raight into hers, and there were tears
in them.

"Indeed, I believe it is," he replied, "or, trust me, I wouldn't say
it. I take no pleasure in giving pain at this time of day, whether
mental or physical. All I want is to spare pain. But one must sacrifice
the present to the future, at times, you know--use the knife to save
the limb. Now I must go to my patient. It isn't fair to keep him
waiting any longer. I'll be as quick as I can. I suppose I shall find
you here when I've finished?"

As he opened the door Dr. Knott's heavy person showed in all its
ungainliness against the brightness of sunlight flooding Dickie's room.
And to Katherine he seemed hideous just then--inexorable in his great
common sense, in the dead weight of his personality and of his will, as
some power of nature. He was to her the incarnation of things as they
are,--not things as they should be, not things as she so passionately
desired they might be. He represented rationalism as against miracle,
intellect as against imagination, the bitter philosophy of experience
as against that for which all mortals so persistently cry out--namely,
the all-consoling promise of extravagant hope. As with chains he bound
her down to fact. Right home on her he pressed the utter futility of
juggling with the actual. From the harsh truth that, neither in matters
practical nor spiritual is any redemption without shedding of blood he
permitted her no escape.

And all this Katherine's clear brain recognised and admitted, even
while her poor heart only rebelled the more madly. To be convinced is
not to be reconciled. And so she turned away from that closed door in a
veritable tempest of feeling, and went out into the Chapel-Room. It was
safer, her mind and heart thus working, to put a space between herself
and that closed door.

Just then Julius March crossed the room, coming in from the stair-head.
The austere lines of his cassock emphasised the height and emaciation
of his figure. His appearance offered a marked contrast to that of the
man with whom Katherine had just parted. His occupation offered a
marked contrast also. He carried a gold chalice and paten, and his head
was bowed reverentially above the sacred vessels. His eyes were
downcast, and the dull pallor of his face and his long thin hands was
very noticeable. He did not look round, but passed silently, still as a
dream, into the chapel. Katherine paced the width of the great room,
turned and paced back and