The child was still too drowsy to hear plainly. "What did you
say?" she asked. Sydney gently lifted her in the bed, and kissed
her again and again. Kitty's sleepy eyes opened in surprise. "How
cold your hands are!" she said; "and how often you kiss me. What
is it you have come to say to me--good-night or good-by?"

Sydney laid her down again on the pillow, gave her a last kiss,
and ran out of the room.

In the corridor she heard Linley's voice on the lower floor. He
was asking one of the servants if Miss Westerfield was in the
house or in the garden. Her first impulse was to advance to the
stairs and to answer his question. In a moment more the
remembrance of Mrs. Linley checked her. She went back to her
bed-chamber. The presents that she had received, since her
arrival at Mount Morven, were all laid out so that they could be
easily seen by any person entering the room, after she had left
the house. On the sofa lay the pretty new dress which she had
worn at the evening party. Other little gifts were arranged on
either side of it. The bracelet, resting on the pedestal of a
statue close by, kept a morsel of paper in its place--on which
she had written a few penitent words of farewell addressed to
Mrs. Linley. On the toilet-table three photographic portraits
showed themselves among the brushes and combs. She sat down, and
looked first at the likenesses of Mrs. Linley and Kitty.

Had she any right to make those dear faces her companions in the
future?

She hesitated; her tears dropped on the photographs. "They're as