And when I reached Drake Hill a white curtain fluttered athwart a
window, and I caught a gleam of a white arm pulling it to place, and
knew that Mistress Mary had been watching for me--I can not say
with what rapture and triumph and misgivings.
It was well toward morning, and indeed a faint pallor of dawn was in
the east, and now and then a bird was waking. Not a slave on the
plantation was astir, and the sounds of slumber were coming from the
quarters. So I myself put my borrowed horse in stable, and then was
seeking my own room, when, passing through the hall, a white figure
started forth from a shadow and caught me by the arm, and it was
Catherine Cavendish. She urged me forth to the porch, I being
bewildered and knowing not how, nor indeed if it were wise, to
resist her. But when we stood together there, in that hush of
slumber only broken now and then by the waking love of a bird, and
it seemed verily as if we two were alone in the whole world, a sense
of the situation flashed upon me. I turned on my heel to reenter the
house. "Madam," I said, "this will never do. If you remain here with
me, your reputation--"
"What think you I care for my reputation?" she whispered. "What
think you? Harry Wingfield, you cannot do this monstrous thing. You
cannot be so lost to all honour as to let my sister--You cannot,
and you a convict--"
Then, indeed, for the first time in my life and the last I answered
a woman as if she were a man, and on an equal footing of antagonism
with me. "Madam," I replied, "I will maintain my honour against your
own." But she seemed to make no account of what I said. Indeed I
have often wondered whether a woman, when she is in pursuit of any
given end, can progress by other methods than an ant, which hath no
power of circuitousness, and will climb over a tree with long labour
and pain rather than skirt it, if it come in her way. Straight at
her purpose she went. "Harry, Harry," she said, still in that sharp
whisper, "you will not, you cannot--she is but a child."
Then, before I could reply, out ran Mary Cavendish herself, and was
close at my side, turning an angry face upon her sister.
"Catherine," she cried out, "how dare you? I am no child. Think you
that I do not know my own mind? How dare you? You shall not come
between Harry and me! I am his before the whole world. I will not
have it, Catherine!"