"That----" and there was a peculiar tone in her voice--"I should much like to know--We seem to come to new vistas in life, do we not--when everything must be looked at in a fresh perspective?" "That is very true----" "And then we must call up all our sense of balance to grasp the new outlines accurately, and not to be led away into false conceptions through emotion." The Duke was greatly interested. How exactly she was describing his own state of mind--but what had caused such thoughts to arise in hers? "It is extremely difficult to see things as they are when emotion enters into the question," he said, "and how dull everything appears when it does not!" She looked at him, and there were rebellion and suppressed passion in her compelling eyes--and the Duke's pulses suddenly began to bound; but this was the sole exchange of sentences they were vouchsafed, for Blanche Montague subsided into a sofa close to his side and beamed at him with a whispered challenge. So Katherine turned and devoted herself to some other guests beyond. She did not come into the drawing-room again that night. She asked her mistress if she might be excused, for if not really wanted, there were numbers of letters to write. And Mordryn looked for her in vain, and eventually manoeuvred the conversation round to the reason for her absence, when speaking to old Gwendoline l'Estaire who, he had perceived, was devoted to the girl. "I think she must be tired to-night, having asked Sarah to excuse her. I don't remember her ever to have done such a thing before. She is such a dear child, I don't know what Sarah would do without her--we are all very fond of her. A perfect lady, wherever she came from, but I really do not care from where." "Of course not!" cordially responded the Duke. And he wondered what had made her tired, and why her eyes had been rebellious and sad. Was she wounded because he had suggested coming to the schoolroom, with the risk of drawing down censure upon her head? She needed some explanation certainly from him, he felt, upon this matter. It had been thoughtless on his part and not really kind. He would not leave to-morrow, after all. Why should not Gwendoline, who was stupid and good-natured, be used to further his plans if the chance to see Miss Bush looked too impossibly difficult of attainment? But he went to bed with no sense of happiness or satisfaction in his heart. He liked rising early, and escaped to the rose garden alone about nine o'clock on Easter Monday morning. No windows but those of the smoking-room wing and those of the picture gallery and the main hall looked out upon this secluded spot. He had walked to the end when he saw in the distance at a turn in the shrubbery, the figure of Katherine disappearing towards the park. This was luck, indeed! He hurried after her, and overtook her as she opened the shrubbery gate. She carried a basket of fresh eggs and a black bottle.