which might have
brought Arthur to the scene; but Honora came running to her assistance.

"Ah, this was your prey, wolf?" said Louis coolly. "Honora, has she been
lying to you, this fox, Sister Claire, Edith Conyngham, with a string of
other names not to be remembered? Didn't you know her?"

Honora recoiled. Edith stood in shame, with the mortified expression of
the wild beast, the intelligent fox, trapped by an inferior boy.

"Oh, let her go, Louis," she pleaded.

"Not till she has seen Arthur. The mischief she can do is beyond
counting. Arthur knows how to deal with her."

"I insist," said Honora. "Come away, Louis, please, come away."

He flung away her wrist with contempt, and pointed out her path. In a
short time she had disappeared.

"And what had she to tell you, may I ask?" said the Deacon. "Like the
banshee her appearance brings misfortune to us."

"You have always been my confidant, Louis," she answered after some
thought. "Do you know anything about the earlier years of Arthur
Dillon?"

"Much. Was that her theme?"

"That he was married and his wife still lives."

"He will tell you about that business himself no doubt. I know nothing
clear or certain ... some hasty expressions of feeling ... part of a
dream ... the declaration that all was well now ... and so on. But I
shall tell him. Don't object, I must. The woman is persistent and
diabolical in her attempts to injure us. He must know at least that she
is in the vicinity. He will guess what she's after without any further
hint. But you mustn't credit her, Honora. As you know...."

"Oh, I know," she answered with a smile. "The wretched creature is not
to be believed under any circumstances. Poor soul!"

Nevertheless she felt the truth of Edith's story. It mattered little
whether Arthur was Anne Dillon's son, he would always be the faithful,
strong friend, and benefactor. That he had a wife living, the living
witness of the weakness of his career in the mines, shocked her for the
moment. The fact carried comfort too. Doubt fled, and the weighing of
inclinations, the process kept up by her mind apart from her will,
ceased of a sudden. The great pity for Arthur, which had welled up in
her heart like a new spring, dried up at its source. For the first time
she felt the sin in him, the absence of the ideal. He had tripped and
fallen like all his kind in the wild days of youth; and according to his
nature had been repeating with her the drama enacte