And Kate felt she had been treading on forbidden ground.
She retired to her own room after this conversation, and seating herself on the window-seat, thought long though vaguely of the species of unhappy cloud thus thrown over her cousin's life, by the tenacious grasp she had permitted an absorbing passion to take of her heart, hiding from her the beauties and the pleasures which might have colored her life.
"How terrible to be thus dependent for happiness on the smiles or frowns of a cold-hearted man. Ah! if my own beloved grandpapa was alive, she would listen to him."
And at that remembrance, her thoughts took a different direction, and dwelt long and sadly on the kind and venerated old man.
Then again the restlessness which ever seized her when she reflected on her utter dependence, returned with startling force, and she felt as if she could, at that moment, set out to seek her fortune alone.
"I will do so, ere long," she thought, "I cannot live always thus; but, for the present, I must wait. Until Mr. Winter's return--he is so wise, so practical--and I must consider poor nurse before myself. Oh, what an utter change since the day when I walked into the dear old priory drawing-room with my poor Cormac, and found Colonel Egerton there."
And his face, and figure, and voice returned to her memory at her spirits' call, and she longed, with that intensity with which the prisoner in the body's cage strains itself against its bounds in unutterable pining to devour space--the wish to see him once more, to tell him all about her grandfather's death--her own deep sorrows, absorbed her fancy, and the hours rolled on while she listened in imagination to his rich, full, frank voice--
"Memory may mock thee with the tones So well-known and so dear-- 'Tis but an echo of the past, That cheats the longing ear; And thou must strive, and think, and hope, And hush each trembling sigh, And struggle onward in the way Thy destined course doth lie."
"Och! are ye all alone be yerself, asthore?" asked nurse, entering, "an' the big salt tears rowlin' down yer face. What was it vexed ye--tell yer own nurse?"
"Nothing, dear nurse. I was only thinking," returned Kate, drying her eyes, and endeavoring to smile; "is it time to dress?"