on stronger
legs than that. Do you know I have got permission to undo this cruel
will, and let you have Bolton Hall and Hernshaw again?"

Griffith looked pleased, but rather puzzled.

Kate went on, but not so glibly now. "However," said she, a little
nervously, "there is one condition to it that will cost us both some
pain. If you consent to accept these two estates from me, who don't
value them one straw, why then--"

"Well, what?" he gasped.

"Why, then, my poor Griffith, we shall be bound in honor--you and I--not
to meet for some months, perhaps for a whole year: in one word,--do not
hate me,--not till you can bear to see me--another--man's--wife."

The murder being out, she hid her face in her hands directly, and in
that attitude awaited his reply.

Griffith stood petrified a moment; and I don't think his intellects were
even yet quite clear enough to take it all in at once. But at last he
did comprehend it, and when he did, he just uttered a loud cry of agony,
and then turned his back on her without a word.

* * * * *

Man does not speak by words alone. A mute glance of reproach has ere now
pierced the heart a tirade would have left untouched; and even an
inarticulate cry may utter volumes.

Such an eloquent cry was that with which Griffith Gaunt turned his back
upon the angelical face he adored, and the soft, persuasive tongue.
There was agony, there was shame, there was wrath, all in that one
ejaculation.

It frightened Kate. She called him back. "Don't leave me so," she said.
"I know I have affronted you; but I meant all for the best. Do not let
us part in anger."

At this Griffith returned in violent agitation. "It is your fault for
making me speak," he cried. "I was going away without a word, as a man
should, that is insulted by a woman. You heartless girl! What! you bid
me sell you to that man for two dirty farms! O, well you know Bolton and
Hernshaw were but the steps by which I hoped to climb to you: and now
you tell me to part with you, and take those miserable acres instead of
my darling. Ah, mistress, you have never loved, or you would hate
yourself and despise yourself for what you have done. Love! if you had
known what that word means, you couldn't look in my face and stab me to
the heart like this. God forgive you! And sure I hope he will; for,
after all, it is not _your_ fault that you were born without a heart.
WHY, KATE, YOU ARE CRYING."

CHAPTER XI