"My good Joris, it was like him."

For a moment Katherine's consciousness reeled. The roar of the ocean

which girds our life round was in her ears, the feeling of chill and

collapse at her heart. But with a supreme will she took possession of

herself. "Weak I will not be. All I will know. All I will suffer." And

with these thoughts she went back to the room, and took her place at the

table. In a few minutes the rest followed. Batavius did not speak to

her. It was also something of a cross to him that madam would not talk

of the event. He did not think that Katherine deserved to have her

ill-regulated feelings so far considered, and he had almost a sense of

personal injury in the restraint of the whole household.

He had anticipated madam's amazement and shock. He had felt a just

satisfaction in the suffering he was bringing to Katherine. He had

determined to point out to Joanna the difference between herself and her

sister, and the blessedness of her own lot in loving so respectably and

prudently as she had done. But nothing had happened as he expected. The

meal, instead of being pleasantly lengthened over such dreadful

intelligence, was hurried and silent. Katherine, instead of making

herself an image of wailing or unconscious remorse, sat like other

people at the table, and pretended to drink her tea.

It was some comfort that after it Joanna and he could walk in the

garden, and talk the affair thoroughly over. Katherine watched them

away, and then she fled to her room. For a few minutes she could let her

sorrow have way, and it would help her to bear the rest. And oh, how she

wept! She took from their hiding-place the few letters her lover had

written her, and she mourned over them as women mourn in such

extremities. She kissed the words with passionate love; she vowed, amid

her broken ejaculations of tenderness, to be faithful to him if he

lived, to be faithful to his memory if he died. She never thought of

Neil; or, if she did, it was with an anger that frightened her. In the

full tide of her anguish, Lysbet stood at the door. She heard the

inarticulate words of woe, and her heart ached for her child. She had

followed her to give her comfort, to weep with her; but she felt that

hour that Katherine was no more a child to be soothed with her mother's

kiss. She had become a woman, and a woman's sorrow had found her.




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