"It will be the half hour after four, Captain. I am going home; shall I
have your company, sir?"
"I have not much leisure to-night. Make a thousand regrets to Madam
Semple and my aunt for me."
Neil's calm, complacent gravity was unendurable. He turned from him
abruptly, and, muttering passionate exclamations, went to the river-bank
for a boat. Often he had seen Katherine between five and six o'clock at
the foot of the Van Heemskirk garden; for it was then possible for her
to slip away while madam was busy about her house, and Joanna and
Batavius talking over their own affairs. And this evening he felt that
the very intensity of his desire must surely bring her to their
trysting-place behind the lilac hedge.
Whether he was right or wrong, he did not consider; for he was not one
of those potent men who have themselves in their own power. Nor had it
ever entered his mind that "love's strength standeth in love's
sacrifice," or that the only love worthy of the name refuses to blend
with anything that is low or vindictive or clandestine. And, even if he
had not loved Katherine, he would now have been determined to marry her.
Never before in all his life had he found an object so engrossing. Pride
and revenge were added to love, as motives; but who will say that love
was purer or stronger or sweeter for them?
In the meantime Joris was suffering as only such deep natures can
suffer. There are domestic fatalities which the wisest and tenderest of
parents seem impotent to contend with. Joris had certainly been alarmed
by Semple's warning; but in forbidding his daughter to visit Mrs.
Gordon, and in permitting the suit of Neil Semple, he thought he had
assured her safety. Through all the past weeks, he had seen no shadow on
her face. The fear had died out, and the hope had been slowly growing;
so that Captain Hyde's proposal, and his positive assertion that
Katherine loved him, had fallen upon the father's heart with the force
of a blow, and the terror of a shock. And the sting of the sorrow was
this,--that his child had deceived him. Certainly she had not spoken
false words, but truth can be outraged by silence quite as cruelly as by
speech.
After Hyde's departure, he shut the door of his office, walked to the
window, and stood there some minutes, clasping and unclasping his large
hands, like a man full of grief and perplexity. Ere long he remembered
his friend Semple. This trouble concerned him also, for Captain Hyde was
in a manner his guest; and, if he were informed of the marriage arranged
between Katherine and Neil Semple, he would doubtless feel himself bound
in honour to retire. Elder Semple had opened his house to Colonel
Gordon, his wife and nephew. For months they had lived in comfort under
his roof, and been made heartily welcome to the best of all he
possessed. Joris put himself in Hyde's place; and he was certain, that,
under the same circumstances, he would feel it disgraceful to interfere
with the love-affairs of his host's son.