‘Shall I send for Mr. Glastonbury?’ said Katherine.
‘Not if my arm be not too heavy for you,’ said Ferdinand. So they walked slowly on, perhaps some fifty yards, until they arrived at a garden-seat, very near the rose-tree whose flowers Henrietta Temple so much admired. It had no flowers now, but seemed as desolate as their unhappy loves.
‘A moment’s rest,’ said Ferdinand, and sighed. ‘Dear Kate, I wish to speak to you.’
Miss Grandison turned pale.
‘I have something on my mind, Katherine, of which I would endeavour to relieve myself.’
Miss Grandison did not reply, but she trembled. ‘It concerns you, Katherine.’
Still she was silent, and expressed no astonishment at this strange address.
‘If I were anything now but an object of pity, a miserable and broken-hearted man,’ continued Ferdinand, ‘I might shrink from this communication; I might delegate to another this office, humiliating as it then might be to me, painful as it must, under any circumstances, be to you. But,’ and here his voice faltered, ‘but I am far beyond the power of any mortification now. The world and the world’s ways touch me no more. There is a duty to fulfil; I will fulfil it. I have offended against you, my sweet and gentle cousin; grievously, bitterly, infamously offended.’