nature had
rebounded from its new bias of resentment and hatred to the old sweet
habit of love. The earliest and the longest has still the mastery over
us; and the only past that linked itself with those glazed unconscious
eyes, was the past when they beamed on her with tenderness. She forgot
the interval of wrong and jealousy and hatred--all his cruelty, and all
her thoughts of revenge--as the exile forgets the stormy passage that lay
between home and happiness and the dreary land in which he finds himself
desolate.

Chapter 16

Before night all hope was gone. Dr Hart had said it was death; Anthony's
body had been carried to the house, and every one there knew the calamity
that had fallen on them.

Caterina had been questioned by Dr Hart, and had answered briefly that
she found Anthony lying in the Rookery. That she should have been walking
there just at that time was not a coincidence to raise conjectures in any
one besides Mr. Gilfil. Except in answering this question, she had not
broken her silence. She sat mute in a corner of the gardener's kitchen
shaking her head when Maynard entreated her to return with him, and
apparently unable to think of anything but the possibility that Anthony
might revive, until she saw them carrying away the body to the house.
Then she followed by Sir Christopher's side again, so quietly, that even
Dr Hart did not object to her presence.

It was decided to lay the body in the library until after the coroner's
inquest to-morrow; and when Caterina saw the door finally closed, she
turned up the gallery stairs on her way to her own room, the place where
she felt at home with her sorrows. It was the first time she had been in
the gallery since that terrible moment in the morning, and now the spot
and the objects around began to reawaken her half-stunned memory. The
armour was no longer glittering in the sunlight, but there it hung dead
and sombre above the cabinet from which she had taken the dagger. Yes!
now it all came back to her--all the wretchedness and all the sin. But
where was the dagger now? She felt in her pocket; it was not there. Could
it have been her fancy--all that about the dagger? She looked in the
cabinet; it was not there. Alas! no; it could not have been her fancy,
and she _was_ guilty of that wickedness. But where could the dagger be
now? Could it have fallen out of her pocket? She heard steps ascending
the stairs, and hurried on to her room, where, kneeling b