As he reached the middle of the market-place he heard his name spoken, and, turning at the sound, saw her to his surprise coming toward him from the entrance of the inn. He went back a few steps to meet her. She was very pale still, and there was a pride which was almost aggressive in her attitude as she stood still on the slippery trodden stones and faced him.
“Pray do not come back to me,” she said coldly. “I can have all I need here till my woman can join me. But there is something I ought to tell you, and I ought also to thank you for all your good nature and courtesy.”
She paused a moment whilst he looked at her in silence and surprise. She was evidently speaking under the influence of some strong and personal feeling.
“It is to Vale Royal that I am going,” she added with a visible effort. “I am Katherine Massarene.”
The blood leapt up into Hurstmanceaux’s face; he was dumb with amazement and regret; he forgot utterly that he was standing bareheaded in a snowy sloppy market-place with a dozen yokels staring and grinning about the gates of the inn yard. He drew a very long breath. “I beg your pardon,” he said gravely and with great humility. “I am shocked——”
“You have no need to be so,” she replied, “I quite agreed with your views. But I cannot alter my father, nor you your world.”
She stroked the uplifted head of Ossian and turned to go back to the door of the Bell Inn. He strode after her and reached her side.
“I am extremely sorry,” he murmured. “I am shocked at my gross indiscretion. I cannot look for your forgiveness. But pray do let me beg of you to take off those pretty velvet boots at once, and let the woman rub your feet with spirits of some sort, failing eau de Cologne. I wish I had thought to take your dressing-bag from your woman.”
“Thanks.”
She looked at him a moment as she said the word, and he thought there were tears in her large serious eyes. Then she went inside the old posting-house and he saw her no more.