“I could forgive you,” continued the young girl, “if you hadn’t known that I love Jack and never shall marry any one else. You know it and you’ve always known it. That makes it muchworse. You’ve made that poor man suffer without the slightest reason. You could just as well have told him that you knew I cared for some one else, and you could have been as nice to him as you pleased. You’ve hurt him, and you’ve driven me to hurt him, by no fault of mine, just to undo the mischief you’ve done. Of course, it’s papa who’s really done it all, but you needn’t have let him twist you round his little finger like a wisp of straw.”
“Oh, Katharine! Anything more unjust!”
“I’m not unjust, mother. But I’m too old to think everything you do is perfect, merely because it’s you. When I see a man like Archie Wingfield sitting there and straining his hands to keep himself quiet, and choking with the sound of his own words, I know he’s suffering—and when I know that he’s suffering uselessly, and that it’s all your fault and papa’s, I judge you—that’s all. I’m a grown woman. I have a right to judge.”
The door opened and Alexander Junior appeared upon the threshold, just returned from his office.
“I heard your voice, so I came in,” he said, with an electric smile which was meant to be conciliatory. “Oh!” he exclaimed, in altered tones, as he saw the faces of the two women, “has anything happened?”
For a moment there was silence. Mrs. Lauderdale looked at the empty fireplace, avoiding theeyes of both her husband and her daughter. But Katharine leaned back in her seat and faced her father. Her voice was almost as cold and steely as his could be when she answered him at last.
“Mr. Wingfield has just asked me to marry him,” she said. “And I have refused him—unconditionally.”
“You’ve done an exceedingly foolish thing, then,” answered Alexander Junior. “And you’ll be very sorry for it before long.”
He came nearer and stood by the fireplace, laying one authoritative hand upon the mantelpiece, and shaking the forefinger of the other in a warning manner.
“I’m the best judge of that,” answered Katharine, undaunted and unimpressed by his parental tone.
“You’re not,” answered Mr. Lauderdale. “You’ve acquired a habit of contradicting me lately. It seems to be a part of your plan for being as utterly undutiful and disobedient as you can. I warn you that I won’t submit to it any longer.”
“It’s of no use to threaten me, papa,” answered Katharine, controlling herself as well as she could. “And it doesn’t do any good to call me undutiful and disobedient so often. It doesn’t make it true.”
“Katharine!” cried her mother, in a tone of distress which was not artificial.
“I know what I’m saying, mother—”
“Then you should be sincerely ashamed of yourself, Katharine,” said Alexander Junior. “As sincerely as I’m ashamed that a daughter of mine should use such language.”
Katharine rose slowly from her chair and stood up before him, while her mother remained seated.
“Neither of you have any right to say that you’re ashamed of anything I’ve done,” she said. “As for my language, it’s mild enough—for what you’ve done. I’ve been ashamed of you both to-day—here, in this room, half an hour ago. You’ve told an honest man who’s foolishly in love with me that I cared for him, and would have him if he would ask me, when you know that I will never marry any one but Jack Ralston. It seems to me that I’ve had good reason to be ashamed of you. It was hard to look him in the face, and tell him that my father and mother had misled and deceived him—to make him own that he had it all from you, and that I’d not given him the shadow of a reason for thinking that I cared for him—that he had it all from you. Oh, it was so plain! Not that you can deny it—and you tell me that you’re ashamed of me! If I didn’t love Jack, do you know what I’d have done? I’d have married Archie Wingfield to save you your respect for yourself, and a little of his for you!”
“I refuse to listen any longer to such insanenonsense,” said Alexander Junior, whose slow wrath was rising by degrees.
“You shall listen to me,” answered Katharine. “I’m fighting with you for my life and happiness, and you’ve got to face me like an honest man—though you are my father!”
“Katharine! This is too much!” cried Alexander Junior, his anger rising in his eyes.
The man’s heavy hand fell emphatically upon the mantelpiece, making the old-fashioned gilt clock and the Chinese vases tremble and rattle. Mrs. Lauderdale was not a nervous woman, but she rose from her seat and stood beside her husband, not exactly as though she meant to take his side, and yet not exactly as a peace-maker. She felt herself accused as much as he did by the pale, strong girl who stood before them, one hand hanging by her side, the other pulling nervously at the little silver pin at her collar as though she felt that it was choking her. Of the three, at that moment, Mrs. Lauderdale was by far the most self-possessed.
“It’s true,” answered Katharine. “Every word of it’s true!”
As she spoke she caught her breath, and was obliged to stop, white with anger.
“Katharine—my child! Don’t!” cried Mrs. Lauderdale, fearing she was going to faint.
“I think you’d better go, my dear,” said Alexanderto his wife. “She’s beside herself. I’ll bring her to her senses.”
The passionate blood rose in the girl’s face and the words came again.
“No, mother—stay here!” she said. “You have no right to go away. Yes—I say that for months you’ve been doing your best, both of you, to destroy my happiness—and you’ll destroy my life with it, if I stay with you longer. You’ve tried to separate me from the man I love, and you’ve been trying every day and every hour to make me marry another man—pushing him on, encouraging him, telling him that I would accept him—for all I know, telling him that I loved him. I’ve not forgotten the things you’ve done—I’ve not forgotten the day when you, mother, you who had stood by us so long, suddenly turned without reason and told Jack to go away. Here, in this very room, last winter—and you, papa—I’ve only to make you remember how you took that letter when it was brought, and kept it all day, and repeated all the lies that people told about Jack—and mother read me the things in the papers—and you made me believe that he had written to me when he was drunk. It was all a lie, a miserable, infamous lie! And you liked it, and repeated it, and turned it over and embroidered it and beautified it—to make it hurt me more. It did hurt me—it almost killed me—but for Jack’s sake, I wish to God it had!”
“Katharine, this is blasphemy!” exclaimed her father, his cold eyes glittering with rage—but he was not fluent, he could find no words to dam the stream of hers.
“Blasphemy!” she cried, indignantly. “Is it blasphemy to pray—unless your God is my Devil?”
Beside himself with passion, her father made a step forward, and with a quick movement covered her mouth with one hand and grasped her arm with the other. But he miscalculated her quickness as against his strength. With a turn of the hand and wrist she was free and sprang backwards a step.
“It’s like you to lay your hands on a woman, after trying to sell her!” she cried, her lips turning a dull grey, her eyes colder and brighter than his own.
Being roused, they were terribly well matched. Mrs. Lauderdale threw herself between them. To do her justice, she faced her husband, with one hand stretched out to warn him back.
“No, no, mother! don’t come between us. I’m not afraid—I only got my mouth free to tell him that he’s a coward to lay his hands on me. But that was his only answer, because the things I say are true—every one of them, and more, too. That’s your one idea—both of you—to marry me off and get me out of the house, because you can’t look me in the face after the things you’ve done—after coming between me and Jack, as you’ve tried to do, and would have done, if we’d loved each other less—after trying to force me upon the first man who took a fancy to my face—after tormenting me to betray uncle Robert’s confidence—and it’s all been for money, and for nothing else. Money, money, money!”
“My child, you’re mad!” cried Mrs. Lauderdale. “What has money to do with it? What are you talking about? Do you know that you’re making the most insane accusations?”
“Let her talk,” said Alexander, in a low, sullen voice. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
Ashamed of his outbreak, perhaps, or in sheer helplessness against Katharine’s desperate speech, he had fallen back again and stood leaning against the mantelpiece, his arms folded over his broad chest, his hands twitching at his sleeve, his pale mouth set like a steel trap, a dull, dangerous light in his eyes.
“You’re mistaken,” continued Katharine. “It’s all for money. Money’s at the root of every action of your life. You didn’t want me to marry Jack because he’s poor, and because uncle Robert might not leave him anything. Money! You thought at first you could make me take Hamilton Bright, because he’s cared for me so long—and because he’s beginning to be rich and is a partner inBemans’—money, again! Archie Wingfield—how many millions will he have? Money—of course. Uncle Robert’s will—what shall you get by it? Money—and you’d tear the figures out of my head with red hot pincers if you could—just to know how much you’ll have when the poor man’s dead. Ever since we were children, Charlotte and I, you’ve preached economy and saving and poverty—you’ve let my mother—your wife—and you’re the nephew of the great Robert Lauderdale—you’ve let her work her hands and her eyes till they ached to make a little money herself—not for herself only, but for us. No—don’t smile contemptuously like that. She’s done it all my life, and she’s doing it still. Your children could scarcely have been decently dressed, if she hadn’t earned a few hundred dollars for them. There’s hardly a thing I have on that she’s not paid for out of her earnings. We couldn’t have gone to our first ball, Charlotte or I, but for her. And still, day after day, you say you’re poor. Do you think I don’t see all the little meannesses? Do you think I can’t smell the vile cigars you make grandpapa smoke, to save those few cents? Is there a house among all our friends, poor as some of them are, where there isn’t a fire in the library, at least in the evening, even when there’s nobody asked to dinner? Economy, saving, meanness of all sorts—even the poor housemaid whobroke her arm on the kitchen stairs! You sent to the hospital the day before she was to leave, half-cured and helpless, and made her sign the declaration that she made no further claim upon you. She came here when you were down town. Mother gave her five dollars—out of her earnings—but I heard her story. Oh, they’re endless, your ways of saving that filthy, miserable money of yours!”
“Are you really mad, Katharine?” asked her father, in a dull, monotonous voice.
“Child! You know we’re comparatively poor,” said Mrs. Lauderdale. “Come—dear child—”
She laid her hand on the girl’s arm as though she would lead her away and end the violent scene, but Katharine stood firm.
“Poor!” she cried, indignantly. “Comparatively poor! Yes—compared with uncle Robert or Mr. Beman, perhaps. But papa is not poor, though he has told you so for years, though he lets you work for money—you! Though he borrows five dollars of you—I’ve seen it again and again—and never returns it—borrows the poor little sums you earn by hard work! Oh, it’s not to be believed! Borrows without ever meaning to give it back—like an honest man—oh, he wouldn’t dare to do that with his dearest friend. But you! You can’t help yourself—”
“My dear, he keeps an account—”
“I know, I know! He pretends that he keepsthe money for you and allows you interest! I’ve heard him say so. Interest on five dollars. And have you ever had it? Sordid—mean—there’s no word! And he keeps telling you that he’s poor, and that we must pinch and scrape or we shall go beyond our income—when he has over a million of dollars put away—”
“Be silent!” cried Alexander Junior, with sudden vehemence, his cheeks as grey as ashes.
“I won’t be silent! I’ll say every word I have to say. Look me in the face. Deny, if you dare, before God, that what I say is true—that you have that money put away somewhere. Is it true, or not, as you hope to be saved?”
Mrs. Lauderdale came between them again, laying her hands on Katharine’s arm and trying to make her leave the room.
“Take care, take care!” she cried, anxiously, and hardly knowing what she said. “Alexander—Katharine! Don’t—oh, please don’t quarrel like this—my child, my child! You’re beside yourself!”
“I’m not—it’s true as life and death!” answered the girl, resisting the pressure. “Ask him if it’s not! Make him swear that it’s not true—make him say, before heaven, that he has less than a million, while he’s selling his daughters and forcing his wife to work. Wait—don’t speak—listen to what he says! If he can’t say it, hiswhole life has been a lie, and he knows it—wait—hush!”
Katharine held her mother fast by the hands, and seemed to hold her own breath, her angry eyes fixed on her father’s face. Mrs. Lauderdale turned her head instinctively, and looked at him. He met their glances for a few seconds, and his dry, pale lips parted as though he were about to speak, but no sound came. In the waning light his eyes had a glassy look. It only lasted a moment, and then his mouth was twisted with an expression meant for a smile.
“Take her away—she’s mad,” he said, and his voice seemed to be suddenly weak.
Katharine laughed aloud, bitterly and cruelly, in her triumph.
“If I were mad, as you say I am,” she said, a moment later, “that would not make it impossible for you to tell the truth. Yes, mother—I’m going now. I’ve said it all—and you know it’s true.”
She dropped her mother’s hands, turned contemptuously away, and left the room. Neither her father nor her mother moved as she went, though they followed her with their eyes until the door closed behind her with a soft click.
Alexander Lauderdale was torn by the strongest emotions of which he was capable—anger and avarice. But avarice was the stronger. So long asKatharine had accused him of unkindness, of dishonesty in his treatment of Wingfield, of meanness in his household, his wrath, though powerless, had kept the upper hand. But at the sudden and unexpected accusation of possessing a fortune in secret, he had been cowed. It was characteristic of him that even in that moment he would not swear falsely, and he saw the folly of denying the statement if he could not support his denial with something like an oath. When passions have reached such a crisis, they are not satisfied with less than they demand. On the whole, it had been wiser to say nothing. He could admit afterwards that he had saved something—he would assure his wife that Katharine’s statement had been exaggerated—little by little, calm would be restored. And there would not necessarily be any increase of expenditure. At that crucial moment two thoughts had been uppermost in his mind. The miser’s dismay at the discovery of his wealth, and the miser’s visions of ruinous expense in the immediate future. In a flash, he had seen himself forced to spend fifty or sixty thousand a year, instead of ten or twelve, and all possible forms of reckless extravagance had appeared to him in a horror of kaleidoscopic confusion. It was torture to think of it—to realize that his secret was out.
The strong man stood, half-stunned, leaning against the mantelpiece, pulling nervously at thebit of embroidered velvet which covered it, his face drawn in an expression of suffering and fear. He dreaded the question which he knew that his wife would ask him, but he had not even the power to speak at that moment, in order to ward it off.
Mrs. Lauderdale hesitated a moment, wondering whether it might not be better to follow Katharine to her room and try to calm her and make her more reasonable. Never, in all the girl’s life, had her mother seen her so passionately angry nor heard her use the tone of defying strength which had rung in her voice as she accused her father. Mrs. Lauderdale herself was frightened, and almost feared for Katharine’s reason. But there had, nevertheless, been so much assurance of truth in what she had said, that her mother was half convinced. Before she left the room to follow her daughter, she turned to her husband, and the inevitable question came. It could not be otherwise. The girl’s accusation had vividly brought before Mrs. Lauderdale the labour she had expended in all the past years, and of which the result had been to give her children what it was their father’s duty to give them if he had anything to give. Many a time, too, she herself had chafed under the necessity of lending him small sums for an emergency, accepting a promise of payment which was never fulfilled, and forced to be satisfied with the assurance that he kept an account ofwhat he owed her. He seemed never to have money about him. He always said that he was afraid of losing it—he, the most careful of men! The cumulative force of those many small meannesses extending over a quarter of a century of married life was tremendous when they were brought up in a body and made to face the positive statement that he was in reality a rich man. A good wife she had been to Alexander Junior in every sense of the word, but of that early trusting love which hides more sins than the multitude of them which charity can cover, there was not left even the warmth where the spark had glowed. There was no ‘a priori’ judgment of one heart against all possible offence and sordid meanness in the other. Katharine’s blow had been heavy and direct, and had gone straight to its mark. Her mother loved her—in spite of her terrible envy of her. It would need the man’s solemn oath to outweigh the girl’s plain statement. The inevitable question came, as Alexander knew that it must. He moved nervously as she began to speak.
“Alexander, dear,” she said, speaking gently from force of habit, “it would be very easy for you to deny this.”
He had thought of what he should say.
“My dear, I think that after spending half a lifetime together, during which you’ve had occasion to find out that I’m truthful, it’s scarcelynecessary to pay any attention to an angry child’s ravings.”
But Mrs. Lauderdale was not satisfied with this poor excuse. Katharine had roused her own resentment, and she remembered many things now, which Katharine herself did not know—little things—the dry sticks that will make a smouldering fire blaze.
“It’s precisely because you’re so truthful that it seems strange when you refuse to answer a simple question, Alexander,” observed Mrs. Lauderdale, quietly enough.
She did not wish to take up Katharine’s quarrel, nor to give the present conversation the air of an argument. She therefore did not stay beside him, as though they were discussing any point, but moved about the room, pretending to arrange small objects and books and generally to set the room in order, which was a work of supererogation, to keep herself in countenance while she renewed the attack.
“You admit that I’m truthful,” said Alexander, coldly. “I’m glad you do. That settles the question at once. If I’ve been a rich man all these years, then I’ve not been telling the truth, nor acting it, either. It’s all too absurd for discussion. I confess that at first I was angry. The girl spoke to me in the most outrageous manner. I don’t remember that any one has ever said anything ofthe kind to me in my life. It’s wrong to be angry, and I repent of it, but I think I may be pardoned—considering what she said. It’s been a disgraceful scene. I’m sincerely thankful that none of the servants were present.”
“Oh—it was natural that you should lose your temper, of course!”
“Human, at all events,” said Alexander, with dignity; “I don’t think I’ve ever made any pretence of possessing superior virtues. A man may justifiably lose his temper sometimes. ‘Be angry and sin not.’ I did not intend to be violent.”
“No—of course not! Still—”
“Yes. I took her by the arm and deliberately laid my hand upon her mouth. That was not violence. Few men of sincere convictions would have done less, considering the blasphemous words she was uttering. It’s the duty of parents to hinder their children from committing such sins, when they can. In the case of a man, I should have used my strength to enforce silence. As it was, I merely covered her mouth with my hand. I recollect that you came between us, as though you thought I meant to be violent. Nothing could have been further from my thoughts, I assure you.”
“I trust so,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, taking a package of envelopes out of the little stationery rack on the writing-table, turning it round and putting it back again.
“With regard to Archibald Wingfield,” continued Alexander, getting further and further from the question of the money, “you know as well as I do, that we have treated him precisely as we treated Slayback, when he wished to marry Charlotte. As for me, I told him that I saw no reason why Katharine might not—‘might not ultimately,’ mind you—accept an offer which was so agreeable to me personally. I fail to see anything which can be criticised in that answer. I should by no means like to say positively, even now, that Katharine ‘might not ultimately’ accept him. That would amount to denying the existence of an evident possibility, which is absurd. She may, so far as that goes. I don’t say she will. I say, she may. Young women frequently change their minds, and sometimes for the better. Let us hope for the best. Of course I don’t know every word of what you said to him, though you did your best on each occasion to tell me all about it. I gathered that you gave him very much the same sort of negative encouragement that I did. Practically, we told him to try his luck.”
Mrs. Lauderdale had rarely heard her husband speak so long consecutively. He was not fluent, as a rule, and in the recent quarrel with Katharine he had been almost speechless. But now he was talking for his life, as it were. If he lost the position of domination which he had held so longwith his wife, his existence must be shaken to its foundation. He barely gave her a chance to introduce a word.
“I’m not so positively sure, myself,” she said. “Of course I didn’t mean to convey any wrong impression to young Wingfield, but—”
“But you may perhaps have pardonably exceeded your powers,” interrupted Alexander, anxious that she should not commit herself. “Very pardonable, my dear, very pardonable. Such things happen constantly, even in business. Of course the party who goes beyond his instructions bears the responsibility in case anything goes wrong. Just so in the present case. If there is any responsibility, which may be doubted, it’s yours and not mine, for I’m positively certain of the words I spoke—of the very words. I said ‘might not ultimately accept’—I recollect very distinctly, and you know how accurate my memory is.”
“Yes—I know,” answered Mrs. Lauderdale, in a tone which might have been thought to give the words a doubtful meaning.
“Of course you do, my dear. If Wingfield got a wrong impression,—‘if he did,’ mind you,—he must have got it from you. I think you might perhaps explain that to Katharine—when she’s a little calmer. I can’t allow her to think that her father, whom she’s bound to respect, should have done such a thing. A man’s actions carry muchmore weight than a woman’s. I couldn’t allow her to think that I’d taken her feelings for granted. There’s no immediate hurry, Emma, but I should be glad if you would explain it to her. It will help to restore peace. As for her reasons for rejecting Wingfield,” he continued, without pausing for his wife’s answer, “I regret them very much. It’s a miserable thing to see such a girl wasting her chances of happiness on such a reprobate as Jack Ralston, and I do her the honour to say that such an affection can’t possibly be lasting. As for her marrying him, of course that’s altogether outside the question. I’m sure she clings to the attachment far more out of a desire to oppose my wishes in everything, than because she really cares for that vagabond. I’ve not the slightest fear that she’ll ever marry him. I’m sure you don’t think so, either.”
“Unless she runs away with him,” suggested Mrs. Lauderdale.
She was annoyed by the skill with which he, who was ordinarily less keen, had passed from the main subject in question to a side issue. She did not know how a great passion like avarice can sharpen wits under danger of discovery.
“Oh, well!” exclaimed Alexander, with much dignity. “If she runs away with the fellow, that puts her altogether beyond the pale of our love, and we shall have done with her. We won’t discussthat. The objection to this pretence of loving Ralston—for I’m convinced that it’s nothing else—is that it keeps her from marrying a man worthy of her, like Archibald Wingfield. Of course there are people far richer than the Wingfields—uncle Robert, for instance, besides the others who are so much richer even than he, and count their millions by the hundred; but taking him all in all, there’s not a better match in society—for looks, and education, and position, and health, too, which I regard as a very important consideration. You must agree with me, my dear—Wingfield would have made an excellent husband.”
“Of course I agree with you, Alexander. What an unnecessary question!”
“My dear, when the very foundations of one’s life are being torn up and thrown out of the window by a silly girl, it becomes necessary to ask all the simplest questions over again.”
This extraordinary simile produced no very convincing effect on Mrs. Lauderdale, who had listened to phrase after phrase of his long tirades with exemplary outward resignation, for the sake of allowing peace to be restored by the overflow of self-conscious virtue, but with little inward patience.
“I think the best thing to do is to let the whole matter drop, and hope that Katharine will change her mind,” she said, sensibly.
“Yes. Let’s hope that, at all events. Emma, we can’t have any more scenes like this. If Katharine breaks out in this way again, I shall refuse to see her. You may, if you please. But I will not. When I’m at home she shall stay in her room.”
“But that’s impossible!” exclaimed Mrs. Lauderdale, in astonishment. “You wouldn’t treat a child like that!”
“I would,” answered Alexander, and his lips snapped on the words. “And I will, if there’s any repetition of such conduct. That’s a matter for me to judge, Emma, and I don’t wish you to interfere. She has accused her own father of being a liar, of selling her, of being a miser, and of stealing his wife’s money. You can’t deny that, and I presume you’ve no intention of supporting the accusations. Yes, even as it is, I prefer that Katharine should not appear this evening. When she’s begged my pardon for what she’s done, I’ll consent to see her. Not before. Pray tell her that this is my decision, Emma.”
“But, Alexander, I never heard of such a thing! Of course she lost her temper and was awfully rude to you, and I’m very much displeased with her. But really—you can’t treat a grown woman like a baby. It’s too absurd.”
“It’s not absurd, my dear. You must excuse me if I adopt Katharine’s method of contradiction.The only way to treat her is to treat her as a child. If we consider her to be a grown woman, we must either resent what she’s done—as though she were any other woman—or else take it for granted that she is temporarily insane, and drive her out to Bloomingdale Asylum to-morrow morning to be cured. But so long as we regard the whole thing as childish, it’s sufficient to tell her that she’s not to come to table until she’s begged my pardon. Don’t you see?”
Mrs. Lauderdale was aware that he was talking nonsense, approximately speaking, and she saw that he meant to do a very unwise thing. But as he put it, the only good argument against his course would have been to prove that Katharine was right and that he was wrong, which, with some allowance for undue and angry exaggeration, would be equivalent to proving him a miser and anything but a straightforward person. Mrs. Lauderdale’s trouble was considerable at that moment.
“You may be right in theory,” she said, almost despairingly, “but in practice I think you’re quite wrong. One doesn’t do that sort of thing nowadays. If we’ve all got to fight like mad people, let’s keep it to ourselves—”
“That’s precisely what I’m thinking of,” interrupted Alexander, whose resolution was growing stronger every moment.
“Yes—but, my dear! The servants—and your father, too! I don’t think he’s very discreet—”
“Yes, exactly, my dear Emma. That’s just how I look at it. I think I know Katharine quite as well as you do, and I’m sure that if she has an opportunity of attacking me, she will, before the servants and before my father. I should much rather let people know that I had told Katharine to stay in her room until she could treat me with proper respect, than have such a conversation as has just taken place here repeated all over New York. I’m sure you see that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Lauderdale, suddenly comprehending his point of view. “But it seems to me that if there’s to be such an open break, it would be better to let Katharine go down to Washington for a few days and stay with Charlotte.”
“Certainly not!” exclaimed Alexander. “You know what Charlotte is, and what trouble we have had with her. The two girls would make common cause. Not at all. Not at all, Emma. I shall be glad if you will go at once and tell Katharine what I’ve said—that I don’t wish to see her until she has made amends for her outrageous conduct.”
“But, Alexander,” protested Mrs. Lauderdale, “it will be so inconvenient—sending her dinner upstairs!”
“I daresay it won’t be for long. She’ll understand in a day or two, I’ve no doubt.”
“I can’t do it,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, trying to make a stand. “It’s too utterly—extraordinary—”
“My dear, I’m the master in this house,” answered Alexander, coldly. “I wish it to be so. But if you’d rather not speak to her, I’ll go myself. She irritates me, but I’m glad to say she doesn’t intimidate me. As for such domestic difficulties as serving Katharine in her own room, they can be got over. Let your maid take the child her dinner.”
“Well—if you insist, I’ll go,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, weakly yielding. “I couldn’t let you go—you’d quarrel again.”
“I don’t insist upon your going, my dear—I have no right to. But I insist upon the thing being done.”
Mrs. Lauderdale went towards the door. She paused before she went out. “I think you’re going too far, Alexander,” she said. “I think you’re tyrannical.”
“I think not,” he answered, coolly. “I should refuse to sit down to table with a man who had used such language to me. I don’t see why I should submit to it from Katharine.”
“Well—”
Mrs. Lauderdale closed the door behind her, and slowly went upstairs, feeling as though she had been driven from the field after a crushing defeat.Yet she had made very little resistance. With her, the man’s cold, arrogant personality was dominant. She had always submitted to it because there seemed to be no other course. She was conscious of wishing that during the last five minutes she might have possessed her daughter’s character and fighting qualities, especially when her husband had quietly thrust all the blame about the treatment of Wingfield upon herself, without considering for a moment that his own words might have been misinterpreted.
She did not altogether sympathize with him against Katharine. For many years she had felt the galling of his miserable meanness, and had many times suspected that he was by no means as poor as he chose to declare himself to be.
Mrs.Lauderdalewent slowly upstairs, thinking over what she should say, as she climbed from one story to another. At the door she knocked softly, and Katharine’s voice bade her enter.
Katharine was standing at the window, looking out, and did not turn round as her mother entered. The evening light was on the houses opposite, and the glow was gently sinking into the darker street. Katharine watched the horse-cars go by, and listened mechanically to the jingle of the bells, hardly conscious of either.
“What is it?” she asked, as she heard the door close.
Her voice had that peculiar reedy sound which comes of speaking through the closed teeth by the lips only. It seems to mean that the speaker is on the defensive and not to be trifled with.
“Your father—Katharine—he’s so angry! He wanted me to speak to you.”
“Oh—it’s you, mother?” The girl’s tone changed a very little, and she turned and came forward. “Well—I’m sorry,” she said, after a short pause. “It can’t be helped, I suppose.”
Mrs. Lauderdale sat down in the one small arm-chair, by the toilet-table, and clasped her hands over her knee, leaning back, and looking up rather wistfully at Katharine.
“I think—in a way—it can be helped,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, in a conciliatory manner. “If you would go downstairs now, and just say quietly that you’re sorry, you know. Just as you said it now. I’m sure he’d be willing to accept that as an apology.”
“Apology?” Katharine laughed bitterly. “I—make an apology to him? No, mother—I won’t.”
“You ought to—really,” objected Mrs. Lauderdale, earnestly. “Why, my dear child! Have you any idea of what you’ve been saying downstairs? Some of the things you said were dreadful.”
“They were all true, and he knows it,” answered Katharine, stubbornly.
She leaned against the chest of drawers, and looked down into her mother’s upturned face.
“Oh, no! they weren’t all true, dear,” protested the latter. “You exaggerated very much. It’s quite possible that your father may have saved something in all these years—he’s so careful! But as for having a million, as you said—”
“But, dear mother—there isn’t a doubt of it! I didn’t promise uncle Robert that I wouldn’t tell that—”
“What? Did uncle Robert tell you?”
“Yes! Of course! Did you suppose I was inventing?”
“Well—not exactly. But I thought you might have heard some gossip—or something Jack Ralston said—”
“Not at all. Uncle Robert told me that he knew it to be a positive fact—a million, at least, he said. And he’s quite as truthful as papa—”
“More so,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, absently; “I mean,” she added, very quickly, with a frightened look, for she had not realized what she was saying—“I mean—quite as truthful. They’re both perfectly truthful—”
“Yes,” answered Katharine in a doubtful tone, and smiling in spite of herself. “Not but that, if it came to believing, you know, I’d believe uncle Robert sooner than papa—”
“Hush, child—don’t!”
Katharine said nothing, but still leaned back, resting both elbows on the high chest of drawers on each side behind her, and looking down thoughtfully at the points of her shoes. Mrs. Lauderdale was silent, too, for several seconds.
“Well?” Katharine uttered the convenient word interrogatively, without looking up.
“Well—yes,” responded Mrs. Lauderdale. “I was going to say that—” She hesitated. “My dear,” she continued, at last, “you’ll have to say something to your father, after all this.”
“Something like what I’ve said already?” asked Katharine, raising her black eyebrows and glancing at her mother.
“No, no! I’m serious, my dear.”
“So am I—very. You began to talk of an apology. It’s quite useless, mother—I can’t and I won’t apologize.”
“But, Katharine, darling—he says he won’t see you unless you do—he’s dreadfully angry still!”
“Oh—he won’t see me? What does that mean? That I’m to stay in my room?” She laughed a little.
“He’s in earnest about it,” said Mrs. Lauderdale. “That’s what he said—he—I don’t like to say it—but I must, I suppose. That’s just it. He means you to stay in your room whenever he’s in the house.”
“How childish!” exclaimed Katharine, scornfully. “What do I care? I don’t want to see him particularly. But, just for curiosity—if he happens to meet me on the stairs, for instance, what will he do? Throw things at me? Box my ears? He’s quite capable of it—as you saw just now—”
“Please don’t talk like that, dear,” said Mrs. Lauderdale. “He was terribly angry—and you were saying the most dreadful things—he only meant to stop you from speaking.”
“He hurt my mouth, and he hurt my arm—there’ll be black and blue marks here to-morrow,I’m sure, by the way it feels.” She laid her left hand on her right forearm at the point where her father had seized it. “That’s rather like violence, you know, mother.”
Katharine turned perceptibly paler as she spoke of it. Mrs. Lauderdale was pained at the recollection, and looked away from her, clasping her hands a little more tightly over her knee.
“Did he ever touch you in that way, mother?” asked the young girl, slowly.
“Me?” cried Mrs. Lauderdale. “Oh—child! How can you think of such a thing! No, indeed! Fancy!”
“Well—I’m just as sensitive as you are,” answered Katharine. “Put yourself in my place.”
The unexpected answer silenced the elder woman.
“I think it’s his place to apologize to me—and very humbly,” added Katharine. “It was a cowardly piece of violence to a woman. I’m willing to believe—for the honour of the family, and men generally—that he didn’t mean to strike, exactly. But it felt very much like it, and I told him so. I’ll tell him so again, if he mentions the thing.”
Mrs. Lauderdale was in great difficulties. Her husband and her daughter were both stronger than she, they had no intention of making up their quarrel, and yet, by her position, she was forced to act as intermediary. It was not easy. Herhusband dominated her by his strong personality. Katharine had the better of her in argument. She turned away a little, in thought, resting one elbow on the toilet-table beside her, and covering her eyes with her hand for a moment. The beautiful, tired features were pale and drawn.
“It’s very hard for me,” she said, wearily. “You’re both partly wrong and partly right.”
“I think I’m altogether right,” said Katharine.
“I know—so does he. But you’re not—either of you—nor I, either, for that matter. Oh, dear! I wish I knew what to do!”
“There’s nothing to be done, I’m afraid,” answered the young girl, more gently, for she was somewhat pacified by her mother’s owning a share in the blame. “Not that I’m going to make a fuss about it, if he doesn’t. I’m not that kind. I won’t come down to dinner to-night, because it would be unpleasant for everybody. As for to-morrow—we’ll see what happens. The idea of shutting me up in my room so long as he’s in the house, because the sight of me is disagreeable to him, it’s silly—it’s perfectly childish! Just like an angry man! I’m not sure that I should mind it very much, so far as not seeing him’s concerned. I don’t want to see him, any more than he wants to see me. But it’s the principle of the thing that sticks in my throat. It’s as though he had the right to treat me like a small child, to be sentto bed in a dark room at discretion, until I change my mind. It’s the tyranny of the thing, the arrogance of it—and when I’m altogether right, as you both know.”
“No—not altogether,” objected Mrs. Lauderdale.
“I won’t go over it again, mother. I’ll sum it up in these words. He’s rich, and he’s told us that he was poor, and he’s stood looking on and letting you work to give us small luxuries that amount to necessities. He’s wilfully calumniated Jack for months. He’s wilfully misled Archie Wingfield—”
“My dear—about that—he assures me that he only said you might ultimately accept him—”
“Well—he knew that I mightn’t, and he had no business to say I might,” interrupted Katharine, decidedly. “Besides, I can hear just his tone of voice, and his way of slurring over the ‘might’ till Mr. Wingfield felt it was ‘may’—oh, it’s abominable! As for his pestering me with questions about uncle Robert’s will, it’s natural enough, considering how he loves money, as a cat loves cream. Oh, I know! You’re going to say it’s disrespectful to say such things. Perhaps it is—I don’t know—he seems to lap it up—with that smile of his—and it disappears, and we have to live on the drops. No—I don’t feel respectful. Why should I? I’ve respected him for nineteenyears, and I can’t respect him any longer. It’s over, once and for all. When a man deliberately sets to work to destroy his daughter’s chances of being happy—oh, well! It isn’t only that. It’s the whole thing, the meanness, the miserliness, the Sunday-go-to-meeting-and-sit-up-straight sort of virtuous superiority outside—and all this other inside. It’s revolting. It’s upset all my ideas. I don’t feel as though I could ever believe in anything again. I don’t mean to shock you, mother, but I can’t help saying it, just now.”
“It’s dreadful!” Mrs. Lauderdale spoke in a low voice and earnestly.
Katharine was silent for a few moments, and looked out of the window. It was almost dark by this time.
“You know, mother,” she said, suddenly, “I used to admire papa—very much, in a certain way. I don’t think you ever quite realized that. Of course I’ve been brought up in his church, though I’ve much more sympathy with yours. It always seems to me that his is a man’s religion, and yours is a woman’s. But then—Mr. Griggs says the world is a woman, in a sort of way, so yours ought to be the religion of the world. Never mind—I don’t know enough to talk about these things. What I mean is this. I used to admire papa’s uncompromising way of looking at life, and the way I thought he’d tell the truth andshame the devil at any price, and his cold, unreasoning, settled certainty about heaven and hell—and the way I thought that he took his flinty goodness down town with him, and did right, when one knows that ever so many business men don’t. It all seemed so strong, and cool, and manly. I couldn’t help admiring it. And I believed that he was poor, and that although he wouldn’t say much, he’d fight for us, and die for us, if necessary. And then—he’s handsome, too, and straight, and steely, and formal. I’ve always liked a little formality. Do you see what I mean?”
“Of course,” answered Mrs. Lauderdale, thoughtfully, and nodding her head with a far-away look in her eyes.
Katharine had enumerated the very qualities that had once appealed so strongly to her mother.
“Well—” Katharine paused a second. “It’s all a sham. That’s all.”
Mrs. Lauderdale started at the abrupt, rough words.
“Oh, Katharine, dear, don’t say that!”
“It’s true. It’s broken to pieces. It began to crack just before Charlotte was married. It’s all broken to bits. I can see the inside of it, and it’s not what I thought. There’s only one idea, and that’s money. It would need a miracle to make me admire him again. It’s broken to atoms, and what’s so strange is, that it’s taken everythingwith it in the last few months—and it’s taken the last bit to-day. It’s all gone. I can’t help it. It’s dreadful—but it’s a sort of confession, like your confessions. I don’t believe in God any more.”
“My child, my child!”
Mrs. Lauderdale looked up at her with scared eyes and rising hands, which sought Katharine’s, found them, and gripped them in a frightened way. The devout woman, good at heart with her one big fault, felt as though the world were quaking under her feet as she heard the last words. Not that Katharine spoke them lightly, for she was in earnest, and the declaration of unbelief was more solemn from its strangeness than almost any confession of rigid faith could have been.
“Yes, mother—I know—we won’t talk about it. I only want you to understand me—we’ve been so much together in our lives.”
She spoke sadly now.
“And we shall be, dear, I hope,” answered Mrs. Lauderdale.
“I don’t know—perhaps. I don’t believe we shall ever be just as we used to be. You’re not the same—nor am I, I suppose.”
“Oh, yes we are—in our hearts. But, Katharine, darling—what you said just now—if you knew how it hurts me—”
“It’s not your fault, mother. If anybody’s toblame, it’s papa, and I think he is. Oh, no! You’re different. After all, we’re only a pair of women, you and I. We can quarrel and make up, and nobody will be hurt in the end. We’re not each other’s ideals—not that papa was mine, or anything like it. But you naturally believe in a thing more when a strong man stands up and asserts it and fights for it, than if it turns out that he only says that he believes in it, out of prejudice and family tradition and a sort of impression that after all he may go to the wrong place if he doesn’t. He’s always talking about setting an example—it seems to me that the example lies in the effect of the thing upon the person one’s to imitate. If this is the effect of religion on him, I don’t want it. I’d rather talk to Teddy Van De Water, who chatters about Darwin and Spencer without knowing anything particular about them, and sticks his glass in his eye and makes bad jokes about the future state, but who’d burn his hand to the wrist rather than do anything he thought mean. Men have done that sort of thing before now—they’re not the men who talk about God over the soup, and try to sell their daughters at dessert!”
“Katharine—” Mrs. Lauderdale could not find words.
“I know—but papa’s not here—and then, I don’t mean to talk about it any longer. You’vecome up from him, I suppose, mother, to say that he doesn’t want to see me. Very well. I don’t want to see him. But how long is this state of things to last? I won’t apologize, and I suppose he won’t give in. It may go on for months, then. Supposing I refuse to be imprisoned in this way, is he going to lock me in and take the key with him? What’s he going to do? I want to know what to expect.”
“My dear, I don’t know—he only said that. Just what I told you.”
“Because if it’s going to be a siege, I’ll go away,” said Katharine, calmly.
“I proposed that you should go to Washington and spend a fortnight with Charlotte. He wouldn’t hear of it.”
“Yes—but if I just go without asking his leave? What will happen? What do you think? Girls often go alone, and it’s only five hours by the half-past eleven train that Charlotte always takes. She’d be glad to have me, too.”
“Your father would be quite capable of going and bringing you back—on Sunday.”
“On Sunday!” Katharine laughed hardly. “How you know him! He wouldn’t lose a day at his office, to save you or me from drowning. That’s what he calls duty. Yes—perhaps he’d come, as you say. Then we should have an opportunity of fighting it out on the way back. Five hours, sideby side—but I suppose we should turn our chairs back to back and go to sleep or read. But he might not come, after all. Do you know? I should feel a sort of sense of security at the Slaybacks’. I like him, though Charlotte makes fun of him. There’s something real about him. I didn’t mean to go to Washington, though.”
“You couldn’t go to the Ralstons’,” observed Mrs. Lauderdale. “With Jack at home—people would talk.”
“If I went there, I should stay,” answered Katharine, with a coolness that startled her mother. “I should never come back at all. Perhaps I shall some day. Who knows? No—I thought I’d go and stop with uncle Robert. That would terrify papa. He’d suppose, in the first place, that I’d tell uncle Robert everything that’s happened, and then that uncle Robert would tell me a great deal more about his intentions with regard to the will. That would make papa anxious to be nice to me when I came home again, so as to get the secret out of me. I think it’s a very good plan; don’t you? Uncle Robert would be delighted. He’s all alone and not at all strong. The very last time I saw him, he begged me to come and stay a few days. I think I will. Fancy papa’s rage! He’d scarcely dare to come and get me there, I imagine.”
Mrs. Lauderdale did not answer at once. Shesaw the immense advantage Katharine would have over her father if she carried out the plan, and it seemed too great. Alexander would be almost at his daughter’s mercy. She could dictate her own terms of peace. Incensed as she was against him, she could easily use her influence against him with his uncle, who had a lonely old man’s fondness for the beautiful girl.
“Of course you could go—I couldn’t prevent you,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, rather helplessly.
“Of course I could. I’ve only to walk there. Uncle Robert will send for my things.”
“I hope you won’t, dear. It wouldn’t make it easier for me—he’ll think it’s been my fault, you know—and then—”
Katharine looked at her mother in silence for a moment, and pitied her too much, even after what had passed between them, to leave her to Alexander’s temper.
“I won’t go yet,” said Katharine. “I won’t go unless he’s perfectly intractable. Go and tell him that it’s all right, mother. I’ll submit quietly and stay in my room as long as he’s in the house—quite as much for my own sake as for his, you can tell him. If he asks about my apologizing, tell him that I won’t, and that I expect an apology from him. It can’t last forever. One of us will have to give in, at the end—but I won’t. You can put it all as mildly as you like, only don’t give him any impression that I’m submitting to him morally, even if I’m willing to keep out of his way.”
“Couldn’t you say something a little nicer than that, dear?” asked Mrs. Lauderdale, pleadingly, for she anticipated more trouble. “Couldn’t you say that you’d let by-gones be by-gones—or something of that sort?”
“It wouldn’t be true. These are not by-gones. They’re present things. The nice by-gones will never come back.”
Mrs. Lauderdale rose slowly to the height of her still graceful figure, and stood before her daughter for a moment. In the emotion of the past hour she had forgotten for a time her envy of the girl’s blossoming beauty. For a moment she was impelled to throw her arms round Katharine’s neck in the old way, and kiss her, and try to make things again what they had been. But something hard in the young grey eyes stopped her. She felt that she herself was not forgiven yet and might never be, altogether.
“Very well,” she said, quietly. “I’ll do my best.”
She turned and left the room, leaving Katharine still leaning back against the chest of drawers in the position she had not abandoned throughout the conversation.
When Katharine was alone, she stood up, turnedround and pulled out the upper drawer. Amongst her gloves and handkerchiefs lay a photograph of John Ralston. She took it out and looked at the keen, dark face, with its set lips, its prominent bony temples, and its nervous lines that would be furrows too soon.
“You’re worth all the Lauderdales and the Wingfields put together!” she said, in a low voice.
She kissed the photograph, pressing it hard to her lips and closing her eyes.
“I wish you were here!” she said.
She looked at it again, and again kissed it. Then she put it back with an energetic movement that was almost rough, and shut the drawer. She sat down in the chair her mother had occupied, and gave herself up to thinking over all that had taken place.
Her instinct was to let John Ralston know as soon as possible what had happened, but she knew how foolish that would be. He would insist that the moment had come for declaring their marriage, and that she must go and live under his mother’s roof. But she felt that something must be done soon. If she was willing to submit to her father’s sentence, absurd as it was, she found a reason for doing so in her own disinclination to meet him. But the situation could not last. And yet, he was obstinate beyond ordinarily obstinate people, and it would be like him to insist upon banishingher for a week. In such things he had no sense of the ridiculous. Apart from the inconvenience and constant annoyance of being expected to keep out of his way, she was young enough to feel humiliated. It was very like a punishment—this order not to be seen when her father was in the house. She had no intention of disregarding it, however. To do so would have been to produce an open war of which the rumour would fill society. It was clear that her best course was to be patient as long as possible, and then quietly to go to uncle Robert’s house. The world would think it natural that she should pay him a visit. She had done so before.
Alexander Junior seemed to be satisfied with the answer his wife brought him. He felt that if he could make Katharine stay in her own room at his discretion, he was still master in his own house, and his injured dignity began to hold up its head again. The old philanthropist did not even ask after Katharine at dinner, though he was fond of her. She so often went out to dine alone with intimate friends, that it did not occur to him to remark upon her absence. But, as usual, when she was not there, the family meal was dull and silent. Alexander ate without speaking, and with the methodical, grimly appreciative appetite of very strong men. Mrs. Lauderdale was not hungry, and stared at the silver things on the tablemost of the time. The old gentleman bolted his food in the anticipation of tobacco, which tasted best after eating. He was a cheerful old soul when he was not dreaming, an optimist and a professed maker of happiness by the ton, so to say, for those who had been forgotten in the distribution. He had big hands, shiny at the knuckles and pink where a young man’s would be white, with horny, yellowish nails, and he was not very neat in his dress, though he had survived from the day when men used to wear dress coats and white ties in their offices all day. The Lauderdale tribe regarded him as a harmless member who had something wrong in his head, while his heart was almost too much in the right place. A certain amount of respect was shown him on account of his age, but though he was the oldest of them all, Robert the Rich was undisputedly the head of the family. It was generally believed, and, as has been seen, the belief was well founded, that he was not to have any large share of the money in case he survived his brother.
Early on the following morning Alexander Junior emerged from his dressing-room, equipped for the day. He wore the garments of civilization, but a very little power of imagination might have converted his dark grey trousers into greaves, his morning coat into a shirt of mail, and his stiff collar into a steel throat-piece. He had slept on hiswrath, and had grown more obstinate with the grey of the morning. His voice was metallic and aggressive when he spoke to the serving-girl, demanding why his steak was overdone. When his wife appeared, he rose formally, as usual, and kissed her cheek with a little click, like the lock of a safe. He said little or nothing as he finished his breakfast, and then, without telling her what he meant to do, he went upstairs again and knocked at Katharine’s door.
“Katharine!” he called to her. “I wish to speak to you.”
“Well—” answered the young girl’s voice—“I’m not dressed yet. What is it?”
“How long shall you be?” enquired Alexander, bending his brows as he leaned against the panel to catch her answer.
“About three quarters of an hour—I should think—at least—judging from the state of my hair. It’s all tangled.”
“Do you know what time it is?”
“No—I’ve not looked. Oh—my little clock has stopped. It’s a quarter past four by my little clock.”
“It’s nine o’clock,” said Alexander Junior, severely. “Three minutes to,” he added, looking at his watch.
“Well—I can’t help it now. It’s only—no—it’s sixteen minutes past four by my little clock.”
“Never mind your little clock. I must be going down town at once, and I wish to speak to you. I can’t wait three quarters of an hour.”
“No—of course not.”
“Well—can’t I come in? Aren’t you visible?”
“No. Certainly not. You can’t come in. I’m brushing—my hair. I always brush it—ten minutes.”
“Katharine—this is absurd!” cried Alexander, becoming exasperated. “Put on something and open the door.”
“No. I can’t just—now.” Her phrases were interrupted by the process of vigorous brushing. “Besides—you can talk through the door. I can hear—every word—you say. Can’t you hear me?”
“Yes, I can hear you. But I don’t wish to say what I have to say in the hearing of the whole house.”
“Oh!” The soft sound of the brushing ceased. “In that case I’d rather not hear it at all.”
“Katharine!” Alexander felt all his anger of the previous day rising again.
“Yes—what is it?” She seemed to have come nearer to the door.
“I told you. I wish to speak to you.”
“Yes—I know. But you can’t unless you’ll say it through the door.”
“Katharine! Don’t exasperate me!”
“I’m not trying to. I understood that you didn’t wish to see me for some days. If you’d sent me word, I should have been ready to receive you. As it is, I can’t.”
“You know perfectly well that you can, in ten minutes, if you please. I shall send your mother to you.”
“Oh—very well. I’ve not seen her this morning. But you’d better not wait till I’m dressed. It will take a long time.”
“Very well,” answered Alexander Junior, who had completely lost his temper by this time.
A moment later Katharine heard the sharp click of the lock, and the rattle as the key was withdrawn. She never used it, having a bolt on the inside.
“You are at liberty to take all day if you please,” said her father. “I have the key in my pocket. Good morning.”
Katharine’s lips parted in astonishment, as she turned her eyes towards the door, and she stood staring at it for a moment in speechless indignation, realizing that she was locked in for the day. Then, suddenly, her expression changed, and she laughed aloud. Alexander was already far down the stairs.
But presently she realized that the situation was serious, or, at all events, something more than annoying. She was to be shut up at least untilafter five o’clock in the afternoon, all alone, without food or drink, without the books she wanted, and without any one with whom to exchange a few words. Her face became grave as she finished dressing. She knew also that her father had lost his temper again, and she did not care to have all the servants know it.
She rang the bell, and waited by the door till she heard the maid’s footsteps outside.
“Ask my mother to come here a moment, Jane,” she said. “Say that it’s important.”
A few moments later Mrs. Lauderdale turned the handle of the lock.
“Is that you, mother?” asked Katharine.
“Yes. The door’s locked. I can’t open it.”
“This is serious,” said Katharine, speaking in a low voice, close to the panel. “Papa’s locked it and taken the key down town with him. Didn’t he tell you?”
“No—it’s impossible, child! You must have slipped the bolt inside.”
“But, mother, he said he meant to, and I heard him do it. He got angry because I wouldn’t let him in. I couldn’t then, for I wasn’t dressed, and Jane’s putting a new ribbon on my dressing-gown, so I haven’t even got that. But I didn’t want to. Never mind that—I’ll tell you by and by. The question is how I’m to get out! Unless he didn’t quite mean it, and has left the key on the tablein the entry, with the latch-key. You might look.”
Mrs. Lauderdale went downstairs and searched for the key, but in vain. Katharine was locked in.