Springing to the window, half-hidden behind the rich lace curtain, she watched the tall, straight figure striding swiftly down the elm avenue.
Something—perhaps it was the red evening light shining on a waste of snow, or perhaps a tear—blurred the outlines of the fair winter landscape, and, sighing, she turned away.
“Poor and proud!” faltered in a soft undertone from her lips. “Why, he has nothing in the world but his profession, yet he talks to me like a prince royal, upbraids me with my coquetry, and leaves me with cold disdain! Ah, my haughty lover, did you but know”—then she started and bit her lip as if not even to solitude would she whisper the secret trembling on that coral portal.
“So the Minstrel’s Curse is like to be fulfilled again,” said a mocking voice behind her.
She turned with a start, the rosy color flooding cheek and throat, but it was only old Katharine, her nurse, who was almost a century old, and in her dotage.
There she sat, curled cozily behind the curtain that draped that odd little bay-window, and she had heard every word Guy Winthrop uttered.
Lady Edith paled with indignation.
“How came you there? How dared you listen?” she cried, and rushed away in a pet.
Old Katharine hobbled slowly after her mistress, and found her sobbing on her silken couch.
“Don’t cry, that’s a dearie,” she whispered, smoothing the silken curls with a tender hand. “Old Kathie didn’t mean to make her bairn angry. She only feared the curse would fall again. She hid herself in the window to see for herself, and she has seen—alas, alas!” the old creature moaned half deliriously, rocking her body to and fro.