"Why, you are grown-up, and ever so much older than I am. I was nine last week, you know, but of course you are a girl—a lady, I mean—and you couldn't go by yourself, could you?"
"Not very well, Ralph; but I think somebody might be found to take care of me," replied Kathleen. "Only I must not ride for all that."
"I see," said Ralph, gravely. "You have no father like I have. Father has taken such care of me, and shown me how to ride so well, that now I'm not a bit afraid. I could almost take care of you. Anyway, father would, I'm certain, for he says I want scarcely any looking after. You would look after Miss Mountford, would you not?" said Ralph, turning his bright eyes from Kathleen's face to his father's. Then he added, "Wouldn't it be just lovely for us three to go together?"
"Quite too lovely," replied the captain, as he gave his boy's curly head a pat. "Bravo, Ralph! You know how to contrive matters. I should be glad indeed if I were privileged to take care of Miss Mountford. I hope she knows that I would shield her from harm at the cost of my life."
The speaker did not look at the boy, but at Kathleen, as he answered the questions. The last sentence reached her ears only, and her face was all aglow in an instant, for the captain's look was more eloquent than were his words.
It was well that at this instant the huntsman's horn gave the signal for starting. Ralph was far too eager to disobey it, and, with a farewell salute to Kathleen and a laughing glance at the high-spirited lad who was already in advance of him, the captain joined the gay cavalcade on the way to Helmer Wood.
Kathleen bent from the carriage window, and watched until the gay procession was lost in the wood-then the order was given to Mountain to turn his horses homeward.
Kathleen lay back in the carriage seemingly lost in thought. The sky might keep its blue or become cloudy, the sun might shine, and leaf and berry glow with bravest colouring, but all were lost upon her now. Still, her thoughts must have been pleasant ones, for now and then a smile flitted across her face, and it kept the colour summoned to it by the questions of Ralph and the responses of his father.
Mrs. Ellicott was thoroughly annoyed. She strongly disliked Captain Torrance, or rather the character of the man, and she was not a little afraid of him. Who could look at his handsome face and perfect turn-out, and hear his well-turned compliments, without dreading the effect of them on a girl like Kathleen?
It was said of the captain that he gave way to outbursts of passion, and that he was overbearing and tyrannical to a degree, where servants and dependants were concerned. That to such his speech was coarse, and often profane. That the boy, so like him in person, resembled him also in his faults, and that both were on the high-road to ruin.