“No, sir,” and Kitty shook her head in unconscious imitation of Nina’s imperative little nod. “She will not see you to-night.” “Go and ask her to give me only ten minutes, Kitty. Tell her I pray her, I implore her, to grant me even that short space of time.” Kitty went back with the message--Miss Drusilla herself brought the answer. “She utterly declines to see you for even one minute. Be merciful, Talbot, and do not insist upon an interview that cannot be anything but painful to both. Indeed, I should think you must feel ashamed to face the poor girl. It seems she heard everything yesterday; and, then, she saw you in the conservatory with that woman to-night.” He looked at her with heavy eyes. “What does she mean to do?” he asked, slowly. “I do not know, but I should think that she would separate herself from you. Any woman of spirit would!” said the man-hating spinster, decidedly. Talbot went to his room, desperate. “I will write her a letter, and I will send it to her to-night,” he said, throwing himself down before his desk in feverish haste. “I will tell her what a fool I have been, and how I repent my folly! I cannot wait until to-morrow.” CHAPTER XIII. NINA’S SACRIFICE. “Let me sit up with you to-night, Miss Nina,” said Kitty. Miss Drusilla had already retired, but Kitty lingered by the fire, where Nina, wrapped in a pink cashmere dressing-gown, lay back in a great white-draped easy-chair, and stared into the leaping flame within the steel bars of the grate. She shook her golden head decidedly at faithful Kitty’s appeal. “No, I shall not need you,” she said. “But it seems so lonesome-like for you, and you aren’t well, I’m sure,” urged the girl. “I will ring if I need you. Now go, please. I would rather be alone.” Thus summarily dismissed, Kitty had no resource but to go, yet the girl’s heart ached to leave her there solitary and forlorn, with her golden head bowed sadly on her jewelled hand. “A strange home-coming for the master of a house,” she thought. “Oh, I wonder what it is that has come between Mr. Strangemore and my sweet young mistress, and made them both so unhappy.” Nina sat very still, gazing sadly into the fire, her sweet lips quivering, her young heart throbbing with pain and shame. She would have given all the wealth her father had left her to have recalled her mad and jealous outbreak that night. “What must he think of me? Why did he wish to see me? To upbraid me, perhaps, for my discourtesy to his charming and beloved guest. Ah, heaven, I do not think I can ever, ever, meet him again! I have too bitterly humiliated myself by my folly of to-night,” she moaned, aloud. The door opened and shut softly, unheeded by the girl absorbed in her own sad and gloomy reflections. A _petite_ form clothed in soft, rich blue, glided across the floor, and stood beside Nina’s chair. “Mrs. Strangemore--Nina!” With what a cooing, melodious murmur the words fell upon Nina’s ears. She looked up with a start.