to see--Is not it very late? I must go and dress."

"It is only a quarter past four" showing his watch--"and you are not now
in Bath. No theatre, no rooms to prepare for. Half an hour at Northanger
must be enough."

She could not contradict it, and therefore suffered herself to be
detained, though her dread of further questions made her, for the first
time in their acquaintance, wish to leave him. They walked slowly up the
gallery. "Have you had any letter from Bath since I saw you?"

"No, and I am very much surprised. Isabella promised so faithfully to
write directly."

"Promised so faithfully! A faithful promise! That puzzles me. I have
heard of a faithful performance. But a faithful promise--the fidelity
of promising! It is a power little worth knowing, however, since it can
deceive and pain you. My mother's room is very commodious, is it not?
Large and cheerful-looking, and the dressing-closets so well disposed!
It always strikes me as the most comfortable apartment in the house, and
I rather wonder that Eleanor should not take it for her own. She sent
you to look at it, I suppose?"

"No."

"It has been your own doing entirely?" Catherine said nothing. After a
short silence, during which he had closely observed her, he added, "As
there is nothing in the room in itself to raise curiosity, this must
have proceeded from a sentiment of respect for my mother's character,
as described by Eleanor, which does honour to her memory. The world, I
believe, never saw a better woman. But it is not often that virtue can
boast an interest such as this. The domestic, unpretending merits of a
person never known do not often create that kind of fervent, venerating
tenderness which would prompt a visit like yours. Eleanor, I suppose,
has talked of her a great deal?"

"Yes, a great deal. That is--no, not much, but what she did say was very
interesting. Her dying so suddenly" (slowly, and with hesitation it
was spoken), "and you--none of you being at home--and your father, I
thought--perhaps had not been very fond of her."

"And from these circumstances," he replied (his quick eye
fixed on hers), "you infer perhaps the probability of some
negligence--some"--(involuntarily she shook her head)--"or it may be--of
something still less pardonable." She raised her eyes towards him
more fully than she had ever done before. "My mother's illness," he
continued, "the seizure which ended in her death, was sudden. The malady
itself, one fr