‘Not mean any harm! But you thought my child—my Ombra—had run away!’
‘Oh! forgive me,’ said Kate. ‘I know now how absurd it was; but—I thought—she might be—in love. People do it—at least in books. Don’t be angry with me, auntie. I thought so because of your face. Then what is the matter? Oh! do tell me; no one shall ever know from me.’
Mrs. Anderson was worn out. She suffered Kate’s supporting arm to steal round her. She leant her head upon the girl’s shoulder.
‘I can’t tell you, dear,’ she said, with a sob. ‘She has mistaken her feelings; she is—very unhappy. You must be very, very kind and good to her, and never let her see you know anything. Oh! Kate, my darling is very unhappy. She thinks she has broken her heart.’
‘Then I know!’ cried Kate, stamping her foot upon the gravel, and feeling as Mr. Sugden did. ‘Oh! I will go after them and bring them back! It is their fault.’
CHAPTER XXII.
Mrs. Anderson awaited her daughter’s awakening next morning with an anxiety which was indescribable. She wondered even at the deep sleep into which Ombra fell after the agitation of the night—wondered, not because it was new or unexpected, but with that wonder which moves the elder mind at the sight of youth in all its vagaries, capable of such wild emotion at one moment, sinking into profound repose at another. But, after all, Ombra had been for some time awake, ere her watchful mother observed. When Mrs. Anderson looked at her, she was lying with her mouth closely shut and her eyes open, gazing fixedly at the light, pale as the morning itself, which was misty, and rainy, and wan, after the brightness of last night. Her look was so fixed and her lips so firmly shut, that her mother grew alarmed.
‘Ombra!’ she said softly—‘Ombra, my darling, my poor child!’
Ombra turned round sharply, fixing her eyes now on her mother’s face as she had fixed them on the light.