he lady can see us home," here remarked Clara Sawyer,
"for we live at Merrifield, a good long way from London."

Again the lady and her husband had a talk together, and then she
suggested that they should take the girls back with them to Charing
Cross and put them into their train.

"But we thought we'd have a bit of supper," said Kate Rourke.

"I can get you some things at the railway station; you ought not to wait
for supper in town," said the gentleman in a stern voice.

Then somehow all the girls felt ashamed of themselves, Kathleen slightly
more ashamed than the others. They left the theater very slowly, with
all the lightsomeness and gladness of heart gone.

Two cabs were secured for the little party, and with their kind
protectors they were taken back to Charing Cross. Eventually they got
seats in a comfortable carriage, and found themselves going back again
to Merrifield.

"Well, it has been a dull sort of thing altogether," said Clara Sawyer.
"What meddlesome people!"

"Don't!" said Kathleen.

"Don't what, Kathleen O'Hara? Why should you speak to me in that
reproving voice?"

"It isn't that; only they were like two angels. I know it; I am sure of
it. We did an awful thing coming to town; I know we did, and I feel--oh,
detestable!"

Kathleen bent her head forward, covered it with her hands, and sat
still. No tears shook her little frame, but there was a storm within. To
her dying day Kathleen never forgot that return journey. Truly the fun
was all over; the dregs of the cup of pleasure were in their mouths, and
there was a fear, great, certain, and very terrible, in their hearts.
But with all her fears--and they were many--Kathleen thought again and
again of the lady who had girls of her own, and of the gentleman who was
both stern and chivalrous, who had the manners of a prince and the look
of a gentleman. As long as she lived she remembered those two faces, and
the words of the lady, and the smile with which she said good-bye. She
never learned their names; perhaps she did not want to.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE LEDGER.

Ruth got up rather earlier than usual on that Saturday morning. She had
a dull, stunned kind of feeling round her heart. She was glad of that;
she was glad that she was not acutely sorry, or acutely glad, or acutely
anxious about anything.

"If I could always be like this, nothing would matter," she said to
herself.

She dressed with her usual scrupulous