Kathleen followed him out of the breakfast room this morning. Lord Gowerhurst was not yet risen and Mr. Coombe had expanded under the influence of His Lordship's absence. Mr. Coombe was telling stories of high finance. That his stories were interminably long and without any point and of no particular interest, did not matter. Coombe was a sound man, Sir Josiah honoured him, Cutler and Jobson admired him. Sir Harold Scarsdale took no notice of him, so was not bored by his stories. Scarsdale was thinking naturally of Kathleen. He thought of little else, her manner troubled him. He could not, frankly he could not understand her. She was smilingly polite, courteous and considerate, she was friendly and sweet to him, and it made him realise that he represented nothing at all to her. But she was playing a part, and playing it well, he argued with himself. A woman, and a woman like Kathleen, could not apparently without effort or sense of loss tear out an image that has been enshrined in her heart for ten long years. It puzzled him, worried him, even angered him, but he told himself he must be patient. His was now the waiting game, and he believed that he had but to wait long enough and all that he desired on this earth would be his.
So Kathleen followed Allan out into the wide hall and found his cap and selected his stick for him and did just those little things that a tender, thoughtful, loving woman always does and meanwhile she looked at him with a strange wistfulness, a curious pleading in her eyes, eyes that told of a hunger and longing in her soul. But he, man-like, was blind to it, yet not insensible of her goodness and her thought for him.
To-day she felt a strange unwillingness to let him go, she did what she had never done before. She slipped her hand through his arm and walked with him down the wide pathway to the gate, the sunshine in her hair and on her face. Sir Josiah, bored by Coombe's unending story, yet too polite to shew it, watched them from the window, a smile on his face. It was good to see them like this—such friends, such comrades!
She wanted to tell him—not of Scarsdale, for that had sunk into insignificance now—now that there was something so much greater, so much more wonderful for him to know. But not yet, not yet—not out here in the sunshine with perhaps someone watching them from the window. Presently—presently when they should be quite alone!
So at the gate she paused, she looked at him.
"And once I thought I loved—Harold!" she thought. "Once I thought so and now I know—I love——"
"Don't you want me to go out this morning, dear?"
"Oh, yes, yes, you're going to old Custance to talk——"
"No, I'm going to the Moat Farm to see Patcham, it's time I called on him. But if you would rather I stayed——
"No!" she said. "Go! Good-bye, Allan!" she added softly.