“Yes, my darling,” said John; and then somehow his eye was caught by the lights in the windows so close at hand, the one in the library, the other in the drawing-room, where sat his parents, who had the fullest confidence in him; and he gave a slight start and sigh in spite of himself. “Perhaps you repent your bargain already,” said impetuous Kate, being instantly conscious of both start and sigh, and of the feeling which had produced them. “Ah! how can you speak to me so,” he said, “when you know if it was life I had to pay for it I would do it joyfully? No; even if I had never seen you I could not have done what they wanted me. That is the truth. And now I have you, my sweetest----” “Hush,” she said, softly, “we have not come to that yet. There is a great deal, such a great deal, to think about; and there is papa----” “And I have so little to offer,” said John; “it is only now I feel how little. Ah! how five minutes change everything! It never came into my mind that I had nothing to offer you--I was so full of yourself. But now!--you who should have kingdoms laid at your feet--what right had a penniless fellow like me----” “If you regret you can always go back,” said Kate, promptly; “though, you know, it is a kind of insinuation against me, as if I had consented far too easy. And, to tell the truth, I never did consent.” Here poor John clutched at her hand, which seemed to be sliding from his arm, and held it fast without a word. “No, I never did consent,” said Kate. “It was exactly like the savages that knock a poor girl down and then carry her off. You never asked me even--you took me. Well, but then the thing to be drawn from that, is not any nonsense about giving up. If you will promise to be good, and do everything I tell you, and let me manage with papa----” “But it is my business to let him know,” said John. “No, my darling--not even for you. I could not skulk, nor do anything underhand. I must tell _him_, and I must tell them----” “Then you will have your way, and we shall come to grief,” said Kate; “as if I did not know papa best. And then--I am not half nor quarter so good as you; but in some things I am cleverer than you, John.” “In everything, dear,” he said, with one of those ecstatic smiles peculiar to his state of folly, though in the darkness Kate did not get the benefit of it. “I never have, never will compare myself to my darling. It is all your goodness letting me--all your sweetness and humility and----” “Please don’t,” said Kate, “please stop--please don’t talk such nonsense. Oh, I hope I shall never behave so badly that you will be forced to find me out. But now about papa. It must be me to tell him; you may come in afterwards, if you like. I know what I shall do. I will drive the phaeton to the station to meet him. I _will_ be the one to tell him first. John, I know what I am talking of, and I must have my own way.”