“An excellent good fellow, with plenty of pluck,” said Harold warmly.  “Is he not brother to the pretty little girl who was with you when we came?”

I answered as briefly as I could; I did not want to talk of the Tracys.  My heart was very sore about them, and I was almost relieved when Dora broke in with a grave accusing tone:  “Harry, Eustace drank a glass of wine, and I said I would tell you!”

“Eustace has no reason to prevent him,” was Harold’s quiet answer.

“And, really, I think, in my position, it is ridiculous, you see,” Eustace began stammering, but was wearily cut short by Harold with, “As you please.”

Eustace could never be silent long, and broke forth again:  “Harold, your ring.”

By way of answer Harold, with his available thumb and finger, showed the ring for a moment from his waistcoat pocket.  Instantly Dora sprang at it, snatched it from his finger before he was aware, and with all her might flung it into the river, for we were crossing the bridge.

There was strength in that thumb and finger to give her a sharp fierce shake, and the low voice that said “Dora” was like the lion’s growl.

“It’s Meg’s ring, and I hate her!” she cried.

“For shame, Dorothy.”

The child burst into a flood of tears and sobbed piteously, but it was some minutes before he would relent and look towards her.  Eustace scolded her for making such a noise, and vexing Harold when he was hurt, but that only made her cry the more.  I told her to say she was sorry, and perhaps Harold would forgive her; but she shook her head violently at this.

Harold relented, unable to bear the sight of distress.  “Don’t tease her,” he said, shortly, to us both.  “Hush, Dora; there’s an end of it.”

This seemed to be an amnesty, for she leant against his knee again.

“Dora, how could you?” I said, when we were out of the carriage, and the two young men had gone upstairs together.

“It was Meg’s ring, and I hate her,” answered Dora, with the fierce wild gleam in her eyes.

“You should not hate anyone,” was, of course, my answer.

“But she’s dead!” said Dora, triumphantly as a little tigress.

“So much the worse it is to hate her.  Who was she?”

“His wife,” said Dora.

I durst not ask the child any more questions.

“Eustace, who is Meg?”

I could not but ask that question as we sat tete-a-tete after dinner, Dora having gone to carry Harold some fruit, and being sure to stay with him as long as he permitted.

Eustace looked round with a startled, cautious eye, as if afraid of being overheard, and said, as Dora had done, “His wife.”

“Not alive?”

“Oh, no—­thank goodness.”

“At his age!”

“He was but twenty when he married her.  A bad business!  I knew it could not be otherwise.  She was a storekeeper’s daughter.”