He
saw a little figure in black between him and those "gorgeous towers and
cloud-capped palaces" of Alpine snow, which dimly closed in the north;
and beneath the drooping hat a face even more changed and tragic than
that which had haunted him since their meeting of the day before.
[Illustration: "SHE THOUGHT OF CLIFFE STANDING BESIDE THE DOOR OF THE
GREAT HALL."]
"How do you do?" she said, mechanically, and would have passed him.
But he stood in her path. As he stared at her an impulse of rage ran
through him, resenting the wreck of anything so beautiful--rage against
Ashe, who must surely be somehow responsible.
"Aren't you wandering too far, Lady Kitty?" His voice shook under the
restraint he put upon it. "You seem tired--very tired--and you are
perhaps farther from your gondola than you think."
"I am not tired."
He hesitated.
"Might I walk with you a little, or do you forbid me?"
She said nothing, but walked on. He turned and accompanied her. One or
two questions that he put to her--Had she companions?--Where had she
left her gondola?--remained unanswered. He studied her face, and at last
he laid a strong hand upon her arm.
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