“If Captain Bellfield must come to Vavasor Hall, at any rate let him not come till Alice’s visit had been completed.” That was Kate’s present wish, and so much she ventured to confide to her aunt. But there seemed to be no way of stopping him. “I don’t in the least know where he is, my dear, and as for writing to him, I never did such a thing in my life, and I shouldn’t know how to begin.” Mrs. Greenow declared that she had not positively invited the Captain; but on this point Kate hardly gave full credit to her aunt’s statement.
Alice arrived, and, for a day or two, the three ladies lived very pleasantly together. Kate still wore her arm in a sling; but she was able to walk out, and would take long walks in spite of the doctor’s prohibition. Of course, they went up on the mountains. Indeed, all the walks from Vavasor Hall led to the mountains, unless one chose to take the road to Shap. But they went up, across the beacon hill, as though by mutual consent. There were no questions asked between them as to the route to be taken; and though they did not reach the stone on which they had once sat looking over upon Haweswater, they did reach the spot upon which Kate had encountered her accident. “It was here I fell,” she said; “and the last I saw of him was his back, as he made his way down into the valley, there. When I got upon my legs I could still see him. It was one of those evenings when the clouds are dark, but you can see all objects with a peculiar clearness through the air. I stood here ever so long, holding my arm, and watching him; but he never once turned to look back at me. Do you know, Alice, I fancy that I shall never see him again.”
“Do you suppose that he means to quarrel with you altogether?”
“I can hardly tell you what I mean! He seemed to me to be going away from me, as though he went into another world. His figure against the light was quite clear, and he walked quickly, and on he went, till the slope of the hill hid him from me. Of course, I thought that he would return to the Hall. At one time I almost feared that he would come upon me through the woods, as I went back myself. But yet, I had a feeling—what people call a presentiment, that I should never see him again.”
“He has never written?”
“No; not a word. You must remember that he did not know that I had hurt myself. I am sure he will not write, and I am sure, also, that I shall not. If he wanted money I would send it to him, but I would not write to him.”
“I fear he will always want money, Kate.”
“I fear he will. If you could know what I suffered when he made me write that letter to you! But, of course, I was a beast. Of course, I ought not to have written it.”
“I thought it a very proper letter.”
“It was a mean letter. The whole thing was mean! He should have starved in the street before he had taken your money. He should have given up Parliament, and everything else! I had doubted much about him before, but it was that which first turned my heart against him. I had begun to fear that he was not such a man as I had always thought him—as I had spoken of him to you.”
“I had judged of him for myself,” said Alice.
“Of course you did. But I had endeavoured to make you judge kindly. Alice, dear! we have both suffered for him; you more than I, perhaps; but I, too, have given up everything for him. My whole life has been at his service. I have been his creature, to do his bidding, just as he might tell me. He made me do things that I knew to be wrong—things that were foreign to my own nature; and yet I almost worshipped him. Even now, if he were to come back, I believe that I should forgive him everything.”
“I should forgive him, but I could never do more.”
“But he will never come back. He will never ask us to forgive him, or even wish it. He has no heart.”
“He has longed for money till the Devil has hardened his heart,” said Alice.
“And yet how tender he could be in his manner when he chose it;—how soft he could make his words and his looks! Do you remember how he behaved to us in Switzerland? Do you remember that balcony at Basle, and the night we sat there, when the boys were swimming down the river?”
“Yes;—I remember.”
“So do I! So do I! Alice, I would give all I have in the world, if I could recall that journey to Switzerland.”
“If you mean for my sake, Kate—”
“I do mean for your sake. It made no difference to me. Whether I stayed in Westmoreland or went abroad, I must have found out that my god was made of bricks and clay instead of gold. But there was no need for you to be crushed in the ruins.”
“I am not crushed, Kate!”
“Of course, you are too proud to own it?”
“If you mean about Mr. Grey, that would have happened just the same, whether I had gone abroad or remained at home.”
“Would it, dear?”
“Just the same.”
There was nothing more than this said between them about Mr. Grey. Even to her cousin, Alice could not bring herself to talk freely on that subject. She would
