"And that made you sigh?"
"Yes; I'm ashamed to say that it came over me how far away from me all this is."
"If it is," she returned slowly, "it is simply because you choose that it shall be."
He turned his face toward her as if about to protest; then looked again into the fire. The conversation seemed ended, until Mrs. Herman spoke again as if nothing had been said.
"You have been slumming this afternoon?"
"I do not like the name, but I suppose I have."
"It isn't a cheerful day to go poking about alone among the tenement houses."
"I was not alone," Ashe answered with a hesitation which she could not help noting and with a significant softening of voice. "Mrs. Fenton was with me."
"Ah!"
The exclamation was involuntary. In an instant there had flashed upon Helen's mind a suspicion of the true state of things. The despondency of her cousin, the reflection upon the comfort of domesticity, connected themselves in her thought with trifling incidents which had before come under her observation; and his manner of speaking brought instantly to her mind the conviction that Ashe was thinking of Mrs. Fenton with more than the friendliness of acquaintanceship. When Philip looked up with a question in his eyes, however, she was already on her guard.