Part 34

"She was taken away from me. She was taken back to the sin from which I hoped I had rescued her."

"Oh, mother! By whom?"

Mrs. Ardagh put her handkerchief to her eyes.

"William Foster," she answered.

Catherine felt cold and numb.

"William Foster--I don't understand," she said slowly.

Mrs. Ardagh rolled and unrolled her handkerchief with trembling fingers.

"She got hold of that book--that black, wicked book," she said, and there was a sort of fury in her voice. "It upset her faith. It tarnished her moral sense. It reminded her of the--the man from whose influence I had drawn her. All her imagination was set in a flame by that hateful chapter."

"Which one?" Catherine asked.

Mrs. Ardagh mentioned the chapter which Catherine had most hated, most admired, and most feared.

"I fought with William Foster for Jenny's soul," she said, passionately. "But I am not clever. I have no power. I am getting old and tired. She cried. She said she loved me, but that goodness was not for her, that she must go, that life was calling her, that she must live--live! William Foster had shown her death and she thought it life. I always knew that in Jenny good and evil were fighting, that her fate was trembling in the balance. That book turned the scale."

She sobbed heavily, then with a catch of her breath, she added,

"William Foster is a very wicked man."

Catherine flushed all over her face. But she said nothing. That night she told Mark of Jenny's fate. She expected him to be grieved. But he was not.

"An author who respects his art cannot consider every hysterical girl while he is writing," he said. "And, besides, it is only your mother's idea that she was influenced by my book. Long ago she showed you the bent of her mind."

"But, Mark, don't you remember how that chapter struck me when you first read it to me?"

"I remember that you thought it the finest chapter in the book, and you were right, Kitty. You've got artistic discernment, like your father. Berrand and you would get on together. Directly he comes back I'll introduce you to each other."

Catherine said no more. From that time she devoted herself more than ever to her mother, who now, under the influence of sorrow, allowed her nature to come to its full flower. Abandoning the pleasures of society, which had long wearied her, she gave herself up to services, charities and good works in the poor parts of London. She carried Catherine with her on many of her expeditions, and there can be no doubt that her fervour and curious exaltation had a marked effect upon the girl. Catherine had always been highly susceptible to influence, but she had been during most of her life attacked perpetually by two absolutely opposite influences. Now one of these, her father's, was removed from her. She came more than ever before under her mother's domination. For Mark, when he was not "William Foster," was simply a high-spirited and happy youth, full of energy and of apparently normal desires and intentions. He had that sort of genius which can be long asleep in the dark, while its possessor dances, like a mote, in sunshine.

In the spring the Sirretts made ready to leave London. As the day drew near for their departure Mark's manner changed, and he displayed symptoms of restlessness and of impatience. Catherine noticed them and asked their reason.

"I am longing to return to 'William Foster,' Kitty," he said.

She felt a sharp pain at her heart, but she only smiled and replied,

"I almost thought you had forgotten him."

"On the contrary, I have been preparing to meet him again all these months."

His dark eyes shone as he spoke. And once again that stranger stood before Catherine. She turned and went upstairs, saying that she must see to her packing. But when she was alone in her bedroom she shed some tears. That afternoon she went to Eaton Square to bid her mother good-bye. Mrs. Ardagh was looking unhappy.

"Your father returns from Italy on Wednesday," she said. "You'll just miss him."

"I am so sorry, mother," Catherine said.

Mrs. Ardagh looked at her in silence for a moment. Then she said in a low voice,

"I am not."