"Very well disposed to follow your good advice. If I could get some sleep, I should be quite well." Katherine smiled pleasantly as she spoke. She was extremely thankful to secure an hour or two of silence and solitude. During the night her heart, her brain, were in such a tumult she could not think consecutively. Alone in her room, and grown calmer, she could plan her future proceedings and screw her courage to the desperate sticking-point of action such as her conscience dictated. She fastened her door and set her window wide open. After gazing for some time at the sea, golden and glittering in the noonday sun, and inhaling the soft breeze which came in laden with briny freshness, she lay down and closed her eyes. But though keeping profoundly still, no restful look of sleep stole over her set face; no, she was thinking hard, for how long she could not tell. When, however, she came downstairs to join Miss Payne at tea, the anxious, nervous, alarmed expression of her eyes had changed to one of gloomy composure. "Though I do not care to stay with Ada, I want to go to town to-morrow for a little shopping, and to see Mr. Newton if I can. I will take the quick train at half-past eight and return in the evening. You might send to meet the nine o'clock express. Should anything occur to keep me, I will telegraph." "Very well"--Miss Payne's usual reply to Katherine's propositions. "But are you quite sure you feel equal to the journey?" "Yes, quite equal," returned Katherine, with a short deep sigh. "I believe it will do me good." That Errington had been stunned by the blow which had fallen so suddenly upon him cannot be disputed. His first and bitterest concern was dread lest the character of his father's house, which had always stood so high, lest the honor of his own name, should suffer the smallest tarnish. It was this that made him so eager to ascertain the full liabilities of the firm, so ready to sacrifice all he possessed so that no one save himself should be the loser. "If I accepted a handsome fortune from transactions over which I exercised no supervision, I must hold myself doubly responsible for the result," he argued, and at once set to work to turn all he possessed into money. In truth the prospect of poverty did not dismay him. His tastes were very simple. It was the loss of power and position, which wealth always bestows, which he would feel most, and the necessity of renouncing Lady Alice.