"They came to the place of execution, but before the final stroke they were cruelly tortured. Charmides bore his sufferings in silence, but in her extremest agony the face of Demariste was lighted with rapture. "'Look, look, my beloved, there, there!' trying to lift her mangled arm, 'Christ the Lord! One moment more and we are for ever with Him.' "Charmides could just raise his head, and saw nothing but Demariste. He was able to turn himself towards her and move her hand to his lips, the second, only the second and the last kiss. "So they died. Charmides was never considered a martyr by the Church. The circumstances were doubtful, and it was not altogether clear that he deserved the celestial crown." CHAPTER IX The school broke up next week for the summer holidays, and Catharine went home. Her mother was delighted with her daughter. She was less awkward, straighter, and her air and deportment showed the success of the plan. The father acquiesced, although he did not notice the change till Mrs. Furze had pointed it out. As to Mrs. Bellamy, she declared, when she met Catharine in the street the first market afternoon, that "she had all at once become a woman grown." Mrs. Furze's separation from her former friends was now complete, but she had, unfortunately, not yet achieved admission into the superior circle. She had done so in a measure, but she was not satisfied. She felt that these people were not intimate with her, and that, although she had screwed herself with infinite pains into a bowing acquaintance, and even into a shaking of hands, they formed a set by themselves, with their own secrets and their own mysteries, into which she could not penetrate. Their very politeness was more annoying than rudeness would have been. It showed they could afford to be polite. Had she been wealthy, she could have crushed all opposition by sheer weight of bullion; but in Eastthorpe everybody's position was known with tolerable exactitude, and nobody was deluded into exaggerating Mr. Furze's resources because of the removal to the Terrace. Eastthorpe, on the contrary, affirmed that the business had not improved, and that expenses had increased.