"Well, dear!" cried Mrs. Needham, when they were left together after dinner, "I am just bursting with curiosity. What news have you for me? and what have you been doing with yourself? You look ghastly, and I positively believe you have been crying. What have you done? I can't believe that you have refused Lord de Burgh--you couldn't be such a madwoman! Why you might lead----" "How do you know he gave me an opportunity?" interrupted Katherine, with a faint smile. "Don't talk like that, dear!" said Mrs. Needham, severely. "What would bring Lord de Burgh here day after day but trying to win you? I have been waiting for what I knew was inevitable; now, Katherine, tell me, have you rejected him?" "No, Mrs. Needham, I have asked him for time to reflect." "Oh, that is all right," in a tone of satisfaction, "and only means a turn of the rack while you can handle the screws; of course you'll accept him when he comes again. After all, though there are plenty of unhappy marriages, there is no joy so delightful as reciprocal affection. I am sure I never saw a creature so glorified by love as Angela Bradley; she told me at Mrs. Cochrane's she had a wonderful piece of news for me, and, when I said perhaps I knew it, she beamed all over and squeezed my hand as she whispered, "Perhaps you do!" I saw her driving Errington in her pony-carriage afterwards, and meeting old Captain Everard just then, he nodded after them and said, 'That's an excellent arrangement; the wedding, I hear, is fixed for the twenty-ninth of next month.' Now, I don't quite believe _that_; Angela would certainly have told me, but I am sure it will come off soon. I am glad for both their sakes." "I am sure they will make a very happy couple, and I really believe I shall follow their example." "Quite right! The double event will make a sensation, my dear child: to see _you_ happily and splendidly settled will be the greatest joy I have known for years, and what will Colonel Ormonde say?" "I neither know nor care; and, Mrs. Needham, if you don't mind, I will go to bed. I have _such_ a headache." The fateful morning found Katherine resolved and composed. She would tell De Burgh everything, and, if her revelation did not frighten him away, she would try to make him happy and to be happy herself. It would be painful to tell him, but oh! nothing compared with the agony of humiliation it cost her to prostrate herself morally before Errington. Still she would be glad when the confession was over; afterwards, feeling her destiny decided, she would be calmer and more resigned. Resigned? what a term to apply to her acceptance of an honest man's hearty affection; for, whatever De Burgh's life may have been, he had said he had done nothing he was ashamed of. By some unconscious impulse she dressed herself in black, and went down to the drawing-room with her knitting, that she might be ready to receive the man who, an hour later, might be her affianced husband.