'Not to love it?'

'I believe I was beginning to love her--just when you were cold to me. You remember when?'

'I do; and it was this coldness was the cause? Was it the only cause?'

'No, no. She has wiles and ways which, with her beauty, make her nigh irresistible.'

'And now you are cured of this pa.s.sion? There is no trace of it in your breast?'

'Not a vestige. But why speak of her?'

'Perhaps I am jealous.'

Once more he pressed his lips to her hand, and kissed it rapturously.

'No, Kate,' cried he, 'none but you have the place in my heart. Whenever I have tried a treason, it has turned against me. Is there light enough in the room to find a small portfolio of red-brown leather? It is on that table yonder.'

Had the darkness been not almost complete, Nina would scarcely have ventured to rise and cross the room, so fearful was she of being recognised.

'It is locked,' said she, as she laid it beside him on the bed; but touching a secret spring, he opened it, and pa.s.sed his fingers hurriedly through the papers within.

'I believe it must be this,' said he. 'I think I know the feel of the paper. It is a telegram from my aunt; the doctor gave it to me last night.

We read it over together four or five times. This is it, and these are the words: "If Kate will be your wife, the estate of O'Shea's Barn is your own for ever."'

'Is she to have no time to think over this offer?' asked she.

'Would you like candles, miss?' asked a maid-servant, of whose presence there neither of the others had been aware.

'No, nor are you wanted,' said Nina haughtily, as she arose; while it was not without some difficulty she withdrew her hand from the sick man's grasp.

'I know,' said he falteringly, 'you would not leave me if you had not left hope to keep me company in your absence. Is not that so, Kate?'

'Bye-bye,' said she softly, and stole away.

CHAPTER LXXIV

AN ANGRY COLLOQUY

It was with pa.s.sionate eagerness Nina set off in search of Kate. Why she should have felt herself wronged, outraged, insulted even, is not so easy to say, nor shall I attempt any a.n.a.lysis of the complex web of sentiments which, so to say, spread itself over her faculties. The man who had so wounded her self-love had been at her feet, he had followed her in her walks, hung over the piano as she sang--shown by a thousand signs that sort of devotion by which men intimate that their lives have but one solace, one ecstasy, one joy. By what treachery had he been moved to all this, if he really loved another? That he was simply amusing himself with the sort of flirtation she herself could take up as a mere pastime was not to be believed. That the worshipper should be insincere in his worship was too dreadful to think of. And yet it was to this very man she had once turned to avenge herself on Walpole's treatment of her; she had even said, 'Could you not make a quarrel with him?' Now, no woman of foreign breeding puts such a question without the perfect consciousness that, in accepting a man's championship, she has virtually admitted his devotion. Her own levity of character, the thoughtless indifference with which she would sport with any man's affections, so far from inducing her to palliate such caprices, made her more severe and unforgiving. 'How shall I punish him for this? How shall I make him remember whom it is he has insulted?' repeated she over and over to herself as she went.

The servants pa.s.sed her on the stairs with trunks and luggage of various kinds; but she was too much engrossed with her own thoughts to notice them.

Suddenly the words, 'Mr. Walpole's room,' caught her ear, and she asked, 'Has any one come?'

Yes, two gentlemen had just arrived. A third was to come that night, and Miss O'Shea might be expected at any moment.

'Where was Miss Kate?' she inquired.

'In her own room at the top of the house.'

Thither she hastened at once.

'Be a dear good girl,' cried Kate as Nina entered, 'and help me in my many embarra.s.sments. Here are a flood of visitors all coming unexpectedly. Major Lockwood and Mr. Walpole have come. Miss Betty will be here for dinner, and Mr. Atlee, whom we all believed to be in Asia, may arrive to-night. I shall be able to feed them; but how to lodge them with any pretension to comfort is more than I can see.'

'I am in little humour to aid any one. I have my own troubles--worse ones, perhaps, than playing hostess to disconsolate travellers.'

'And what are your troubles, dear Nina?'

'I have half a mind not to tell you. You ask me with that supercilious air that seems to say, "How can a creature like you be of interest enough to any one or anything to have a difficulty?"'

'I force no confidences,' said the other coldly.

'For that reason you shall have them--at least this one. What will you say when I tell you that young O'Shea has made me a declaration, a formal declaration of love?'

'I should say that you need not speak of it as an insult or an offence.'

'Indeed! and if so, you would say what was perfectly wrong. It was both insult and offence--yes, both. Do you know that the man mistook me for _you_, and called me _Kate_?'

'How could this be possible?'

'In a darkened room, with a sick man slowly rallying from a long attack of stupor; nothing of me to be seen but my hand, which he devoured with kisses--raptures, indeed, Kate, of which I had no conception till I experienced them by counterfeit!'

'Oh! Nina, this is not fair!'

'It is true, child. The man caught my hand and declared he would never quit it till I promised it should be his own. Nor was he content with this; but, antic.i.p.ating his right to be lord and master, he bade you to beware of _me_! "Beware of that Greek girl!" were his words--words strengthened by what he said of my character and my temperament. I shall spare you, and I shall spare myself, his acute comments on the nature he dreaded to see in companionship with his wife. I have had good training in learning these unbia.s.sed judgments--my early life abounded in such experiences--but this young gentleman's cautions were candour itself.'

'I am sincerely sorry for what has pained you.'

'I did not say it was this boy's foolish words had wounded me so acutely. I could bear sterner critics than he is--his very blundering misconception of me would always plead his pardon. How could he, or how could they with whom he lived and talked, and smoked and swaggered, know of me, or such as me?

What could there be in the monotonous vulgarity of their tiresome lives that should teach them what we are, or what we wish to be? By what presumption did he dare to condemn all that he could not understand?'

'You are angry, Nina; and I will not say without some cause.'

'What ineffable generosity! You can really constrain yourself to believe that I have been insulted!'

'I should not say insulted.'

'You cannot be an honest judge in such a cause. Every outrage offered to _me_ was an act of homage to _yourself_! If you but knew how I burned to tell him who it was whose hand he held in his, and to whose ears he had poured out his raptures! To tell him, too, how the Greek girl would have resented his presumption, had he but dared to indulge it! One of the women-servants, it would seem, was a witness to this boy's declaration.

I think it was Mary was in the room, I do not know for how long, but she announced her presence by asking some question about candles. In fact, I shall have become a servants'-hall scandal by this time.'

'There need not be any fear of that, Nina: there are no bad tongues amongst our people.'

'I know all that. I know we live amidst human perfectabilities--all of Irish manufacture, and warranted to be genuine.'

'I would hope that some of your impressions of Ireland are not unfavourable?'