"Then," said Sister Susan, "all is settled. The cottage by the Thames shall be hired. Can we get it at once, Sister Eliza?" "It is ready for immediate occupation: we can enter the day after to-morrow." "Good; then you will write to Mary," said Susan turning to the Chief. "The sooner this business is completed the better for us all." Catherine was not listening; she was staring again into the embers, her brow knitted into a deep frown of pain. The image of her pupil--her Mary whom she was about to sacrifice--rose before her. She yearned to see the girl once more--only once more before she betrayed her to the executioners. She could not strive against this great desire, so she said: "Sisters, I will not write, I will go myself down to Farnham--I will see her--I will ask her with my own lips to come; she will not refuse then--I know." "Can you trust yourself?" asked Eliza doubtfully, and scanning the woman's sad face, keenly. "I should not advise that measure," urged Susan, apprehensively. But the masterful spirit had come back again to Catherine, and she said sternly and with authority, "I will do as I say, Sisters." Eliza knew by the tone that the Chief was in no humour to listen to contradiction now, so she rose and said: "Then all is settled--I will at once take the cottage. Write to me, Sister Catherine, and let me know exactly when Mary is to arrive in town. I will meet her at the station, make some excuse for your absence, and take her with me. I think I can do that better than anyone else. As Susan herself allows, Mary dislikes her, so she had better not appear on the scene at first. We will now leave you. Good-night, Sister! remember _Courage and the Cause_, but I need not repeat that to you. Good-night!" "Good-night, Sister!" said Susan with a happy smile. Catherine had broken down at last; she turned her head from them and made no reply to their salutations. Sister Eliza looked at her Chief thoughtfully for a moment; then made a sign to Susan, and they went out together. Catherine sat alone in her chair over the dead fire. For hours after they had gone she remained there brooding, motionless, in agony; and when at last she rose with a shiver to retire to her bed, it seemed as if many years had passed over her head in that time, so old and haggard appeared her features. Her eyes were red but not with weeping--for she could shed no tear--but hot and dry with a tearless anguish that could never find relief. But she determined--even if she died of the agony of it--that she would do her duty. "_My duty! My duty!_" she kept murmuring to herself in her fierce resolve; and she had strong need, indeed, to keep the Cause constantly before her mind, in order to enable her to do this thing she had to do--"My duty!--my duty!--but oh, it is hard--hard!" CHAPTER XXII. AN EVENTFUL DAY.