He lifted her hand to his lips, but let it fall quickly again, for it felt like ice. She was looking straight before her, at the pale, yellow sunset, her dark eyes filled with a dusky fire, but her face as colourless as the snowy ground.
"Are you ill, Kate?" he said, in alarm; "have I distressed you? have I agitated you by my sudden coming?"
"You have agitated me," she replied. "My head is reeling. Don't talk to me any more. I want to be alone and to think."
They walked side by side the rest of the way in total silence. When they reached the house, Kate ran up to her own room at once, while Captain Danton came out into the hall to greet his old friend. The two men lounged out in the grounds, smoking before-dinner cigars, and Sir Ronald briefly stated the object of his return, and his late proposal to his daughter. Captain Danton listened silently and a little anxiously. He had known the Scottish baronet a long time; knew how wealthy he was, and how passionately he loved his daughter; but for all that he had an instinctive feeling that Kate would not be happy with him.
"She has given you no reply, then?" he said, when Sir Ronald had finished.
"None, as yet; but she will shortly. Should that reply be favourable, Captain Danton, yours, I trust, will be favourable also?"
He spoke rather haughtily, and a flush deepened the florid hue of the Captain's face.
"My daughter shall please herself. If she thinks she can be happy as your wife, I have nothing to say. You spoke of Reginald Stanford a moment ago; do you know anything of his doings since he left Canada?"
"Very little. He has sold his commission, and quitted the army—some say, quitted England. His family, you know, have cast him off for his dishonourable conduct."
"I know—I received a letter from Stanford Royals some months ago, in which his father expressed his strong regret, and his disapproval of his son's conduct."