hope and thought."

These words she read, then wrung her hands, and moaned like a creature
that had been wounded to death. Oh, the shame! Oh, the wrong and sorrow!
How could she bear it? What should she do? Captain Lennox, who had
brought the letter, was waiting for her decision. If she would go to her
husband, then he could rest and return to London at his leisure. If not,
Hyde wanted his will, to add a codicil regarding the eight thousand
pounds left him by Lady Capel. For he had been wounded in his side; and
a dangerous inflammation having set in, he had been warned of a possible
fatal result.

Katherine was not a rapid thinker. She had little, either, of that
instinct which serves some women instead of all other prudences. Her
actions generally arose from motives clear to her own mind, and of whose
wisdom or kindness she had a conviction. But in this hour so many
things appealed to her that she felt helpless and uncertain. The one
thought that dominated all others was that her husband had fought and
fallen for Lady Suffolk. He had risked her happiness and welfare, he had
forgotten her and his child, for this woman. It was the sequel to the
impertinence of the pedler's visit. She believed at that moment that the
man had told her the truth. All these years she had been a slighted and
deceived woman.

This idea once admitted, jealousy of the crudest and most unreasonable
kind assailed her. Incidents, words, looks, long forgotten rushed back
upon her memory, and fed the flame. Very likely, if she left her child
and went to London, she might find Lady Suffolk in attendance on her
husband, or at least be compelled for his life's sake to submit to her
visits. She pondered this supposition until it brought forth one still
more shameful. Perhaps the whole story was a scheme to get her up to
London. Perhaps she might disappear there. What, then, would be done to
her child? If Richard Hyde was so infatuated with Lady Suffolk, what
might he not do to win her and her large fortune? Even the news of Lady
Capel's death was now food for her suspicions. Was she dead, or was the
assertion only a part of the conspiracy? If she had been dead, Sir
Thomas Swaffham would have heard of the death; yet she had seen him that
morning, and he had made no mention of the circumstance.

"To London I will not go," she decided. "There is some wicked plan for
me. The will and the papers are wanted, that they may be altered to
suit it. I will stay