At last she found her way through narrow passages, past hidden and historic buildings, to the back of the palace on the Grand Canal in which their rooms were.  A door in a small court opened to her ring.  She found herself in a dark ground-floor—­empty except for the felze or black top of a gondola—­of which the farther doors opened on the canal.  A cheerful Italian servant brought lights, and on the marble stairs was her maid waiting for her.  In a few minutes she was on her sofa by a bright wood fire, while Blanche hovered round her with many small attentions.

“Have you seen your letters, my lady?” and Blanche handed her a pile.  Upon a parcel lying uppermost Kitty pounced at once with avidity.  She tore it open—­pausing once, with scarlet cheeks, to look round her at the door, as though she were afraid of being seen.

A book—­fresh and new—­emerged. Politics and the Country Houses; so ran the title on the back.  Kitty looked at it frowning.  “He might have found a better name!” Then she opened it—­looked at a page here and a page there—­laughed, shivered—­and at last bethought her to read the note from the publisher which accompanied it.

“’Much pleasure—­the first printed copy—­three more to follow—­sure to make a sensation’—­hateful wretch!—­’if your ladyship will let us know how many presentation copies—­’ Goodness!—­not one!  Oh—­well!—­Madeleine, perhaps—­and, of course, Mr. Darrell.”

She opened a little despatch-box in which she kept her letters, and slipped the book in.

“I won’t show it to William to-night—­not—­not till next week.”  The book was to be out on the 20th, a week ahead—­three months from the day when she had given the MS. into Darrell’s hands.  She had been spared all the trouble of correcting proofs, which had been done for her by the publisher’s reader, on the plea of her illness.  She had received and destroyed various letters from him—­almost without reading them—­during a short absence of William’s in the north.

Suddenly a start of terror ran through her.  “No, no!” she said, wrestling with herself—­“he’ll scold me, perhaps—­at first; of course I know he’ll do that.  And then, I’ll make him laugh!  He can’t—­he can’t help laughing.  I know it’ll amuse him.  He’ll see how I meant it, too.  And nobody need ever find out.”

She heard his step outside, hastily locked her despatch-box, threw a shawl over it, and lay back languidly on her pillows, awaiting him.

XVIII

The following morning, early, a note was brought to Kitty from Madame d’Estrees: