"About the master?"
"It be like it. And the man rides a gray horse too. Drat the man, to
come with news on a gray horse! It be that unlucky, as no one in their
seven senses would do it."
"For sure it be! When I was a young wench at school"--and then, as she
folded up the loose ribbons, Letty told a gruesome story of a farmer
robbed and murdered; but as she came to the part the gray horse played
in the tale, Katherine slowly walked into the room, with a letter in her
hand. She was white, even to her lips; and with a mournful shake of her
head, she motioned to the girls to leave her alone. She put the paper
out of her hand, and stood regarding it. Fully ten minutes elapsed ere
she gathered strength sufficient to break its well-known seal, and take
in the full meaning of words so full of agony to her.
"It is midnight, beloved Katherine, and in six hours I may be dead. Lord
Paget spoke of my cousin to me in such terms as leaves but one way out
of the affront. I pray you, if you can, to pardon me. The world will
condemn me, my own actions will condemn me; and yet I vow that you, and
you only, have ever had my love. You I shall adore with my last breath.
Kate, my Kate, forgive me. If this comes to you by strange hands, I
shall be dead or dying. My will and papers of importance are in the
drawer marked "B" in my escritoire. Kiss my son for me, and take my last
hope and thought."
These words she read, then wrung her hands, and moaned like a creature
that had been wounded to death. Oh, the shame! Oh, the wrong and sorrow!
How could she bear it? What should she do? Captain Lennox, who had
brought the letter, was waiting for her decision. If she would go to her
husband, then he could rest and return to London at his leisure. If not,
Hyde wanted his will, to add a codicil regarding the eight thousand
pounds left him by Lady Capel. For he had been wounded in his side; and
a dangerous inflammation having set in, he had been warned of a possible
fatal result.
Katherine was not a rapid thinker. She had little, either, of that
instinct which serves some women instead of all other prudences. Her
actions generally arose from motives clear to her own mind, and of whose
wisdom or kindness she had a conviction. But in this hour so many
things appealed to her that she felt helpless and uncertain. The one
thought that dominated all others was that her husband had fought and
fallen for Lady Suffolk. He had risked her happiness and welfare, he had
forgotten her and his child, for this woman. It was the sequel to the
impertinence of the pedler's visit. She believed at that moment that the
man had told her the truth. All these years she had been a slighted and
deceived woman.