The other was shorter still. “I dare not think or speak, or allow myself to be glad till I see you,” said the other; “but my fate is in your sweet hands.” Such were the communications that were brought to her from the outer world. Kate gazed at them with open mouth and eyes aghast. Then it all came to her mind. She had promised to go to these men and satisfy them, to give Fred Huntley her hand and her promise, and put her seal to it, that her love for John was over for ever. And yet the touch of her mouth was wet upon John’s dear letter, and she hated Fred Huntley as she had never hated any one in her whole life. She sat with the daylight pouring in upon her, and those tokens of fate about her, and despair in her pale and ghastly face. Kate to be ghastly, who had never known what such a word meant! She was getting a wild look like a creature driven to bay. Now and then when she heard the sound of a voice or step in the house--people coming up-stairs or down, somebody passing along the long passage--she gave a shiver, as a hare might shiver at the baying of the hounds. She sat motionless, it seemed to her for hours, in this torpor, and then it was Fred’s voice that roused her. He was down below in front of the house, talking to some one, and she could hear him through the open window. “I am going to the stables to look at the new horses,” he said, “but I shall be back before five o’clock.” Five o’clock! There was a ring in his voice of conscious triumph. He was coming back to take possession of his victim. At that moment, as Kate sat with the trembling of despair upon her, there suddenly rang out upon her ear the sound of the railway bell at the station, which was always considered such a nuisance at Fernwood. The railway itself was a great convenience, only a quarter of a mile from the lodge gates; but the bell and the whistle and the rumbling of the train were very objectionable. When Kate heard it she roused herself with a low cry. She thrust John’s letter into her dress, and tore the others up in little pieces, and then she sat still, with bright awakened eyes for half an hour more. By that time her resolution was formed. She was miserable and impatient of her misery, and every way of escape seemed shut off except this one, and it was something to do which soothed her excitement. It was not with any such thought that she had sent Parsons away. Nothing had been settled in her mind, or even thought of, till Fred Huntley’s voice and the railway bell thus succeeded each other. In circumstances so desperate there is nothing like a sudden inspiration. Four o’clock! the big clock sounded from the stables, and a succession of fairy chimes rang from all the rooms of the house. Four! and no more time to think--for there was not another moment to lose. CHAPTER XXX.