“Yes,” said Sylvia, “that I will. And, Katie, would it be wrong just to whisper a little prayer then that you might be good and happy?”
“It couldn’t be wrong, Sylvia; only couldn’t you just ask, too, for me to come home?”
“I don’t know,” said Sylvia thoughtfully, pausing a long time on the step. “You see we know it is sure to be God’s will that you should be good and happy; but if it was not for you to come home, we might be like Balaam, you know, if we asked it too much, and it might come about in some terrible way.”
“I didn’t think of that,” said Kate. And the two little girls parted gravely and peacefully; Kate somehow feeling as if, though grievous things were before her, the good little kind Sylvia’s hearty prayers must obtain some good for her.
There is no use in telling how sad the parting was when Mr. Wardour and the little Countess set out for London again. Mary had begged hard to go too, thinking that she could plead for Kate better than anyone else; but Mr. Wardour thought Lady Barbara more likely to be angered than softened by their clinging to their former charge; and besides, it was too great an expense.
He had no doubt of Lady Barbara’s displeasure from the tone of the note that morning received, coldly thanking him and Miss Wardour for their intelligence, and his promise to restore Lady Caergwent on Tuesday. She was sorry to trouble him to bring the child back; she would have come herself, but that her sister was exceedingly unwell, from the alarm coming at a time of great family affliction. If Lady Caergwent were not able to return on Tuesday, she would send down her own maid to bring her home on Wednesday. The letter was civility itself; but it was plain that Lady Barbara thought Kate’s illness no better than the “previous engagement,” in the note that never was written.
What was the family affliction? Kate could not guess, but was inclined to imagine privately that Aunt Barbara was magnifying Uncle Giles’s return without being a General into a family affliction, on purpose to aggravate her offence. However, in the train, Mr. Wardour, who had been looking at the Supplement of the Times, lent to him by a fellow-traveller, touched her, and made her read—
“On the 11th, at Alexandria, in his 23rd year, Lieutenant Giles de la Poer Umfraville, of the 109th regiment; eldest, and last survivor of the children of the Honourable Giles Umfraville, late Lieutenant-Colonel of the 109th regiment.”
Kate knew she ought to be very sorry, and greatly pity the bereaved father and mother; but, somehow, she could not help dwelling most upon the certainty that everyone would be much more hard upon her, and cast up this trouble to her, as if she had known of it, and run away on purpose to make it worse. It must have been this that they were talking about in Aunt Jane’s room, and this must have made them so slow to detect her flight.
In due time the train arrived, a cab was taken, and Kate, beginning to tremble with fright, sat by Mr. Wardour, and held his coat as if clinging to him as long as she could was a comfort. Sometimes she wished the cab would go faster, so that it might be over; sometimes—especially when the streets became only too well known to her—she wished that they would stretch out and out for ever, that she might still be sitting by Papa, holding his coat. It seemed as if that would be happiness enough for life!