rather than retard, the approaching
footsteps of death. Mortification had set in, in the bruised and
mangled limb forty-eight hours ago. And now the scent of death was in
the air. The awful presence drew very near. Yet only when doctor and
priest alike rose and went, when her brother moved away, and even the
faithful housekeeper stepped back from the bedside, did Katherine's
mind really grasp the truth. Her well-beloved lay dying; and human
tenderness, human skill, be they never so great, ceased to avail.

She was worn by the long vigil. Her face was colourless. Yet perhaps
Katherine's beauty had never been more rare and sweet than as she sat
there, leaning a little forward in the eagerness of her watchfulness.
The dark circles about her eyes made them look very large and sombre.
The corners of her mouth turned down and her under-lip quivered now and
then, giving her expression a childlike piteousness of appeal. There
was no trace of disorder in her appearance. Her white dressing-gown and
all its pretty ribbons and laces were spotlessly fresh. Her hair was
carefully dressed as usual--high at the back, showing the nape of her
neck, her little ears, and the noble poise of her head. Katherine was
not one of those women who appear to imagine that slovenliness is the
proper exponent of sorrow.

Still, for all her high courage, as the truth came home to her, her
spirit began to falter for the second time. It is comparatively easy to
endure while there is something to be done; but it is almost
intolerable, specially to the young when life is strong in them, merely
to sit by and wait. Katherine's overwrought nerves began to play cruel
tricks upon her, carrying her back in imagination to that other hideous
hour of waiting, in the dining-room, four evenings ago. Again she
seemed to hear the short peremptory tones of the surgeons, and those
worse things--the stifled groan of one in the extremity of physical
anguish, and the grate of a saw. These maddened her with pity, almost
with rage. She feared that now, as then, she might lose her
self-mastery and do some wild and desperate thing. She tried to keep
her attention fixed on the quick irregular rise and fall of the linen
sheet expressing the broad, full curve of the young man's chest, as he
lay flat on his back, his eyes closed, but whether in sleep or in
unconsciousness she did not know. As long as the sheet rose and fell he
was alive at all events, still with her. But she was