He raised his eyes.

Kate had passed him and had given no sign of her presence!

He sprang from his seat: 

“Kate!—­Kate!—­Are you going to treat me as my father treated me! 
Don’t, please!—­You’ll never see me again—­but don’t cut me like that: 
I have never done anything but love you!”

The girl came to a halt, but she did not turn her head, nor did she answer.

“Please, Kate—­won’t you speak to me?  It may be the last time I shall ever see you.  I am going away from Kennedy Square.  I was going to write you a letter; I came out here to think of what I ought to say—­”

She raised her head and half turned her trembling body so that she could see his face, her eyes reading his.

“I didn’t think you wanted me to speak to you or you would have looked up.”

“I didn’t see you until you had passed.  Can’t we sit down here?—­no one will see us.”

She suffered him to take her hand and lead her to the bench.  There she sat, her eyes still searching his face—­a wondering, eager look, discovering every moment some old remembered spot—­an eyebrow, or the line at the corner of the mouth, or the round of the cheek—­each and every one bringing back to her the days that were past and gone never to return.

“You are going away?” she said at last—­“why?  Aren’t you happy with Uncle George?  He would miss you, I am sure.”  She had let the scarf fall from her shoulders as she spoke, bringing into view the full round of her exquisite throat.  He had caught its flash, but he could not trust himself to look the closer.

“Not any more than I shall miss him,” he rejoined sadly; “but he has lost almost everything he had in the bank failure and I cannot have him support me any longer—­so I am going to sea.”

Kate started forward and laid her hand on his wrist:  “To sea!—­in a ship!  Where?” The inquiry came with such suddenness and with so keen a note of pain in her voice that Harry’s heart gave a bound.  It was not St. George’s losses then she was thinking of—­she was thinking of him!  He raised his eyes quickly and studied her face the closer; then his heart sank again.  No!—­he was wrong—­there was only wonder in her gaze; only her usual curiosity to know every detail of what was going on around her.

With a sigh he resumed his bent position, talking to the end of his walking-stick tracing figures in the gravel:  “I shall go to Rio, probably,” he continued in the same despondent tone—­“or China.  That’s why I called after you.  I sail day after to-morrow—­Saturday at the latest—­and it may be a good many years before I get back again, and so I didn’t want to go, Kate, without telling you that—­that—­I forgive you for everything you have done to me—­and whether you forgive me or not, I have kept my promises to you, and I will always keep them as long as I live.”

“What does dear Uncle George think of it?” She too was addressing the end of the stick; gaining time to make up her mind what to do and say.  The old wound, of course, could not be opened, but she might save him and herself from fresh ones.