Might not quixotism lead him to renew his offer? The idea haunted her, and gathering strength from her knowledge and her idealized conception of his nature, grew into a conviction. For a moment she gave herself up to the temptation of taking him at his word. She loved him with every yearning fibre in her body. Without him life was an appalling waste. It would be enough for her merely to be with him, seek now and then a caress from his hand. But then came the passionate recoil. She shuddered, put up her hands before her face. “Never!” she cried again. “I would rather die! My ignominy in his eyes is eternal. It would drag him down. He is too good to have a millstone like that tied around his neck.” Yet the longing swept through her again, and her mind swayed to and fro. The hours crept on. She refused an offer of food made her by the servant. She felt as if it would choke her. She would ring if she wanted any later. What was she to do? Her aching head throbbed as if it would burst. Hockmaster's note met her glance. She read it again. And this time she smoothed it out and replaced it slowly on the table. Her anger was dulled by despair. Nothing remained of her vehement indignation. It was the back-swing of the pendulum. What was she to do? Raine she could never meet face to face. Yet the whole woman in her yearned to meet him. She must cut herself adrift, vanish wholly from his life. Destiny seemed to point out the course she must follow. She sat down, her chin in her hands, brooding over it until the sense of fatefulness numbed her mind. Fate had brought her back this other from the dark back ward of time. He had changed her life once. Was it not meant that he should fulfil the work he had begun? She must marry him. Raine would be saved. It would be a life of sadness, self-sacrifice. But then women were born for it. Like many another woman, she was driven by an hour's despair to commit herself to a life-long unhappiness. She had counted the cost, and, unlike a man, blindly resolved to pay it. It is part of a woman's nature to trust herself to the irreparable. Katherine went to her table and wrote two letters--one to each man. The pen flew quickly, her intelligence illuminated by a false light. She sealed them, rang the bell, despatched them by the servant. It was done. She had burned her ships, committed herself irrevocably. A period of dull calm followed, during which she pretended to eat some food that she ordered, and read unintelligently an article in a review. But at last the words swam before her eyes. The review fell to the ground. The agony of her life came upon her, and she broke down utterly.