"Not to me, Ayala." Now she heard the "Ayala," and felt something of what it meant. There had been moments at which she had almost disliked to hear him call her Miss Dormer; but now,--now she wished that he had not called her Ayala. She strove to assume a serious expression of face, but having done so she could not dare to turn it up towards him. The glance of her little anger, if there was any, fell only upon the ground. "It is because you are to me a creature so essentially different from Mrs. Gregory that I seem to know you so well. I never want to go to Drumcaller if you are near me;--or, if I think of Drumcaller, it is that I might be there with you." "I am sure the place is very pretty, but I don't suppose I shall ever see it." "Do you know about your sister and Mr. Hamel?" "Yes," said Ayala, surprised. "She has told me all about it. How do you know?" "He was staying at Drumcaller,--he and I together with no one else,--when he went over to ask her. I never saw a man so happy as when he came back from Glenbogie. He had got all that he wanted in the world." "I do so love him because he loves her." "And I love her,--because she loves you." "It is not the same, you know," said Ayala, trying to think it all out. "May I not love her?" "He is to be my brother. That's why I love him. She can't be your sister." The poor girl, though she had tried to think it all out, had not thought very far. "Can she not?" he said. "Of course not. Lucy is to marry Mr. Hamel." "And whom am I to marry?" Then she saw it all. "Ayala,--Ayala,--who is to be my wife?" "I do not know," she said,--speaking with a gruff voice, but still in a whisper, with a manner altogether different,--thinking how well it would be that she should be taken at once back into the house.