THE MEETING OF HASTINGS AND KATHERINE.

The next morning, while Edward was engaged in levying from his opulent
citizens all the loans he could extract, knowing that gold is the
sinew of war; while Worcester was manning the fortress of the Tower,
in which the queen, then near her confinement, was to reside during
the campaign; while Gloucester was writing commissions to captains and
barons to raise men; while Sir Anthony Lord Rivers was ordering
improvements in his dainty damasquine armour, and the whole Fortress
Palatine was animated and alive with the stir of the coming strife,--
Lord Hastings escaped from the bustle, and repaired to the house of
Katherine. With what motive, with what intentions, was not known
clearly to himself,--perhaps, for there was bitterness in his very
love for Katherine, to enjoy the retaliation due to his own wounded
pride, and say to the idol of his youth, as he had said to Gloucester,
"Time is, time was;" perhaps with some remembrance of the faith due to
Sibyll, wakened up the more now that Katherine seemed actually to
escape from the ideal image into the real woman,--to be easily wooed
and won. But, certainly, Sibyll's cause was not wholly lost, though
greatly shaken and endangered, when Lord Hastings alighted at Lady
Bonville's gate; but his face gradually grew paler, his mien less
assured, as he drew nearer and nearer to the apartment and the
presence of the widowed Katherine.

She was seated alone, and in the same room in which he had last seen
her. Her deep mourning only served, by contrasting the pale and
exquisite clearness of her complexion, to enhance her beauty.
Hastings bowed low, and seated himself by her side in silence.

The Lady of Bonville eyed him for some moments with an unutterable