Late that night Kate heard CÆsar and her mother talking together as they were going to bed. CÆsar was saying—

“I got him on the track of a good house, and he went off to Ramsey this morning to put a sight on it.”

“Dear heart alive, father!” Grannie answered, “Pete isn't home till a week come Saturday.”

“The young man is warm on the wedding,” said CÆsar, “and he has money, and store is no sore.”

“But the girl's not fit for it, 'deed she isn't,” said Grannie.

“If she's wake,” said CÆsar, “shell be no worse for saying 'I will,' and when she's said it she'll have time enough to get better.”

Kate trembled with fear. The matter of her marriage with Pete was going on without her. A sort of supernatural power seemed to be pushing it along. Nobody asked if she wished it, nobody questioned that she did so. It was taken for granted that the old relations would stand. As soon as she could go about she would be expected to marry Pete. Pete himself would expect it, because he believed he had her promise; her mother would expect it, because she had always thought of it as a thing understood; her father would expect it, because Pete's prosperity had given him a new view of Pete's piety and pedigree; and Nancy Joe would expect it, too, if only because she was still haunted by her old bugbear, the dark shadow of Ross Christian. There was only one way to break down these expectations, and that was to speak out. But how was a girl to speak? What was she to say?

Kate pretended to be ill. Three days longer she lay, like a hunted wolf in its hole, keeping her bed from sheer dread of the consequences of leaving it. The fourth day was Sunday. It was morning, and the church bells were ringing. CÆsar had shouted from his bedroom for some one to tie his bow, then for some one to button his black gloves. He had gone off at length with the footsteps of the people stepping round to chapel. The first hymn had been started, and its doleful notes were trailing through the mill walls. Kate was propped up in bed, and the window of her room was open. Over the droning of the hymn she caught the sound of a horse's hoofs on the road. They stopped at a little distance, and then came on again, with the same two voices as before.

Pete was talking with great eagerness. “Plenty of house, aw plenty, plenty,” he was saying. “Elm Cottage they're calling it—the slate one with the ould fir-tree behind the Coort House and by the lane to Claughbane. Dry as a bone and clane as a gull's wing. You could lie with your back to the wall and ate off the floor. Taps inside and water as white as gin. I've been buying the cabin of the 'Mona's Isle' for a summer-house in the garden. Got a figurehead for the porch too, and I'll have an anchor for the gate before I'm done. Aw, I'm bound to have everything nice for her.”

There was a short silence, in which nothing was heard but the step of the horse, and then Philip said in a faltering voice, “But isn't this being rather in a hurry, Pete?”

“Short coorting's the best coorting, and ours has been long enough anyway,” said Pete. They had drawn up at the porch, and Pete's laugh came in at the window.

“But think how weak she is,” said Philip. “She hasn't even-left her bed yet, has she?”

“Well, yes, of coorse, sartenly,” said Pete, in a steadier voice, “if the girl isn't fit——”

“It's so sudden, you see,” said Philip. “Has she—has she—consented?”

“Not to say consented——” began Pete; and Philip took him up and said quickly, eagerly, hotly—

“She can't—I'm sure she can't.”

There was silence again, broken only by the horse's impatient pawing, and then Philip said more calmly, “Let Dr. Mylechreest see her first, at all events.”

“I'm not a man for skinning the meadow to the sod, no——” said Pete, in a doleful tone; but Kate heard no more.

She was trembling with a new thought. It was only a shadowy suggestion as yet, and at first she tried to beat it back. But it came again, it forced itself upon her, it mastered her, she could not resist it.

The way to break the fate that was pursuing her was to make Philip speak out! The way to stop the marriage with Pete was to compel Philip to marry her! He thought she would never consent to marry Pete—what if he were given to understand that she had consented. That was the way to gain the victory over Philip, the way to punish him!

He would not blame her—he would lay the blame at the door of chance, of fate, of her people. He would think they were forcing this marriage upon her—the mother out of love of Pete, the father out of love of Pete's money, and Nancy out of fear of Ross Christian. He would know that she could not struggle because she could not speak. He would believe she was yielding against her will, in spite of her love, in the teeth of their intention. He would think of her as a victim, as a martyr, as a sacrifice.

It was a deceit—a small deceit; it looked so harmless, too—so innocent, almost humorous, half ridiculous; and she was a woman, and she could not put it away. Love, love, love! It would be her excuse and her forgiveness. She had appealed to Philip himself and in vain. Now she would pretend to go on with her old relations. It was so little to do, and the effects were so certain. In jealousy and in terror Philip would step out of himself and claim her.

She had craft—all hungry things have craft. She had inklings of ambition, a certain love of luxury, and desire to be a lady. To get Philip was to get everything. Love would be satisfied, ambition fulfilled, the aims of refinement reached. Why not risk the great stake?

Nancy came to tidy the room, and Kate said, “Where's Pete all this time, I wonder?”

“Sitting in the fire-seat this half-hour,” said Nancy. “I don't know in the world what's come over the man. He's rocking and moaning there like a cow licking a dead calf.”

“Would he like to come up, think you?”

“Don't ask the man twice if you want him to say no,” said Nancy.

Blushing and stammering, and trying to straighten his black curls, Pete came at Nancy's call.

Kate had few qualms. The wound she had received from Philip had left her conscienceless towards Pete. Yet she turned her head a little sideways as she welcomed him.

“Are you better, then, Kirry?” said Pete timidly.

“I'm nearly as well as ever,” she answered.

“You are, though?” said Pete. “Then you'll be down soon, it's like, eh?”

“I hope so, Pete—quite soon.”

“And fit for anything, now—yes?”

“Oh, yes, fit for anything.”

Pete laughed from his heart like a boy. “I'll take a slieu round to Ballure and tell Philip immadiently.”

“Philip?” said Kate, with a look of inquiry.

“He was saying this morning you wouldn't be equal to it, Kirry.”

“Equal to what, Pete?”

“Getting—going—having—that's to say—well, you know, putting a sight on the parson himself one of these days, that's the fact.” And, to cover his confusion, Pete laughed till the scraas of the roof began to snip.

There was a moment's pause, and then Kate said, with a cough and a stammer and her head aside, “Is that so very tiring, Pete?”

Pete leapt from his chair and laughed again like a man demented. “D'ye say so, Kitty? The word then, darling—the word in my ear—as soft as soft——”

He was leaning over the bed, but Kate drew away from him, and Nancy pulled him back, saying, “Get off with you, you goosey gander! What for should you bother a poor girl to know if sugar's sweet, and if she's willing to change a sweetheart for a husband?”

It was done. One act—nay, half an act; a word—nay, no word at all, but only silence. The daring venture was afoot.

Grannie came up with Kate's dinner that day, kissed her on both cheeks, felt them hot, wagged her head wisely, and whispered, “I know—you needn't tell me!”