tion had taken to itself a note of gloom and mourning; for he
was at the age when Nature is the mere docile responsive mirror of the
spirit, when all her forces and powers are made for us, and are only
there to play chorus to our story.

They reached the little lane leading to the gate of Burwood. She paused
at the foot of it.

'You will come in and see my mother, Mr. Elsmere?'

Her look expressed a yearning she could not crush. 'Your pardon, your
friendship,' it cried, with the usual futility of all good women under
the circumstances. But as he met it for one passionate instant, he
recognised fully that there was not a trace of yielding in it. At the
bottom of the softness there was the iron of resolution.

'No, no; not now,' he said involuntarily: and she never forgot the
painful struggle of the face; 'good-bye.' He touched her hand without
another word, and was gone.

She toiled up to the gate with difficulty, the gray rain-washed road,
the wall, the trees, swimming before her eyes.

In the hall she came across Agnes, who caught hold of her with a start.

'My dear Cathie! you have been walking yourself to death. You look like
a ghost. Come and have some tea at once.'

And she dragged her into the drawing-room. Catherine submitted with all
her usual outward calm, faintly smiling at her sister's onslaught. But
she would not let Agnes put her down on the sofa. She stood with her
hand on the back of a chair.

'The weather is very close and exhausting,' she said, gently lifting her
hand to her hat. But the hand dropped, and she sank heavily into the
chair.

'Cathie, you are faint,' cried Agnes, running to her.

Catherine waved her away, and, with an effort of which none but she
would have been capable, mastered the physical weakness.

'I have been a long way, dear,' she said, as though in apology, 'and
there is no air. Yes, I will go upstairs and lie down a minute or two.
Oh no, don't come, I will be down for tea directly.'

And refusing all help, she guided herself out of the room, her face the
colour of the foam on the beck outside. Agnes stood dumfoundered. Never
in her life before had she seen Catherine betray any such signs of
physical exhaustion.

Suddenly Rose ran in, shut the door carefully behind her, and rushing up
to Agnes put her hands on her shoulders.

'He has proposed to her, and she has said no!'

'He? What, Mr. Elsmere? How on earth can you know?'

'I saw them from upstairs come to th