Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17.djvu/374

366 the naked eye,—yet a person of her own sex would have seen that at one moment she was crying from agitated nerves, at another from worry, and at the next from pity, and then from grief.

In short, she had a good long, hearty, multiform cry; and it relieved her swelling heart, so far that she felt able to go down now, and hide her feelings, one and all, from friend and foe; to do which was unfortunately a part of her nature.

She rose and plunged her face into cold water, and then smoothed her hair.

Now, as she stood at the glass, two familiar voices came in through the open window, and arrested her attention directly. It was her father conversing with Griffith Gaunt. Kate pricked up her quick ears and listened, with her back hair in her hand. She caught the substance of their talk, only now and then she missed a word or two.

Mr. Peyton was speaking rather kindly to Griffith, and telling him he was as sorry for his disappointment as any father could be whose daughter had just come into a fortune. But then he went on and rather spoiled this by asking Griffith bluntly what on earth had ever made him think Mr. Charlton intended to leave him Bolton and Hernshaw.

Griffith replied, with manifest agitation, that Mr. Charlton had repeatedly told him he was to be his heir. "Not," said Griffith, "that he meant to wrong Mistress Kate, neither: poor old man, he always thought she and I should be one."

"Ah! well," said Squire Peyton, coolly, "there is an end of all that now."

At this observation Kate glided to the window, and laid her cheek on the sill to listen more closely.

But Griffith made no reply.

Mr. Peyton seemed dissatisfied at his silence, and being a person who, notwithstanding a certain superficial good-nature, saw his own side of a question very big, and his neighbor's very little, he was harder than perhaps he intended to be.

"Why, Master Gaunt," said he, "surely you would not follow my daughter now,—to feed upon a woman's bread. Come, be a man; and, if you are the girl's friend, don't stand in her light. You know she can wed your betters, and clap Bolton Hall on to Neville's Court. No doubt it is a disappointment to you: but what can't be cured must be endured; pluck up a bit of courage, and turn your heart another way; and then I shall always be a good friend to you, and my doors open to you come when you will."

Griffith made no reply. Kate strained her ears, but could not hear a syllable, A tremor ran through her. She was in distance farther from Griffith than her father was; but superior intelligence provided her with a bridge from her window to her old servant's mind. And now she felt that this great silence was the silence of despair.

But the Squire pressed him for a definite answer, and finally insisted on one. "Come, don't be so sulky," said he; "I'm her father: give me an answer, ay or no."

Then Kate heard a violent sigh, and out rushed a torrent of words that each seemed tinged with blood from the unfortunate speaker's heart. "Old man," he almost shrieked, "what did I ever do to you, that you torment me so? Sure you were born without bowels. Beggared but an hour agone, and now you must come and tell me I have lost her by losing house and lands! D'ye think I need to be told it? She was too far above me before, and now she is gone quite out of my reach. But why come and fling it in my face? Can't you give a poor, undone man one hour to draw his breath in trouble? And when you know I have got to play the host this bitter day, and smile, and smirk, and make you all merry, with my heart breaking! O Christ, look down and pity me, for men are made of stone! Well, then, no; I will not, I cannot say the word to give her up. She will