No wonder then that when Somers was driven from the house, the old man hugged his daughter in his arms, and wept over her, and kissed her fair forehead, and pressed her face to his bosom, and rested his cheek upon her head, while his whole frame shook with heavy sobs, of mingled joy and indignation; nor that he kept near her the whole of that day, scarcely suffering her to quit his sight, locking the house door and always opening it himself when there was a knock, lest it should be Somers, returning to lure his child from him. Over and over again he begged her not to leave him; conjuring her not to see Somers again, and telling her that Ned was a scoundrel, and that the only mode of saving herself from destruction was by never meeting him again. And did Kate never see Somers again? But once and only once. She knew that her father wronged him. She knew how long and patiently he had been waiting and working for her. She knew too that Michael Rust had his own designs upon her; for she was not blind, and Michael Rust's admiration was too undisguised, and his speech too devoid of concealment to leave her in doubt. She knew too, although he had studiously concealed it from her, that he was Ned's enemy, and that he wished to rid himself of a rival; and she strongly suspected that he was at the bottom of this whole matter. She knew all this, and she thought, that now that the worst had taken place, that Ned should know it too; for she had hitherto concealed much of it, lest it should lead to difficulties between Somers and her father's guest. But nothing was to be gained by concealment now; and she felt, that to see Somers, to tell him all that she knew, all that she had seen, all that she had heard, and all that she suspected, was but her duty, and that to refrain from doing so would be very, _very_ wrong. If she erred, it was an error which many will forgive.