The poor girl was thunderstruck—that beautiful face drooped slowly to her bosom, and she seemed to be shrinking into a shadow. At last, she lifted her head with a wan smile.
"That was four long years ago, more than four years ago," she cried—"Four years ago."
"Well, what of that; four years does not destroy the truth."
"I don't believe it," said Katharine, very quietly, "there's some mistake."
"Mistake! what does the girl mean? as if I didn't know when a man persecutes me with his love. Makes me a point blank offer, and goes off to sea in despair when I marry his superior. Mistake, indeed!"
"No," persisted the girl, "I don't believe it; no woman could refuse him if he once offered. No woman on earth; it isn't in nature."
"Indeed, you have a mighty high opinion of Nelse Thrasher, as if he was fit to be mentioned in the same day with Captain Mason. I wonder at your daring to say these things to me."
Katharine did not hear her; she was searching the past, urged and goaded in her memory by keen pangs of distrust.
"Besides," she exclaimed, "he has been home since then, and never come near you, not even as a friend."
"I'd like to see him have the impudence," was the angry rejoinder.