She was tired by the long strain of her father’s illness, not so much by absolute nursing, though she had taken her share of that (but Mr. Tredgold, as has been said, preferred a nurse who was paid for her work on the ordinary business principle), as by the lengthened tension of mind and body, the waiting and watching and suspense. This no doubt was one great reason for her languid, almost passive, condition. Had Dr. Burnet spoken then she would have acquiesced quite calmly, and indeed she was not at all sure whether it might not have so happened already. So she pursued her musing with her face towards the lawn and the shrubberies. But when Katherine turned to go back along the edge of the cliff towards the house, her eyes, as she raised them, were suddenly struck almost as by a blow, by the great breadth of the sea and the sky, the moving line of the coast, the faint undulation of the waves, the clouds upon the horizon white in flakes of snowy vapour against the unruffled blue. It was almost as if someone had suddenly stretched a visionary hand out of the distance, and struck her lightly, quickly, to bring her back to herself. She stood still for a moment with a shiver, confused, astonished, awakened--and then shook herself as if to shake something, some band, some chain, some veil that had been wound round her, away. CHAPTER XXXII. But whether the result of this awaking would have told for anything in Katherine’s life had it not been for another incident which happened shortly after, it would be impossible to say. She forgot the impression of that sudden stroke of nature, and when she went back to her father, who was a little excited by his first outing, there revived again so strong an impression of the need there was of the doctor and his care, and the importance of his position in the house as a sort of _deus ex machinâ_, always ready to be appealed to and to perform miracles at pleasure, that the former state of acquiescence in whatever he might demand as the price of his services, came back strongly to her mind, and the possibility was that there would have been no hesitation on her part, though no enthusiasm, had he seized the opportunity during one of the days of that week, and put his fate to the touch. But a number of small incidents supervened; and there is a kind of luxury in delay in these circumstances which gains upon a man, the pleasure of the unacknowledged, the delightful sense of feeling that he is sure of a favourable response, without all the responsibilities which a favourable response immediately brings into being. The moment that he asked and Katherine consented, there would be the father to face, and all the practical difficulties of the position to be met. He would have to take “the bull by the horns.” This is a very different thing from those preliminaries, exciting but delightful, which form the first step. To declare your sentiments to the girl you love, to receive that assent and