"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.




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