“Rest!” she laughed.  “Why should I?”

“Because you are wearing yourself out.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Do you ever lie down—­alone—­and read a book?” persisted the Dean.

“Yes.  I have just finished Renan’s Vie de Jesus!”

Her glance, even with him, kept its note of audacity, but much softened by a kind of wistfulness.

“Ah! my dear Lady Kitty, let Renan alone,” cried the Dean—­then with a change of tone—­“but are you speaking truth—­or naughtiness?”

“Truth,” said Kitty.  “But—­of course—­I am in a temper.”

The Dean laughed.

“I see Lord Parham is not a favorite of yours.”

Kitty compressed her small lips.

“To think that William should have to take his orders from that man!” she said, under her breath.

“Bear it—­for William’s sake,” said the Dean, softly, “and, meanwhile—­take my advice—­and don’t read any more Renan!”

Kitty looked at him curiously.

“I prefer to see things as they are.”

The Dean sighed.

“That none of us can do, my dear Lady Kitty.  No one can satisfy his intelligence.  But religion speaks to the will—­and it is the only thing between us and the void.  Don’t tamper with it!  It is soon gone.”

A satirical expression passed over the face of his companion.

“Mine was gone before we had been a month married.  William killed it.”

The Dean exclaimed: 

“I hear always of his interest in religious matters!”

“He cares for nothing so much—­and he doesn’t believe one single word of anything!  I was brought up in a convent, you know—­but William laughed it all out of me.”

“Dear Lady Kitty!”

Kitty nodded.  “And now, of course, I know there’s nothing in it.  Oh!  I do beg your pardon!” she said, eagerly.  “I never meant to say anything rude to you. And I must go!” She looked up at an open window on the second floor of the house.  The Dean supposed it was the nursery, and began to ask after the boy.  But before he could frame his question she was gone, flying over the grass with a foot that scarcely seemed to touch it.

“Poor child, poor child!” murmured the Dean, in a most genuine distress.  But it was not the boy he was thinking of.

Presently, however, he was overtaken by Miss French, of whom he inquired how the baby was.

Margaret hesitated.  “He seems to lose strength,” she said, sadly.  “The doctor declares there is no danger, unless—­”

“Unless what?”

“Oh! but it’s so unlikely!” was her hasty reply.  “Don’t let’s think of it.”

* * * * *

Kitty was just giving a last look at herself in the large mirror which lined half one of the sides of her room when Ashe invaded her.  She glanced at him askance a little, and when the maid had gone Kitty hurriedly gathered up gloves and fan and prepared to follow her.