doesn't commit you to a line. I'll tell you
this--it may encourage you to a similar confidence. If I wanted to
break a law very badly, I shouldn't do it on reflection perhaps; but I
could never resist a sudden impulse. If somebody told me that it would
be desirable in all sorts of ways to break a man's head I shouldn't do
it, because I should be bothering myself with all the possibilities of
the thing--how desirable it might be, or how undesirable. But if,
happening to be in his company, I saw his head in a breakable
aspect--splosh! I should land him a nasty one. That's a certainty.
Now, what should you say to that? It happens that I want to know." It
was evident to her that he really did.

Lucy gave him one of her kind, compassionate looks, which always made
her seem beautiful, and said, "I should forgive you. I should tell you
that you were too young for your years; but I should forgive you, I'm
sure."

"That's what I wanted to know," said Urquhart, and remained silent for
a while. When he resumed it was abruptly, on a totally new matter. "I
shall bring my sister over to you after this. She's here. I don't know
whether you'll like her. She'll like you."

"Where is she?" Lucy asked, rather curious.

"She's over there, by our hostess. That big black hat is hers. She's
underneath it." Lucy saw a spry, black-haired youngish woman, very
vivacious but what she herself called "good." James would have said,
"Smart." Not at all like her brother, she thought, and said so. "She's
not such a scoundrel," Urquhart admitted, "but she takes a line of
her own. Her husband's name is Nugent. He is South Irish, where we are
North. That boy who went with us to the play is her son. He is a
lively breed--so it hasn't turned out amiss. She's not at all your
sort, but as you know the worst of us you may as well know what we can
do when we exert ourselves." He added, "My old father, now with
Beelzebub, was a terror."

"Do tell me about him."

"It would take too long. He was very old-fashioned in most ways. They
used to call him King Urquhart in Donegal. The worst of it was that he
knew good claret and could shoot. That makes a bad combination. He
used to sit on a hogshead of it in his front yard and challenge all
and sundry to mortal combat. He really did. Duels he used to call
them. He said, 'Me honour's involved, d'ye see?' and believed it. But
they were really murders, because he was infallible with a revolver.
He adored my mother,