ourse of action on
Kitty's part could have restored her so effectually to her place in
Ashe's imagination. She haunted his days and nights. So also did his
memory of the Dean's petition. Insensibly, without argument, the whole
attitude of his mind thereto had broken down; since he had been out of
office, and his days and nights were no longer absorbed in the detail of
administration and Parliamentary leadership, he had been the defenceless
prey of grief; yearning and pity and agonized regret, rising from the
deep subconscious self, had overpowered his first recoil and
determination; and in the absence of all other passionate hope, the one
desire and dream which still lived warm and throbbing at his heart was
the dream that still in some crowd, or loneliness, he might again,
before it was too late, see Kitty's face and the wildness of Kitty's
eyes.

And he believed much the same process had taken place in his mother's
feeling. She rarely spoke of Kitty; but when she did the doubt and
soreness of her mind were plain. Her own life had grown very solitary.
And in particular the old friendship between her and Polly Lyster had
entirely ceased to be. Lady Tranmore shivered when she was named, and
would never herself speak of her if she could help it. Ashe had tried in
vain to make her explain herself. Surely it was incredible that she
could in any way blame Mary for the incident at Verona? Ashe, of course,
remembered the passage in his mother's letter from Venice, and they had
the maid Blanche's report to Lady Tranmore, of Kitty's intentions when
she left Venice, of her terror when Cliffe appeared--of her swoon. But
he believed with the Dean that any treacherous servant could have
brought about the catastrophe. Vincenzo, one of the gondoliers who took
Kitty to the station, had seen the luggage labelled for Verona; no doubt
Cliffe had bribed him; and this explanation was, indeed, suggested to
Lady Tranmore by the maid. His mother's suspicion--if indeed she
entertained it--was so hideous that Ashe, finding it impossible to make
his own mind harbor it for an instant, was harrowed by the mere
possibility of its existence; as though it represented some hidden sore
of consciousness that refused either to be probed or healed.

As he labored on against the storm all thought of his present life and
activities dropped away from him; he lived entirely in the past. "What
is it in me," he thought, "that has made the difference between my