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‘I told you just now I’m very fond of knowledge,’ Isabel
answered.
‘Yes, of happy knowledge—of pleasant knowledge. But
you haven’t suffered, and you’re not made to suffer. I hope
you’ll never see the ghost!’
She had listened to him attentively, with a smile on her
lips, but with a certain gravity in her eyes. Charming as he
found her, she had struck him as rather presumptuous—
indeed it was a part of her charm; and he wondered what
she would say. ‘I’m not afraid, you know,’ she said: which
seemed quite presumptuous enough.
‘You’re not afraid of suffering?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid of suffering. But I’m not afraid of ghosts.
And I think people suffer too easily,’ she added.
‘I don’t believe you do,’ said Ralph, looking at her with
his hands in his pockets.
‘I don’t think that’s a fault,’ she answered. ‘It’s not abso-
lutely necessary to suffer; we were not made for that.’
‘You were not, certainly.’
‘I’m not speaking of myself.’ And she wandered off a lit-
tle.
‘No, it isn’t a fault,’ said her cousin. ‘It’s a merit to be
strong.’
‘Only, if you don’t suffer they call you hard,’ Isabel re-
marked.
They passed out of the smaller drawing-room, into which
they had returned from the gallery, and paused in the hall,
at the foot of the staircase. Here Ralph presented his com-
panion with her bedroom candle, which he had taken from

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