more the dear homely carriage. With the reins between her fingers, and
the responsibility on her of driving through the storm and darkness,
some of her courage and self-respect returned, but not until she had
flung that wretched cake far from her into the darkness.

"I shall hate orange cakes all the rest of my life," she thought.

"It was kind of Lady Kitson to take you in out of the storm," remarked
her father absently.

"Was it?" she questioned doubtfully. "I suppose it was. But--another
time I--I would rather stay out in the very worst storm that ever was,"
she added mentally. "Nothing _could_ be worse than what I have gone
through, and what I shall feel whenever I remember it."



CHAPTER IV.


STORMS AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Time might soften Kitty Trenire's recollections of that embarrassing
visit of hers, but it could never dim her remembrance of the drive home
that night over that wide expanse of moorland which stretched away black
and mysterious under a sky which glowed like a furnace, until both were
illuminated by lightning so vivid that one could but bow the head and
close the eyes before it. A gusty wind, which had sprung up suddenly,
chased the carriage all the way, while the rain, which came down in
sheets, hissing as it struck the ground, thundered on the hood drawn