"Where is he now?" she asks herself with a shivering sigh, as she listens to the restless creak and sough of the trees. It is a question she is asking continually; but who can answer it?
He may be lying dead on some bare hillside, or at the bottom of some dark gorge in the mountains.
From the drawing-room window she can see across to the drive. Some one is coming slowly toward the house—a girl, little more than a child, with an old cloak flung over her head—country fashion. Honor watches her, and wonders which of the village people have been brave enough to pass the ruins of Donaghmore at this hour.
The girl comes straight on to the window at which Honor is still standing. When she is quite close she opens her cloak and holds out a letter—not a bulky letter, a mere scrap, closely twisted; and, without a second thought, Honor raises the window and takes it out of her hand.
"Who has sent it, Nora?"—for she recognizes the child now that she sees her face.
But Nora only shakes her head and hurries away, passing over the moonlit grass like the mere shadow of a girl.
The gentlemen are stirring in the dining-room now; she can hear their chairs being set back, and her father's voice as he opens the door for their guest.
There is not a moment to be lost if she is to read her letter in secret, and instinctively she feels that it is meant for no eyes but her own. Untwisting it rapidly, she spreads it out and reads:
"Will you venture to the old ruins at dusk to-morrow, to see one who needs your forgiveness, even if you must refuse him your pity? P. M."
As she reads the tears rush into her eyes, half blinding her; the sorrowful pleading words grow dim and indistinct.