“Not a stiver—this long while past. He lives in India, and writing to ask him does no good. And he is the only relative left to me in the world.”
“Except papa.”
Edgar Reste lifted his eyebrows. “Your father is not my relative, young lady. His late wife was my aunt; my father’s sister.”
“Did your father leave you no money, when he died?”
“Not any. He was a clergyman with a good benefice, but he lived up to his income and did not save anything. No, I have only myself to lean on. Don’t know whether it will turn out to be a broken reed.”
“If I could only help you!” breathed Katrine.
“You are helping me more than I can say,” he answered, impulsively. “When with you I have a feeling of rest—of peace. And that’s what I want.”
Which avowal brought a hot blush again to Miss Katrine’s cheek and a curious thrill somewhere round about her heart.
Time went on. Before much of it had elapsed, they were in love with one another for ever and for ever, with that first love that comes but once in a lifetime. That is, in secret; it was not betrayed or spoken of by either of them, or intended to be. Mr. Reste, Barrister-at-law (and briefless), could as soon have entertained thoughts of setting up a coach-and-four, as of setting up a wife. He had not a ghost of the means necessary at present, he saw not the smallest chance yet of attaining them. Years and years and years might go by before that desirable pinnacle in the social race was reached; and it might never be reached at all. It would be the height of dishonour, as he considered, to persuade Katrine Barbary into an engagement, which might never be fulfilled. How could he condemn her to wear out her heart and her life and her days in loneliness, sighing for him, never seeing him—he at one end of the world, she at the other? for that’s how, lover-like, he estimated the distance between this and the metropolis. So he never let a word of his love escape him, and he guarded his looks, and treated Katrine as his little cousin.