"Why no; as you proceed in your catechism I doubt not we shall have occasion to mention certain hatreds in this household, which are in no sense affected by natural ties." "Well to proceed," said Lilias; "why does Gabriel hour after hour keep his eyes fixed on Aletheia, with a strange look which makes me fancy he thinks she would die if he were to cease gazing on her?" "Because he loves her," answered Walter. "But she does not love him," exclaimed Lilias, with a woman's instinct. "Most certainly not." "There is so much I have to ask about her. Tell me why it is that she has such imploring eyes. I never, on a human face, saw an expression of such mute entreaty; I saw it once in the wistful look of a poor deer which they killed on our Irish hills. I remember so well when it lay wounded, and the gamekeeper came near with the knife, it lifted up its great brown eyes with just such a dumb beseeching gaze, but that was only for a moment. It soon died, poor thing; and with Aletheia, that mournful supplication seems stamped on her countenance, as though her very life were to be spent in it." "Ah! if you ask me about Aletheia," said Walter, "I am powerless at once. I can tell you nothing of her; she is a greater mystery in herself than all the rest put together; this only seems plain to me, that her existence is, for some unexplicable reason, one living agony." "If I thought so I should be so angry with myself for having felt prejudiced against her, which, I confess, I have done, for a reason I could not name to you. She is so cold and statue-like, I thought she seemed lost to all human feeling; but if it be suffering, and not insensibility, which makes her move about amongst us as if she had been dead, and forced unwillingly to live again, I should try to overcome the sort of awe with which she has inspired me." "I believe it matters little how you feel respecting her, for you will never conquer her impenetrable reserve; even poor Gabriel, who seems fascinated by her to a marvellous extent, has ever struggled vainly against her implacable calm. It is seldom, I think, that one human being can so lavish all his sympathies upon another, as he has done on her, without gaining some sign of life at least; but he tells me it is as though the living soul within her were cased in iron; he cannot draw it out of the dungeon where she seems to have buried it, to meet even for a moment his own ardent spirit." "But I hardly wonder at this, if she does not love him," said Lilias.