"Perhaps--er--Katrine!" Martin's voice sounded nervous and miserable. Grizel had thought of Juliet, but she had not mentioned Katrine, the obvious, living difficulty. He hated to remind her of it; hated to feel that his home was not his own. "Yes. Perhaps--er--Katrine," returned Grizel sweetly. She smiled into space, her face swept clear of expression, while Martin searched vainly for the hidden thought. "I'm--sorry, darling! I hate the thought of a third person. It would be so perfect alone, but--Katrine has given me her youth, and there is nowhere else she could go. I should be a cur if I turned her out." "An ungrateful cur. We'll never do it. _I_ wouldn't, if you could!" "And do you think,--could you manage to be happy with her here, always with us?" "I think," pronounced Grizel judicially, "I might stand it for a week. With grace! Then I'd poison her with lingering torture." She turned to him as she spoke, eyes shining, lips apart, deliberately inviting caress, but when he leaped to take her in his arms she waved him away. "No! This is business. Let us finish this first." "Oh, Bewildering Woman! Have you the least idea what you mean! Shall I ever understand you, to the end of my life? It's a choice then between being a cur, and having you hung as a murderess. How do you reconcile that with your statement that _you_ couldn't, if I would." "I wouldn't, and I shan't. You won't either. She will!" replied Grizel lucidly. "Oh, Man, don't worry! Katrine is sensible if you are not! You must be good to her, and generous, and loving. Not affectionate, remember! _laving_, and things will arrange themselves well for us all. You'll see!" "I hope I may. At present I'm in a maze. I am to say to her--what am I to say?" "That so long as you have a house there will be a Katrine's room, and a welcome for her, if she chooses to stay. And you are to take no notice--not the slightest--of anything she says in reply, but to leave things to time, and her own good sense... Now we've wasted quite enough time on silly details. Let's be sensible!--_I love you_, Martin!" ... CHAPTER FOURTEEN. Grizel came to meet Katrine on her return from the afternoon expedition and drew her into the oak-panelled morning-room. Her cheeks were flushed, but her air was serenely unmoved. "What do you think I've been doing? I've been proposing to Martin," she announced placidly. "He's upstairs now, suffering from nervous shock, but he is going to take me! ... Katrine, are you pleased?" "But, but,--_all_ that money!" At the moment of certainty, the remembrance of the enormous sacrifice involved swamped everything else. Katrine gasped, and Grizel sighed.