Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/115

 leave her place for that reason, as her ladyship didn't much like such things going on in the house. As for Sir Ian, he had always seemed very pleasant with his wife, but he didn't have quite the same air of thinking the sun rose and set in her ladyship, that she had for him. He was absent-minded, sometimes, and fond of reading in the library by himself; but they were on very good terms indeed, and in Paris he took his wife everywhere, shopping, and to the theatres, and bought her several handsome presents. On the last morning of her ladyship's life, Sir Ian had come into her room while she was polishing her nails, and Kate was putting away a few things. They had talked to each other as pleasantly as possible, and made plans for a few days stay in town by and by. She had never heard the slightest dispute between them. Her ladyship did not appear to have any trouble or secrets, except some little ones of the toilet, which did not count seriously. If she had had secrets, Kate would have been likely to guess, or would have heard something from Liane, who used to talk rather freely about her mistress in the servants' hall. But Kate believed that Lady Hereward had been a very happy woman, up to the day of her death, and was, on the whole, a lady easy to get on with. The only person Kate had ever heard her scold was Miss Verney, her ladyship's companion.

Had Kate seen Lady Hereward in the woods, on her