Young Neville smiled. "Nay, mistress, why so many words? Give me your letter, and I will soon overtake the gentleman: he seems in no great hurry."
Kate thanked him, and made a polite apology for giving him so much trouble, and handed him the letter: when it came to that, she held it out to him rather irresolutely; but he took it promptly and bowed low after the fashion of the day; she curtsied; he marched off with alacrity; she sat down again and put her head in her hand to think it all over, and a chill thought ran through her; was her conduct wise? What would Griffith think at her employing his rival? Would he not infer Neville had entered her service in more senses than one? Perhaps he would throw the letter down in a rage and never read it.
Steps came rapidly, the door opened, and there was George Neville again, but not the same George Neville that went out but thirty seconds before. He stood at the door looking very black, and with a sardonic smile on his lips. "An excellent jest, mistress," said he, ironically.
"Why what is the matter?" said the lady, stoutly: but her red cheeks belied her assumption of innocence.
"Oh not much," said George, with a bitter sneer. "It is an old story; only I thought you were nobler than the rest of your sex. This letter is to Mr. Griffith Gaunt."
"Well, sir," said Kate, with a face of serene and candid innocence.
"And Mr. Griffith Gaunt is a suitor of yours."
"Say, _was._ He is so no longer. He and I are out. But for that, think you I had even listened to--what you have been saying to me this ever so long?"
"Oh, that alters the case," said George. "But stay!" and he knitted his brows and reflected. Up to a moment ago the loftiness of Catherine Peyton's demeanor, and the celestial something in her soul-like dreamy eyes, had convinced him she was a creature free from the small dishonesty and duplicity he had noted in so many women otherwise amiable and good.
But this business of the letter had shaken the illusion.
"Stay," said he stiffly. "You say Mr. Gaunt and you are out."
Catherine assented by a movement of her fair head.
"And he is leaving the country. Perhaps this letter is to keep him from leaving the country?"
"Only until he has buried his benefactor," murmured Kate, in deprecating accents.