rose-red colour in her cheeks had deepened as if
she had been standing before a great fire.

As they came within sight of Charles Nagle and of the old priest,
Catherine put out her hand. She touched Mottram on the arm--it was a
fleeting touch, but it brought them both, with beating hearts, to a
stand. "James," she said, and then she stopped for a moment--a moment
that seemed to contain aeons of mingled rapture and pain--"one word about
Mr. Dorriforth." The commonplace words dropped them back to earth. "Did
you wish him to stay with you till to-morrow? That will scarcely be
possible, for to-morrow is St. Catherine's Day."

"Why, no," he said quickly. "I will not take him home with me to-night.
All my plans are now changed. My will can wait"--he smiled at her--"and
so can my confession."

"No, no!" she cried almost violently. "Your confession must not wait,
James----"

"Aye, but it must," he said, and again he smiled. "I am in no mood for
confession, Catherine." He added in a lower tone, "you've purged me of
my sin, my dear--I feel already shriven."

Shame of a very poignant quality suddenly seared Catherine Nagle's soul.
"Go on, you," she said breathlessly, though to his ears she seemed to
speak in her usual controlled and quiet tones, "I have some orders to
give in the house. Join Charles and Mr. Dorriforth. I will come out
presently."

James Mottram obeyed her. He walked quickly forward. "Good news,
Charles," he cried. "These railway men whose presence so offends you go
for good to-morrow! Reverend sir, accept my hearty greeting."

* * * * *

Catherine Nagle turned to the right and went into the house. She
hastened through the rooms in which, year in and year out, she spent
her life, with Charles as her perpetual, her insistent companion. She
now longed for a time of recollection and secret communion, and so she
instinctively made for the one place where no one, not even Charles,
would come and disturb her.

Walking across the square hall, she ran up the broad staircase leading
to the gallery, out of which opened the doors of her bedroom and of her
husband's dressing-room. But she went swiftly past these two closed
doors, and made her way along a short passage which terminated abruptly
with a faded red baize door giving access to the chapel.

Long, low-ceilinged and windowless, the chapel of Edgecombe Manor had
remained unaltered since the time when there were heavy penalties