“You are very plain!  You leave nothing to be said.”  Tita has compelled herself to this answer, but her voice is faint.  Her poor little face, beautiful even in its distress, is as white as death.  “I am sorry——­”

“For Maurice?  So you ought to be,” says Lady Rylton, unmoved even by that pathetic face before her.

Tita turns upon her.  All at once the old spirit springs to life within the poor child’s breast.

“No, for myself!" cries she, with a bitterness hardly to be described.

CHAPTER XI.

HOW TITA GOES FOR A WALK WITH TWO SAD COMPANIONS—­ANGER AND DESPAIR; AND HOW SHE MEETS SIR MAURICE; AND HOW SHE INTRODUCES HIM TO ANGER.

Escaping from her mother-in-law’s room, Tita goes hurriedly, carefully downstairs.  There is no one in the smaller hall; she runs through it, and into one of the conservatories that has a door leading to the gardens outside.  Its is a small conservatory, little frequented; and when one gets to the end of the two steps, one finds one’s self at the part of the garden that leads directly into the woods beyond.

Tita, flinging open the little rustic gate that opens a way to these woods, hastens through it as though all the furies are at her back, and never ceases running until she finds herself a good half-mile from home.

And now she throws herself upon a sort mossy bank, and, clasping her hands in front of her, gives herself up to thought.  Most women when in grief make direct for their bedrooms; Tita, a mere child of Nature, has turned to her mother in her great extremity.  Her heart seems on fire, her eyes dry and burning.  Her quick, angry run has left her tired and panting, and like one at bay.

She lays her flushed cheek against the cold, sweet mosses.

How good, how eternally good is the exquisite heart of the earth!  A very balm from it seems now to arise and take this young creature into its embrace.  The coolness, the softness of it!  Who shall describe it?  The girl lying on the ground, not understanding, feels the great light hand of the All-Mother on her head, and suddenly the first great pang dies.  Nature, the supreme Hypnotizer, has come to her rescue, not dulling or destroying the senses, but soothing them, and showing a way out of the darkness, flinging a lamp into the dim, winding ways of her misery.

The cool mosses have brought her to herself again.  She sits up, and, taking her knees into her embrace, looks out upon the world.  To her it seems a cruel world, full of nothing but injustice.  She has a long talk with herself, poor child!—­a most bitter conversation.  And the end of it is this:  If only she could see Maurice and tell him—­tell him what she thinks of him; and if only——­ But it seems so impossible.

And here is where Mother Nature’s doings come in.  She has driven Maurice from his house almost as Tita left it, and has sent him here; for does he not know that Tita loves this solitary spot, and——­