"Christus!!" roared Joris, "challenge me one hundred times. A fool I would be to answer you. Life my God gave to me. Well, then, only my God shall from me take it. See you these arms and hands? In them you will be as the child of one year. Ere beyond my reason you move me, go!" and he strode to the door and flung it open with a passion that made every one in the store straighten themselves, and look curiously toward the two men.
White with rage, and with his hand upon his sword-hilt, Captain Hyde stamped his way through the crowded store to the dusty street. Then it struck him that he had not asked the name of the man to whom Katharine was promised. He swore at himself for the omission. Whether he knew him or not, he was determined to fight him. In the meantime, the most practical revenge was to try and see Katherine before her father had the opportunity to give her any orders regarding him. Just then he met Neil Semple, and he stopped and asked him the time.
"It will be the half hour after four, Captain. I am going home; shall I have your company, sir?"
"I have not much leisure to-night. Make a thousand regrets to Madam Semple and my aunt for me."
Neil's calm, complacent gravity was unendurable. He turned from him abruptly, and, muttering passionate exclamations, went to the river-bank for a boat. Often he had seen Katherine between five and six o'clock at the foot of the Van Heemskirk garden; for it was then possible for her to slip away while madam was busy about her house, and Joanna and Batavius talking over their own affairs. And this evening he felt that the very intensity of his desire must surely bring her to their trysting-place behind the lilac hedge.
Whether he was right or wrong, he did not consider; for he was not one of those potent men who have themselves in their own power. Nor had it ever entered his mind that "love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice," or that the only love worthy of the name refuses to blend with anything that is low or vindictive or clandestine. And, even if he had not loved Katherine, he would now have been determined to marry her. Never before in all his life had he found an object so engrossing. Pride and revenge were added to love, as motives; but who will say that love was purer or stronger or sweeter for them?
In the meantime Joris was suffering as only such deep natures can suffer. There are domestic fatalities which the wisest and tenderest of parents seem impotent to contend with. Joris had certainly been alarmed by Semple's warning; but in forbidding his daughter to visit Mrs. Gordon, and in permitting the suit of Neil Semple, he thought he had assured her safety. Through all the past weeks, he had seen no shadow on her face. The fear had died out, and the hope had been slowly growing; so that Captain Hyde's proposal, and his positive assertion that Katherine loved him, had fallen upon the father's heart with the force of a blow, and the terror of a shock. And the sting of the sorrow was this,—that his child had deceived him. Certainly she had not spoken false words, but truth can be outraged by silence quite as cruelly as by speech.
After Hyde's departure, he shut the door of his office, walked to the window, and stood there some minutes, clasping and unclasping his large hands, like a man full of grief and perplexity. Ere long he remembered his friend Semple. This trouble concerned him also, for Captain Hyde was in a manner his guest; and, if he were informed of the marriage arranged between Katherine and Neil Semple, he would doubtless feel himself bound in honour to retire. Elder Semple had opened his house to Colonel Gordon, his wife and nephew. For months they had lived in comfort under his roof, and been made heartily welcome to the best of all he possessed. Joris put himself in Hyde's place; and he was certain, that, under the same circumstances, he would feel it disgraceful to interfere with the love-affairs of his host's son.
He found Semple with his hat in his hand, giving his last orders before leaving business for the day; but when Joris said, "There is trouble, and your advice I want," he returned with him to the back of the store, where, through half-opened shutters, the sunshine and the river-breeze stole into an atmosphere laden with the aromas of tea and coffee and West Indian produce.
In a few short, strong sentences, Joris put the case before Semple. The latter stroked his right knee thoughtfully, and listened. But his first words were not very comforting: "I must say, that it is maistly your own fault, Joris. You hae given Neil but a half welcome, and you should hae made a' things plain and positive to Katherine. Such skimble-skamble, yea and nay kind o' ways willna do wi' women. Why didna you say to her, out and out, 'I hae promised you to Neil Semple, my lassie. He'll mak' you the best o' husbands; you'll marry him at the New Year, and you'll get gold and plenishing and a' things suitable'?"