She wrote that day to Morris Townsend, requesting him
to come and see her on the morrow; using very few words, and
explaining nothing. She would explain everything face to face.
CHAPTER XX
On the morrow, in the afternoon, she heard his voice at the door, and
his step in the hall. She received him in the big, bright front
parlour, and she instructed the servant that if any one should call
she was particularly engaged. She was not afraid of her father's
coming in, for at that hour he was always driving about town. When
Morris stood there before her, the first thing that she was conscious
of was that he was even more beautiful to look at than fond
recollection had painted him; the next was that he had pressed her in
his arms. When she was free again it appeared to her that she had
now indeed thrown herself into the gulf of defiance, and even, for an
instant, that she had been married to him.
He told her that she had been very cruel, and had made him very
unhappy; and Catherine felt acutely the difficulty of her destiny,
which forced her to give pain in such opposite quarters. But she
wished that, instead of reproaches, however tender, he would give her
help; he was certainly wise enough, and clever enough, to invent some
issue from their troubles. She expressed this belief, and Morris
received the assurance as if he thought it natural; but he
interrogated, at first--as was natural too--rather than committed
himself to marking out a course.
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