It struck a chill, and she answered, almost imploringly, ’Gilbert is much better, thank you.’

‘I am glad to hear it;’ and he was going to bow and pass on, when she exclaimed,

‘Ulick, why are we strangers?’

‘It was agreed on all hands that things past could not be undone,’ he frigidly replied.

‘Too true,’ she said; ’but I do not think you know how sorry we are for my poor little boy’s foolish trick.’

’I owe no displeasure to Maurice.  He knew no more what he was doing than if he had been a gust of wind; but if the wind had borne a private paper to my feet, I would never have acted on the contents.’

‘Unhappily,’ said Albinia, ’some revelations, though received against our will, cannot help being felt.  We saw the drawing before we knew how he came by it, and you cannot wonder that it gave pain to find that a scene so distressing to us should have furnished you with amusement.  It was absurd in itself, but we had hoped it was a secret, and it wounded us because we thought you would have been tender of our feelings.’

‘You don’t mean that it was fact!’ cried Ulick, stopping suddenly; and as her silence replied, he continued, ’I give you my word and honour that I never imagined there was a word of truth in the farrago old Biddy told me, and I’ll not deny that I did scrawl the scene down as the very picture of a bit of slander.  I only wonder I’d not brought it to yourself.’

‘Pray let me hear what she told you.’

’Oh! she said they two had been colloguing together by moonlight, and you came home in the midst, and Miss Kendal fainted away, so he catches up the ink and throws it over her instead of water, and you and Mr. Kendal came in and were mad entirely; and Mr. Kendal threatened to brain him with the poker if he did not quit it that instant, and sent Gilbert for a soldier for opening the door to him, but you and Lucy went down on your bare knees to get him to relent.’

’Well, I own the poker does throw an air of improbability over the whole.  Minus that and the knees, I am afraid it is only too true.  I suppose it got abroad through the servants.’

‘It was an unlucky goose-quill that lay so handy,’ exclaimed Ulick; ’but you may credit me, no eye but my own ever saw the scrawl, nor would have seen it.’

’Then, Ulick, if we all own that something is to be regretted, why do we stand aloof, and persist in quarrelling?’

‘I want no quarrel,’ said Ulick, stiffly.  ’Mr. Kendal intimated to me that he did not wish for my company, and I’m not the man to force it.’

‘Oh, Ulick, this is not what I hoped from you!’