“But your father,” said Catherine, “was he afflicted?”

“For a time, greatly so.  You have erred in supposing him not attached to her.  He loved her, I am persuaded, as well as it was possible for him to —­ we have not all, you know, the same tenderness of disposition —­ and I will not pretend to say that while she lived, she might not often have had much to bear, but though his temper injured her, his judgment never did.  His value of her was sincere; and, if not permanently, he was truly afflicted by her death.”

“I am very glad of it,” said Catherine; “it would have been very shocking!”

“If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such horror as I have hardly words to —­ Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained.  What have you been judging from?  Remember the country and the age in which we live.  Remember that we are English, that we are Christians.  Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you.  Does our education prepare us for such atrocities?  Do our laws connive at them?  Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open?  Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?”

They had reached the end of the gallery, and with tears of shame she ran off to her own room.

CHAPTER 25

The visions of romance were over.  Catherine was completely awakened.  Henry’s address, short as it had been, had more thoroughly opened her eyes to the extravagance of her late fancies than all their several disappointments had done.  Most grievously was she humbled.  Most bitterly did she cry.  It was not only with herself that she was sunk —­ but with Henry.  Her folly, which now seemed even criminal, was all exposed to him, and he must despise her forever.  The liberty which her imagination had dared to take with the character of his father —­ could he ever forgive it?  The absurdity of her curiosity and her fears —­ could they ever be forgotten?  She hated herself more than she could express.  He had —­ she thought he had, once or twice before this fatal morning, shown something like affection for her.  But now —­ in short, she made herself as miserable as possible for about half an hour, went down when the clock struck five, with a broken heart, and could scarcely give an intelligible answer to Eleanor’s inquiry if she was well.  The formidable Henry soon followed her into the room, and the only difference in his behaviour to her was that he paid her rather more attention than usual.  Catherine had never wanted comfort more, and he looked as if he was aware of it.