“Hope will come,” said Katherine, gently; “and time will restore your self-respect.  I should be so glad to see you build up a new and better life on the ruins of the past!  I am sure there is independence and repose before you, if you will but fold down this terrible page of your life and never open it again.”

“And can you endure to touch me—­to be to me as you have been?” asked Rachel, her voice broken and trembling.

Katherine’s answer was to stretch out her hand and take that of her protegee, which she held tenderly.  “Let us never speak of this again,” she said.  “Bury your dead out of sight.  All you have told me is sacred; none shall ever know anything from me.  Let us begin anew.  I am certain you are good and true; and how can one who has never known temptation judge you?”

Rachel bent her head to kiss the fair firm hand which held hers; then she wept silently, quietly, and said, softly, in an altered voice, “I will do whatever you bid me; and while you are so wonderfully good to me I will not despair.”

There was an expressive silence of a few moments.  Then Katherine began to draw on her gloves, and trying to steady her voice and speak in her ordinary tone, said: 

“Mr. Payne is going to make you known to a lady who may be of great use to you in obtaining customers.  I have not met her myself, but should you receive a note from Mrs. Needham, pray go to her at once.  There is no reason why you should not make a great business yet.  I should be quite proud of it.  Now I must leave you.  Promise me to resist unhappy thoughts.  Try to regain strength, both mental and physical.  Should you see Mrs. Needham before I come again, pray ask quite two-thirds more for making a dress than I paid, for both your work and your fit are excellent.”

With these practical words Katherine rose to depart.  Rachel followed her to the door, and timidly took her hand.  “Do you understand,” she said, “all you have done for me?  You have given me back my human heart, instead of the iron vise that was pressing my soul to death.  I will live to be worthy of you, of your infinite pity.”

Katherine had hardly recovered composure when she reached home.  The sad and shameful story to which she had listened had not arrested the flow of her sympathy to Rachel.  There was something striking in the strength that enabled her to tell such a tale with stern justice toward herself, without any whining self-exculpation.  What a long agony she must have endured!  Katherine’s tears were ready to flow afresh at the picture her warm imagination conjured up.  Weak and guilty as Rachel was to yield to such a temptation, what was her wrong-doing to that of the man who, knowing what would be the end thereof, tempted her?

Castleford was an ordinary comfortable country house, standing in not very extensive grounds.  The scenery immediately around it was flat and uninteresting, but a few miles to the south it became undulating, and broken with pretty wooded hollows, but north of it was a rich level district, and as a hunting country second only to Leicestershire.