It was snowing again, but Katharine walked slowly, and went out of her way in her unformulated wish to lose time, and to put off the moment at which she must meet the familiar faces and hear the well-known voices at home. Until Griggs had broached the fatal subject at table, she had been taken out of herself at the Crowdies’. She must go back to herself now, and she hated the thought as she hated all her own existence. But the regions between Clinton Place and Fourth Avenue are not the part of New York in which it is best for a young girl to walk about alone. She did not like to be stared at by the loafers at the corners, nor to be treated with too much familiarity by the patronizing policeman who saw her over the Broadway crossing. Then, too, she remembered that she had given no notice of her absence from luncheon, and that her mother might perhaps be anxious about her. There was nothing for it but to take courage and go home. She only hoped that Charlotte might not be there. But Charlotte had come, in the hope of enjoying herself as she had done on the previous day. Katharine ascertained the fact from the girl who let her in, and went straight to her room, sending word to her mother that she had lunched with the Crowdies and would come down presently. Even as she went up the stairs she felt a sharp pain at the thought that her mother and sister were probably at that very moment discussing John’s mishaps, and comparing notes about the stories they had heard--and perhaps reading more paragraphs from the papers. The shame of the horrible publicity of it all overcame her, and she locked her door, and tried the handle to be sure that it was fast--with a woman’s distrust of all mechanical contrivances when she wishes to be quite sure of a situation. It was instinctive, and she had no second thought which she tried to hide from herself. As she took off her hat and coat she grew very pale, and the deep shadows came under her eyes--so dark that she wondered at them vaguely as she glanced at herself in the mirror. She felt faint and sick. She drank a little water, and then, with a sudden impulse, threw herself upon her bed, and lay staring at the ceiling, as she had lain at dawn. The same glare still came in from the street and penetrated every corner, but not so vividly as before, for the snow was falling fast, and the mist of the whirling flakes softened the light.