y good
ending."

"The convent?" I echoed, memory turning to the bleak building far up the
hillside. "You came from there?"

"There is a path through the woods. I am very strong and vigorous. But I
had to wait until all there were asleep before I could come. Sometimes I
could not come at all. For this house, I had my father's old key. It was
only for this little time while I am being taught. Soon I will put on a
nun's dress and cut my hair, and--and never--never leave there any
more."

Stupefied, I thought of the black loneliness of the wooded hillside
behind us. No wonder the fog was wet upon her hair! Her slight feet had
traversed that path night after night, had brought her to the door her
key fitted, had come through the dark house to the door of the room
upstairs. When she left me, she had toiled that desolate way back. For
what? Humility bent me, and bewilderment.

"But why?" Phillida gasped. "Why? Cousin Roger hunted everywhere to find
you. He would have gone anywhere you told him to see you. Didn't you
know that?"

"I never meant him to see me."

"Why not?"

"I am Desire Michell, fourth of that name; all women who brought
misfortune upon those who cared for them," she answered, her voice lower
still. "How shall I make you understand? I was brought up to know the
wrath and doom upon me, yet I myself can scarcely understand. My father
knew all, yet he fell in weakness."

"Your father?" I questioned, recalling Mrs. Hill's positive genealogy of
the Michells in which there was no place for this daughter of the line.

"He was the last of his family. When he was very young the conviction
came to him that his duty was never to marry, so our race might cease to
exist. He lived here and preached against evil. He studied the ancient
learning that he might be fitted to wrestle with sin. But in the end
horror of what was here gained upon him so that he closed the house and
went abroad to work as a missionary. There was a girl; the daughter of
the clergyman who was leaving the mission. My father--fell in love. He
forgot all his convictions and married her. He knew it was a sin, but it
was stronger than he was. She only lived one year. When I was born, she
died. He prayed that I would die, too. But--I----"

Her voice died into silence. I ventured to lean nearer and take her hand
into mine.

"Desire," I said, "why should you be a sufferer for the actions of a
woman who died over two centuries ago? What is the long