“Did—did Uncle James make friends with papa before they were drowned?” she faltered.
“No one can tell,” said Mrs Kingsworth, solemnly. “They went out in the foggy evening, and in the morning they were found at the foot of the rocks,—together. We must live, Kate, under the shadow of that awful doubt. But if the sense of sharing the sin were gone, that I could bear.”
“Mamma, mamma, oh, what can it mean? Oh, I cannot bear,—I cannot bear—”
She started up to run out of the room, but the shock and the horror were too much for her. She turned helpless and dizzy, and fell half-fainting into her mother’s arms. Mrs Kingsworth was startled into a sudden sense of the present. She called for help, took Kate to her room, and tended her carefully till she was better.
“My poor child,” she said with unusual gentleness, “I did not mean to startle you so much. I forgot the newness of it.”
But Kate turned away from her and hid her face. “Let me alone, mamma,” was all she said, “let me alone.”
Mrs Kingsworth turned away and left the room. She experienced the sort of relief that follows on having reached a long-dreaded crisis. The point in her life had come, and as is often the case, neither of the alternatives which she had expected had taken place. Kate had not shown herself careless and indifferent, nor had she seen at once what Mrs Kingsworth thought of supreme importance, her own share in the responsibility. Would she take refuge in perverse disbelief?
Poor Katharine was hardly conscious of distinct thoughts at all. The horrible tragedy at which her mother had hinted shocked and terrified her. How fearful an ending to the two lives. Under the suspicion of this more terrible crime she could not realise any responsibility for her father’s wrong-doing. The puzzles of her life were all explained now. Her girlhood had passed as in an enchanted sleep, shut in from cares and interests and responsibilities. Now she awoke with the sudden shock, the spell of her unthinking childhood was rudely broken, and the real Katharine came, as it were, to life.
She did not feel her inheritance a burden, nor think herself, at least in those first moments, responsible for her father’s sin. She did not think of ridding herself of her ill-gotten riches, but as the first shock subsided a little it did occur to her that Emberance was wronged. “It ought to be hers,” she said vaguely to herself, and then the thought was swept away by a sense of anger with her mother, “who was so sure papa had been wicked—who did not care if people knew it—oh, did Major Clare know it?” Kate hid her face in her hands and sobbed aloud.