The girl took his hand and pressed it gently.

"I have made up my mind," she said gravely.

Eversleigh, unable to speak, raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it.

Punctually at twelve Bennet made his appearance at Ivydene. He found Kitty waiting for him in the shrubbery in front of the house.

"I have come for your answer," he said, without prelude. "Is it Yes or No, Miss Thornton," he asked excitedly.

"Will you listen to me first--just a moment," she pleaded, as she saw the impatient working of his face; "only a moment?"

"Well," Harry replied grudgingly; "what is it?"

"If you will tell me how much Mr. Eversleigh owes you, I will pay it to you--every farthing," replied Kitty.

Bennet shook his head with an almost savage gesture.

"Miss Thornton," said he, "you will not understand me. I have told you that I love you. And all's fair in love and war. I am glad to have this hold on you--glad to think that if it is even against your will I have such a chance of making you marry me, and I shall not relinquish it.

Don't you see, Kitty, I should be a fool to give you up?"

"I will give you twice the amount Mr. Eversleigh owes you, if you like."

"It is useless, quite useless, to make any proposition of that kind,"

said Bennet, who, of course, thought that the girl's money would come to him in any case. "Will you marry me, yes or no?"

"But you know, Mr. Bennet, that I do not love you. You know that I am engaged to Gilbert Eversleigh?"

"Gilbert Eversleigh!" cried Bennet, with a fierce, scowling, threatening expression. "Why should I consider him? He took you from me; if it had not been for him, perhaps you would have loved me. I hate and loathe the very sound of his name. I should like to see him disgraced and ruined, but I am foregoing that gratification because I love you. I would rather marry you than wreak my vengeance on him, and to give up this opportunity of revenge is no slight thing for me to do."

"He has given you no cause for such feelings!"

"Cause enough," said Bennet. "But all this is stupid. For the last time, I tell you that the fate of the Eversleighs is in your power. Will you send Francis Eversleigh to prison, or will you marry me? That is the issue. And you must answer at once; I will be trifled with no longer."

Kitty, however, did not speak.

There was a sudden panic in the girl's heart. She was asking how could she bring herself to marry this man, with his coa.r.s.eness and brutality.

"It is No, then!" exclaimed Bennet. "You doom your friends to hopeless ruin and infamy."

"Mr. Bennet, the answer is Yes," said Kitty, her voice quivering, but her heart once more steadfast.

"You will marry me?" asked Bennet, a note of joy in his rough tones.

"Yes, to save the Eversleighs."

"You will marry me soon?"

"Mr. Bennet, you must remember that my father has only been dead a few weeks."

"Kitty, now you have promised to marry me," said Bennet, and he spoke with an accent of sincerity, "I will remember anything you like to ask me to remember, for I do love you. But you will not keep me waiting too long?"

Having gained his object, Bennet tried to drop the bully and to become the lover.

"You do love me," said Kitty, scanning his face.

"With all my soul!"

"And yet your love is not strong enough to make you give me up--even when you know I do not love you, and that my love is another's?"

"Oh, I am not that sort of man; I am uncommonly human. When I see my chance I go for it with all my might; and here is my chance come by wonderful luck, and I take it. What an a.s.s I should be not to take it!

Do you blame me so much for doing so, when you, Kitty, are the prize to be won?"

Confident now that he had carried the day, Bennet spoke quite pleasantly. He even attempted to put his arm round the girl, but she would not let him.

"Mr. Bennet," she said, the colour burning in her cheeks, "I have promised to marry you, and I shall not break my word, but I do not love you. Pray spare me until--until----" And she stopped with a slight choke.

Bennet swore under his breath.

Aloud he said, "As you please, Kitty," and stood frowning at her heavily.

"My promise to you," Kitty reminded him, "is conditional on your giving Mr. Eversleigh a full discharge from all his indebtedness to you."

"Yes. You shall have the necessary doc.u.ment from me on the day of our marriage; that is fair, is it not?"

"Will you not let me have it now, or very soon?"

"I'm to give everything and get nothing?" asked Bennet. But even as he put this question he told himself there was no danger of the girl going back from her promise, and that he might safely let her have the discharge. Still, if he did so, it must be on terms. So he continued, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you that discharge the first time you kiss me."

Kitty, though her heart felt like breaking all the while, smiled a wan a.s.sent.

"Is it a bargain?" he inquired.

And she nodded.

"You shall have the discharge," cried Bennet, "as soon as it can be prepared. Does that content you?"

"Yes," said Kitty, and there was a pause.

"My proposed marriage to you," said Kitty, speaking again, "will bring about some changes. It is quite plain that I can stay no longer at Ivydene with the Eversleighs--they will not understand why I am acting as I am doing, and, indeed, they must not suspect why it is. I shall have to invent some plea--some excuse. Until I have gone--for I must go--I do not wish them to know that I am to marry you. Francis Eversleigh will know, but none of the rest need know until I have left Surbiton."

"Where do you think of going?" inquired Bennet. "You must not go far away."

"I have a distant relative--a second cousin of my father's--in Yorkshire. She is an elderly lady, and has more than once asked me to pay her a visit. It is to her that I shall go. Indeed, there is no other to whom I could go; she is the only relative that I have in the world."

"Yorkshire is a long way off," said Bennet.

"I can think of nothing else," she said.