“Where have you been?” he said, in a low voice—­“and with whom?”

Kitty fell into a chair and burst into wild tears.

XIII

There was silence for a few moments except for Kitty’s crying.  Ashe still stood beside his writing-table, his hand resting upon it, his eyes on Kitty.  Once or twice he began to speak, and stopped.  At last he said, with obvious difficulty: 

“It’s cruel to keep me waiting, Kitty.”

“I sent you a telegram first thing this morning.”  The voice was choked and passionate.

“I never got it.”

“Horrid little fiend!” cried Kitty, sitting up and dashing back her hair from her tear-stained cheeks.  “I gave a boy half a crown this morning to be at the station with it by eight o’clock.  And I couldn’t possibly either write or telegraph last night—­it was too late.”

“Where were you?” said Ashe, slowly.  “I went to the Alcots’ this morning, and—­”

“—­the butler told you Madeleine was in bed?  So she is.  She was ill yesterday morning.  There was no coach and no party.  I went with Geoffrey.”

Kitty held herself erect; her eyes, from which the tears were involuntarily dropping, were fixed on her husband.

“Of course I guessed that,” said Ashe.

“It was Geoffrey brought me the news—­here, just as I was starting to go to the Alcots’.  Then he said he had something to read me—­and it would be delicious to go to Pangbourne—­spend the day on the river—­and come back from Windsor—­at night—­by train.  And I had a horrid headache—­and it was so hot—­and you were at the office”—­her lip quivered—­“and I wanted to hear Geoffrey’s poems—­and so—­”

She interrupted herself, and once more broke down—­hiding her face against the chair.  But the next moment she felt herself roughly drawn forward, as Ashe knelt beside her.

“Kitty!—­look at me!  That man behaved to you like a villain?”

She looked up—­she saw the handsome, good-humored face transformed—­and wrenched herself away.

“He did,” she said, bitterly—­“like a villain.”  She began to twist and torment her handkerchief as Ashe had seen her do once before, the small white teeth pressed upon the lower lip—­then suddenly she turned upon him—­

“I suppose you want me to tell you the story?”

All Kitty in the words!  Her frankness, her daring, and the impatient, realistic tone she was apt to impose upon emotion—­they were all there.

Ashe rose and began to walk up and down.

“Tell me your part in it,” he said, at last—­“and as little of that fellow as may be.”

Kitty was silent.  Ashe, looking at her, saw a curious shade of reverie, a kind of dreamy excitement steal over her face.

“Go on, Kitty!” he said, sharply.  Then, restraining himself, he added, with all his natural courtesy—­“I beg your pardon, Kitty, but the sooner we get through with this the better.”