'But you would be a great deal to us if you did marry, Catherine!' cried Mrs. Leyburn, almost with an accent of pettishness. 'People have to do without their daughters. There's Agnes—I often think, as it is, you might let her do more. And if Rose were troublesome, why, you know it might be a good thing—a very good thing—if there were a man to take her in hand!'
'And you, mother, without me?' cried poor Catherine, choked.
'Oh, I should come and see you,' said Mrs. Leyburn, brightening. 'They say it is such a nice house, Catherine, and such pretty country; and I'm sure I should like his mother, though she is Irish!'
It was the bitterest moment of Catherine Leyburn's life. In it the heroic dream of years broke down. Nay, the shrivelling ironic touch of circumstance laid upon it made it look even in her own eyes almost ridiculous. What had she been living for, praying for, all these years? She threw herself down by the widow's side, her face working with a passion that terrified Mrs. Leyburn.
'Oh, mother, say you would miss me—say you would miss me if I went!'
Then Mrs. Leyburn herself broke down, and the two women clung to each other, weeping. Catherine's sore heart was soothed a little by her mother's tears, and by the broken words of endearment that were lavished on her. But through it all she felt that the excited imaginative desire in Mrs. Leyburn still persisted. It was the cheapening—the vulgarising, so to speak, of her whole existence.
In the course of their long embrace Mrs. Leyburn let fall various items of news that showed Catherine very plainly who had been at work upon her mother, and one of which startled her.
'He comes back to-night, my dear—and he goes on Saturday. Oh, and, Catherine, Mrs. Thornburgh says he does care so much. Poor young man!'
And Mrs. Leyburn looked up at her now standing daughter with eyes as woe-begone for Elsmere as for herself.