"No. I think very few persons knew. I wonder whether I ought to have told the world in general! I did not want to blazon forth my shame."

For a little time they both were silent. Then Rupert said, softly:--

"When she was dead, I remembered the little girl whom I used to know in Gower-street; and I said to myself that I would find her out."

"You found her changed," said Kitty, with a sob.

"Very much changed outwardly; but with the same loving heart at the core. Kitty, I was unjust to you: I have come back to offer reparation."

"For what?"

"For that injustice, dear. When I went away from Strathleckie in January, I was angry and vexed with you. I thought that you were throwing yourself away in promising to marry Hugo Luttrell--" then, as Kitty made a sudden gesture--"oh, I know I had no right to interfere. I was wrong, quite wrong. I must confess to you now, Kitty, that I thought you a vain, frivolous, little creature; and it was not until I began to think over what I had said to you and what you had said to me, that I saw clearly, as I lay in my darkened room, how unjust I had been to you."

"You were not unjust," said Kitty, hurriedly; "and I was wrong. I did not tell you the truth; I let you suppose that I was engaged to Hugo when I was not. But----"

"You were not engaged to him?"

"No."

"Then I may say what I should have said weeks ago if I had not thought that you had promised to marry him?"

"It cannot make much difference what you say now," said Kitty, heavily.

"It is too late."

"I suppose it is. I cannot ask any woman--especially any girl of your age--to share the burden of my infirmity."

"It is not that. Anyone would be proud to share such a burden--to be of the least help to you--but I mean--you have not heard----"

She could not go on. If he had seen her face, he might have guessed more quickly what she meant. But he could not see; and her voice, broken as it was, told him only that she was agitated by some strong emotion--he knew not of what kind. He rose and stood beside her, as if he did not like to sit while she was standing. Even at that moment she was struck by the absence of his old airs of superiority; his blindness seemed to have given him back the dependence and simplicity of much earlier days.

"I suppose you mean that you are not free," he said. "And even if you had been free, my dear, it is not at all likely that I should have had a chance. There are certain to be many wooers of a girl possessed of your fresh sweetness and innocent gaiety. I wished only to say to you that I have been punished for any harsh words of mine, by finding out that I could not forget your face for a day, for an hour. I will not say that I cannot live without you; but I will say that life would have the charm that it had in the days of my youth, if I could have hoped that you, Kitty, would have been my wife."

There was a faint melancholy in the last few words that went to Kitty's heart. Rupert heard her sob, and immediately put out his hand with the uncertain action of a man who cannot see.

"Kitty!" he said, ruefully, "I did not mean to make you cry, dear. Don't grieve. There are obstacles on both sides now. I am a blind, helpless old fellow; and you are going to be married. Child, what does this mean?"

Unable to speak, she had seized his hand and guided it to the finger on which she wore a plain gold ring. He felt it: he felt her hand, and then he asked a question.

"Are you married already, Kitty?"

"Yes."

"To whom?"

"To Hugo Luttrell." And then she sank down almost at his feet, sobbing, and her hot tears fell upon the hand which she pressed impulsively to her lips. "Oh, forgive me! forgive me!" she cried. "Indeed, I did not know what to do. I was very wicked and foolish. And now I am miserable.

I shall be miserable all my life."

These vague self-accusations conveyed no very clear idea to Vivian's mind; but he was conscious of a sharp sting of pain at the thought that she was not happy in her marriage.

"I did not know. I would not have spoken as I did if I had known," he said.

"No, I know you would not; and yet I could not tell you. You will hear all about it from the others. I cannot bear to tell you. And yet--yet--don't think me quite so foolish, quite so wrong as they will say that I have been. They do not know all. I cannot tell them all. I was driven into it--and now I have to bear the punishment. My whole life is a punishment. I am miserable."

"Life can never be a mere punishment, if it is rightly led," said Vivian, in a low tone. "It is, at any rate, full of duties and they will bring happiness."

"To some, perhaps; not to me," said Kitty, raising herself from her kneeling posture and drying her eyes. "I have no duties but to look nice and make myself agreeable."

"You will find duties if you look for them. There is your husband's happiness, to begin with----"

"My husband," exclaimed Kitty, in a tone of passionate contempt that startled him. But they could say no more, for at that moment the carriage came up to the door, and, from the voices in the hall, it was plain that the family had returned.

A great hush fell upon those merry voices when Mr. Vivian's errand was made known. Mrs. Heron, who was really fond of Percival, was inconsolable, and retired to her own room with the little boys and the baby to weep for him in peace. Mr. Heron, Kitty, and Elizabeth remained with Rupert in the study, listening to the short account which he gave of the wreck of the _Arizona_, as he had learnt it from Mason's lips.

And then it was proposed that Mason should be summoned to tell his own story.

Mason's eyes rested at once upon Elizabeth with a look of respectful admiration. He told his story with a rough, plain eloquence which more than once brought tears to the listeners' eyes; and he dwelt at some length on the presence of mind and cheery courage which Mr. Heron had shown during the few minutes between the striking of the ship and her going down. "Just as bold as a lion, ladies and gentlemen; helping every poor soul along, and never thinking of himself. They told fine tales of one of the men we took aboard from the _Falcon_; but Mr. Heron beat him and all of us, I'm sure."

"You took on board someone from the _Falcon_?" said Elizabeth, suddenly.

"Yes, ma'am, three men that were picked up in an open boat, where they had been for five days and nights; the _Falcon_ having been burnt to the water's edge, and very few of the crew saved."

Elizabeth's hands clasped themselves a little more tightly, but she suffered no sign of emotion to escape her.

"Do you remember the names of the men saved from the _Falcon_?" she said.

"There was Jackson," said the sailor, slowly; "and there was Fall; and there was a steerage passenger--seems to me his name was Smith, but I can't rec'llect exackly."

"It was not Stretton?"

"No, it warn't no name like that, ma'am."

"Then they are both lost," said Elizabeth, rising up with a deadly calm in her fixed eyes and white face; "both lost in the great, wild sea. We shall see them no more--no more." She paused, and then added in a much lower voice, as if speaking to herself: "I shall go to them, but they will not return to me."

Her strength seemed to give way. She walked a few steps unsteadily, threw up her hands as if to save herself, and without a word and without a cry, fell in a dead faint to the ground.

CHAPTER XLVI.

A MERE CHANCE.

Vivian went back to London on the following morning, taking Mason with him. He had heard what made him anxious to leave Strathleckie before any accidental meeting with Hugo Luttrell should take place. The story told of Kitty's marriage was that she had eloped with Hugo; and Mr. Heron, in talking the matter over with his son's friend, declared that an elopement had been not only disgraceful, but utterly unnecessary, since he should never have thought of opposing the marriage. He had been exceedingly angry at first; and now, although he received Kitty at Strathleckie, he treated her with great coldness, and absolutely refused to speak to Hugo at all.

In a man of Mr. Heron's easy temperament, these manifestations of anger were very strong; and Vivian felt even a little surprised that he took the matter so much to heart. He himself was not convinced that the whole truth of the story had been told: he was certain, at any rate, that Hugo Luttrell had dragged Kitty's name through the mire in a most unjustifiable way, and he felt a strong desire to wreak vengeance upon him. For Kitty's sake, therefore, it was better that he should keep out of the way: he did not want to quarrel with her husband, and he knew that Hugo would not be sorry to find a cause of dispute with him.

He could not abandon the hope of some further news of the _Arizona_ and the _Falcon_. He questioned Mason repeatedly concerning the shipwrecked men who had been taken on board but he obtained little information. And yet he could not be content. It became a regular thing for Vivian to be seen, day after day, in the shipowners' offices, at Lloyd's, at the docks, asking eagerly for news, or, more frequently, turning his sightless eyes and anxious face from one desk to another, as the careless comments of the clerks upon his errand fell upon his ear.

Sometimes his secretary came with him: sometimes, but, more seldom, a lady. For Angela was living with him now, and she was as anxious about Brian as he was concerning Percival.