e.

She snatched up the newspaper, and fixed her eyes on it in the hope of
fixing her mind on it next. Obstinately, desperately, she read without
knowing what she was reading. The lines of print were beginning to
mingle and grow dim, when she was startled by the sudden opening of the
door. She looked round.

Her husband entered the room.

Chapter XIV. Kitty Feels the Heartache.

Linley advanced a few steps--and stopped.

His wife, hurrying eagerly to meet him, checked herself. It might have
been distrust, or it might have been unreasoning fear--she hesitated on
the point of approaching him.

"I have something to say, Catherine, which I'm afraid will distress
you."

His voice faltered, his eyes rested on her--then looked away again. He
said no more.

He had spoken a few commonplace words--and yet he had said enough.
She saw the truth in his eyes, heard the truth in his voice. A fit of
trembling seized her. Linley stepped forward, in the fear that she might
fall. She instantly controlled herself, and signed to him to keep back.
"Don't touch me!" she said. "You come from Miss Westerfield!"

That reproach roused him.

"I own that I come from Miss Westerfield," he answered. "She addresses a
request to you through me."

"I refuse to grant it."

"Hear it first."

"No!"

"Hear it--in your own interest. She asks permission to leave the house,
never to return again. While she is still innocent--"

His wife eyed him with a look of unutterable contempt. He submitted to
it, but not in silence.

"A man doesn't lie, Catherine, who makes such a confession as I am
making now. Miss Westerfield offers the one atonement in her power,
while she is still innocent of having wronged you--except in thought."

"Is that all?" Mrs. Linley asked.

"It rests with you," he replied, "to say if there is any other sacrifice
of herself which will be more acceptable to you."

"Let me understand first what the sacrifice means. Does Miss Westerfield
make any conditions?"

"She has positively forbidden me to make conditions."

"And goes out into the world, helpless and friendless?"

"Yes."

Even under the terrible trial that wrung her, the nobility of the
woman's nature spoke in her next words.

"Give me time to think of what you have said," she pleaded. "I have led
a happy life; I am not used to suffer as I am suffering now."

They were both silent. Kitty's voice was audible on the stairs that led
to the picture-gall