Her deep voice had a passion in it, and her eyes flashed. "You, and all aristocrats, should be grateful to God."
Later in the day, Mordryn felt that it was fortunate that at this particular moment they had reached the gate of the far lodge, the opening of which broke the spell, of what he might have answered he did not feel altogether sure, so deeply had she affected him.
Mrs. Peterson was a good deal better, it seemed, and Katherine proposed to stay with her for half an hour—so she came out of the door and asked the Duke not to wait for her.
"Go back without me—I have been so happy—and please—do not talk to me any more to-day—and, oh! please, remember who you are and who I am, and leave me alone."
And to his intense surprise and sudden unhinging, her fearless glance was softened by a mist which might have presaged tears.
[CHAPTER XXVIII]
Mordryn spent a most unrestful day; he found it very difficult to settle to anything. He felt it wiser whenever his thoughts turned to Katherine Bush, immediately to picture Bindon's Green and the auctioneer father and butcher grandfather!—they acted as a kind of antidote to the very powerful intoxicant which was flooding his veins.
And Katherine sat typing mechanically her morning's work, but some third sense beyond eye and hand was busy with agitating thoughts. No, she could play no further game with the Duke, fate had beaten her. It would be no acting. She knew that she was just a woman, after all, and he was a man, and the Dukedom had gone into shadowland.