The situation was becoming more difficult for Mrs. Horncastle than she had conceived.  There had been a certain excitement in its first direct appeal to her tact and courage, and even, she believed, an unselfish desire to save the relations between husband and wife if she could.  But she had not calculated upon his unconscious revelations, nor upon their effect upon herself.  She had concluded to believe that Kitty had, in a moment of folly, lent herself to this hare-brained escapade, but it now might be possible that it had been deliberately planned.  Kitty had sent her husband and child away three weeks before.  Had she told the whole truth?  How long had this been going on?  And if the soulless Van Loo had deserted her now, was it not, perhaps, the miserable ending of an intrigue rather than its beginning?  Had she been as great a dupe of this woman as the husband before her?  A new and double consciousness came over her that for a moment prevented her from meeting his honest eyes.  She felt the shame of being an accomplice mingled with a fierce joy at the idea of a climax that might separate him from his wife forever.

Luckily he did not notice it, but with a continued sense of relief threw himself back in his chair, and glancing familiarly round the walls broke into his youthful laugh.  “Lord! how I remember this room in the old days.  It was Kitty’s own private sitting-room, you know, and I used to think it looked just as fresh and pretty as she.  I used to think her crayon drawing wonderful, and still more wonderful that she should have that unnecessary talent when it was quite enough for her to be just ‘Kitty.’  You know, don’t you, how you feel at those times when you’re quite happy in being inferior”—­He stopped a moment with a sudden recollection that Mrs. Horncastle’s marriage had been notoriously unhappy.  “I mean,” he went on with a shy little laugh and an innocent attempt at gallantry which the very directness of his simple nature made atrociously obvious,—­“I mean what you’ve made lots of young fellows feel.  There used to be a picture of Colonel Brigg on the mantelpiece, in full uniform, and signed by himself ‘for Kitty;’ and Lord! how jealous I was of it, for Kitty never took presents from gentlemen, and nobody even was allowed in here, though she helped her father all over the hotel.  She was awfully strict in those days,” he interpolated, with a thoughtful look and a half-sigh; “but then she wasn’t married.  I proposed to her in this very room!  Lord!  I remember how frightened I was.”  He stopped for an instant, and then said with a certain timidity, “Do you mind my telling you something about it?”

Mrs. Horncastle was hardly prepared to hear these ingenuous domestic details, but she smiled vaguely, although she could not suppress a somewhat impatient movement with her hands.  Even Barker noticed it, but to her surprise moved a little nearer to her, and in a half-entreating way said, “I hope I don’t bore you, but it’s something confidential.  Do you know that she first refused me?”