Mother meant it for a rebuke, I knew, though she didn't speak angrily; for it never was her way to show anger.
But she did not suspect how things really were. That was plain enough. If she had had the least suspicion, she would not have taken it so quiet. She was afraid of me getting to like Mr. Russell overmuch; yet all the same she trusted me. It went to my heart with a stab that mother should trust me so, when I wasn't worthy of it. I longed to speak out plain and tell her everything; yet I couldn't bear to do what would vex Mr. Russell. So I clung to my secret, though it made me miserable.
I had told her the truth, but not the whole truth, and mother had a right to know the whole. My promise to Mr. Russell could not undo her rights nor father's rights over me, a mere girl of seventeen. The promise was wrong; and whether I kept it or whether I broke it, either way I should be doing wrong. That's the sort of muddle that hasty speech gets one into. Once plunge into a quagmire, and whichever way you get out there's sure to be some of the mire sticking to you.
The question for me was—Which of the two ways would be the most wrong, since neither could be altogether right? But I didn't care to look that question in the face. I didn't want to find that I ought not to keep my promise. I liked to feel that I was bound to silence, even while it grieved me not to be open with mother.
Mary Russell began to get better much faster from this second attack than from the first. Still, for a few days, mother was a deal taken up with her; and I'm ashamed to say how often I saw Mr. Russell.
He was always meeting me somehow—out of doors or in the garden, or else calling to ask after his sister just when he knew he might catch a word with me alone. I didn't see then that this was deceit, or that I was helping forward the deceit; at least, I didn't let myself think that I saw it so.
I got so to feed upon his looks and words, so to crave for another and another glimpse, that there seemed to be no room for anything else in my head. Work was hurried over or left undone many a time those days. Mother said nothing in haste; she only watched and waited. I don't think she had an idea how far things went; but she was afraid her Kitty's silly little heart was being caught in a net, and she was on the look-out to prevent it.
Ah, but she could not, for I was not open and true with her; and no mother's love, or any other love, can guard against the evil results of deceit.
When Mr. Russell and I were alone he would call me again "his own little Kitty," and the words made my heart spring with joy—only it was a secret trembling joy, which feared to be found out. But he took care not to call me "Kitty" before anybody.
Sometimes I was on the very edge of asking him to let me tell mother, and yet again I was afraid. For all this while he had never once exactly put the question—Would I promise to marry him? He only seemed perfectly sure that if he did put it I should say, "Yes."