“Ah! don’t you remember that in answer to my harsh question—harsh Kate, because I was still in blindness—you answered—‘Patience, patience, patience; indeed I will not trouble you, love—I will go away; maybe God will let me die.’”
“Did I really use those words?”
“Yes, and with such a look of hopeless resignation! I thought that I had lost you, Kate. I thought that you were dead or mad, or at least had been driven from me, for you said so earnestly, ‘I will go away?.’”
“Did I say that? I do not remember. But I suppose I meant that I would go home. And, oh! do you think—
“Think what, dear Kate?”
She paused, and her face flushed. She had been about to say, “Do you think that anything but your own will would have driven me from you?” But her old shyness returned upon her stronger than ever.
He understood her, and told her so by the tightening pressure of his arm.
“And, dear Kate, we could hear of you nowhere. You were long in returning, Catherine.”
“Yes, when I started I was still very unequal to the return journey, I had weakened myself, and was obliged to ride slowly. And then I lost my way coming back—that was how you missed me.”
“And does my Kate know that I know now how deeply she has been wronged, and how nobly she has borne those wrongs—returning always good for evil. And can she guess the remorse and sorrow of heart that hurried on this fit of illness?” Then suddenly overcome with emotion, he exclaimed: “Oh, my God, Catherine! can you imagine how I suffered?”