Catherine, her face transfigured, bent over him, and seized his hands.
“Oh, not that! Why, we are here together, and you look on the darker side—”
His tears were on her hands; he was ashamed, and hung his head.
“Kate, it is true, I feel it. Steel—”
“Steel?”
“Is too cold a man to risk what he cannot prove.”
She drew her breath, and kissed him, the kiss of a mother and a wife.
“I will go to him,” she said.
“Kate!”
“No, not to plead. I could not plead with such a man as Steel.”