“A mistake?” Kitty was always of an inquiring turn of mind, but now she felt as if her curiosity was more than she could bear, while she stood, her eyes passing over the burly figure in summer clothes and the high-featured, pleasant face with its close-cut moustache.  What dreadful secret was hid behind this good-humored, every-day propriety of linen duck, friendly eyes and reddish moustache over a mouth that often smiled?  You might meet their like any day upon the streets.  Was it a murder?  At best some crime, perhaps, which had sent him to the penitentiary.  Or—­and church taught Kitty shuddered as a vague remembrance of the “unpardonable sin” rose before her like an actual horror.  Whatever it was, it stood between herself and him, keeping them apart for ever.

“Irretrievable?” she said.  It was only curiosity, she knew, but her voice sounded oddly far off to herself, the room was hazy, her whole body seemed to shrink together.

“What can it matter to you?  You belong to another man, Miss Vogdes.”  She lifted herself erect.  Doctor McCall was speaking more loudly than usual and looking keenly into her face.

“I know:  I shall be Mr. Muller’s wife.  Of course, I recollect.  But you—­this Hugh Guinness is my father’s son,” stammered Kitty, her face very white.  “I had some interest in him.”

“Yes, that’s true.  He is, as you say, in some sort a brother of yours.”  He took her hand for the first time, looking down at her face with some meaning in his own, inexplicable, very likely, to himself, though the thoughts in Kitty’s shallow brain were clear enough to him.  “You are tired of standing,” seating her gently in Peter’s chair.  A thick lock of hair had fallen over her face:  he put out his hand to remove it, but drew back quickly.  “We have talked too long, Miss Vogdes,” in a brisk, cheerful tone.  “Some other time, perhaps, we can return to this question of Hugh Guinness.  That is,” with a certain significance of manner, “if it be one in which Mr. Muller wishes you to take an interest.”  Nodding good-humoredly to her, he buttoned on his oilskin cape and went out into the rain without another word.  He pulled off his cap outside to let the rain and wind reach his head, drawing a long breath as if to get rid of some foul air and heat.

CHAPTER X.

Of all that wet August the next morning was the freshest and cheerfulest.  Doctor McCall had packed his valise, carried it to the station, and was now walking up the street, his hands clasped behind him and his head down, after the leisurely fashion of Delaware and Jersey farmers.  People nodded an approving good-morning to him.  Busy Berrytown had passed verdict on him as a man who was idle for a purpose, who permitted his brain to lie fallow, and who “loafed and invited his soul” during these two weeks for the best spiritual hygienic reasons.

“Too much brain-work, my friend Doctor Maria Muller tells me,” said the lawyer, De Camp, to a group of men at the station as McCall passed them.  “Is here for repose.”