"In New York!" repeated Kate, surprised. And then there was a pause.
When had Doctor Danton been in New York? For the last four years he had been in Germany; from Germany he had come direct to Canada, so Grace had told her; where, then, had he known this New York girl?
"Why did you come to Montreal?" asked Kate.
There was a nervous contraction around the girl"s mouth, and something seemed to fade out of her face--not color, for she had none--but it darkened with something like sudden anguish.
"I had a friend," she said hastily, "a friend I lost; I heard I might find that--that friend in Montreal, and so--"
Her voice died away, and she put up one trembling hand to shade her face. Kate came over and touched the hand lying on her black dress, caressingly. She forgot her pride, as she often forgot it in her womanly pity.
"My poor little Agnes! Did you find that friend?"
"No."
"No?" repeated Kate.
She thought the reply would be "yes"--she had thought the friend was Doctor Frank. Agnes dropped her hand from before her face.
"No," she said sadly, "I have not found him. I shall never find him again in this world, I am afraid."
Him! That little tell-tale p.r.o.noun! Kate knew by instinct the friend was "him," men being at the bottom of all womanly distress in this lower world.
"Then it was not Doctor Danton?"
Agnes looked up with a suddenly frightened face, her great eyes dilating, her pale lips parting.
"I saw you by accident coming up the avenue with him last evening," Kate hastened to explain. "I chanced to hear a remark of his in pa.s.sing; I could not help it."
Agnes clasped her hands together in frightened supplication.
"You won"t say anything about it?" she said, piteously. "Oh, please don"t say anything about it! I am so sorry you overheard. Oh, Miss Danton, you won"t tell?"
"Certainly not," answered Kate, startled by her emotion. "I merely thought he might be the friend you came in search of."
"Oh, no, no! Doctor Danton has been my friend; I owe him more than I can ever repay. He is the best, and n.o.blest, and most generous of men. He was my friend when I had no friend in the world--when, but for him, I might have died. But he is not the one I came to seek."
"I beg your pardon," said Kate, going back to her chair. "I have asked too many questions."
"No, no! You have a right to ask me, but I cannot tell. I am not very old, but my heart is nearly broken."
She dropped her work, covered her face with her slender hands, and broke out into a fit of pa.s.sionate crying. Kate was beside her in a moment, soothing her, caressing her, as if she had been her sister.
"I am sorry, I am sorry," she said; "it is all my fault. Don"t cry, Agnes; I will go now; you will feel better alone."
She stooped and kissed her. Agnes looked up in grateful surprise, but Miss Danton was gone. She ran down stairs and stood looking out of the drawing-room window, at the sunlit, wintry landscape.
So Doctor Frank was a hero after all, and not a villain. He had nothing to do with this pale little girl"s trouble. He was only her best friend and wanted to hide it.
"People generally like their good deeds to be known," mused Miss Danton.
"They want their right hand to see all that their left hand gives. Is Doctor Frank a little better than the rest of mankind? I know he attends the sick poor of St. Croix for nothing, and I know he is very pleasant, and a gentleman. Is he that modern wonder, a good man, besides?"
Her meditations were interrupted by the entrance of Rose, looking very charming in a tight jacket and long black riding-skirt, a "jockey hat and feather" on her curly head, and flourishing her riding-whip in her gauntleted hand.
"I thought you were out, Kate, with your little Scotchman," she said, slapping her gaiter. "I saw him mount and ride off nearly an hour ago."
"I have been in my room."
"I wish Doctor Frank would come," said Rose. "I like some one to make love to me when I ride."
"Doctor Frank does not make love to you."
"Does he not? How do you know?"
"My prophetic soul tells me, and what is more, never will. All the better for Doctor Frank, since you would not accept him or his love if he offered them."
"And how do you know that? I must own I thought him a prig at first, and if I begin to find him delightful now, I suppose it is merely by force of contrast with your black-browed, deadly-dull baronet. Will you come?
No? Well, then, adieu, and _au revoir_."
Kate watched her mount and gallop down the avenue, kissing her hand as she disappeared.
"My pretty Rose," she thought, smiling, "she is only a spoiled child; one cannot be angry, let her say what she will."
Out beyond the gates, Rose"s canter changed to a rapid gallop. She managed her horse well, and speedily left the village behind, and was flying along a broad, well-beaten country road, interspersed at remote intervals with quaint French farm-houses.
All at once, Regina slipped--there was a sheet of ice across the road--struggled to regain her footing, fell, and would have thrown her rider had not a man, walking leisurely along, sprung forward and caught her in his arms.
Rose was unhurt, and extricating herself from the stranger"s coat-sleeves, rose also. The hero of the moment made an attempt to follow her example, uttered a groan, made a wry face, and came to a halt.
"Are you hurt?" Rose asked.
"I have twisted an ankle on that confounded ice--sprained it, I am afraid, in the struggle with the horse. If I can walk--but no, my locomotive powers, I find, are at a standstill for the present. Now, then, Mademoiselle, what are we to do?"
He seated himself with great deliberation on a fallen tree and looked up at her coolly, as he asked the question.
Rose looked down into one of the handsomest faces she had ever seen, albeit pallid just now with sharp pain.
"I am so sorry," she said, in real concern. "You cannot walk, and you must not stay here. What shall we--oh! what shall we do?"
"I tell you," said the young man. "Do you see that old yellow farm-house that looks like a church in Chinese mourning."
"Yes."
"Well--but it will be a great deal of trouble."
"Trouble!" cried Rose. "Don"t talk about trouble. Do you want me to go to that farm-house!"
"If you will be so kind. I stopped there last night. Tell old Jacques--that"s the proprietor--to send some kind of a trap down here for me--a sled, if nothing else."