There was passion as well as sincerity in the speaker's tones, and a tinge of colour crept into Kate Charlock's cheeks. She raised a pair of dewy eyes to her companion's face.
"You are more than kind," she murmured, "but I know your life is one long self-sacrifice. I know what penance it must be to you to spend a long evening among shallow, heartless people such as these, but your mission lies with people like us——"
"But you do not identify yourself with them, surely?" Rent cried. "No, no, you are a broken-hearted, disappointed woman, striving to forget your unhappiness. I confess I am sorry to see you here to-night, but your future is in no danger. If we had only met before——"
"Hush, hush," Kate Charlock said hastily. "You must not talk like that. I—I dare not listen to you. As you would not be faithless to your own vows, you would not have me faithless to mine. And so long as I can come here, and forget my miseries, so long as I can meet you, I feel that I am safe."
Arnold Rent thrilled with a curious feeling as he listened to those impassioned words. It was impossible to doubt the sincerity of them, impossible to be anything but sorry for the beautiful, unhappy speaker. Her voice was dangerously low. There was an appeal in her eyes that set Rent fairly trembling.
"I must come and see you," he said. "You will tell me the whole of your sad story. And now I must not detain you longer, seeing that your husband is waiting for you. But I am going to follow you home, all the same."
Again came the look of gratitude in Kate Charlock's dark eyes. Then she turned away, as if afraid to trust herself further, and joined John Charlock in the garden. The pearly mists had rolled away. There was a deep, roseate flush in the eastern sky, but as yet the sun had not risen. A distant church clock struck the hour of three.
John Charlock strode along with his hands in his pockets, his sombre eyes fixed upon the ground. The silence was growing intolerable. It seemed to Kate that she must speak, that she could not endure it longer.
"How did you find out?" she asked.
"I went to your room," Charlock explained. "I found your maid fast asleep, and I compelled her to tell me where you had gone. Did I make a fool of myself to-night?"