She could scarcely stand as she rang the bell at Hill Street, and it was only with a great effort that she could ask her question:
"Is Mr. Ashe at home?"
"Mr. Ashe, my lady, is, I believe, just going out," said Wilson. "Her ladyship arrived just about an hour ago, and that detained him."
Elizabeth betrayed nothing. The training of her class held good.
"Are they in the library?" she asked—"or up-stairs?"
Wilson replied that he believed her ladyship was in her room, and Mr. Ashe with her.
"Please ask Mr. Ashe if I can see him for a few minutes."
Wilson disappeared, and Lady Tranmore stood motionless, looking round at William's books and tables. She loved everything that his hand had touched, every sign of his character—the prize books of his college days, the pictures on the wall, many of which had descended from his Eton study, the photographs of his favorite hunter, the drawing she herself had made for him of his first pony.
On his writing-table lay a despatch-box from the Foreign Office. Lady Tranmore turned away from it. It reminded her intolerably of the shock and defeat of the day before. During the past six months she had become more rejoicingly conscious than ever before of his secret, deepening ambition, and her own heart burned with the smart of his disappointment. No one else, however, should guess at it through her. No sooner had she received his letter from the club than, after many weeks of withdrawal from society, she had forced herself to go to the Holland House party, that no one might say she hid herself, that no one might for an instant suppose that any hostile act of such a man as Lord Parham, or any malice of that low-minded woman, could humiliate her son or herself.
Suddenly she saw Kitty's gloves—Kitty's torn and soiled gloves—lying on the floor. She clasped her trembling hands, trying to steady herself. Husband and wife were together. What tragedy was passing between them?