"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!"