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Well, the thing, he supposed, would right itself in time. Meanwhile, Cliffe had been dismissed, and this foolish young fellow Eddie Helston must soon follow him. Ashe had viewed the affair so far with an amused tolerance; if Kitty liked to flirt with babes it was her affair, not his.

Lady Edith handed it to her, and she threw it round her. "Actress!" said Cliffe, under his breath, with a grin of amusement. At any rate, her impulse served her well. Her form and dress disappeared under a cloud of white. She became in a flash, so to speak, evangelized a most innocent and spiritual apparition.

The cab in which they had returned was gone home to come again, and there was the chance that it might be there or in the Cliffe House gardens; and then the others tried to console her, but they were not able to hinder a violent burst of crying, which scandalised Thekla. "I am sure you couldn't cry more if you had lost Hubert's, and that would be something worth crying about."

But he knew better than she the intellectual quality of the man, and his disdain for the journalist was tempered by his considerable though reluctant respect for the man of letters. They greeted each other coolly, while Cliffe, not seeing his hostess, looked round him with annoyance. "Well, we shall probably entertain each other," said Darrell, as they sat down.

"Of course, dear, he was only in fun. But I'll lay you a small wager, Cousin Elizabeth, that Kitty will ask Mr. Cliffe to lunch as soon as she knows he is in town." Lady Tranmore turned away. "I dare say. No one can answer for what Kitty will do. But Geoffrey Cliffe has said scandalous things of William." "He won't say them again," said Mary, soothingly.

But I had no pride of that sort. I was quite of the same way of thinking as the others, and would as soon have thought of passing my night at Jacob's gibbet on Ditchling Common as in the haunted house of Cliffe Royal.

Then, five minutes later, in the supper-room, Lady Tranmore had run across Madeleine Alcot's husband, who had given her in passing the whole story of the frustrated expedition Mrs. Alcot's chill, and the despatch of Cliffe to Hill Street. "Horrid bore to have to put it off! Hope he got there in time to stop Lady Kitty getting ready. Oh, thanks, Madeleine's all right."

"What an amazing young woman!" said Harman, presently, under his breath, yet open-mouthed. "I suppose she and Cliffe are old friends." "I believe they never met before," said Mary. Darrell laughed. "Lady Kitty makes short work of the preliminaries," he said; "she told me the other night life wasn't long enough to begin with talk about the weather." "The weather?" said Harman.

One of the blue lights from above fell with ghastly effect upon the delicate tilted face and closed eyes. Cliffe bent over her in a sharp alarm, and saw that she had fainted away. "Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens, Dusk the hall with yew!" "How strange!" thought the Dean, as he once more stepped back into the street to look at the front of the Home Secretary's house in Hill Street.

It was that little, heartless creature who had snatched them both from her William and Geoffrey Cliffe the higher and the lower the man who might have ennobled her and the man, half charlatan, half genius, whom she might have served and raised, by her fortune and her abilities. Her life might have been so full, so interesting! And it was Kitty that had made it flat, and cold, and futureless.