He drew her closer to him: tenderly and timidly he kissed her for the first time. “It rests with you,” he answered. “When will you be my wife?”
She hesitated; he felt her trembling. “Is there any obstacle?” he asked.
Before she could reply, Kitty’s voice was heard calling to her mother—Kitty ran up to them.
Catherine turned cold as the child caught her by the hand, eagerly claiming her attention. All that she should have remembered, all that she had forgotten in a few bright moments of illusion, rose in judgment against her, and struck her mind prostrate in an instant, when she felt Kitty’s touch.
Bennydeck saw the change. Was it possible that the child’s sudden appearance had startled her? Kitty had something to say, and said it before he could speak.
“Mamma, I want to go where the other children are going. Susan’s gone to her supper. You take me.”
Her mother was not even listening. Kitty turned impatiently to Bennydeck. “Why won’t mamma speak to me?” she asked. He quieted her by a word. “You shall go with me.” His anxiety about Catherine was more than he could endure. “Pray let me take you back to the house,” he said. “I am afraid you are not well.”
“I shall be better directly. Do me a kindness—take the child!”
She spoke faintly and vacantly. Bennydeck hesitated. She lifted her trembling hands in entreaty. “I beg you will leave me!” Her voice, her manner, made it impossible to disobey. He turned resignedly to Kitty and asked which way she wanted to go. The child pointed down the path to one of the towers of the Crystal Palace, visible in the distance. “The governess has taken the others to see the company go away,” she said; “I want to go too.”
Bennydeck looked back before he lost sight of Catherine.