“How do you mean, I have found them so?” cried Mark, in amazement at the words.
“I mean what I have said, Mark, that betrayal and treachery have tracked you for many a day. You would not trust me with your secret, Mark, nor yet confide in me, when an accident left it in my possession. Chance has revealed to me many circumstances of your fortune, and even now, Mark, I am only fearful lest your own prejudices should hazard your safety. Shall I go on? May I speak still more plainly?”
Mark nodded, and she resumed—
“One who never favoured the cause you adopted, probably from the very confederates it necessitated—yet saw with sympathy how much truth and honour were involved in the struggle, has long watched over you—stretching out, unseen, the hand to help, and the shield to protect you. He saw in you the generous boldness of one whose courage supplies the nerve, that mere plotters trade upon, but never possess. He saw, that once in the current, you would be swept along, while they would watch you from the shore. He, I say, saw this, and with a generosity the greater, because no feelings of friendship swayed him, he came forward to save you.”
“And this unseen benefactor,” said Mark, with a proud look of scornful meaning, “his name is——”
“I will not speak it, if you ask me thus,” said Kate, blushing, for she read in his glance the imputation his heart was full of. “Could you so far divest yourself of prejudice as to hear calmly, and speak dispassionately, I could tell you anything—everything, Mark.”
“No, Kate, no,” said he, smiling dubiously; “I have no right to ask, perhaps not to accept of such a confidence.”
“Be it so, then,” said she, proudly, “we will speak of this no more; and with a slight bow, and a motion of her hand, she turned into another alley of the garden, and left Mark silently musing over the scene. Scarcely, however, had she screened herself from his view by the intervening trees, than she hastened her steps, and soon gained the house. Without stopping to take breath, she ascended the stairs, and tapped at Sir Archy's door.
“Come in, my sweet Kate,” said he, in his blandest voice, “I should know that gentle tap amid a thousand; but, my dear child, why so pale?—what has agitated you?—sit down and tell me.”
“Read this, sir,” said she, taking a letter from the folds of her handkerchief—“this well tell you all, shorter and more collectedly than I can. I want your advice and counsel, and quickly too, for no time is to be lost.