;
I was quite startled to learn she was here, and couldn't make it out. I
thought at first she might have got anxious about our little Sta, who
is with me and the nurse at Hymettus. But I'm glad it was only a lark. I
shouldn't wonder," he added, with a laugh, "although she always declares
she isn't one of those 'doting, idiotic mothers,' that she found it a
little dull without the boy, for all she thought it was better for ME to
take him somewhere for a change of air."

The situation was becoming more difficult for Mrs. Horncastle than she
had conceived. There had been a certain excitement in its first direct
appeal to her tact and courage, and even, she believed, an unselfish
desire to save the relations between husband and wife if she could. But
she had not calculated upon his unconscious revelations, nor upon their
effect upon herself. She had concluded to believe that Kitty had, in a
moment of folly, lent herself to this hare-brained escapade, but it now
might be possible that it had been deliberately planned. Kitty had sent
her husband and child away three weeks before. Had she told the whole
truth? How long had this been going on? And if the soulless Van Loo
had deserted her now, was it not, perhaps, the miserable ending of an
intrigue rather than its beginning? Had she been as great a dupe of this
woman as the husband before her? A new and double consciousness came
over her that for a moment prevented her from meeting his honest eyes.
She felt the shame of being an accomplice mingled with a fierce joy at
the idea of a climax that might separate him from his wife forever.

Luckily he did not notice it, but with a continued sense of relief threw
himself back in his chair, and glancing familiarly round the walls broke
into his youthful laugh. "Lord! how I remember this room in the old
days. It was Kitty's own private sitting-room, you know, and I used to
think it looked just as fresh and pretty as she. I used to think her
crayon drawing wonderful, and still more wonderful that she should have
that unnecessary talent when it was quite enough for her to be just
'Kitty.' You know, don't you, how you feel at those times when you're
quite happy in being inferior"--He stopped a moment with a sudden
recollection that Mrs. Horncastle's marriage had been notoriously
unhappy. "I mean," he went on with a shy little laugh and an innocent
attempt at gallantry which the very directness of his simple nature made
atrociously obvio