CHAPTER XIII 109
" Because I couldn ' t go to sleep either and my head ached. Tell me your name again."
" Mary Lennox. Did no one ever tell you I had come to live here?"
He was still fingering the fold of her wrapper, but he began to look a little more as if he believed in her reality.
" No," he answered. " They daren ' t." " Why?" asked Mary.
" Because I should have been afraid you would see me. I won ' t let people see me and talk me over."
" Why?" Mary asked again, feeling more mystified every moment.
" Because I am like this always, ill and having to lie down. My father won ' t let people talk me over either. The servants are not allowed to speak about me. If I live I may be a hunchback, but I shan ' t live. My father hates to think I may be like him."
" Oh, what a queer house this is!" Mary said. " What a queer house! Everything is a kind of secret. Rooms are locked up and gardens are locked up--and you! Have you been locked up?"
" No. I stay in this room because I don ' t want to be moved out of it. It tires me too much."
" Does your father come and see you?" Mary ventured. " Sometimes. Generally when I am asleep. He doesn ' t want to see me." " Why?" Mary could not help asking again. A sort of angry shadow passed over the boy ' s face.