Rachel Trant had made a back parlor, designated the "trying-on" room, bright and cosy, with a shaded lamp, a red fire, a couple of easy-chairs at either side of it, and a gay cloth over the small round table erst strewn with fashion books, measuring tapes, pins, patterns and pin-cushions.
"How very good of you to come to me!" cried Miss Trant, hastening to divest her friend of bonnet and cloak. "I am very curious to hear the story you have to tell." Then, as Katherine sat down where the lamp-light fell upon her face, she added, "But you are not looking well, Miss Liddell; your eyes look heavy; your mouth is sad."
"I am troubled, more than sad," said Katherine; "the why and wherefore I have come to tell you."
"Yes; tell me everything." And Rachel took a low seat opposite her guest; her usually pale face was slightly flushed, her large blue eyes darkened with the pleasure of seeing the friend she loved so warmly and the interest with which she awaited her disclosure, and as Katherine looked at her she realized how pretty and attractive she must have been before the fresh grace of her girlhood had been withered by the cruel fires of passion and despair. "I am listening," said Rachel, gently, to recall her visitor, whose thoughts were evidently far away.
"Yes; I had forgotten." And Katherine began her story.
Rachel Trant listened with rapt, intense attention, nor did she interrupt the narrative by a single question.
When Katherine ceased to speak she remained silent for a second or two longer: then she asked, "Are you convinced of the truth of this man's story?"
"I am, for Mr. Newton does not seem to have a doubt. Oh! he is my uncle John's only son—only child, indeed—and he is like him. I always fancied from the little my uncle said about George that he was naturally kind and sympathetic, but he has had a hard life, and it has made him hard. The loss of his mother was a terrible misfortune."
"Was he young when she died?"
"He was about fourteen, I think; but he lost her by a worse misfortune than death. She was driven away by my uncle's severity and harshness; she left him for another."