"Harry!"—she just breathed the word between her closed lips.
"My darling!" cried Ashe, "I saw Dr. Rotherham myself this afternoon. He gave the most satisfactory account, and Margaret told me she had repeated everything to you. The child will soon be himself again."
"He is dying!" said Kitty, in the same low, remote voice, her gaze still fixed on Ashe.
"Kitty! Don't say such things—don't think them!" Ashe had himself grown pale. "At any rate"—he turned on her reproachfully—"tell me why you think them. Confide in me, Kitty. Come and talk to me about the boy. But three-fourths of the time you behave as though there were nothing the matter with him—you won't even see the doctor—and then you say a thing like this!"
She was silent a moment; then with a wild gesture of the head and shoulders, as of one shaking off a weight, she moved away—drew on her long gloves—and going to the dressing-table, gave a touch of rouge to her cheeks.
"Kitty, why did you say that?" Ashe followed her entreatingly.
"I don't know. At least, I couldn't explain. Now, shall we go down?"
Ashe drew a long breath. His frail son held the inmost depths of his heart.
"You have made the party an abomination to me!" he said, with energy.
"Don't believe me, then—believe the doctor," said Kitty, her face changing. "And as for Lord Parham, I'll try, William—I'll try."