Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/167

Rh sought asylum with this good friend from the effects of your father's resentment."

"'Sought asylum' is perhaps excessive," Lady Grace returned—"though it wasn't pleasant with him after that hour, no," she allowed. "And I couldn't go, you see, to Kitty."

"No indeed, you couldn't go to Kitty." He smiled at her hard as he added: "I should have liked to see you go to Kitty! Therefore exactly is it that I've set you adrift—that I've darkened and poisoned your days. You're paying with your comfort, with your peace, for having joined so gallantly in my grand remonstrance."

She shook her head, turning from him, but then turned back again—as if accepting, as if even relieved by, this version of the prime cause of her state. "Why do you talk of it as 'paying'—if it's all to come back to my being paid? I mean by your blest success—if you really do what you want."

"I have your word for it," he searchingly said, "that our really pulling it off together will make up to you?"

"I should be ashamed if it didn't, for