Rossmoyne. Duchess

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СКАЧАТЬ then you acknowledge the crime?" in deep distress.

      "I didn't know that an old Irish title must necessarily be connected with guilt," says her companion, fairly puzzled.

      "Eh?" says Monica, puzzled in her turn. "I don't understand you: I only want to know if you are one of the particular Desmonds?"

      "I suppose not," he replies, now openly amused, "because I regret to say we have never yet done anything worthy of note, or likely to distinguish us from all the other Desmonds, whose name is legion."

      "If you are going to tell me you live at Coole," says Miss Beresford, in a tone that is almost tragic, "I warn you it will be the last straw, and that I shan't be able to bear it."

      "I am not going to tell you anything," protests he.

      "But you must," declares she, illogically. "I may as well hear the worst at once. Go on," heroically; "tell me the truth. Do you live there?"

      "I'm awfully afraid I do," says Mr. Desmond, feeling somehow, without knowing why, distinctly ashamed of his name and residence.

      "I knew it! I felt it!" says Monica, with the calmness of despair. "Take me back to the bank at once—this very instant, please. Oh, what a row I should get into if they only knew!"

      Very justly offended at the turn affairs have taken, Mr. Desmond rows her in silence to the landing-place, in silence gives her his hand to alight, in silence makes his boat safe, without so much as a glance at her, although he knows she is standing a little way from him, irresolute, remorseful, and uncertain.

      He might, perhaps, have maintained this dignified indifference to the end, but that, unfortunately lifting his eyes, he catches sight of her in this repentant attitude, with her head bent down, and her slim fingers toying nervously with the lilies of his own gathering.

      This picture flings dignity to the winds. Going up to her, he says, in a would-be careless but unmistakably offended voice, "May I ask what I have done, that 'they,' whoever they are, should consider you had disgraced yourself by being with me for half an hour?"

      "You have done nothing," says Monica, faintly. "It was your uncle."

      "My uncle!—George Desmond! Why, what on earth can he have done?" demands he, bewildered.

      "I don't know." Feeling this is indeed a lame answer to a most natural question, she goes on hurriedly, "It all happened twenty years ago, and——"

      "But what happened?" asks he, with pardonable impatience.

      "Something dreadfully wicked," says Monica, solemnly. "Something really very, very bad, because Aunt Priscilla can't hear you spoken of with common patience."

      "Me!"

      "Not so much you, perhaps, as your name. She hates the very sound of it. There isn't a doubt about that; because, though I have not heard the exact story yet, I know both my aunts grow actually faint with horror when your uncle's name is mentioned."

      "Good gracious!" says the horrified nephew of this apparently disreputable old man. He is staring at Monica, but in reality he does not even see her. Before his mind's eye is a picture of a stout old gentleman, irascible, but kindly, with a countenance innocent of guile. Yet how can he doubt this girl's story? Twenty years ago, as it seems, George Desmond had done something too bad to be discussed. After all, how impossible it is to trust to appearances! As a rule, the most seemingly harmless people are those who are guilty of the vilest misdemeanors. And, yet, what on earth could George have done twenty years ago? Visions of forgery, murder, homicide, rise up before him, but, try as he will, he cannot connect Mr. Desmond's face with any of them.

      "You don't exactly know yourself what the crime is with which he is charged?" he asks her, with growing diffidence.

      "No. But I shall find out, and tell——But that will be impossible!"—with a glance full of liveliest regret. "I cannot tell you, because after to-day I shall never see or speak to you again."

      "That is the most insane nonsense I ever heard in my life," says Mr. Desmond.

      The girl shakes her head sadly.

      "If you won't speak to me I shall speak to you, whether you like it or not," says Desmond, with decision.

      "That will be out of your power, as you will never see me."

      "Do you mean to tell me I may not call at Moyne?"

      "Certainly I do. They wouldn't hear of it. They wouldn't, in fact, receive you."

      "But why must they visit my uncle's sins upon my shoulders? I have heard of a father's sins being entailed upon his heir, but never an uncle's."

      "It is your name," says Monica. Then she laughs a little, in spite of herself, and quotes, in a low tone, "Oh! Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?"

      But he takes no heed of this frivolous quotation.

      "You mean me to understand, then, that I am never to speak to you again?"

      "I do, indeed."

      "What! Do you know we are to be close neighbors for the future, you and I? This is to be your home. Coole is to be mine. At the most, only a mile of road lies between us, and here not quite a yard. And yet you calmly tell me I am from this day forth to be only a common stranger to you."

      "You look as if you were angry with me," says Monica, with sudden tears in her eyes at his injustice. "It isn't my fault; I haven't done anything wicked. Blame your uncle for it all."

      "The whole thing is simply absurd," says the young man, taking now the superior tone that is meant to crush the situation by holding it up to ridicule. "You forget, perhaps, that we shall have to meet sometimes. I suppose the people down here give balls occasionally, and tennis-parties, and that; and when I meet you at them, is it your wish that I shall pretend never to have seen you before—never to have known you?"

      "Yes," says Monica, with as much hesitation as lets him know how she hates saying it. "When next you meet me, you are to look right over my head, and pass on!"

      "I couldn't do it," returns he, gazing at her steadily. "I couldn't indeed. In fact, I feel it is just the last thing in the world I could do."

      "But you must," says Monica, imperiously, terrified to death as she conjures up before her Aunt Priscilla's face as it will surely be if this Philistine dares to address her: "I tell you my aunts would never forgive me if they knew I had interchanged even one syllable with you. From this moment you must forget me. There will really be no difficulty about it, as our acquaintance is but of an hour's growth. You have seen me for the first time to-day, and a chance meeting such as this is easily driven from the mind."

      "That is your opinion," says the young man, moodily. "It is not mine. I dare say you will find it very easy to forget. I shan't! And this isn't the first time I have seen you, either. It seems to me as if years have rolled by since last I looked upon your face. I was standing at the gate of Coole, and saw you pass by, the day of your arrival in Rossmoyne. So, you see, we are—in spite of you—almost old friends."

      A bombshell flung at her feet could hardly have СКАЧАТЬ