“I am very proud that you let me call you Kate.”
“Yes, that’s it; and you say it softly, as it should be spoken. It’s a pretty name, is it not? No, don’t look on me pitifully. If it be even as you fear, there is no cause for sorrow. Answer me one thing,” said she, half sternly, “but answer truly. Shall I die of this? There, there! I do not want any more. You think I shall; but I know better. Ay, Doctor, there’s a keener instinct, stronger than all your skill, and it tell’s me I have years and years before me; years of such trouble, too, it would be a mercy I were taken now!”
“Calm yourself, my child. I like your self-confidence; but be calm.”
“And am I not calm? Count my pulse;” and she bared her arm and held it towards him. “It is a pretty arm? then say so, frankly. What harm can flattery do me now?”
“I must leave you, my dear child. I have a long journey before me, and much hard work at the end of it. I am sorry, very sorry to go. Don’t shake your head, Kate, it is the simple truth.”
“Then why not stay?”
“I have told you, child, that many others are expecting me.”
“Yes, great people, titled people, people of condition, as they are called; as if we, too, had not our condition. Don’t you hate that word? Don’t you hate every vulgar sneer at the low-born?”
“I like your generosity——”
“My generosity!” cried she, with a wild hysteric laugh—“my generosity! Oh, yes; my generosity has a touch of genius in it. It reveals to me the unseen, the untasted! For, what can I know of such people?”