ia repeated, with an air of deprecating such a word
in such a connection. "I will go to-morrow and see him," she added.

"But why should you take these disagreeable things upon yourself,
Celia?" Mrs. Hilbery interposed, and Cousin Caroline thereupon protested
with some further plan involving sacrifice of herself.

Growing weary of it all, Katharine turned to the window, and stood among
the folds of the curtain, pressing close to the window-pane, and gazing
disconsolately at the river much in the attitude of a child depressed
by the meaningless talk of its elders. She was much disappointed in her
mother--and in herself too. The little tug which she gave to the blind,
letting it fly up to the top with a snap, signified her annoyance. She
was very angry, and yet impotent to give expression to her anger, or
know with whom she was angry. How they talked and moralized and made up
stories to suit their own version of the becoming, and secretly praised
their own devotion and tact! No; they had their dwelling in a mist, she
decided; hundreds of miles away--away from what? "Perhaps it would be
better if I married William," she thought suddenly, and the thought
appeared to loom through the mist like solid ground. She stood there,
thinking of her own destiny, and the elder ladies talked on, until
they had talked themselves into a decision to ask the young woman to
luncheon, and tell her, very friendlily, how such behavior appeared to
women like themselves, who knew the world. And then Mrs. Hilbery was
struck by a better idea.

CHAPTER X

Messrs. Grateley and Hooper, the solicitors in whose firm Ralph Denham
was clerk, had their office in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and there Ralph
Denham appeared every morning very punctually at ten o'clock. His
punctuality, together with other qualities, marked him out among the
clerks for success, and indeed it would have been safe to wager that in
ten years' time or so one would find him at the head of his profession,
had it not been for a peculiarity which sometimes seemed to make
everything about him uncertain and perilous. His sister Joan had already
been disturbed by his love of gambling with his savings. Scrutinizing
him constantly with the eye of affection, she had become aware of a
curious perversity in his temperament which caused her much anxiety, and
would have caused her still more if she had not recognized the germs
of it in her own nature. She could fancy Ralph suddenly sacrificing