Kitty was immediately interested.  She threw down her own rod, and assisted her ignorant companion.  A wretched little fish appeared in the air, wriggling.  “It’s a roach,” Kitty pronounced.  “It’s in pain,” the merciful lawyer added; “give it to me.”  Kitty took it off the hook, and obeyed.  Mr. Sarrazin with humane gentleness of handling put it back into the water.  “Go, and God bless you,” said this excellent man, as the roach disappeared joyously with a flick of its tail.  Kitty was scandalized.  “That’s not sport!” she said.  “Oh, yes, it is,” he answered—­“sport to the fish.”

They went on with their angling.  What embarrassing question would Kitty ask next?  Would she want to be told why her father had left her?  No:  the last image in the child’s mind had been the image of Sydney Westerfield.  She was still thinking of it when she spoke again.

“I wonder whether you’re right about Syd?” she began.  “You might be mistaken, mightn’t you?  I sometimes fancy mamma and Sydney may have had a quarrel.  Would you mind asking mamma if that’s true?” the affectionate little creature said, anxiously.  “You see, I can’t help talking of Syd, I’m so fond of her; and I do miss her so dreadfully every now and then; and I’m afraid—­oh, dear, dear, I’m afraid I shall never see her again!” She let her rod drop on the pier, and put her little hands over her face and burst out crying.

Shocked and distressed, good Mr. Sarrazin kissed her, and consoled her, and told another excusable lie.

“Try to be comforted, Kitty; I’m sure you will see her again.”

His conscience reproached him as he held out that false hope.  It could never be!  The one unpardonable sin, in the judgment of fallible human creatures like herself, was the sin that Sydney Westerfield had committed.  Is there something wrong in human nature? or something wrong in human laws?  All that is best and noblest in us feels the influence of love—­and the rules of society declare that an accident of position shall decide whether love is a virtue or a crime.

These thoughts were in the lawyer’s mind.  They troubled him and disheartened him:  it was a relief rather than an interruption when he felt Kitty’s hand on his arm.  She had dried her tears, with a child’s happy facility in passing from one emotion to another, and was now astonished and interested by a marked change in the weather.

“Look for the lake!” she cried.  “You can’t see it.”

A dense white fog was closing round them.  Its stealthy advance over the water had already begun to hide the boathouse at the end of the pier from view.  The raw cold of the atmosphere made the child shiver.  As Mr. Sarrazin took her hand to lead her indoors, he turned and looked back at the faint outline of the boathouse, disappearing in the fog.  Kitty wondered.  “Do you see anything?” she asked.

He answered that there was nothing to see, in the absent tone of a man busy with his own thoughts.  They took the garden path which led to the cottage.  As they reached the door he roused himself, and looked round again in the direction of the invisible lake.