"The Aim of a Life" (continued 3)

As for Katharine, she felt rather self-reproachful, and conscious of having acted in a fit of impatience, conscious too that a trifle might make her think and feel differently. Neither lady realised that the carrying out of the plan would involve considerable delay and difficulty. Katharine thought that she had only to tell her uncle the resolution she had come to, and then pack up her things and leave Emberance in possession; while Mrs Kingsworth had thought so much more of Katharine being willing to make restitution than of the restitution itself that she had thought very little of the process.

The projected visit to Fanchester did not however take place till March, for Mrs Kingsworth caught cold just before they had intended to start, and for the first time within Kate’s recollection was confined to her room for some weeks, and though not ill enough to cause any alarm, was sufficiently so to be unable to take a journey in the winter. She did not care very much for Kate’s attendance, and the girl was left more to herself than had ever been the case before. Major Clare did not reappear, and though she walked out with the girls at the Vicarage and saw a good deal of them, there was a check on the fervour of her friendship for them.

She was just as idle, just as often dull, just as eager for a bit of gaiety it seemed as ever, no worthier a creature so far as her mother could see than before she had resolved on the act of reparation.

And yet, under all the surface of vexation and weariness, and balked desire of a pleasanter life, there was a tiny bit of self-respect in Kate’s heart that had not been there formerly.

She had followed her poor little fluctuating uncertain conscience at the most critical moment of her life, she had done the best she knew. She had been open and honest, and she would have been a worse girl if she had stifled her instinct of telling Major Clare the truth, though she fancied now that she would have been a much happier one.

But this her mother could not know, and as Katharine did not try much to conquer and did not succeed at all in concealing her discontent and impatience, she was not likely to find it out.

Chapter Fifteen.

Love Lane.

Emberance, meanwhile, had been welcomed home with great warmth by her mother and aunt, who had both missed her cheerful young presence, and set herself energetically to take up all her broken threads, and resume the little duties that had been interrupted by her long visit. Emberance taught at a Sunday school, and helped to manage a lending library, and a working party, besides ruling despotically over the caps and other ornaments of her mother and aunt, and being a leading spirit at a choral class in the neighbourhood.

She felt dull when she first came back; but she had too much sense and too much management of herself to fret and dawdle like poor Kate; there was no use, she thought, in thinking more of Malcolm than could be helped.

Her mother was disappointed at finding her so unaltered. She had vaguely hoped that “something might happen” to her daughter during her long absence, and when she could not gather that Emberance had received any offers, and seemed to take up her old life just where she left it, she hazarded a hint.

“At any rate, Emberance, I suppose the society you met at Kingsworth was very superior to the Fanchester set,—of course excepting the cathedral.”

“Well, yes,—in some ways perhaps; but we went out very little.”

“I dare say the young men were of a different stamp from any you could meet here?”

“They were more in the style of Mr Mackenzie,” said Emberance with a flush, which was a literal falsehood, however true in spirit; for neither Walter Kingsworth, nor Major Clare, nor Alfred Deane were at all in the style of her grave young Scot.

“Ah, you might forget that romance, for young Mackenzie is never likely to do much—”

“How do you know, mother,—have you heard?” cried Emberance eagerly.

“Yes, his aunt was telling me the other day that he found it a bad speculation,—more capital was required than he could ever hope for.”

Emberance said nothing. She believed that the report was made the worst of for her benefit, and she did not think her Malcolm would give in so easily; but it cost her some hot stinging tears.

Oh, why—why did things go so ill with her? She wished most heartily that she was by Malcolm’s side, scrubbing the floor and cooking the dinner, while he felled trees and drove up cattle. She knew that she could have borne anything cheerfully then, but to wait and have her life spoiled, and no hope of sharing his—Emberance cried and chafed, and, for the first time, wished that she was heiress of Kingsworth. What good was the place to Kitty?

Emberance however rebuked herself for these thoughts by reflecting how wicked Malcolm would have thought them. Nor had she nearly so much time as Kate to indulge in sorrowful musings; for besides all her ordinary business, the Canon had her a good deal at his house, and, as her mother expressed it, “took very gratifying notice of her.”

She had originally met Malcolm Mackenzie at the house of his uncle, who was the principal doctor in Fanchester, and scraps of intelligence of a kind that was not very reassuring reached her from this source. Malcolm had arrived, and had written, but could not say that he saw his way much yet. He was afraid his little capital would not go very far,—still it was early days to despond, and he hoped for the best. If one thing failed, he should try another. Emberance knew that these discouraging facts were purposely brought to the hearing of the penniless girl with whom Malcolm had foolishly entangled himself. She felt miserable, and tried to distract her mind by enjoying to the utmost all her little gaieties; with the result of causing Mrs Mackenzie to write to her nephew that “Emberance Kingsworth was looking particularly well, and was much admired. She was a bit of a fine lady, and more than a bit of a flirt. It is very well for you, my dear boy, that there is no real engagement,—a most unfit girl for a settler’s wife.” And this assurance in more complimentary forms met Emberance very often.

She had been out one day for a walk with some of her girl friends, and coming back with them just at dusk, with the intention of giving them a cup of tea, she found the household in rather an unusual state of excitement.

“Well, Emmy,” her mother said, “it is a great pity that you were out. A friend of yours has been here to see you.”

“A friend of mine?” said Emberance, as she inquired into the state of the teapot. “Oh, Lily Wood, I suppose, she was coming to stay with her aunt.”

“No, my dear,” said Miss Bury, “one of your friends from Kingsworth.”

“Not Katie come already? I can’t guess, mamma; I hate guessing.”

“Well, my dear, it was Major Clare. He said that he was going to return shortly to his brother’s, and would be glad to take any message or parcel for you. A most agreeable person.”

There was a kind of consciousness in her mother’s manner which annoyed Emberance extremely. She was greatly surprised at Major Clare’s visit, and set it down to a possible desire to reopen relations with Katharine.

“I dare say he might like to have a message to take to Kingsworth,” she said in a tone intended to convey to her friends and to her mother that his interest was in another direction. “Where is he staying?” she added; “how did he come here?”

“He was staying, he said, in the neighbourhood, and would call again. Such pleasing manners!”

The Major had evidently created a favourable impression, and Emberance could not help being secretly flattered that he had sought her out, even with a view to renew his relations with Katharine.

The Major did call again, and Emberance also met him at Canon Kingsworth’s. He was very agreeable, and said very little about Kate, rather renewing that sort of manner which in the early days of Kingsworth had made Emberance doubt of his real intentions. She perceived that all her relations, including the Canon, regarded his appearance as significant; and indeed that excellent old gentleman would probably not have regarded a young lady’s change of mind towards a not very eligible suitor as a matter of great regret. And Emberance knew herself to be charming, the Major confirmed in her that sweet sense of the power of attraction, which is more intoxicating to a girl than the knowledge of beauty or any other personal advantage. It would take too long to tell all the little incidents, all the words, and half the glances that carried a vain man a little further than he had intended, and went far to turn the head of a vain girl.

Emberance looked prettier and took more trouble with her dress than usual during this important fortnight. But if she had a vain head she had an honest heart, and Major Clare’s former attentions to Katharine could not be forgotten. It was flattering to be preferred to her heiress-cousin; but still he had won Kate’s affections first, and Emberance never really contemplated his urging any serious suit upon her. Only it was pleasant to be known as the object of his attentions.

“I am a foolish, horrid girl,” thought Emberance, “and it is a mean thing to care about, but that’s all, and I am sure they are all mistaken in fancying he has any serious intentions. Besides, as if I would listen to any one but Malcolm. I never, never will.”

She was walking by herself home from the High Street, where she had gone to buy some little bit of finery, and down the lane that led by a short cut to the suburban district where she lived. It was only a dull lane, narrow and dirty, with a wall on one side and a close-clipped hedge on the other; but Emberance always chose it because it was here that she and Malcolm had met on the day when he had told her of his love and of his poverty, and asked her if she could bear to wait while he made his home, if she could put up with the weariness and the waiting that fell to the lot of a poor man’s betrothed.

“Oh, I can!” Emberance had answered warmly, and Love Lane or Hatchard’s Lane, as it was called, according to the tastes of the speaker, always brought her promise to her mind. She stopped a minute in her walk, and looked over the hedge across the cabbages in Hatchard’s market garden, and said to herself,—

“I’m not bearing it, I’m trying to escape it. I am giving in just as mother always said I should. And all because I like to feel that a man like Major Clare admires me. And I can’t even tell Malcolm that I am sorry.”

Tears filled her eyes and dimmed the long rows of cabbages. Emberance said a little prayer to herself, and made up her mind. She would stick to her true love and to her true self. Not bound indeed! Did not her conscience bind her?

“Ah, Miss Kingsworth, good morning. I am just coming from your house. Mrs Kingsworth gave me a hope of meeting you.”

Emberance turned with a violent blush to see Major Clare standing beside her.

“Is this a favourite walk of yours?” he said as she gave him a confused greeting.

“Yes,” said Emberance, “it is.”

“From a fine sense of natural beauty?” said Major Clare, lightly.

“No,” said Emberance, as bluntly as Kate could have, spoken. “It’s not pretty. But I don’t care about that.”

“Indeed, there are times when outward beauty makes very little difference to us!”

“Yes,” said Emberance, “but it would not do for me to think very much about places being pretty,—or particularly comfortable, because,—because I’m not likely to live in pretty or comfortable places.”

“Why, how so?” said Major Clare, surprised.

“Because,” said Emberance, looking straight before her, “a girl who hopes to be a settler’s wife mustn’t care about comforts. I am engaged to be married, Major Clare. I—I prefer to tell my friends about it, but mother would rather nothing was said, as we expect to wait for a long time first. But my uncle knows it, and Katharine.”

She made her little speech in a ladylike and dignified manner, though her face was crimson, and she wished that the old wall would tumble down and hide her.

Of course her motive in the confidence could not but be apparent enough, hard as she had tried to hide it; and Major Clare felt a pang of intense vexation as he felt that a second time his tale had been stopped before it was uttered. But he kept his counsel.

“Indeed! allow me to congratulate you,” he said lightly. “You have kept your secret well, Miss Kingsworth; no one would have guessed it.”

“I was desired to keep it,” said Emberance, ashamed. “Please do not mention it in Fanchester.”

“Of course,” said Major Clare, “I feel your confidence an honour,—most undeserved, I am sure, and unexpected.”

Emberance hated the Major more intensely as they walked down the remaining bit of Love Lane together than she had ever hated any one in her life. He had carried off the rebuff cleverly, and had stung her too keenly to allow her to perceive that he was stung also.

They wished each other good morning cheerfully and courteously, and parted at the lane’s end. Emberance hurried home feeling rather small and foolish; but with a sense of relief predominating. She was duly asked if she had met the Major, and after a little preamble her mother said,—

“It is very pleasant to meet any one who is so discriminating. He is well acquainted with all our family history, and takes a very proper view of it.”

“Mamma, what have you been saying to him?” cried Emberance vehemently and rather disrespectfully.

“Nothing, I assure you, that he did not know before. He only expressed his sympathy with us, and said that your unconsciousness of any wrong couldn’t hide how well you were fitted—in short, one couldn’t help seeing that he thought you would make a much better heiress than Kate.”

Emberance stood for a moment with her hat in her hand.

“Then,” she said, with much emphasis, “he is worse than any villain in a book.”

She walked away without further explanation, and Major Clare vanished from the lives of Emberance and Katharine Kingsworth.

He returned to India still unmarried,—still faithful, his brother said, to his first love. And perhaps he was so, but his efforts to replace her, and his love of producing an impression had made a crisis in the life and in the character of the two Kingsworth cousins.

Chapter Sixteen.

Cousins.

In the early spring Kate and her mother came to Fanchester to pay the Canon a long visit, after which their plans were uncertain; Kate wanted to go abroad, and Mrs Kingsworth had a great longing for a few quiet weeks at Applehurst. “But,” thought Kate, “once there we shall never get out again.”

She was a good deal more like other young ladies than at the time of her former visit, and no longer went into ecstasies over kid gloves and evening parties, she was also less abrupt in manner, and had learned from Emberance to occupy herself with ordinary girlish pursuits, so that she seemed less idle. She was prettier too, and less exuberantly youthful.

On the very evening of their arrival Mrs Kingsworth sought a private interview with the Canon, and told him how Katharine had volunteered her willingness to give up the estate; but had declined to give a definite promise that she would do so.

“It was a great relief to me—a very great relief,” Mrs Kingsworth said, rather as if the relief had been difficult to realise.

“So,” said the old Canon, “Kate comes of age, does she not, next January? Mrs James will enjoy reigning at Kingsworth, eh, Mary?”

“You do not think I care for that!” said Mary indignantly, and with rising colour. “It is nothing to me what becomes of it. Indeed I believe Emberance is much better without it.”

“She might sell it,” suggested the Canon.

“She might, but I suppose you would all think that wrong,” said Mrs Kingsworth; “you would not think it wise to speak to Katie?”

“Well, yes. I think, on a favourable opportunity, I will,” said the Canon; but he made no promises as to what he would say to her.

He observed with pleasure the warmth of the greeting between the cousins, and contrived that Kate should be allowed to go and spend the day with her aunt.

It was not till she had been more than a week at Fanchester, that he entered on the subject; when he took her into his handsome library, full of dignified and learned literature, and comfortable as befitted the age and position of its owner. He politely recommended to her a great chair, which would have been nearly large enough for her to sleep in. Katharine perched herself upon the edge of it, and took the sleek and solemn tabby cat, who shared the Canon’s learned repose, on her knee.

“Uncle, why do you call this cat Archibald?” she said.

“Why, my dear, when he was a kitten, now some years ago, your aunt tied a bell round his neck; and by one of those changes which make the history of nicknames very interesting and curious, the name which should properly have belonged to her was applied to the cat himself. And Archibald he remains. Perhaps he will allow you to call him Archie.”

“I should not think of taking such a liberty. He is so dignified and thinks so well of himself! I wonder what he would say to Emmy’s white kitten. Isn’t Aunt Ellen’s a pretty house? I think it must be so cheerful to live in a row of villas!”

“Your expectations of Kingsworth have been a little disappointed, I fancy.”

Katharine coloured deeply.

“No,” she said with some reserve. “I like Kingsworth well enough, much better than Applehurst; but I should like living anywhere else just as well.”

“You do not find yourself growing attached to it?”

“N-o,” said Kate, “I don’t think I do. I suppose mamma has been talking to you,” she added, “I do not mind giving up Kingsworth, there would be no more trouble about it then.”

“My dear,” said the Canon, “you do not quite know what you are talking about. It is true that you will be well provided for in any case by your mother’s fortune, and Kingsworth does not make you a great heiress; but it gives you a position of which you will think more at twenty-five than at twenty-one and more again at five and thirty. No doubt it will bring you trouble and responsibility; but dread of these is not the reason which weighs with your mother.”

“Uncle Kingsworth,” said Kate frankly, though with some confusion, “I don’t see how I shall know better what to do when I am twenty-one than I do now. I wish to do right, and it can’t be wrong to obey mamma and do what she wishes. I do not feel as she does, I don’t think we understand enough about it to feel sure that Kingsworth should be Emberance’s, and—Cousin Walter Kingsworth said he should give it up in my place.”

“He did—did he? When did he have the chance of expressing an opinion?”

“I thought, being a cousin, I might ask him, and I supposed he would know.”

“Then, my dear, if your mother wishes it, and a person whom you trust approves of it, and you do not feel the sacrifice beyond your powers, what holds you back?”

Katharine hesitated, her brow contracted and an expression of strained attention came into her eyes. She could hardly grasp her own thought, to express it was still more difficult.

“You said, I must judge for my own self,” she said.

“And your own judgment is different.”

“Uncle,” said Kate with a trembling voice, “I have thought and considered, and I have tried not to be childish. I should like, oh so much! to get rid of it, and be like other girls; but—but it seems to have been put on me to—to—make up for papa. And when there is no other reason clear except the trouble of it, oh, uncle! I should not really be what mamma calls worthy if I gave it up, and told every one my father did wrong, when perhaps he did not. That’s my own judgment, uncle, my own conscience, but—but—I wish—I wish I did not feel so, with all my heart.”

“Then, my dear child, your own conscience is the light that you must follow. You are a good girl, Kate, and your mother’s own daughter after all. Keep your principle, even if in the future you change your conclusion. Let nothing tempt you to do what you think may be wrong, and in the end no doubt you will arrive at a right decision.”

Katharine sighed, her uncle had not helped her to get rid of her responsibilities; but she was pleased by his appreciation of her motives, and in her heart knew that he was right. She liked, too, being at Fanchester, and even her mother, whose habit of seclusion had been broken, was much happier than on the former occasion, and suffered less from the shyness of which at her years and in her position, she was so exceedingly ashamed. The Canon also invited Walter Kingsworth and one of his sisters to come and pay him a visit; and the elder branch of the family must have been very anxious to renew intercourse with the younger; for not only did business offer no impediment to Walter’s acceptance of the invitation, but his father came down with them to Fanchester and paid his respects to his old cousin the Canon, to whom he bore a sufficiently strong likeness to delight the younger ones, who all fell into a fervour of family feeling, and traced their pedigrees, and discovered their common ancestors, with the greatest delight. Kate began to respect Kingsworth much more seriously. Eva, the North-country cousin, was clever and romantic, and actually concocted a copy of verses, on a certain Walter who had been engaged in a Jacobite plot, and had gone to prison sooner than reveal the hiding-place of his fellow-conspirators, which verses ended with an aspiration that they might all be worthy of their heroic ancestor. Katharine, full of excitement, seized on the poem, and rushed to her mother, to expatiate on Eva’s wonderful talents, and to tell the story of the high-minded Walter. Mrs Kingsworth listened with an odd sort of smile, and presently unlocked a box which had been sent for from Applehurst, to search for some missing business papers, took out an old sketch-book, and displayed a pen-and-ink drawing of a cavalier, with a Kingsworth nose, submitting to be handcuffed by some very truculent looking soldiers in cocked-hats and pigtails.

“Mamma! did you draw that? You! Did you know about our ancestor?” cried Kate, open-mouthed.

“Oh yes, my dear, I was very fond of drawing when I was young. I was glad to marry into a family with a hero in it,” she added half to herself.

“Let me show it to Eva! Why, she drew a picture of Richard Coeur-de-Lion in prison!”

Eva duly admired the drawing, and showed her own; and behold there was a crack in the ice. The new games, introduced by the Silthorpe cousins, in which drawing, verse-making, and odds and ends of knowledge came into play, proved old ones to Mrs Kingsworth. She was drawn into the circle of young people, and became a leading spirit; with twice as many ideas as Emberance, and four times as much faculty as Kate, she could laugh and argue and hold her own amid the merry clatter, and when Kate listened amazed she recollected that an attempt to teach her some of these little amusements had been scouted as “making play into lessons.” How handsome her mother looked as she puzzled them all or triumphantly penetrated their puzzles.

“Take my word for it, my dear fellow,” said Mr Kingsworth to his son, on one occasion, “Mrs George Kingsworth is worth all the young ladies together.”

Of course Walter took the line of laughing at the heroism and crying down the heroes; but he by no means avoided either the games or the discussions, and Kate and he became more and more friendly and cousinly, till she began to derive opinions from him and think they were her own, while Major Clare was driven into a very small corner of her mind indeed. She soon learned to take a proper interest in the cathedral, and would have been very much surprised to be reminded of her original preference for a shop.

It was impossible that she should forget her former attempt at consulting Walter, and though he avoided the subject, her perceptions were not acute enough to discover this. One afternoon as they walked up and down the Canon’s garden, admiring the spring green of the trees against the grey walls that shut them in, she said,—

“I have thought about Kingsworth every day since that time last year; but I cannot decide the matter yet.”

“I wish Kingsworth did not belong to you, Katharine, that you had no concern with it,” said Walter, abruptly.

“Ah—why? You think—it ought not to belong to me?”

“No, no,” he said, hurriedly. “I do not think that.”

“Of course,” said Kate, “it is all wrong any way. Sir Walter and all our ancestors would be dreadfully grieved that it should not be inherited by the rightful heir.”

“If Emberance—”

“But I don’t mean Emberance,” interposed Kate. “I mean you. You are our ancestor’s heir. What would they say to the place coming to a girl like me, or to Emmy either?”

“That is romantic nonsense,” said Walter almost fiercely, and colouring to his hair roots, “I have no more to do with it than I have with Mayford, than I have with the deanery of Fanchester. I wish there was no such place, I wish the sea would swallow it up, it’s a—a stumbling-block, and an incumbrance. I wish it was in South Africa!”

“Dear me, Walter,” said Kate, “I don’t see why you should hate it so. I don’t care about it much myself; but I have liked it better since I heard about our ancestors, it seems more worth while to do right about it. I know you think I ought to give it to Emberance.”

“I wish—I wish—I can’t advise you, Kate, I—I—There’s Eva—isn’t it tea-time?”

He turned away and left her abruptly: while she, surprised at his manner, began to seek for some explanation of it. Why should he hate Kingsworth? Why should he refuse to tell her what he thought to be her duty? Kate did not hit even in a guess on the right explanation; her frank pleasant intercourse with Walter was so unlike her past experience of any one’s attentions, but it did occur to her that he might possibly admire Emberance. Kate did not like the notion, it made her uncomfortable, yet it inclined her more to the sacrifice than anything which had yet passed. If Emmy had it, and married Walter, how right, according to all principles, everything would come. The real old head of the family, and the rightful heiress would reign, while she having had her day and her disappointment, would act the beneficent genius and—retire.

But then, Emberance had another love, and—and “I don’t think,” said honest Kate to herself, “that I do feel quite like having had my day. I was very young, and—I believe I shall get over it! I—I think I have!”

But Mrs Kingsworth, from the drawing-room window, had watched the pair strolling up and down, and a new idea occurred to her that fell like a cold chill on her reviving interests. If this pleasant, clever, well-bred young man, was, after all, not disinterested. If he had an eye to Kate and to Kingsworth, how completely her daughter’s wavering mind would be set in the wrong direction, how right it would all be made to seem while justice was as far as ever from being done.

“I ought to go out and join them,” she thought, then she wavered, afraid of raising a suspicion, and feeling awkward and doubtful.

“Oh dear! I’m not fit to be any girl’s mother,” she thought, despairingly. “Well, now they have parted, and Walter is coming in.”

Walter came up stairs and into the drawing-room—he took up a book and threw it down again—read the paper upside down, and fidgeted about the room; while she could not think of a word to say to him. Suddenly he came towards her, and threw himself into a chair near the sofa where she was sitting.

“Mrs Kingsworth! I—I have made up my mind to confide in you. I am in a great perplexity. I—I love your daughter, most—most thoroughly—but the circumstances, how can I—I of all men—appear before her in the light of a fortune-hunter? Kingsworth raises a barrier between us. Yet I cannot, there are reasons, insuperable reasons, why I cannot persuade her to deprive herself of it. I—I must go away from her till her birthday is past, and she has decided without me. I—you are so sincere a person that I feel sure you will recognise my sincerity.”

Mrs Kingsworth, in spite of her momentary suspicions, was utterly taken by surprise at finding them so quickly realised.

“Katharine?” she said, “but since when, have you learnt so to regard her?”

“Since when? Since the first moment I saw her, since I saw her confidence and simplicity, her—herself! I am well aware,” he added, restraining himself and speaking in a different tone, “that under any circumstances, even without Kingsworth, Katharine’s claims are high, but my father is a rich man and liberal; I think I could have ventured to address her on something like equal terms, but for Kingsworth.”

“What is your view about Kingsworth?” said Mrs Kingsworth abruptly. “What is your opinion as to Kate’s duty?”

“To you perhaps I may say, that I would not keep it with a doubtful right. It would make me uncomfortable. But there is no such clear distinction of right and wrong in the matter as to justify any one in urging such a view on her. I would give much that Emberance had inherited it, and that I could have met Katharine under other circumstances. But now,” he added, “I want your advice, if you will give me any.”

“I should like Katharine to marry you,” said Mrs Kingsworth abruptly. “I do not think you care for Kingsworth. If she gives it up, I think you would make her happy. But you know it is no great fortune, it would hardly justify a man in living without a profession.”

“Oh no,” said Walter hastily, and blushing vividly. “I am aware of that. But it is—a desirable possession.”

“If it were a diamond ring, or a kingdom, I should feel the same about it!” said Mrs Kingsworth. “It has come to us through ill-doing.”

“But—what shall I do? I cannot urge her to yield what she may afterwards learn the value of, and—it is a question on which I cannot enter. Besides, she—she is entirely indifferent and unconscious; it would take time to win her, if ever I could. Have I a chance? What is my best hope?”

He looked very wistful and melancholy, having evidently for the moment forgotten Kingsworth in Katharine.

Mrs Kingsworth looked interested and perplexed. “I do not know,” she said, “I do not know Katharine’s feelings. I think she is fond of you; but, sometimes I have doubted her having much power of attachment.”

“Why—she is full of feeling!” exclaimed the lover indignantly.

“Is she? I think she puzzles me. But I do see that she must be left to her own decision. Perhaps,” she added with an odd sort of dignity, “we had better renew this conversation after she is of age, and till then, let things go on as usual.”

“It is perhaps the best way,” said Walter. “Then you do not send me away, till next week, till my visit is over.”

“No, I do not see why I should. And you know she has almost promised me to decide as we wish.”

Walter was more grateful for the unconscious evidence of trust shown in that “we,” than for a thousand protestations. Mrs Kingsworth continued after a little pause, “and probably, if her feelings are in your favour, your view will unconsciously influence her.”

Walter could hardly help a smile at the musing simplicity of the tone; but he gratefully thanked Mrs Kingsworth for her confidence, and stayed. His father, after a long talk with the Canon, went home the next day, making a détour to look at Kingsworth as he went.

Chapter Seventeen.

A New Motive.

“Why, Emmy! what is the matter? You look as if you were unhappy,” said Katharine, with all her usual frankness.

Emberance had come to spend the day in the Close, and when Kate had gone with her up stairs to take off her hat, the absence of her usual liveliness and the heavy look of her pretty eyes had prompted this abrupt inquiry.

“Well, I am rather unhappy; things go very wrong!” and Emberance after a momentary struggle for cheerfulness, broke down into tears. Katharine hugged her, and tried to comfort her.

“I suppose— Is it about your—that one who didn’t mind, you know, Emberance?” she said bashfully. “You only told me a little about it then.”

“I was forbidden to tell,” said Emberance, “but everything is altered now, and I will tell you all about it. You know I shall be of age on the ninth of June, and then I hoped that mamma would have consented to acknowledge the engagement, and that Malcolm and I might write to each other. Indeed, she consented to his writing when I was of age and re-stating his prospects. But—last mail, his aunt, Mrs Mackenzie, heard from him, and he had received very bad news. The bank, in which all his little property was invested, had failed, so instead of being able next year to buy a place and go into partnership with his cousins in New Zealand as he hoped, there is nothing for it but to work on for such pay as he can get, and it may be years and years before there is any chance for us. Mother promised to allow the engagement when I came of age, and the marriage as soon as the partnership proved successful. But now it is all over,—and oh dear, I—I do want to see him so much!”

“But you don’t mind his being poor,” said Kate eagerly.

“No, no! I shall be true and faithful for ever and ever. But he wrote that I must be told, for when he asked me, he had fair prospects, and now he has none,—and there is no tie between us, he shall not think me faithless if I give him up. Oh, I wish we had been married first and lost the money afterwards. Now I shall never know where he is—and it just means that all chance is over.”

“If you could only go out and surprise him,” said Kate.

“Oh, that is folly! If he can’t keep himself he can’t keep me. And mamma would not consent—so how could I get there? Oh, dear, the years are so long, and he will be so disappointed. It is so far away!” sobbed Emberance incoherently, feeling, poor girl, that the trial demanded of her was almost more than she was capable of enduring.

Katharine stood silent, with her hand on Emberance’s shoulder. Her bright colour paled a little, and the sudden thought that came into her mind did not as usual find its way at once to her lips.

Here was the motive power, here the proof that the old wrong was working mischief, and that “even between two girls” it did signify which was the rich one. That which as her mother put it had seemed an abstraction and a dream, suddenly faced her as a reality of life. Suddenly she felt how she might have been regarded by Emberance, and how pure and free and kind had been the love which Emberance had actually shown her.

“Don’t cry,” she said, “perhaps something will happen yet. And, Emmy, any way you will always know that you hadn’t any money when Mr Mackenzie loved you first.”

“Ah, no, but money does make things possible. I don’t love him less because he is poor. You don’t know life, Kitty.”

“Don’t I? You’ll never have to think he loved you because you were rich,” said Kate gravely.

“Oh, there is the quarter striking! I am not fit to be seen,” said Emberance, starting up.

“Well, stay here for a bit I am going to speak to mamma,” said Kate, leaving her.

She had quite made up her mind. All at once the spur had been given; but as she paused outside her mother’s door, she leant back against the wall with a sudden awful sense of the irrevocable. She was going to burn her ships, going to give her word, and for the first time she was frightened at the sense of what her word could do, not merely worried and puzzled, but awestruck, suddenly conscious of all the importance of her decision. And with a strange self-revelation, suddenly she knew that she did care for Kingsworth, that she should care for it always, that it was in her to love it and to honour it as Emberance never would, that she need not be silly and frivolous and full of her own pleasures, but such as the heiress of Kingsworth should be.

So it was not in childish weary impatience, not even with a sudden rush of impetuous feeling, but with a sense of awe and resolution that she opened her mother’s door and went into her room.

Mrs Kingsworth was writing a note, and Katharine, as she came in and stood behind her recalled the day when she had vehemently entreated for a little pleasure, a little amusement, a little widening in her narrow life—life looked large enough to her eyes now.

“Mamma,” she said, and something in her voice made her mother turn round with—for once—a natural maternal thought,—Was it Walter? “Mamma, I give you my promise, I will give up Kingsworth to Emberance.”

“Katharine!”

“I want to tell you,” said Kate, standing away from her, and speaking fast, “I see myself now, that the arrangement being wrong makes a real difference. I thought, that while we were not quite sure we ought to believe in my father.”

“Kate, I am sure,” said Mrs Kingsworth. “Doubts are only a pretence.”

“I thought,” pursued Katharine, “that—that it didn’t matter to either of us. But it does. Emmy is very unhappy; she is engaged to Mr Mackenzie; and he has no money now, so Aunt Ellen forbids her even to write to him. But if she has Kingsworth it will all come right. So I do see that it is wrong for me to keep Kingsworth. I cannot—now I know she wants to be rich—I mean, now I know that her life is spoilt because she is poor.”

“My dear, dear child!” Mrs Kingsworth took her in her arms and kissed her fondly; but even she felt startled and awestruck. “I was sure that you would wake up to the sense of the wrong,” she said softly.

“I couldn’t let Emberance be unhappy, if I could help it,” said Katharine.

“As to that,” replied her mother, “I cannot judge. Her engagement may or may not be desirable. Probably neither she nor her mother are quite fitted for the position. But be that as it may, you will be free from blame.”

“But it is to make her happy that I do it,” said Kate. “When I see that being poor makes her miserable it makes the wrong-doing seem alive and real instead of dead and done for. However, mamma, I have settled it, and promised, so you won’t have to be unhappy any more. Perhaps I ought to have minded more about that,” she added, more meekly than usual.

“No, no, Katie, my feelings were no motive to urge you. I, I shall be very thankful soon.”

Katharine turned away, and went back to Emberance, who was bathing her eyes and smoothing her hair, only anxious to obliterate the traces of her late agitation.

“Emmy,” said Kate, suddenly, “there is no need for you to be unhappy any more. Kingsworth ought to be yours, you know, and as soon as I am of age you will have it.”

Emberance, before whom the matter had of course never been discussed, and who was quite ignorant of Mrs Kingsworth’s long-cherished hope, and of all Kate’s recent perplexities, turned round and stared at her in utter amaze. “Why, Kate, are you crazy?” she exclaimed.

“Not at all. Mamma thinks it is yours, and so does Aunt Ellen, and Uncle Kingsworth said I was to make up my own mind. So I have made it up, and now you will have enough money to do whatever you please. Oh, Emmy, I wouldn’t keep it and leave you to want it, for all the world.”

“I won’t agree to such a thing,” cried Emberance, bursting into another flood of tears. “Nothing will persuade me! It is perfectly ridiculous! I hate rights and wrongs. You don’t know what you are saying.”

“Oh, yes, I do.”

“I never—never thought of such a thing! I was never jealous of you, Katie,—I always said it was nonsense. I won’t hear of it. There’s a law against it. When people have a thing for seven years it is theirs whoever comes back. People are dead after seven years, you can marry somebody else even?” cried Emberance, incoherently.

“Yes,” said Kate, “it is mine, I know, so I can give it away if I like. I am going to tell Uncle Kingsworth.”

“Katharine! Katharine!”

But Kate ran down stairs, Emberance pursued her, caught her up as she opened the study door, and got the first word as she flew to her uncle.

“Please, uncle, don’t let her do it. Uncle, it is all nonsense; I wouldn’t have it for the world.”

“Uncle Kingsworth, I have decided. I have made up my mind that Emberance must have Kingsworth!”

“Why, girls—why, girls! what in the world does all this mean?” exclaimed the astonished Canon, as he turned round and faced his two nieces; both flushed, and one tearful, and each appealing to him at the same moment.

“Oh, uncle, it is all Kate’s generosity! I wouldn’t hear of it,” cried Emberance.

“It is because I know now that Emberance really wants it, and must be unhappy if she is poor,” said Kate. “And what has brought you to this conclusion?”

“She is engaged, uncle—”

“Uncle Kingsworth knows,” interposed Emberance, with an effort at dignity. “Mr Mackenzie has lost some money, we have to wait longer than we supposed,—that is all. He can earn his living—and mine—by-and-by.”

“But if she was rich, uncle, Aunt Ellen would let them be married at once. I have decided, I see now that the wrong is real. I couldn’t keep it—and she to be unhappy. Not even if by any chance it may be mine.”

Canon Kingsworth took a hand of each, and looked from one to the other.

“And what do you suppose I mean to do with my money?” he said. “Do you know that you are my heiresses—my next of kin?”

“No,” said Kate, simply.

“Oh, uncle, don’t!” said Emberance; but he saw that she had heard the idea suggested.

“And Emberance has something from her mother and aunt.”

“But you are all alive,” said Kate; “and besides, if it is right—”

“Right? But that is your mother’s view, my child. It would be ‘right’ if Emberance did not need it.”

“But her needing it has made me see that it mattered about being right,” said Kate gravely.

“I am sure,” said Emberance, “that it would be wrong. Grandpapa did not intend my father to have it all—he never did.”

“No, Emberance, I don’t think he did, and there has always lain my reluctance to your Aunt Mary’s plan. But now listen, both of you. Suppose that Katharine, when she comes of age, were to sell Kingsworth, and divide the money equally,—how would that be?”

Emberance evidently was caught by this idea, though she repeated resolutely, “It is Kate’s, all of it.” While Katharine said,—

“Sell Kingsworth,—ought I? When it was bought back?”

“Well, Katharine, it may be a pity; but it is not especially dear to either of you. It is full of painful memories to your mothers and to me. And, my nieces, having thought much on the vexed question of your rights, I have come to the conclusion that a division is the really equitable plan. You, Katharine, cannot keep it,—you, Emberance, could not take it, without some scruple in your minds. And such an arrangement could be entered into with much less of scandal and publicity than a change between you. Kate would still be a rich woman, and you, Emberance, could fulfil your engagement, if you chose so to bestow yourself, and your portion could make happy the very worthy and disinterested young man, from whom I have just had the pleasure of receiving a letter.”

“From Malcolm, uncle? Did he write to you?”

“Yes; to inform me of his loss of fortune. I saw him, you must know, before he sailed, and I feel a high regard for him.”

“Oh, uncle,—you will say so to mother,—I am so very—very glad,” cried Emberance, clinging to him. “And we can wait. I will not mind it.”

“Well, Katharine,” said the Canon, “does my plan please you?”

“Y-es, yes,” said Kate. “But I should have thought, uncle, that you wouldn’t have considered it respectful to the family.”

“Well, my dear, under present circumstances, I think myself justified in waiving that consideration. Bless me—there’s the luncheon bell. After all, there is nine months for you to consider your conduct in.”

Chapter Eighteen.

Of Age.

Canon Kingsworth held a long conversation on the same day with Katharine’s mother, in which he endeavoured to win her to his view of the division,—to which she was greatly averse.

“There is no difference in principle,” she said, “between the whole or part. None of it should be Kate’s.”

“Is not your object to heal an old sore,—to make an old wrong right? and will that be so well done by putting Emberance into a place which she on her side could never feel to be indubitably her own,—as by this arrangement which will give her all she needs without imposing on her an intolerable sense of obligation?”

“Oh, let us once be free, and I do not care what she feels about it,” said Mrs Kingsworth vehemently.

“But, apparently, Katharine does.”

Mrs Kingsworth was silent for a moment, then she said, “Emberance has no cause for gratitude or sense of obligation. So far as I am concerned, I have never considered her in the matter. You think I have been hard towards her.”

“No, Mary, I don’t say that. Different natures must learn their lessons in a different way. Your sense of honour has enabled you to carry out your purpose of restoration, while Kate’s kindly feeling and loving nature has taught her to see that your principles are worth putting in practice. But, my dear Mary, would poor James himself, would any one concerned, find it as hard as you have done to think with charity of your husband’s memory?”

“I never have—I know that I never have,” said Mrs Kingsworth, with irrepressible tears. “I cannot forgive him. I could have borne a whole sea of troubles better than the need of despising him,—he disgraced me. But I endeavoured to find the only comfort, and in some measure—I have.”

She paused, and then added slowly and with difficulty, “I know that I have made many mistakes in judgment,—I misunderstood Kate. Perhaps—perhaps I have thought too much of my own pride.—I am very slow to perceive myself in fault—Perhaps George too, if he had lived—I will endeavour to remember how much I myself have fallen short.”

“My dear child,” said the old Canon, drawing her towards him and kissing her brow.

“Katie has been truly unselfish,” she added. “I think—I think she is a good girl, and I am willing to leave her to your guidance in this matter.”

And probably no greater self-conquest was achieved in regard to the whole matter than Mary Kingsworth’s in these last words.

She went presently in search of Katharine, who had just returned from a walk with her cousins, during which both she and Emberance had done their best to appear as if nothing particular was occupying their minds. She was in her room taking off her hat as her mother came behind her, and putting her hands on her shoulders, kissed her brow.

“Katie,” she said, with unusual gentleness, “I have agreed that it will be better to leave the arrangement to your uncle. And, my dear, I think I have done you injustice. You have been hardly tried, and I should have been more thankful for the aid your affection for Emberance has given you. We shall do better together now.”

“Oh, mamma,” cried Kate, clinging to her, “I have been a naughty girl, and thought of nothing but enjoying myself. But mamma, if you knew,—I did try once, I did tell the truth when it was very hard.”

“How, my dear?”

“Major Clare, mamma. I told him that perhaps I meant to give it up to Emberance—and then—he never said any more. I thought I must tell him.”

“Major Clare! Ah, I have been very unlike a mother. My poor little girl—have you had this to bear? such a cruel form of disappointment.”

“I have quite got over it,” said Kate seriously; “I was too young, I think, to know my own mind really.”

A vivid blush dyed her face, and her eyes, which had been frankly lifted, dropped as she spoke—as if some new consciousness came over her.

Mrs Kingsworth lingered, watching her; she thought naturally of Walter and his hopes, and wondered what he would say now the important matter was decided.

But nothing was to be said of it openly, and nothing of course could be done until Katharine came of age in the ensuing January. The hopes which Canon Kingsworth could hold out in his kind and cheering answer to Malcolm Mackenzie’s letter were of the vaguest; and Emberance, still insisting that Kate could settle nothing yet, would have no word said to her mother until the deed was actually done. Nor did Walter consider himself justified in trying to gain her promise until the important birthday was passed.

On the 15th of the next January, at Kingsworth itself, Katharine was to make her final decision, and until then, where were she and her mother to go? Kate professed herself quite willing to return to Applehurst; but she had rather not pass the intervening months at Kingsworth, where every one supposed that her birthday would make her entirely mistress. Mr and Mrs Kingsworth, of Silthorpe, sent them a very warm invitation to visit them in the North; and it was finally agreed that this should be accepted; after which they would go abroad for two or three months, and spend the autumn and winter at Applehurst.

This programme was faithfully carried out. Kate enjoyed Silthorpe, and saw a great deal of Walter, though she made no further attempt to confide in him. He was very kind, and planned all sorts of schemes for her pleasure; but she was a little troubled by the sort of distance between them, and spent much time in secretly wondering whether Walter liked her as much as ever, or if her impulsive childishness on their first acquaintance had not repelled him.

On the other hand she made quick strides in friendship with all his family, and liked them better than any people she had ever seen. She carried a sense of unrest and unsettlement abroad with her, the uncomfortable feeling of a crisis in the air, and afterwards, in the slow weeks at Applehurst, her chief feeling was of longing for the deed to be done. Her own desire was that she and her mother should take a house at Fanchester. There would be society and companionship and a life that would be far pleasanter to live than either Applehurst or Kingsworth.

“If you still wish it, after your birthday, Katie,” said her mother. “It is not a bad plan.”

But no one would help her to lay plans for anything after the fifteenth of January.

“It is like the end of the world. Shall I be anybody at all when to-morrow is over?” she thought to herself as they journeyed towards Kingsworth, whither the Canon and his wife had preceded them by a few days, and where Emberance was to meet them.

It was fine, clear winter weather, frosty and bright. The sea was sparkling in the sunrise when Katharine looked out on it on the morning of her birthday. The blue water, the frosty slopes of the park looked their best and fairest, as the bells of Kingsworth Church rang out a merry peal in honour of Miss Kingsworth’s coming of age. A feeling of unreality came over Kate, it was as if she were going to take a part in a play. She put on her best dress, and went down stairs as the breakfast bell rang. Then there were kisses and congratulations. The Canon gave Kate a pretty necklace, Emberance some girlish piece of handiwork, Rosa and Minnie Clare had sent her a book.

“I forgot to get you a present, Katie,” said her mother. “You must choose afterwards.”

“Afterwards!” thought Kate. “Then there will be an afterwards.”

They sat down to breakfast; the Canon talked politics, and Emberance replied with a manifest sense of the propriety on her part of appearing unconscious of a crisis. Kate spoke now and then. Her mother was absolutely silent.

When the meal was over there was a pause, as if no one quite knew what to do next.

“Well, Katharine,” said the Canon, “you are queen of the day, how are we to spend it?”

“I wish,” said Kate, “that every one should hear what I want to say. If you please, uncle, come into the drawing-room.”

She took the lead, she hardly knew why herself, and as they gathered round the drawing-room fire, she stood a little apart and spoke.

“I wish to sell Kingsworth, and to divide the money that is paid for it with Emberance. I don’t think that it is quite mine or quite hers, and I believe that it is right to divide it, and that it will make us both happier if we do.”

Emberance burst into tears as a sort of hush went through the listening circle.

“Have you taken time to consider this resolution?” asked the Canon.

“Yes, nine months.”

“And you come to it entirely of your own free will, unbiased by my suggestions or your mother’s?”

“Yes, I do. I mean to do it.”

Canon Kingsworth took her by the hand and drew her towards him.

“Why?” he said simply, “why do you mean to do it?”

“Because it will make Emberance happy.”

“That is hardly sufficient motive,” said the Canon, hushing Emberance with a sign.

“Yes,” said Kate, “because when she was unhappy for want of it, it showed me that the unfair settlement really set our lives wrong. And perhaps my father would have made it all right in a day or two more, so I do it instead.”

“But why do you not give Emberance the whole?”

“Because that would make her feel as uncomfortable about it as I do now, and because she—she couldn’t live at Kingsworth.”

“And shall not you regret this place, which you have the means to keep up well? So much of my father’s earnings was spent on Kingsworth, that it came as a barren honour to your grandfather, whose means were still further impoverished afterwards, but your mother’s fortune would make you a rich woman with Kingsworth, Kate, a great lady. Shall you not regret it?”

“Yes,” said Kate, with perfect straightforwardness, “I shall be rather sorry for it, but not enough to matter.”

“She has said her catechism well,” said the Canon. “She knows her own mind and her own motives. Now, Katharine, there is one more question you must answer, that no cloud may ever rest on the future. Has your cousin Emberance ever expressed any regret at her own exclusion, shown you any jealousy, or attempted to influence your feelings?”

“Uncle, how dare you ask such a wicked question?” cried Kate, vehemently. “No, no, no! Emberance has always loved me. Oh, Emmy, you know you never did,” and breaking from her uncle, she ran to Emberance, and threw her arms round her, whispering “Emmy, don’t cry, don’t cry,—you will be happy now.”

“I will speak on my side,” cried Emberance, sobbing, “I would rather have cut my tongue out. So would my mother. I love Kate. I only agree because of what you told me, uncle.”

“Tut, tut,” said the Canon, “the whole point is settled now.”

“Except a purchaser,” said Katharine’s mother. “Will it not be long before we find one?”

“Well,” said the Canon, “to tell you the truth I have heard of a possible purchaser,—of a gentleman who would like to have the place if it were in the market.”

“Who is it? What is his name?” asked Kate, eagerly.

“Why, he is a gentleman of some fortune, and his name,—I don’t think my man of business was very particular about his name. I, of course, could not entertain the proposal, but his name—his name, I think, is James.”

“Mr James,—oh!” said Katharine, “that doesn’t sound interesting.”

“It is a very good name, my dear,” said the Canon, mildly. “Well, then there will be many troublesome legal formalities, but I consider that I have Katharine’s permission to put the matter in train.”

“Yes, uncle,” said Kate, as all being glad to end the interview, there was a general move.

“Canon,” said his wife, “I am ashamed of you.”

“Well, my dear,” said the Canon, “his name is James, you know.”

The two girls went off together; Kate coaxing Emberance to tell her about Malcolm and to make plans for the future, and Emberance falling into a terror, as the idea struck her that her mother would regard Malcolm with more unfavourable eyes than ever, now she was possessed of this fortune. Still she thought that with the powerful backing up of the Canon this difficulty might be overcome, and in truth her uncle had made it his business to ascertain that the New Zealand cousins were solvent, prosperous persons, and that there would be no undue risk in a connection with them. He would write to Malcolm Mackenzie, and give him leave to bring matters to a point. All this had been settled with Emberance in a conversation before they left Fanchester, when she had convinced her uncle that Malcolm and New Zealand were and would be her deliberate and unalterable choice. Meanwhile, Mrs Kingsworth, restless from a sense of relief which she could not realise, and bewildered by the apparent ease with which her long-cherished object had been attained, put on her things, and went out for a walk. A curious desire seized her to look round the place once more, now that it was freed from the sense of wrong-doing, that had made it hateful to her. She had done her best not to look, not to see, when she had been there before; but now she looked about her with an odd sort of curiosity, as she turned her steps for the first time down towards the shore.

“Mamma doesn’t like the rocks,” Kate had been wont to say, perhaps with a sort of fancy that her mother’s age made it natural that she should not care for scrambling. But it was with steps light and active as Katharine’s own that Mrs Kingsworth made her way down to the fatal cove, where she had never been since her husband’s death.

She looked round about her with a sense of awe and of compassion for the two young lives that had there been sacrificed, with an earnest endeavour to lay her hard thoughts to sleep, and to forgive if she could never forget the past. Her eyes filled with tears, she thought thankfully of Kate’s honest generosity, and resolved to try for a better understanding with her for the future, not to misjudge the natural girlish spirits, which had so long passed away from herself.

Suddenly she became aware that she was not alone, but that a fisher-woman was standing beside her, looking at her keenly.

“If you please, ma’am,” the new comer said, “I am Alice Taylor.”

“I do not know what you can have to say to me, Alice,” said Mrs Kingsworth, surprised. “Do not think I should bring up again anything that is past and gone.”

“I want you to say, ma’am, what made you think as I took they earrings,” said Alice, sturdily.

“I do not think I quite remember the details, they were swept out of my memory by the events that followed. Were they not found in the nursery?”

“Yes, ma’am; but it was Eliza put them there. Eliza the housemaid. We quarrelled over a young man, ma’am. My husband he is now, and I did not take your earrings. I didn’t indeed.”

“Well, Alice,” said Mrs Kingsworth after a moment, “if so you have been greatly wronged, and I believe you speak the truth. Would you like me to talk to Mr Clare about you?”

“Well it’s hard to have a bad name, and they earrings stuck by me. But now, ma’am, ’tis I that have something to tell you. When I was sent away that night, I didn’t dare go home to father, and I made up my mind I’d get off in the morning to my aunt at Whitecliff. So I waited about on the shore, just here where we stand, ma’am, and all to once I heard voices above over there, and some one called out, ‘James, come away, we’re close to the cliff. Come away or there’ll be an end.’ Then I heard Mr James’ voice, ‘Which way? Where are we? Stand still.’ And then there was an awful cry and a splash in the water, and I screamed and screeched for help, but no one came, and the fog was too thick to see, and at last I got away round the corner and along the beach to Whitecliff. But I knew what we should hear in the morning.”

“Oh, Alice, we would have paid with our heart’s blood for your story,” cried Mrs Kingsworth. “Then it was pure accident; they would have saved each other if they could! Oh come, come, tell Canon Kingsworth.”

“I was afraid of being took up for the earrings,” said Alice, “and frightened and scared out of my wits, and Mr James was one who had a word for one one day and for another the next,—but now, the tale’s worth something, may be, and I’ll come.”

Chapter Nineteen.

“Lady Clare.”

Alice Taylor’s story, when repeated to the Canon, and sifted as carefully as could be, lifted the weight of vague suspicion off the memories of the two brothers, and at any rate enabled those concerned to believe each innocent of a hand in the other’s death. As to the earrings, they had only the woman’s own word for her innocence, and her silence seemed to have been accounted for by fright on her own account, and a stupid ignorance of the value of what she had to tell. Whether there had not been in it a dash of revenge for the suspicion, and of anger at the cessation of the careless attentions which James Kingsworth had not been above paying to so pretty a girl, might be doubted, and her subsequent history had not been particularly creditable. She had spoken now simply to gain money, and a small allowance was settled on her, for her tale had indeed lifted a dark cloud from the past. It brought her into much notice, though it had been known in hints to many whom it did not concern: before the Kingsworths themselves had been informed of it. A great talk and excitement was raised in the neighbourhood, people went to visit the cove, and the old story of the Kingsworth succession was in every mouth. Canon Kingsworth took the whole party back to Fanchester, and then wrote to Mr Clare an authorised version of Mrs Taylor’s confession, and also of the arrangement for the sale of Kingsworth. The truth was thus on record, and the wild stories must subside as they had arisen. Mrs Kingsworth cared little for them. She had been put in charity with her past, and was ready to be in charity with the present, even with her sister-in-law, who hardly knew how to dispose of her gratitude and sense of former harsh judgments of the heiress and her mother.

So it was “all settled,” as Kate said, and desirable houses in Fanchester were inspected. Applehurst was to be let, and Kate talked of belonging to the choral society and of “improving her mind” by attending Shakespeare classes with the other Fanchester young ladies. Nothing unusual was likely to occur to her any more. At last she was “just like other girls.”

Why did she feel that being like other girls was a little dull? No answer had yet been received from Malcolm Mackenzie, but Emberance was in all the flutter of expectation of it, and Kate, as she thought of all her past excitements, the lover who had proved no lover, the duty to be done, the crisis that had passed, felt thankful, but a little flat.

It was just a year since the visit of Walter and Eva Kingsworth to Fanchester, which had done so much to open her eyes, when the Canon announced that he had invited Walter to come and see him again. Kate sparkled up eagerly. Now she could talk to Walter and tell him how it had all been, now he could tell her freely what he thought; she was not an ignorant child any more, but a wise, experienced woman, able to recognise the wisdom of his former silence.

And so she told him a day or two after his arrival, as they once more walked up and down the grey-walled garden together, and Kate talked of her difficulties with an impulse of confidence never felt towards any other human being.

“I thought it so hard that you would not speak out plainly to me and tell me what I ought to do, but I see now that it was quite right, I should not have understood.”

“It would not have been fair to influence you,” said Walter.

“Perhaps not. But now you think I was right? Now, you know that you can speak freely.”

“Yes, I can speak freely at last!” cried Walter, pausing in his walk. “At last! If you knew the trial of silence. How could I speak to the heiress of Kingsworth or say a word that might not be misconstrued? But now, now, Kate, Kate, your own self—may I not tell you that I love you—you—not your wealth, it is too much still; but you—you. My darling—that is what I want to say.”

“I never thought of that!” cried Kate abruptly.

“But you will think now; I know you are too innocent to guess.”

“No,” said Kate, “I was thinking—I thought I liked some one else, but I did not know anything in those days. Now—”

“Now?” said Walter, as he took her hand.

“Now,” said Kate, with her old abruptness, but with a new deeper tone in her fresh young voice. “Now I know it is you!”

So all was settled, and Katharine Kingsworth found her lot at last. The clear honesty which was her best inheritance had guided her through the dangers of her first girlish fancy, and through the perplexities of her decision, and the aim of her mother’s life was fulfilled in spite of the mistakes she had made in carrying it out.

“If you had not made Katharine a good girl,” the Canon said to her, “she would not have had the chance of her present happiness.”

“She is a good girl,” said Mrs Kingsworth. “I ought to have found it out sooner.”

“Katie,” said Walter Kingsworth to his bride on their wedding day, “before we go to Scotland I want to show you a place in which we are both interested. Will you come?”

“Of course I will. Where is it?”

“You shall see.”

Kate laughed at the mystery, but after all it mattered little where they went. As they got out of the train at a station unknown to her before, and drove across country several miles, through the ripening cornfields—

“Why, Walter, I have been here before. Why this is Mayford! Is it Kingsworth you mean?”

“Yes, why not Kingsworth?”

“Well, I do not see why you want to see it. And the bells are ringing. Not for us surely?”

“Why not? But perhaps they are practising.”

Kate was puzzled.

“Will ‘Mr James’ let us in?”

“I think so.”

They drove up the well-known avenue, right up to the door, where familiar figures stood ready to greet them.

“Why, there is your father!”

“Yes, Kate,” said Walter, as he lifted his bewildered bride out of the carriage, “this is the place I wanted you to see. Now you know why I could not urge you to part with it, when my father wanted to buy it for a holiday home for us all. Now you know why I could not speak till your mind was clear. But the Canon knew, and Emberance. For you come back to the old home after all, for here it is—and here is—”

“Mr James!” cried Kate.

”—Kingsworth,” said her father-in-law, taking her hand. “Welcome home, Katharine—to Kingsworth.”

|

Chapter 1

| |

Chapter 2

| |

Chapter 3

| |

Chapter 4

| |

Chapter 5

| |

Chapter 6

| |

Chapter 7

| |

Chapter 8

| |

Chapter 9

| |

Chapter 10

| |

Chapter 11

| |

Chapter 12

| |

Chapter 13

| |

Chapter 14

| |

Chapter 15

| |

Chapter 16

| |

Chapter 17

| |

Chapter 18

| |

Chapter 19

|