Sydney took the child fondly in her arms. "Would you be very
sorry," she asked, "if I was obliged to go away, some day, and
leave you?" Kitty turned pale with terror at the dreadful
prospect which those words presented. "There! there! I am only
joking," Sydney said, shocked at the effect which her attempt to
suggest the impending separation had produced. "You shall come
with me, darling; we will walk in the park together."

Kitty's face brightened directly. She proposed extending their
walk to the paddock, and feeding the cows. Sydney readily
consented. Any amusement was welcome to her which diverted the
child's attention from herself.

They had been nearly an hour in the park, and were returning to
the house through a clump of trees, when Sydney's companion,
running on before her, cried: "Here's papa!" Her first impulse
was to draw back behind a tree, in the hope of escaping notice.
Linley sent Kitty away to gather a nosegay of daisies, and joined
Sydney under the trees.

"I have been looking for you everywhere," he said. "My wife--"

Sydney interrupted him. "Discovered!" she exclaimed.

"There is nothing that need alarm you," he replied. "Catherine is
too good and too true herself to suspect others easily. She sees
a change in you that she doesn't understand--she asks if I have
noticed it--and that is all. But her mother has the cunning of
the devil. There is a serious reason for controlling yourself."