“It was the most unprovoked challenge, my dear; and Neil Semple behaved like a savage, I assure you.  When Dick was bleeding from half a dozen wounds, a gentleman would have been satisfied, and accepted the mediation of the seconds; but Neil, in his blind passion, broke the code to pieces.  A man who can do nothing but be in a rage is a ridiculous and offensive animal.  Have you seen him since his recovery?  For I hear that he has crawled out of his bed again.”

“Him I have not seen.”

“Gracious powers, miss!  Is that all you say, ‘Him I have not seen’?  Make me patient with so insensible a creature!  Here am I almost distracted with my three months’ anxiety and poor Dick, so gone as to be past knowledge, breaking his true heart for a sight of you; and you answer me as if I had asked, ‘Pray, have you seen the newspaper to-day?’”

Then Katherine covered her face, and sobbed with a hopelessness and abandon that equally fretted Mrs. Gordon.  “I wish I knew one corner of this world inaccessible to lovers,” she cried.  “Of all creatures, they are the most ridiculous and unreasonable.  Now, what are you crying for, child?”

“If I could only see Richard,—­only see him for one moment!”

“That is exactly what I am going to propose.  He will get better when he has seen you.  I will call a coach, and we will go at once.”

“Alas!  Go I dare not.  My father and my mother!”

“And Dick,—­what of Dick, poor Dick, who is dying for you?” She went to the door, and gave the order for a coach.  “Your lover, Katherine.  Child, have you no heart?  Shall I tell Dick you would not come with me?”

“Be not so cruel to me.  That you have seen me at all, why need you say?”

“Oh! indeed, miss, do not imagine yourself the only person who values the truth.  Dick always asks me, ‘Have you seen her?’ ’Tis my humour to be truthful, and I am always swayed by my inclination.  I shall feel it to be my duty to inform him how indifferent you are.  Katherine, put on your bonnet again.  Here also are my veil and cloak.  No one will perceive that it is you.  It is the part of humanity, I assure you.  Do so much for a poor soul who is at the grave’s mouth.”

“My father, I promised him”—­

“O child! have six penny worth of common feeling about you.  The man is dying for your sake.  If he were your enemy, instead of your true lover, you might pity him so much.  Do you not wish to see Dick?”

“My life for his life I would give.”

“Words, words, my dear.  It is not your life he wants.  He asks only ten minutes of your time.  And if you desire to see him, give yourself the pleasure.  There is nothing more silly than to be too wise to be happy.”

While thus alternately urging and persuading Katherine, the coach came, the disguise was assumed, and the two drove rapidly to the “King’s Arms.”  Hyde was lying upon a couch which had been drawn close to the window.  But in order to secure as much quiet as possible, he had been placed in one of the rooms at the rear of the tavern,—­a large, airy room, looking into the beautiful garden which stretched away backward as far as the river.  He had been in extremity.  He was yet too weak to stand, too weak to endure long the strain of company or books or papers.