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Very justly offended at the turn affairs have taken, Mr. Desmond rows her in silence to the landing-place, in silence gives her his hand to alight, in silence makes his boat safe, without so much as a glance at her, although he knows she is standing a little way from him, irresolute, remorseful, and uncertain.

He might, perhaps, have maintained this dignified indifference to the end, but that, unfortunately lifting his eyes, he catches sight of her in this repentant attitude, with her head bent down, and her slim fingers toying nervously with the lilies of his own gathering.

This picture flings dignity to the winds. Going up to her, he says, in a would-be careless but unmistakably offended voice, "May I ask what I have done, that 'they,' whoever they are, should consider you had disgraced yourself by being with me for half an hour?"

"You have done nothing," says Monica, faintly. "It was your uncle."

"My uncle!– George Desmond! Why, what on earth can he have done?" demands he, bewildered.

"I don't know." Feeling this is indeed a lame answer to a most natural question, she goes on hurriedly, "It all happened twenty years ago, and – "

"But what happened?" asks he, with pardonable impatience.

"Something dreadfully wicked," says Monica, solemnly. "Something really very, very bad, because Aunt Priscilla can't hear you spoken of with common patience."

"Me!"

"Not so much you, perhaps, as your name. She hates the very sound of it. There isn't a doubt about that; because, though I have not heard the exact story yet, I know both my aunts grow actually faint with horror when your uncle's name is mentioned."

"Good gracious!" says the horrified nephew of this apparently disreputable old man. He is staring at Monica, but in reality he does not even see her. Before his mind's eye is a picture of a stout old gentleman, irascible, but kindly, with a countenance innocent of guile. Yet how can he doubt this girl's story? Twenty years ago, as it seems, George Desmond had done something too bad to be discussed. After all, how impossible it is to trust to appearances! As a rule, the most seemingly harmless people are those who are guilty of the vilest misdemeanors. And, yet, what on earth could George have done twenty years ago? Visions of forgery, murder, homicide, rise up before him, but, try as he will, he cannot connect Mr. Desmond's face with any of them.

"You don't exactly know yourself what the crime is with which he is charged?" he asks her, with growing diffidence.

"No. But I shall find out, and tell – But that will be impossible!" – with a glance full of liveliest regret. "I cannot tell you, because after to-day I shall never see or speak to you again."

"That is the most insane nonsense I ever heard in my life," says Mr. Desmond.

The girl shakes her head sadly.

"If you won't speak to me I shall speak to you, whether you like it or not," says Desmond, with decision.

"That will be out of your power, as you will never see me."

"Do you mean to tell me I may not call at Moyne?"

"Certainly I do. They wouldn't hear of it. They wouldn't, in fact, receive you."

"But why must they visit my uncle's sins upon my shoulders? I have heard of a father's sins being entailed upon his heir, but never an uncle's."

"It is your name," says Monica. Then she laughs a little, in spite of herself, and quotes, in a low tone, "Oh! Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?"

But he takes no heed of this frivolous quotation.

"You mean me to understand, then, that I am never to speak to you again?"

"I do, indeed."

"What! Do you know we are to be close neighbors for the future, you and I? This is to be your home. Coole is to be mine. At the most, only a mile of road lies between us, and here not quite a yard. And yet you calmly tell me I am from this day forth to be only a common stranger to you."

"You look as if you were angry with me," says Monica, with sudden tears in her eyes at his injustice. "It isn't my fault; I haven't done anything wicked. Blame your uncle for it all."

"The whole thing is simply absurd," says the young man, taking now the superior tone that is meant to crush the situation by holding it up to ridicule. "You forget, perhaps, that we shall have to meet sometimes. I suppose the people down here give balls occasionally, and tennis-parties, and that; and when I meet you at them, is it your wish that I shall pretend never to have seen you before, – never to have known you?"

"Yes," says Monica, with as much hesitation as lets him know how she hates saying it. "When next you meet me, you are to look right over my head, and pass on!"

"I couldn't do it," returns he, gazing at her steadily. "I couldn't indeed. In fact, I feel it is just the last thing in the world I could do."

"But you must," says Monica, imperiously, terrified to death as she conjures up before her Aunt Priscilla's face as it will surely be if this Philistine dares to address her: "I tell you my aunts would never forgive me if they knew I had interchanged even one syllable with you. From this moment you must forget me. There will really be no difficulty about it, as our acquaintance is but of an hour's growth. You have seen me for the first time to-day, and a chance meeting such as this is easily driven from the mind."

"That is your opinion," says the young man, moodily. "It is not mine. I dare say you will find it very easy to forget. I shan't! And this isn't the first time I have seen you, either. It seems to me as if years have rolled by since last I looked upon your face. I was standing at the gate of Coole, and saw you pass by, the day of your arrival in Rossmoyne. So, you see, we are – in spite of you – almost old friends."

A bombshell flung at her feet could hardly have produced a greater sensation than this apparently harmless speech. All at once there rushes back upon her the recollection of that fatal day when she lay upon a cart-load of hay and (according to Terence) kicked up her heels in the exuberance of her joy. Oh, horror! she grows crimson from her soft throat to her forehead! even her little ears do not escape the tint, but turn a warm and guilty pink.

Never until this unlucky instant did it occur to her that this strange young man must be the detested one who had stood in the gateway and laughed at her undignified position and taken the clocks of her stockings into careful remembrance.

The one absorbing thought that he was nephew to Aunt Priscilla's bugbear has swallowed up all others; but now, as he himself reveals this other truth to her, she feels that her cup is indeed full.

Deeper and deeper grows the crimson tint that dyes her pale, shy face, until her cheeks are all aflame. Something like anger, too, is rendering her sweet eyes brilliant beyond their wont. Delicately but haughtily she gathers up the train of her white gown and casts one expressive glance upon the way she came. This glance says much. Somehow it tells him as distinctly as though she said it aloud that she is sorry she ever came down to this river, and that her sorrow arises from the fact that it was here she encountered him.

While he is still sore perplexed by her sudden change of demeanor, she turns away from him. Then, pausing, she turns again, and bestows upon him so indignant a look as completely finishes this ill used young man.

"I object to hasty friendships," she says, icily. "And," pausing as if to make the effect greater, "if I were you, I think I should seek some better employment than standing idling all day long at your uncle's gate."

With this parting shaft, and before he can recover from his consternation, she goes swiftly away from him, up through the meadows, home.

CHAPTER V

How Monica is put in possession of a dreadful secret – And how Kit protests against the injustice of the world.

"An invitation from Madam O'Connor," says Miss Priscilla in a pleased tone, glancing at them all, over the top of her spectacles. She has the card in her hand, and slowly reads aloud the information printed upon it, to the effect that Madam O'Connor will be at home on Friday the 15th, from four to six o'clock, etc.

"I am very glad she has asked Terence and Monica," says Miss Penelope. "Excessively attentive I call it."

"Will you go, Aunt Priscilla?" asks Monica, in a sneaky sort of tone. Her young soul hankers after the world, and will not be subdued. Upon Miss Priscilla's "yes" or "no" she waits with an anxiety that surprises even herself.

"Certainly, my dear," says Miss Blake, drawing herself up. "I shall feel it my duty to take you to all such places as will enable you to mix with people in your own rank of life. I am not one of those who think it well for young girls to lead the life of nuns. No, indeed!"

"I quite agree with you, my dear Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, who is an echo of her elder sister. "Yes, we will rouse ourselves, and once more seek the world."

"But I would not have you make yourselves unhappy," says Monica, falteringly.

"Nay, my dear, it will be a pleasure, for your sake."

Not for worlds, even to themselves, would these two old ladies acknowledge that they are right glad of the chance that has come to them of introducing so beautiful a niece to the gay world around them, and of mingling, even in a subdued and decorous fashion, with the amusements that for the last five years they have (most unwillingly, be it said, but on the score of age) declined.

"I wonder who will be there," says Monica, in a fresher tone, striving vainly to drown the hope that is taking possession of her, a hope that connects itself with a certain blue-eyed, dark-haired young man, last seen in boating flannels.

"Everybody," says Miss Priscilla, – "the entire country. Madam O'Connor may not be – is not – there may be certain points about her – that" – floundering hopelessly – "I mean" – with a rush – "there are a few who object to her manner but her birth is undeniable, and she has a large fortune; you must know, my dear, her father was a direct descendant of King O'Toole, and her husband the head of one of the oldest families in Ireland."

"Is that the old woman who called here the day before yesterday?" asked Terence, irreverently. They are all sitting in the drawing-room, Terence being rather on the balcony perhaps.

"Yes – I regret you were not in to receive her. I should have liked you to make her acquaintance, Monica, before going to Aghyohillbeg."

"Oh I saw her," says Terence, contemptuously, "she's got an eye like a lance, and a man's figure. She drove herself, and held the reins like this," throwing himself into position.

"If you are going out, Terence, you may as well go at once," says Miss Priscilla, with dignity, pretending neither to hear nor see him. Whereupon Terence gladly departs.

"Go on, auntie," says Monica, slipping down on a footstool close to Aunt Penelope, and leaning both her arms across the old lady's knee. "Who else will be there?"

"Yes, tell her everything, Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, smoothing the girl's hair softly, and feeling a strange thrill of pleasure in her heart as she notices the little confident gesture with which the girl nestles close to her.

"Well, there will be her own guests, of course, I mean those staying with her, for she always has her house full," says Miss Priscilla, after a slight pause, being still somewhat ruffled by Terry's remarks. "The Fitzgeralds will be there, of course. Bella is considered a very handsome girl, but I don't think you will like her much."

"No, no, she is not at all our Monica's style," says Miss Penelope, stroking the pretty cheek near her with her mittened hand. "Yet she has a fine skin."

"Ay, and a fine temper under it, or I'm a Dutchman," says Miss Priscilla. "And she is more peculiar than handsome; but men admire her, so we say nothing."

"Is she tall?" asks Monica, anxiously, who is a little thing herself, and looks even smaller than she really is because of her slender, girlish figure. She wonders in a vague, uncomfortable fashion whether – whether most men like tall women best.

"Tall? yes, and large in proportion; and as for her manners," says Miss Priscilla, in her severest tone, "in my opinion they are simply unbearable. Modesty in my days was a virtue, nowadays it is as naught. Bella Fitzgerald is never content unless she has every man in the room at her side, and goodness alone knows what it is she says to them. The way she sets her cap at that poor boy Ronayne, just because he has fallen in for that property, is quite revolting."

"And a mere lad, too," says Miss Penelope.

Monica draws a breath of relief. Perhaps if Miss Fitzgerald likes Mr. Ronayne she will not care to practise her fascinations upon – any other man.

"How old is she?" she asks, feeling deeply interested in the conversation.

"She says she is twenty-four," says Miss Priscilla, with an eloquent sniff. "There is nothing easier to say than that. I won't be uncharitable, my dear Penelope, – you needn't look at me like that, – but this I must say, she looks every hour of eight and twenty."

"Her mother ought to know," says Miss Penelope.

"She ought, indeed," grimly. "But, as from the way she dresses we may reasonably conclude she thinks herself nineteen, I suppose she has lost her memory on all points."

"Her father, Otho Fitzgerald, was the same," says Miss Penelope, reflectively. "He never could bear the idea of age. He was one who saw nothing honorable in it. Gray hairs with him were a crime."

"So he used to dye them," says Miss Priscilla, maliciously; "and when he got warm the dye used to melt, and (unknown to him) run all down his cheek."

"Oh, Priscilla, how you remember things? Dear, dear, I think I see him now," says Miss Penelope. And here the two old ladies, overcome by this comical recollection, laugh until the tears run down their faces. Monica joins in from sheer sympathy; but Kit, who is sitting in the embrasure of a distant window and who had been strangely silent ever since the invitation came from Aghyohillbeg, maintains a stern gravity.

"Poor man," says Miss Penelope, wiping her eyes, "I shall never forget the night your sweet mother, my dear Monica, most unintentionally offended him about the diamond – you recollect, Priscilla? Tell Monica of it."

"He always wore a huge diamond ring upon his little finger," says Miss Priscilla, addressing Monica, "of which he was very proud. He was at this time about fifty-three, but used to pose as a man of thirty-nine. One evening showing the ring to your mother, then quite a girl, he said to her, in his stilted way, 'This jewel has been in our family for fifty years.' 'Ah! did you buy it, Mr. Fitzgerald?' asks your mother, in her sweet innocent way. Ha, ha, ha!" laughs Miss Priscilla, "you should have seen his face. It was a picture! and just when he was trying to make himself agreeable to your poor mother, and acting as if he was a youthful beau of twenty-five, or at least as young as the best of us."

"That was so like mother," says Monica, in a low tone. "She always knew where to touch people."

"Oh, no, my dear, not at all like her," says Miss Penelope, hastily. "She didn't mean it, you must understand; she was the very soul of sweetness, and would not willingly affront any one for the world."

For just an instant Monica lifts her eyes and gazes earnestly at her aunt; but the old face is so earnest and sincere that with a faint sigh she lowers her eyes again, and makes no further remark.

"After that he married his cousin's wife, a widow with one child, this girl, Bella," says Miss Priscilla, still full of reminiscences, as old people will be. "A most unpleasant person I thought her, though she was considered quite a belle in those days."

"She always appeared to me such a silly woman," says Miss Penelope.

"She is worse than that now," says Miss Priscilla, who seems specially hard on the Fitzgeralds. "She is a shocking old woman, with a nose like a flower-pot. I won't say she drinks, my dear Penelope, because I know you would object to it; but I hear she does, and certainly her nose is her betrayer."

"Do you remember," says Miss Penelope, "how anxious she once was to marry George Desmond?" This she says in a very low tone.

"Yes, I remember." The bare mention of her enemy's name has sent a flush of crimson into Miss Priscilla's cheeks. "But he never bestowed a thought upon her."

"Oh, no, never," says Miss Penelope, after which both the Misses Blake grow silent and seem to be slowly sinking into the land of revery.

But Monica, having heard the "enemy's name" mentioned, becomes filled with a determination to sift the mystery connected with him, now, to the end.

"Aunt Priscilla," she says, softly, looking at her with grave eyes across Miss Penelope's knees, "tell me, now, why Mr. Desmond is our enemy."

"Oh, not now," says Miss Penelope, nervously.

"Yes, now, please," says Monica, with ever-increasing gravity.

"It may all be said in a few words, Monica," says Miss Priscilla, slowly. "And what I have to say affects you, my dear, even more than us."

"Me?"

"Yes, in that it affects your mother. Twenty years ago George Desmond was her affianced husband. Twenty years ago, wilfully and without cause, he deliberately broke with her his plighted troth."

"He threw her over?" exclaims Monica, aghast at this revelation.

"Well, I never heard be used actual violence to her, my dear," says Miss Penelope, in a distressed tone; "but he certainly broke off his engagement with her, and behaved as no man of honor could possibly behave."

"And mother must have been quite beautiful at that time, must she not?" says Monica, rising to her knees in her excitement, and staring with widely-opened eyes of purest amazement from one aunt to the other.

"'Beautiful as the blushing morn,'" says Miss Priscilla, quoting from some ancient birthday-book. "But, you see, even her beauty was powerless to save her from insult. From what we could learn, he absolutely refused to fulfil his marriage-contract with her. He was false to the oath he had sworn over our father's dying bed."

Nothing can exceed the scorn and solemnity of Miss Priscilla's manner as she says all this.

"And what did mother do?" asks Monica, curiously.

"What could she do, poor child? I have no doubt it went nigh to breaking her heart."

"Her heart?" says Monica.

"She suffered acutely. That we could see, or rather we had to guess it, as for days she kept her own chamber and would see no one, going out only when it was quite dusk for a solitary ramble. Ah! when sorrow afflicts the soul, there is no balm so great as solitude. Your poor mother took the whole affair dreadfully to heart."

"You mean that she really fretted?" asks Monica, still in the same curious way, with her eyes fixed on her aunt. There is, indeed, so much unstudied surprise in her whole manner as might have produced a corresponding amount in the Misses Blake, had they noticed it.

"Yes, my dear, of course. Dear, dear, dear! what a sad thing it all was! Well, now you understand all that it is needful you should, Monica," says Miss Penelope, with a glance at her sister, who really seems quite overcome. "So we will say no more about it. Only you can see for yourself how impossible it is for any of our blood to be on friendly terms with a Desmond."

"They may not all be like that Mr. Desmond," says Monica, timidly, coloring to her brow.

"Yes, yes. Like father, like son; you know the old adage; and a nephew is as close a relation almost. We can know no one at Coole."

"I would almost rather see you dead than intimate with one of the name," says Miss Priscilla, with sudden harshness.

"I don't think we told Monica about the other guests at Aghyohillbeg," says Miss Penelope, hastily, with the kindly intention of changing the conversation. "A very pretty young woman came there about a week before your arrival, child, and is to remain, I believe, for some time. She is a widow, and young, and – by the bye, I wonder if she can be any relation to your friends in the South of France."

"Why?"

"Her name is Bohun, and – "

"Not Olga Bohun?" says Monica, springing to her feet. "A widow, you say, and young. Oh! auntie, if she only might be Olga!"

"Well, certainly she has a heathenish – I mean, a Russian – name like that," says Miss Priscilla. "She is a very little woman, with merry eyes, and she laughs always, and she has the prettiest, the most courteous manners. Quite a relief I found her, after the inanities of Bella Fitzgerald."

"She is even smaller than I am. Yes, and her eyes do laugh!" says Monica, delight making her cheeks warm. "She is the prettiest thing. Ah! how happy I shall be if I may see her sometimes!"

"You shall see her just as often as ever you and she wish," say the two old maids in a breath, glad in the thought that they can make her home at Moyne happy to her.

"I hope you like her," says Monica, glancing from one to the other of them.

"Yes. I thought her quite fascinating," says Miss Penelope. "Some people say she is rather – rather fast, I believe is the word they use nowadays," getting the word out with difficulty, as though afraid it may go off and do somebody an injury. "But for my part I don't believe a word of it. She is quite natural, and most pleasing in manner, especially to those who are older than herself. A great charm in these times, my dear, when age is despised."

Plainly, the little widow at Aghyohillbeg has been playing off her sweetest graces upon the two Misses Blake.

"I dare say Monica will like young Ronayne," says Miss Priscilla. "He is quite nice, that lad. But I hope, Monica, that, even if circumstances should throw you together, you will take no notice of young Mr. Desmond. I myself would not exchange a word with him if a queen's diadem were offered me as a bribe."

"You might speak to him without knowing him," says Monica, blushing again that nervous crimson of a while ago.

"Impossible, my dear. Instinct, sharpened by hatred, would tell me when one of the race was near me."

"Well, as it is your first party here, dear child, I hope you will enjoy it," says Miss Penelope, quickly, as though again anxious to throw oil on the waters by changing the conversation. "It is a charming place, and its mistress, if a little rough, is at least kindly."

At this moment Kit, emerging from the curtains that have hidden her for the past hour, comes slowly to the front. Her face, her very attitude, is martial. She is plainly in battle-array. Pausing before Miss Priscilla, she directs her first fire upon her.

"Am I not asked at all?" she says, in a terrible tone, that contrasts painfully with the ominous silence she has maintained ever since the invitation was brought by Mrs. O'Connor's groom.

"My dear child, you must remember you are only fourteen," says Miss Priscilla, who is sincerely sorry the child has not been included in the invitation, and, in fact, thinks it rather unkind she has been left out.

"I know that, thank you," says the youngest Miss Beresford, uncompromisingly, fixing her aunt with a stony glare. "I know my birthday as well as most people. And so, just because I am a child, I am to be slighted, am I? I call it unfair! I call it beastly mean, that every one here is to be invited out to enjoy themselves except me."

"Young people are seldom asked to grown-up parties," says Miss Priscilla, in her best conciliatory manner. "When you are as old as Monica, of course you will go everywhere. In the meantime you are only a child."

"I am old enough to conduct myself properly, at all events," says Kit, unmoved. "I suppose at fourteen" – as if this is an age replete with wisdom – "I am not likely to do anything very extraordinary, or make myself unpleasant, or be in anybody's way."

"That is not the question, at all: it is merely one of age," says Miss Priscilla.

"Is it? And yet people say a great deal about childhood being the happiest time of one's life," says Kit, almost choking with scornful rage. "I should just like to see the fellow who first said that. Maybe I wouldn't enlighten him, and tell him what a hypocrite he was. Whoever said it, it is a decided untruth, and I know I wish to goodness I was grown up, because then," with withering emphasis, "I should not be trampled upon and insulted!"

This is dreadful. The two old ladies, unaccustomed in their quiet lives to tornadoes and volcanoes of any kind, are almost speechless with fright.

"Dearest," says Monica, going up to her, "how can you look at it in such a light?"

"It's all very well for you," says the indignant Kit: "you're going, you know. I'm to stay at home, like that wretched Cinderella!"

"Katherine, I am sure you are quite unaware of the injustice of your remarks," says Miss Priscilla, at last finding her voice. She is bent on delivering a calm rebuke; but inwardly (as any one can see) she is quaking. "And I have frequently told you before that the expression 'I wish to goodness,' which you used just now, is anything but ladylike. It is not nice; it is not proper."

"I don't care what is proper or improper, when I am treated as I now am," says the rebel, with flashing eyes and undaunted front.

"There is really nothing to complain of," says Miss Priscilla, earnestly, seeing censure has no effect. "Madam O'Connor would not willingly offend any one; she is a very kind woman, and – "

"She is a regular old wretch!" says the youngest Miss Beresford, with considerable spirit.

"My dear Katherine!"

"And it's my belief she has done it on purpose!" with increasing rage.

"Katherine, I must insist – "

"You may insist as you like, but I'll be even with her yet," persists Kit, after which, being quite overcome with wrath, she breaks down, and bursts into a violent fit of weeping.

"My dear child, don't do that," says Miss Penelope, rising precipitately, and going over to the weeping fury. "Priscilla," in a trembling tone, "I fear it is selfish. I think, my dear, I shall stay at home, too, the day you all go to Madam O'Connor's."

This kills the storm at once.

"No, no, indeed, Aunt Penny, you shan't." Kit cries, subdued, but still in tears. She is overcome with remorse, and blames herself cruelly in that her ill temper should have led to this proposal of self-sacrifice. To give in to Kit is the surest and quickest method of gaining your own point. She throws her arms, as she speaks, around Miss Penelope's neck, and nearly strangles that dear old lady in her remorseful agitation, to say nothing of the deadly havoc she makes of her frills and laces.

"But indeed, my Kitten, it will be no privation to me to stay at home with you, and we will be quite happy together, and we will have our tea out in the orchard," says Miss Penelope, soothing her with sweet words; while Miss Priscilla, who is thoroughly frightened by the sobbing, pats the refractory child on the back, with a view to allaying all fear of convulsions.

"You shan't stay at home, Aunt Penny, – you shan't indeed," cries the inconsistent Kitten. "I like being alone, I love it; if you don't go to that place with the long name, and enjoy yourself very much, I shall be miserable all my life, though I love you very, very, very much for wishing to keep me from being lonely. Tell her I mean it, Monica."

"Yes, I am sure she means it," says Monica, earnestly, whereupon peace is once more restored to the breasts of the terrified aunts.