“No, father,” said Kitty, relieved by his tone.  “I love driving by night, and I—­I thought it would rest you to have some one to drive.  Perhaps you will be able to have a nap on the way.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised if I did,” said her father, with a smile.  “I feel as though my head is asleep already.  Have we got the lamps?”

“Yes, I think everything is right,” and, gathering up the reins, off she drove down through the street.

Every one they met smiled and saluted them in some way, and Kitty smiled back, well pleased.  To be perched up on the box-seat, with the reins in her hand, in a position of real trust, gave her the happiest thrills imaginable.  Horses, and riding and driving, were passions with her.

At the bottom of the street they branched to their left, and went more slowly up a steep hill, which wound on and on, gradually growing steeper and steeper, past villas and cottages and pretty gardens, until at last all dwellings were left behind, and only hedges bordered the wide road; and then the hedges were passed too, and they were out on the open downs with miles of rough level grassland stretching away on either side of them, broken only by the flat white road along which they rolled so easily.

Up here, on this height, with nothing to intercept it, a little breeze met them.  It was a very faint little breeze, but it was refreshing.  Kitty drew in deep breaths of it with pleasure, for the closeness and thunderousness of the atmosphere were very trying.  The sky overhead looked heavy and angry, black, with a dull red glow burning through here and there, while a hot mist veiled the horizon.

For a time they drove on without speaking, Prue’s regular footfalls, the noise of the wheels, and the sharp, clear calls of the birds alone breaking the silence.  Kitty was thinking deeply, trying to summon courage to make her earnest, final appeal, and wondering how to begin.

“Father,” she began at last, “I—­I wish you would give us one more chance—­trial, I mean.  We would try to behave better, really we would; and—­and I will do my best to look after the house and the servants properly.  I am sure I can if I try.  There shall always be hot water, and—­well, you see I feel it is all my fault, and I have brought it all on the others—­”

Dr. Trenire came back with a start from his drowsy musings, and tried to gather what it was that his daughter was saying, for she was rather incoherent.  Her voice shook at first with nervousness.  “Eh, what?” he stammered.

It was disconcerting to Kitty to find that he had not been taking in a word of what it had cost her such an effort to say.  “I will do my best to look after the house and the servants,” she repeated desperately, “if—­”

“But I am afraid, child, you really don’t know how.  It is not in anger, Kitty, that I am making this new arrangement.  I am doing it because I feel you have a task entirely beyond your power, and for all your sakes I must see that you have an orderly and comfortable home, and—­”