Page:Catherine Carmichael; Or Three Years Running.pdf/8

course, be forthcoming. Nor would it be wise that she should let him feel that she avoided them. It was not only necessary that Peter should not suspect, but that John too should be kept in the dark. Indeed, it might be well that Peter should suspect a little. But if he were to suspect,—that other he,—and then he were to speak out, how should she answer him?

"Kate," he said to her one day, "do you ever think of Hokitika?"

"Think, indeed!—of the place where father and mother lie."

"But of the time when you and I used to fight it out for them? I used not to think in those days, Kate, that you would ever be over here,—mistress of Warriwa."

"No, indeed , nobody would have thought it."

"But Kate—"

It was clearly necessary that she should put an end to these reminiscences, difficult, as it might be to do so, "John," she said, "I think you'd better make a change."

"What change?"

She struggled not to blush as she answered him, and she succeeded. "I was a girl in those days, but now I'm a married woman. You had better not call me Kate any more."

"Why? what's the harm?"

"Harm! no, there's no harm; but it isn't the proper thing when a young woman's married, unless he be her brother, or her cousin at furthest; you don't call me by my name before him,"

"Didn 't I?"

"No, you call me nothing at all. What you do before him, you must do behind his back."

"And we were such friends!" But as she could not stand this, she left the room and did not come back from the kitchen till Peter had returned.

So a month went on, and still there was the word Kate sounding in her ears whenever the old man's back was turned. And it sounded now as it sounded on that one day when her finger was trembling at his throat. Why not give way to the sound! Why not ill-treat the man who had so foully ill-treated her? What did she owe to him but her misery? What had he done for her but make a slave of her? And why should she, living there in the wild prairie, beyond the ken of other women, allow herself to be trammelled by the laws which the world had laid down for her sex? To other women the world made some return for true obedience. The love of one man, the strong protecting arm of one true friend, the consciousness of having one to buckler her against the world, one on whom she might hang with trust! This was what other women have in return for truth;—but was any of this given to her when he would turn round and leer at her, reminding her by his leer that he had caught her and made a slave of her? And then there was this young man, sweeter to her now than ever, and clearer! As she thought of all this she came suddenly,—in a moment,—to a resolution, striking her hand violently on the table as she did so. She must tell her husband everything. She must do that, or else she must become a false wife.

As she thought of that possibility of being false, an ecstasy of sweetness for a moment pervaded her senses. To throw herself on his bosom and tell him that she loved him would be compensation almost sufficient to the misery of the last twelve months. Then the word wife crept into her ears, and she remembered words that she had read as to woman's virtue. She thought of her father and her mother! And how would it be with her when, after a while, she would awake from her dream? She had sat silent for an hour alone, now melting into softness, and then rousing herself to all the strength of womanhood. At last a frown came across her brow, very dark; and then, dashing her clenched hand down upon the table, she expressed her purpose in spoken words: "I will tell it him all!"

Then she told him all, after her fashion. It was the custom of the two men to go forth together almost at dawn, and it was her business to prepare their meal for them before they went. On the first morning after her resolution had been formed, she bade her husband stay awhile. She had thought to say it in the seclusion of their