Invited to rest herself in the hotel, she asked leave to remain
where she was; the mere effort of rising was too much for her now.
Catherine said the parting words kindly. "I believe in your good
intentions; I believe in your repentance."

"Believe in my punishment!" After that reply, no more was said.

Behind the trees that closed the view at the further extremity of the
lawn the moon was rising. As the two women lost sight of each other, the
new light, pure and beautiful, began to dawn over the garden.

Chapter XLVI. Nil Desperandum.

No horror of her solitude, no melancholy recollections, no dread of the
future disturbed Sydney's mind. The one sense left in her was the sense
of fatigue. Vacantly, mechanically, the girl rested as a tired animal
might have rested. She saw nothing, heard nothing; the one feeling
of which she was conscious was a dull aching in every limb. The moon
climbed the heavens, brightened the topmost leaves of the trees, found
the gloom in which Sydney was hidden, and cheered it tenderly with
radiant light. She was too weary to sleep, too weary even to shade her
face when the moonbeams touched it. While the light still strengthened,
while the slow minutes still followed each other unheeded, the one
influence that could rouse Sydney found her at last--set her faint heart
throbbing--called her prostrate spirit to life again. She heard a glad
cry of recognition in a child's voice:

"Oh, Sydney, dear, is it you?"

In another instant her little pupil and playfellow of former days was in
her arms.

"My darling, how did you come here?"

Susan answered the question. "We are on our way back from the Palace,
miss. I am afraid," she said, timidly, "that we ought to go in."

Silently resigned, Sydney tried to release the child. Kitty clung to
her and kissed her; Kitty set the nurse at defiance. "Do you think I am
going to leave Syd now I have found her? Susan, I am astonished at you!"

Susan gave way. Where the nature is gentle, kindness and delicacy go
hand-in-hand together, undisturbed by the social irregularities which
beset the roadway of life. The nursemaid drew back out of hearing.
Kitty's first questions followed each other in breathless succession.
Some of them proved to be hard, indeed, to answer truly, and without
reserve. She inquired if Sydney had seen her mother, and then she was
eager to know why Sydney had been left in the garden alone.

"Why haven't you gone back to the ho