CHAPTER XVI.--FELICIA VICTRIX. “What you have learned about me,” Katherine had written to Raine, “I was to have told you last night. I had written to you a long letter, but I was too weak to send it. I resolved to tell it to your own ears. But it was impossible for me to speak to you last night for I was suffering too much. “My story is a simple one. Married to a man many years my senior--treated with a mild gravity which my girlish wilfulness took for harshness--a great many tears--a great longing for the tenderness that never came--a gay, buoyant nature meeting mine, changing, it seemed, my twilight into sunshine--and then--what you know. “Do not judge me harshly, Raine. But forget me. Forget that I came and troubled your life. Even were my name free from blemish, I am not good enough to be your wife. Forget me, and take to your heart one who will make you happier than I could have done--one younger, sweeter, purer. And she loves you. Let her win you. “I have suffered much to be able to write this. It is a farewell. To meet you would be too great pain for us both. This morning, as you know, I saw Mr. Hockmaster, and I have promised to marry him. Fate rules these things for us. To the day of my death I shall pray for your happiness.--K.S.” Raine's face grew hard as he read the letter. A man quickly wearies of successive emotions. His self-pride asserts itself and makes him rebel against falling into weaknesses of feeling. He had been angry at allowing himself to be drawn towards Felicia, and a natural reaction of loyalty to Katherine had followed. Now this was checked by her calm, unimpassioned words and the astounding intelligence of her engagement to Hockmaster. He was completely staggered. To his dismay, he became conscious of an awful void in his life. It seemed to be filled with purposeless shadows. He set his teeth and wrapped his strong man's pride about him. The thought of himself as John a' Dreams was a lash to his spirit. He crumpled up the paper in his hands and strode to and fro in his room. She was to marry Hockmaster. It was incredible, preposterous, except on one hypothesis--the recrudescence of the old passion that had swept aside the social barriers for this man's sake. It was the most galling thought of all, it racked him, drew him down to a lower plane of feeling, blinded his clear insight into delicate things. Perhaps if a man did not sink lower than himself on some occasions, he could not rise higher than himself on others.