If Mr. Guyon had ever understood, had ever cared to understand his daughter, these words must have taught him how great a change had passed upon her. They would have been impossible of utterance to the Katharine of three weeks ago; but a wide gulf, never to be spanned, of pain and injury lay between that time and the present. He felt afraid of the girl; but rallying courage for a decisive effort, he said: "Your answer, Katharine; you see the case as clearly as I do;--what am I to say to Mr. Streightley?" "Nothing," she answered, "but that I will see him myself. Tell him to come here this evening, to-morrow, any time you please,--I will see him, I will hear what he has to say. There must be no mistake in _this_ case, no self-deception, no mutual deception. The truth is not beautiful or holy, but at least it shall be told." She left the room as soon as she had spoken the last words. Her father remained as she had left him; an ugly dark shadow had spread itself over his face. After some minutes he looked up, shrugged his shoulders, and strolled over to one of the windows. He looked out idly for a little then roused himself, and went into his own room. There he wrote two letters, bestowing considerable: time and pains on the first, which was addressed to Robert Streightley, but scribbling the other off with careless rapidity. It bore Lady Henmarsh's name upon the envelope, and contained the following words: "DEAR HETTY,--I have done my part of this business, and _I think_ things look well. As to my having very little trouble, perhaps if you had heard and seen, you would have continued to think so; but I should be devilish sorry to do it over again.--Yours, E. G." Katharine did not appear at dinner that day, and Mr. Streightley partook of that meal, for which he had a very moderate appetite, _tête-à-tête_ with her father. When the two gentlemen adjourned to the drawing-room, Katharine was seated by the window, and they could hardly discern her features, so rapidly was the autumn twilight deepening into darkness. While Mr. Guyon was calling rather angrily for lights, Robert Streightley advanced towards the motionless figure, awaiting his greeting; and as Mr. Guyon heard his daughter reply to the confused and agitated words which Robert addressed to her, he started at the changed tone of the voice, as if a stranger had spoken. END OF VOL. I. LONDON: ROBSON AND SON, GREAT NORTHERN PRINTING WORKS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W. End of Project Gutenberg's Kissing the Rod. (Vol. 1 of 3), by Edmund Yates