He, therefore, after a long interview with Mrs Hardman,
penned a kind note to Herbert, in which he, with every expression of
regret for the step he felt bound to take, forbade him his house, or
any further communication with his daughter.
Though long anticipated, this was a bitter blow, Catherine strove not
to check the master-feeling which had now taken possession of her
whole thought and being, for she knew that was impossible; but, in
the purity of her heart, she felt she could love on--more tranquilly,
more calmly, now that all hope was abandoned, than when it was nursed
in suspense. Deprived of Herbert's presence, she would love him as an
imagined, ever-remembered being--an abstraction, of which, the
embodiment was dead to her for ever. With this _new said_ consolatory
sensation she determined, without a tear, never to encounter his real
presence again. She wrote him a note to that effect, and, accompanied
by her father, went immediately to London.
Herbert was frantic. He upbraided his mother with unfilial
earnestness.
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