‘There is no ill to hear, sweet child, except of evil done to her. Lorna, you are of an ill-starred race.’

‘Better that than a wicked race,’ she answered with her usual quickness, leaping at conclusion; ‘tell me I am not a Doone, and I will—but I cannot love you more.’

‘You are not a Doone, my Lorna, for that, at least, I can answer; though I know not what your name is.’

‘And my father—your father—what I mean is—’

‘Your father and mine never met one another. Your father was killed by an accident in the Pyrenean mountains, and your mother by the Doones; or at least they caused her death, and carried you away from her.’

All this, coming as in one breath upon the sensitive maiden, was more than she could bear all at once; as any but a fool like me must of course have known. She lay back on the garden bench, with her black hair shed on the oaken bark, while her colour went and came and only by that, and her quivering breath, could any one say that she lived and thought. And yet she pressed my hand with hers, that I might tell her all of it.