e dove-like innocence
of inexperience, so far as it could exist among a lot of young monkeys,
was responsible for _their_ contribution to the hot water. A negligible
quantity of a trivial ingredient! Young persons were young persons, and
would always remain so--an enigmatical saying. As for the French Cook,
Napoleon de Souchy, he was in bed and knew nothing about it. Besides, he
went next day. He had, in fact, gone by the same train as the Earl,
travelling first-class, and had been taken for his lordship at Euston,
which hurt his vanity.

To this revelation Gwen listened with interest, hoping to hear more
precisely what the row was about. Why hot water at all, if uncalled for?
As she had not expected to hear much, she was very little surprised to
hear nothing. She pictured the attitude in action of Miss Lutwyche, whom
she knew well enough to know that she would coax history in her own
favour. The best of lady's-maids cannot be at once a Tartar and an
Angel. Gwen surmised that in the region of the servants' common-room and
the kitchen Miss Lutwyche would show so much of the former as had been
truly ascribed to her, whereas she herself would only see the latter.
The worst of it was that her old lady, being within hearing, would know
or suspect the dissensions she was the innocent cause of, and would be
uncomfortable. She must say or do something, consolatory or reassuring,
to-morrow. She fretted a little, till she fell asleep, over this matter,
which was really a trifle. Think of the thing she had seen that day,
that she was so profoundly unconscious of--the two sisters whose lips
met last a lifetime ago; whose grief, each for each, had nearly died of
time!--think of the two of them, then and there, face to face in the
daylight! But they too slept, that night, old Maisie and old Phoebe, as
calm as Gwen; and as safe, to all seeming, in their ignorance.

Would it not be better--thought thinks, involuntarily--that they should
remain in this ignorance, through the little span of Time still left
them, in a state which is a best decay? Would it not be best that the
few hours left should run their course, and that the two should either
pass away to nothingness and peace, as may be, or--as may be too, just
as like as not--wake to a wonder none can comprehend, an inconceivable
surprise, a sudden knowledge what the whole thing meant that must seem,
if they come to comprehend it now, a needless cruelty? If they--and you
and I, in o