Here the song ended, and Miss Vernon was called on to play; she thought sadly of her yesterday's practice and its unhappy termination, and it required no small effort of self command to take her place at the piano; she played mechanically, and without her usual soul-touching expression.
"Pray Lady Desmond," she heard Mrs. Meredyth ask, "can you give me any account of my nephew Effingham; will he be here this evening?"
"I really do not know," replied Lady Desmond in wonderfully natural, unconstrained tones, "Miss Vernon, I fancy, saw him last; did Lord Effingham say he would come here this evening, Kate?"
"He said nothing, that is, I do not remember," replied Kate, confused and astonished at the coolness of this appeal. Lady Desmond glanced at her one speaking look that roused her to instant self-possession, though it made her heart beat.
"I am told, Lord Effingham started this morning for the Isle of Wight," said Colonel Dashwood with a gravity unusual for him. "Hauton was over at Richmond and heard it there, something about his new yacht I believe, they said he will return next week."
"_Figurez vous_," cried the second Miss Meredyth whose style was foreign and fantastic, "my cousin's dismay when he returns and finds Lady Desmond flown."
"Perhaps it will be no great surprise to him," said Colonel Dashwood in a low voice to Kate.
Lady Desmond invited the whole party, then assembled, to meet again, on the Wednesday evening following at her house; her last evening she said, as she intended starting on Thursday for London to Ireland.
"Kate," she observed carelessly to one or two of her latest guests "is not half so true an Irishwoman as I am; she will not, I believe, accompany me at once, but lingers for a few weeks with some friends in town."
Kate felt the tears rise to her eyes at hearing the separation so deplored, so dreaded by her, thus indifferently announced by her cousin, and she stood silent and dejected by the piano.
After they were left alone, Lady Desmond threw herself into an arm chair and covering her face with her hands groaned aloud, then looking up, after a moment's silence, she showed a countenance so changed, so haggard, now that the strong curb of her will over her secret emotions was relaxed, that Miss Vernon absolutely started with surprise.