* * * * *

Kitty meanwhile listened to his intermittent talk of Venice, or Bosnia, with all its suggestions of new worlds and far horizons, and scarcely said a word.

But through the background of the brain there floated with her, as with him, a procession of unspoken thoughts.  She had received three letters from William.  Immediately on his arrival he had tendered his resignation.  Lord Parham had asked him to suspend the matter for ten days.  Only the pressure of his friends, it seemed, and the consternation of his party had wrung from Ashe a reluctant consent.  Meanwhile, all copies of the book had been bought up; the important newspapers had readily lent themselves to the suppression of the affair; private wraths had been dealt with by conciliatory lawyers; and in general a far more complete hushing-up had been attained than Ashe had ever imagined possible.  There was no doubt infinite gossip in the country-houses.  But sympathy for Kitty in her grief, for Ashe himself, and Lady Tranmore, had done much to keep it within bounds.  The little Dean especially, beloved of all the world, had been incessantly active on behalf of peace and oblivion.

All this Kitty read or guessed from William’s letters.  After all, then, the harm had not been so great!  Why such a panic!—­such a hurry to leave her!—­when she was ill—­and sorry?  And now how curtly, how measuredly he wrote!  Behind the hopefulness of his tone she read the humiliation and soreness of his mind—­and said to herself, with a more headlong conviction than ever, that he would never forgive her.

No, never!—­and especially now that she had added a thousandfold to the original offence.  She had never written to him since his departure.  Margaret French, too, was angry with her—­had almost broken with her.

* * * * *

They left their boat on the Riva, and walked to the Piazza, through the now starry dusk.  As they passed the great door of St. Mark’s, two persons came out of the church.  Kitty recognized Mary Lyster and Sir Richard.  She bowed slightly; Sir Richard put his hand to his hat in a flurried way; but Mary, looking them both in the face, passed without the smallest sign, unless the scorn in face and bearing might pass for recognition.

Kitty gasped.

“She cut me!” she said, in a shaking voice.

“Oh no!” said Cliffe.  “She didn’t see you in the dark.”

Kitty made no reply.  She hurried along the northern side of the Piazza, avoiding the groups which were gathered in the sunset light round the flocks of feeding pigeons, brushing past the tables in front of the cafe’s, still well filled on this mild evening.

“Take care!” said Cliffe, suddenly, in a low, imperative voice.

Kitty looked up.  In her abstraction she saw that she had nearly come into collision with a woman sitting at a cafe table and surrounded by a noisy group of men.