"Too much for your crime," whispers she, softly, turning suddenly towards him and letting her great luminous eyes rest with forgiveness upon his. She smiles sweetly, but with some timidity, because of the ardor of the glance that answers hers. Taking her hand with an impulsive movement impossible to restrain, Desmond presses it rapturously to his lips. Drawing it away from him with shy haste, Monica walks on in silence. "If I had written to you, and not to her, would you still have been here to-day?" asks he, presently. "I think not." "That is a cruel answer, is it not?" "Would you have me belie my nature?" asks she, with quick agitation; "would you have me grow false, secret, deceitful? My aunts trust me: am I to prove myself unworthy of their confidence?" "I am less to you, then, than your aunts' displeasure!" "You are less to me than my conscience; and yet----" With a violent effort, that betrays how far her thoughts have been travelling in company with his, she brings herself back to the present moment, and a recollection of the many reasons why she must not listen to his wooing. "Why should you believe yourself anything to me?" she asks, in a voice that quivers audibly. "Ah, why, indeed?" returns he, bitterly. There is such pain in his voice and face that her soul yearns towards him, and she repents of her last words. "I am wrong. You _are_ something to me," she says, in a tone so low that he can scarcely hear it. But lovers' ears are sharp. "You _mean_ that, Monica?" "Yes," still lower. "Then why cannot I be _more_ to you? Why am I to be denied a chance of forwarding the cause in which all my hopes are centred? Monica, say you will meet me somewhere--_soon_." "How can I?" she says, tremulously. Her voice is full of tears. She is altogether different from the coquettish, provoking child of last night. "You forget all I have just now said." "At least tell me," says he, sadly, "that if you could you would." There is a pathetic ring in his tone, and tears rise to her eyes. Can anything be so hopeless as this love-affair of hers? "Yes, I would," she says, almost desperately. "Oh, darling--_darling_!" says the young man with passion. He holds her hands closely, and looks into her troubled eyes, and wishes he might dare take her into his arms and, pressing her to his heart, ask her to repeat her words again. But there is something in the calm purity of her beautiful face that repels vehemence of any sort; and as yet--although the dawn is near--her love has not declared itself to her own soul in all its strength. "I have at least one consolation," he says, at last, calling to mind the quietude that surrounds Moyne and its inhabitants, and the withdrawal from society that has obtained there for many years. "As you are not allowed to see me,--except on such rare occasions as the present when the Fates are kind,--you cannot at least see _any one else_,--often, that is." "Meaning?----" "Ryde."