“We are here, mother,” said May, jumping up.  “Do you want us?”

“I want Catherine.  Don’t you come, Mabel.  I want Catherine alone.”

“Keep Loftus’s letter,” said Catherine, tossing it into her sister’s lap.  “I know by mother’s tone she is troubled.  Don’t let us show her the letter to-night.  Put it in your pocket, May.”

Aloud she said,—­

“Yes, mother, I’m coming.  I’ll be with you directly.”  She ran across the grass, looking slim and pale in her white muslin dress, her face full of intense feeling, her manner so hurried and eager that her mother felt irritated by it.

“You need not dash at me as if you meant to knock me down, Kate,” she said.

“You said you wanted me, mother.”

“So I did, Catherine.  I do want you.  Come into the house with me.”

Mrs. Bertram turned and walked up the steps.  She entered the wide hall which was lit by a ghostly, and not too carefully-trimmed, paraffin lamp.  Catherine followed her.  They went into the drawing-room.  Here also a paraffin lamp gave an uncertain light; very feeble, yellow, and uncertain it was, but even by it Catherine could catch a glimpse of her mother’s face.  It was drawn and white, it was not only changed from the prosperous, handsome face which the girl had last looked at, but it had lost its likeness to the haughty, the proud, the satisfied Mrs. Bertram of Catherine’s knowledge.  Its expression now betokened a kind of inward scare or fright.

“Mother, you have something to worry you,” said Kate, “I see that by your face.  I am sorry.  I am truly sorry.  Sit down, mother.  What can I do for you?”

“Nothing, my dear, except to be an attentive daughter—­attentive and affectionate and obedient.  Sometimes, Catherine, you are not that.”

“Oh, never mind now, when you are in trouble, I’d do anything in the world for you when you are in trouble.  You know that.”

Mrs. Bertram had seated herself.  Catherine knelt now, and took one of her mother’s hands between her own.  Insensibly the cold hand was comforted by the warm steadfast clasp.

“You are a good child, Kate,” said her mother in an unwonted and gentle voice.  “You are full of whims and fancies; but when you like you can be a great support to one.  Do you remember long ago when your father died how only little Kitty’s hand could cure mother’s headaches?”

“I would cure your heartache now.”

“You can’t, child, you can’t.  And besides, who said anything about a heartache?  We have no time, Kate, to talk any more sentimentalities.  I have had a letter, my dear, and it obliges me to go to town to-night.”

“To-night?  Surely there is no train?”

“There is.  One stops at Northbury to take up the mails at a quarter to twelve.  I shall go by it.”

“Do you want me to go with you?”

“By no means.  Of what use would you be?”

“I don’t know.  Perhaps not of any use, and yet long ago when you had headaches, Kitty could cure them.”