They went downstairs together. The clean linen, the stockings that
required mending, lay upon the table. Katherine sat down to the task.
Resolutely, but almost unconsciously, she put her needle through and
through. Her suffering was pitiful; this little one, who a few months
ago would have wept for a cut finger, now silently battling with the
bitterest agony that can come to a loving woman,--the sense of cruel,
unexpected, unmerited desertion. At first Lysbet tried to talk to her;
but she soon saw that the effort to answer was beyond Katherine's
power, and conversation was abandoned. So for an hour, an hour of
speechless sorrow, they sat. The tick of the clock, the purr of the cat,
the snap of a breaking thread, alone relieved the tension of silence in
which this act of suffering was completed. Its atmosphere was becoming
intolerable, like that of a nightmare; and Lysbet was feeling that she
must speak and move, and so dissipate it, when there was a loud knock at
the front door.
Katherine trembled all over. "To-day I cannot bear it, mother. No one
can I see. I will go upstairs."
Ere the words were finished, Mrs. Gordon's voice was audible. She came
into the room laughing, with the smell of fresh violets and the feeling
of the brisk wind around her. "Dear madam," she cried, "I entreat you
for a favour. I am going to take the air this afternoon: be so good as
to let Katherine come with me. For I must tell you that the colonel has
orders for Boston, and I may see my charming friend no more after
to-day."
"Katherine, what say you? Will you go?"
"Please, mijn moeder."
"Make great haste, then." For Lysbet was pleased with the offer, and
fearful that Joris might arrive, and refuse to let his daughter accept
it. She hoped that Katherine would receive some comforting message; and
she was glad that on this day, of all others, Captain Hyde's aunt should
be seen with her. It would in some measure stop evil surmises; and it
left an air of uncertainty about the captain's relationship to
Katherine, which made the humiliation of his departure less keen.
"Stay not long," she whispered, "for your father's sake. There is no
good, more trouble to give him."
"Well, my dear, you look like a ghost. Have you not one smile for a
woman so completely in your interest? When I promised Dick this morning
that I would be sure to get word to you, I was at my wits' end to
discover a way. But, when I am between the horns of a dilemma, I find it
the best plan to take the bull by the horns. Hence, I have made you a
visit which seems to have quite nonplussed you and your good mother."