“Can I dare I take your counsel?” cried she, in an accent of intense anxiety.
“Can you reject it, when refusal will be so bitter?”
Kate gave a slight shudder, as though that pang was greater than all the rest.
“There is fortunately no difficulty in the matter whatever,” said Jekyl, speaking rapidly. “You will, of course, have many things to purchase before you leave this. Well; take the carriage and your maid, and drive to the Ponte Vecchio. The last shop on the right-hand side of the bridge is 'Morlache's.' It is unpromising enough outside, but there is wealth within to subsidize a kingdom. I will be in waiting to receive you, and in a few minutes the whole will be concluded; and if you have your letter ready, you can enclose the sum, and post it at once.”
If there were many things in this arrangement which shocked Kate, and revolted against her sense of delicacy and propriety, there was one counterpoise more than enough to outweigh them all: she should be enabled to serve her father, she, who alone of all his children had never contributed, save by affection, to his comfort, should now materially assist him. She knew too well the sufferings and anxieties his straitened fortune cost him, she witnessed but too often the half-desperation in which he would pass days, borne down and almost broken-hearted! and she had witnessed that outbreak of joy he would indulge in when an unexpected help had suddenly lifted him from the depth of his poverty. To be the messenger of such good tidings to be associated in his mind with this assistance, to win his fervent “God bless you!” she would have put life itself in peril; and when Jekyl placed so palpably before her the promptitude with which the act could be accomplished, all hesitation ceased, and she promised to be punctual at the appointed place by three o'clock that same afternoon.
“It is too early to expect to see Lady Hester,” said Jekyl; “and indeed, my real business here this morning was with yourself, so that now I shall drive out to Midchekoff's and make all the arrangements about the villa. Till three, then, good-bye!”
“Good-bye,” said Kate, for the first time disposed to feel warmly to the little man, and half reproach herself with some of the prejudices she used to entertain regarding him.
Jekyl now took his way to the stables, and ordering a brougham to be got ready for him, sauntered into the house, and took his coffee while he waited.