the treasures of her heart thus unwittingly. She was tempted
to retreat through the still open door, into the library, and leave the
review of the Long Gallery and its many relics to a more convenient
season. But it was not Katherine's habit to run away, least of all from
the consequences of her own actions. And her sense of justice compelled
her to admit that, in this case, the indiscretion--if indiscretion
indeed there was--lay with her, in not having seen poor Julius; rather
than with him, in having overheard her little outburst. So she called
to him in friendly greeting, and came swiftly towards him down the
length of the great room.

And Julius stood waiting for her, leaning against the frame of the
library ladder; a spare, black figure, notably at variance with the
broad glory of sunshine and colour reigning out of doors.

His usually quick instinct of courtesy was in abeyance, shaken, as he
still was, and confused by the revelation that had just come to him. He
looked at Lady Calmady with a new and agitated understanding. She made
so fair a picture that he could only gaze dumbly at it. Tall in fact,
Katherine was rendered taller by the manner--careless of passing
fashion--in which her hair was dressed. The warm, brown mass of it,
rolled up and back from her forehead, showed all the perfect oval of
her face. Tender, lovely, smiling, her blue-brown eyes soft and
lustrous, with a certain wondering serenity in their depths, there was
yet something majestic about Katherine Calmady. No poor or unworthy
line marred the nobility of her face or figure. The dark, arched
eyebrows, the well-chiselled and slightly aquiline nose, the firm chin
and throat, the shapely hands, all denoted harmony and completeness of
development, and promised a reserve of strength, ready to encounter and
overcome if danger were to be met. Years afterwards, the remembrance of
Katherine as he just then saw her would return upon Julius, as
prophetic of much. Quailing in spirit, still reluctant, in his
asceticism, to comprehend and reckon with her personality in the
fulness of its present manifestation, he answered her at random, and
with none of the pause and playful evasiveness usual to his speech.

"I am very glad we have found you," Katherine said frankly. "I was
afraid, by the fact of your not coming to breakfast, that you were
overtired. We talked late last night. Did we weary you too much?"

"Existence in itself is vexatiously wearisome at