The next moment, he was inclined to be glad of her absence.  Such things, especially in the first shock of them, are best faced alone.  If, indeed, there were any shock in the matter.  He had for some time had his own shrewd previsions, and he was aware of a strong inner belief that his defeat was but temporary.

Probably, when she had time to remember such trifles, Kitty would feel the shock more than he did.  Lady Parham had certainly won this round of the rubber!

He settled to his solitary dinner, but in the middle of it put down Kitty’s Aberdeen terrier, which, for want of other company, he was stuffing atrociously, and ran up to the nursery.  The nurse was at her supper, and Harry lay fast asleep, a pretty little fellow, flushed into a semblance of health, and with a strong look of Kitty.

Ashe bent down and put his whiskered cheek to the boy’s.  “Never mind, old man!” he murmured, “better luck next time!”

Then raising himself with a smile, he looked affectionately at the child, noticed with satisfaction his bright color and even breathing, and stole away.

He ran through the comments of the evening papers on the new cabinet list, finding in only two or three any reference to himself, then threw them aside, and seized upon a pile of books and reviews that were lying on his table.  He carried them up to the drawing-room, hesitated between a theological review and a new edition of Horace, and finally plunged with avidity into the theological review.

For some two hours he sat enthralled by an able summary of the chief Tuebingen positions; then suddenly threw himself back with a stretch and a laugh.

“Wonder what the chap’s doing that’s got my post!  Not reading theology, I’ll be bound.”

The reflection followed that were he at that moment Home Secretary and in the cabinet, he would not probably be reading it either—­nor left to a solitary evening.  Friends would be dropping in to congratulate—­the modern equivalent of the old “turba clientium.”

As his thoughts wandered, the drawing-room clock struck eleven.  He rose, astonished and impatient.  Where was Kitty?

By midnight she had not arrived.  Ashe heard the butler moving in the hall and summoned him.

“There may have been some mishap to the coach, Wilson.  Perhaps they have stayed at Richmond.  Anyway, go to bed.  I’ll wait for her ladyship.”

He returned to his arm-chair and his books, but soon drew Kitty’s couvre-pied over him and went to sleep.

When he awoke, daylight was in the room.  “What has happened to them?” he asked himself, in a sudden anxiety.

And amid the silence of the dawn he paced up and down, a prey for the first time to black depression.  He was besieged by memories of the last two months, their anxieties and quarrels—­the waste of time and opportunity—­the stabs to feeling and self-respect.  Once he found himself groaning aloud, “Kitty!  Kitty!”