"Yes, grandpapa."
Then she went to the piano, and played dreamily for a long time, seeing neither notes or music, but a tableau—Dennis O'Toole and Captain Egerton, while the words of the latter "I will not have Kate Vernon's foster brother, a drunkard," seemed to meet her eye, wherever she turned it, and brought the speaker too vividly before her. One of Egerton's most distinguishing characteristics was a chivalrous delicacy of feeling towards women, generally; Kate had often observed it, with silent, but profound approbation, and she could well imagine the tender consideration with which he would treat even a dog that had belonged to one he loved, and something whispered to her that she was this one—it was but very rarely that such a thought flashed across her mind. Yet although she felt that the course of probabilities held out little or no chance of their again meeting till the lapse of many years had fixed their destinies wide apart, still the conviction that she was loved and not forgotten, thrilled through her heart, with an ecstasy so exquisite, so strange that she shrunk from it, startled at the depths of her own nature, thus revealed, even while she thanked God that he had never become necessary to her happiness.
"No, there is much of joy in life for me, and much of peace, though, in all human probability, we shall never meet again. No, I do not love him, but I could, ah, heavens, yes, how much!"
And she lay down to sleep perfectly resigned that their lots in life should be cast widely separate; yet the vision conjured up by Denny's letter, of Egerton's evidently unaltered interest in all that concerned her, contributed largely to the dilation of heart with which she poured forth her prayers and thanksgivings to her "Father which is in heaven."
CHAPTER VIII.
AN ADVENTURE AND A SURPRISE.
Autumn was now rapidly merging into winter, the unbroken routine of Kate's life only lent swifter wings to time, for events like marked distances serve often but to show our tardy progress. Sometimes Langley would look in for half an hour's chat, and Galliard still more rarely; but though formerly so fond of society, their visits seemed now more than the Colonel wished for, or was equal to; and although she never permitted the dreadful thought to dwell on her mind, yet the consciousness that he was unusually silent, and averse to move, that his cheek had lost its firm, round, ruddy look; and that he often sent his dinner away untouched, would seize her, with a sense of anguish. Nurse, with love's quick perception, always stoutly denied that any thing ailed him.
"It 'ill do nayther iv thim any good to be thinkin that a way," she would say to herself. "Miss Kate the crayther, has enough to put up with, an' as to me poor darlin' masther, it 'ud take a better cordial than iver kem out iv a 'poticary's shop to do him any good."