Chapter Thirteen.
The Real Sacrifice.
Major Clare sat by the fire in his brother’s study at the Vicarage, smoking a cigar, and reflecting on the course of events. He had gone from home with a half intention of delaying that course of events, and he had returned with another half intention of precipitating it.
With much affection on both sides, he was getting tired of his stay at the Vicarage, and his brother’s family were perhaps beginning to feel that they had suited all their arrangements to him for a long enough time.
“It would be such a good thing for Robert to marry and settle,” and Robert himself thought so too. It was many a long year since that great unsettlement had come to him when things had gone wrong with his first hopes, and he could not have the girl he wanted. He had tried to fall in love several times since, and he was trying now, moved certainly by Kate’s fair fortune, and yet not quite mercenary enough to be indifferent to the want of spontaneous pleasure in his wooing. If either face could have recalled to him that never-forgotten one, it would not have been Kate’s. He had idly wished that the cousins would change places in the beginning of their acquaintance, but he could not allow himself to wish it now; and had indeed fully made up his mind to the piece of good fortune that seemed to have fallen at his feet—only, he was not in a hurry to secure it. Nevertheless it was dull, and he should like to see Kate blush and brighten at the sight of him.
So he discovered that Minnie wanted to go up to Kingsworth, and prepared to escort her thither.
Walter Kingsworth meanwhile had been seized with a fit of compunction and alarm, at the idea he had suggested to the unprepared mind of his cousin; the lawyer and the man of business awoke within him, as he reflected on the responsibility he had incurred in driving to a hasty resolution a girl so inexperienced as Kate.
He reflected on this, it is to be feared, all through the afternoon service to which he accompanied his cousins, and afterwards as they walked along the road till their ways divided, he caught a chance of saying,—
“Miss Kingsworth, you must not suppose I meant to say that any special line of conduct is incumbent on you. So imperfectly knowing the circumstances, how can I judge?”