“Yes, I must leave her with Pete,” she thought.
She put the child back into the cradle, half dressed as it was, and rocked it until it slept again. Then she hung over the tiny bed as a mother hangs over the little coffin that is soon to be shut up from her eyes for ever. Her tears rained down on the small counterpane. “My sweet baby I my little Katherine! I may never kiss you again—never see you any more'—you may grow up to be a woman and know nothing of your mother!”
The clock ticked loud in the quiet room—it was twenty-five minutes past seven.
“One kiss more, my little darling. If they ever tell you... they'll say because your mother left you... Oh, will she think I did not love her? Hush!”
Through the walls of the house there came the sound of a band playing at a distance. She looked at the clock again—it was nearly half-past seven. Almost at the same moment there was the rumble of carriage-wheels on the road. They stopped in the lane that ran between the chapel and the end of the garden.
Kate rose from her knees and opened the door softly. The house had been as a dungeon to her, and she was flying from it like a prisoner escaping. A shrill whistle pierced the air. The Peveril was leaving the quay. Through the streets there was a sound as of water running over stones. It was the scuttling of the feet of the townspeople as they ran to meet the procession.
She stepped out. The garden was dark and quiet as a prison yard; Hardly a leaf stirred, but the moon was breaking through the old fir-tree as she lifted her troubled face to the untroubled sky. She stood and listened. The band was coming nearer. She could hear the thud of the big drum.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Pete was there. He was helping at Philip's triumph. That was the beat of his great heart made audible.
At this her own heart stopped for a moment. She grew chill at the thought of the brave man who asked no better lot than to love and cherish her, and at the memory of the other upon whose mercy she had cast herself. The band stopped. There was a noise like the breaking of a mighty rocket in the sky. The people were cheering and clapping hands. Then a clearer sound struck her ear. It was the clock inside the house chiming the half-hour.