f 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, toward 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 toward which she was walking, all
served to heighten the nervous depression which had taken hold of her.
As she neared the bridge, however, leading to the little hamlet, beyond
which northward all was stony loneliness and desolation, and saw in
front of her the gray stone house, backed by the sombre red of a great
copper beech, and overhung by crags, she had perforce to take herself by
both hands, try and realize her mission afresh, and the scene which lay
before her.

CHAPTER X.

Mary Backhouse, the girl whom Catherine had been visiting with
regularity for many weeks, and whose frail life was this evening nearing
a terrible and long-expected crisis, was the victim of a fate sordid and
common enough, yet not without its elements of dark poetry.