Another person was advancing from the hotel; an interruption, a trivial domestic interruption, presented itself. The nursemaid had missed the child, and had come into the garden to see if she was with her mother.
“Where is Miss Kitty, ma’am?” the girl asked.
Her mistress told her what had happened, and sent her to the Palace to relieve Captain Bennydeck of the charge that he had undertaken. Susan listened, looking at Sydney and recognizing the familiar face. As the girl moved away, Sydney spoke to her.
“I hope little Kitty is well and happy?”
The mother does not live who could have resisted the tone in which that question was put. The broken heart, the love for the child that still lived in it, spoke in accents that even touched the servant. She came back; remembering the happy days when the governess had won their hearts at Mount Morven, and, for a moment at least, remembering nothing else.
“Quite well and happy, miss, thank you,” Susan said.
As she hurried away on her errand, she saw her mistress beckon to Sydney to return, and place a chair for her. The nursemaid was not near enough to hear what followed.
“Miss Westerfield, will you forget what I said just now?” With those words, Catherine pointed to the chair. “I am ready to hear you,” she resumed—"but I have something to ask first. Does what you wish to say to me relate only to yourself?”
“It relates to another person, as well as to myself.”
That reply, and the inference to which it led, tried Catherine’s resolution to preserve her self-control, as nothing had tried it yet.