“But I cannot forget it, though you may, Kate,” he said, in a voice which was so full of feeling that Kate’s curiosity was vividly awakened: (I never thought he would have felt anything so much, she said to herself, flattered and wondering; and rather anxious to know how far this unlooked-for sentiment would carry him). “Kate, we can’t go on just being friends. If you knew what I have suffered to see you belonging to another man! I have not a word to say against him. No, I hate him for your sake; but there is not a word to be said against him. The only thing I wonder is, how a fellow so honourable and high-minded should have asked you when he knew he had nothing to offer you. It would have been more like John Mitford to have broken his heart and held his peace.”
A strange little cry came from Kate’s lips. “Oh!” she said, with a startled look in his face, “how strange that you should be trying to undermine him, and yet know him so well as that!”
“I am not trying to undermine him; I believe in my heart that I would rather the one of us had you who could make you the happiest. It sounds strange, but it is true. If I grant that he loves you as well as I do, would not that be allowing a great deal? but, Kate, think what a change it would be for you; and he would not know so well as I should how to make you happy,” Fred added, bending over her, and pressing close to him the hand which still rested on his arm. It was wrong of Kate not to have withdrawn her hand from his arm. She tried to do it now, but it was held fast, and a piteous prayer made to her not to go from him as if she were angry. “You don’t dislike me for your friend,” Fred pleaded, “and why should you be angry because I cannot help loving you beyond friendship?—is it my fault?”
“Oh, please, don’t talk like this,” cried Kate, in her distress. “I am not angry. I don’t want to be unkind. I want you to be my friend still. This is only a passing fancy. It will go away, and we shall be just as we were. But it is wrong, when you know I am engaged to him, to try to turn me against John.”
“It would be if you were married to him,” said Fred; “but, Kate, because I love you, must I be blind to what is best for you? He is not like you, neither am I like you; we are neither of us worthy to kiss the hem of your dress——”
“Nonsense!” cried Kate, vigorously, almost freeing herself; for this was so much out of Fred’s way, that it moved her in the midst of so grave a situation almost to the point of laughter.
“It is not nonsense; I know what you think. You think it is the sort of thing that lovers say, and that I don’t mean it; but I do mean it. We are neither of us good enough; but I understand you best, Kate—yes, don’t deny it. I know you best, and your ways. I should not tease you. I should not ask too much. And with me you would have the life you are used to. With him you don’t know what kind of life you may have, and neither does he. Kate, there are women who could bear that sort of thing, but not you.”
“Mr Huntley, I cannot discuss it with you,” said Kate, half in despair; “pray, pray, let me go!”
“You are angry,” he said—“angry with me who have known you all your life, because you have found out I love you too well.”
“I am not angry,” she cried; “but oh, please, let me go. You know I ought not to stand here and listen to you. Should you like it if you were him? Oh, let me go!”