"And those dogs forever at her heels!—positively, she is half a savage. The whole thing is in keeping, and quite detestable. How can you expect me to welcome a girl who is without family and absolutely penniless? Why, I am convinced that misguided boy bought her even her trousseau!"
Mona has no time to hear more; pale, but collected, she walks deliberately into the room and up to Lady Rodney.
"You are mistaken in one point," she says, slowly. "I may be savage, penniless, without family,—but I bought my own trousseau. I do not say this to excuse myself, because I should not mind taking anything from Geoffrey; but I think it a pity you should not know the truth. I had some money of my own,—very little, I allow, but enough to furnish me with wedding garments."
Her coming is a thunderbolt, her speech lightning. Lady Rodney changes color, and is for once utterly disconcerted.
"I beg your pardon," she manages to say. "Of course had I known you were listening at the door I should not have said what I did,"—this last with a desire to offend.
"I was not listening at the door," says Mona, with dignity, yet with extreme difficulty: some hand seems clutching at her heart-strings, and he who should have been near to succor her is far away. "I never," haughtily, "listened at a door in all my life. I should not understand how to do it." Her Irish blood is up, and there is a distinct emphasis upon the pronoun. "You have wronged me twice!"
Her voice falters. Instinctively she looks round for help. She feels deserted,—alone. No one speaks. Sir Nicholas and Violet, who are in the room, are as yet almost too shocked to have command of words; and presently the silence becomes unbearable.
Two tears gather, and roll slowly down Mona's white cheeks. And then somehow her thoughts wander back to the old farmhouse at the side of the hill, with the spreading trees behind it, and to the sanded floor and the cool dairy, and the warmth of the love that abounded there, and the uncle, who, if rough, was at least ready to believe her latest action—whatever it might be—only one degree more perfect than the one that went before it.
She turns away in a desolate fashion, and moves towards the door; but Sir Nicholas, having recovered from his stupefaction by this time, follows her, and placing his arm round her, bends over her tenderly, and presses her face against his shoulder.
"My dearest child, do not take things so dreadfully to heart," he says, entreatingly and soothingly: "it is all a mistake; and my mother will, I know, be the first to acknowledge herself in error."