e for ever with Him.'

"Charmides could just raise his head, and saw nothing but Demariste. He
was able to turn himself towards her and move her hand to his lips, the
second, only the second and the last kiss.

"So they died. Charmides was never considered a martyr by the Church.
The circumstances were doubtful, and it was not altogether clear that he
deserved the celestial crown."

CHAPTER IX

The school broke up next week for the summer holidays, and Catharine went
home. Her mother was delighted with her daughter. She was less awkward,
straighter, and her air and deportment showed the success of the plan.
The father acquiesced, although he did not notice the change till Mrs.
Furze had pointed it out. As to Mrs. Bellamy, she declared, when she met
Catharine in the street the first market afternoon, that "she had all at
once become a woman grown." Mrs. Furze's separation from her former
friends was now complete, but she had, unfortunately, not yet achieved
admission into the superior circle. She had done so in a measure, but
she was not satisfied. She felt that these people were not intimate with
her, and that, although she had screwed herself with infinite pains into
a bowing acquaintance, and even into a shaking of hands, they formed a
set by themselves, with their own secrets and their own mysteries, into
which she could not penetrate. Their very politeness was more annoying
than rudeness would have been. It showed they could afford to be polite.
Had she been wealthy, she could have crushed all opposition by sheer
weight of bullion; but in Eastthorpe everybody's position was known with
tolerable exactitude, and nobody was deluded into exaggerating Mr.
Furze's resources because of the removal to the Terrace. Eastthorpe, on
the contrary, affirmed that the business had not improved, and that
expenses had increased.

When Catharine came home a light suddenly flashed across Mrs. Furze's
mind. What might not be done with such a girl as that! She was good-
looking--nay, handsome; she had the manners which Mrs. Furze knew that
she herself lacked, and Charlie Colston, aged twenty-eight, was still
disengaged. It was Mrs. Furze's way when she proposed anything to
herself, to take no account of any obstacles, and she had the most
wonderful knack of belittling and even transmuting all moral objections.
Mr. Charlie Colston was a well-known figure in Eastthorpe. He was an
only son, about five feet eleven