"Please, Father, give it to me."

"Give it to her, Father," said Mrs. Atheling; and Kate's eager face pleaded still more strongly. Rather reluctantly, he pushed the letter towards Kate, saying, "I would as leave not give it to thee, but I can trust to thy honour."

"You may trust me, Father," she answered. And the Squire was satisfied with his relenting, when she came to him a few hours later, and said, "Thank you for giving me my letter, Father. It has made my trouble a great deal lighter. Now, Father, will you do me one more favour?"

"Well, dear, what is it?"

"See Piers for me, and tell him of the promise I made to you. Say I cannot break it, but that I send, by you, my thanks for his letter, and my love forever more."

"I can't tell him about 'love forever more,' Kitty. That won't do at all."

"Tell him, then, that all he says to me I say to him. Dear Father, make that much clear to him."

"John, do what Kitty asks thee. It isn't much."

"A man can't have his way in this house with two women to coax or bully him out of it. What am I to do?"

"Just what Kitty asks you to do."

[Ill.u.s.tration:]

"Please, Father!" And the two words were sent straight to the father's heart with a kiss and a caress that were irresistible. Three days afterwards the Squire came home from a ride, very much depressed. He was cross with the servant who unb.u.t.toned his gaiters, and he looked resentfully at Mrs. Atheling as she entered the room.

"A nice message I was sent," he said to her as soon as they were alone. "That young man has given me a heart-ache. He has made me think right is wrong. He has made me feel as if I was the wickedest father in Yorkshire. And I know, in my soul, that I am doing right; and that there isn't a better father in the three kingdoms."

"Whatever did he say?"

"He said I was to tell Kate that from the East to the West, and from the North to the South, he would love her. That from that moment to the moment of death, and throughout all eternity, he would love her. And I stopped him there and then, and said I would carry no message that went beyond the grave. And he said I was to tell her that neither for father nor mother, nor for the interests of the dukedom, nor for the command of the King, would he marry any woman but her. And I was fool enough to be sorry for him, and to promise I would give him Kate, with my blessing, when his father and mother asked me to do so."

"I don't think that was promising very much, John."

"Thou knowest nothing of how I feel, Maude. But he is a good man, and true; I think so, at any rate."

"Tell Kitty what he said."

"Nay, you must tell her if you want her to know. I would rather not speak of Piers at all. Tell her, also, that the d.u.c.h.ess and Miss Vyner are going to Germany, and that Piers goes with them as far as London. I am very glad of this move, for we can ride about, then, without fear of meeting them."

All the comfort to be got from this conversation and intelligence was given at once to Kate; and perhaps Mrs. Atheling unavoidably made it more emphatic than the Squire's manner warranted. She did not overstep the truth, however, for Piers had spoken from his very heart, and with the most pa.s.sionate love and confidence. Indeed, the Squire's transcript had been but a bald and lame translation of the young man's fervent expressions of devotion and constancy.

Kate understood this, and she was comforted. Invincible Hope was at the bottom of all her sorrow, and she soon began to look on the circ.u.mstances as merely transitory. Yet she had moments of great trial.

One evening, while walking with her mother a little on the outskirts of Atheling, the Duke's carriage, with its splendid outriders, suddenly turned into the little lane. There was no escape, and they looked at each other bravely, and stood still upon the turf bordering the road. Then the d.u.c.h.ess gave an order to the coachman. There was difficulty in getting the horses to the precise spot which was best for conversation; but Mrs. Atheling would not take a step forward or backward to relieve it. She stood with her hand on Kate's arm, Kate's hands being full of the blue-bells which she had been gathering.

The carriage contained only the d.u.c.h.ess and Annabel. There had been no overt unpleasantness between the ladies of the two families, and Mrs.

Atheling would not take the initiative, especially when the question was one referring to the most delicate circ.u.mstances of her daughter's life. She talked with the d.u.c.h.ess of her German trip, and Kate gave Annabel the flowers, and hoped she would enjoy her new experience.

In five minutes the interview was over; nothing but courteous words had been said, and yet Mrs. Atheling and Kate had, somehow, a sense of intense humiliation. The d.u.c.h.ess's manner had been politely patronising, Annabel's languid and indifferent; and, in some mysterious way, the servants echoed this covert atmosphere of disdain. Little things are so momentous; and the very att.i.tude of the two parties was against the Athelings. From their superb carriage, as from a throne, the d.u.c.h.ess and her companion looked down on the two simply-dressed ladies who had been gathering wild flowers on the roadside.

"How provoking!" was Kate's first utterance. "Mother, I will not walk outside the garden again until they go away; I will not!"

"I am ashamed of you!" answered Mrs. Atheling, angrily. "Will you make yourself a prisoner for these two women? _Tush!_ Who are they? Be yourself, and who is better than you?"

"It is easy talking, Mother. You are as much annoyed as I am. How did they manage to snub us so politely?"

"Position is everything, Kate. A woman in a Duke's carriage, with outriders in scarlet, and coachmen and footmen in silver-laced liveries, would snub the Virgin Mary if she met her in a country lane, dressed in pink dimity, and gathering blue-bells. Try and forget the affair."

"Annabel looked ill."

"It was her white dress. A woman with her skin ought to know better than to wear white."

"Oh, Mother! if Piers had been with them, what should I have done?"

"I wish he had been there! You were never more lovely. I saw you for a moment, standing at the side of the carriage; with your brown hair blowing, and your cheeks blushing, and your hands full of flowers, and I thought how beautiful you were; and I wish Piers had been there."

"They go away on Sat.u.r.day. I shall be glad when Sat.u.r.day is over. I do not think I could bear to see Piers. I should make a little fool of myself."

"Not you! Not you! But it is just as well to keep out of danger."

Certainly neither the Squire nor Kate had any idea of meeting Piers on the following Sat.u.r.day night when they rode along Atheling lane together.

Both of them believed Piers to be far on the way to London. They had been to the village, and were returning slowly homeward in the gloaming.

A light like that of dreamland was lying over all the scene; and the silence of the far-receding hills was intensified by the murmur of the streams, and the sleepy piping of a solitary bird. The subtle, fugitive, indescribable fragrance of lilies-of-the-valley was in the air; and a sense of brooding power, of mystical communion between man and nature, had made both the Squire and Kate sympathetically silent.

Suddenly there was the sound of horse's feet coming towards them; and the figure of its rider loomed large and spectral in the gray, uncertain light. Kate knew instantly who it was. In a moment or two they must needs pa.s.s each other. She looked quickly into her father's face, and he said huskily, "Be brave, Kate, be brave!"

The words had barely been spoken, when Piers slowly pa.s.sed them. He removed his hat, and the Squire did the same; but Kate sat with dropped eyes, white as marble. From her nerveless hands the reins had fallen; she swayed in her saddle, and the Squire leaned towards her with encouraging touch and words. But she could hear nothing but the hurrying flight of her lover, and the despairing cry which the wind brought sadly back as he rode rapidly up the little lane,--

"_Kate! Kate! Kate!_"

Fortunately, news of Miss Curzon's and Edgar's arrival at Ashley Hall came to Atheling that very hour; and the Squire and Mrs. Atheling were much excited at their proposal to lunch at Atheling Manor the next day.

Kate had to put aside her own feelings, and unite in the family joy of reunion. There was a happy stir of preparation, and the Squire dressed himself with particular care to meet his son and his new daughter. As soon as he heard of their approach, he went to the open door to meet them.

To Edgar he gave his right hand, with a look which cancelled every hard word; and then he lifted little Annie Curzon from her horse, and kissed her on the doorstep with fatherly affection. And between Kate and Annie a warm friendship grew apace; and the girls were continually together, and thus, insensibly, Kate's sorrow was lightened by mutual confidence and affection.

Early in June the Squire and Edgar were to return to London, for Parliament re-opened on the fourteenth; and a few days before their departure Mrs. Atheling asked her husband one afternoon to take a drive with her. "To be sure I will, Maude," he answered. "It isn't twice in a twelvemonth thou makest me such an offer." She was in her own little phaeton, and the Squire settled himself comfortably at her side, and took the reins from her hands. "Which way are we to go?" he asked.

"We will go first to Gisbourne Gates, and maybe as far as Belward."

The Squire wondered a little at her direction, for she knew Gisbourne was rather a sore subject with him. As they approached the big iron portals, rusty on all their hinges from long neglect, he could not avoid saying,--

"It is a shame beyond everything that I have not yet been able to buy Gisbourne. The place has been wanting a master for fifteen years; and it lays between Atheling and Belward as the middle finger lays between the first and the third. I thought I might manage it next year; but this Parliament business has put me a good bit back."

"Many things have put you back, John. There was Edgar's college expenses, and the hard times, and what not beside. Look, John! the gates are open. Let us drive in. It is twenty years since I saw Gisbourne Towers."

"The gates are open. What does that mean, Maude?"

"I suppose somebody has bought the place."

"I'm afraid so."

"Never mind, John."