know what led her to
suspect that the governess had something to conceal, but she was
perpetually putting questions most difficult for her to answer; the
incitement being the pleasure of watching, from an artistic point of
view, the beauty of Bluebell's ever-ready blushes while essaying to parry
her tormentor's inquisitorial efforts.

This cat-and-mouse game would go on till the victim, turning to bay, was
on the point of desperately asking, "What she wished to find out?" Then
Kate would veil her eyes, and look all innocent indifference. Observing
the avidity with which she pounced on newspapers, Miss Barrington one day
secreted them, much entertained by watching the governess circling round
the room, glancing on every table or couch they were likely to have been
thrown on.

"Try behind the sofa cushion, Miss Leigh."

Bluebell started, vexed at being observed, and also at this proof of
_espionnage_ on her actions, but a little later she fell into more
serious self betrayal. They were trying over songs in a locked manuscript
book.

"Dear me, what is this air? I know it so well," she cried, incautiously
humming it.

"A sea song of my cousin, Harry Dutton's. I had no idea any one else
possessed a copy."

There was no answer. She looked up, the blood had rushed over Bluebell's
cheek and brow, her lips were apart, and eyes wide open and bright with
wonder. Before she could drop a mask over the too eloquent face, Kate's
keen eyes were reading her off.

"You know him, I see," with emphasis.

Bluebell, recovering presence of mind, with a desperate effort, replied
calmly,--"There was a Mr. Dutton, who came home in the same steamer.
Probably I may have heard him whistling the air."--then sat down, and
plunged into an instrumental piece, feeling quite unequal to endure
further questioning.

But the notes all the time seemed incessantly repeating, "So this is the
Cousin Kate he was always talking about."'

Miss Barrington's mind was equally busy.

"I bet Harry flirted with her all the way across, and he never told me a
word of it--never so much as mentioned that there was a pretty girl in
the ship, and yet she admitted knowing his favourite air 'so well.'"

Then Kate remembered the many unaccounted for weeks between his landing
in England and arrival at "The Towers," and her former suspicion that
some love affair had intervened.

At first she had only been provoked to curiosity by Bluebell's reserve,
but now there