Her death came as an awakening and crushing blow; almost, to his thinking at the time, as a direct judgment upon his past decision. Yet he had struggled back to a tentative composure, again regarding the position of affairs as inevitable, and determined that for Katherine's sake no question as to continued secrecy could exist. But of late the burden had pressed with a strange new force; especially during the last few months, since the coming of the Morrises to the farm. He had realised, as never before, what the long concealment really meant; not only as regarded injustice to those concerned, but as viewed from a higher, a Divine, standpoint. A darkness lay upon him; a sense of guilt, of bitter unworthiness. For he had been always accounted—nay, by nature and training he was, except in this one direction—a man of stainless honour. The contrast between what others thought of him, and what he knew himself to have done, weighed heavily. He felt now that the shadow had been always there, even when he refused to see it. He felt that it always would be there, till he should speak out, should make the truth known, should right that which was wrong. But—how could he? He—the beloved and esteemed and honoured Squire— the foremost man in the neighbourhood—he to confess all! He—Richard Raye Stirling of Lynnthorpe!—so to lower himself in the eyes of men! He—to put these people into their rightful position before the sight of the world, his world, which meant so much to him! The thing was impossible. Wildly, madly impossible. Nobody imagined aught of what he was going through. He had great self-control, never betraying what he felt. "He isn't quite the thing— looks worried!" one or another might remark. But none dreamt of the ceaseless inward strife, the long slow torture of spirit. It had amounted to that of late, as he weighed and examined the question, viewing it from this side, from that side, ever striving to excuse his own action, to prove how out of the range of practical possibilities any other course had lain. And he did prove it, times without number, to his own satisfaction. He would feel settled and almost happy, for an hour or two. Then he would revert to the endless topic, the perpetual facing of what he had done, the terrible reality of those long years of deceit; and he would see again, vividly, the hopelessness that aught except confession could put matters right, together with the desperate blank impossibility of confessing. [Illustration: "I THANK YOU ALL FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART."] So the circle of misery went on; and all the while he was the courteous host, the pleasant friend, the affectionate uncle, the busy Squire. But the pressure was wearing him out. He lay down at night with his burden; he rose in the morning with it. Gradually it was becoming an obsession.