"By your grandfather!" corrects Mona, in a peculiar tone.
"Well, by my grandfather, if you so prefer it," repeats he, with much unconcern. "It got itself, if it ever existed, irretrievably lost, and that is all any one knows about it."
Mona is watching him intently.
"Yet I feel sure—I know," she says, tremulously, "you are hiding something from me. Why do you not look at me when you answer my questions?"
At this his dark face flames, and his eyes instinctively, yet almost against his will, seek hers.
"Why?" he says, with suppressed passion. "Because, each time I do, I know myself to be—what I am! Your truthful eyes are mirrors in which my heart lies bare." With an effort he recovers himself, and, drawing his breath quickly, grows calm again. "If I were to gaze at you as often as I should desire, you would probably deem me impertinent," he says, with a lapse into his former half-insolent tone.
"Answer me," persists Mona, not heeding—nay, scarcely hearing—his last speech. "You said once it would be difficult to lie to me. Do you know anything of this missing will?"
"A great deal. I should. I have heard of almost nothing else since my arrival in England," replies he, slowly.
"Ah! Then you refuse to answer me," says Mona, hastily, if somewhat wearily.
He makes no reply. And for a full minute no word is spoken between them.