"My conscience does not trouble me. As for Hugh--Heaven forbid that I should judge any man!--but if ever there was a son of wrath predestined to perdition, it was he. I always felt his day of grace must have passed while he was still a child." Kitty had no answer to this. She went off to bed speedily, and to sleep. An hour or two later her mother crept softly to her bedside and stood looking at her. The woman had been crying. "Lord, not on her, not on her!" she cried silently. "Let not my sin be laid up against her!" But her grief was short-lived. Hugh was dead. As for his harming Kitty, that was all folly. Meanwhile, Mr. Muller and the wedding-clothes were facts. She stooped over Kitty and kissed her--turned down the sheet to look at her soft blue-veined shoulder and moist white foot. Such a little while since she was a baby asleep in this very bed! Some of the baby lines were in her face still. It was hard to believe that now she was a woman--to be in a few days a wife. She covered her gently, and stole away nodding and smiling. The ghost was laid. As for Kitty, she had gone to bed not at all convinced that Hugh Guinness was dead. It was a more absorbing Mystery, that was all. But it did not keep her awake. She did not spin any romantic fancies about him or his dark history. If he were alive, he was very likely as disagreeable and freckle-faced a man as he had been a boy. But the secret was her own--a discovery; a very different affair from this marriage, which had been made and fitted on her by outsiders. CHAPTER VII. "Gone! You don't mean that your mother and Mr. Guinness have gone to leave you for a month!" Mr. Muller was quite vehement with annoyance and surprise. "At least a month," said Catharine calmly. "Mrs. Guinness always goes with my father on his summer journey for books, and this year she has--well, things to buy for me." It was the wedding-dress she meant, he knew. He leaned eagerly in at the window, where he stood hoping for a blush. But none came. "Purl two and knit one," said Kitty to her crochet. "I certainly do not consider it safe or proper for you to be left alone," he blustered mildly after a while. "There is Jane," glancing back at the black figure waddling from the kitchen to the pump. "Jane! I shall send Maria up to stay with you, Catharine." "You are very kind! It is so pleasant to be cared for!" with a little gush of politeness and enthusiasm. "But dear Maria finds the house damp. I will not be selfish. You must allow me to be alone."