Had she, after all, some affection left for this boy lover--and her future husband within hearing distance! No! This was not his Kate--he understood it all now.

It was the spell of the story that still held her.

Richard's voice had upset her, as it had done half the room.
"Yes, it is dreadful for everybody," he added.

And then, in a perfunctory manner, as being perhaps the best way to lead the conversation into other channels, added: "And the suspense will be worse now--for me at any rate--for I, too, am going away where letters reach me but seldom." Her hand closed convulsively over his.
"You going away! YOU!" she cried in a half-frightened tone.

"Oh, please don't, Uncle George! Oh!--I don't want you away from me! Why must you go?
Oh, no! Not now--not now!" Her distress was so marked and her voice so pleading that he was about to tell her the whole story, even to that of the shifts he had been put to to get food for himself and Todd, when he caught sight of Willits making his way through the throng to where they sat.