“I am going to tell you the story, Master, though it will be like opening an old wound.  No living person knows it but Thomas and me.  When you hear it you will understand why Kilmeny can’t speak, and why it isn’t likely that there can ever be anything done for her.  She doesn’t know the truth and you must never tell her.  It isn’t a fit story for her ears, especially when it is about her mother.  Promise me that you will never tell her, no matter what may happen.”

“I promise.  Go on—­go on,” said the young man feverishly.

Janet Gordon locked her hands together in her lap, like a woman who nerves herself to some hateful task.  She looked very old; the lines on her face seemed doubly deep and harsh.

“My sister Margaret was a very proud, high-spirited girl, Master.  But I would not have you think she was unlovable.  No, no, that would be doing a great injustice to her memory.  She had her faults as we all have; but she was bright and merry and warm-hearted.  We all loved her.  She was the light and life of this house.  Yes, Master, before the trouble that came on her Margaret was a winsome lass, singing like a lark from morning till night.  Maybe we spoiled her a little—­maybe we gave her too much of her own way.

“Well, Master, you have heard the story of her marriage to Ronald Fraser and what came after, so I need not go into that.  I know, or used to know Elizabeth Williamson well, and I know that whatever she told you would be the truth and nothing more or less than the truth.

“Our father was a very proud man.  Oh, Master, if Margaret was too proud she got it from no stranger.  And her misfortune cut him to the heart.  He never spoke a word to us here for more than three days after he heard of it.  He sat in the corner there with bowed head and would not touch bite or sup.  He had not been very willing for her to marry Ronald Fraser; and when she came home in disgrace she had not set foot over the threshold before he broke out railing at her.  Oh, I can see her there at the door this very minute, Master, pale and trembling, clinging to Thomas’s arm, her great eyes changing from sorrow and shame to wrath.  It was just at sunset and a red ray came in at the window and fell right across her breast like a stain of blood.

“Father called her a hard name, Master.  Oh, he was too hard—­ even though he was my father I must say he was too hard on her, broken-hearted as she was, and guilty of nothing more after all than a little willfulness in the matter of her marriage.

“And father was sorry for it—­Oh, Master, the word wasn’t out of his mouth before he was sorry for it.  But the mischief was done.  Oh, I’ll never forget Margaret’s face, Master!  It haunts me yet in the black of the night.  It was full of anger and rebellion and defiance.  But she never answered him back.  She clenched her hands and went up to her old room without saying a word, all those mad feelings surging