But all this dreaming was unpardonable waste of time when so much serious work lay before him.  So Errington resolutely turned from his unusual and disturbing reverie, dipped his pen in the ink, and began to write steadily.

CHAPTER XX.

PLENARY ABSOLUTION.

Katherine never could distinctly remember what she did after leaving Errington.  She was humbled in the dust—­crushed, dazed.  She felt that every one must perceive the stamp of “felon” upon her.

The passionate desire to restore his rightful possessions to Errington, to confess all, had carried her through the dreadful interview.  She was infinitely grateful to him for the kind tact with which he concealed the profound contempt her confession must have evoked, but no doubt that sentiment was now in full possession of his mind.  It showed in his unhesitating, even scornful, rejection of her offered restitution.  She almost regretted having made the attempt, and yet she had a kind of miserable satisfaction in having told the truth, the whole truth, to Errington; anything was better than wearing false colors in his sight.

It was this sense of deception that had embittered her intercourse with him at Castleford; otherwise she would have been gratified by his grave friendly preference.

How calm, how unmoved, he seemed amid the wreck of his fortunes.  Yes, his was true strength—­the strength of self-mastery.  How different, how far nobler than the vehemence of De Burgh’s will, which was too strong for his guidance!  But Lady Alice could never have loved Errington—­never—­or she would have loved on and waited for him till the time came when union might be possible.  Had she been in her place!  But at the thought her heart throbbed wildly with the sudden perception that she could have loved him well, with all her soul, and rested on him, confident in his superior wisdom and strength—­a woman’s ideal love.  And before this man she had been obliged to lay down her self-respect, to confess she had cheated him basely, to resign his esteem for ever!  It was a bitter punishment, but even had she been stainless and he a free man, she, Katherine, was not the sort of girl he would like.  She was too impulsive, too much at the mercy of her emotions, too quick in forming and expressing opinions.  No; the feminine reserve and tranquility of Lady Alice were much more likely to attract his affections and call forth his respect.  This was an additional ingredient of bitterness, and Katherine felt herself an outcast, undeserving of tenderness or esteem.

The weather was oppressively warm and sunless.  A dim instinctive recollection of her excuse for coming to town forced Katherine to visit some of the shops where she was in the habit of dealing, and then she sat for more than a weary hour in the Ladies’ Room at Waterloo Station, affecting to read a newspaper which she did not see, waiting for the train that would take her home to the darkness and stillness in which friendly night would hide her for a while.  The journey back was a continuation of the same tormenting dream-like semi-consciousness, and by the time she reached Cliff Cottage she felt physically ill.