katharine morrell sat in a sheltered nook in the deanery garden, all flooded with the mellow sunshine of an april afternoon.
the trim, box-edged garden beds were gay with spring flowers, and the air was full of the song of birds and of the faint, sweet, sleepy scent of the poplar.
before her the great grey cathedral reared its mighty pile against a sky of pale, pure blue, relieved by clouds of fleecy whiteness. pigeons were sunning themselves here and there on some projecting buttress, or in some quaintly-carved niche. the whole world seemed full of peace and hope and life renewed.
katharine’s hat was on the grass beside her, and the soft spring breeze lightly stirred the fair hair on her smooth, white brow, and
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brought a touch of pure rose colour to her fair face.
on her knee there lay an opened letter in sydney’s hand-writing. she took it up and read the last page through again.
“it is so good to see st. quentin walk across the room, even though still leaning on a stick. dr. lorry says he is making a most marvellous recovery, and sir anthony, who has been down to the castle twice since the operation, is delighted with him. sir anthony said several ever such nice things about hugh; i wish father could have heard him. he would have been so pleased.
“st. quentin actually went yesterday to see that poor man duncombe, who has come down here to live with his mother. he is to do light work in the gardens as soon as he is strong enough. he was so pleased to see st. quentin, and he could not say enough about hugh’s kindness to him while he was at the blue-friars hospital. he seems a nice man, and is terribly sorry for all the harm which he has done st. quentin, though st. quentin tells him ‘not to think about it any more.’
“this morning we have been to call upon the vicar. st. quentin walked all round the
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vicarage garden to look at mr. seaton’s hyacinths, and was not over-tired. doesn’t that sound like being really better?
“he talks of driving in to donisbro’ to thank the dean for his kind enquiries.”
it was this last sentence that katharine read again and again, with a light in her eyes and a flush upon her cheek.
“he talks of driving in to donisbro’ to thank the dean for his kind enquiries.”
bees hummed in and out among the flowers, with their peculiar sound of infinite contentment; along the sunny borders the yellow heads of the daffodils were nodding gently in the breeze. katharine thought she had never known the garden look so lovely—never since that spring day nine long years ago, when her father brought lord lisle, as st. quentin had been called then, into it for the first time.
nine years—was it really nine years since that april afternoon when she had gone out to gather daffodils to fill the vases in the drawing-room?
she was eighteen then, and dressed in a gown of pale green, she remembered. her father had a fancy for green and loved to see her in it.
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she remembered how the tall young man at the dean’s side had looked at that young katharine of nine years ago, and how presently they were walking side by side along the straight flagged garden paths, he carrying her bunch of daffodils.
what had they said? nothing very much, she fancied. they talked about the flowers, and he spoke of his mother’s famous orchids at st. quentin castle, and said how much he should like the dean and miss morrell to see them.
nine years ago; but she could recall every line of the tall young figure, with handsome head erect, and eyes that said so much. she could even bring back to her memory the very look of the strong, shapely hand that held the daffodils—her daffodils.
had not daffodils been the flowers she loved best ever since—yes, ever since! though she had tried to think she hated them upon a certain day five years ago when she had burnt a little dried-up bunch of them which for four years had lain among her treasures.
had a spring and daffodil time ever come and gone through all these nine years that she had not thought of the tall figure and the handsome face, and of the grey eyes
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that looked at her more often than the flowers he had come to see?
a rather faltering step was upon the flagged path skirting the close-shaven lawn. katharine looked up.
he was there before her, the man of whom she had been thinking—the same, yet not the same. there was little to remind her of the gay young lover of nine years ago, except the eyes, which looked forth from the worn face with the old expression in them—the old expression she remembered so well, only deepened and intensified.
“katharine!” said lord st. quentin.
she was at his side in a moment. “you should not be standing! take my arm. here is an easy chair for you.”
he sank into the chair she had drawn forward; she sat down quietly at his side.
around them hyacinths were springing everywhere about the grass—it was a fancy of the dean’s to grow them so, instead of in the garden beds. the air seemed filled with their rare fragrance.
under the grey line of the old deanery ran a border bright with golden daffodils.
“you stood there when i saw you first,” st. quentin said. “you were outlined against
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the grey wall in your pale green gown, and you held a bunch of daffodils in one hand. you wore no hat, and the breeze was stirring your hair on your temples as it is to-day.”
she put her hand to her head with a nervous gesture quite unusual with her.
“nine years ago,” she said. “i have changed.”
“and i have changed more,” he answered gravely. “katharine, look at me.”
she looked as he bade, almost timidly, at the thin earnest face beside her.
“you know—you must know why it is i have come here to you to-day,” he said, his voice vibrating strangely. “katharine! i have no right to ask or expect that you can care for me still. and i am not here to offer you my love; i gave it to you nine long years ago, and you have had it ever since. i have come to make you a confession.”
he told the story of his selfishness and folly—hiding nothing. she listened silently, her head bent, her hands clasped on her knee.
“i have no right to offer you what’s left from the wreck i’ve made of my life,” he concluded, “but my love is yours—as it always has been since that first spring afternoon i
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saw you, as it always must be through life and beyond it.”
he rose slowly from his chair, leaning upon his stick.
“thank you for listening to me, dear. good-bye.”
she came swiftly towards him, and laid her two hands upon his arm.
“you have no faith,” she said, “though perhaps i hardly deserve that you should believe in my love after that cruel letter that i wrote five years ago. st. quentin, don’t you know that i have cared always?—that i cared even when i told you that i never wished to see or hear of you again? it is not possible to give up caring, and, dear, i care more, far more now, than ever i cared in that bright spring time long ago. dear, don’t you understand?”
and st. quentin did.
“i don’t deserve it,” he said hoarsely, “but please god you sha’n’t regret your trust and your forgiveness.”
“we both have something to forgive,” she said; and then he caught her to him with a murmured, “my darling! my darling!” and there fell a silence on the two in the flower-filled garden, flooded with the mellow sunshine of that april afternoon. and overhead a full-throated
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thrush broke into its liquid song—a song which was so wonderfully full of gladness that it almost seemed as though it spoke the words of thankfulness to which they could not give voice.
the silver-haired dean found the two among the hyacinths, when he came down the paved walk an hour later, and was filled at once with kindly solicitude upon his guest’s behalf.
“my dear st. quentin, it is most delightful to see you on your feet again; but, my dear boy, what rashness to come all the way to donisbro’ so soon! what was your doctor thinking of? what could possess you to do anything so foolish?”
the marquess wondered vaguely what had been the reason he had given to himself and others for his visit to donisbro’. katharine, with a little gleam of laughter in her clear eyes, came to his assistance.
“st. quentin came to return thanks in person for your kind enquiries, father,” she said, taking the old man’s hands in both hers. “that was so, wasn’t it, st. quentin? and while he was here he thought he had better tell me something as well.”
a smile of understanding broke out upon the dean’s benevolent old face.
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“will you forgive me, sir, and trust her with me?” said st. quentin, holding out his hand. “i am not worthy of her, but with god’s help i’ll try to do my best to be so, and to make her happy. will you give her to me?”
the old man’s warm handclasp was sufficient answer, and made the hearty words, “with all my heart,” unnecessary. and he added, as he drew his daughter to him, kissing her upon the forehead, “i am not afraid to trust her to you now, st. quentin.”
“please god, you shan’t regret it, sir,” st. quentin said, as he had said before to katharine, and the three went toward the deanery together along the path beside the daffodil-filled border.
“it was little sydney who sent me here to-day,” st. quentin said to katharine, as they stood a moment just inside the low-browed, quaintly-carved stone porch of the old deanery, looking back on what must be to them for evermore an enchanted garden; “it was she whose faith in love’s endurance sent me here to-day to test it, katharine. god bless the child for that, and for all!”
and katharine echoed from her heart, “yes, god bless her!”
