“I don't know what all this business is about. I assure you I have not the slightest idea, nor have I the least wish to pry into my uncle's secrets; but at the same time, I am growing very uneasy. This mystery, whatever it may be, is weighing on him greatly. He has completely changed in the last month; he is becoming an old and almost broken man. I do not wish to alarm you, but I feel that I ought to open your eyes to this in case it may have escaped you.”
“It is very kind of you,” said Kathleen, wearily, “but I have noticed it myself, and am very much distressed.”
“Then why not be more explicit?” urged Hilden. “Why not tell me what this matter is about? Surely I could take some of the burden off your shoulders. It is a most amazing thing—and I think, with all due respect to your father—a very wrong thing that a trouble of this sort—and I can see it is a great trouble—should be foisted on to the shoulders of a mere girl.”
Kathleen looked at him sadly and wistfully.
“I wish I could tell you, Claude,” she said, “but unfortunately I am pledged to secrecy. I think it is more likely that my father will speak to you about the matter to-morrow, though I fear that he will tell you nothing more than you know at present.
“He may, however, ask you to do several more strange things. You have offered to help us, and so let me implore you to help us by doing everything that you are asked, no matter what it may involve.”
“Kathleen,” cried Hilden, taking her hands and looking into her eyes, “you know very well that there is nothing that I would not do for your sake.”
She thanked him, and drawing away her hands left him, weighed down with a terrible oppression. Her own thoughts frightened her. She was conscious of a dreadful desire for a man's death. She prayed to be delivered from the sin of hoping that she might escape disgrace at the cost of a man's life.
The ball began at about half-past ten, and for an hour before that motor-cars and carriages had been rolling up the long sweep of drive, and the reception-rooms had been filling with the power, the wealth, and the beauty of the country.
By her father's side Kathleen stood at the head of the grand staircase to receive the guests. And one after the other, with misdirected kindness, they murmured their regret to see Kathleen looking so far from well. Her father glanced round impatiently at every such expression, till from the pallor born of the despair which was settling down upon her heart Kathleen's face assumed a vivid flush, due to agitation and annoyance; so that from looking wan and ill her beauty became feverish and radiant.