"No; I shall stay here. But the Court I shall trouble with my presence seldom. I don't know," exclaims he, for the first time losing his wonderful self control and speaking querulously, "what is the matter with me. Energy has deserted me with all the rest. You have broken my heart, I suppose, and that explains everything. There, _go_," turning abruptly away from her; "your being where I can see you only makes matters worse." Some impulse prompts Dulce to go up to him and lay her hand gently on his arm. "Stephen," she says, in a low tone, "if I have caused you any unhappiness forgive me now." "Forgive you?" exclaims he, so fiercely that she recoils from him in absolute terror. Lifting her fingers from his arm as though they burn him, he flings them passionately away, and, plunging into the short thick underwood, is soon lost to sight. Dulce, pale and frightened, returns by the path by which she had come, but not to those she had left. She is in no humor now for questions or curious looks; gaining the house without encountering any one, she runs up-stairs, and seeks refuge in her own room. But if she doesn't return to gratify the curiosity of the puzzled group on the rustic-seat, somebody else does. Jacky, panting, dishevelled, out of breath with quick running rushes up to them, and precipitates himself upon his mother. "It's all right," he cries, triumphantly. "He didn't do a bit to her. I watched him all the time and he never _touched_ her." "Who? What?" demands the bewildered Julia. But Jacky disdains explanations. "He only talked, and talked, and talked," he goes on, fluently; "and he said she did awful things to him. And he made her swear at him--and--and--" "_What?_" says Sir Mark. "It's impossible to know anybody," sighs Dicky Browne, regretfully, shaking his head at this fresh instance of the frailty of humanity. "Who could have believed Dulce capable of using bad language? I hope her school-children and her Sunday class won't hear it, poor little things. It would shake their faith forever." "How do you know he is talking of Dulce?" says Julia, impatiently. "Jacky, how _dare_ you say dear Dulce swore at any one?" "He _made_ her," says Jacky. "He must have behaved awfully bad to her," says Dicky, gravely. "He said to her to swear, and she did it at once," continues Jacky, still greatly excited. "_Con amore_," puts in Mr. Browne. "And he scolded her very badly," goes on Jacky, at which Roger frowns angrily; "and he said she broke something belonging to him, but I couldn't hear what; and then he told her to go away, and when she was going she touched his arm, and he pushed her away awfully roughly, but he didn't try to _murder_ her at all." "What on earth is the boy saying?" says Julia, perplexed in the extreme, "Who didn't try to murder who?"