The fourth letter, which was endorsed with the words "shown to R S.," and was the last contained in the packet, was in Mr. Guyon's handwriting. As his daughter read it, all the truth revealed itself to her; all the baseness of which she had been the victim stood in its revolting nakedness before her eyes. As she read the flowery sentences in which Mr. Guyon condoled with his "dear young friend," and pitied himself for being the medium of so painful a communication, a grasp seemed to tighten upon her throat and to press down her heart: still she read on,--read that her father had written, on her behalf, to the effect that, feeling she had been so unfortunate as to have conveyed a totally unfounded impression to Mr. Frere, she had shrunk from a personal explanation, and felt sure that, when Mr. Frere should know that she was engaged to Mr. Streightley, and their marriage was to take place very shortly, he would excuse her making a written one;--read that, though Mr. Guyon hoped their future friendship would be quite unaltered, he trusted Mr. Frere would abstain from any communication, either personal or by letter, for the present, as such would agitate Miss Guyon, and cause much unpleasantness; and that she and her father united in every good wish for Mr. Frere's future welfare.
Katharine read this terrible letter over many times--not before she understood and believed the revelation it made, but before she got the reality of it into her mind, before it connected itself with her own self, and showed her the past and present laid utterly waste. It was her father who had done this,--her father! who had been kind to her, too, after a fashion--her father! Ay, and her husband!
Shown to R.S. Shown to Robert Streightley--shown to the rich man who had bought her. Well, she had often told herself, bitterly enough, that it was a bargain, a purchase; but now it was more--it was a theft! Stolen from the man who loved her! made to believe him false, duped--wretchedly, ignominiously duped! Good God! how was she to bear this knowledge? Shown to R.S. There were the words, the fatal, damning proofs which convicted the two men who were her nearest friends, her only protectors, of the foulest conspiracy that ever two rascals concocted against an unhappy woman. She crushed the letters in her clenched hand, and rose to her feet. She had taken a step forward, her eyes flaming, her face white and fixed,--far more changed than by the earlier, weaker shock of this dreadful night,--when the door was softly opened, and the housekeeper came in, carrying a trayful of tea-things. At the sight of Katharine's face she set the tray down, and said, in a hurried whisper:
"Were you coming to call me? Is he worse?"
"I--I don't know," stammered Katharine; "I think so."
"Poor dear!" said the woman compassionately; "no wonder you are frightened. I shouldn't have left you alone."
Then she bent down to look closely at the patient. Closer and closer still: she felt the hand, the heart; she touched the chill forehead. Katharine stood still and watched her, quite silent, the papers in her clenched hand covered by the folds of her dress. The woman's touch suddenly became more reverent as she raised the chin and made the passive blue lips meet, as she pressed her fingers on the half-shut eyelids, and closed them over the sightless eyes. When she had drawn the sheet over the still, stiffening face, she turned to the dead man's daughter, and said,
"Come away, my dear. It's all over. I must send for the doctor, as he told me."
* * * * *
The wintry sun had been up for many hours when Mrs. Streightley returned to her own house from that in which her father lay dead. She had sent for Mr. Guyon's solicitor, and had a long interview with him in the dingy dining-room. She had been wonderfully calm and collected, the servants said; but she had not reentered her father's room, though "the corpse is laid out beautiful, to be sure," said James to the coachman from Portland Place, while that functionary awaited his mistress, or her orders. She came out, looking pale and absent; and she took no notice of the sympathising looks of her maid when she reached home. She went at once to her room, declined all attendance, and directed that she was not to be disturbed.