‘I do not know that I ought to do so, but I promised her mother,’ said the Curate, sternly. ‘Good morning, Mr. Hardwick. I hope you will act at once on what you have heard.’
‘Won’t you shake hands?’ said Bertie.
The Curate was deeply prejudiced against him—hated him in his levity and carelessness, amusing himself while she was suffering. But when he looked into Bertie’s face, his enmity melted. Was this the man who had done her—and him—so much wrong? He put out his hand with reluctance, moved against his will.
‘Do you deserve it?’ he said, in his deep voice.
‘Yes—so far as honesty goes,’ said the young man, with a broken, agitated laugh.
The Curate went away, wondering and unhappy. Was he so guilty, that open-faced youth, who seemed yet too near boyhood to be an accomplished deceiver?—or was there still more in the mystery than met the eye?
This was how Kate got no news. She looked for it for many a day. As the Summer ripened and went on, a hungry thirst for information of one kind or another possessed her. Her aunt’s birthday letter had been a few tender words only—words which were humble, too, and sad. ‘Poor Ombra,’ she had said, ‘was pretty well.’ Poor Ombra!—why poor Ombra? Kate asked herself the question with sudden fits of anxiety, which she could not explain to herself; and she began to watch for the post with almost feverish eagerness. But the suspense lasted so long, that the keenness of the edge wore off again, and no news ever came.
In July, however, Lady Caryisfort came, having lingered on her way from Italy till it became too late to keep the engagement she had made with Mr. Courtenay for Kate’s first season in town. She was so kind as to go to Langton-Courtenay instead, on what she called a long visit.
‘Your uncle has to find out, like other people, that he will only find aid ready made to his hand when he doesn’t want it,’ she said—‘that is the moment when everything becomes easy. I might have been of use to him, I know, two months ago, and accordingly my private affairs detained me, and it is only now, you see, that I am here.’
‘I don’t see why you should have hurried for my uncle,’ said Kate; ‘he has never come to see me, though he has promised twenty times. But you are welcome always, whenever you please.’