and cold, he felt that Katherine Nevile--tender, gentle, frank without
boldness, lofty without arrogance--had replaced the austere dame of
Bonville, whom he half hated while he wooed,--oh, was it wonderful
that the soul of Hastings fled back to the old time, forgot the
intervening vows and more chill affections, and repeated only with
passionate lips, "Katherine, loved still, loved ever, mine, mine, at
last!"

Then followed delicious silence, then vows, confessions, questions,
answers,--the thrilling interchange of hearts long divided, and now
rushing into one. And time rolled on, till Katherine, gently breaking
from her lover, said,--

"And now that thou hast the right to know and guide my projects,
approve, I pray thee, my present purpose. War awaits thee, and we
must part a while!" At these words her brow darkened and her lip
quivered. "Oh, that I should have lived to mourn the day when Lord
Warwick, untrue to Salisbury and to York, joined his arms with
Lancaster and Margaret,--the day when Katherine could blush for the
brother she had deemed the glory of her House! No, no" (she
continued, as Hastings interrupted her with generous excuses for the
earl, and allusion to the known slights he had received),--"no, no;
make not his cause the worse by telling me that an unworthy pride, the
grudge of some thwart to his policy or power, has made him forget what
was due to the memory of his kinsman York, to the mangled corpse of
his father Salisbury. Thinkest thou that but for this I could--" She
stopped, but Hastings divined her thought, and guessed that, if
spoken, it had run thus: "That I could, even now, have received the
homage of one who departs to meet, with banner and clarion, my brother
as his foe?"