“I think I’ll walk round that way and see it,” said Walter Kingsworth with an odd sort of interest. And having parted from Mr Clare, he took his way round the point that divided the village from the tiny cove above which Kingsworth house was built.
The tide was low, and there was a wide expanse of sand between him and the rippling sunlit waves, indeed it was only in very high tides that the water covered the rocks at all, and in the cove there was generally a strip of white sand, warm and bright in the sunshine, while the grass stretched away towards the house above. The air was soft and pleasant; great woolly clouds floated over the sky and cast long shadows on the down and on the sand. Walter Kingsworth, musing on the wild story of past sin and sorrow with which the place was connected, positively started as he saw Katharine tripping down the narrow pathway that led into the cove. She looked wonderfully fresh and full of life, with her brightly coloured hair and cheeks, and the gay smile with which she came forward to greet him.
Walter was a person whose ideas were apt to be absorbing, and he could hardly free himself from the strong impression that was on him. No words about the ball or his intended call came into his head, and he said abruptly,—
“Are you fond of this place, Miss Kingsworth,—this cove I mean?” he added.
“I don’t know,” said Kate. “I think I am rather fond of coming here. I like the sea. I never saw it till we came to Kingsworth,—but I like to look out far away, and see it glitter.”
“I suppose most people like the sea,” said Walter.
“Do they? My mother does not. She never walks on the shore. But then—well, you are my cousin, are you not? I suppose it would not be wrong to talk to you about anything belonging to the family, would it?” Katharine spoke abruptly and eagerly. And Walter replied warmly,—
“Indeed I am proud to be your cousin, and you may talk quite safely to me.”
This eager, round-eyed girl, with her sweet voice and abrupt manner gave him quite a new sensation.
Katharine stood a little apart from him, making holes with her parasol in the sand. “When we lived at Applehurst,” she said, “I never used to think about anything except how dull it was. But since we came here—I feel puzzled. Emberance doesn’t like to talk about the family. But it was here, wasn’t it—that my father and hers were drowned?”