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 mind.
Perhaps if he could show that he had still a solid capital, his
engagement to Lady Alice need not be broken off. If she could restore
him to competence, he would not refuse some provision for the poor dear
boys. Were she secure on _this_ point, she would be happier without the
money than with it. But the humiliation of confession--and to _such_ a
father confessor? How could she do it? Yet it must be done.

"Good gracious, Katherine, you look like a ghost!" was Mrs. Ormonde's
salutation when the little party met at breakfast next morning. "Pray
have you seen one?"

"Yes; I have been surrounded by