But not even when Mona was a girl could she have been tempted, for more than a moment, to avenge a petty wrong at the expense of those great, sad eyes.
Mr Brown had been looking out, and he came forward to meet her, nervous, eager.
"Have you arranged a day?" he asked.
"No; I fear I am going to be very busy for the next few weeks. It is very kind of you to suggest another walk. Good-bye."
She was unconscious that her whole manner and bearing had changed in the last quarter of an hour, but he felt it keenly, and guessed something of what had happened.
"Miss Maclean," he said hoarsely, grasping the hand she tried to withdraw, "what do we want with one of them in our walks? Come with me. Come up-stairs with me now, and we'll tell them——"
"I have stayed too long already," said Mona hastily; "good-bye." And without trusting herself to look at him again, she hurried away.
Her cheeks were very bright, and her eyes suffused with tears, as she continued her walk.
"How disgraceful!" she kept repeating; "how disgraceful! I must have been horribly to blame, or it never would have come to this."
But, as usual, before long her sense of the comic came to her rescue.