Violet Jacob > Irresolute Catherine

30 IRRESOLUTE CATHERINE
been the promised wife of such an one as
Black Heber was more than he could bear.
It had almost made him hate Catherine.
They walked on in silence. She turned
her face from him and wept on; and
Saunders’s sense of justice was beginning
to be touched—as the sense of justice in
in the weak so often is—not by the actual
rights of the matter, but by his own senti¬
ments. He grew a little less furious. By
the time they neared their destination he
put out his hand and drew her closer to him.
“ There, there,” he said, speaking more
gently, “ we’ll say no more about it. You’ll
have more than one gown, I’ll go bail, when
we’re man an’ wife.”
Catherine Dennis’s existence had been
dependent upon the will of others ever
since she could remember and no thought
of rebellion against her lover’s unreason¬
ableness came to her. A so-called aunt
had brought her up and at her death she
had gone into service ; she had never had