Kate was very much perplexed by her interview with her lover, and by the abrupt conclusion of his visit. She was very sweet-tempered and good-natured, and could not bear to vex any one; but perhaps it pained her secretly a little to be brought in contact with those very strong feelings which she scarcely understood, and which did not bear much resemblance to her own tender, affectionate, caressing love. She was very fond of John; at bottom she knew and felt that of all the men she had ever seen, he was the man whom she preferred trusting her life and happiness to; and when opportunity served she was very willing to give him her smiles, her sweet words, to lean her head against him, caressing and dependent, to bestow even a soft unimpassioned kiss; but to think of nothing but John, to resign any part of her duties as mistress of the house, or to neglect other people, and make them uncomfortable, on account of him, would never have occurred to her, and there was in her mind at the same time something of that fatal curiosity which so often attends power. She wanted to know how far her power could go: it gave her a thrill of excitement to speculate upon just touching the utmost borders of it, coming to the verge of loss and despair, and then mending everything with a touch of her hand or sudden smile. By nature Kate seemed to have been so completely separated from all tragical possibilities. She had never wanted anything in all her life that had not been procured for her. Everything had given way to her, everything conspired to give her her will. And what if she should give herself one supreme pleasure to end with, and skirt the very edge of the abyss, and feel the awful thrill of danger, and go just within a hair’s-breadth of destruction? Kate’s heart beat as the thought occurred to her. If she could do this, then she might sip the very essence of tragedy, and never more be obliged to despise herself as ignorant of intense emotions--while yet she would still keep her own happiness all the time to fall back upon. Such was the thought--we cannot call it project--which gradually shaped itself in Kate’s mind, and which accident went so far to carry out. “So he has gone,” her father said to her; “we have not paid our deliverer sufficient attention, I suppose.” “Papa, you know I will not have him talked of so,” cried Kate; “he went away because he chose to go. I am dreadfully sorry; and it makes me think a great deal less of the people who are staying here, not of John.” “How do you make that out?” said her father. “Because they did not understand him better,” said Kate, with flashing eyes; “they took their cue from you, papa--not from me--which shows what they are; for of course it is the lady of the house who has to be followed, not the gentleman. And he did not see anything of me, which was what he came for. I only wonder that he should have stayed a single day.”