"And do you know why?" asked the duchess, somewhat abruptly.
"No," answered Kate, wondering at her tone.
"It was for wounding my late husband within the precincts of Holyrood," said Lady Wellwood.
But Kate McGhie's anger was now fully roused, and her answer ran trippingly off her tongue.
"And was it for that service you spoke so kindly to him just now, and bade him meet you at the head of the wood as you went home?"
The duchess stared a little, but her well-bred calmness was not ruffled.
"Even so," she said, placidly, "and for the further reason that Walter Gordon was on his way to see me on the night when it was his ill fortune to meet with my husband instead."
"I do not believe it," cried the girl, lifting her head and looking Lady Wellwood straight in the eyes.
"Ask him, then!" answered the duchess, with the calm assurance of forty answering the chit of half her years. For at first sight my lady had envied and hated the clear, blushful ivory of the girl's cheek and the natural luxuriance of her close-tangled curls. And since all the art of St. James's could not match with these, she was now getting even with Kate in ways of her own.
The girl did not speak. Her heart only welled within her with contradiction and indignation.