he asks,
with far more anxiety than the occasion seems to demand. "Not _really_,
I mean. You said it for fun, perhaps--or----It has been with me ever
since. I can't forget it. You said you disliked sudden friendships, and
the way you said it made me think you disliked _me_. Tell me I thought
wrong."

"Quite wrong," in a low tone. She is plucking a rose to pieces, and
keeps her eyes downcast. "When I said that, I was angry about
something."

"About something I _said_?"

"No. Nothing you said."

"Something I did, then?" growing more and more anxious.

"Ye-es."

"What was it?"

"It doesn't matter now; not in the least now; and I can not tell you,
_indeed_."

"But I wish very much you would. Perhaps, being in wretched ignorance, I
shall be so unhappy as to do it again some day, and so make you hate me
a second time."

"I didn't _hate_ you."

"No? Yet there was a look in your eyes I wouldn't like to see there
again. Do tell me, lest I once more fall into error."

"Oh, no," coloring deeply, as though at some unpleasant recollection.
"That would be impossible. It could never happen again. I shall take
care of that. I shall never as long as I live get into a--that is--I
mean--I----Really I have forgiven it all now, so let us forget it too."

Though still greatly mystified, Mr. Desmond wisely forbears to press the
point, something in her pretty distressed face and heightened color
forbidding him.

"Very good," he says, pleasantly. "But there is another thing I have
not forgotten. Have you ever cleared up that mystery about my uncle and
your aunts?"

"Oh! _that_. It cannot be cleared, I am afraid it is too muddy a tale
for any help; but I have at least found out all about it."

"Would it be indiscreet if I said I would give anything to be as wise as
you on this subject? In other words, will you divulge the secret?"

"It is a story that doesn't redound to the honor and glory of _your_
house," says Miss Beresford, stepping back from him with a gay little
laugh, and glancing at him mischievously from under her big "Patience"
hat. "If I were you I should shrink from hearing it."

"I decline to shrink," with unparalleled bravery. "I prefer to rush upon
my fate. Life has no longer any flavor for me until I hear what the old
reprobate at Coole has done."

"Well, if you _will_ insist upon the sorry tale, 'tis this. Once there
lived a wicked knight, who wooed a maiden fair. But when that her heart
was all his ow