“Do I disturb you?” he asked, waiting at the door.

“No.”

“Will you come out and speak to me?”

She appeared at the door, waiting to hear what he had to say to her.

“I must ask you to submit to a sacrifice of your own feelings,” he began.  “When I kept away from you in the drawing room, last night—­when my strange conduct made you fear that you had offended me—­I was trying to remember what I owed to my good wife.  I have been thinking of her again.  We must spare her a discovery too terrible to be endured, while her attention is claimed by the guests who are now in the house.  In a week’s time they will leave us.  Will you consent to keep up appearances?  Will you live with us as usual, until we are left by ourselves?”

“It shall be done, Mr. Linley.  I only ask one favor of you.  My worst enemy is my own miserable wicked heart.  Oh, don’t you understand me?  I am ashamed to look at you!”

He had only to examine his own heart, and to know what she meant.  “Say no more,” he answered sadly.  “We will keep as much away from each other as we can.”

She shuddered at that open recognition of the guilty love which united them, in spite of their horror of it, and took refuge from him in the summer-house.  Not a word more passed between them until the unbarring of doors was heard in the stillness of the morning, and the smoke began to rise from the kitchen chimney.  Then he returned, and spoke to her.

“You can get back to the house,” he said.  “Go up by the front stairs, and you will not meet the servants at this early hour.  If they do see you, you have your cloak on; they will think you have been in the garden earlier than usual.  As you pass the upper door, draw back the bolts quietly, and I can let myself in.”

She bent her head in silence.  He looked after her as she hastened away from him over the lawn; conscious of admiring her, conscious of more than he dared realize to himself.  When she disappeared, he turned back to wait where she had been waiting.  With his sense of the duty he owed to his wife penitently present to his mind, the memory of that fatal kiss still left its vivid impression on him.  “What a scoundrel I am!” he said to himself as he stood alone in the summer-house, looking at the chair which she had just left.

Chapter X.

Kitty Mentions Her Birthday.

A clever old lady, possessed of the inestimable advantages of worldly experience, must submit nevertheless to the laws of Nature.  Time and Sleep together—­powerful agents in the small hours of the morning—­had got the better of Mrs. Presty’s resolution to keep awake.  Free from discovery, Sydney ascended the stairs.  Free from discovery, Sydney entered her own room.

Half-an-hour later, Linley opened the door of his dressing-room.  His wife was still sleeping.  His mother-in-law woke two hours later; looked at her watch; and discovered that she had lost her opportunity.  Other old women, under similar circumstances, might have felt discouraged.  This old woman believed in her own suspicions more devoutly than ever.  When the breakfast-bell rang, Sydney found Mrs. Presty in the corridor, waiting to say good morning.