to the house. He
gave his hand to Kate to alight, and then, turning away, left her,
without even a "good-bye," while Kate hurried to her room, her heart
almost breaking with agony.

"I shall be late, Nina," said she, affecting an air and voice of
unconcern, as she entered her room; "you must dress me rapidly."

"Mademoiselle must have been too pleasantly engaged to remember the
hour," said the other, with an easy pertness quite different from her
ordinary manner.

More struck by the tone than by the words themselves, Kate turned a look
of surprise on the speaker.

"It is so easy to forget one's self at Morlache's, they say," added the
girl, with a saucy smile; and although stung by the impertinence, Kate
took no notice of the speech. "Mademoiselle will of course never wear
that dress again," said Nina, as she contemptuously threw from her the
mud-stained and rain-spotted dress she had worn that morning. "We have
a Basque proverb, Mademoiselle, about those who go out in a carriage and
come back on foot."

"Nina, what do you mean by these strange words and this still more
strange manner?" asked Kate, with a haughtiness she had never before
assumed towards the girl.

"I do not pretend to say that Mademoiselle has not the right to choose
her confidantes, but the Principessa de San Martello and the Duchessa di
Rivoli did not think me beneath their notice."

"Nina, you are more unintelligible than ever," cried Kate, who still,
through all the dark mystery of her words, saw the lowering storm of
coming peril.

"I may speak too plainly, too bluntly, Mademoiselle, but I can scarcely
be reproached with equivocating; and I repeat that my former mistresses
honored me with their secret confidence; and they did wisely, too, for I
should have discovered everything of myself, and my discretion would not
have been fettered by a compact."

"But if I have no secrets," said Kate, drawing herself up with a proud
disdain, "and if I have no need either of the counsels or the discretion
of my waiting-woman?"

"In that case," said Nina, quietly, "Mademoiselle has only perilled
herself for nothing. The young lady who leaves her carriage and her maid
to pass three hours at Morlache's, and returns thence, on foot, after
nightfall, may truly say she has no secrets, at least, so far as the
city of Florence is concerned."

"This is insolence that you never permitted yourself before," said Kate,
passionately.

"And yet, if I were Made