The reproach is terrible, and cuts him to the heart. He picks up the poor little bruised flower, and holds it tenderly in his hand.

"How can I go," he says, without daring to look at her, "until, at least, I _ask_ for forgiveness?" He feels more nervous, more crushed in the presence of this little wounded Irish girl with her pride and her grief, than he has ever felt in the presence of an offended fashionable beauty full of airs and caprices. "Mona, love makes one cruel: I ask you to remember that, because it is my only excuse," he says, warmly. "Don't condemn me altogether; but forgive me once more."

"I am always forgiving you, it seems to me," says Mona, coldly, turning from him with a frown. "And as for that heather," facing him again, with eyes shamed but wrathful, "I just kept it because--because--oh, because I didn't like to throw it away! That was all!"

Her meaning, in spite of her, is clear; but Geoffrey doesn't dare so much as to think about it. Yet in his heart he knows that he is glad because of her words.

"You mustn't think I supposed you kept it for any other purpose," he says, quite solemnly, and in such a depressed tone that Mona almost feels sorry for him.

He has so far recovered his courage that he has taken her hand, and is now holding it in a close grasp; and Mona, though a little frown still lingers on her low, broad forehead, lets her hand so lie without a censure.

"Mona, _do_ be friends with me," he says at last, desperately, driven to simplicity of language through his very misery. There is a humility in this speech that pleases her.

"It is really hardly worth talking about," she says, grandly. "I was foolish to lay so great a stress on such a trifling matter. It doesn't signify, not in the least. But--but," the blood mounting to her brow, "if ever you speak of it again,--if ever you even _mention_ the word 'heather,'--I shall _hate you_!"

"That word shall never pa.s.s my lips again in your company,--never, I swear!" says he, "until you give me leave. My darling," in a low tone, "if you could only know how vexed I am about the whole affair, and my unpardonable conduct! Yet, Mona, I will not hide from you that this little bit of senseless heather has made me happier than I have ever been before."

Stooping, he presses his lips to her hand for the first time. The caress is long and fervent.

"Say I am quite forgiven," he pleads, earnestly, his eyes on hers.

"Yes. I forgive you," she says, almost in a whisper, with a seriousness that amounts to solemnity.

Still holding her hand, as though loath to quit it, he moves towards the door; but before reaching it she slips away from him, and says "Good-by"

rather coldly.

"When am I to see you again?" says Rodney, anxiously.

"Oh not for ever so long," returns she, with much and heartless unconcern. (His spirits sink to zero.) "Certainly not until Friday," she goes on, carelessly. (As this is Wednesday, his spirits once more rise into the seventh heaven.) "Or Sat.u.r.day, or Sunday, or perhaps some day next week," she says, unkindly.

"If on Friday night there is a good moon," says Rodney, boldly, "will you take me, as you promised, to see the Bay?"

"Yes, if it is fine," says Mona, after a faint hesitation.

Then she accompanies him to the door, but gravely, and not with her accustomed gayety. Standing on the door-step he looks at her, and, as though impelled to ask the question because of her extreme stillness, he says, "Of what are you thinking?"

"I am thinking that the man we saw before going into Kitty's cabin is the murderer!" she says, with a strong shudder.

"I thought so all along," says Geoffrey, gravely.

CHAPTER VI.

HOW THE MYSTIC MOONBEAMS THROW THEIR RAYS ON MONA; AND HOW GEOFFREY, JEALOUS OF THEIR ADMIRATION, DESIRES TO CLAIM HER AS HIS OWN.

Friday is fine, and towards nightfall grows still milder, until it seems that even in the dawn of October a summer's night may be born.

The stars are coming out one by one,--slowly, tranquilly, as though haste has got no part with them. The heavens are clothed in azure. A single star, that sits apart from all the rest, is twinkling and gleaming in its blue nest, now throwing out a pale emerald ray, now a blood-red fire, and anon a touch of opal, faint and shadowy, yet more lovely in its vagueness than all the rest, until verily it resembles "a diamond in the sky."

Geoffrey coming to the farm somewhat early in the evening, Mona takes him round to the yard, where two dogs, hitherto unseen by Geoffrey, lie chained. They are two splendid bloodhounds, that, as she approaches, rise to their feet, and, lifting their ma.s.sive heads, throw out into the night-air a deep hollow bay that bespeaks welcome.

"What lovely creatures!" says Geoffrey, who has a pa.s.sion for animals: they seem to acknowledge him as a friend. As Mona looses them from their den, they go to him, and, sniffing round him, at last open their great jaws into a satisfied yawn, and, raising themselves, rest their paws upon his breast and rub their faces contentedly against his.

"Now you are their friend forever," says Mona, in a pleased tone. "Once they do that, they mean to tell you they have adopted you. And they like very few people: so it is a compliment."

"I feel it keenly," says Rodney, caressing the handsome creatures as they crouch at his feet. "Where did you get them?"

"From Mr. Moore." A mischievous light comes into her face as she says this, and she laughs aloud. "But, I a.s.sure you, not as a love-token. He gave them to me when they were quite babies, and I reared them myself.

Are they not lovely? I call them? 'Spice' and 'Allspice,' because one has a quicker temper than the other."

"The names are original, at all events," says Geoffrey,--"which is a great charm. One gets so tired of 'Rags and Tatters,' 'Beer and Skittles,' 'Cakes and Ale,' and so forth, where pairs are in question, whether they be dogs or ponies."

"Shall we set out now?" says Mona; and she calls "Mickey, Mickey," at the top of her strong young lungs.

The man who manages the farm generally--and is a plague and a blessing at the same time to his master--appears round a corner, and declares, respectfully, that he will be ready in a "jiffy" to accompany Miss Mona, if she will just give him time to "clane himself up a bit."

And in truth the "claning" occupies a very short period,--or else Mona and Geoffrey heed not the parting moments. For sometimes

"Time, as he pa.s.ses us, has a dove's wing, Unsoiled and swift, and of a silken sound."

"I'm ready now, miss, if you are," says Mickey from the background, with the utmost _bonhommie_, and in a tone that implies he is quite willing not to be ready, if it so pleases her, for another five minutes or so, or even, if necessary, to efface himself altogether. He is a stalwart young Hibernian, with rough hair and an honest face, and gray eyes, merry and cunning, and so many freckles that he looks like a turkey-egg.

"Oh, yes, I am quite ready," says Mona, starting somewhat guiltily. And then they pa.s.s out through the big yard-gate, with the two dogs at their heels, and their attendant squire, who brings up the rear with a soft whistle that rings through the cool night-air and tells the listening stars that the "girl he loves is his dear," and his "own, his artless Nora Creana."

Geoffrey and Mona go up the road with the serenader behind them, and, turning aside, she guiding, mount a stile, and, striking across a field, make straight for the high hill that conceals the ocean from the farm.

Over many fields they travel, until at length they reach the mountain's summit and gaze down upon the beauteous scene below.

The very air is still. There is no sound, no motion, save the coming and going of their own breath as it rises quickly from their hearts, filled full of pa.s.sionate admiration for the loveliness before them.

From the high hill on which they stand, steep rocks descend until they touch the water's edge, which lies sleeping beneath them, lulled into slumber by the tranquil moon as she comes forth "from the slow opening curtains of the clouds."

Far down below lies the bay, calm and placid. Not a ripple, not a sigh comes to disturb its serenity or mar the perfect beauty of the silver pathway thrown so lightly upon it by the queen of heaven. It falls there so clear, so unbroken, that almost one might deem it possible to step upon it, and so walk onwards to the sky that melts into it on the far horizon.

The whole firmament is of a soft azure, flecked here and there with snowy clouds tipped with palest gray. A little cloud--the tenderest veil of mist--hangs between earth and sky.

"The moon is up; it is the dawn of night; Stands by her side one bold, bright, steady star, Star of her heart.

Mother of stars! the heavens look up to thee."

Mona is looking up to it now, with a rapt, pensive gaze, her great blue eyes gleaming beneath its light. She is sitting upon the side of the hill, with her hands clasped about her knees, a thoughtful expression on her lovely face. At each side of her, sitting bolt upright on their huge haunches, are the dogs, as though bent on guarding her against all evil.

Geoffrey, although in reality deeply impressed by the grandeur of all the surroundings, yet cannot keep his eyes from Mona's face, her pretty att.i.tude, her two mighty defenders. She reminds him in some wise of Una and the lion, though the idea is rather far-fetched; and he hardly dares speak to her, lest he shall break the spell that seems to lie upon her.

She herself destroys it presently.

"Do you like it?" she asks, gently, bringing her gaze back from the glowing heavens, to the earth, which is even more beautiful.