Rachel had scarcely reached the Broad Walk when she was accosted by a little girl, who ran towards her, calling loudly,

“Miss Trant, Miss Trant, don’t you know me?”

She was a slight, willowy creature with black eyes, profuse dark hair, and sallow complexion.  Her dress was costly, though simple, and she was followed at a more sober pace by a lady-like but foreign-looking girl, apparently her governess.

“Well, Miss Liddell, are you taking a morning walk?” asked Rachel, as the child took her hand.

“I am going to see papa.  I am to have dinner with him.  He has a bad cold, and he sent for me.”

“Then you must cheer him up, and tell him what you have been learning.”

“I haven’t learnt much yet; it is so tiresome.”

“Come, Mademoiselle Marie, you must not tease Miss Trant,” said the foreign-looking lady, whom Rachel recognized as one of the governesses who sometimes escorted George Liddell’s daughter “to be tried on.”

“She does not tease me,” returned Rachel, who had rather taken a fancy to the child.

“Won’t you come and see papa with me?” continued the little heiress.  “I wish you would, and he will tell you to make me another pretty frock—­I love pretty frocks.”

“Not to-day; I must go home and make frocks for other people.”

“Then I will bring him to see you—­I will, I will; he does whatever I like.  Good-bye,” springing up to kiss her.  “I may come and see you soon?”

“Whenever you like, my dear,” said Rachel, feeling strangely comforted by the child’s warm kisses; and they parted, going in different directions, to meet again soon.

Mrs. Needham had been sorely tried on that fatal day when De Burgh had suddenly departed, after a comparatively short interval, and Katherine had disappeared into the depths of her own room.

She had anticipated entertaining the bridegroom-elect at luncheon, and had ordered lobster-cream and an epigramme d’agneau a la Russe as suitable delicacies; she expected confidential consultation and delightful plans; she had even speculated on so managing that the double event:—­Angela Bradley’s marriage with Errington and Katherine’s with Lord de Burgh,—­might come off on the same day, even in the same church:  that would be a culmination of excitement!  Now some mysterious blight had fallen on all her schemes.  What had happened?  What could they have quarrelled about?  Then when Katherine emerged from her refuge she was hopelessly mysterious; there was no penetrating the reserve in which she wrapped herself.

“There is no one in whom I should more readily confide than in you, dear Mrs. Needham, but a serious difference has arisen between Lord de Burgh and myself, respecting which I cannot speak to anyone.  I regret being obliged to keep it to myself, but I must.”