She wrenched her hands away from him and put them before her eyes.
"Oh, I see it all now," she moaned. "I am trapped—trapped. But I will not marry you. I will die rather. Oh, Rupert, Rupert! why do you not come?"
And then she fell into a fit of hysterical shrieking, succeeded by a swoon, from which Hugo found some difficulty in recovering her. He was obliged to call the nurse to his aid, and the nurse and the kitchen-maid between them carried the girl upstairs and placed her on the bed. Here Kitty came to herself by degrees, but it was thought well to leave the kitchen-maid, Elsie, beside her for some time, for as soon as she was left alone the hysterical symptoms reappeared. She saw Hugo no more that day, but on the following morning, when she sat pale and listless over the fire in her sitting-room, he reappeared. He spoke to her gently, but she gave him no answer. She looked at him with blank, languid eyes, and said not a word. He was almost frightened at her passivity. He thought that he had perhaps over-strained matters: that he had sent her out of her mind. But he did not lose hope. Kitty, with weakened powers of body and mind, would still be to him the woman that he loved, and that he had set his heart upon winning for his wife.
That day passed, and the next, with no change in her condition. Hugo began to grow impatient. He resolved to try stronger measures.
But stronger measures were not necessary. On the fifth day, he came to her at eleven o'clock in the morning, with a curious smile upon his lips. He had an opera-glass in his hand.
"I have something to show you, Kitty," he said to her.
He led her to the window, and directed her attention to a distant point in the view where a few yards of the highroad could be discerned. "You see the road," he said. "Now look through the glass for a few minutes."
Languidly enough she did as he desired. The strong glass brought into her sight in a few moments two gentlemen on horseback. Kitty uttered a faint cry. It was her father and Mr. Colquhoun.
"I thought that we should see them in a minute or two," said Hugo, calmly. "They were here a quarter-of-an-hour ago."
"Here! In this house?"