"My good Joris, it was like him."

For a moment Katherine's consciousness reeled. The roar of the ocean
which girds our life round was in her ears, the feeling of chill and
collapse at her heart. But with a supreme will she took possession of
herself. "Weak I will not be. All I will know. All I will suffer." And
with these thoughts she went back to the room, and took her place at the
table. In a few minutes the rest followed. Batavius did not speak to
her. It was also something of a cross to him that madam would not talk
of the event. He did not think that Katherine deserved to have her
ill-regulated feelings so far considered, and he had almost a sense of
personal injury in the restraint of the whole household.

He had anticipated madam's amazement and shock. He had felt a just
satisfaction in the suffering he was bringing to Katherine. He had
determined to point out to Joanna the difference between herself and her
sister, and the blessedness of her own lot in loving so respectably and
prudently as she had done. But nothing had happened as he expected. The
meal, instead of being pleasantly lengthened over such dreadful
intelligence, was hurried and silent. Katherine, instead of making
herself an image of wailing or unconscious remorse, sat like other
people at the table, and pretended to drink her tea.

It was some comfort that after it Joanna and he could walk in the
garden, and talk the affair thoroughly over. Katherine watched them
away, and then she fled to her room. For a few minutes she could let her
sorrow have way, and it would help her to bear the rest. And oh, how she
wept! She took from their hiding-place the few letters her lover had
written her, and she mourned over them as women mourn in such
extremities. She kissed the words with passionate love; she vowed, amid