“Of course not!” answered Katharine. “And besides, I must run home. My dear, just fancy! I forgot to ask you to send word to say that I wasn’t coming, and they won’t know where I am. But we lunch later than you do--if I go directly, I shall find them still at table.” “Nonsense!” exclaimed Hester. “You don’t want to go really? Do you? You know, I could send word still--it wouldn’t be too late.” She glanced at her husband, who shook his head, and smiled--he was standing behind Katharine. “Well--if you must, then,” continued Hester, “I won’t keep you. But come back soon. It seems to me that I never see you now--and I have lots of things to tell you.” Katharine shook hands with Crowdie, whose soft, white fingers felt cold in hers. Hester went out with her into the entry, and helped her to put on her thick coat. “Take courage, dear!” said Mrs. Crowdie in a low voice, as she kissed her. “It will come right in the end.” Katharine looked fixedly at her for a few seconds, buttoning her coat. “It’s not courage that I need,” she said slowly, at last. “I think I have enough--good-bye--Hester, darling--good-bye!” She put her arms round her friend and kissed her three times, and then turned quickly and let herself out, leaving Hester standing in the entry, wondering at the solemn way in which she had taken leave of her. CHAPTER XXVI. Katharine’s mood had changed very much since she had entered the Crowdies’ house. She had felt then a certain sense of strength which had been familiar to her all her life, but which had never before seemed so real and serviceable. She had been sure that she could defy the world--in that black frock she wore--and that her face would be of marble and her heart of steel under all imaginable circumstances. She had carried her head high and had walked with a firm tread. She had felt that if she met John Ralston she could tell him what she thought of him, and hurt him, so that in his suffering, at least, he should repent of what he had done. It was different now. She did not attempt to find reasons for the difference, and they would have been hard to discover. But she knew that she had been exposed to a sort of test of her strength, and had broken down, and that Hester Crowdie had seen her defeat. Possibly it was the knowledge that Hester had seen and understood which was the most immediately painful circumstance at the present moment; but it was not the most important one, for she was really quite as brave as she had believed herself, and what suffered most in her was not her vanity. The conversation at table had somehow brought the whole truth more clearly before her, as the developer brings out the picture on a photographer’s plate. The facts were fixed now, and she could not hide them nor turn from them at will.