"Yes, I do. I love her with all my heart and soul; as I never have loved, as I never shall love again. _This_ thought is my happiness: my sorrow lies in the fear that she will never love _me_. Forgive my saying all this to you: she told me to amuse you," with a faint smile, "and I have woefully neglected her commands." "You must forgive me," says Monica. "I should not have asked you the question." "Do not be sorry for that: it has done me good, I think. I am glad I have said it _out loud_ to somebody at last. It is odd though,--isn't it?--I should have made my confession to you, of all people, whom I never saw until ten minutes ago!" Then Monica remembers that this is the second young man she has found herself on friendly terms with since her arrival at Moyne, without the smallest introduction having been gone through on any side. It all sounds rather dreamy, and certainly very irregular. "Ah! there is Madam O'Connor beckoning to me," says Ronayne, rising lazily to his feet. "I suppose she wants me for a moment. Will you mind my leaving you for a little, or will you come with me? I shan't be any time." "I shall stay here," says Monica. "There, go: she seems quite in a hurry. Come back when you can." He runs across the grass to his hostess; and Monica, leaning back in her chair, gives herself up to thought. Everything is strange, and she is feeling a little lonely, a little _distraite_, and (but this she will not allow even to herself) distinctly disappointed. She is trying very hard to prevent her mind from dwelling upon a certain face that should be naught to her, when she suddenly becomes conscious of the fact that some one has come to a standstill close beside her chair. She turns. CHAPTER VII. How Monica listens to strange words and suffers herself to be led away.--How Cupid plants a shaft in Mars, and how Miss Priscilla finds herself face to face with the enemy. "You see I failed," says Brian Desmond. A quick warm blush has dyed Monica's cheeks crimson. "Ah! it is you," she said. "I thought you had not come." This betrays the fact that she has been thinking of him, but he is far too wise a young man in his own generation to take count of it. "Yes, I came. Three days ago I thought I should have been in London now, and then I heard _you_ were to be here to-day." "In what have you failed?" asks she, abruptly, alluding to his opening sentence. "Can't you guess? Have you forgotten the last cruel injunction you laid upon me? 'When next we meet,' you said, 'you are to look straight over my head and pass on.' Will you believe that twice to-day I obeyed that mandate? The third time was the charm: it conquered me; I broke my sword in two and came to you." "I wish you hadn't," says Monica, sincerely, if impolitely. "I wish you would go away now, and promise me never to speak to me again. You _know_ I am afraid of you," looking nervously around.