l houses in which men have lived and died are haunted houses,'" he
quoted. "It's not very cynical to suppose that there has been sin and
sorrow here before now."

"I think," said Molly quickly, "there was a wicked woman who used the
little dining-room; perhaps she was only a guest. I don't think she went
upstairs often."

"Perhaps she came in with my looking-glasses," suggested Edmund. "I have
often wished I could see what they have seen."

Molly was now quite off her guard.

Edmund rose and examined some china on a table near him.

"Why are you so displeased with me?" he said, without any change of
voice.

Molly sprang to her feet, careless whether her unguarded vehemence might
betray her to his observation.

"I shall not answer that question," she said; but he knew that she would
answer it.

"You cut me at the Court; you were displeased at having to sit by me at
dinner; you have pretended not to see me at least four times since then,
and your butler showed me up by mistake."

Molly had moved away from him to the window. She knew she must speak or
her conduct would look too like wounded love--a thing quite unbearable.
She knew, too, that his influence would make her speak, and, besides
that, something in her cried for the relief of speech. She needed a
fight although she did not know it; an open fight with an enemy she
could see would distract her from the incessant fight with an enemy she
did not see.

"You are a strange man!" she cried, holding the curtain behind her
lightly as she turned towards him. "You could make friends with me so
that all the world might see you, and meanwhile, at the very same time,
you were paying a low Italian scoundrel to produce lies against my sick
and lonely mother! You could watch me and get out of me all you wanted
to know because I was ignorant of the world. You could use the horrible
influence you had gained over me by your experience of many women, to
manage me as you liked. You told me not to marry Edgar Tonmore for some
reason of your own; you told me to go and stay with my aunt; you came to
see me one night in London, and wormed out of me my relations with my
unfortunate mother. With all your knowledge of the world, with all your
experience, did you never think I might come to find you out?"

Molly paused for a moment. She held herself erect, her white gown
crushed against the rich, dark curtain, her great eyes searching the
trees in the park below as if she sought