All the same, his mind was full of fears, which he vainly strove to stifle, and he wished that any one but himself filled the post of guardian to Kathleen. She was wonderfully sweet and kind in her manner to him that evening, asking his advice even about what seemed purely feminine matters, and promptly acting upon it, even where it did not accord with her own ideas. So stirred was Aylmer by the tender graciousness of Kathleen's manner, that he gave himself no further time for self-questioning. Hetty Stapleton's counsel had encouraged hope, his own doubts and scruples were put aside, and, availing himself of an unexpected opportunity, Aylmer told his ward the story of his love.
"I know not when I began to love you, dear," he said. "It seems to me that I cannot look back upon a time, since you were the merest slip of a girl, when you were not first and dearest of all to me. Though you were so much younger, and I grown to manhood, I never pictured a home for myself in which you were not the 'angel of the house.' Your father loved me, Kathleen, and gave me the place a brother might have filled, had you possessed one. Let me finish, dear Kathleen;" for the girl would have interrupted. "Hear my story out, and then give me your answer."
Then Aylmer told her how, whilst longing to be faithful to the trust reposed in him, it had raised a certain barrier between her and himself which had kept him silent until now, though he had longed to speak.
"I have been afraid that the world would misjudge me, and say that the guardian was selfish, and scheming to keep his beautiful ward and her wealth for himself. And yet, dear, you will believe me when I say that to me my sweet Kathleen, with only herself to bestow, would give me what is worth more than all the riches of the world, if she would put her dear hand in mine and bid me keep it."
"I wish I could—oh, how I wish I could!" said Kathleen. "It is dreadful to me to say a word that will grieve you, but I have never thought of you in that way. I have been trying so much of late to show you that I cared for you as if you were my own dear, good brother, and many, many times when I have pained you I have suffered more myself than you have done, though I have seemed hard and wilful, for you were always so patient. When I was a child, Aylmer, I used to think God had given you to me for a brother, because I had none of my own. Be my brother still, and try to forget."
Kathleen raised her beautiful eyes to Aylmer's, streaming with tears. Her hand was in his, for he had taken it, and she made no effort to withdraw it. Aylmer's clasp had been to her an assurance of safety ever since the stalwart youth had made her his child-playmate. Her look of distress went to his heart and appealed to his unselfish nature, whilst it caused him the bitterest pain and disappointment.
"I have been as a brother hitherto, dear Kathleen," he replied, "but I have always hoped to fill a yet dearer place in your affection. Now I reproach myself for abruptness. I have told my story too suddenly. Let me leave it with you unanswered for a while. Take what time you choose; I will have patience, and trust that when you have examined your own heart more closely, you may find me occupying more than a brother's share of it."
Kathleen shook her head. "Better answer now, Aylmer. The waiting would be trying to you, and very hard for me, because I should all the while be grieving at the thought of pain to come. You are so good and true. You have been brother, friend, guardian all in one, but in all my life I have never thought of you as you think of me, and I know I shall not change in this respect. I wish I felt differently, but, apart from such love as you ask, I have given you the best I had to bestow. There is no one whom I would place as friend and brother side by side with you. Let me tell you, too, that I know you would be glad to take me as a poor girl rather than as a rich heiress, and that I am certain, whenever you do choose a wife worthy of you, she will be one of the happiest women in the world."
"I shall not be likely to choose again, Kathleen. Mine will be a life-long love for you."
"Do not say that, Aylmer, except in the sense of remaining still my best and truest friend."
"I can never be less than that, dear Kathleen, never do less than the best in my power to promote your happiness, at any cost to myself. May God bless you, dear, and help me to bear my sorrow patiently!"
He touched her hand with his lips, then left the room and the house, without waiting to see Mrs. Ellicott and Geraldine again.
To neither of these did Kathleen repeat what had passed between her and Aylmer. "It is his secret, and must be held sacred," she said to herself. "Besides, there is only Ger that I make a girl confidante of, and I could not tell her that he cares for me most of all. Perhaps he will learn some day to think of her as he now does of me. That is the one bit of comfort to be had out of the whole thing—the hope that through this present sorrow a great happiness may come to Ger in the future."
Not for one moment did Kathleen indulge in a feeling of triumph on account of her conquest. Wilful she was, but far above any littleness of that kind. She would have had Aylmer forget his disappointment and her refusal, had this been possible. Still, in heart she could not altogether silence the feeling of pride and joy at the thought of being the choice of one so good as her guardian.
"My father would have wished me to accept him," she thought; and it gave her a feeling of pain that she should go contrary to what she knew would have been his wish.
"But he would have put my happiness before even Aylmer's, and would never have desired my lips to say 'Yes' when my heart said 'No.'"
A few dull days followed—dull both in and out-of-doors. Grey skies, rare glimpses of sunshine, alternate drizzle and downpour, made up weather neither fit for walking nor driving. Aylmer was from home. He had talked of accepting an invitation to join a shooting party at a friend's place some fifty miles away; and when he sent a few lines to say that he should be absent for a week or more, they all concluded he had done so, as he gave no address. Only Kathleen guessed why he had left home so suddenly, and she missed him more than she cared to acknowledge to herself, whilst she dreaded his return. There would never, she thought, be the same happy, unrestrained intercourse that there had been in the past. Ever before them both would come the memory of pain inflicted by the one, and of rejected affection and hopes crushed on the other.
Kathleen thought the week which followed the longest she had ever spent. The weather which was so trying to her, was equally so to her neighbours, and visitors were few in a country place where friends' houses lay somewhat wide apart.
A change came at last, and with it Kathleen's spirits began to rise again. She was happier, too, after Aylmer's return, for he had bravely schooled himself to meet her as of old, and to reserve his regrets, or at least the manifestation of them, for lonely hours at home. Even there he did not sit down and give himself up to unavailing sorrow, but sought strength from God to endure his trial, and found comfort in the thought of that divine love which never faileth.
Aylmer had just one confidante—Hetty Stapleton. As he had already told her what was in his heart, so now he acquainted her with the downfall of his plans and the extinction of his hopes.
"You will think I was wrong to speak so soon," he said, "but Kathleen's kindness carried me out of myself, and, shall I own it? your own suggestion as to the use that John Torrance would make of Ralph, urged me to try my fortune, lest I should lose by delay what I would have exercised any amount of patience to win. With the boy going in and out at the Hall, Kathleen charmed with him and bent on doing him good, the lad himself such a winsome little fellow, and so loyal to his father, I foresaw that the thin end of the wedge had been inserted. A little while, and it would be impossible to keep John Torrance in his present position."
"I understand the difficulty, and I do not blame you, though I wish you had not spoken so soon. What can I do to warn Kathleen? If I only dare tell her what I know, and yet I should hate to do it. She might put a wrong construction on my speaking, for most people hereabouts thought at one time that John Torrance was paying attentions—I will not say to me, he has far too good taste for that, but to my money. He was terribly embarrassed just then, and would have swallowed any pill if it were sufficiently gilded. He found another way out of his difficulties, but he paid a high price for it, as my brother Gerard happens to know."
"If any one could say a warning word to Kathleen with a chance of success, you would be that one, Hetty. She likes and trusts you, and your good sense and tact would enable you to choose the right time."
"And that is not the present. Kathleen knows that we are good friends, and she would regard a word against John Torrance as suggestive of advocacy on your behalf. It will be very difficult for me to speak at all."
"You will understand, Hetty," said Aylmer, "that all I desire is Kathleen's happiness. If she could have loved me as I love her, I should have regarded her as a precious gift from God, and cherished her as such. This cannot be; but, all the same, I will leave no stone unturned to save her from herself, and from harm at another's hand. But no one must plead for me with her. I could not bear that."
"And you do not for a moment suppose that I could be so wanting in delicacy, or of true friendship to yourself as to dream of such a thing," replied Hetty stoutly.
"I am afraid I did think you capable of going almost any length that was not unwomanly, to help one whom you blessed with your friendship. You are so staunch always."
Hetty blushed with pleasure, but re-asserted her own views on the subject.
"That would have been unwomanly, in the higher sense of the word, though very woman-like in another, for the sex is very impulsive, you know, and apt to damage a cause by mistaken kindness. Trust me, Aylmer. I will never injure yours."
"I do trust you. Now let me ask if you have heard the last rumour as to Captain Torrance's pecuniary position? It is whispered that before long he will have to yield possession of Monk's How to his creditors, and that everything is virtually gone now."
"I heard this before I left town. At least it was said that he was about to make an arrangement of the kind, and that unless he married a rich girl, or had another fortune left to him, he would leave the old home of his family a penniless man, at a given time."
"When will that come to pass, I wonder? It is dreadful to think of, especially when Ralph is considered. His father will have robbed him of everything."
"When? In a little over a year from this time; and with all my heart I wish he were gone from Hollingsby now, never to return. We would take care of Ralph amongst us, or let Kathleen adopt him if she chose, and John Torrance out of the way, all would go well," said Hetty, in a tone that showed how much in earnest she was.
"I would rather think of John Torrance aroused to a sense of his responsibilities, starting to retrieve his fallen fortunes, and proving yet a wise as well as an affectionate father to that boy," replied Aylmer.
"What a sanguine nature yours must be! In the first place, there is no washing white, yet there is a better chance of doing that than of changing John Torrance. Then about the fallen fortunes. How would he begin to retrieve them? He has no profession, though he might perhaps turn jockey. He has no capital, and if he had, would he not be more likely to try to increase it by gambling than in any other way? He is just a hopeless black sheep. Nobody can help him, I tell you."
In Aylmer's mind was the higher thought: "There is One mighty to save to the uttermost, though human friends despair, or have become indifferent." But he did not say this to Hetty. He only replied—
"It is possible some friend might be found to help Torrance, if he were really inclined to make a start in the right direction."
"And I believe you would be foolish enough to do it, Aylmer Matheson. It would be like your Quixotic notions, and you would be rewarded as you deserved to be," said Hetty, indignant at the very thought.
"You judge my motives with your usual charity, dear friend. You are only just in thinking that there is no man to whom I would not lend a hand to help him upwards, if he were in earnest in wishing to rise."
"If you are desirous of devoting your means to John Torrance's service, he will find you plenty of opportunities. Perhaps you would prefer giving him Westhill and its appurtenances in the meanwhile. An extra fortune will not long encumber John Torrance," said Hetty with considerable warmth.
"Not quite that," replied Aylmer, "though I would sacrifice something for Kathleen's sake. If Torrance were worthy of her, I could bear my own disappointment, and feel rewarded by the knowledge that she was happy."
"You are simply too good for this world, Aylmer, but a Quixotic goose all the same, though I like you the better for a nobility that I could not imitate. Were I a man, in your shoes, for instance, now, I should set all my wits to work to circumvent John Torrance and win Kathleen in spite of him. Aye, and I would do it somehow. I cannot think that it is manly to accept one rebuff as a final defeat, or to hold out open arms and a full purse to your opponent, to furnish him with new weapons to turn against yourself. Think better of it, my friend, on all accounts."
Aylmer did think, but it was not of Hetty's advice. He thought of the Master he professed to serve, the one perfect Man who, though He was equal with God, "made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant"—for what?
Thinking of His blameless life of good-doing and His death of sacrifice, Aylmer Matheson might well feel that he would lose no manliness that was worth the name, if only he followed in the footsteps of his Divine Lord, "the Man of sorrows."
CHAPTER XIV FAST FRIENDS
THE friendship between Miss Mountford and Ralph Torrance grew rapidly. The ice once broken was not likely to close again, especially as the boy was feeling his father's continued absence a real trouble. His grievances were poured into Kathleen's sympathetic ear, and so far as she was able she comforted him.
