Ashe threw himself into a chair and shaded his eyes with his hand. The Dean noticed the strains of gray in his curly hair, and that aspect, as of something withered and wayworn, which had invaded the man's whole personality, balanced, indeed, by an intellectual dignity and distinction which had never been so commanding. It was as though the stern and constant wrestle of the mind had burned away all lesser things--the old, easy grace, the old, careless pleasure in life. "I think you know," began the Dean, clearing his throat, "why I asked you to see me?" "You wished, I think, to speak to me--about my wife," said Ashe, with difficulty. Under his sheltering hand, his eyes looked straight before him into the fire. The Dean fidgeted a moment, lifted a small Greek vase on the mantel-piece, and set it down--then turned round. "I heard from her ten days ago--the most piteous letter. As you know, I had always a great regard for her. The news of last year was a sharp sorrow to me--as though she had been a daughter. I felt I must see her. So I put myself into the train and went to Venice." Ashe started a little, but said nothing. "Or, rather, to Treviso, for, as I think you know, she is there with Lady Alice." "Yes, that I had heard." The Dean paused again, then moved a little nearer to Ashe, looking down upon him. "May I ask--stop me if I seem impertinent--how much you know of the history of the winter?" "Very little!" said Ashe, in a low voice. "My mother got some information from the English consul at Trieste, who is a friend of hers--to whom, it seems, Lady Kitty applied; but it did not amount to much." The Dean drew a small note-book from a breast-pocket and looked at some entries in it. "They seem to have reached Marinitza in November If I understood aright, Lady Kitty had no maid with her?" "No. The maid Blanche was sent home from Verona." "How Lady Kitty ever got through the journey!--or the winter!" said the Dean, throwing up his hands. "Her health, of course, is irreparably injured. But that she did not die a dozen times over, of hardship and misery, is the most astonishing thing! They were in a wretched village, nearly four thousand feet up, a village of wooden huts, with a wooden hospital. All the winter nearly they were deep in snow, and Lady Kitty worked as a nurse. Cliffe seems to have been away fighting, very often, and at other times came back to rest and see to supplies." "I understand she passed as his wife?" said Ashe. The Dean made a sign of reluctant assent.