no heavy demand on his purse; his German
wife (whose Christian name was now borne by his daughter) had died
long since; his sons were no burden on him; they had never lived at the
mill in my remembrance. With all these reasons against his taking a
stranger into his house, he had nevertheless, if my interpretation of
Cristel's answer was the right one, let his spare rooms to a lodger. "Mr.
Toller can't possibly be in want of money," I said.
"The more money father has, the more he wants. That's the reason," she
added bitterly, "why he asked for plenty of room when the cottage was
built, and why we have got a lodger."

"Is the lodger a gentleman?"
"I don't know. Is a man a gentleman, if he keeps a servant? Oh, don't
trouble to think about it, sir! It isn't worth thinking about."
This was plain speaking at last. "You don't seem to like the lodger," I
said.
"I hate him!"
"Why?"
She turned on me with a look of angry amazement--not undeserved, I
must own, on my part--which showed her dark beauty in the perfection
of its luster and its power. To my eyes she was at the moment
irresistibly charming. I daresay I was blind to the defects in her face.
My good German tutor used to lament that there was too much of my
boyhood still left in me. Honestly admiring her, I let my favorable
opinion express itself a little too plainly. "What a splendid creature you
are!" I burst out. Cristel did her duty to herself and to me; she passed
over my little explosion of nonsense without taking the smallest notice
of it.
"Master Gerard," she began--and checked herself. "Please to excuse me,
sir; you have set my head running on old times. What I want to say is:
you were not so inquisitive when you were a young gentleman in short
jackets. Please behave as you used to behave then, and don't say
anything more about our lodger. I hate him because I hate him. There!"
Ignorant as I was of the natures of women, I understood her at last.
Cristel's opinion of the lodger was evidently the exact opposite of the
lodger's opinion of Cristel. When I add that this discovery did
decidedly operate as a relief to my mind, the impression produced on
me by the miller's daughter is stated without exaggeration and without
reserve.
"Good-night," she repeated, "for the last time." I held out my hand. "Is
it quite right, sir," she modestly objected, "for such as me to shake

hands with such as you?"
She did it nevertheless; and dropping my hand, cast a farewell look at
the mysterious object of her interest--the new cottage. Her variable
humor changed on the instant. Apparently in a state of unendurable
irritation, she stamped on the ground. "Just what I didn't want to
happen!" she said to herself.
CHAPTER III
HE SHOWS HIMSELF
I too, looked at the cottage, and made a discovery that surprised me at
one of the upper windows.
If I could be sure that the moon had not deceived me, the most
beautiful face that I had ever seen was looking down on us--and it was
the face of a man! By the uncertain light I could discern the perfection
of form in the features, and the expression of power which made it
impossible to mistake the stranger for a woman, although his hair