"Miss Stanley would rather that you did not wait for her," said she to the two gentlemen. And therewith Käthchen also withdrew.
CHAPTER II.
A SUMMONS.
"What can I do, Käthchen? What can I do?" she was saying, in accents almost of despair; and in her agitation she was walking up and down before the windows, glancing out from time to time towards the far island that was now shining in the morning sunlight, while the driven blue sea was springing white along its rocky shores. "What can I do? What atonement can I make? Or is it quite hopeless? Is he to be sent away as a stranger, without a word of excuse, or apology, or appeal?" And then she said: "Käthchen, surely there is some fatality in it, that this young man, who has heaped kindness on me since ever I came to this place—but always keeping aloof in a strange, proud way, as if to avoid the possibility of thanks—surely there is some fatality that he should receive nothing but insult and wrong at our hands. First, my uncle—now, my brother——"
"At all events," said Kate Glendinning, boldly, "I don't see why you should torture your mind about it, Mamie. It has been none of your doing. You are not responsible for what your uncle may have done; and if Fred has spoken in a moment of anger, well, I don't suppose Mr. Ross will prove to be so unforgiving."
"It is the whole family he must think of, Käthchen!" Mary broke in bitterly. "I shouldn't wonder if he hated the very name of Stanley! What a despicable race he must think us! But I suppose there is an end now. He has borne too much already: this puts a climax to it. Unforgiving? Why, even if I could persuade Fred to go out to Heimra and offer him an apology, he would treat it with scorn—and rightly too. I know he would!"
The shrewd Käthchen, though she did not say so, had her doubts on this score. In the dim recesses of her consciousness there was an echo of two lines from 'Maud'—
'Peace, angry spirit, and let him be!
Has not his sister smiled on me?'
And she fancied, for reasons of her own, that if the headstrong lad could be brought to ask for pardon, the somewhat haughty features of the young owner of Heimra would not long remain stern and implacable. But she dared not reveal those reasons, even as she dared not repeat those two lines. She was a prudent lass; and careful not to presume unwarily.
Of a sudden Mary said, in her impetuous way—