going to church, and when she had marshalled her flock and carried them off, those left behind knew themselves, indeed, as heathens and publicans.
Ashe wandered out with some official papers and a pipe into the spring sunshine. Mr. Kershaw, the editor, would gladly have caught him for a political talk. But Ashe would not be caught. As to the interests of England in the Persian Gulf, both they and Mr. Kershaw might for the moment go hang. Would Lady Kitty meet him in the old garden at eleven-thirty, or would she not? That was the only thing that mattered.
However, it was still more than an hour to the time mentioned. Ashe spent a while in roaming a wood delicately pied with primroses and anemones, and then sauntered back into the gardens, which were old and famous.
Suddenly, as he came upon a terrace bordered by a thick yew hedge, and descending by steps to a lower terrace, he became aware of voices in a strange tone and key—not loud, but, as it were, intensified far beyond the note of ordinary talk. Ashe stood still; for he had recognized the voice of Lady Kitty. But before he had made up his mind what to do a lady began to ascend the steps which connected the upper terrace with the lower. She came straight towards him, and Ashe looked at her with astonishment. She was not a member of the Grosville house party, and Ashe had never seen her before. Yet in her pale, unhappy face there was something that recalled another person; something, too, in her gait and her passionate energy of movement. She swept past him, and he saw that she was tall and thin, and dressed in deep mourning. Her eyes were set on some inner vision; he felt that she scarcely saw him. She passed like an embodied grief—menacing and lamentable.
Something like a cry pursued her up the steps. But she did not turn. She walked swiftly on, and was soon lost to sight in the trees.
Ashe hesitated a moment, then hurried down the steps.
On a stone seat beneath the yew hedge, Kitty Bristol lay prone. He heard her sobs, and they went most strangely through his heart.
"Lady Kitty!" he said, as he stood beside her and bent over her.
She looked up, and showed no surprise. Her face was bathed in tears, but her hand sought his piteously and drew him towards her.
"I have seen my sister," she said, "and she hates me. What have I done? I think I shall die of despair!"
V
The effect of the few sobbing words, with which Kitty Bristol had greeted his presence beside her, upon the feeling of William Ashe was both sharp and deep, for they seemed already to imply a peculiar relation, a special link between them. Had it not, indeed, begun in that very moment at St. James's Place when he had first caught sight of her, sitting forlorn in her white dress?—when she had "willed" him to come to her, and he came? Surely—though as to this he had his qualms—she could not have spoken with this abandonment to any other of her new English acquaintances? To Darrell, for instance, who was expected at Grosville Park that evening. No! From the beginning she had turned to him, William Ashe; she had been conscious of the same mutual understanding, the same sympathy in difference that he himself felt.
It was, at any rate, with the feeling of one whose fate has most strangely, most unexpectedly overtaken him that he sat down beside her. His own pulses were running at a great rate; but there was to be no sign of it for her. He tried, indeed, to calm her by that mere cheerful strength and vitality of which he was so easily master. "Why should you be in despair?" he said, bending towards her. "Tell me. Let me try and help you. Was your sister unkind to you?"
Kitty made no reply at once. The tears that brimmed her large eyes slipped down her cheeks without disfiguring her. She was looking absently, intently, into a dark depth of wood as though she sought there for some truth that escaped her—truth of the past or of the present.
"I don't know," she said, at last, shaking her head, "I don't know whether it was unkind. Perhaps it was only what we deserve, maman and I."
"You!" cried Ashe.
"Yes," she said, passionately. "Who's going to separate between maman and me? If she's done mean, shocking things, the people she's done them to will hate me too. They shall hate me! It's right."
She turned to him violently. She was very white, and her little hands as she sat there before him, proudly erect, twisted a lace handkerchief between them that would soon be in tatters. Somehow Ashe winced before the wreck of the handkerchief; what need to ruin the pretty, fragile thing?
"I am quite sure no one will ever hate you for what you haven't done," he said, steadily. "That would be abominably unfair. But, you see, I don't understand—and I don't like—I don't wish—to ask questions."
"Do ask questions!" she cried, looking at him almost reproachfully. "That's just what I want you to do—Only," she added, hanging her head in depression, "I shouldn't know what to answer. I am played with, and treated as a baby! There is something horrible the matter—and no one trusts me—every one keeps me in the dark. No one ever thinks whether I am miserable or not."
She raised her hands to her eyes and vehemently wiped away her tears with the tattered lace handkerchief. In all these words and actions, however, she was graceful and touching, because she was natural. She was not posing or conscious, she was hiding nothing. Yet Ashe felt certain she could act a part magnificently; only it would not be for the lie's sake, but for the sake of some romantic impulse or imagination.
"Why should you torment yourself so?" he asked her, kindly. Her hand had dropped and lay beside her on the bench. To his own amazement he found himself clasping it. "Isn't it better to forget old griefs? You can't help what happened years ago—you can't undo it. You've got to live your own life—happily! And I just wish you'd set about it."
He smiled at her, and there were few faces more attractive than his when he let his natural softness have its way, without irony. She let her eyes be drawn to his, and as they met he saw a flush rise in her clear skin and spread to the pale gold of her hair. The man in him was marvellously pleased by that flush—fascinated, indeed. But she gave him small time to observe it; she drew herself impatiently away.
"Of course, you don't understand a word about it," she said, "or you couldn't talk like that. But I'll tell you." Her eyes, half miserable, half audacious, returned to him. "My sister—came here—because I sent for her. I made mademoiselle go with a letter. Of course, I knew there was a mystery—I knew the Grosvilles did not want us to meet—I knew that she and maman hated each other. But maman will tell me nothing—and I have a right to know."
"No, you have no right to know," said Ashe, gravely.
She looked at him wildly.
"I have—I have!" she repeated, passionately. "Well, I told my sister to meet me here—I had forgotten, you see, all about you! My mind was so full of Alice. And when she came I felt as if it was a dream—a horrible, tragic dream. You know—she is so like me—which means, I suppose, that we are both like papa. Only her face—it's not handsome, oh no—but it's stern—and—yes, noble! I was proud of her. I would like to have gone on my knee and kissed her dress. But she would not take my hand—she would hardly speak to me. She said she had come, because it was best, now that I was in England, that we should meet once, and understand that we couldn't meet—that we could never, never be friends. She said that she hated my mother—that for years she had kept silence, but that now she meant to punish maman—to drive her from London. And then"—the girl's
