"It was set on fire by the second Desire Michell one night deep in winter. Her father built this house of yours and put in the dam that covered the ruins with water. I think he hoped to wash away the horror upon the place."
"I know so little of your history."
"You can imagine it." She turned her head from me. "The first child came back from England when it was a man grown, and claimed the house and name of the first Desire. He settled and married here. For two generations only sons were born to the Michells. I do not know if the Dark One came to them. I believe it did, but they were hard, austere men who beat off evil. Then, a daughter was born. She looked like the first Desire and she was—not good. She was a scandal to the family. She listened to It——! The tradition is that she set fire to the house after a terrible quarrel with her people, but herself perished by some miscalculation. There were no more girls born for another while after that. Not until my father's time. He had a sister who resembled the two Desires of the past. My grandfather brought her up in harshness and austerity, holding always before her the wickedness to which she was born. Yet it was no use. She fled from his house with a man no one knew, and died in Paris after a life of great splendor and heartlessness. Everyone who loved the Desires suffered. That is why I—covered myself from—you."
I took her hand, so small a thing to hold and feel flutter in mine.
"But what of me, Desire? The darkness covered no beauty in me, but a defect. You never saw me until last night and now in the morning. Now that you know, can you bear with a man who—limps? You, so perfect?"
She turned toward me. Her kohl-dark eyes, vivid as a summer noon, opened to my anxious scrutiny.
"But I have seen you often," she said, the heat of confession bright on cheek and lip. "I never meant you to know, but now——! After the first time you spoke to me so kindly and gayly—I was so very sorrowfully alone—and the convent was so dull! My father's field-glasses were in my trunk."
"Desire?"
"I fear I have no vocation for a nun. I—there is a huge rock half-way down the hill with a clear view of this place. I have spent hours there, watching these lawns and verandas, and the things you all did. It all seemed so amusing and, and happy. You see, where I lived there were almost no white people except my father and a priest at the Catholic mission. So I learned to know Phillida and Mr. Vere and——"
"Then, all this time, Desire——"