"Listen," she said gently, holding out her beautiful hand. "Here is the New Year--I do not want to begin it with any hard thoughts--After all, I understand you--and I forgive you. I believe I have been in some measure to blame. I cannot ever be your love--but I am very lonely--won't you be my true knight and friend?" She had touched the deepest chord of his being. The tears sprang to his fine grey eyes; he knelt down upon the rug and bent and kissed her knees. "Indeed, I will--I swear it, darling--And whatever suffering it brings to me, I will never make you regret your sweet forgiveness of me, and your resumed trust in me to-night." She leaned forward, and for an instant smoothed his thick brown hair in blessing. He took her hands and kissed the palms, and then without another word, he rose and went towards the door. There he turned and looked at her, standing in the firelight, the dark oak-panelled room only lit by the one small electric-shaded lamp by the bed. He looked and looked, as though his famished eyes must surfeit themselves with the vision. It was fair enough to see! And then he noiselessly quitted the room and went on down the stairs to the smoking-room as silently as he had come. CHAPTER XIX The months went by. It was Easter time before Katherine Bush again saw Gerard Strobridge. He went off to Egypt about the middle of January, and Lady Garribardine was up in London for a few days alone before he left seeing her grandchildren off. Katherine missed him, and unconsciously his influence directed her studies. She remembered isolated sentences that he had used in their talk that day in the picture gallery. He had certainly shown a delightfully cultivated mind, and she wished that things had not reached a climax so soon between them. She regretted deeply that she had caused him any pain and determined never to deviate from loyal friendship so that he should have no cause to suffer further. He had not forgotten about the books, and she was now the proud possessor of several volumes on the Renaissance, including, of course, Symonds and Pater. They opened yet another door in her imagination, and on days when she was not very busy, she would wander in the picture gallery and go over all the examples of the Italian masters again and again, and try to get the atmosphere of the books. Lady Garribardine watched her silently for the first few weeks after her nephew went, without increasing their intimacy. Her shrewd mind was studying Katherine, to make sure that she had made no mistake about her. Such a very deep creature might have sides which would make her regret having dropped the reserve which, accompanied by a high-handed kindliness, she showed to all her dependents.