, and Katie
looked up at him. Their eyes met.

After her return that evening, and after Stephen had left his uncle's
house, she sat talking listlessly with Lord Bulchester. She was thinking
over the account of the death of Harwin and of Edmonson. She had learned
the details that afternoon. They were dreadful, she thought.

She perceived something of the truth as to this duel. She knew now, as
she had told her mother before, that Harwin was not a man to love to his
death; it was Elizabeth's suitor who had done that. And Katie, at the
moment lightly touched by the crime and the horror, sat lost in
contemplation of something that did move her deeply.

"Yes," she said to herself, "it was she, not I, who had the power. And
now? Yes, now, is it still not I? How very strange!"

CHAPTER XXXIV.

IN THE STORM.

Drip! drip! fell the rain that day, two weeks after Stephen Archdale's
return from Louisburg. It was an easterly drizzle that, looked at from
the window, seemed to be merely time wasted, for the rain appeared to be
amounting to nothing; but if one tried it, he found it chilling,
penetrating, and gloomy enough. To Archdale, as he plodded through the
muddy streets, Boston had never looked so dismal; yet within the last
ten days he had tasted enough of its hospitality to have had the memory
of its smiling faces lighten his gloom. But another memory overshadowed
these. He had not been to see Mistress Royal during his stay in town. He
wondered if this neglect seemed strange to her, or if she had not even
noticed it. Of course, feted and flattered as she was, the heroine of
the hour, though bearing her honors under protest, she had not wasted
her thoughts upon him. He was doing her injustice here, and he felt sure
of it; she had thought of his meetings with Katie. But her very sympathy
was what he wanted least of all; it was as strong a defence as the walls
of Louisburg.

What did he want? Why had he not been to see her? Why should he go? The
mist and dimness of the day were nothing to the obscurity in his own
mind. All that he was quite sure of was, that whenever he had received
an invitation, and the heroes of Louisburg had had lionizing enough, he
had thought, first of all that he should meet Elizabeth Royal; yet when
he had met her he had never talked much to her; but by stealth he had
watched her constantly.

That morning he was walking toward her home. Should he go in and ask for
her? He slackened his steps as