“No, Master, it wouldn’t be any use.  Oh, we will, of course, but it will not be any use.  Kilmeny is as determined as her mother when once she makes up her mind.  She has always been good and obedient for the most part, but once or twice we have found out that there is no moving her if she does resolve upon anything.  When her mother died Thomas and I wanted to take her to church.  We could not prevail on her to go.  We did not know why then, but now I suppose it was because she believed she was so very ugly.  It is because she thinks so much of you that she will not marry you.  She is afraid you would come to repent having married a dumb girl.  Maybe she is right—­maybe she is right.”

“I cannot give her up,” said Eric stubbornly.  “Something must be done.  Perhaps her defect can be remedied even yet.  Have you ever thought of that?  You have never had her examined by a doctor qualified to pronounce on her case, have you?”

“No, Master, we never took her to anyone.  When we first began to fear that she was never going to talk Thomas wanted to take her to Charlottetown and have her looked to.  He thought so much of the child and he felt terrible about it.  But her mother wouldn’t hear of it being done.  There was no use trying to argue with her.  She said that it would be no use—­that it was her sin that was visited on her child and it could never be taken away.”

“And did you give in meekly to a morbid whim like that?” asked Eric impatiently.

“Master, you didn’t know my sister.  We had to give in—­nobody could hold out against her.  She was a strange woman—­and a terrible woman in many ways—­after her trouble.  We were afraid to cross her for fear she would go out of her mind.”

“But, could you not have taken Kilmeny to a doctor unknown to her mother?”

“No, that was not possible.  Margaret never let her out of her sight, not even when she was grown up.  Besides, to tell you the whole truth, Master, we didn’t think ourselves that it would be much use to try to cure Kilmeny.  It was a sin that made her as she is.”

“Aunt Janet, how can you talk such nonsense?  Where was there any sin?  Your sister thought herself a lawful wife.  If Ronald Fraser thought otherwise—­and there is no proof that he did—­he committed a sin, but you surely do not believe that it was visited in this fashion on his innocent child!”

“No, I am not meaning that, Master.  That wasn’t where Margaret did wrong; and though I never liked Ronald Fraser over much, I must say this in his defence—­I believe he thought himself a free man when he married Margaret.  No, it’s something else—­something far worse.  It gives me a shiver whenever I think of it.  Oh, Master, the Good Book is right when it says the sins of the parents are visited on the children.  There isn’t a truer word in it than that from cover to cover.”

“What, in heaven’s name, is the meaning of all this?” exclaimed Eric.  “Tell me what it is.  I must know the whole truth about Kilmeny.  Do not torment me.”