"Ma chère!—un miracle!" cried Madame d'Estrées, blushing, however, under her thin white veil. "When I wrote to you, I was at death's door—wasn't I?" She appealed to her companion, without waiting for an answer. "Then some one told me of a new doctor, and in ten days, me voici! They insisted on my going away—this dear woman—Donna Laura Vercelli—my daughter, Lady Kitty Ashe!—knew of an apartment here belonging to some relations of hers. And here we are—charmingly installées!—and really nothing to pay!"—Madame d'Estrées whispered, smiling, in Kitty's ear—"nothing, compared to the hotels. I'm economizing splendidly. Laura looks after every sou. Ah! my dear William!"
For Ashe, puzzled by the voices within, had entered the chapel, and stood in his turn, open-mouthed.
"Why, we thought you were an invalid."
For, some three weeks before, a letter had reached him at Haggart, so full of melancholy details as to Madame d'Estrées' health and circumstances that even Kitty had been moved. Money had been sent; inquiries had been made by telegraph; and but for a hasty message of a more cheerful character, received just before they started, the Ashes, instead of journeying by Brussels and Cologne, would have gone by Paris that Kitty might see her mother. They had intended to stop there on their way back. Ashe was not minded that Kitty should see more of Madame d'Estrées than necessity demanded; but on this occasion he would have felt it positively brutal to make difficulties.
And now here was this moribund lady, this forsaken of gods and men, disporting herself at Venice, evidently in the pink of health and attired in the freshest of Paris toilettes! As he coldly shook hands, Ashe registered an inner vow that Madame d'Estrées' letters henceforward should receive the attention they deserved.
And beside her was her somewhat mysterious friend of London days, the Colonel Warington who had been so familiar a figure in the gatherings of St. James's Place—grown much older, almost white-haired, and as gentlemanly as ever. Who was the lady? Ashe was introduced, was aware of a somewhat dark and Jewish cast of face, noticed some fine jewels, and could only suppose that his mother-in-law had picked up some one to finance her, and provide her with creature comforts in return for the social talents that Madame d'Estrées still possessed in some abundance. He had more than once noticed her skill in similar devices; but, indeed, they were indispensable, for while he allowed Madame d'Estrées one thousand a year, she was, it seemed, firmly determined to spend a minimum of three.
He and Warington looked at each other with curiosity. The bronzed face and honest eyes of the soldier betrayed nothing. "Are you going to marry her at last?" thought Ashe. "Poor devil!"
Meanwhile Madame d'Estrées chattered away as though nothing could be more natural than their meeting, or more perfect than the relations between herself and her daughter and son-in-law.
As they all strolled down the church she looked keenly at Kitty.
"My dear child, how ill you look!—and your mourning! Ah, yes, of course!"—she bit her lip—"I remember—the poor, poor boy—"