Except the actual fact of the catastrophe itself, what else happened on that fatal night could only be matter of conjecture. The inference was, that Katherine, on reaching her bedroom and beginning to undress, lifted up a corner of the blind, and, peering out, saw her sister standing below gazing up at the window, a dark figure outlined against a snowy background. The snow by this time had ceased to fall, and a bright moon was struggling through the broken clouds. Katherine must then have hurried downstairs with the intention of seeing her sister and sending her back home. Although the house was being locked up, she would get out easily, and unseen, by the wood-room window, replacing the loose bar as a matter of precaution. This done, she no doubt ran round by this unfrequented way where the well was, and fell headlong into it, the two screams heard, one loud, the other fainter, escaping her in the act of falling. Whether she cried out afterwards, and there was no one to hear, or whether she fell senseless, or whether she was killed at once, must remain matter of supposition. After that, so far as was known, all was silence. Early next morning came the workmen. More snow had fallen in the night, erasing all footprints of the previous evening, covering the bottom of the well with a white surface. The men made sharp haste to finish their task, knowing and suspecting nothing; and Katherine's fate had remained undiscovered until now. Aaron's habitual crustiness had something to do with the nondiscovery. Chancing to meet the men as they quitted the work before time that evening, he sourly demanded whether the work was accomplished and the well filled up. Afraid of him, not caring to incur his stinging reprimands, both the men answered that it was quite finished. Therefore Aaron never gave a thought to the well in regard to Katherine's disappearance; and as for the Squire himself, and the rest of the household, they did not so much as know that the work was just then about. While the fact of its being impossible, or assumed to be, that Katherine could by any manner of means have got out of the house, served yet more to divert thoughts from the truth. And the two workmen, deceived by the white surface inside, on which they had both looked down in the morning, never, then, or later, supposed the well could have anything to do with the girl's disappearance. Thus the last and longest mystery was solved. Such had been poor Katherine's unhappy fate. Susan would never more wander in the park after nightfall, or within the Hall to look for her; she would never hear her sister's voice calling to her again, never fancy that the moonlight playing upon the window of Katherine's room was her apparition standing there.