Katherine hesitated, smiled miserably, and left the room.
"Well, and how did you find the poor little chap?" were De Burgh's first words. "There's nothing wrong, I hope?—you look as white as a ghost, and your hand is quite cold;" placing his left on it, as it lay in his grasp. "The boys are well?"
"Yes, quite well, and reconciled with some difficulty to remain where they are," she returned, disengaging herself and sinking rather than sitting down into a corner of a sofa nearest her.
"Then what has upset you? I suppose," softening his voice, "the whole thing was too much for you."
"I daresay I excited myself more than I need have done, but I think my little Charlie is safe for the future."
"Do you know that it makes me half mad to see that look of distress in your eyes, to see the color fading out of your cheeks! Katherine, I can't hold my tongue any longer. I thought I was far gone when I used to count the days between my visits to Sandbourne; I am a good deal worse now that you have let me be a sort of chum! Life without you is something I don't care to face, I don't indeed! Why don't you make up your mind to take me for better for worse? I'll try to be all better; just think how happy we might be! Those boys should have the best training money or care could get; and, Katherine, I'm not a bad fellow! Now you know me better, you must feel that I should never be a bad fellow to you."
"You are a very good fellow, Lord de Burgh, that I quite believe; but (it pains me so much to say it) I really do not love you as I ought, and, unless I do love I dare not marry."
"Why not?—that is, if you don't love some other fellow. Will you tell me if any man stands in my way?"
"No, indeed, Lord de Burgh; who could I love?"
"That is impossible to say; however, your word is enough. If your heart is free, why not let me try to win it? and the opportunities afforded by matrimony are endless; you are the sort of woman who would be faithful to whatever you undertook, and when you saw me day by day living for you, and you only, you'd grow to love me! Just think of the boys running wild at Pont-y garvan in the holidays, and——By heaven, my head reels with such a dream of happiness."