ling a
hard denial in the face of the dearest claims of earth.

The stormy light of the afternoon was fading towards sunset. Catherine
walked on fast towards the group of houses at the head of the valley, in
one of which lived the two old carriers who had worked such havoc with
Mrs. Thornburgh's housekeeping arrangements. She was tired physically,
but she was still more tired mentally. She had the bruised feeling of
one who has been humiliated before the world and before herself. Her
self-respect was for the moment crushed, and the breach made in the
wholeness of personal dignity had produced a strange slackness of nerve,
extending both to body and mind. She had been convicted, it seemed to
her, in her own eyes, and in those of her world, of an egregious
over-estimate of her own value. She walked with hung head like one
ashamed, the overstrung religious sense deepening her discomfiture at
every step. How rich her life had always been in the conviction of
usefulness--nay, indispensableness! Her mother's persuasions had dashed
it from her. And religious scruple, for her torment, showed her her
past, transformed, alloyed with all sorts of personal prides and
cravings, which stood unmasked now in a white light.

And he? Still near her for a few short hours! Every pulse in her had
thrilled as she had passed the house which sheltered him. But she will
see him no more. And she is glad. If he had stayed on, he too would have
discovered how cheaply they held her--those dear ones of hers for whom
she had lived till now! And she might have weakly yielded to his pity
what she had refused to his homage. The strong nature is half tortured,
half soothed by the prospect of his going. Perhaps when he is gone she
will recover something of that moral equilibrium which has been so
shaken. At present she is a riddle to herself, invaded by a force she
has no power to cope with, feeling the moral ground of years crumbling
beneath her, and struggling feverishly for self-control.

As she neared the head of the valley the wind became less tempestuous.
The great wall of High Fell, towards which she was walking, seemed to
shelter her from its worst violence. But the hurrying clouds, the gleams
of lurid light which every now and then penetrated into the valley from
the west, across the dip leading to Shanmoor, the voice of the river
answering the voice of the wind, and the deep unbroken shadow that
covered the group of houses and trees towards wh