She ran upstairs to her own room, and concealed herself there in the gathering twilight, in the darkest corner, as if somebody might come to look for her. There had been a great many thoughts in that room through these long years--thoughts that, perhaps, were sometimes impatient, occasionally pathetic, conscious of the passing of her youth from her, and that there had been little in it that was like the youth of other women. To be sure, she might have married had she been so minded, which is believed to be the chief thing in a young woman’s life; but that had not counted for very much in Katherine’s. There had been one bit of visionary romance, only one, and such a little one! but it had sufficed to make a sort of shining, as of a dream, over her horizon. It had never come nearer than the horizon; it had been a glimmer of colour, of light, of poetry, and the unknown. It had never been anything, she said to herself, with emphasis, putting her foot down firmly on the ground, with a faint sound of purpose and meaning--never--anything! She was the most desperate fool in the world to feel herself insulted, to feel as if he had struck her in the face when he spoke of his little child. Why should he not have a little child like any other man, and a kind wife waiting for him, amid all the brightness of a home? Why not? Why not? There was no reason in the world. The effect it produced upon her was absurd in the last degree. It was an effect of surprise, of sudden disillusion. She was not prepared for that disclosure. This was the only way in which she could account for the ridiculous impression made upon her mind by these few words.