Her dark blue eyes were fixed on me; she was very near. I was passionately conscious of her attraction for me; my heart was thumping, and the blood began to drum in my temples, while a sort of shadow veiled my sight. I threw my arms round her; I could feel her body straining away from me, her breath on my face. For a moment she seemed to submit as I kissed her, but the next instant she struggled from me, and I felt a blow across my face. She had struck me with her parasol, which now hung broken in her hand. Her eyes flashed on me like a withering fire. She was furiously angry. “How dare you touch me! Let me pass at once, you――you beast.” My arms dropped to my sides. A sudden, bitter shame overcame me. I saw her pass me with head erect and flaming cheeks, and then I dropped on my face on the ground. When I got up she was out of sight. I did not know how long I had lain there, but I made no attempt to follow her. As I brushed mechanically the earth and bits of grass and twigs from my clothes, I felt almost dazed. It had all passed, and I did not want to think. I heard the drowsy prattle of a stream, and became aware that I was hot and thirsty. I went down to it and followed the bank till I reached a deep green pool, from which, lying flat on my belly, I drank greedily. As I raised my head I saw my own image in the water――my bright eyes, my dark, flushed face, my coarse, ruffled hair. CHAPTER L I had told my father I should be dining at Derryaghy, yet he made no remark when, instead, I came in an hour late for tea. Fresh tea simply was prepared for me, and again, while I sat at table, I was conscious of something peculiar in the way he watched me, so that for an instant it even flashed upon me that he might have heard of what had happened in the wood. It was only when I had finished eating that he spoke. “I had a letter from your Uncle George this afternoon,” he said, and I knew at once, not so much from his voice as from the face he turned to me, that something serious had happened. My thoughts darted straightway to Aunt Margaret, to vague, gruesome tragedies, murder or suicide. “What’s the matter?” I asked, uneasily. Perhaps it had to do with little Alice? Why couldn’t he tell me at once? Then I noticed that he had pushed a bundle of photographs to me across the table. “Do you know anything of these?” he asked, in a strange voice.