"Is it true," he began very slowly, "that Dan has been here?"
Then Mona blushed deeply, and there was a pause.
"Is it true?" he said again, and now with a hurried and startled look; "is it true that Dan has been here—here?"
Mona misunderstood his emphasis. Ewan was standing in her chamber, and when he asked if Dan had been there, he was inquiring if Dan had been with her in that very room. She did not comprehend the evil thought that had been put in his heart. But she remembered the prohibition placed upon her both by Ewan and her father, never to receive Dan again, and her confusion at the moment of Ewan's question came of the knowledge that, contrary to that prohibition, she had received him.
"Is it true?" he asked yet again, and he trembled with the passion he suppressed.
After a pause he answered himself, with an awful composure, "It is true."
The child lifted itself and babbled at Mona with its innocent face all smiles, and Mona turned to hide her confusion by leaning over the cot.
"Boo—loo—la-la."
Then a great wave of passion seemed to come to Ewan, and he stepped to his sister, and took her by both hands. He was like a strong man in a dream, who feels sure that he can only be dreaming—struggling in vain to awake from a terrible nightmare, and knowing that a nightmare it must be that sits on him and crushes him.
"No, no, there must be a mistake; there must, there must," he said, and his hot breathing beat on her face. "He has never been here —here—never."