"Not in so many words, perhaps; but I said enough to show you."
"O!" said Kate, "such a matter was too serious for hints and innuendoes; if you wanted me to jilt my old servant and wed an acquaintance of yesterday, why not say so plainly? I dare say I should have obeyed you, and been unhappy for life; but now my honor is solemnly engaged; my faith is plighted; and were even you to urge me to break faith, and behave dishonorably, I should resist. I would liever take poison, and die."
Father Francis looked at her steadily, and she colored to the brow.
"You are a very apt young lady," said he; "you have outwitted your director. That may be my fault as much as yours; so I advise you to provide yourself with another director, whom you will be unable, or unwilling, to outwit."
Kate's high spirit fell before this: she turned her eyes, full of tears, on him. "O, do not desert me, now that I shall need you more than ever, to guide me in my new duties. Forgive me; I did not know my own heart—quite. I'll go into a convent now, if I must; but I can't marry any man but poor Griffith. Ah, father, he is more generous than any of us! Would you believe it? when he thought Bolton and Hernshaw were coming to him, he said if I married him I should have the money to build a convent with. He knows how fond I am of a convent."
"He was jesting; his religion would not allow it."
"His religion!" cried Kate. Then, lifting her eyes to Heaven, and looking just like an angel, "Love is his religion!" said she, warmly.
"Then his religion is Heathenism," said the priest, grimly.
"Nay, there is too much charity in it for that," retorted Kate, keenly.
Then she looked down, like a cunning, guilty thing, and murmured: "One of the things I esteem him for is he always speaks well of you. To be sure, just now the poor soul thinks you are his best friend with me. But that is my fault; I as good as told him so: and it is true, after a fashion; for you kept me out of the convent that was his only real rival. Why, here he comes. O father, now don't you go and tell him you side with Mr. Neville."