In the Autumn "William Foster's" new book was issued by an "advanced" publisher, who loved to hear his wares called dangerous, and who walked on air when the reviewers said that such men as he were a curse to Society--as they occasionally did when there was nothing special to write about. In the autumn also Mrs. Ardagh's illness grew worse and it appeared that she could not live much longer. Catherine was terribly grieved, and was for a time so much engaged with her mother that she scarcely heeded what was going on in the world around. Incessantly immured in the sick-room she did not trace the progress of the snake through Society until--as Berrand had foretold--the cries of the Journalists rose to Heaven like cries from a burning city. "William Foster" was held up to execration so universal that his book could hardly be printed in sufficient quantities to satisfy the demands of a public frantically eager to be harmed. In her sick-room Mrs. Ardagh, now not far from death, yet still religiously interested in the well-being of the world she was leaving, heard the echoes of the journalistic cries. Some friend, perhaps, conveyed them. For Catherine was silent on the matter, keeping a silence of fear and of shame. And these echoes stayed with the dying woman, as stay the voices in the hills. One night, when Catherine came into her mother's room, Mrs. Ardagh was crying feebly. On the sheet of the bed lay a letter which she had crumpled in her pale hands and then tried, vainly, to fling away from her. Catherine leaned over the bed. "What is it, mother?" she said. "You are not in pain?" Mrs. Ardagh shifted in the bed. There was a suggestion of almost intolerable uneasiness in the movement. "I am in pain, horrible pain," she answered. "No--no," as Catherine was about to ring for the nurse, "not in the body--not that." Catherine sat down by the bed and clasped her mother's hot hand. "What is it?" she whispered. Mrs. Ardagh was silent for a moment. She blinked her heavy eyelids to stop the tears from falling on her wasted cheeks. At length she said, "William Foster has done more evil." Catherine did not speak. Her heart beat irregularly, and then seemed to stop, and then beat with unnatural force again. "Catherine," her mother continued, "Jenny is utterly lost." "No, mother, no!" Catherine said. "I will go to her. Let me go. I will rescue her. I will make her see----" "Hush--you can't. She is dead and she died in shame." She paused. Catherine did not speak. "And now," Mrs. Ardagh continued feebly, "that man is spreading the net for others. Do you know, Catherine, I often pray for him?" "Do you, mother?" "Yes. He has great powers. I never let your father know it, but that first book of his made an impression upon me that has never faded. That's why I think of him even now--that and the fate of poor Jenny." She lifted herself up a little in the bed. "His last book, I am told, is much more terrible, much more deadly than the first."