“He should--or he should not be--my husband,” said Katherine with a sudden blush. She raised her eyes unwillingly at this moment and caught the gaze of Dr. Burnet, who was standing behind the great bulk of Sir John, but with his face towards the ladies on the sofa. Katherine’s heart gave a little bound, half of affright. She had looked at him and he at her as she said the words. An answering gleam of expression, an answering wave of colour, seemed to go over him (though he could not possibly hear her) as she spoke. It was the first time that this idea had been clearly suggested to her, but now so simply, so potently, as if she were herself the author of the suggestion. She was startled out of her self-possession. “Oh,” she cried with agitation, “I like her voice! I am like Sir John; let us listen to the singing.” Lady Jane nodded her head, pressed Katherine’s hand, and did what was indeed the first wise step she had taken, stepped as noiselessly as possible to another corner, where, behind her fan, she could talk to a friend more likely to respond to her sentiments and left Dr. Burnet to take her place. “Is this permitted? It is too tempting to be lost,” he said in a whisper, and then he too relapsed into silence and attention. Katherine, I fear, did not get any clear impression of the song. Her own words went through her head, involuntarily, as though she had touched some spring which went on repeating them: “My husband--my husband.” Her white dress touched his blackness as he sat down beside her. She drew away a little, her heart beating loudly, in alarm, mingled with some other feeling which she could not understand, but he did not say another word until the song was over, and all the applause, and the moment of commotion in which the singer returned to her seat, and the groups of the party changed and mingled. Then he said suddenly, “I hope you will not think, Miss Katherine, that I desired Lady Jane to drag me in head and shoulders to your family concerns. I never should have been so presumptuous. I do trust you will believe that.” “I never should have thought so, Dr. Burnet,” said Katherine, faltering with that commotion which was she hoped entirely within herself and apparent to no one. Then she added as she assured her voice, “It would not have been presumptuous. You know so much of us already, and of _her_, and took so much part----” “I am your faithful servant,” he said, “ready to be sent on any errand, or to take any part you wish, but I do not presume further than that.” Then he rose quickly, as one who is moved by a sudden impulse. “Miss Katherine, will you let me take you to the conservatory to see Lady Jane’s great aloe? They used to say it blossomed only once in a hundred years.” “But that’s all nonsense, you know,” said Mr. Montgomery the tutor; “see them all about the Riviera at every corner. Truth, they kill ’emselves when they’re about it.”