"Yes, yes; I will, aunt dear--I will," cried the girl, whose cheeks were now aflame. "It's about a fortnight ago that one evening, when we were all sitting in the drawing-room with the windows open, and it was so beautiful and soft and warm, Mr Prayle got up and came across and talked to me for a few minutes. It was only about that sketch I was making, and he did not say much, but he said it in such a way that it set my heart beating; and when he left the room, I fancied it meant something. So I got up, feeling terribly guilty, and went out of the window on to the lawn and then down to the rose garden, and picked two or three buds. Then I went round to the grass path where Mr Prayle walks up and down so much with his book." "Because you thought he would be there, my dear?" "Yes, aunt! It was very wrong--but I did." "And you thought he had gone out there to read his book in the dark, eh?" "No, aunt dear; I thought he would be there waiting to see if I would go to him." "And you were going?" "Yes, aunt dear." "Was he there?" "Yes, aunt." "Waiting for you?" "O no, aunt dear; for as I went softly over the grass, I stopped short all at once, and turned giddy, and felt as if everything was at an end." "Why, Naomi?" "He was going by me in the darkness with his arm round some one else's waist!" Aunt Sophia's face had never looked so old before, for every wrinkle was deeply marked, and her eyes seemed sunk and strange in their fixed intensity as she waited to hear more; but Naomi remained silent, as if afraid to speak. "Well, child, and who was it with Mr Prayle?" Naomi hesitated for a few moments, and then said in a passionate burst: "I did not believe it till this morning, aunt. I thought then that it was Kate; but it seemed so impossible--so terrible--that I dare not think it was she. But when I went quickly into the study this morning, Mr Prayle was just raising her hand to his lips. O aunt, how can people be so wicked! I shall go and be a nun!" Aunt Sophia looked still older, for a time, as she tenderly caressed and fondled the sobbing girl. Then a more serene aspect came over her face, and she said softly: "There, there; you have learned a severe lesson--that Mr Prayle does not care for you; and as to being a nun--no, no, my darling: there is plenty of good work to be done in the world. Don't shirk it by shutting yourself up. Come, you have been almost a child so far; now, be a woman. Show your pride. There are other and better men than Arthur Prayle; and as to what you saw--it may have been a mistake. Let's wait and see." "Yes, aunt." "And you'll be brave, and think no more of him?" "Never again, aunt dear. There!"