oom, for all the rage and fury of the storm without, she still heard
the soft padding of Care, the leopard, close behind.

Then a singular desolation and sense of homelessness came upon
Katherine. Turn where she would there seemed no comfort, no escape, no
sure promise of eventual rest. Things human and material were emptied
not of joy only, but of invitation to effort. For something had
happened from which there was no going back. A fair woman from a far
country had come and looked upon her son, with the inevitable result,
that youth had called to youth. And though the fair woman in question,
being already wedded wife,--Katherine was rather pathetically
pure-minded,--could not in any dangerously practical manner steal away
her son's heart, yet she would, only too probably, prepare that heart
and awaken in it desires of subsequent stealing away on the part of
some other fair woman, as yet unknown, whose heart Dickie would do his
utmost to steal in exchange. And this filled her with anxiety and
far-reaching fears, not only because it was bitter to have some woman
other than herself hold the chief place in her son's affections, but
because she--as John Knott, even as Ludovic Quayle, though from quite
other causes--could not but apprehend possibilities of danger, even of
disaster, surrounding all question of love and marriage in the strange
and unusual case of Richard Calmady.

And thinking of these things, her sensibilities heightened and
intensified by fatigue and circumstances of time and place, a certain
feverishness possessed her. That bedchamber of many memories--exquisite
and tragic--became intolerable to her. She opened the double doors and
passed into the Chapel-Room beyond, the light thrown by the tall wax
candles set in silver branches upon her toilet-table, passing with her
through the widely open doors and faintly illuminating the near end of
the great room. There was other subdued light in the room as well. For
a glowing mass of coal and wood still remained in the brass basket upon
the hearth, and the ruddy brightness of it touched the mouldings of the
ceiling, glowed on the polished corners and carvings of tables,
what-nots, and upon the mahogany frames of solid, Georgian sofas and
chairs.

At first sight, notwithstanding the roaring of wind and ripping of rain
without, there seemed offer of comfort in this calm and spacious place,
the atmosphere of it sweet with bowls of autumn violets and
greenhouse-gro