"
Kitty paused, interrogatively. She was still pale.
"Do you know that mother is convinced Mary Lyster has made up her mind
to marry Cliffe?"
There was a pause, then Kitty said, with incredulous contempt: "He would
never
dream of marrying her!"
"Not so sure! She has a great deal of money, and Cliffe wants money
badly."
Ashe began to put his papers together. Kitty questioned him a little
more, intermittently, as to what his mother had said. When he had left
her, she sat for long on the sofa, playing with some flowers she had
taken from her dress, or sombrely watching the child, as it lay on the
floor beside her.
X
"My lady! It's come!"
The maid put her head in just to convey the good news. Kitty was in her
bedroom walking up and down in a fury which was now almost speechless.
The housemaid was waiting on the stairs. The butler was waiting in the
hall. Till that hurried knock was heard at the front door, and the
much-tried Wilson had rushed to open it, the house had been wrapped in a
sort of storm silence. It was ten o'clock on the night of the ball. Half
Kitty's costume lay spread out upon her bed.
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