At the Time Appointed
Page 104"I beg your pardon, Mr. Darrell," she interposed, more gently; "I did
not intend to accuse you of deception. I only meant that, regardless of
any personal feeling, it was, as you said, better to stop this; that to
carry it farther after you had found you did not care for me as you
supposed--or as I was led to suppose----" She paused an instant,
uncertain how to proceed.
"Kathie, Kathie! what are you saying?" Darrell exclaimed. "What have I
said that you should so misunderstand me?"
"But," she protested, piteously, struggling to control her voice, "did
you not say that it was all a mistake on your part--that you wished it
"My poor child!" said Darrell, tenderly; then reaching over and
possessing himself of one of her hands, he continued, gravely: "The mistake was mine in that I ever allowed myself to think of loving
you when love is not for me. I have no right, Kathie, to love you, or
any other woman, as I am now. I did not know until last night that I did
love you. Then it came upon me like a revelation,--a revelation so
overwhelming that it swept all else before it. You, and you alone,
filled my thoughts. Wherever I was, I saw you, heard you, and you only.
Again and again in imagination I clasped you to my breast, I felt your
kisses on my lips,--just as I afterwards felt them in reality."
shadows Kate's tears were falling unchecked; one, falling on Darrell's
hand, had warned him that there must be no weakening, no softening.
His voice was almost stern as he resumed. "For those few hours I forgot
that I was a being apart from the rest of the world, exiled to darkness
and oblivion; forgot the obligations to myself and to others which my
own condition imposes upon me. But the dream passed; I awoke to a
realization of what I had done, and whatever I have suffered since is
but the just penalty of my folly. The worst of all is that I have
involved you in needless suffering; I have won your love only to have to
to allow your young life to come one step farther within the clouds
that envelop my own. Do you understand me now, Kathie?"
"Yes," she replied, calmly; "I understand it from your view, as it looks
to you."
"But is not that the only view?"
She did not speak at once, and when she did it was with a peculiar
deliberation.
"The clouds will lift one day; what then?"