“She's Mistress Robbie Teare and a dacent woman, sir,” said Cæsar, digging into the beef, “and that's all the truck a Christian church has got with it.”
Kate did not eat her dinner that day, and neither did she speak out as she had intended. A supernatural power seemed to have come down at the last moment and barred up the one remaining pathway of escape. She was in the track of the storm. The tempest was ready to fall on her. Where could she fly for shelter?
What her father had said of the girl had revealed her life to her in the light of her relation to Philip. The thought of the possible contingency which she had foreseen with so much joy, as so much power, had awakened the consciousness of her moral position. She was a fallen woman! What else was she? And if the contingency befell, what would become of her? In the intensity of her father's pietistic views the very shadow of shame would overwhelm his household, overthrow his sect, and uproot his religious pretensions. Kate trembled at the possibility of such a disaster coming through her. She saw herself being driven from house and home. Where could she fly? And though she fled away, would she not still be the cause of sorrow and disgrace to all whom she left behind—her mother, her father, Pete, everybody?
If she could only tear out the past, at least she could stop this marriage. Or if she had been a man she could stop it, for a man may sin and still look to the future with a firm face. But she was a woman, and a woman's acts may be her own, but their consequences are beyond her. Oh, the misery of being a woman! She asked herself what she could do, and there was no answer. She could not break the web of circumstances. Her situation might be false, it might be dishonourable, but there was no escape from it. There was no gleam of hope anywhere.
Late that night—Sunday night—they were sitting together in the kitchen, Kate in the fire-seat as usual, Pete on the stool by the turf closet, smoking up the chimney, Cæsar reading aloud, Grannie listening, and Nancy cooking the supper, when the porch door burst open and somebody entered. Kate rose to her feet with a startled cry of joy, looked round eagerly, and then sat down again covered with confusion.
It was the girl Christian Killip, a pale, weak, frightened creature, with the mouth and eyes of a hare.
“Is Mr. Quilliam here?” she asked.
“Here's the man himself, Christian,” said Grannie. “What do you want with him?”
“Oh, God bless you, sir,” said the girl to Pete, “God bless you for ever and ever.”
Then turning back to Grannie, she explained in woman's fashion, with many words, that somebody unknown had sent her twenty pounds, for the child, by post, the day before, and she had only now guessed who it must be when John the Clerk had told her what Pete had said a week before.