“For sure it be!  When I was a young wench at school”—­and then, as she folded up the loose ribbons, Letty told a gruesome story of a farmer robbed and murdered; but as she came to the part the gray horse played in the tale, Katherine slowly walked into the room, with a letter in her hand.  She was white, even to her lips; and with a mournful shake of her head, she motioned to the girls to leave her alone.  She put the paper out of her hand, and stood regarding it.  Fully ten minutes elapsed ere she gathered strength sufficient to break its well-known seal, and take in the full meaning of words so full of agony to her.

“It is midnight, beloved Katherine, and in six hours I may be dead.  Lord Paget spoke of my cousin to me in such terms as leaves but one way out of the affront.  I pray you, if you can, to pardon me.  The world will condemn me, my own actions will condemn me; and yet I vow that you, and you only, have ever had my love.  You I shall adore with my last breath.  Kate, my Kate, forgive me.  If this comes to you by strange hands, I shall be dead or dying.  My will and papers of importance are in the drawer marked “B” in my escritoire.  Kiss my son for me, and take my last hope and thought.”

These words she read, then wrung her hands, and moaned like a creature that had been wounded to death.  Oh, the shame!  Oh, the wrong and sorrow!  How could she bear it?  What should she do?  Captain Lennox, who had brought the letter, was waiting for her decision.  If she would go to her husband, then he could rest and return to London at his leisure.  If not, Hyde wanted his will, to add a codicil regarding the eight thousand pounds left him by Lady Capel.  For he had been wounded in his side; and a dangerous inflammation having set in, he had been warned of a possible fatal result.

Katherine was not a rapid thinker.  She had little, either, of that instinct which serves some women instead of all other prudences.  Her actions generally arose from motives clear to her own mind, and of whose wisdom or kindness she had a conviction.  But in this hour so many things appealed to her that she felt helpless and uncertain.  The one thought that dominated all others was that her husband had fought and fallen for Lady Suffolk.  He had risked her happiness and welfare, he had forgotten her and his child, for this woman.  It was the sequel to the impertinence of the pedler’s visit.  She believed at that moment that the man had told her the truth.  All these years she had been a slighted and deceived woman.

This idea once admitted, jealousy of the crudest and most unreasonable kind assailed her.  Incidents, words, looks, long forgotten rushed back upon her memory, and fed the flame.  Very likely, if she left her child and went to London, she might find Lady Suffolk in attendance on her husband, or at least be compelled for his life’s sake to submit to her visits.  She pondered this supposition until it brought forth one still more shameful.  Perhaps