She put me from her sharply. “You do not love your friend,” says she. “I could be so happy too, if you would let me!” And then, “O, what will I have done that you should hate me so?”
“Hate you!” cries I, and held her firm. “You blind lass, can you not see a little in my wretched heart? Do you think when I sit there, reading in that fool-book that I have just burned, and be damned to it, I take ever the least thought of any stricken thing but just yourself? Night after night I could have grat to see you sitting there your lone. And what was I to do? You are here under my honour; would you punish me for that? Is it for that that you would spurn a loving servant?”
At the word, with a small, sudden motion, she clung near to me. I raised her face to mine, I kissed it, and she bowed her brow upon my bosom, clasping me tight. I sat in a mere whirl, like a man drunken. Then I heard her voice sound very small and muffled in my clothes.
“Did you kiss her truly?” she asked.
There went through me so great a heave of surprise that I was all shook with it.
“Miss Grant!” I cried, all in a disorder. “Yes, I asked her to kiss me good-bye, the which she did.”
“Ah, well!” said she, “you have kissed me too, at all events.”
At the strangeness and sweetness of that word I saw where we had fallen; rose, and set her on her feet.
“This will never do,” said I. “This will never, never do. O, Catrine, Catrine!” Then there came a pause in which I was debarred from any speaking. And then, “Go away to your bed,” said I. “Go away to your bed and leave me.”
She turned to obey me like a little child, and the next I knew of it had stopped in the very doorway.