Mrs. Shanks felt that she knew more about it than anyone else, which would have been delightful but for the other consciousness that her intervention had done no good. She had not served Dr. Burnet, but she had sacrificed the other lover. And she had her punishment in not daring to whisper even to her nearest friend her special knowledge, or letting it be seen she knew--which but for her action in sending young Stanford away would have been a greater satisfaction than words can tell. The result was that Katherine had a season of great discomfort and even unhappiness. She had freed herself from that passive submissiveness to fate into which she had been about to fall, but she had got nothing better in its place. She thought that he could not care much, since he had never even tried to see or communicate with her, and she was ashamed of the rush with which her heart had gone out to him. She had not, she hoped, betrayed it, but she was herself aware of it, which was bad enough. And now that momentary episode was over and nothing had come of it--it was as if it had not been. After this there came a long period of suspense and waiting in Katharine’s life. Her father had one attack of illness after another, through all of which she was, if not the guiding spirit, at least the head and superintendent of all that went on in the house. The character of the house had changed when Stella left it. It changed still more now. It became a sick house, the home of an invalid. Even the city people, the old money-making friends, ceased to come from Saturday to Monday when it became known among them that old Mr. Tredgold was subject to a seizure at any time, and might be taken ill at last with all his friends sitting round him. This is not a thing that anyone likes to face, especially people who were, as old as he was, and perhaps, they could not tell, might be liable to seizures too. When this occasional society failed at the Cliff all other kinds of society failed too. Few people came to the house--a decorous caller occasionally, but nothing more. It was a very dull life for Katherine, everybody allowed, and some kind people held periodical consultations with each other as to what could be done for her, how she could be delivered from the monotony and misery of her life; but what could anyone do? The rector and the doctor were the most prominent men in Sliplin. A girl who had ill-treated them both could only be asked out with extreme discretion, for it was almost impossible to go anywhere without meeting one or other of these gentlemen. But the ladies might have spared themselves these discussions, for whatever invitations Katherine received she accepted none of them. She would not go to Steephill again, though Lady Jane was magnanimous and asked her. She would go nowhere. It showed that she had a guilty conscience, people said; and yet that it must be very dull for Katherine was what everybody lamenting allowed.