as chattering to the Royalties! And as she jumped on the pedestal,
and saw his face of horror, there was the typical womanish triumph that
she had made him <i>feel</i>--would make him feel yet more.

How good, how tender he had been to her in her illness! And yet--yet?

"He cares for politics, for his plans--not for me. He will never trust
me again--as he did once. He'll never ask me to help him--he'll find
ways not to--though he'll be very sweet to me all the time."

And the thought of her nullity with him in the future, her
insignificance in his life, tortured her.

Why had she treated Lord Parham so? "I can be a lady when I choose," she
said, mockingly, to herself. "I wasn't even a lady."

Then suddenly there flashed on her memory a little picture of Lord
Parham, standing spectacled and bewildered, peering into her slip of
paper. She bent her head on her hands and laughed, a stifled, hysterical
laugh, which scandalized the woman kneeling beside her.

But the laugh was soon quenched again in restless pain. William's
affection had been her only refuge in those weeks of moral and physical
misery she had just passed through.

"But it's only because he's so terribly sorry for me. It's all quite
different. And I can't ever make him love me again in the old way.... It
wasn't my fault. It's something born in me--that catches me by the
throat."

And she had the actual physical sense of some one strangled by a
possessing force.

"<i>Dolce Sacramento! Santo Sacramento!</i>"... The music swayed and echoed
through the church. Kitty uncovered her eyes and felt a sudden
exhilaration in the blaze of light. It reminded her of the bending
Christ in the picture of San Giorgio. Awe and beauty flowed in upon her,
in spite of the poor music and the tawdry church. What if she tried
religion?--recalled what she had been taught in the convent?--gave
herself up to a director?

She shivered and recoiled. How would she ever maintain her faith against
William--William, who knew so much more than she?

Then, into the emptiness of her heart there stole the inevitable
temptations of memory. Where was Geoffrey? She knew well that he was a
violent and selfish man; but he understood much in her that William
would never understand. With a morbid eagerness she recalled the play of
feeling between them, before that mad evening at Hamel Weir. What
perpetual excitement--no time to think--or regret!

During her weeks of illness she had lost al