trange
childish pleasure. 'Do you hear the wind, the west wind? Do you remember
how it used to shake the house, how it used to come sweeping through the
trees in the wood-path? It must be trying the study window now, blowing
the vine against it.'

A yearning passion breathed through every feature. It seemed to him she
saw nothing before her. Her longing soul was back in the old haunts,
surrounded by the old loved forms and sounds. It went to his heart. He
tried to soothe her with the tenderest words remorseful love could
find. But the conflict of feeling--grief, rebellion, doubt,
self-judgment--would not be soothed, and long after she had made him
leave her and he had fallen asleep, she knelt on, a white and rigid
figure in the dying firelight, the wind shaking the old house, the
eternal murmur of London booming outside.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Meanwhile, as if to complete the circle of pain with which poor
Catherine's life was compassed, it began to be plain to her that, in
spite of the hard and mocking tone Rose generally adopted with regard to
him, Edward Langham was constantly at the house in Lerwick Gardens, and
that it was impossible he should be there so much unless in some way or
other Rose encouraged it.

The idea of such a marriage--nay, of such a friendship--was naturally as
repugnant as ever to her. It had been one of the bitterest moments of a
bitter time, when, at their first meeting after the crisis in her life,
Langham, conscious of a sudden movement of pity for a woman he disliked,
had pressed the hand she held out to him in a way which clearly showed
her what was in his mind, and had then passed on to chat and smoke with
Robert in the study, leaving her behind to realize the gulf that lay
between the present and that visit of his to Murewell, when Robert and
she had felt in unison toward him, his opinions and his conduct to Rose,
as toward everything else of importance in their life.

Now it seemed to her Robert must necessarily look at the matter
differently, and she could not make up her mind to talk to him about it.
In reality, his objections had never had the same basis as hers, and he
would have given her as strong a support as ever, if she had asked for
it. But she held her peace, and he, absorbed in other things, took no
notice. Besides, he knew Langham too well. He had never been able to
take Catherine's alarms seriously.

An attentive onlooker, however, would have admitted that this time,