There was a good fire in Katherine's bedroom, and having declined the
assistance of Mrs. Ormonde's maid, she put on her dressing-gown and sat
down beside it to think. She was still quivering with the nervous
excitement she had striven so hard and so successfully to conceal.
When Mrs. Ormonde had given her rapid explanation of who Errington was,
and without a pause presented him, Katherine felt as if she must drop at
his feet. Indeed, she would have been thankful if a merciful
insensibility had made her impervious to his questioning eyes. _She_
well knew who he was.
He was the real owner of the property she now possessed. The will she
had suppressed bequeathed all John Liddell's real and personal property
to Miles Errington, only son of his old friend Arthur Errington, of
Calton Buildings, London, E. C., and Calcutta. She, the robber, stood in
the presence of the robbed. Did he know by intuition that she was
guilty? How grave and questioning his eyes were! Why did he look at her
like that? How he would despise her and forbid his affianced wife to be
outraged by her presence if he knew!
He looked like a high-minded gentleman. If he seemed almost sternly
grave, his smile was kind and frank, and she had made herself unworthy
to associate with such men as he.
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