What had she been talking of all these hours to mademoiselle?  A lady whom she could never have set eyes on before this visit.  He thought of her face, in the drawing-room, as she had spoken of her sister—­of her eyes, so full of a bright feverish pain, which had hung upon his own.

Had she, indeed, been confiding all her home secrets to this stranger?  Ashe felt a movement of distaste, almost of disgust.  Yet he remembered that it was by her unconventionality, her lack of all proper reticence, or, as many would have said, all delicate feeling, that she had made her first impression upon him.  Ay, that had been an impression—­an impression indeed!  He realized the fact profoundly, as he stood lingering in the darkness, trying not to hear the voice that thrilled him.

At last!—­was she going to bed?

“Ah!—­but I am a pig, to keep you up like this!  Allez dormir!” (The sound of a kiss.) “I?  Oh no!  Why should one go to bed?  It is in the night one begins to live.”

She fell to humming a little French tune, then broke off.

“You remember?  You promise?  You have the letter?”

Asseverations apparently from mademoiselle, and a mention of eight o’clock, followed by remorse from Kitty.

“Eight o’clock!  And I keep you like this.  I am a brute beast!  Allez—­allez vite!” And quick steps scudded across the floor above, followed by the shutting of a door.

Kitty, however, came back to the window, and Ashe could still hear her sighing and talking to herself.

What had she been plotting?  A letter?  Conveyed by mademoiselle?  To whom?

* * * * *

Long after all sounds above had ceased Ashe still lay awake, thinking of the story he had heard from Lord Grosville.  Certainly, if he had known it, he would never have gone familiarly to Madame d’Estrees’ house.  Laxity, for a man of his type, is one thing; lying, meanness, and cruelty are another.  What could be done for this poor child in her strange and sinister position?  He was ironically conscious of a sudden heat of missionary zeal.  For if the creature to be saved had not possessed such a pair of eyes—­so slim a neck—­such a haunting and teasing personality—­what then?

The question presently plunged with him into sleep.  But he had not forgotten it when he awoke.

* * * * *

He had just finished dressing next morning, when he chanced to see from the front window of his room, which commanded the main stretch of the park, the figure of a lady on one of the paths.  She seemed to be returning from the farther end of a long avenue, and was evidently hurrying to reach the house.  As she approached, however, she turned aside into a shrubbery walk and was soon lost to view.  But Ashe had recognized Mademoiselle D. The matter of the letter recurred to him.  He guessed that she had already delivered it.  But where?