favoured the barbarous
proceedings of her husband. Down that staircase she had perhaps been
conveyed in a state of well-prepared insensibility!

Catherine sometimes started at the boldness of her own surmises, and
sometimes hoped or feared that she had gone too far; but they were
supported by such appearances as made their dismissal impossible.

The side of the quadrangle, in which she supposed the guilty scene to be
acting, being, according to her belief, just opposite her own, it struck
her that, if judiciously watched, some rays of light from the general's
lamp might glimmer through the lower windows, as he passed to the prison
of his wife; and, twice before she stepped into bed, she stole gently
from her room to the corresponding window in the gallery, to see if it
appeared; but all abroad was dark, and it must yet be too early. The
various ascending noises convinced her that the servants must still be
up. Till midnight, she supposed it would be in vain to watch; but then,
when the clock had struck twelve, and all was quiet, she would, if not
quite appalled by darkness, steal out and look once more. The clock
struck twelve--and Catherine had been half an hour asleep.

CHAPTER 24

The next day afforded no opportunity for the proposed examination of the
mysterious apartments. It was Sunday, and the whole time between morning
and afternoon service was required by the general in exercise abroad or
eating cold meat at home; and great as was Catherine's curiosity, her
courage was not equal to a wish of exploring them after dinner, either
by the fading light of the sky between six and seven o'clock, or by the
yet more partial though stronger illumination of a treacherous lamp.
The day was unmarked therefore by anything to interest her imagination
beyond the sight of a very elegant monument to the memory of Mrs.
Tilney, which immediately fronted the family pew. By that her eye
was instantly caught and long retained; and the perusal of the highly
strained epitaph, in which every virtue was ascribed to her by the
inconsolable husband, who must have been in some way or other her
destroyer, affected her even to tears.

That the general, having erected such a monument, should be able to face
it, was not perhaps very strange, and yet that he could sit so boldly
collected within its view, maintain so elevated an air, look so
fearlessly around, nay, that he should even enter the church, seemed
wonderful to Catherine.