Katherine shook her head but said nothing. And human nature is so strange that Dr. Burnet, after making this profession of devotion, which was genuine enough, did not feel so sorry as he ought to have done that she still shook her head as she disappeared up the great stairs. Katherine went into her room a very different woman from the Katherine who had left it not half-an-hour before. Then she had entertained no doubt that this was her own house in which she was, this her own room, where in all probability she would live all her life. She had intended that Stella should have the house, and yet that there should always be a nook for herself in which the giver of the whole, half by right and wholly by love, should remain, something more than a guest. Would Stella think like that now that the tables were turned, that it was Katherine who had nothing and she all? Katherine did not for a moment imagine that this would be the case. Without questioning herself on the subject, she unconsciously proved how little confidence she had in Stella by putting away from her mind all idea of remaining here. She had no home; she would have no home unless or until the cottage was built for which her father had in mockery, not in kindness, left her the site. She looked round upon all the familiar things which had been about her all her life; already the place had taken another aspect to her. It was not hers any longer, it was a room in her sister’s house. She wondered whether Stella would let her take her favourite things--a certain little cabinet, a writing table, some of the pictures. But she did not feel any confidence that Stella would allow her to do so. Stella liked to have a house nicely furnished, not to see gaps in the furniture. That was a small matter, but it was characteristic of the view which Katherine instinctively took of the whole situation. And it would be vain to say that it did not affect her. It affected her strongly, but not as the sudden deprivation of all things might be supposed to affect a sensitive mind. She had no anticipation of any catastrophe of the kind, and yet now that it had come she did not feel that she was unprepared for it. It was not a thing which her mind rejected as impossible, which her heart struggled against. Now that it had happened, it fitted in well enough to the life that had gone before.