"I insist upon your giving me that letter, Cyril," she said in her discordant voice. Katharine struck down her hand fiercely. Her numbness was giving way to a kind of passionate frenzy.
"Leave it alone, Aunt Esther!" she cried vehemently. "It is no business of yours; you don't understand; nobody understands. I have made Ted take his life. I am going to him now."
The last sentence was the only one that reached Miss Esther's comprehension; she at once took up her usual attitude of disapproval.
"Indeed, Katharine, you will do nothing of the kind," she exclaimed querulously. "What are we coming to next, I wonder? I sincerely trust, Cyril, that you will point out to your daughter that it is quite impossible for her to visit a young man in his chambers. I really wish that tiresome young Edward would emigrate, or marry, or do something that would put him out of the way. What has he been doing now, I wonder?"
Katharine paid no heed; her eyes were fixed feverishly on her father's face.
"Ted is ill, and he wants me. You will let me go, daddy, won't you?" she said imploringly.
"I beg you to assert your authority, Cyril, by forbidding such a mad piece of folly," cried the shrill tones of Miss Esther. Katharine turned upon her furiously.
"You, what can you know about it? You have never known what it is to want to protect some one; you don't know the awful emptiness of having no one to care for. Daddy! you understand, don't you? I may go, mayn't I?"
The Rector glanced from one to the other. He had not put on his glasses, but he did not seem to want them just then. Slowly the tyranny of twenty years was losing its terrors for him; he even forgot to laugh nervously as the two women stood awaiting his answer; and although there was a smile on his face as he looked at them, it had only been called there by a reflection on his folly in the past. He marvelled at himself, as his eyes rested on the glowing features of his daughter, for ever having hesitated to support her.
"The child is in the right, Esther," he said, mildly. "I—I am fond of the dear boy myself, and he must not be left in the hour of his need. We will go together, eh, Kitty?"