"Don't talk of heroism in connection with me." Mona bit her lip. "I see there is one thing more that I ought to tell you, since I have told you so much. When I went to Borrowness there was some one there a great deal more cultured than myself, whose occasional society just made all the difference in my life, though I did not recognise it at the time. It is partly because I have not that to look forward to when I go back that life seems so unbearable."
"Man or woman?"
"Man, but he was nice enough to be a woman."
The words were spoken with absolute simplicity. Clearly, the idea of love and marriage had not crossed her mind.
"Did he know your circumstances?"
"No; he took for granted that Borrowness was my home. I might have told him; but my cousin had made me promise not to mention the fact that I was a medical student."
"And he has gone?"
"Yes; he may be back for a week or so at Christmas, but I don't know even that." Mona looked up into the old man's face. "Now," she said, "you know the whole truth as thoroughly as I know it myself."
He repaid her look with interest.
"Honest is not the word for her," he thought. "She is simply crystalline."