"I heard you, sir," that bright glance said. "Your secret is a secret no longer."
Doctor Danton looked down at his plate with just a tinge of colour in his brown face. He understood her as well as if she had spoken; but, except that faint and transient flush, it never moved him. He told them stories throughout dinner of his adventures as a medical student in Germany, and every one laughed except Kate. She could not laugh; the laughter of the others irritated her. His words going up the avenue rang in her ears; the pale, troubled face of the seamstress was before her eyes. Something in the girl's sad, joyless face had interested her from the first. Had Doctor Danton anything to do with that look of hopeless trouble?
With this new interest in her mind, Kate sent for the seamstress to her room next morning. Some lace was to be sewn on a new dress. Eunice generally did such little tasks for her mistress, but on this occasion it was to be Agnes. The girl sat down with the rich robe by the window, and bent assiduously over her work. Miss Danton, in a loose négligée, lying half buried in the depths of a great carved and cushioned chair, watched her askance while pretending to read. What a slender, diminutive creature she was—how fixedly pale, paler still in contrast with her black hair and great, melancholy dark eyes. She never looked up—she went on, stitch, stitch, like any machine, until Kate spoke, suddenly:
"Agnes!"
The dark eyes lifted inquiringly.
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-two."
"You don't look it. Are your parents living?"
"No; dead these many years."
"Have you brothers or sisters?"