He paused a moment, and stole a glance at her. Kate sat motionless and still, her lips compressed and her eyes hidden by their long lashes, her gaze fixed apparently on the fire. Save that her face was slightly flushed, and that she breathed quickly, he might have fancied that she did not understand, or even that she had not heard. When he spoke again, after waiting anxiously and vainly for any sign, his voice was husky and agitated. “Will you tell me, Miss Bonamy, what he should do?” he said. “Should he ask her to forgive him and to trust him, or should he go away and be silent?”
She did not speak.
“Kate, will you not tell me? Can I not hope to be forgiven?” He was stooping beside her now, and his hand almost touched her hair.
Then, at last, she looked up at him. “Will not my advice come a little late?” she whispered tremulously and yet with a smile—a smile which was at once bright and tearful and eloquent beyond words.
Afterward she thought of a dozen things she should have said to him—about his certainty of himself, about her father; but at the time none of these occurred to her. If he had come to her with his hands full, it would certainly have been otherwise. But she saw him poor through his own act, and her pride left her. When he took her in his arms and kissed her, she said not a word. And he said only, “My darling!”
* * * * *
The rich can afford to be niggardly. Lindo did not stay long, the question he had to put once answered, his claim to happiness once allowed. When Mr. Bonamy came in half an hour later, he found Kate alone. There was an austere elation in his eye which for a moment led her to think that he had heard her news. His first words, however, dispelled the idea. “I have just seen Lord Dynmore,” he said, taking his coat-skirts on his arms and speaking with a geniality which showed that he was moved out of his every-day self. “He has—he has considerably surprised me.”
“Indeed?” said Kate, blushing and conscious, half-attentive and half given up to thinking how she should tell her own tale.
“Yes. He has very much surprised me. He has asked me to undertake the agency of his property in this part of the country.”
Kate dropped her sewing in genuine surprise “No?” she said. “Has he, indeed?”