"I have seen my sister," she said, "and she hates me. What have I done?
I think I shall die of despair!"




V


The effect of the few sobbing words, with which Kitty Bristol had
greeted his presence beside her, upon the feeling of William Ashe was
both sharp and deep, for they seemed already to imply a peculiar
relation, a special link between them. Had it not, indeed, begun in that
very moment at St. James's Place when he had first caught sight of her,
sitting forlorn in her white dress?--when she had "willed" him to come
to her, and he came? Surely--though as to this he had his qualms--she
could not have spoken with this abandonment to any other of her new
English acquaintances? To Darrell, for instance, who was expected at
Grosville Park that evening. No! From the beginning she had turned to
him, William Ashe; she had been conscious of the same mutual
understanding, the same sympathy in difference that he himself felt.

It was, at any rate, with the feeling of one whose fate has most
strangely, most unexpectedly overtaken him that he sat down beside her.
His own pulses were running at a great rate; but there was to be no sign
of it for her. He tried, indeed, to calm her by that mere cheerful
strength and vitality of which he was so easily master. "Why should you
be in despair?" he said, bending towards her. "Tell me. Let me try and
help you. Was your sister unkind to you?"