The perusal of this letter brought Katherine the infinite relief of tears.  How good and generous he was!  How heartily she admired him!  How gladly she confessed her own inferiority to him!  Forgiven by him, she could face life again with a sort of humble courage.  But oh! it would be impossible to meet his eyes.  No; years would not suffice to blunt the keen self-reproach which the thought of him must always call up—­the shame, the pride, the dread, the tender gratitude.  Long and passionately she wept before she could recover sufficiently to write him the reply he asked.  Then it seemed to her that the bitterness and cruel remorse had been melted and washed away by these warm grateful tears.  He forgave her, and she could endure the pressure of her shameful secret more easily in future.  At last she took her pen, and feeling that the lines she was about to trace would be a final farewell, wrote: 

“My words must be few, for none I can find will express my sense of the service yours have done me.  I accept your gift.  I will try and follow your advice.  Shall the day ever come when you will honor me by accepting part of what is your own?  Thank you for your kind suggestion not to meet me; it would be more than I could bear.  Yours, KATHERINE.”

Then with deepest regret she tore up his precious letter into tiny morsels, and striking a match, consumed them.  It would not do to incur the possibility of such a letter being read by any third pair of eyes.  Moreover, she was careful to post her reply herself.  And so, as Errington said, that page of her story was blotted out, at least, from the exterior world, but to her own mind it would be ever present:  round this crisis her deepest, most painful, ay, and sweetest memories would cling.  It was past, however, and she must take up her life again.

She felt something of the weakness, the softness, which convalescents experience when first they begin to go about after a long illness, the dreamy, quiet pleasure of coming back to life.  The boys continued to be her deepest interest.  So time went on, and no one seemed to perceive the subtle change which had sobered her spirit.

The season was over, and Mrs. Ormonde descended on Cliff Cottage for a parting visit.  She had only given notice of her approach by a telegram.

“You know you are quite too obstinate, Katherine,” she said, as the sisters-in-law sat together in the drawing-room, waiting for the cool of the evening before venturing out.  “You never came to me all through the season except once, when you wanted to shop, and now you refuse to join us at Castleford in September, when we are to have really quite a nice party:  Mr. De Burgh and Lord Riversdale and—­oh! several really good men.”

“I dare say I do seem stupid to you, but then, you see, I know what I want.  You are very good to wish for me.  Next year I shall be very pleased to pay you a visit.”

“Then what in the world will you do in the winter?”