her poor blind humanity a Deity to pray to, or a second self to give help and counsel.

As Kitty lay thus, wondering if this were the kind of ordeal to make people become pinched, and old, and ugly, she glided from the stupor of despondency into the stupor of sleep.

During that state of imperfect slumber she dreamed, or thought she dreamed, that she was drowsing on the old sofa in Paradise Place, sitting up to let in Perry and Mrs Cornford, who had gone to the theatre. Kitty and Mrs Cornford used to take it by turns to go with him, when the ticket of admission was only a double one, and it was Perry's custom to signify their return by throwing a pebble against the casement, or singing a snatch of a song. How real Kitty's dream seemed to be! There was Perry outside singing

"Oh! had I a thousand a year, Gaffer Green:

and then there came the impatient shower of gravel against the panes.

"Oh! wait a minute," she cried, starting up impatiently; but the action roused her, and she laid her head on the pillow almost wishing that the dream were true. And it was true, in a sense, for the singing and the shower did not cease, though Kitty remained wakeful; and when she rose from her bed to peer out, there was a wild Quixotic figure, Perry's self, keeping watch beneath the window !

CHAPTER XXXV.

CAUGHT IN A NET.

THERE was no time for thinking. He had found her out. She must accord him an interview at any risk. Foolish, fond, never-to-be-forgiven Perry!

By a great effort she controlled the passion of terror and indignation that had taken possession of her, and opening the window, said, all in a breath

"You must be mad to think we can recognise each other

here. Am I not a lady? have I not a reputation? do you want me to hate you, that you persecute me thus? But I will meet you at Bourdeaux to-morrow, and hear all that you have to say, if you promise me three things."

"A hundred, if you like," came up Perry's answer from the garden. "See you, I must and will."

"You will promise never to come near this house again?" "Well?"

“You will promise to enter into no communication, either by interview or by writing, with Sir George or Miss Bartelotte?" "Good. And now for request number three?"

"You will promise to behave like a rational being to-morrow, and not refer at all to the engagement that once existed between us?"

"Kitty,” cried Perry, with mock solemnity, "what you ask of me is nothing in comparison to the sacrifices I am ready to make for you. Throw me down the Testament, or the Koran, or the Talmud, and I will swear to obey to the letter."

"I will trust your word," Kitty said; "and I will meet you at the Hôtel de la Paix to-morrow, exactly at eleven o'clock. Good night."

"One word," pleaded Perry, with pathetic passion in his voice; but Kitty shut the window and fastened the shutters resolutely. When she felt once more alone, she could have cried with mortification and dismay; all her feelings of compassion for Dr Norman had died out, and she sat down to write to him in a mood that was half retributive and half revengeful. What right had Dr Norman-what right had Perry to make her so suffer? Was she not free to choose her own life, and select from all the affections held out to her the one she found sweetest and best? Why was she to be hunted down just because she happened to be brighter, wittier, more attractive than most other women; and goaded, netted, entangled, like any helpless dumb animal? Poor Kitty, it must be confessed, had no idea of any higher duty than inclination. Inclination was her religion, her law, her judge; and inclination no longer pleaded in behalf of Dr Norman.

Perry's unexpected appearance had caused a reaction, but not a reaction favourable to her absent lover. In plain English, Kitty's sentimentalism went flying to the four winds, and a fit of genuine ill-temper took its place. She was eminently an amiable person when worldly things went tolerably well with her; and she looked upon fits of ill humour much as other people look upon fits of intemperance, kleptomania, or any other vice. She hated it, and yet could not fight it off.

So, visiting Perry's sins upon Dr Norman's head, she sat down to write to him in a state of mind which could but argue ill both for the manner and matter of her letter. What she wrote, she could not precisely remember afterwards; she only knew that her meaning was worded as plainly as could be, and that it was the utter defeat of Dr Norman's hopes. For once in her life she had written nothing but the naked, unvarnished truth; how he would receive it was an after and secondary thought. Then she sealed her letter savagely, and creeping downstairs, placed it beside the letter-bag, already locked in readiness for the early post.

Kitty had a power of voluntary forgetfulness, which is most enviable in these feverish, overworked times. She could force herself to sentence one lover to a humiliating disappointment, and to make a dangerous assignation with another, without keeping awake after it. Her mind was not yet made up as to the safest means of carrying her plan into effect; but she knew that to begin to think was to go on thinking, so she shut up the faculties of her mind, as one shuts up trinkets in a drawer, and slept soundly till dawn.

Over the process of dressing she determined upon the wisest conduct to pursue: she would feign to receive a letter from some old friend passing through Bourdeaux, or, if the letterbag were opened before Sir George or Ella, and there were no letters for her at all, she would feign to have received some such letter a day or two since. To coax Sir George into keeping Ella company, to coax both into faith in her story, would not, she thought, be difficult. As luck would have it, a letter did come to her from Bourdeaux that day-a tradesman's letter

merely-relating to some purchases she had made for Myra; but who was to know that? She let her tête-à-tête breakfast with Sir George draw to an end, and just as he began to talk of the day's plans, said

"I am most annoyingly obliged to take the half-past nine o'clock train to Bourdeaux this morning; if you will stay with Ella, perhaps she will not mind."

"I have a great mind to go with you," Sir George said. "I want to see what the booksellers have there."

Kitty looked up with a sweet, deprecating smile.

"Much as I should like your escort, I will not accept it," she answered. "Without you, without me, for a livelong day, what would darling Ella do?"

"You are right—as you always are. People may come, and she may not be feeling well, or a dozen things may happen. And now I think of it, I asked Colonel Johnson and his fellowtraveller to drop in to lunch. Must you go to-day?"

"I am afraid so."

"Some important shopping on hand?" said Sir George, quizzically. He was profoundly inquisitive.

"No. I go to meet a friend there who is passing through Bourdeaux on his way-to Spain, I presume," Kitty answered, hypothetically; adding with a smile, "he is a poor young artist -a protégé of mine, I might say (oh! happy Kitty, to have hit upon that innocent word), and if I refuse to go and see him, he would feel greatly hurt."

"Ask him to come here."

"You are very good!" Kitty said; "but he might want to come again, and that would be troublesome; whereas, if I go to Bourdeaux with Françine, and have half-an-hour's talk with him, the matter will be ended for once and for all."

Sir George acquiesced, and, with a very faint show of wellbred surprise, Ella acquiesced also. Neither of them liked the idea of losing Kitty-the sun of their universe for a whole day, and there was a little feeling of jealousy underlying the regret. Who was this all-important protégé, for whom she gave up a luncheon-party as rigidly as if she were a lawyer

bound to Bourdeaux to make the will of a dying person. It seemed incredible that a poor wandering art-student-a mere boy, as they gleaned from Kitty's reports-should exact such excessive considerations of punctuality from her. Could he not have waited? Could he not have come?

Whilst Kitty was making out her case, Sir George and Ella saw matters in the light that she wished them to do; so subtly could she force the reasoning powers of another into a focus of any compass she liked. She had said with the utmost simplicity, "I must go to Bourdeaux to see a poor young artist, a protégé of mine, and I must go to-day," and there seemed no possible objection to make to either statement. But no sooner were her personal persuasions withdrawn, than their faculties gradually sharpened, and they perceived that the circumstance was pregnant with suggestion, and they could not conceal the thought from each other-suspicion also.

"Our dear Kitty is so generous, and so full of sympathy and affection, that I could never be quite sure into what imprudence she might not be led," said Ella; "and Mrs Wingfield used to talk of her lovers as if they were legion."

"Of course, of course," said Sir George, a little testily, feeling envious just then of younger men in general, and of Kitty's lovers in particular. "A woman like Miss Silver has lovers whether she is rich or poor-the daughter of a peer or of a sweep. What a figure she has and what wit! She is superb!"

"Don't fall in love with Kitty yourself, papa," Ella added, joking; "for generous as she is, and sweet and loving as she is, she cannot marry all her lovers "-adding archly, "and I don't want a step-mamma-though I adore Kitty."

Sir George seemed somewhat shocked at Ella's levity.

66

My dear," he said, "you forget that you and I have not a shilling to spare, and that I wouldn't spoil your comfort if Miss

Silver had a million . . . and I were as much in love with her