t? The devil
fly away with Priscilla, I say. Priscilla isn't musical, is it,
Leonora?"

Once having freed herself from him, which was by no means an easy
matter, Theo flew up-stairs, tremulous, breathless, flushed. She did not
stop to think. She had seen the drawing-room empty and unlighted, save
by a dull fire, on her way down-stairs, so she turned to the
drawing-room. She had been conscious of nothing but Sir Dugald, so she
had not heard the hall-door open; and, not having heard the hall-door
open, had, of course, not heard Denis Oglethorpe come in. So, in running
into the fire-lit room, she broke in upon that gentleman, who was
standing in the shadow, and it must be confessed was rather startled by
her sudden entrance and curiously-excited face.

He stopped her short, however, collectedly enough.

"What is the matter, Theodora?" he demanded.

She slipped down upon a footstool, all in a flutter, when she saw him,
she was so shaken; and then, in her sudden abasement and breathless
tremor, gave vent to a piteous little half-sob, though she was terribly
ashamed of it.

"I--I don't know," she answered him. "It's--it's nothing at all." But he
knew better than that, and guessing very shrewdly that he was not wholly
unconnected with the matter himself, questioned her as closely as was
consistent with delicacy, and, in the end, after some diplomacy, and a
few more of surprised, piteous, little unwilling half-sobs, gleaned a
great deal of the truth from her.

"It was only--only something Sir Dugald said about you and Miss Gower,
and--and something about me," she added, desperately.

"Oh!" he said, looking so composed about it that the very sight of his
composure calmed her, and made her begin to think she had seen a
mountain in a mole-hill. "Sir Dugald? Only Sir Dugald? What did he say,
may I ask, as it--it is about myself and Miss Gower?"

Of course he might ask, but the difficulty lay in gaining any definite
answer. Theodora blushed, and then actually turned a little pale,
looking wondrously abased in her uncalled-for confusion; but she was not
at all coherent in her explanations, which were really not meant for
explanations at all.

"Il Trovatore was so beautiful!" she burst out, finally; "and so was
Faust; and I had never been to the opera in all my life before, and, of
course--" blushing and palpitating, but still looking at him without a
shade of falsehood in her innocent, straightforward eyes; "of course, I