Of course he was in Venice on Kitty’s account.  It would be too absurd to suppose that he was here by mere coincidence.  Mary believed that nothing but the intervention of Cliffe’s mighty kinsman from the north had saved the situation the year before.  Kitty would certainly have betrayed her husband but for the force majeure arrayed against her.  And now the magnate who had played Providence slumbered in the family vault.  He had passed away in the spring, full of years and honors, leaving Cliffe some money.  The path was clear.  As for the escapade in the Balkans, Geoffrey was, of course, tired of it.  A sensational book, hurried out to meet the public appetite for horrors—­and the pursuance of his intrigue with Lady Kitty Ashe—­Mary was calmly certain that these were now his objects.  He was, no doubt, writing his book and meeting Kitty where he could.  Ashe would soon have to go home.  And then!  As if that girl Margaret French could stop it!

Well, William had only got his deserts!  But as her thoughts passed from Kitty or Cliffe to William Ashe, their quality changed.  Hatred and bitterness, scorn or wounded vanity, passed into something gentler.  She fell into recollections of Ashe as he had appeared on that bygone afternoon in May when he came back triumphant from his election, with the world before him.  If he had never seen Kitty Bristol!—­

“I should have made him a good wife,” she said to herself. “I should have known how to be proud of him.”

And there emerged also the tragic consciousness that if the fates had given him to her she might have been another woman—­taught by happiness, by love, by motherhood.

It was that little, heartless creature who had snatched them both from her—­William and Geoffrey Cliffe—­the higher and the lower—­the man who might have ennobled her—­and the man, half charlatan, half genius, whom she might have served and raised, by her fortune and her abilities.  Her life might have been so full, so interesting!  And it was Kitty that had made it flat, and cold, and futureless.

Poor William!  Had he really liked her, in those boy-and-girl days?  She dreamed over their old cousinly relations—­over the presents he had sometimes given her.

Then a thought, like a burning arrow, pierced her.  Her hands locked, straining one against the other.  If this intrigue were indeed renewed—­if Geoffrey succeeded in tempting Kitty from her husband—­why then—­then—­

She shivered before the images that were passing through her mind, and, rising, she put away her letters and rang for the waiter, to order dinner.

“Where shall we go?” said Kitty, languidly, putting down the French novel she was reading.

* * * * *

“Mr. Ashe suggested San Lazzaro.”  Margaret looked up from her writing as Kitty moved towards her.  “The rain seems to have all cleared off.”

“Well, I’m sure it doesn’t matter where,” said Kitty, and was turning away; but Margaret caught her hand and caressed it.