“It is quite clear what he feels,” said Mr Crediton; “he feels that you are out of his sphere. He sees what kind of a life you live here, and he is bewildered. How is he to give you all that, or a shadow of it? It is not difficult to divine what he feels; and the thought makes him half morose, as he was when he was here. He cannot bear to lose you, I believe; and yet he is gradually making up his mind that he must lose you. Poor fellow! I for one am very sorry for him; and unless you open a way to him out of it, I don’t see what he is to do.” “Papa,” said Kate, with her cheeks flaming, “if he has ever given you any reason to think that he wants to be out of it, you have only to let me know.” “I don’t want to be unjust,” said Mr Crediton, “to him or to any one. He has never spoken to me on the subject. It is not likely he should. No man could come to your father, Kate, and say, 'I have made a mistake.' I should kick him out of the house, probably, however glad I might be to hear it. And John Mitford is not the man to do anything of the kind; but his feelings may be easily divined for all that.” Kate sat silent, with her eyes cast down, and twisted her handkerchief in her fingers. Her cheeks were burning, her eyes hot, her heart beating loud. Perhaps it might be true. While she had been calmly comparing her two lovers, feeling herself elevated in a sweet supremacy over them, and free to make her choice, it was possible that her chain had become bondage to one of them. He had gone away hurriedly, it was true. He had spoken very strangely when he went away, and he had not written to her for two long weeks. So long, indeed, had he kept silence, that she had written to him making a kind of appeal. These facts, no doubt, strengthened every word her father said, and gave to them a certain appearance of reality. Her cheeks burned, and seemed to scorch all the moisture out of her eyes; and yet she felt that only the strongest effort kept her from bursting into tears. It was a kind of relief to her when the door opened, and a man came in with Mr Crediton’s letters. At least they prevented the necessity of any answer. She sat absorbed in her own thoughts, examining closely, as if it were a matter of the last importance, the embroidered cipher on her handkerchief, while her father was thus occupied. Kate took no notice how many letters he read--they were nothing to her; nor did she observe the keen glance upward which he gave at her when he had read the first he opened. She did not even remark that the crackling of the paper ceased, and there was an interval of complete stillness. When he spoke to her she started, and came back as if from a long distance. “Yes, papa,” she said, mechanically, without lifting her eyes. “I did not think it would have come so soon,” said Mr Crediton; “and it is very strange that it should have come at this moment. He has decided the question for himself, Kate, as, one time or other, I thought he would. Look here.”