Kitty’s face brightened directly.  She proposed extending their walk to the paddock, and feeding the cows.  Sydney readily consented.  Any amusement was welcome to her which diverted the child’s attention from herself.

They had been nearly an hour in the park, and were returning to the house through a clump of trees, when Sydney’s companion, running on before her, cried:  “Here’s papa!” Her first impulse was to draw back behind a tree, in the hope of escaping notice.  Linley sent Kitty away to gather a nosegay of daisies, and joined Sydney under the trees.

“I have been looking for you everywhere,” he said.  “My wife—­”

Sydney interrupted him.  “Discovered!” she exclaimed.

“There is nothing that need alarm you,” he replied.  “Catherine is too good and too true herself to suspect others easily.  She sees a change in you that she doesn’t understand—­she asks if I have noticed it—­and that is all.  But her mother has the cunning of the devil.  There is a serious reason for controlling yourself.”

He spoke so earnestly that he startled her.  “Are you angry with me?” she asked.

“Angry!  Does the man live who could be angry with you?”

“It might be better for both of us if you were angry with me.  I have to control myself; I will try again.  Oh, if you only knew what I suffer when Mrs. Linley is kind to me!”

He persisted in trying to rouse her to a sense of the danger that threatened them, while the visitors remained in the house.  “In a few days, Sydney, there will be no more need for the deceit that is now forced on us.  Till that time comes, remember—­Mrs. Presty suspects us.”

Kitty ran back to them with her hands full of daisies before they could say more.

“There is your nosegay, papa.  No; I don’t want you to thank me—­I want to know what present you are going to give me.”  Her father’s mind was preoccupied; he looked at her absently.  The child’s sense of her own importance was wounded:  she appealed to her governess.  “Would you believe it?” she asked.  “Papa has forgotten that next Tuesday is my birthday!”

“Very well, Kitty; I must pay the penalty of forgetting.  What present would you like to have?”

“I want a doll’s perambulator.”

“Ha!  In my time we were satisfied with a doll.”

They all three looked round.  Another person had suddenly joined in the talk.  There was no mistaking the person’s voice:  Mrs. Presty appeared among the trees, taking a walk in the park.  Had she heard what Linley and the governess had said to each other while Kitty was gathering daisies?