Not a soul was in sight. They paused, gazing down upon the sunk garden which now blooms in the dry moat of the Round Tower. Suddenly Gerald burst into speech. Forgetting for the moment all that his father had told him of this woman, he poured out the story of how he had been overpersuaded, how his father--urging upon him the imprudence of such a match--had coaxed him away that last night of Virgie's stay, when the confession of his feeling was trembling on the tip of his tongue. "That was what I did," he said. "I was just waiting. I knew of no danger to her. If I had had a hint, if you had sent me a line to tell me that she was being hunted. But all the same," he broke off, his eyes burning in his head, "all the same, to me it is inconceivable that any man, however sunk, could have been cruel to her! Afterwards he might--later, but not at first--not when he had but just acquired that perfect thing for his own! Oh, it makes me mad! I daren't think of it! It's too incredibly ugly--too wild. Are you sure? You don't think those cries of hers that you overheard can have been delirium? It seems altogether outside the pale of possibility that he should have done anything but grovel at her feet!" Mrs. Mynors had her lovely face averted. She sighed. "There is more in it than that, Gerald," she murmured in a low voice. "I fear it is worse than you think. Have you ever heard of such a thing as a secret maniac? Do you know that there are men, outwardly sane, who go about the world like other people, but who have one single streak of insanity--a bee in the bonnet, as the vulgar saying has it?" He looked sick with horror. "Do you mean that she is bound for life to a man who isn't sane?" "Gaunt has had a sad life. I know his story. He thought himself badly used by a woman. It made a profound impression upon him. It is his fixed idea. When I heard my child's broken ravings, the awful thought flashed through my mind--has he some horrible idea of making Virginia pay for another woman's sins?" "If so, he must be mad, raving mad. We could get him put into an asylum," hissed Gerald. "Not so easily as you think. Such men are very cunning. You see, he has allowed her to come away from him. He is acting, as every one would say, a most magnanimous part. I and my orphan children are the creatures of his bounty. It would be difficult, indeed, to bring home to him what he may make her endure in private." "Unbearable," muttered Gerald. "I hardly dare let my mind dwell upon it. But you are going merely upon what you overheard. She has said nothing to you of his being unkind?" "She is far too proud. I judge by what she does not say. Her reticence to me, her mother, can have but one explanation. He has forbidden her, on pain of certain punishment, to say anything. I know that it is so. I am certain of it."