“I—I don’t think I wish to leave England,” she said, hesitatingly, and with the earnest far-off look in her eyes that he had seen before.
“Well, well, we will find some secluded place by the lakes, where we are not likely to be found out, and where the birds will sing to you. And, here’s a happy thought, Kate, my child—you shall have some fellow prisoners.”
“Companions?” she said, eagerly.
“Yes, companions,” he replied, with a smile; “but I meant birds—canaries, larks—what do you say to doves? They make charming pets.”
“No, no,” she said, hastily; “don’t do that, Mr Garstang. One prisoner is enough.”
He bowed his head.
“You have only to express your wishes, my child,” he said.—“Then you are going to try and drive away the clouds?”
“Oh, yes, I am going to be quite patient,” she said, smiling at him; and she placed her hands in his.
“Thank you,” he said, gently; and for the first time he drew her nearer to him, and bent down to kiss her forehead—the slightest touch—and then dropped her hands, to turn away with a sigh.
And the days wore on, with the prisoner fighting hard with self, to be contented with her lot. She practiced hard at the piano, and studied up the crabbed Gothic letters of the German works in one of the cases. Now and then, too, she sang about the great, gloomy house, but mostly to stop hurriedly on finding that she had listeners, attracted from the lower regions.