"It is not so easy for a girl to cut the knot. She must find explanations to justify her--valid not only to her parents, but to the man. And I knew you would not let me go so lightly. I knew that I meant all the world to you."
She paused, but Gordon gave no sign, and she repeated her words with a nervous smile.
"It sounds queer, but it is true all the same. I knew that I meant all the world to you."
Again she waited, but with a like result. He was still pondering, still in doubt. The way in which he drew his breath, now in short, jerky catches, now in a long, labouring sigh, made that plain to her. Her shot had failed of its aim.
A sudden gust of the wind brought the rustle of the trees through the open door. Kate looked at the clock; the hands made one threatening line.
"Two o'clock!" she cried, with a start. "I must get back to Keswick while they are still asleep--asleep." She spoke the word again with a melancholy longing in her voice which was indescribably sad.
"You will write, then," she resumed, "and break it off."
Gordon nodded assent, and she turned away in search for something.
The action helped to decide Gordon by pointing out the necessity of decision. What course should he take? He had thought to choose his path on careful reflection when Kate was on her way back to Keswick; but he saw now that would be too late. It would be time enough then to consider the consequences of his choice, how best to cope with them and force them to his service; but the choice itself could not be deferred. For if he let her go quietly without another word the matter would be settled finally, the choice determined, a prison wall raised to further effort. What course should he take? The question pressed urgently for an immediate answer.
He went to the door and out into the porch. The sudden slip into night seemed to him a symbol of what his life would mean if he kept silence. His mind played with the idea and carried it further. It pictured him standing alone in the empty darkness and the girl behind him alone in the empty light. The beck, too, at the back of the house, whispered its music in his ears and pleaded with him.