"Yes," said the woman slowly. "Yes, that is true. I've—lost—a friend."
She put a strong emphasis on the word "lost," and paused before and after uttering it, as if it bore a peculiar meaning to her. But Lesley took the word in its ordinary sense.
"I am very sorry," she said. "It must be very terrible, I think, when one's friends die."
She stood silent for a minute—a shadow from Kingston's grief troubling the sweetness of her fair face. It was the maid who broke the silence.
"Excuse me, ma'am; I oughtn't to have troubled you with my affairs to-night, just when you're enjoying yourself too. But it's hard sometimes to keep quiet."
Moved by a sudden instinct of sympathy, Lesley turned and kissed the woman who served her, as if she had been a sister. It was in such ways that she showed her kinship with the man who had written "The Unexplored." Lady Alice, in spite of all her kindness of heart, would never have thought of kissing her ladies' maid.
"Don't grieve—don't be sorrowful," said Lesley. "Perhaps things will mend by and by."
"Ah, my dear," said Kingston, forgetting her
position, as Lady Alice would have said, while that young, soft kiss was warm upon her cheek, "the dead don't come back."
And when Lesley had gone downstairs, with the white and scarlet bouquet in her hand, Mary Kingston sat down and wept bitterly.