“Unfortunately no,” said De Burgh.  “But I have a piece of news for you that will freeze the marrow in your bones:  Errington is completely ruined.”

“Impossible!” cried both his hearers at once.

“It’s too true, I assure you.  When, after the old man’s death, he began to look into things with his solicitor, he was startled to find certain deficiencies.  Then the head clerk, the manager, who had everything in his hands—­bossed the show, in short—­disappeared, and on further examination it proved that the whole concern was a mere shell, out of which this scoundrel had sucked the capital.  There was an awful amount of debt to other houses, several of which would have come down, and ruined the unfortunates connected with them, if Errington had not come forward and sacrificed almost all he possessed to retrieve the credit of his name.  He says he ought to have undertaken the risks as well as reaped the profit of the concern.  Garston Hall is advertised for sale; so is the house in Berkley Square; his stud is brought to the hammer—­everything is given up.  What he’ll do I haven’t an idea.  But I must say I think his sense of honor is a little overstrained.”

“And Lady Alice!” ejaculated Katherine.

“Of course Melford will soon settle that, if it is not settled already, for a good deal was done before the matter got wind.  There hasn’t been such a crash for a long time.  In short, Errington is utterly, completely ruined.”

“I never heard of such a fool!” cried Mrs. Ormonde.  “It was bad enough to be disappointed of the wealth old Errington was supposed to have left behind him, but to give up everything!  Why, he is only fit for a lunatic asylum.  What an awful disappointment for poor Lady Alice!”

Katherine did not, could not speak.  The rush of sorrow for the heavy blow which had fallen on the man she had robbed, the shame and self-reproach, which had been lulled asleep for a while, which now woke up with renewed power to torment and irritate—­these were too much for her self-control, and while Mrs. Ormonde and De Burgh eagerly discussed the catastrophe, she kept silence and struggled to be composed.

CHAPTER XIX.

CONFESSION.

“Errington is completely ruined!” De Burgh’s words repeated themselves over and over again in Katherine’s ears through the darkness and silence of her sleepless night.  What would become of him—­that grave, stately man who had never known the touch of anything common or unclean?  How would he live?  And what an additional blow the rupture of his engagement with Lady Alice!  He was certainly very fond of her.  It was like him to give up all he possessed to save the honor of his name, but how would it be if he were penniless?  Had she not robbed him, he might have enough to live comfortably after satisfying every one.  As she thought, a resolution to restore what she had taken formed itself in her