“Of course. I shall be very proud to have even one to represent the public I aspired to. Read it by all means, and tell me when I come back that it was admirable, and that the man that rejected it was a fool. If you can pick up any especial bit for praise or quotation, commit it to memory, and you can’t think how happy you’ll make me, for I delight in laudation, and I do—get—so very—little of it,” said she, pausing after each word, with a look of comic distress that was indescribably droll; and yet there was a quivering of the voice and a painful anxiety in her eye that seemed to say the drollery was but a coyer to a very different sentiment It was in this more serious light that Harry regarded her, and his look was one of deepest interest. “You have your instructions now!” said she, turning away to hide the flush his steady gaze had brought to her cheek; “and so, good-by!”
“I’d much rather go with you, Kate,” said he, as she moved away.
“No, no,” said she, smiling, “you will be better here! There is plenty of work for each of us. Good-by!”
Harry’s wish to have accompanied her thus thwarted, by no means rendered him better disposed towards him who was the cause of the disappointment, and as he paced the room alone he conned over various modes of “clearing off scores” with this fallen priest. “I hope the fellow will be insolent! How I wish he may be exacting and defiant!” As he muttered this below his breath, he tried to assume a manner of great humility—something so intensely submissive as might draw the other on to greater pretension. “I think I’ll persuade him that we are at his mercy—absolutely at his mercy!” mattered he. But had he only glanced at his face in the glass as he said it, he would have seen that his features were scarcely in accordance with the mood of one asking for quarter. The boat which should bring the letters was late, and his impatience chafed and angered him. Three several times had he rehearsed to himself the mock humility with which he meant to lure on the priest to his destruction; he had planned all, even to the veriest detail of the interview, where he should sit, where he would place his visitor, the few bland, words he would utter to receive him; but when he came to think of the turning-point of the discussion, of that moment when, all reserve abandoned, he should address the man in the voice of one whose indignation had been so long pent up that he could barely control himself to delay his vengeance,—when he came to this, he could plan no more. Passion swept all his intentions, to the winds, and his mind became a chaos.
At last the post arrived, but brought only one letter. It was in Cane’s writing. He opened it eagerly, and read:
“Dear Madam,—I am happy to inform you that you are not likely to be further molested by applications from the priest O’Rafferty. He no sooner heard that young Mr. Luttrell was alive, and in Ireland, than he at once changed his tone of menace for one of abject solicitation. He came here yesterday to entreat me to use my influence with you to forgive him his part in an odious conspiracy, and to bestow on him a trifle—a mere trifle—to enable him to leave the country, never to return to it.
“I took the great—I hope not unpardonable—-liberty to act for you in this matter, and gave him five pounds, for which I took a formal receipt, including a pledge of his immediate departure. Might I plead, in justification of the authority I thus assumed, my fears that if young Mr. Luttrell should, by any mischance, have met this man, the very gravest disasters might have ensued. His family traits of rashness and violence being, I am informed, only more strikingly developed by his life and experiences as a sailor.”
Harry read over this passage three several times, pausing and pondering over each word of it.
“Indeed!” muttered he. “Is this the character I have brought back with me? Is it thus my acquaintances are pleased to regard me? The ungovernable tempers of our race have brought a heavy punishment on us, when our conduct in every possible contingency exposes us to such comment as this! I wonder is this the estimate Kate forms of us? Is it thus she judges the relatives who have shared their name with her?”
To his first sense of disappointment that the priest should escape him, succeeded a calmer, better feeling—that of gratitude that Kate should be no more harassed by these cares. Poor girl! had she not troubles enough to confront in life without the terror of a painful publicity! He read on: