And then there was silence, in which Kate began to feel her heart beat, and wondered if this man could be an oyster, or if he could really be so inconceivably fond of her as to be thus concerned in all that concerned her happiness. It sounded like something in a romance; and yet Kate knew enough of life and society to know that romance sometimes gave but a very colourless picture of the truth. “I hope you have heard lately,” he went on, with a voice which was elaborately and yet not unnaturally subdued--for, as has been said, Fred had fully entered into the _rôle_ he was playing--“and that all is going well.” Kate blushed, perhaps, more violently than she had ever blushed in her life before. If he were making this sacrifice of his feelings for her, surely she ought to be true and sincere with him; but what she had to say was mortifying to her pride. She looked at him stooping over her, and tried to read his face, and asked herself, with a simplicity that is natural to the sophisticated, whether here, once for all, she had found _the_ friend who is equal to utter self-abnegation, and of whom in books one sometimes reads. A more simple-minded girl, probably, would not have looked for so self-sacrificing a lover, but Kate had been brought up with a persuasion of her own power to sway everybody to her will. “Mr Huntley,” she said, hurriedly, “I don’t think I ought to speak to you on such a subject; but, indeed, I feel anxious, and I don’t know what to do.” “Then do speak to me,” he said, bending over her. “Do you think I care what happens to myself if I can be of use to you?” There are sentiments of this heroic description which we would see the fallacy of at once if addressed to others, which yet seem natural spoken to ourselves. And Kate had always been so important to everybody about her. She looked up at him again, she faltered, she half turned away, and then, after all, she spoke. “I don’t know why I should tell you. I don’t know what it means. I have not heard a single word from him, Mr Huntley, since he went away.” A sudden gleam of light came into Fred’s eyes, but he was looking down, and she only saw a ghost of it under his lowered eyelids. “That is very strange,” he said. “Do you think he can be ill? Do you think anything can have happened?” asked Kate. “He is not ill, he is at home at Fanshawe, and his burns are getting better. I saw him yesterday,” said Fred. “At home! and he never told me. Oh, how unkind it is! It used to be every other day, and now it is nearly a fortnight. But why should you care?” cried Kate, really moved with sharp mortification, and not quite aware what she said.