"She was an old friend of my father's," Katherine replied; "and when my mother died, and he was sent to Siberia, she adopted me. I owe her a debt of gratitude that I can never repay; for, though she is perhaps a little peculiar in some things, she has been a very good and kind friend to me."
"And have you always been—well, shall we say—dependent on her?" asked Browne, with a little diffidence, for it was a delicate matter for a young man to touch upon with a proud and high-spirited girl.
"Oh no," Katherine replied. "You see, soon after my mother's death it was discovered by some one—I cannot remember who—that one of her brothers was dead, and that by his will I, as his sole heiress, inherited his money. From your point of view it would be nothing, but to me it meant a great deal. It was carefully invested, and it brings me in, in English money, just three hundred pounds a year. Of course we cannot do much with such a sum; but, as we have no expensive tastes, Madame Bernstein and I find that with it, and the sum I make by my painting, we are just able to make both ends meet."
On hearing this Browne pricked up his ears. This was putting a new complexion on the affair.
"Do you mean to say that Madame Bernstein has no income of her own, and that all these years she has been living upon you?"
"Yes. And why not? You cannot realise what a wonderful manager she is. I should not be able to do half as much with it if I had the sole control of my money."
"This is a matter which will have to be attended to in the near future," said Browne to himself. Then, aloud, he added, "Never mind, little woman; when you are my wife Madame shall retire in luxury. She shall not find us ungrateful, believe me. But continue your story. Or, I fancy, you had better let me finish it for you. You have told me that you have lived with Madame Bernstein, or rather, to be correct, that she has lived with you, for many years. You have travelled from place to place about Europe; for some reason or another you have had no fixed home; then you began to paint, and during the whole time you have denied yourself all sorts of things in order that Madame should live in the lap of luxury. Oh, don't dispute it, for I know what has happened as well as if I had been there to see. In the course of your peregrinations you went to Norway. There we met. Six months later you came to London, during which time I had been wondering whether I should ever see you again. Fate arranged that we should meet. I found you even more adorable than before, followed you to Paris, proposed and was accepted, and, like all pretty stories, ours must, and shall end with the music of wedding bells."
"Impossible," she answered. "From what I have already shown you, you must see that it could not be. Had my life been differently situated I should have been proud—you do not know how proud—to be your wife; but, as it is, it is quite out of the question. Some day you will see that yourself, and will thank me for having prevented you from spoiling your life by a foolish marriage."
Browne saw that she was in deadly earnest. He was about to argue the question with her, but the look upon her face stopped him. For the moment he was frightened in spite of himself, and could only stammer out, "I shall never see it."
"You must see it," she answered. "There is a task I have set for myself, which I must finish, come what may."