her, that sense of bitter injury and
injustice which she had hugged to her breast when young and still aware
of her empire,--would not such action be contemptibly poor spirited?
She was no child to be humbled into confession by the rod, frightened
into submission by the dark. To abase herself, in the hope of receiving
spiritual consolation, appeared to her as an act of disloyalty to her
dead love and her maimed and crippled son. She turned away with a
rather superb lift of her beautiful head, and went back to her own
bedchamber again. She hardened herself in opposition, putting the
invitations of grace from her as she might have put those of
temptation. She would yield to weakness, to feverish agitations and
aimless longings, no more. Whether sleep elected to visit her or not,
she would undress and seek her bed.

But hardly had she closed the door and, standing before her
toilet-table, began to unclasp the pearls from her throat and bracelets
from her wrists, than a sound, quite other than agreeable or
reassuring, saluted her ears from close by. It proceeded from the room
next door, now unoccupied, since Richard, some five or six years ago,
jealous of the dignity of his youth, had petitioned to be permitted to
remove himself and his possessions to the suite of rooms immediately
below. This comprised the Gun-Room, a bed and dressing-room, and a
fourth room connecting with the offices, which came in handy for his
valet. Since his decline upon this more commodious apartment, the old
nursery had stood vacant. Katherine could not find it in her heart to
touch it. It was furnished now as in Dickie's childish days, when,
night and morning, she had visited it to make sure of her darling's
health and safety.

And it was in this shrine of tender recollections that disquieting
sounds now arose. Hard claws rattled upon the boarded spaces of the
floor. Some creature snored and panted against the bottom of the door,
pushed it with so heavy a weight that the panels creaked, flung itself
down uneasily, then moved to and fro again, with that harsh rattling of
claws. The image of Care, the leopard, as embroidered upon the curtains
of her bed, was so present to Katherine's imagination to-night that,
for a moment, she lost her hold on probability and common sense. It
appeared to her that the anxieties and perturbations which oppressed
her had taken on bodily form, and, in the shape of a devouring beast,
besieged her chamber door. The co