Houseman shuddered, and drew nearer to the blazing logs. Kate closed the window with a groan. "It is not to be thought of," said she, "at your age, and not a road to be seen for snow. What shall I do?" "Wait till to-morrow," said Mr. Houseman. (Procrastination was his daily work, being an attorney.) "To-morrow!" cried Catharine. "Perhaps to-morrow will be too late. Perhaps even now they have met, and he lies a corpse." "Who?" "Whichever it is, I shall end my days in a convent praying for his soul." She wrung her hands while she said this, and still there was no catching her. Little did the lawyer think to rouse such a storm with his good news. And now he made a feeble and vain attempt to soothe her, and ended by promising to start the first thing in the morning and get both her testators bound over to keep the peace by noon. With this resolution he went to bed early. She was glad to be alone, at all events. Now, mind you, there were plenty of vain and vulgar, yet respectable girls, in Cumberland, who would have been delighted to be fought about, even though bloodshed were to be the result. But this young lady was not vain, but proud. She was sensitive, too, and troubled with a conscience. It reproached her bitterly: it told her she had permitted the addresses of two gentlemen, and so mischief had somehow arisen--out of her levity. Now her life had been uneventful and innocent: this was the very first time she had been connected with anything like a crime, and her remorse was great; so was her grief; but her fears were greater still. The terrible look Griffith had cast at his rival flashed on her; so did his sinister words. She felt, that, if he and Neville met, nothing less than Neville's death or his own would separate them. Suppose that even now one of them lay a corpse, cold and ghastly as the snow that now covered Nature's face! The agitation of her mind was such that her body could not be still. Now she walked the room in violent distress, wringing her hands; now she kneeled and prayed fervently for both those lives she had endangered; often she flew to the window and looked eagerly out, writhing and rebelling against the network of female custom that entangled her and would not let her fly out of her cage even to do a good action,--to avert a catastrophe by her prayers, or her tears, or her good sense. And all ended in her realizing that she was a woman, a poor, impotent being, born to lie quiet and let things go: at that she wept helplessly. So wore away the first night of agony this young creature ever knew. Towards morning, exhausted by her inward struggles, she fell asleep upon a sofa.